The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-14
cisco.

cisco
 Schrnidtz. but just a plain man of the people, member and officer of one of the labor unions, fiddler who flddled only at union rates, translated suddenly, by one of the inexplieable twists and turns of city politics from the sphere of leader of the Columbia theatre orches- tra to the highest place within the gift of his fellow townsmen.
 It was the greatest surprise San Fran cisco ever provided for herself at the polls when she chose for her mayor this fiddler, Schmdtz, the candidate and the standard bearer of the Union Labor par ty. It was all the more surprising be- cause the party which he led was the direct and immediate result of one of the most bitter contests the Pacific coast organized capital; because the union la bor party stood for nothing else but or ganized labor, which had won only an 
 empty victory, if, indeed, 1t could be called a victory at all and because-most important of all-under new charter the office of mayor had been invested with powers so extensive as to make the title of chief executive officer of the mu- nicipalfty mean exactly what the words imply.
 Personally, Schnnidtz is anything but a mean figure of a man. He bulks large upon the stage of which he just now holds the centre. There Is more than six good American feet of him, and enough of girth to give him a scales record of 2O5 pounds, with not an apparent ounce of fat. He is straight as any aborigine, clear-eyed, muscular as man ought to be who eats and drinks only what is good for him. takes as much of his life as he can in the open, and finds his recreation in tramping affeld behind a well-bred bird dog. or in whipping the pools and ripples of every accessible trout stream, or in swinging his long legs across coun-
 
 of being out of doors His nose Is aqui- line. his forehead is high. and his facial angle is of the sort that your ethnologist gives to the most highly developed of God S creatures who walk upon two legs and win their living from Mother Earth not by the sweat of their brows, but by the keen and judicious employment of that which lies behind the brows.
 His hair, tossed carelessy back from his brow, and his beard and the nous tache are the hair and the beard and moustache of the man whose soul pours itself out in voice on sensitive finger tips
 His mother. Charlotte Hogan, was a child in arms when her people brought her from County Clare to the land of Ireland's promise. His father, Joseph Schmidtz, was by birth German, but of the more restless Teutonic type. emigrat- ing early enough to be numbered among the Argonauts, who, in seeking to make fortunes in the new Ell Dorado. made of Fl Dorado commonwealth that was soon fit for the august company of the sisterhood of states.
 Ht niatoi noc Doin III thc tity thol he was to govern on August p, 1884 and so Is just 42 years old. His father who was before him musician by nature as by choice. sent him to the common schools. not neglecting the while his son's musical inheritance. Schmidtz, the boy, had other ambitions. and strove for time toward a career in another pro- fession. After two years of medical col lege his health failed him, and he left the dissecting-room and the lecture hall for two years of rest and convalescence.
 His course during the crying days fol- lowing the earthquake and the fire won the admiration of all classes, millionaire and workman of General Funston and Governor Pardee and the country at large. He. took control and maintained II with a Judgment and skill that has not once been criticised. The fiddler mayor