“‘I am aware,’ said Calhoun, who was the first to be called, ‘that anything I might tell this body might be used against me.’
“‘With that understanding are you willing to become a witness before this Grand Jury?’ asked Heney.
“‘I am not,’ was Calhoun’s response.
“The Jurymen who had leaned forward as the reply of the president hung on his lips sank back in their seats.
“‘That is all, Mr. Calhoun,’ said Heney to the president, and then going to the door he said to the bailiff, ‘Call Mr. Mullally.’
“Mullally’s examination was identical with that of his superior’s and he was permitted to go. Neither President Calhoun nor Assistant Mullally will be called again to the jury room.”
Calhoun issued the following statement of his refusal to testify:
“When called before the Grand Jury this afternoon and informed that it had under investigation the alleged bribery of public officials by the United Railroads, we declined to be sworn and in order that our action may not be misconstrued, I call your attention to these facts:
“For months past the public prints have been full of charges traceable to certain persons connected with the prosecution that they had positive evidence that the United Railroads had spent not less than $450,000 in bribing the officials of this city. I have repeatedly stated that neither I nor the United Railroads, nor any official of the United Railroads, had bribed anyone, authorized any bribery, knew of any bribery or approved of any bribery. This statement I now fully reaffirm. It is not for us nor any officer of our company to disprove these grave charges. It is for those making them to prove them. We do not now care to discuss their motives. We know that they cannot produce any truthful evidence connecting us or any officer of the United Railroads with this alleged crime.
“We relied, in declining to be sworn, upon the broad Constitutional right of every American citizen that a defendant cannot be called as a witness, and upon the justice, fairness and common sense of the Grand Jury, to whom we look for complete vindication without offering one word in our own behalf.”