CHAPTER XXIX.

RUEF'S LAST REFUGE FAILS.

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 sentenced to serve his fourteen-year term. Indeed, the probabilities were very much against his suffering any such indignity. Ruef had, at the test, continued "true to his class"; he had not assisted the State in bringing the bribe-givers to account. Men, powerful in financial, social and political circles were unquestionably under the greatest obligation to him. He had not "gone back on his class." His "class" owed it to him to save him from stripes, as Ruef by his course had beyond question saved many of his "class" from stripes.

Having been convicted by a jury, the first move was for Ruef to appeal to the trial judge for a new trial. This appeal was denied him. Ruef then appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the District Court of Appeal. The three justices of the District Court of Appeal found nothing in Ruef's contention to warrant the granting of a new trial.[476] Thus four judges found that Ruef's trial had been fair, even technically fair. But Ruef's possibilities were not exhausted.

The Supreme Court could, if four of the seven members were so inclined, grant him a rehearing, and to the Supreme Court Ruef applied.

The California State Constitution provides that "the Supreme Court shall have power to order any cause pending ... before a district court of appeal to be heard and determined by the Supreme Court. The order last mentioned may be made before judgment has been pronounced by a district court of appeal, or within thirty days after such judgment shall have become final therein."

The District Court of Appeal found against Ruef on November 23, 1910; this action became final thirty days later, or on December 23, 1910. The Supreme Court had thirty days after December 23, that is to say, until January 22, 1911, to grant Ruef a rehearing, if a majority of the seven Supreme Justices so decided. If the Supreme Court failed to act before the close of January 22, Ruef, unless pardoned or paroled, would have to go to State prison.

Ruef, on December 31, 1910, petitioned the Supreme Court for a rehearing. On January 23, announcement was made that the Supreme Court, by a four to three decision, had decided to grant Ruef's petition. The decision was received with protest from one end of the State to the other.[478] The Legislature was in session at the time. Senator George W. Cartwright of Fresno introduced a resolution requesting the Assembly--where impeachment proceedings must originate--to take such steps as might be deemed necessary for investigation of the Supreme Court's conduct.

And finally there came the rumor--at first not generally believed, but later confirmed by the Supreme Justices themselves--that one of the Justices at least had signed the order granting Ruef his rehearing before the Attorney-General had filed his brief in answer to Ruef's petition. The Justice who had thus acted was Justice Henshaw, the same Supreme Court Justice who occupied prominent position in the picture of the banquet scene at the 1906 Santa Cruz convention, in which Ruef appears in the central position of honor.[480]

The facts later brought out involved the following dates:

December 31, 1910--Ruef's petition for rehearing was filed in Supreme Court.

January 10--W. H. Metson was granted permission to file a brief in the case as _Amicus Curiae_.

January 10--Justice Henshaw signed the order granting Ruef a rehearing.

January 11--Justice Henshaw left the State and was absent until after the order granting Ruef a rehearing had been filed.

January 12--Metson filed his brief as _Amicus Curiae_.

January 12--The Attorney-General filed his reply to Ruef's petition for a rehearing.

January 19--Justice Melvin signed the order granting Ruef's petition.

January 20--Attorney-General filed reply to Metson's brief.

January 21--Chief Justice Beatty, and Justices Shaw, Angellotti, Lorigan and Sloss met in the chambers of the Chief Justice for consultation regarding Ruef's petition. Justice Lorigan signed the order granting the petition. Justices Shaw, Angellotti and Sloss declined to concur in such order, and Chief Justice Beatty reserved his decision in the matter until January 22, 1911.

January 22, 1911--(Sunday, the last day on which the order could be signed) Chief Justice Beatty signed the order, his being the fourth name on the document, four signatures being necessary to make it effective.

January 23--A typewritten copy of the order was filed with the Clerk of the Court, the original being retained in the office of the secretaries to the Justices.

Up to this time, eleven judges had passed upon Ruef's case. Seven of them--one Superior Judge, three Judges of the District Court of Appeal and three Justices of the Supreme Court--had decided that Ruef had had a fair trial, that no technicality could be invoked to save him. Four of the eleven judges, in a way which, to the lay mind at least, was somewhat irregular, had decided to grant a rehearing. The public was not at all backward in expressing the opinion that this would mean a new trial; and that under conditions as they were at San Francisco, Ruef would not for a second time be convicted.[481] As is usual in such cases, the public was dissatisfied, suspicious, indignant, but without plan or remedy. Some demanded investigation at the hands of the Legislature; others wanted impeachment[482] proceedings instituted. Mr. William Denman, a leader of the California bar, urged before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Legislature owed it to the Supreme Court, as well as to itself and to the public, to make thorough investigation, and demanded of the committee if the Legislature on proper showing would declare the office of a Supreme Justice vacant.

