“When Mr. Ruef made his apparently frank statement admitting that he had betrayed his city into the hands of the spoilers, but promised to do all in his power to right the wrong, whatever the consequences might be to himself, the public believed him and believed that he was going to do right because it was right and for his own self-respect, and not at the price of saving his own skin. Acting on this assumption many of us congratulated Mr. Ruef and assured him that he had gone far toward recovering his position in the public esteem. It now turns out from your letter of explanation that Mr. Ruef’s public statement of his high and noble purpose was a mockery and hollow sham; that he had rejected any proposition to act the man, but like his contemptible associates, sought only to escape his just deserts.
“We recognize the unfortunate necessity the prosecution was under of granting immunity in order to secure the evidence to convict the greater felons, but surely the officers of the law were fully qualified to attend to that miserable business. If you could have influenced Mr. Ruef to stand on the higher plane of honor and decency of which you are the advocate and representative, you would indeed have done a great public service and you might have saved him for better things, but it would seem that your services were directed chiefly to saving him from the just penalty of his crimes and that the arrangement with him was on the same sordid level as the immunity contracts with the Supervisors, for which no ministerial services were necessary. From your position and religious heritage we had a right to expect that your distinguished services would have been put to a better use. I am still sufficiently credulous as to believe that with proper influence Mr. Ruef might have been induced to take the course we were led to believe he had taken.
“Your letter even leaves it to be inferred that Mr. Ruef is justified in his present attitude, and that the judges, who, from your statement, were ready to go to the extreme of mercy and consideration, are now to be censured for not carrying out an immunity contract which has been flagrantly broken by the other party to it.
“The serious features of this unfortunate situation are not that officials should receive bribes, or that men of wealth and standing should bribe them, or that attorneys of reputation should engineer the filthy operation, but that not one of the army of bribed and bribers has been found of sufficient manliness or moral stamina to make a frank statement of the facts and give aid in the cause of justice, and that so many people are willing to shield the influential criminals for commercial motives, and that there is so low a state of public morals as to make these things possible.
“The great body of the public is heart and soul back of this prosecution, because we believe it is an honest attempt, not merely to convict certain criminals, but to elevate the standard of public morality, and whatever may be the outcome and even though, through successive miscarriages of justice, every guilty man escape his legal punishment, the graft prosecution has, nevertheless, succeeded beyond our fondest hopes; nine-tenths of its work has been accomplished, and in the teeth of the most determined and desperate opposition perhaps ever known.
“Be assured that every guilty man will be convicted at the bar of public opinion, and from that conviction there will be no appeal and no escape; they will be known and branded for life, each and every one. The public is not a party to the immunity contracts.
“Very truly yours,
“W. H. PAYSON.
“San Francisco, January 30, 1908.”
District Attorney Langdon’s statement in reply to these criticisms was as follows: “I have no answer at this time to make to the statements given out by Patrick Calhoun and made in behalf of other defendants in the graft cases with the intention of discrediting the prosecution and attempting to lead the public to believe that we have acted unfairly in the conduct of these cases. The time will come when such charges will be answered, but they will be answered only as events shall direct.