The fight had barely started when Crothers came to me and said that W. H. Mills, who handled the newspapers of California for the railroad company, had agreed to raise the "Bulletin's" pay from $125 to $250 a month if we would make only a weak support of the new charter.
And again:
Crothers felt that the influence of the "Bulletin" was worth more
than the Southern Pacific had been paying. He insisted that I go to
Mills and demand $25,000 from the railroad for supporting Gage. I
told him that this was ridiculous, that they wouldn't consider such a
sum for a minute. He insisted that he would have $25,000 or he
wouldn't support Gage, and demanded that I tell Mills that.
In these campaigns the "Bulletin" had been supporting the
Democratic candidate; but it was supposed to be a Republican
paper, and in the next campaign the owner decided that unless
the Democrats paid him more money, he would become really
and truly "Republican." So Older went on the hunt once more.
Poniatowski said: "I will do all I can, but the best I can do personally
is $500 a month for three months through the campaign. I
will put up the $1500 out of my own pocket."
I did not dare to go to anyone else, and I hoped, but faintly, that this would be enough. I went to Crothers with the information that I had got $1500 to support Tobin, and he said, "It isn't enough."
I was in despair. Only one other ruse remained by which I might hold him. I asked former Mayor E. B. Pond, banker and millionaire; James D. Phelan, mayor and millionaire, and Franklin K. Lane, then a rising power in California, to call on Crothers and see if they could not prevail on him to stand by Tobin. Always greatly impressed by wealth, I felt that their prominence and financial standing might hold him. They called, and did their best, but made no impression.
A few days later the railroad paid Crothers $7500. It was paid to him by a man not openly connected with the railroad. I learned of it almost instantly. The report was confirmed by Crothers ordering me to support Wells.
And now Fremont Older has been forced out of the
"Bulletin," and the paper has become rancid in the cause of
reaction, and carries at the top of its editorial page this proud
slogan: "R. A. Crothers, Editor and Proprietor."
And do you think that the owner of the "Bulletin" was alone among San Francisco newspaper owners in the possession of an itching palm? The "San Francisco Liberator," organ of the reformers, showed how, in the effort to keep the president of "United Railroads" out of jail, every crime up to murder had been committed. Armed mobs had been organized
