R

GETTING UNDER WAY

UDOLPH SPRECKELS had rigged up a little temporary office, roughly built of boards, in the ruins of his bank on Sansome street. Heney and I found him there, surrounded by miles of burned brick and tangled steel girders. At once we plunged into discussion of our plans. It had already been agreed that we should borrow Burns from the United States secret service. Spreckels undertook to raise the necessary money to finance the investigations. He had already secured thirty or forty thousand dollars in the fund. Spreckels said:

"Now that we have made terms about Burns, what is your fee to be, Heney?"

Heney said: "Well, I was born in San Francisco and raised here. I have always felt that it was my city. I have a little money, enough so that I am not going to be in need of money very soon, and I am willing to put my time and services against your money. I'll do it for nothing."

"That's very fine of you," Spreckels answered. "But it's more than we should ask."

Heney looked out at the ruins of the city and said: "No, I think I ought to do it, for San Francisco. It's my town."

From that day to this Heney never received one cent for his work in the graft prosecution. Even when he was appointed deputy district attorney in order to operate in the courts, he paid the salary of $250 a month to the man that was displaced in order to allow him to come into the office.

We ended the interview with Heney's promise to bring Burns here and begin definite work as soon as possible. I returned to the office on the roof of the ice plant, a happy man. After five years of hard work on the trail of Ruef and Schmitz I felt that at last the real fight was beginning.

Shortly afterward, Heney and Burns arrived here, ready for business. They established themselves in what was later known as "The Red House" on Franklin street between Post and Geary. Heney took Charles W. Cobb, a brilliant San Jose lawyer, into partnership with him, and also engaged the services of Joseph J. Dwyer. Burns had brought with him a small number of assistant detectives, and later added others. to this nucleus of a strong detective force.

The first move had to be the appointment of Heney as deputy district attorney. At that time the giving of such an

appointment was in the hands of District Attorney Langdon, who was stumping the state as candidate for governor. After some difficulty, we persuaded him to appoint Heney. He was very fond of Hiram W. Johnson, and would have preferred to appoint him, but he was finally overcome by our arguments and agreed to give us Heney.

Before this had become public I made a move in the direction of getting rid of what I considered a crooked grand jury. I told Judge Graham that I was associated with a group of men who meant business in their fight on the grafters. I went into the matter so forcefully that the Judge finally consented to dismiss the grand jury.

Two days later I got information of a definite case of bribing Ruef. Four prize fight promoters had raised $20,000 and it was given by an emissary to Ruef for prize fight permits. This was the first definite information that we had received. Heney, however, had meanwhile been working on the French restaurant story, and had decided that he could make a case out of it. This was encouraging. But of all the big briberies that we suspected, there was as yet not a shred of evidence.

When Heney's appointment as deputy district attorney became public, however, things began to happen.

I was living in San Rafael at the time. Late one night, after I had gone to bed, I was called to the long distance telephone. Rudolph Spreckels was speaking from San Mateo. He said: "Ruef has removed Langdon and appointed himself."

"What!" I said. This was incredible. However, Spreckels insisted that it was true. At the alarm, the acting mayor, doubtless at Ruef's command, had removed Langdon from his place as district attorney, and put Ruef himself into it. The brazen effrontery of this staggered us. Immediately, however, we perceived the danger in which we stood.

Graham had discharged the old grand jury, and we were insisting upon the drawing of a new one. With Ruef as district attorney, our chance of getting a friendly grand jury was removed from the realm of the possible into that of the fantastic.

I took the first boat for the city in the morning, in a desperate frame of mind. The morning papers carried the story of Ruef's appointment. Crossing the bay on the deck. of the ferryboat, I made up my mind that there was only one thing to do.

At 2 o'clock Judge Graham was to decide whether he would recognize Ruef or Langdon as district attorney. By 11 o'clock that morning I had 20,000 extras on the streets stating the facts and calling on all good citizens to rally to the synagogue on the corner of California and Webster streets,

where Judge Graham was holding court, and help uphold his hands in giving us justice. Hundreds of newsboys rushed all over the city, giving away these extras.

Long before 2 o'clock thousands of people were congregated around the synagogue. The streets were jammed with them, traffic was at a standstill. Indignation was running high against Ruef and Schmitz.

At that time even our so called "best people" were with us in the fight. On a bit of lawn, outside the windows of Judge Graham's chambers, a large group of influential persons were gathered, silently glaring through the windows, just steadily glaring, without a sound, as though to say, "Don't you dare!" Some of these were the people who later when we touched Calhoun fought us so desperately, but at that time they were with us, and that bit of lawn looked like a first night at the opera.

