SAN FRANCISCO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8341, 25 January 1907, Page 5

SAN FRANCISCO.

CITY OFFICIALS DENOUNCED. BRIBERY AND BLACKMAIL RAMPANT. i Received January 24, 8.22 a.m. LONDON, January 23. .The Times, in a three-column article, endorses the San Francisco newspapers' denunciation of the city officials as individually and collectively thieves, bribe-takers, and blackmailers. It declares that the Labour Union municipal government of San Francisco is the most terribly corrupt administration America has produced, and denounces Abraham Ruef, who controls Mayor Schmidt, as the most cunning and unscrupulous "boss" in America. The article asserts that these grafters are responsible for the delay in the re-building of the eity. (The charges of municipal corruption at San Francisco are not new, though the indictment by The Times will have the effect of drawing renewed attention to them. Two months ago the Grand Jury of the State of California indicted Eugene Schmitz, the Labour Mayor of San Francisco, and Abe Ruef, the San Francisco "boss," on charges of extortion. Schmitz' was charged with obtaining sums of £2OO and £3OO sterling by holding out threats of withdrawal of saloon-keepers' licenses. In 1904 he was an orchestra player; now he is said to he worth half a million sterling. The municipal authorities were accused of owning an unspeakable den yielding profits amounting in one . year to a hundred thousand sterling, the proprietors of other dens having been ousted in order to destroy competil tion. The Argonaut, in reviewing lately the municipal administration of the city, said:—"For nearly five years, San Francisco has been almost entirely ruled by a Government of Organised Labour. For the first i few years a certain number of the municipal officers were either Republican or Democratic. But in November, 1905, the candidates of the organised labour ticket succeeded.in defeating the fusion Republican and Democratic ticket. As a result the entire Labour Union ticket was elected from top to toe. Thereafter there could be no doubt as to where lay the responsibility for San Francisco's government. It lay at the door of organised labour. From mayor down to pound—keeper there is not a municipal official in San Francisco who is not either an elective or appointive representative of Government by Organised Labour. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the Board of Public Works, 1 the Police Commissioners, the Fire.Commissioners, the Election Commissioners, the Board of Education —in short, every one of the city and county officials is a representative of the Labour Union ticket. And at the head of this ticket :_was Mayor Schmitz, whom we believe to be the best of the bunch, a well-meaning man, but one who has been unable to cope with the. foulness and vileness of such a Government. So phenomenally corrupt; and inefficient has proved to be this Government, particularly when confronted with the problems presented by earthquake and fire — that Mayor Schmitz has gone off on a i ' vacation. He has fled in dismay before the situation. And in our opinon he was wise. We do not think that any honest and well-mean-ing man—and such we believe Mayor Schmitz to be —can cope with the problems presented to the Government of San Francisco ü by the present situation, when there stands behind him such a set of men as have been elected.")