From U-T San Diego:
It’s no great stretch to say that California’s modern political system might have been very different had it not been for the graft and corruption of the late 19th century.
Hiram Johnson, the progressive era governor who engineered the initiative, the referendum and the recall into the state constitution in 1911, first made his name in 1907-08 prosecuting members of San Francisco’s graft-ridden political machine, among them Mayor Eugene Schmitz and the city’s political boss Abe Ruef.
He might never have become governor without the crooks.
Photo courtesy Franco Folini, flickr
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