The San Francisco Chronicle, in its issue of January 17, 1907, said of the Change of Venue bill:
“Assemblyman Grove L. Johnson of Sacramento, and Senator L. A. Wright of San Diego, have introduced identical bills which provide in brief, that in any criminal trial the accused may displace the Judge upon his mere affidavit that he ‘believes he cannot have a fair and impartial trial.’ Upon the filing of such an affidavit the services of some other Judge must be secured, provided that in counties having more than one department of the Superior Court the case shall be transferred to some other department of the same county. The bill provides that the act shall take effect immediately upon its passage. The obvious intent of the law is to enable the indicted boodlers of this city to select the Judge who shall try them, to set aside all that has thus far been done to get them before a jury and have their cases retried from the beginning.”
Ruef had, as early as 1904, secured a hold on the State Legislature, by putting up and electing a Union Labor party legislative ticket. “I told the legislators,” said Ruef in a statement published after he had entered San Quentin prison, “to vote on all labor questions and legislation directly involving labor interests always for the labor side. I told them on all other questions to follow the Herrin program. Herrin was appreciative. He expressed his sense of obligation.”—Abraham Ruef’s “The Road I Traveled,” published in San Francisco Bulletin, July 6, 1912.
Keane, at the trial of The People vs. Ruef, No. 1437, admitted that he had supported “The Assembly bill providing for changes of place of trial in certain cases,” at the special request of Ruef. See transcript on appeal, part 3, book 1, pages 442-3. Keane was also active in the advocacy of other measures changing the law governing criminal cases. One of these practically forbade public comment on a criminal trial from the impaneling of the Grand Jury until the rendering of the verdict. Commenting upon this anti-publicity bill, E. H. Hamilton, in a dispatch from Sacramento to the San Francisco Examiner, published in that paper March 5, 1907, said: “This bill had been sneaked through the Senate the other night when no one was paying any attention, but Senator Boynton moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed, and brought up the matter to-day, asking that the bill be given a free discussion before it was acted upon. He showed that it was directly in opposition to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State, because it was aimed directly at the freedom of the press and intended to prevent newspapers from publishing accounts of criminal trials.
“Senator Sanford of Mendocino said that it was an attempt to muzzle the press and to prevent people from ascertaining what was going on in criminal lawsuits, but the Senate refused to reconsider the vote by which it had passed the unconstitutional bill.”
Keane also pressed an amendment to the codes to prevent stenographers and bookkeepers testifying against their employers. During the discussion in the Senate Committee on the Change of Venue bill, Keane offered an amendment to make this measure take effect immediately.
On the way across San Francisco Bay to take the train at Oakland, in the words of newspaper reports of the incident, members of Mayor Schmitz’s personal following who accompanied him, “were frankly delighted with the prospect of the indicted Mayor returning from the national capital covered with glory, and acclaimed the savior of the country from a war with Japan.”
Ruef regarded the incident cynically. “As soon as Schmitz got aboard that train,” said Ruef on the day of the Mayor’s departure, “the nation was saved.”