Senator Shanahan, a member of the committee, was quick to reply that under such a showing the Legislature would certainly act. "But," added Shanahan--and here he touched the weak point of impeachment proceedings--"it would take months if not years. That is why impeachment proceedings will not be instituted. Impeachment proceedings from the trial of Warren Hastings to the present time have proved unsatisfactory."

But, however individuals differed on the question of impeachment proceedings, the general attitude was that the Attorney-General should take steps, if such course were practical, to have the order granting Ruef a rehearing set aside. This the Attorney-General did. He attacked the order before the tribunal which had made it, the highest tribunal in the State, the only one to which appeal could be made.

And the Supreme Court set the order aside, declaring it to be "ineffectual for any purpose and void."

But the Supreme Court did not set the order aside because Justice Henshaw had signed the document before the argument of the prosecution had been heard. The order was set aside on the ground that Henshaw, being absent from the State when the signature of the fourth Justice was attached thereto, was at the time, being absent from the State, unable to exercise any judicial function as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Without Henshaw's signature, the signatures of but three of the Supreme Justices appeared on the order. As the signatures of four of the Justices were required to make the order effective the Court declared it to be worthless.[483]

Thirty days from the time the judgment of the District Court of Appeal became final having expired, the Supreme Court could not interfere further. Ruef had lost his last technical play on a technicality. He went to State prison.

But Ruef did not go to State prison because a jury of twelve men had found him guilty of offering a bribe to a Supervisor; he did not go to State prison because seven out of eleven judges who passed upon the questions involved had found that he had had a fair trial. Ruef went to State prison when he did because a member of the Supreme Court of California was absent from the State at a time inopportune for Ruef.

Ordinarily, after his failure in the Supreme Court, Ruef would have had two more chances for escaping the full penalty of his bribe-giving, namely, parole at the hands of the State Board of Prison Directors, and pardon from the Governor.

But again was Ruef unfortunate. Hiram W. Johnson, as Governor of California, sat at Sacramento. He had gone into office pledged "to kick the Southern Pacific machine out of the State government." He was keeping his pledge. There was no pressure which men of Mr. Ruef's "class" could bring upon Governor Johnson to move him to grant Ruef freedom.

The possibility of parole was as remote, although the State Board of Prison Directors--who in California are appointed for ten-year terms--continued for a time under the old order.

One of the five directors was Tirey L. Ford[484] of the United Railroads. Ruef went to prison convicted of a charge of bribing a Supervisor to vote to give the United Railroads its overhead trolley permit. The evidence indicated, if it did not show, and Mr. Ruef has since confessed, that this money came to him from General Ford. Ruef, because of the crime, found himself confined in a prison of which General Ford was one of the five governors, with power of parole in his hands. But it developed that Governor Johnson had power to set aside such parole. So Ruef could expect little from even the Board of Prison Directors.

Scarcely had Ruef been placed behind the bars, however, than a State-wide campaign was inaugurated to compel his pardon or parole. The public was treated daily by the newspapers with descriptions of the discomfitures[485] which Ruef was suffering. When he was found, for example, smuggling sweet chocolates into prison, and was punished for it, the Ruef-friendly press cried out at the cruelty and unreasonableness of such punishment.[486]

The suffering which his imprisonment has brought upon the members of his family is dwelt upon at length. Letters from them, pleading for assistance for their imprisoned relative have been received by many whose assistance it was thought might prove effective in securing his release. But when Ruef was brought back from San Quentin prison to San Francisco to testify at Schmitz's trial, the pathetic story was published broadcast that these letter-writing relatives had been kept in ignorance of his imprisonment, and thought him to be traveling in Europe.[487]

One of the most contemptible stories circulated to create public opinion for his release was that Ruef had been made scapegoat because of his religion. Ruef is a Jew, circulators of this story insisted that he is in prison because he is a Jew, while the gentile bribe-givers go free.

