ALLEGED BRIBERY AND BLACKMAIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8384, 19 March 1907, Page 5

ALLEGED BRIBERY AND BLACKMAIL.

THE SAN FRANCISCO CASE. ! Received March 18, 8.30' a.m. NEW YORK, March 17. Eugene Schmitz, Mayor of San Francisco, and Abraham Ruef have been committed for trial in connection with the San Francisco municipal bribery case. (On January 23rd, the London Times endorsed the San Francisco newspapers' denunciation of the city officials as individually and collectively thieves, bribe-takers, and blackmailers. The Times declared that the Labour Union municipal government of San Francisco is the most terribly corrupt administration America has produced, and denounced Abraham Ruef, who controls Mayor Schmitz, as the most cunning and unscrupulous "boss" in America. The article asserted that these "grafters" are reponsible for the delay in the re-building of the city. Towards the end of last year the Grand Jury of the State of California indicted Eugene Schmitz, the Labour Mayor of San Francisco, and Abe Ruef, the San Francicso "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 be 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 competition.)