“’I am authorized to state in the most positive way that neither Mr. Calhoun nor any officer of the United Railroads ever paid or authorized anyone to pay one dollar to any official.
‘THORNWELL MULLALLY,
‘Assistant to the President United Railroads.’”
The following statement was published over the name of Otto T. Hildebrecht, one of the two jurors who had voted to convict:
“As soon as we entered the jury room, I overheard a crowd of the jurors in the rear of the hall shouting ‘Acquit! Acquit!’ We then proceeded to name a foreman. This matter disposed of, the members began balloting.
“In the first half hour three ballots were cast. On the first vote it stood 8 to 4 for acquittal. On the second ballot Maguire succumbed to the pressure. I called upon him for his reasons for changing his vote and he replied: ‘Oh, these corrupt conditions have always prevailed in San Francisco. The Supervisors in this case are no different from the other men, who have filled those offices. It will always be like that.’ To combat this attitude on Maguire’s part, I stated, ‘Well, it is time to stamp out the crimes in this, city. In order that the evil may be corrected we must put a stop to it.’ This seemed to have no weight with Maguire.
“The next ballot showed that Anthes had gone over to the others. From him I secured this information: ‘Oh, why I always vote with the majority.’ I said, ‘Why, how can an honest man take that view of the matter?’ I have taken an oath and at that time announced that I would try this case solely on the evidence.
“It is plainly pointed out in the testimony of Sanderson that Calhoun was present when Ruef said, ‘This thing will go through on Monday. It is all settled.’ This produced no impression upon the others, although I argued that such testimony alone proved Calhoun’s guilty knowledge of the plan to put the deal through when he remarked in answer to Sanderson’s query, ‘Then you won’t need me?’ ‘I don’t think we do.’
“I then asked the other jurors to come into court, they contending that Ruef had carried on the conversation with Sanderson and that Calhoun was an innocent witness. We asked to have this testimony revealed and the jurors filed into court. Upon returning to the jury room we renewed our deliberations.
“The other ten jurors came at Binner and myself and sought to induce me to stretch my imagination to the end that Calhoun had paid the money to Ruef, but only as a fee. They acknowledged right there that Calhoun had paid over the money but they argued that he didn’t know that the money was going to be used as a bribe to the Supervisors,—only as a fee to Ruef. After that I knew that these men had purposely taken the wrong view of the whole matter. I had called them to account for the remarks that the testimony throughout the case was all purchased and that Heney had held the whip over the Supervisors. Thereupon they backed down on that stand and made their whole plea on the ground that Calhoun had given the trolley money to Ruef as a fee.