As a matter of fact, the gentiles associated with Ruef have gone free because of Ruef's treachery to the graft prosecution, but this does not prevent the circulation of the story.

A saner view, breathing of better citizenship, came from Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the New York Free Synagogue. "Israel," said Rabbi Wise, "is not responsible for Ruef's crimes any more than the Roman or Protestant Church is responsible for the crimes of its communicants. But we of the House of Israel in America would be in part answerable for Ruef's misdeeds unless we made it clear, as we do, that Israel is unutterably pained by this blot upon its record of good citizenship in America."

By far the most astonishing support of the movement to free Ruef came from the San Francisco Bulletin and Fremont Older, its managing editor. Older was one of the strongest supporters of the graft prosecution, as was the paper under his management. But once the graft prosecution was concluded, Older and the Bulletin became the most persistent of the supporters of the movement to secure Ruef his freedom.[488] Largely through Older's influence, men of prominence throughout the country--with apparently no very clear knowledge of the situation--have been induced to express themselves as favorable to Ruef's release.

In the publicity campaign for Ruef's release which gives no indication of abatement, Ruef, and those who seek his release, are praised in the most extravagant terms, while those who will not enroll themselves in his interests are as extravagantly condemned.[489]

But in spite of all that is being done to create public opinion favorable to Ruef's release, the sober expression of machine-free press and public is that Ruef should be treated both on the score of parole and confinement precisely the same as any other prisoner.[490] This attitude was clearly presented by the Fresno Republican at the time Ruef was found smuggling chocolate sweets into the prison.

In the attitude of prison officials toward Ruef, the Republican pointed out, there are two alternatives. "One," the Republican went on to say, "is the course of Warden Hoyle, in treating Ruef like any other prisoner, and disciplining him humanely but sternly, for any infraction of the necessary prison rules. The other is to let Ruef have privileges which the other prisoners do not and can not have. News travels nowhere faster or surer than in prison. If Ruef bribes guards, the officials may not know it, but the prisoners will. If Ruef may have smuggled sweets, the other prisoner, whose every nerve-cell shrieks in agony for cocaine, but who knows he will be thrown in the dungeon if he smuggles it, will have no illusions about the smuggling privilege. If the very minions of justice do injustice, as between Abe Ruef and Convict No. 231,323, every man in that vast prison will be taught that he is the victim not of justice, but of force and favoritism. And if Ruef, at the expiration of a bare year, were to be paroled out, every other convict, whose very application can not be heard until he has served half his term, will know that he is suffering the penalty, not of his crime, but of his poverty and friendlessness. Shall Abe Ruef be suffered to teach that lesson? Shall he corrupt San Quentin prison as he did San Francisco? Or shall there be at last one place found where even Abe Ruef gets exact and equal justice?"

Ruef is getting equal justice at State prison, not because he corrupted San Francisco, not because a jury of twelve citizens found him guilty, not because seven out of eleven judges declared against him, but because the political machine, of which Ruef was one of the most powerful leaders, has been broken in California. Under the old order, to have kept Ruef jailed would have been impossible.

FOOTNOTES:

[476] See Cal. App. Rpts., vol. 14, page 576.

[478] Said the Sacramento Bee in an editorial article discussing this order, the day after it was made public, January 24, 1911:

It cannot be denied that this order, by a bare majority of the Supreme Court and--with the single exception of the Chief Justice, by the three of its members least esteemed and respected by the public--has excited disgust and exasperation throughout California. There is a strong popular feeling and belief that the Supreme Court should not thus have interposed to save from punishment the most notorious scoundrel and corruptionist in California, a man known to everybody as having enriched himself by systematic grafting and by the bribery of public servants in the interests of corporations, a man with many indictments resting against him, but convicted only on one.

"What adds to this general disgust and indignation over the Supreme Court's order is apprehension that the rehearing before that tribunal may result in the grant of a new trial for Ruef, a reversal which in all probability would be equivalent to a final discharge. Such changes have taken place in San Francisco in the last two years, especially in the office of the District Attorney, that a new trial would have small chance of ending in conviction.

"No reasons are given by the Supreme Court for its order for a rehearing, but presumably they are of a purely technical sort, for the fact of Ruef's guilt was abundantly proved on the trial."

