"The System," As Uncovered by the San Francisco Graft Prosecution

Eugene E. Schmitz[1] was elected Mayor of San Francisco in November, 1901. He had been nominated by the Union-Labor party. This party was organized after labor disturbances whic...

No observer of San Francisco politics, not even Ruef himself, had expected the entire Union-Labor party ticket to be elected. The election of the Supervisors was the greatest su...

The decade ending 1910 was for California an era of extraordinary enterprise and development. A third transcontinental railroad, the Western Pacific, was completed; vast land-ho...

The great San Francisco fire was brought under control Friday, April 20, 1906. The Sunday following, the first step was taken toward getting the scattered Board of Supervisors t...

Three days after the announcement of his plans, District Attorney Langdon appointed Heney to a regular deputyship. But even before Langdon had taken office, as early as December...

The impaneling of the Grand Jury was to have been completed on October 26. Heney was appointed Assistant District Attorney on October 24. Ruef, to secure control of the District...

The hard fight of the morning of October 26th to prevent Ruef taking possession of the District Attorney's office had been carried on practically without the general public bein...

While the impaneling of the Grand Jury was going on before Judge Graham, Ruef was disputing Langdon's title to the office of District Attorney before Judge Seawell. In these pro...

Within twenty-four hours after organizing, the Grand Jury had begun investigation into graft charges. Tenderloin extortion, especially in connection with the so-called "French R...

The indictments against Schmitz and Ruef were returned November 15. Schmitz reached San Francisco on his return from Europe on November 29.[133] He at once joined with Ruef in t...

Three months[142] after his indictment in the "French Restaurant" extortion cases--three months of continuous fighting to evade the issue--Ruef found his last technical obstruct...

Months before the Oliver Grand Jury was convened, it was common gossip in San Francisco that the members of the Board of Supervisors were taking money from the public service co...

The resignation of Supervisor Duffey to take charge of the municipal department of public works, and of Supervisor Wilson[167] to take the office of State Railroad Commissioner,...

(2) That of this large amount, $169,350 passed from Ruef to Gallagher and by Gallagher had been divided among members of the board. The balance, the evidence showed, had been pa...

While the Supervisors were making full confessions of their participation in the bribery transactions, and the Grand Jury was dragging from unwilling promoters, capitalists and...

One week after Ruef had plead guilty to the charge of extortion, his co-defendant, Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz, indicted jointly with Ruef, was brought to trial, under indictment No...

The public-service corporation that had during the 1905 municipal campaign contributed to the campaign funds of both the Union Labor party and the opposing "Reform" fusion organ...

In those nine months much had been accomplished. Ruef had plead guilty to extortion and had made partial confession of his relations with the public-service corporations. The Sc...

Mr. Glass had been indicted with T. V. Halsey for alleged bribery transactions growing out of the opposition of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company to competition...

The conviction of Glass, following immediately upon the overthrow of the Schmitz-Ruef municipal administration, and coupled with the pitiful position in which, all recognized, H...

Scarcely had the prosecution overcome the delaying tactics of the defense, and forced graft cases to trial, than District Attorney Langdon had to defend title to his office at t...

On January 8, 1908, the municipal officials elected with Mayor Taylor assumed the duties of their office. That day, Ruef was taken from the custody of the elisor and locked up i...

The officials of public service corporations, who by every technical device within the ingenuity of the best legal talent that could be purchased, had for months resisted trial,...

From the beginning of the graft trials rumors of efforts to tamper with the trial jurors had been current. The failures of juries to agree in the face of what to the man on the...

[396] Murphy had figured in the Ruef trials, somewhat sensationally, from the beginning. When, for instance, Ruef, early in March, 1907, was a fugitive from justice, Murphy was...

In spite of the sensational events following the trapping of Blake, the work of impaneling a jury to try Ruef went steadily on. After months of effort,[405] a jury was finally s...

The trial of Patrick Calhoun for offering a bribe to Supervisor Fred Nicholas began immediately after the holidays, following the Ruef trials. The trial brought into play all th...

Scarcely had the disagreeing jury in the Calhoun case been discharged than the Graft Prosecution was again called upon to meet the graft defense at the polls. Langdon's second t...

At the time of Mr. Fickert's election to the District Attorney's office, the second trial of Patrick Calhoun for offering a bribe was well under way. As at the other graft trial...

That a jury of twelve men had found Ruef guilty of bribe-giving did not mean necessarily that the broken boss would be confined at San Quentin, the prison to which he had been s...

After the McCarthy-Fickert election there were rumors that the graft defense, flushed with its successes in the overthrow of the prosecution, would resort to reprisals, by singl...