And opposed to the strongest men of the California bar, The People had two representatives. One of them, Heney, was serving without pay, was still a sick man not having fully recovered from his wound inflicted but a few months before, and worn out from the continued effort of a three-years’ fight to get at the root of municipal corruption in San Francisco. The second, a regularly employed Deputy District Attorney, John J. O’Gara, was receiving $300 a month for his services. It is not unlikely that some of the best of the attorneys for the defense, for defending Mr. Calhoun, received as much in a day. Compared with the army of lawyers for the defense, the representation of The People was pitifully small.
Through the long, grueling contest of the trial, lasting for five months and eight days,[423] Heney and O’Gara were kept under constant strain, while the defendant’s attorneys relieved one another when their labors became irksome.
The bulk of the hammering and of the technical quibbling was directed against Heney. Heney, still suffering from the effects of his wound, received at the Ruef trial, worn-out, over-worked, harassed in the public prints, would at times become thoroughly exasperated. Every indication of impatience on his part, or of temper, was made subject of attack in the opposing newspapers.[424] These attacks, long persisted in, did their part in the general campaign to weary the public with the prosecution, and undermine confidence in Heney.
The examination of talesmen for jury service showed the results of this long-continued campaign. Many talesmen announced their sympathy with the defendants, and deplored the prosecution, which they appeared to believe had brought shame upon and injured the city. Some went so far as to call the prosecution of Calhoun an outrage.[425] Others intimated that the giving of bribe money might have been justifiable.[426] Such expressions, coming from men of average intelligence and ordinarily law-abiding, showed conclusively that the persistent efforts of the defense to poison the public mind against the prosecution was at last bringing results.
But after months of effort a jury was secured to hear the case and the trial began.
Heney, in his opening statement to the jury, set forth the prosecution expected to prove that Ruef authorized James L. Gallagher to offer the bribe to Supervisor Nicholas; that Ruef afterwards gave the money to Gallagher to pay Nicholas; that Calhoun authorized Ruef, either through Tirey L. Ford, or personally, or both, to make the offer to Gallagher and to authorize Gallagher to make the offer to Nicholas.
The prosecution showed by Gallagher that the offer had been made to Nicholas and to every member of the Board of Supervisors with the exception of Rea. In this, Gallagher was corroborated by the Supervisors. Not only had the offer been made, but the bribe money had been paid.
Gallagher testified that he had received $85,000 from Ruef to be distributed among the Supervisors for their votes which gave the United Railroads its overhead trolley permit, and that, after keeping out $15,000 for himself, he had distributed the money among them, giving to Supervisor Nicholas $4000 of the amount.
Supervisor Nicholas testified that Gallagher had offered him the bribe and had paid him the money.
By the officials of the United States Mint, the prosecution showed that $200,000, about the time of the bribery, had been turned over to General Tirey L. Ford, on order from Mr. Calhoun. The $200,000 could not be accounted for by the available books of the United Railroads. Ruef and Ford were shown to have been in close touch with each other during the period.[427]