At the trial of The People vs. Ruef, No. 1437, Gallagher testified that Spreckels told him in substance as follows:
“Mr. Spreckels then stated that he was not actuated by vindictiveness in the matter, that he did not wish to make any more trouble or cause any more distress than was necessary in carrying out what he had undertaken, and that his purpose was to endeavor to stop the unlawful transactions,—dealings of corporations and large interests in this city with public officials; that his reason, that his view of the matter was that in order to accomplish that, that it would be necessary, or that he did not desire unnecessarily to injure anyone, and that the members of the Board of Supervisors and those who were engaged with them in the matter, outside of those who represented the corporations and big interests, were not as important from his standpoint as those who had, as those in control of those interests, because the members of the—the public officials and political bosses would come and go, but that the corporations and big interests remained; that they were, as he thought, the source of the trouble, and therefore, he did not consider it important, or so important, to punish the officials as to reach those that were in his judgment primarily responsible for the conditions, that he felt that the District Attorney would grant immunity to the members of the Board of Supervisors if they would tell the whole truth of their transactions with the corporations and other persons, large interests, that had had any dealings with them of an unlawful character. I think I then said to him I would consider the matter and would talk with the members of the Board of Supervisors about it.”
Gallagher at the trial of The People vs. Ruef, No. 1437, made the following statement of what he said to the Supervisors:
“My best recollection of the statement is that I said to them that some of the members of the Board of Supervisors had been trapped in accepting money on some matters before the Board, and that they had made statements to the prosecution, as I understood, or were about to do so, and that I had seen Mr. Spreckels and talked with him concerning the other members of the Board of Supervisors, and that Mr. Spreckels had stated to me that the purpose was not to prosecute the members of the Board of Supervisors provided they would make statements, full and true statements, of their relations in the transactions with the quasi-public corporations and large interests in the city that they may have had unlawful dealings with; that Mr. Spreckels had stated that the public officials were coming and going, and that the political bosses were coming and going; his object was to reach the source of the condition that he was trying to eradicate; that the corporations and these other interests remained all the time, and that he felt that they were the ones that should be the object of his efforts at eradicating that condition in the city. Mr. Spreckels stated that he was not actuated by vindictiveness in the matter; in other words, Mr. Ach, as nearly as I could, I repeated the statements of Mr. Spreckels to me.”
See Transcript on Appeal, page 1471.
“I told them,” said Wilson in his testimony in the case of The People vs. Ruef, No. 1437, “that I had always taken orders from Mr. Ruef, that I looked upon him as the political captain of the ship, that I had followed out his orders; that I did not feel that I should sacrifice myself, or ask Mr. Gallagher to sacrifice himself through the condition that had been brought about; that I thought it would be unreasonable for any Supervisor to ask Mr. Gallagher to sacrifice himself, that some of the others might walk the streets and feel that they were honest men; that I did not feel he should be sacrificed alone in the matter.”
The public service corporation officials were encouraged by Spreckels and Heney to give information which would lead to the indictment and conviction of Ruef and Schmitz, and thus clean up the city. Instead of giving such information, they pretended that the rumors in regard to bribery were all baseless.