The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-15
AFTER The SOLID EIGHT.
The Grand Jury Intends to
Look Into an Alleged
CinCh Bill.
BARCLAY HENLEY's EVIDENCE.
The Police Department VIII Be Most
FaVOrably Mentioned in
the Report.

The Grand Jury expected to have Bar
clay Henley appear before it at the regular
session to-day. but the members will be
again disappointed. Barclay Henley left
for Santa Rosa yesterday evening, and he
will not return until tonight.
The grand jurors are anxious to adj
journ, but before doing so they desire to
thoroughly investigate the charges of
boodling which have been laid at the doors
of the Solid Eight Supervisors. Barclay
Henley, as the attorney for the Civic
Federation, submitted some of these
charges, and the grand jurors want to
have him come before them and give the
evidence he has to back up his charges.
He has been subpenaed.
Barclay Henley is not very communica-
tive on the subject. Just before he left the
City he said: II have submitted charges
against some of the Supervisors, and l am
ready to go before that body when the
members want me to tell what / know.
have been subpenaed, but had to go to
Santa Rosa, so | missed last weeks meet
ings. have to go to Santa Rosa and will
not be able to attend to-morrow's meeting
of the Grand Jury. Still, when l am
wanted l will testify. 1 believe we have
evidence which will be sufficient to cause
the indictment and arrest of some OF the
Supervisors. | cannot tell what it is until
60 before the Grand Jury"
George T. Gaden, one of the most prom
inent members of the Civic Federation,
said: When our organization announced
that it had evidence against some of the
Supervisors, Barclay Henley came forward
and offered his services as citizen and as
an attorney. He conferred with our attor-
neys and came to me to talk the matter
over. He spent a large part of several
days about two weeks ago in preparing the
matter so as to put it in proper shape TO
go before the Grand Jury. He studied
up the legal side of the case and we all
came to the conclusion that two or three
of the Supervisors should be indicted, ar
rested and thrown out of office on the
evidence we had before us.
Henley informed us that the Church
street franchise of the Market-street rail-
road system was illegally granted and that
it could be set aside. He went further
than this. He said that seven out of every
ten franchises granted by recent Boards of
Supervisors were as illegal as the Church
street franchise He said that they were
nearly all improperly granted and that
they could even now be declared null and
void.
eve have great deal of important evil
dence to put before the Grand Jury in re-
gard to the ChurCh-Street matter and other
franchises, but ii would be wrong for me
to make public that evidence until it is
given to the Grand Jury and that body acts
on it.
81 thought Mr.. Henley had gone before
the Grand Jury. cannot understand why
he has not. l will see him when he re-
turns tomorrow evening and try to have
him give to the grand jurors all the infor-
nation we have got. 1t was understood
he would do So"
As other charges than those made by the
Civic Federation have been filed with the
Grand Jury, that body will not be without
material to work on at the meeting to-day.
Supervisor Dimond may be called in re-
gard to the Church-street franchise, and
some members of the Milkmen's Union
may be called in regard to an alleged
"cinch" bill recently introduced in the
Board of Supervisors.
This bill was in regard to laws governing
the public pound, and it would greatly in
terfere with dairymen and others. 1t is
alleged that the dairymen had to bribe
some of the Supervisors in order to keep
the proposed ordinance from being passed.
This will be closely investigated.
What time the jurors will have left to-
day after looking into the Supervisors
acts, will be spent in discussing the differ
ent sections of the report which they will
now begin to prepare. No further work
outside of the Solid Fights alleged
crookedness will be taken up by the jury.
The report of the police committee has
already been outlined. Chairman John
Mccarthy of the police committee and
Charles W. Iredale and Joseph Britton,