My own story

Journalist Fremont Older (1856-1935), born in Appleton, Wisconsin, went to California in 1873 and became one of the state's most controversial newspapermen in his work at the San Francisco Call and Bulletin. My own story (1919) first tells Older's story as the editor of the struggling Bulletin in 1895. He provides fascinating details of his fight against political corruption in San Francisco in the next fifteen years, a chronicle of graft, labor violence, fraud, and rampant bribery centering on his fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad and its political "ring" and personal battles with Republican boss Abraham Ruef, Mayor Eugene Schmitz, and Patrick Calhoun, head of United Railroads.