During the era of Union-Labor party power in San Francisco, the Mayor and the eighteen members of the Board of Supervisors were elected every two years.[8] Schmitz, under Ruef's management, was re-elected in 1903. But the Union-Labor party failed at that election, as it had in 1901, to elect a majority of the Board of Supervisors. Many of the commissions, on the other hand, through appointments by the mayor, had, by 1903, passed completely under Union-Labor party control. Gradually, the opinion grew in San Francisco that the management of the departments was unsatisfactory, if not corrupt. This opinion, in 1905, when Schmitz was for a third time the Union-Labor party candidate for Mayor, found expression in fusion of the Republican and Democratic parties to bring about the defeat of the Union-Labor party nominees. This fusion was in the name of municipal reform. The organizers of the movement were in the main opposed to machine political methods. When, however, the movement gave evidence of vitality and strength, the political agents of public service corporations became identified with its leadership.[9] The new leaders were soon in practical control. Public-service corporations were largely instrumental in financing the movement. Testimony was brought out before the Grand Jury which conducted the graft investigations, that nearly every public-service corporation in San Francisco contributed to the fusion fund, the average of the contributions being $2,500 for each corporation.[10] On the other hand, the public-service corporations contributed liberally toward the election of the Ruef-backed, Union-Labor party candidates.[11] Ruef was already on the pay-roll of the law departments of many of them. Thus, generally speaking, it made little difference to the corporations whether the "reform" fusion candidates or the Ruef Union-Labor party candidates were elected. The corporations had captained each side, and in a large measure had financed each side. The inevitable difficulties of a campaign, financed and officered by public-service corporations, to correct municipal ills for which the corporations were in large measure responsible, were encountered from the beginning. For the head of the reform or fusion ticket, men who had been prominent in the organization of the anti-Ruef crusade were suggested, only to be rejected by the corporation allies who had after the reform group's preliminary successes become identified with the movement. Finally, after several names had been canvassed, John S. Partridge, an attorney of good ability, and repute, but scarcely known outside the immediate circle in which he moved, was agreed upon as Mr. Schmitz's opponent. Both the Democrat and the Republican party nominated Mr. Partridge, and with him a complete fusion ticket, including supervisors. Partridge had a clear field against Schmitz, but his candidacy failed to carry the confidence, or to awake the enthusiasm which brings success at the polls.