Very frankly, such leaders questioned the ultimate consequences of the movement, expressing fears which time was to justify. But to them the situation offered no alternative. Their support and influence went to the new party as an expedient of the times, not as the beginning of a permanent political organization. But the movement, once started, got beyond their control. During the first five years of Union-Labor party activities in San Francisco many of these original supporters were forced, first into silence and finally into open repudiation of the methods of the Union-Labor party administration. In the meantime, members of the McCarthy faction, which had resisted the organization of the party, and had opposed it at the 1901 and 1903 elections, became its strong partisans. This element supported the party ticket at the 1905 election; and in 1907, and again in 1909, when McCarthy was himself the Union-Labor party candidate for Mayor. But the Union-Labor party ticket which McCarthy headed did not have the united support of labor leaders who had organized the movement. Indeed, labor leaders whom the McCarthy faction in 1901 called "scabs" for organizing the Union-Labor party, were, by the same men who had condemned them in 1901, denounced as "scabs" during the 1909 campaign for not supporting the Union-Labor party candidates. From the beginning, the Union-Labor party had the support of elements outside the labor-union movement. Much of this support came from citizens who, regardless of their attitude on trade-unionism, were dissatisfied with the old parties. The situation offered exceptional opportunity for the political manipulator. But the one man with the political vision to see the possibilities of the third-party movement, was not a member of a labor union. He was a lawyer who had already attained some prominence in San Francisco politics--Abraham Ruef.[3] Ruef was quick to see the potentialities of the political Frankenstein which groping labor leaders had brought into being. He knew that _they_ could not control their creation; he knew that _he_ could. He did not overestimate his powers. He managed the new party's 1901 campaign.[4] Under his direction, success was won for a cause that had been deemed hopeless. The genius of Abraham Ruef made Eugene E. Schmitz Mayor of San Francisco.[5] In practical acknowledgment of Ruef's services, Schmitz issued an open letter, in which he stated himself privileged to consider Ruef his friendly counsellor.[6] The issuance of that letter made Ruef the recognized political representative of the Union-Labor party administration, a position which he held until the estrangement of himself and Schmitz under the strain of the graft prosecution.[7] But the government of San Francisco did not pass entirely under control of the Union-Labor party until four years after Schmitz's elevation to the Mayoralty.