[479] The Cartwright resolution was in full as follows:

"Whereas, The Supreme Court of this State on or about the 23rd of January, 1911, rendered a decision in the case of the People of the State of California vs. Abraham Ruef, in which the defendant is granted a rehearing; and

"Whereas, Various newspapers have published criticisms condemning said decision, and intimating that the Justices participating therein were controlled by corrupt and unworthy motives; and

"Whereas, The integrity of our courts has been frequently assailed by public speakers and by many of our citizens, all of which tends to destroy the confidence of The People in the purity and integrity of our courts of justice; be it

"Resolved, by the Senate, That the Assembly be requested to appoint a committee of the Assembly, such committee to be authorized, empowered and instructed to investigate the whole subject matter and particularly to investigate said decision, the grounds upon which the decision is based and the conduct of the Justices of the Supreme Court in relation to said decision, and that the committee report to the Assembly the results of such investigation, with such recommendations as to the committee may seem meet and proper in the premises; be it further

"Resolved, That said committee shall have power to summon witnesses, and to send for persons and papers and to issue subpoenaes and compel attendance of witnesses when necessary."

[480] See Chapter IV.

[481] This view was entirely justified by the outcome in the Coffey case. Coffey was one of the boodle Supervisors who had at the test refused "to go back on his class." He was tried for bribe-taking and convicted. In the Court of Appeal practically the same points were raised in his favor as were raised in the Ruef case. The Appellate Court refused to interfere. The Supreme Court, by a three to four decision, granted Coffey a rehearing and later a new trial. The line-up of the eleven judges was the same in Coffey's case as in Ruef's--seven found Coffey had had a fair trial; four found that he had not. The four--under the rules of the legal game--were more potent than the seven. The jury verdict was nullified. The indictments against Coffey were finally dismissed. Had the Supreme Court's order for a rehearing of the Ruef case stood, the outcome would have unquestionably been the same.

[482] Some of the ablest men in the State urged impeachment proceedings. "If the charges," said United States Senator John D. Works in a letter to State Senator Hewitt, "made against Judge Henshaw by the Attorney-General of this State, under oath, are true, why is it the Legislature of this State before this has not commenced impeachment proceedings against him?

"The legislature has no right to shrink from this duty and responsibility and relieve itself from taking such a step by relegating that duty and responsibility to The People of the State by the enactment of recall legislation. If Judge Henshaw, or any other judge, has violated his duty to the State and betrayed his office as the charges made against him indicate, the duty of the legislature is imperative, and that duty should be performed without hesitation and without delay."

Justice Henshaw, in discussing Judge Works' letter, in an interview in the San Francisco Examiner, February 15, 1911, is quoted as saying: "All the charges made by Attorney General Webb in his affidavit attacking the Ruef rehearing order of January 30th are true. The orders were signed in the manner stated and I told him so when he visited my office. There was nothing unusual about it. It was done in accordance with the usual practice of this court.

"We seldom meet in session to sign the orders. There may be twenty cases to be passed on in one week. Each Justice looks them over at his leisure and signs what orders he agrees to.

"I was out of the State, as Mr. Webb says, and at the time that he says. I did not even imagine that there was a legal point involved. The practice never has been questioned before."

[483] The following is from the Supreme Court decision revoking the Ruef order for a rehearing (see California App. Reports, Vol. 14, page 576): "The moment Justice Henshaw left the State, in view of the authorities already referred to, he became unable to exercise any judicial function as a Justice of the Supreme Court, in this State or out of it, and this disability continued during the whole period of his absence. During that time his situation was the same as if he had absolutely ceased to be a member of this court. It is true that there was a suspension, only, of his judicial power, instead of a final abrogation thereof, but the suspension, while it continued, was as absolute in its effect on his judicial power as would have been a complete vacancy in his office. Assent to or concurrence in a decision or order of the court being the exercise of a purely judicial function, his previous proposal to concur in a proposed order, one that had not yet been made and one that had not yet received the assent of other justices making it an accomplished decision, temporarily ceased to be effectual for any purpose, and so continued ineffectual for any purpose during the whole period of his absence. Such previously indicated willingness to concur could not accomplish that which the absent justice himself could not accomplish. The time having expired before he returned it follows that he never concurred with even a single other justice in the purported order. (1) Admittedly this order, if it ever did become effectual, did not become so until January 22, 1911, when the fourth justice appended his name. At that time, however, Justice Henshaw could not effectually join therein, because of his absence from the State, and his previously indicated willingness to join therein could have no legal effect. The result is that only three justices of this court concurred in the purported order, and as such order could be made only by the concurrence of four justices, it was ineffectual for any purpose and void."

