Heney, in his opening statement, announced that he did not intend to put Ruef on the stand. The second case presented was, if anything, stronger than the first, but the jury brought in a verdict of “not guilty.” General Ford was tried on a third of the indictments against him, and again was the verdict of the jury “not guilty.”
Long after, the prosecution discovered that agents for the United Railroads had systematically corrupted members of its detective force. On the evidence in the hands of the prosecution, a search warrant was secured, and the offices of the United Railroads raided in a search for stolen documents. Copies of over 2400 documents belonging to the prosecution were found. It developed that men in the employ of the prosecution were receiving regular monthly salaries from agents of the United Railroads to turn these reports over to agents of the defense for copying. The defense was in this way kept informed of all that had been reported to the prosecution regarding jurors, etc., by Burns’s own agents.[318]
At the time of the third Ford trial, for example, Heney was engaged with Ruef’s trial in the Parkside case. The Ford trial was conducted for the State by John O’Gara. One of Burns’s men, Platt by name, was appointed to assist O’Gara by advising him of the character of the men drawn for jury service. O’Gara repeatedly discovered Platt’s advice and suggestions to be unreliable. Long after it was discovered that Platt was at the time in the employ of agents for the United Railroads. The reason for the character of his advice and suggestions was then apparent.
At none of the Ford trials did the defense attempt to meet the evidence which the prosecution presented. At the third trial, the prosecution called President Calhoun and Abe Ruef[319] to the stand. But both declined to answer. The disposition of the $50,000 in currency in small bills, and of the $150,000 in currency in large bills, which passed into General Ford’s hands, at the time that currency of this exact amount and description passed into the hands of Abe Ruef, $85,000 of which Ruef distributed among the Supervisors for voting for the United Railroads trolley permit, continues as great a mystery as it was on the day that the first Ford trial opened. Ruef at the time of his plea of guilty to the extortion charge, and five years later in the story of his career published in the San Francisco Bulletin, admitted that the $200,000 that on Calhoun’s order was turned over to Ford was soon after paid to him (Ruef) because of the granting of the trolley permit. The $85,000 that Gallagher divided among the Supervisors on account of their granting this permit, Ruef has stated in his several confessions, came out of this Calhoun-to-Ford, Ford-to-Ruef $200,000.
And in California there are many who hold that in this instance, at least, Ruef is telling the truth.
CHAPTER XXI.
The San Francisco Election of 1907.
Scarcely had the prosecution overcome the delaying tactics of the defense, and forced graft cases to trial, than District Attorney Langdon had to defend title to his office at the polls.
Langdon had taken office in January, 1906. His term was to expire in January, 1908. The municipal election, at which Mr. Langdon’s successor was to be elected, was to be held in November.