“What is your plea?” asked Judge Dunne of the prisoner.
And Ruef replied, “Guilty.”[229]
CHAPTER XVI.
Schmitz Convicted of Extortion.
One week after Ruef had plead guilty to the charge of extortion, his co-defendant, Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz, indicted jointly with Ruef, was brought to trial, under indictment No. 305, to which Ruef had entered his plea of guilty.
Hiram W. Johnson and J. J. Dwyer appeared with Heney and Langdon for the Prosecution. The defense was represented by the firm of Campbell, Metson & Drew, assisted by John J. Barrett and Charles Fairall, all prominent at the San Francisco bar.
The preliminaries were not unlike those of the Ruef trial, which, at the point where testimony would have been taken, was stopped by Ruef’s plea of guilty. There were the same allegations of bias, the same attempts to secure change of venue, the same appeals to the higher courts in habeas corpus proceedings. But these moves availed Schmitz as little as they had Ruef. Point by point the upper courts found against the indicted Mayor; step by step he was dragged to proceedings before a trial jury.
The selection of the jury occupied two weeks. But with the swearing of the twelfth juror, Schmitz did not stop proceedings with tearful confession and a plea of guilty. Doggedly the troubled Mayor let the trial go on. The Prosecution called its witnesses to the stand.
One by one Schmitz’s former associates as well as the restaurant men from whom, through Ruef, he had received money, took the stand and told the sordid story of the corruption of the Schmitz-Ruef administration.