GOULD'S DIRECTORS BRIBED TO RESIGN.
They made no further attempt to resort to the law. A fund of $300,000 was sent over by them to their American agents with which to bribe a number of Gould's directors to resign. As Gould had used these directors as catspaws, they were aggrieved because he had kept all of the loot himself. If he had even partly divided, their sentiments would have been quite different. The $300,000 bribery fund was distributed among them, and they carried out their part of the bargain by resigning. [Footnote: Assembly Document No. 98, 1873: xii and xiii. The English stockholders took no chances on this occasion. The committee reported that not until the directors had resigned did they "receive their price." ] The Assembly Investigating Committee of 1873 referred carelessly to the English stockholders as being "impatient at the law's delay" and therefore taking matters into their own hands. If a poor man or a trade union had become "impatient at the law's delay" and sought an illegal remedy, the judiciary would have quickly pronounced condign punishment and voided the whole proceeding. The boasted "majesty of law" was a majesty to which the underdogs only were expected to look up to in fear and trepidation.
When the English stockholders elected their own board Gould obtained an injunction from the courts. This writ was absolutely disregarded, and the anti-Gould faction on March 11, 1872, seized possession of the offices and books of the company by physical force. Did the courts punish these men for criminal contempt? No effort was made to. Many a worker or labor union leader had been sent to jail (and has been since), for "contempt of court," but the courts evidently have been willing enough to stomach all of the contempt profusely shown for them by the puissant rich. The propertyless owned nothing, not to speak of a judge, but the capitalists owned whole strings of judges, and those whom they did not own or corrupt were generally influenced to their side by association or environment. "All of this," reported the Assembly Investigating Committee of 1873, speaking of the means employed to overthrow Gould, "has been done without authority of law." But no law was invoked by the officials to make the participants account for their illegal acts.