“If there be anything left out of the $100,000 we will talk about fee,” Heney replied. “But I don’t think there will be anything left and I will put up my time against your money.”
It was practically settled at this meeting that Heney should devote himself to the prosecution of corruptionists against whom evidence might be secured. He returned to Washington early in March to wind up his affairs there. Before he could return to San Francisco, came the earthquake and fire.
Heney got back to San Francisco April 25, one week after the disaster. He had another conference with Spreckels.[80] Spreckels told him that he wanted the investigation begun at the earliest possible moment, and that he (Spreckels) would himself guarantee the expenses which might be incurred.[81] Heney notified Burns, and as early as June[82] Burns had begun the investigation that was to result in the downfall of Ruef, and the scattering of his forces.
By the middle of the following October, Heney had so arranged his affairs as to be free to devote himself to the San Francisco investigation. His appointment as Deputy District Attorney followed.
In view of one of the principal defenses advanced by Ruef and his allies, namely, that the graft prosecution was undertaken to injure the United Railroads, these dates are important. The services for which the bribe money which got the United Railroads into difficulties was paid, were not rendered until May 21, 1906, long after final arrangements had been made for Burns to conduct the investigation and Heney to assist in the prosecution. The actual passing of the United Railroads bribe money was not completed until late in August[83] of that year. Burns was at work, and had received pay for his services before the bribe-giving for which United Railroad officials were prosecuted had taken place.[84]
Langdon’s announcement that he would appoint Heney as a Deputy District Attorney, to assist in investigating into charges of official corruption, brought upon him the condemnation of the municipal administration and of the leaders of the Union-Labor party. P. H. McCarthy and O. A. Tveitmoe, who, from opposing the Union-Labor party movement in 1901-3 had, by the time the Graft Prosecution opened, become prominent in its councils, were particularly bitter in their denunciations. At a Ruef-planned mass meeting held at the largest auditorium in the city October 31, 1906, for the purpose of organizing a league for the protection of the administration, Langdon was dubbed “traitor to his party,” a man “who has gone back on his friends,” “the Benedict Arnold of San Francisco.”
Heney was denounced as “the man from Arizona.” On the other hand Mayor Schmitz was called “the peerless champion of the people’s rights,” and Ruef, “the Mayor’s loyal, able and intrepid friend.”
Thomas Egan, one of the organizers of the Union-Labor party, stated of the graft prosecution: “This movement, led by Rudolph Spreckels and engineered by James D. Phelan, conceived in iniquity and born in shame, is for the purpose of destroying the labor organizations and again to gain control of the government of our fair city.”
Ruef, in an earnest address, insisted upon his innocence of wrongdoing. “As sure as there is a God in heaven,” he announced solemnly, “they have no proof as they claim.”[85]
Acting Mayor Gallagher issued a statement in which he took the same ground as had Egan at the Dreamland Rink mass meeting, that the prosecution was a movement on the part of the Citizens’ Alliance to disrupt the labor unions.[86]