On the street sides of the synagogue there was pandemonium. The crowds surged this way and that, cheering, hooting and yelling, dangerous, in a mood for anything. Ruef not only controlled the city government, but the sheriff as well, and the sheriff's deputies were there in full force, but they could not control the crowd. They could only center upon certain men, throwing us about, handling me as roughly as they dared.

Heney and Langdon appeared on the steps and were wildly cheered. Ruef came out and was roughly handled by the mob. He bravely held his ground, protecting himself as best he could, never losing his nerve or showing fear for an instant, though he was in danger of his life. He was rescued by the deputies, and the roars of the crowd subsided into mutterings.

Then Graham arrived. He passed through the black mass of people, heard their mutterings and disappeared into the courtrooms.

THE CARMEN'S STRIKE

HAT day was long known in San Francisco as Black

T Friday, the day when, in the silence of the courtroom,

besieged by the aroused crowds outside, Judge Graham recognized Langdon as district attorney of San Francisco.

Whatever the thoughts of any man present in that courtroom, they were overshadowed by the knowledge of the mob outside, waiting to see that Ruef was dethroned, that Langdon was recognized. The days of the Vigilantes, of riots and lynchings, were not so long past that any one could fail to recall them, and the temper of the crowd around the synagogue was unmistakable.

Every one in the courtroom knew the temper of that crowd. Excitement was at fever heat. The Bulletin had two men there through all the proceedings, trained newspaper reporters, and neither of them telephoned a line to the paper. They decided that the situation was too big, too overwhelming, to be reported at all. They must have felt that they were at the center of the universe, that all the people in the world had gathered, that every one knew what was happening.

After Judge Graham recognized Langdon there came the drawing of the grand jury. Old fashioned methods were, of course, employed. The names in the box had been prepared for the drawing, the bits of paper bearing the chosen names being folded together, so that the searching hand of the clerk could feel a thick bunch and draw from that.

Knowing this, I had managed to force my way into the courtroom, in spit of the efforts of a big fat push bailiff, who. tried to throw me out. When the drawing of names was about to begin I rushed up to the judge's bench and loudly demanded that the names be emptied out of the box and separated.

This was done. The prepared bunches of papers were broken up and scattered through the others. Then the Oliver grand jury was drawn.

This was a triumph for us, for with Langdon as district attorney, and an honest grand jury, we had in hand all the weapons we needed. All that was necessary was to furnish legal evidence of the crimes that we knew had been com

4

mitted, and we would be able to go on and punish the men who had committed them.

After I had furnished Heney with the evidence of the bribery of Ruef in the matter of the prizefight permits, there was a long interval of searching and investigation without results. Spreckels was somewhat discouraged. At length, however, the evidence secured by Burns was presented to the Oliver grand jury, and early in the fall of 1906 Schmitz and Ruef were both indicted for extortion in the French restaurant cases.

We all felt these cases to be a side issue. We had already suspected something in regard to the bribery of the supervisors for the overhead trolley franchise, and our principal efforts were spent in trying to get at those facts.

Up to this time there is no question that public opinion was with us. Public opinion was with us until we began to touch the big fellows. We could have gone on, uncovering petty graft, saloon graft, tenderloin graft, convicting and punishing men even to the extent of exposing the police department, and the city, that is, the powerful men of the city, would have been with us. But the moment the big men were in danger their support left us overnight.

Black Friday had alarmed Calhoun. The indictments of Ruef and Schmitz were final danger signals to him. He was a very brilliant man, clever, resourceful, daring, of a temper that stopped at nothing. He knew what we did not know at that time. He knew that he had paid $200,000 to Abraham Ruef through his attorney, Tirey L. Ford, for the purpose of bribing the supervisors to give the United Railroads the overhead trolley franchise. He knew, when Heney was appointed and upheld by Judge Graham, that he stood in danger of being exposed. Sooner or later, the trail we were following would lead to him.

His first move was characteristically clever and unscrupulous. He precipitated the streetcar strike.

Some time previous to Heney opening headquarters here in commencing operations against the grafters, the United Railroads carmen had made a demand for an increase in pay. The United Railroads prevailed upon them to submit their grievances to arbitrators. Probably suspecting that Heney in his investigation might uncover the United Railroads bribery, Calhoun offered to make Francis J. Heney one of the arbitrators. Possibly Heney might have accepted the position. He had it under consideration when Burns came excitedly into his office and told him not to accept it, because he had just learned through an employe of the mint that Calhoun had transmitted $200,000 through the mint in this city to Tirey L. Ford to be used to secure the overhead trolley