[484] Ford's term as prison director expired January 12, 1914. He continued in office until his term had expired and his successor had been appointed. After Ruef had confessed that the trolley bribe money had come to him through Ford, the Sacramento Bee of August 30, 1912, after reciting the allegations of Ruef's confession, said:

"There, in brief, is the tale which Abraham Ruef tells with much particularity. It is now in order for the Board of Prison Directors to ask the resignation of Prison Director Ford.

"Undoubtedly, Governor Johnson would make a demand to that effect were he in the State.

"Much sorrow, if not sympathy, has been felt for Tirey L. Ford all over California. The Bee has expressed some itself. The feeling has been that a man of naturally fine principles and honorable sentiments had been warped by his environments, and had done under instructions that at which his better nature rebelled.

"It would be futile now to discuss what Tirey L. Ford should have done and should not have done; or to declare that no temptation should have led him to perform any other than legal work for the United Railroads.

"The Bee will say as little as it can say conscientiously under the circumstances. Human nature is human nature the world over. And The Bee men cannot forget the long, long years of intimate friendship with and faith in Tirey L. Ford. But every consideration of the eternal fitness of things demands that he should no longer remain a member of the State Board of Prison Directors."

[485] The following is a fair sample of the articles descriptive of Ruef's suffering in prison, which have been inflicted upon the California public ever since Ruef donned stripes; it appeared in The San Francisco Bulletin of December 21, 1912: "Ruef is an epicure. As discordant sounds do violence to the feelings of a musician gifted with an exquisite ear, so coarse, badly cooked or tasteless food does violence to the epicure who is gifted with exquisite nerves for inhaling, tasting and appreciating delicate flavors. The gastric juices of the epicure cannot become freely active on mere hunger as with men not so endowed. Digestion with the epicure must wait upon the fine dictates of the palate; and a stomach so guarded cannot wantonly change to an extreme opposite without material suffering. To eat merely to be filled, to overeat, to eat hurriedly, is for the epicure, as one epicure puts it, 'to commit moral sins.' Ruef since his imprisonment has been compelled to do all these things."

[486] To this complaint of cruelty to Ruef, The Fresno Republican made sharp answer: "A visitor," said The Republican, "smuggled articles to Ruef--nothing more dangerous than sweet chocolate and newspaper clippings, to be sure, but still a covert violation of a necessary rule--so Ruef is deprived of visitors and letters for two months, and the automatic application of a general rule postpones his application for parole for six months. Whereat there is wailing and woe, and the San Francisco Call says that Ruef's friends regard it as particularly unfortunate that he should be deprived of visitors just at the time when a movement for his parole is going on.

"To all: Let us be sympathetic. Only let us make it general. Ruef shall have his sweet chocolate. But all the other prisoners shall have it too. Ruef shall sneak things into prison, inside his blouse, by bribing the guards. But all the other prisoners shall have all the like privileges, though it is known that some of them would prefer dope, daggers and dynamite to sweet chocolate."

[487] Commenting upon this the Sacramento Bee, in its issue of February 9, 1912, said: "In an effort to create sympathy for Abraham Ruef, a story was originated at San Francisco, and has found wide publicity as news, that the aged mother of the felon has been kept in ignorance of his imprisonment, and does not even know of his conviction for bribery.

"Yet letters purporting to come from and to be signed by Ruef's mother, and pleading for his parole, have been received by The Bee and other newspapers for months past. Either these letters were forgeries and fabrications, or this tale of the mother's ignorance of Ruef's confinement is mere fiction.

"In either case a contemptible trick has been played by some agency both active and unscrupulous in seeking to promote Ruef's release. After this the public and the newspapers may well be suspicious of sympathetic stories respecting Ruef and his confinement. If he is personally responsible for the effort to exploit his mother in the manner here related, he is even a more despicable specimen of humanity than the known facts of his career would indicate."

