Under amendments to the San Francisco Charter, ratified by the Legislature of 1911, the Mayor and Supervisors are now elected to four-year terms.
George F. Hatton, Southern Pacific lobbyist and politician, and political manager for United States Senator George C. Perkins, was one of the principal leaders of the 1905 “reform” movement. He was at one time retained as an attorney by the Empire Construction Company, affiliated with the Home Telephone Company, which was seeking a franchise to establish a telephone system in San Francisco in competition with the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Home Telephone Company contributed to the “reform” campaign fund. Through the “reform” Board of Supervisors, who were to be elected, and whose campaign was thus financed, the Home Company was to get its franchise. But the “reform” candidates were defeated, the Schmitz-Ruef Union-Labor party candidates were elected. The Home Telephone Company thereupon proceeded to secure its franchise by employing Ruef.
William Thomas, of the law firm of Thomas, Gerstle & Frick, attorneys for the Home Telephone Company, testified before the Grand Jury that his company had contributed $8,000 to the “reform” campaign fund. The testimony indicated that this money was used at the primaries. Louis Sloss, one of the leaders of the “reform” movement, testified that after the primaries, Detweiler, who was at the head of the Home Telephone Company enterprise, sent his personal check for $800 additional. Fairfax H. Wheelan, one of the leaders of the “reform” movement, testified before the Grand Jury that the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, in the name of T. V. Halsey, subscribed $2,000 to the fund; and the United Railroads, concealing its identity under the name “Cash,” $2,000 more.
Dr. Charles Boxton was one of the Union-Labor party Supervisors elected in 1905. At the second trial of Louis Glass, vice-president of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, for bribery, Boxton testified that during the campaign, T. V. Halsey, political agent for the company, met him on the street and gave him a sealed envelope, saying: “If that will be of any use to you use it.”
Boxton found the envelope to contain $1,000 in United States currency.
Francis J. Heney when five years old went to San Francisco with his parents. He was educated at the public schools of that city, the University of California, and Hastings Law School. After being admitted to practice he lived for a time in Arizona, where he served as Attorney-General. On his return to San Francisco in 1895, he confined himself to civil practice until, at the solicitation of United States Attorney-General Knox, he undertook the prosecution of the Oregon Land Fraud cases. He was at the close of successful prosecution of these cases, when invited by Rudolph Spreckels, Phelan and others, to participate in the prosecution of the San Francisco graft cases.