Wild West San Francisco Memoir

[Rooster]

My Own Story, by Fremont Older. Published 1919.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29571307-my-own-story

If you are a casual reader, you likely won’t find this book exciting or even interesting, but if you are a researcher or historian interested in San Francisco history, you will find it fascinating. The SF mayor Abraham Ruef is a notorious name, but history (and casual search) only gives us the bare bones of the scandal. Fremont Older, the editor of the Bulletin at the time, is the newspaper man who spear-headed a campaign against San Francisco graft and corruption. This is his own story, and the details of his efforts to put Ruef behind bars are incomparable. Turns out, Ruef was just one small cog in the corruption machine. There were bigger men in the shadows who never saw a day of jail.

I also found it fascinating to read about Fremont Older’s own revelations and changes as a human being. He goes from courageous crusader against corruption, to a more humble, thoughtful man. A few scant days after Ruef was put behind bars, Older did a complete 180, and realized that he had used some of the very methods in the name of Good. He immediately sought to make amends and started fighting to release Ruef.

“We are still going on in the old way, believing that jails will cure our civic diseases, for which we are all equally responsible.”

“… all of us are guilty, and we can no longer absolve ourselves by putting men in prison. That falsehood can never fool me again.”

“That is the way I feel, and hereafter I am going to let the other fellow severely alone, and permit him, if he chooses, to work out his salvation in his own way. I feel sure I am not fit to judge him, nor to hunt him, nor to criticize him, nor to put him in jail. We cannot make people good by law, by mere legislative enactment. Men and women must want to be good. The feeling must come from within.”

Fremont Older was a believer in criminal reform, and helped to bring about prison reforms in San Quentin, which still employed straitjackets, a 'dungeon' and torture techniques. And Fremont was always willing to help convicts and women of the underworld. He didn't ask if they were guilty, or what had they done, etc. Only... "What can I do to help?"

Even more notable was his humility, and willingness to admit all his errors, and admit that he was wrong. Not only did he admit when he was wrong, but he fought fervently to correct what he saw as his past mistakes. And in the end, with many unanswered questions and insightful experience with the criminal element, his only wish was to pass the ‘supreme test’: Tolerance for the intolerant.

[TriciaG]

There are two online scans at Archive:

https://archive.org/details/myownstory01oldegoog
https://archive.org/details/myownstory00oldegoog