The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-09-22
FIGHT AGAINST GRAFT.
Leader in Frisco's League of Justice
Tells of Dramatic Experience.

III lily wv IL CITY VI Odu loASioSo'
handful of women have been doing
piece of work new for our sex, says
Elizabeth Gerberding in the Define
ator for October. For the first time,
perhaps, we have openly and formal
ly assisted in the mans work OF
clearing up a city's politics. Our
opening battle is over and We have
lost-gone down to defeat this time,
though l have an abiding faith that
we shall win in the end.
I, who am no longer young, had
been a club-woman for many years.
l had risen with the women's clubs
of the West through all the stages
of development from reading ency-
clopedic essays to undertaking real
civic effort-if only in the fancy work
of a city's sanitation. l was in
Europe when our city began her rea!
struggle against organized impurity.
When I returned in the summer of
1908, the fight had been on for two
years.
Since the first years of the CEN
tury. a corrupt mayor and corrupt
board of supervisors, creatures OF
the supremely corrupt boss, Abra-
ham Ruef, had controlled the city.
They had traded in franchises, licen-
ses, permits, special privileges, as
perhaps a political ring never trad
ed before. More, they had organized
crime and vice, given it protection,
entered into partnership with it.
| The climaz came when they accepted
bribe of two hundred thousand
dollars for free" trolley franchise
worth millions of dollars to the city
had the city sold it fairly. Patrick
Calhoun, head of the street railway
system, was charged with giving this
bribe, but upon his trial the jury
disagreed. A group of refprmers,
| led first by the San Francisco Bulle-
tin and then by Francis ]. Heney, had
exposed this condition of affairs, had
indicted the little bosses and bribe-
takers the universal applause Of
| the community, and had reached out
| for the big bribe-givers- the uni
versal horror of the upper class. y
At the very moment when l re-
turned, the Supreme Court of Cali
fornia, on a tri1ing technicality-
| the fact that the term mayor" was
left out of the indictment-had just
| reversed the conviction of Eugene
E. Schmitz, the robber mayor. There
is system in California as else
| where, I learned afterward; and the
system must take care of its own.
And this was the mental state Of
San Francisco as l found it: Not a
man or woman in San Francisco,
then or at any other time, believed
that Patrick Calhoun was not guilty
of giving bribes; yet the "better
part" of the community, their minds
clouded by prejudice, self-interest,
minor and oblique considerations
of every kind, justified him and
plead for him. I have wondered
since if 1 myself, had lived through
the fight from the beginning, might
not have acquired the same moral
blindness. But I came new and cler-
| eyed to the shock and wonder of it.
saw people whom I had considered
honorable all my life upholding
crime, condemning the law, de-
nouncing reform. found men and
women of my closest acquaintance
virtual anarchists without the
anarchists excuse of injustice and
oppression.
"What can I do?" I asked myself.
And the situation as it grew in in
tensity, found me an answer. The
second Ruef trial was drawing to a
close. AS the trial went on, the at
| torneys for the people found the
courtroom packed with paid thugs,
whose duty it was to laugh at every
serious point made by the prosecu-
ton and to seem impressed by every
argument of the defense-all this
to influence the jury. The prosecu-
ton needed support in the court
room. There was a League of JUS
tice in San Francisco, whose purpose
it was to uphold Heney and the peo-
pie. But these were clerks and pro-
fessional and small business men;
they had no time to sit through ses-
sion after session of the trial. So
we women formed an auxiliary and
prepared to encourage justice by
our presence-a little hing, per-
haps, but more important than any
one can appreciate who did not live
through that strange episode in our