“From all the available information at hand,” said Colonel Harris Weinstock, of the firm of Weinstock-Lubin & Co., in replying to this argument, “I find that on the whole the volume of business is greater in San Francisco than it ever was before. I am, therefore, unable to see how business has been hurt by the Graft Prosecution.
“The burden of proof on this point properly rests with those making the charge. They should present facts and figures verifying their statement that business has been hurt by the graft prosecution before they can hope to have it accepted as fact.
“So far as I have been able to find out, the Graft Prosecution has not hurt business, but even if it had seriously crippled business it would still be your duty and my duty and the duty of every lover and well-wisher of our free institutions to hold up the hands of those who are fighting your battle and my battle in an effort to bring public wrongdoers to justice, and thus prevent harm from coming to the republic. Let the work go on.”
The American National Bank of San Francisco, in a financial letter issued August 25, 1909, gave figures which disproved the Hellman idea.
“It is significant of San Francisco’s credit standing in the world at large,” the letter read, “that the bonds of this city command prices that compare favorably with the issues of other large municipalities, as measured by the low interest return which investors are willing to accept. To illustrate: For every $1,000 put into municipal bonds at present figures, the purchaser would receive per annum:
| “From San Francisco bonds | $39.00 |
| “From Philadelphia bonds | 37.00 |
| “From Cincinnati bonds | 37.50 |
| “From Cleveland bonds | 37.50 |
| “From St. Louis bonds | 38.80 |
| “From Pittsburg bonds | 37.00 |
| “From Chicago bonds | 38.50 |
| “From Minneapolis bonds | 38.50 |
| “From Milwaukee bonds | 39.00 |
| “From New York bonds | 39.50 |
“Considering these facts, and the readiness with which the San Francisco bonds are being taken, it does not appear that this city is suffering in reputation, as some people affect to believe, by reason of certain trials which have engaged the attention of the criminal courts for two years past.”
“I have no patience,” said Heney, in discussing the Hellman argument, “with this talk that we hear from merchants and bankers that the Prosecution is hurting business. They heard the same talk in Boston when our Revolutionary sires threw tea overboard. It would hurt business, they said, to have a war with England. I can see the picture, when Thomas Jefferson was signing the Declaration of Independence, of a large man, who looked like the cartoonist’s representation of a corporation official, coming through the door behind him and shouting, ‘Hold on, Tom, you’ll hurt business.’ And when Washington was spending that terrible winter with his army at Valley Forge, the same class of men who are now crying at us in San Francisco were shouting for the war to stop. ‘Damn principle,’ they were crying. ‘It’s hurting business. This war must stop.’”
“It is,” said the Chronicle, commenting upon the adoption of such resolutions, “a matter of common knowledge that there is a widespread feeling among those whose good citizenship cannot be disputed that the city, having done its best for three years, without success, to find legal proof which would connect officials of the corporations which profited by the corruption of the Schmitz administration with the crime of bribery, it is necessary to discontinue the effort. Hitherto no one has been willing to formally approach the authorities in the matter lest he should appear to show sympathy with evildoers. The Richmond Club, however, has formally memorialized the Supervisors to withdraw further support by appropriations on the ground that it has become apparent that success is impossible, and that further effort would be not only a waste of money and energy but serve to keep before the world the memory of a most disgraceful epoch in our history.