In addition to the complications in the municipal government, due to the Schmitz faction's dogged resistance to the Prosecution, combined with the unqualified yielding of the Supervisors and the partial confession of Ruef, San Francisco was in a condition of confusion and discord. At the time Ruef entered his plea of guilty to extortion, a year had passed since the great fire of 1906. Thousands were still living in shacks erected in the ruins of the old city. The principal business streets were littered with building materials. There had come the depression following the activity of rehabilitation and the pouring into San Francisco of millions of insurance money. Titles to real property were confused if not in doubt, much of the records having been destroyed in the fire. Thousands found themselves forced into court to establish their titles. A little later, the community was to suffer a visitation of bubonic plague. There were many authentic plague cases and some deaths. For months the city was in dread of quarantine. There were labor disturbances which for weeks at a time paralyzed industry. At one period between 7,000 and 10,000 iron-trades workers were out on strike. At the time Schmitz was finally convicted of extortion the telephone girls had been on strike since May 3rd. This alone threw the complex organization of a modern city into extraordinary confusion. The linemen struck. On June 21, telegraph operators in San Francisco and Oakland left their keys. But by far the most serious labor disturbance was the strike of the street-car conductors and motormen. For weeks the entire street-car system was paralyzed. The first attempt to move a car resulted in riot in which one man was killed outright and twenty-six wounded. A number of the wounded died. President Calhoun of the United Railroads rejected all offers to compromise, announcing his intention to break the Street Carmen's Union. He succeeded; in the end the union was broken and scattered, but at frightful cost to Mr. Calhoun's company and to San Francisco. During the strike of the carmen the city was filled with gunfighters and thugs admittedly in the employ of the United Railroads. Indeed, there was no attempt made to disguise the fact that the United Railroads had brought them into the city. Clashes between the two factions were of daily occurrence. Aside from horse-drawn vehicles which had been pressed into service, street transportation was, for a considerable period, practically at an end. The inability of the people to go from place to place paralyzed industry and business. Merchants, hotel keepers, manufacturers, all suffered. There were many failures. Citizens in all walks of life implored Mr. Calhoun to arbitrate his difference with his men. He refused absolutely.[239] Henry T. Scott, president of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, as doggedly refused to submit to arbitration the questions involved in the telephone girls' strike.