The San Francisco call., 1906-11-25
S Anxiety
for the Mayor
Causes I ak
Friends Attribute /
to Mutual Interest
in Horticulture


When the Grand Jury extricates it
self from the slums of the French
restaurant business and gets q little
higher up in society ii viii find food
for reflection in the appearance of Will
liam j. Dingee at the gangplank OF
the Patricia when schmitz landed III
New York. As was reported in The
Call. Dingee was there with his auto
mobile and expressed by word and act
the greatest solicitude for the fortunes
Of the returning traveller. This fact
was the cause OF general comment yes
terday, and the connection OF Dingee,
the exclusive capitalist. with the
Schmitz administration was the SUBJ
ject Of much interesting speculation.
His friends are busy explaining that
he has always been e close friend of
the Mayor; that he is a famous iioricnl-
turist and that this is the reason why
Schmitz appointed him Park Commits
sioner; that they are and have been as
close as two tulips on a single stem,
and that Dingee, Fastening to the dock
to advise and comfort the Mayor. was
only doing what might be expected OF q
friend Others opine that the friend
ship was not an affair OF Horticulture.
but rather one of cement. in which
Dingee was financially interested. As
both the city and the Deneen company
are in the market for cement II was
natural that there should have been
some understanding between Dingee
and Schnnitz Oh the matter. Dingee is
an aristocrat and Schmitz not long ago
was fiddler, but busines is business.
Then Dingee has been interested in
water. Not only is he water mag
nate of the first order in his own held-
ings. when it comes to the question OF
municipal supply for San Francisco,
but ne is also interested in the man
agement of the estate OF Alvinza Hay
ward, one OF the largest stockholders OF
the Spring Valley Company. For these
reasons. or else because they both
loved the flowers in the park. Dingee
was enc OF tie social sponsors of the
Mayor when he lately essayed higher
social flights after the date when his
tory" began-that is, on the 18th of
April
Naturally Dingee wanted to have a
talk with the Mayor at the earliest
possible epportunity-about the orchids
in the park-and it was quite natural
that he should go over to Hobokcn
with his red car and meet the Mayor
when he landed. 1t was quite natural
too. that one who had been hobnob-
bing with the swells of Europe should
be greeted by one OF proper rank on
his native SOIL and as Dingee was the
social godfather of Schnitz he must
have wanted to know how he had
Jared in old world society-and about
the flowers in the park.
Out or it all there arises the sus-
picion that the man who has advertised
himself in two continents as labor
| Mayor was dealing with corporate in
terests in suspicioGsly friendly man
ner from the first OF the chapter. AS
an Oakland paper remarked yester-
day:
IF the Grand Jury wants to reach
the real grafters it viii have to go
higher up in the social scale than the
French restaurants and the Barbary
Coast
Rumor has it that Dingee was one
Of the heaviest contributors to the
financial rise of Sehmitz. as we'll as to
his social uplift Perhaps the Grand
Jury can solve these questions. They
were asked often on the streets yes
terday.