“We, the undersigned citizens and residents of Sonoma and vicinity, mindful of the good work you are all doing, wish to show our appreciation of your efforts, and encourage you in continuing to pursue the course you have marked out, to the end that all law breakers shall be punished and the majesty of the law vindicated.”
Heney, in a published statement regarding these indictments, said: “We do not consider for a minute that there is a particle of merit to any of the claims made by the defendants that the former indictments were defectively drawn in any detail. It is wise, however, to be prepared for anything that might happen at any subsequent time, and so the present true bills have been found. These indictments are so drawn as to eliminate every technical objection that has been made by any of the defendants to the former indictments, and the action has been at this time so that the statute of limitations would not run against the crime charged. There is absolutely no significance to the fact that the name of Abbott and Mullally were omitted, except that we feel that the cases against the three defendants named are of far greater importance. Our sole purpose has been to throw an anchor to windward to avoid possible trouble in the future.”
James D. Phelan, at the mass meeting called after the attempted assassination of Heney, summed up the Parkside case tersely: “Take the Parkside case,” he said. “There were some men who wanted a franchise which we were all willing to concede, but the boss said it would be advisable to pay for it. Instead of making a demand upon the Supervisors and an appeal to the citizens on the justice of their cause and the desirability of giving them the franchise, they continued their dickering with Ruef, and for so much money, thirty thousand dollars, I believe, he said he would give it to them. Then they ‘doctored’ their books and went down to the Crocker National Bank and got the money in green-backs, handed out to them by the teller of that institution, whose managers were stockholders in the Parkside, among them a gentleman who told you the other day to vote against the Hetch-Hetchy proposition, Mr. William H. Crocker.
“Now, finding that they could get so easily a privilege by paying for it, what did they do? They asked Mr. Ruef to give them the franchise, not on Twentieth avenue, an ungraded street, which they first wanted, but in Nineteenth avenue, which had been dedicated as a boulevard for the use of the people, which was substantially paved, and which was the only avenue we had to cross from the park to Ingleside. He said to them that that would take fifteen thousand dollars more, and they said ‘It’s a bargain.’ And these gentlemen who sought the least objectionable franchise, tell you now that they were victims, tell you now that they could not get their franchise any other way. They were glad because they were a part of the system, a part of the ‘other fellows’ of the affiliated interests. They were glad to pay their money, which was a paltry sum to them, in order to perpetuate the rule of Ruef; that they could go to him on any other occasion to get an extension, or a privilege or a franchise, or anything that they wanted, by simply paying for it. It would be the simplest form of government, my friends, to have somebody sitting in a place of power and pass out to you what you want. It would save you the expense of a campaign, it would save you the advertising in the newspapers, it would save you the cost of mailing a circular to every voter. It is indeed, a most economical and direct method of getting what you want from the government.”
The Oakland Tribune, in support of Ruef’s plea for delay, said: “Now the question arises: Is Ruef now being prosecuted in good faith for the offenses alleged against him or is he being forced to trial without adequate preparation merely to coerce him into giving testimony he has repeatedly told Heney, Langdon and Burns would be false? Is not the summary process of law being invoked to compel Ruef to tell to a trial jury a different story from the one he related under oath to the Oliver Grand Jury? In other words, is not the prosecution now trying either to punish Ruef for refusing to commit or convict himself of perjury or intimidate him into assisting, as a witness under duress, Heney and Langdon to make good the threat they reiterated on the stump last fall that they would send Patrick Calhoun to State prison?
“Admitting Ruef to be guilty of all the crimes of which he stands accused, is he not now being proceeded against in a criminal spirit and with a criminal intent? Having failed to get what they want by compounding the felonies of Ruef and his followers, are not the prosecution resorting to compulsion under the forms of law to compel the commission of perjury?”