The San Francisco call., 1895-11-26
Where Can Responsibility for
Millions of Dollars of Work
Be Placed !?
JUDGE MURPHY ON THE LAW.
The Grand Jury Investigates the Court
Procedure-New Charges to
Be Preferred.

Superintendent Ashworth was yesterday
promptly acquitted of the charge of NAL
feasance in office, founded on six counts
presented in the Indictment by the Grand
Jury charging him with willfully and
knowingly accepting in behalf of the City
six pieces of street work imperfectly and
fraudulently done.
The jury was out thirteen minutes,
which was a long time, considering the
collapse of the case for the prosecution
under the construction of the tangled mess
OF law bearing on street matters, which
Judge Murphy presented to the jury.
Under the law as expounded by the court
the Jury could do nothing but acquit.
be cause it was established that no official
responsibility attaches to the Superin-
tenGent of Streets in his supervision and
acceptance of street work done by private
contract.
The prosecution, conducted by Assist
ant District Attorney Black, and ably Sec
onded by Experts George W. Elder and
George T. Gaden, piled up the evidence,
made case perfect enough so far as the
chara cter of the work went, but the ale
cations of the indictment, charging cor
ruption, were not supported and were
withdrawn.
The case has a far greater interest and
importance than its relation to Mr.. Ash
worth personally, for it reveals to the pub
lie for the first time the fact that the bulk
of the street Improvements made every
year in San Francisco are made by schem-
ing contractors. under wholly irrespons-
ible supervision, and that property-owners
who pay for street work by private con-
tract have no guarantee of getting what
they pay for but their own vigilance, and
no recourse If the contractor gets his
money before frauds are discovered.
Each year between 81. 500 900 and 81 ,000,-
900 worth of street improvements are
made by private contract, and this amount
does not figure at all in the big budget of
the Street Department, which provides for
little more than repairs. The newly
paved streets and the newly constructed
sewers as they are turned over to the City
by the contractors are formally accepted
and thereafter cared for by the City. If
rascally contractor does piece of work
that will soon have to be done over again
the City is the loser if the street IS ac-
cepted before the fraud is found out. The
immense cost of repairs made by the City
yearly is largely due to the bad character
of the work that has been accepted in the
past. If an expert inspector or somebody
else discovers a fraud, such as sewer
running up hill or built of cement
barrels, before the contractor gets his
money and before the street is accepted
the contractor will have to do the work
over again. If he has got his money and
then the Board of Supervisors refuse to ac
cept the work the property-owners have to
dig down in their pockets and get the work
made right. II they get the bad work off
their hands and into the City's they are
yet saddIed with sewer that floods their
cellars, or a street that becomes early un-
slightly, while the City spends taxes on a
block that should have lasted without re-
pairs for years.
Now all this is supposed, in theory, TO
be guarded against by the constant in
spection and supervision of the work by
the Street Superintendent through depu-
ties he appoints, through specifications he
prepares and through the necessity of his
acceptance and approval of the work.
The character of this inspection and
supervision is pretty well known,
and has been periodically illus
trated when attention has be en-
directed to the services of some small
politician-inspector, and it was illustrated
in this case when the inspector of the
Broderick-street sewer, who was recently
Tivoli chorus singer, couldn't tell on the
witness-stand whether the "Y's" in the
Broderick- street sewer were fifty or
twenty-five feet apart or whether there
were any "Y's" at all, but still it has
always been supposed that this negligence
was merely usual feature of public busi-
ness and that the Street Department had
official responsibility in such matters to
which it might be held to account.
Now, in trying to hold Mr.. Ashworth to
account for accepting lot of fraudulent
work, perhaps negligently and carelessly,
rather than corruptly, it transpires that
all this inspection and supervision is a
mere courtesy and an unofficial doing to
which no responsibility attaches. Judge
Murphy says that the Superintendent of
Streets is responsible only in regard to
public work, and that in accepting street
work he is merely sort of arbitrator be-
tween the City and the property owner.
That is the important feature of the
Ashworth case and it leaves the annual
expenditure of 81 800 900 or more of money
for street work to the voluntary vigilance
of property owners, political inspectors,
Supervisors and others with no official re-
sponsibility anywhere and nobody who
can be called to account for fraudulent
work.
JrInCE NHIIDDEN ENDJ hyNrC