company. The Teamsters strike was quickly joined by sympathizing sailors, stevedores and fireman belonging to the City Front Federation. Between 10,000 and 16,000 men joined the strike. Employers grew quickly frustrated with the strikers, asking for San Francisco Mayor James D. Phelan to request Gage in ordering in the state militia to crush the strike. Phelan refused, though violence between strikers and officers of the San Francisco Police Department began to break out in September. Gage became increasingly concerned that violence along San Francisco's waterfront was spilling out of the city's control. On one instance, in order to reassure himself that violence was not increasing, Gage disguised himself as a striker and walked amongst the stevedores to observe conditions personally. In October, Gage negotiated settlement with employers and the Teamsters, though the terms of the settlement were never made publicly known. Gage was the first California governor to negotiate an end to a labor strike. End of administration Gage's troubles over the bubonic plague continued to worsen. Despite San Francisco-based newspapers continual denials, contradicting reports from the Sacramento Bee and the Associated Press on the plague's spread had made the outbreak become publicly known throughout the United States. The state governments of Colorado, Texas and Louisiana passed quarantines of California, arguing that since the state had refused to admit a health crisis within its borders, states receiving rail or shipping cargo from California ports of call had the duty to protect themselves. Threats of a national quarantine grew. As the 1902 elections approached, Southern Pacific supporters increasingly saw Gage, a man who had represented their interests since his days as a Los Angeles-based lawyer, as an embarrassment to state Republicans. This harmed Gage whose allies were mostly business interests. However, instead of putting allegations of the outbreak to rest, conflicting studies and reports from federal officials and the media continued to contradict Gage's assertions. In turn, the powerful shipping and rail companies within the state and throughout the country faced quarantine and economic boycotts from other states. At the state Republican convention that year, the Railroad Republican faction refused Gage renomination for the governorship. In his place, former Mayor of Oakland George Pardee, a German-trained medical physician, received the nomination. Pardee's nomination was largely a compromise between the Railroad and the growing progressive-minded Reform factions of the party. In his final address to the California State Legislature in early January