[488] Older, in a letter to Dr. S. W. Hopkins, of Lodi, gives his reasons for working for Ruef's release as follows:

"San Francisco, September 25, 1911. Dr. S. W. Hopkins, President Board of Health, Lodi, Cal. Dear Sir: If you read my article in the Survey, I think there is much in it that you did not understand. Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I tried to. I wanted those who read the Survey article to believe that I at least no longer think we are going to better the world by punishing men individually. I do not feel that it is good for people or for the editor of the Pacific Christian to want vengeance administered to our brothers and sisters. I think vengeance, and by vengeance I mean punishment, makes us all worse rather than better. I have asked for mercy for Ruef because I felt that I, above all others, had done most to bring about his downfall. If you have followed the long fight the Bulletin has made during the past eight or nine years, you will recall that I was fighting Ruef long years before the city woke up. You will also recall that I attacked him bitterly with all the invectives that I could personally command, and all that I could hire. I cartooned him in stripes. I described him on his way to San Quentin; told how I thought he would act en route, and what his manner would be when the barber shaved his head, and how he would feel when locked up in a cell. I was vindictive, unscrupulous, savage. I went to Washington and enlisted Heney in the fight. Burns came, and Spreckels joined in the chase. Then I pursued with the same relentless spirit in the wake of these men. At last, after eight years of a man-hunting and man-hating debauch, Ruef crossed over and became what I had wanted him to be, what I had longed and dreamed that he might be--a convict, stripped of his citizenship, stripped of everything society values except the remnant of an ill-gotten fortune. It was then I said to myself: 'I have got him. He is in stripes. He is in a cell. His head is shaved. He is in tears. He is helpless, beaten, chained--killed, so far as his old life is concerned. You have won. How do you like your victory? Do you enjoy the picture now that it is complete? You painted it. Every savage instinct in your nature is expressed on the canvas.'

"My soul revolted. I thought over my own life and the many unworthy things I had done to others, the injustice, the wrongs I had been guilty of, the human hearts I had wantonly hurt, the sorrow I had caused, the half-truths I had told, and the mitigating truths I had withheld, the lies I had allowed to go undenied. And then I saw myself also stripped, that is, stripped of all pretense, sham, self-righteousness, holding the key to another man's cell. I dropped the key. I never want to see it again. Let it be taken up and held by those who feel they are justified in holding it. I want no more jail keys. For the rest of my life I want to get a little nearer to the forgiving spirit that Christ expressed.

"Isn't what I am accusing myself of, true of all of us? Think it over. Think of your own life. Think of the lives of those around you, and see if you cannot discern that we are all guilty. And then think whether or not you believe that society will be benefited by denying Ruef a parole, which only gives him a half liberty and still holds him under the restrictions of the prison until his term is finished.

"I am surprised at the tone of the article you sent me, published in the Pacific Christian. It reads like a chapter out of the Old Testament rather than the New. But I fear that the world is being governed more upon the lines of the Old Testament than the New. I agree with the article about the young men who have been sent to prison for years. I would release them all if I could. But I can't. I can't even release Ruef, because society has not advanced far enough to make it possible. But I can at least be true to myself and express what I honestly feel.

"I wish as a favor to me that you would send a copy of this letter to the Pacific Christian, as I am leaving for the East and will not have time. I should like them to know what I am writing you. Sincerely yours, "Fremont Older."

[489] The San Jose Mercury, controlled by Congressman E. A. Hayes, in its issue of September 22, 1911, published one of these Ruef campaign articles. The following description of Ruef occurs:

"Not many months have gone since Ruef found domicile in States prison. But what changes Time has wrought in that brief period. The little man sits in his cell, lonely and solemn, as he meditates on the singularities of mankind. With no bitterness in his soul, without a thought of revenge twisting his sense of peace and good will toward man, he passes the time planning the comforts of his fellow unfortunates and reading and rereading the letters that come so regularly from the loved ones whose burdens he so gladly carried and to whose joy he so gladly contributed. He is neither unhappy nor without hope."

The same article contains another word picture--of Francis J. Heney. It reads:

"But if Older has turned 'right about face,' Heney, the other member of the firm, has not. He remains the unforgiving, snarling, short-haired bulldog, with his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him."

Such is the character of the publicity campaign to release Ruef from prison.

[490] When in 1914 Governor Johnson became candidate for re-election, extraordinary efforts were made to compel him to pardon, or to consent to the release of Ruef on parole. So persistent were Ruef advocates, that the Governor found it necessary to issue a statement of his position regarding Ruef. That statement will be found in full on page xxviii of the Appendix.