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Updated: June 3, 2025
The Grand Jury acted immediately upon the wholesale confessions of Ruef's Supervisors. They summoned before them the heads of many corporations, uncovering bribery so vast and open that they were astounded.
Ruef's confession served to widen the breach between Class and Mass. He implicated many corporation heads and social leaders in a sorry tangle of wrongdoing. Other situations added fuel to the flame of economic war. The strike of the telephone girls had popular support, a sympathy much strengthened by the charges of bribery pending against telephone officials.
Justice often has its cruel, relentless aspects. Haas, with his weak, heavy face, stayed in Stanley's memory. An ordinary man might have tried again and won. But Haas was drunken with self-pity and the melancholy of his race. He would brood and suffer. Frank felt sorry for the man, and, somehow, vaguely apprehensive. Ruef's trial ended in a disagreement of the jury. It was a serious blow.
He had a great plan for combining all political factions an altruistic dream of economic brotherhood. Francisco listened somewhat skeptically. He was not certain of the man's sincerity, but he admired Ruef. Of his executive ability there could be no doubt. Yet there was something vaguely wrong about the wondrous fitness of Ruef's plan.
Back of him was Abe Ruef, the Boss, an unscrupulous lawyer who had wormed his way into the labor party, and manipulated the "leaders" like puppets. Ruef's game also was elementary.
"Little Abe will have his hands full with big 'Gene, I'm thinking." "But Ruef's not daunted by the prospect." "Heavens, no. The man has infinite self-confidence. And it's no fatuous egotism, either. A sort of suave, unshakable trust in himself. Abe Ruef's the cleverest politician San Francisco's known in many years perhaps since Broderick. He makes such men as Burns and Buckley look like tyros "
Now they're huddled like a pack of frightened sheep; everybody thinks they're guilty. Ruef's forsaken them. Ruef, with his big dream shattered, fleeing from the law...." He faced his uncle fiercely, questioning. "Is that God's work? And Bertha's body lying there, because of the sins of her forebears! Forgive me, Uncle Robert. I'm just thinking aloud."
Frank, himself, went to the council chamber to learn what was afoot. He suspected a sensation. But the Board met quietly enough at 2:30 o'clock, with Jim Gallagher in the chair. At 2:45 a special messenger called the acting Mayor to Ruef's office. Three hours later he was still absent from the angry and impatient Board. That some desperate move was imminent Frank realized.
"Oh, Ruef's too smart for Langdon," said Aleta. "Every Sunday night he, Schmitz and Big Jim Gallagher hold a caucus. Gallagher is Ruef's representative on the Board. They figure out what will occur at Monday's session of the Supervisors. It's all cut and dried." "It can't last long," Frank mused. "They're getting too much money.
"It's arranged, I understand, for quarter of a million dollars." Frank pondered. "What'll Langdon say to that?" William H. Langdon was the district attorney, a former superintendent of schools, whom Ruef had put on his Union Labor ticket to give it tone. But Langdon had refused to "take program." He had even raided the "protected" gamblers, ignoring Ruef's hot insinuations of "ingratitude."
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