DESPERATE DEEDS. SAN FRANCISCO SENSATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 117, 19 May 1909, Page 4

DESPERATE DEEDS. SAN FRANCISCO SENSATIONS.

GRAFTERS STEAL THE STATE'S EVIDENCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 15th April. "Desparate men will do desperate things," said Patrick Calhoun, President of the United Railroads oi San Francisco, who is on trial for bribery. Calhoun's office had been, entered by detectives, his safes had been broken open and his papers searched. Such treatment, he said, would not be tolerated in Russia or Turkey. But there was a reason for this desparate outrage, the detectives knew that certain documents necessary k> the prosecution nad been stolen front the office of the prosecuting attorneys, and they believed they would! fiud them in Calhoun's safes. And they were right. "Desparate men will do desperate things," replied the Bulletin, the local evening paper which has led the fight against the grafters from the beginning, and which for two years fonght alone. The Bulletin went on to relate some of the desperate things that had. been done in the effort to keep the grafters out of gaol. Here are some of the more violent of the deeds and conspiracies for which the grafters are held responsible:— Plot to get Abe Ruef out of the way while he was on bail, so that his confessions might not be used as evidence against the other grafters. Plot to seduce Supervisor Lonergan, an important witness for the prosecution, so that a serious criminal charge might be brought against Ruef. Kidnapping of the editor of the Bulletin, Fremont Older. Bribing of Pete Claudianes to dynamite the house of Gallagher, chief witness for the prosecution. Attempt to get Heney, the chief prosecuting counsel, arrested on a charge of murder arising out of his killing Dr. Handy, of Arizona, in 1876— a deed acknowledged to have been done in selfdefence. Shooting of Heney through the head by Morris Haas, followed by the mysterious shooting of Haas in gaol. Further sensations have been added to the list in the past three weeks. First came the discovery of he theft oil papers from the prosecuting attorneys. Then a traitor to Calhoun's cause revealed that evidence had been manufactured to show that the leading men of the- prosecution had been the instigators of the great and bloody street car strike in 1907. THE THIEF CHASE. The object of Calhoun's men in stealing the papers from the prosecuting attorneys was to gain possession of the original confessions of Abe Ruef and the city supervisors regarding the bribes paid on Calhoun's behalf for the privilege of running electric cars through the city. These they failed to get, but they got several other important documents incriminating Calhoun, besides large numbers of reports of examinations of prospective jurors for the Calhoun trial. These reports are valuable. Under the ridiculous system of jury selection in vogue here, each side tries to find out from the men summoned for jury service what are their feelings with regard to the case, and each side employs an army of 'detectives for this sole purpose. The actual stealing was done by men in the office of W. J. Burns, chief detective for the prosecution, under the inducement of bribes paid by Calhoun's men. The bribed thieves have confessed. The principal one, Hanilin, who was private secretary to Burns, was paid 200 dollars a month by an employee of the United Railroads for stealing the papers. Burns, detecting a leakage, worked quietly till he traced it to Hamlin. He paid nothing, but planned the raid on the United Railroads offices. Unfortunately for him, Calhoun's men, who have &pies continually watching him, got wind of the project, and were able to remove the most important of the papers before the raid. The lime chosen for the raid was the evening of Saturday, 27th March, when there- were no employees »abo\it to •disturb the search. The officers of the law were met at the door of the United Railroads office by one of Calhoun's leaders, who declared their search warrant invalid, and refused them admission. A detective promptly smashed in the door. The search was made in spite of the protests of Calhoun's attorneys, all of whom had been summoned. Next clay (Sunday) the search was continued. Calhoun's own private safe was searched. The millionaire refused to open it, and it had to be cracked by pn expert. Calhoun protested, fumed, and raged — in vain. Then his attorneys went to a judge and got a temporary order to forbid the search. The attorneys on the other side said the order was invalid and refused to cease. For this they have been charged with contempt of court ; but they found the stolen papers. Simultaneously with the raid, Burns's men were arresting the perpetrators of the theft. There was a sensation when it became known that even W. M. Abbott, a noted lawyer in the employ of the United Railroads, and Luther Brown, head of the Caihoun detective agency, were in custody, as well as their took, who had committed the actual thefts. WHAT AN OUTRAGE! The most interesting feature of this raid was the amusing indignation of Calhoun. "If the Emperor of Germany, the Tsar of Russia, or the Sultan of Turkey bad permitted such an outrasge,"' he said, "it would have created an international sensation." He went on to revile the leaders oi" the prosecution by name. "How long, people of San Francisco, will you submit to the outrages perpetrated by Spreckels, Older, Heney, and Burns?" He simply ignored the fact that the stolen papers were found in his office. (It should be understood that Spreckels is placed first in this lift because lie is the one man amongst the graft-fighters against whom the grafters have a "handle." He was the rival of Calhoun in the race for the railroad franchise, which Oalhoun obtained by bribery ; therefore, say the gi afters, all his hostility to graft and all the efforts of the Call, his brother's newspaper, for pure government are dictated by spite.) A FIRST-RATE SCOUNDREL. The second graft sensation of the past few weeks has brought to light a scoundrel of the first water. James H. Bowling was secretary of the Carmen's Union at the time of the great strike; but even then he was playing a double game, being m the pay of the employers, the United Railroad, as well as of the men they were fighting. After the strike he continued in the service of the company, his duty being to manufacture evidence that the great strike had been instigated by the leaders o£ the graft prosecution. He gave his own affidavit to this effect, and proceeded to get similar statements from some of the members of llio defunct Carmen's Union. But now the time had come when this work was complete, and when the United Railroad." would havo no further use for him. It was an unpleasant outlook, as lie had lived up to his traitor's income ; he thought liv might earn a little more hy further treachery. Accordingly, he offered to uell his infoimation and an. accpunt of the plot to Calhoun's

prosecutors, thus aiding them to prove that Calhoun himself, with Bowling's aid, had instigated the strike. Bowling was led on and trapped. Then his offers were thrown in his face, and he was arrested on a charge of criminal libel on account of the statements made in his affidavit. The relation of the strike to the graft prosecution is intricate. Briefly, Calhoun would like to discredit the prosecution by showing that the strike was promoted by Spreckela and his friends out of spite for the United Railroads;, the opposing faction believes— and claims to have proof— that Calhoun himself secretly fomented the struggle in order to destroy the Carmen's Union, as he has succeeded in doing.