The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-11-13
SENSATIONAL
ALLEGATIONS
OF BRIBERY
Continued from First Page.

were its directors. It was not the ii
tention of the combination to carry o..
this corporation, but to have the off
GERS resign and re-eIecr new ones.
Q. Immediately upon securing tn
lease?
A AS soon as the necessity of max
ing a front" ceased to exist 1t was
to be a grand thing-a milliOn-dollar
corporation to get this lease. This was,
in fact, done. Mr.. Martin put up
$4,000 certified check covering our bid,
withdrew it, and another was furnished
by James a. Shook and others to take
its place.
Q. Did Martin receive anything for
his services?
A. Nothing whatever.
Q. And this combination was formed
for the purpose of creating an impress
sion that it was a responsible corpora
ton getting this lease?
a. Yes sir.
O. And as soon as the lease was Sc
cured the dummy directors resigned.
and the members of this combination
became the parties who took charge of
it?
A That was a fact. My value had
ceased a that time.
Q. Now, go back to the transaction
of you and Waller, when I interrupted
you.
4. The first service rendered was the
'jumbling up of the advertisement, d
they expressed it, so that it was impOs-
sible to tell just what it meant. This
operation was performed by Alexander
VoEelsane. attorney for the Board Of
Education, and Jacob SamUels, who
had been employed by the corporation
to represent 1t before the board. The
advertisement for bids called for the
acceptance for the bids individually
made, or the aggregate of bidders for
separate in case such aggregate was
more advantageous to the city. The
'jumbling up" of this advertisement
caused all but two of the tenants to re-
fuse to bid for the property that they
occupied, so that that portion of it was
eliminated. The question then came up
as TO how we were to get the lease, and
II was first decided to have our bid
made out in full, with the exception of
the figures representing the monthly
rental, these TO be filled in by the sec
rotary of the board after he had read
the bids of the other bidders, and while
apparently marking the papers for
Identification This undertaking was
decided to be too hazardous.
@. For what reason?
A Well, it was dangerous to do it,
and 1t proved so at the time, because
Alfred Dixon, a Call reporter, was on
the alert watching for just such an
operation.
O. This was when the bids were
opened?
A Yes. In lieu Of this, information
was obtained by which the corporation
was enabled to bid 81 per month more
than its nearest competitor.
Q. Do you know how that informa-
ton was obtained?
A. No, don't know. I think 1t was
obtained through Phil Crimmins, but I
don't know that.
O. You don't know personally any
thing about that?
A No. John A Mcdonald bid $3.50
a month and the corporations bid was
a fat $4,000. To obviate the chance of a
higher bid being put in at the last mo-
ment and defeating the aims Of the cor
poration 1t was agreed that in case our
bid was not the highest objection
should be made to all bids on the
ground that none of them were high
enough and new ones advertised for at
once.
Q. With whom was that arrangement
made?
A. With Mr.. Waller
Q. Between you and Mr. Waller?
A. He was handling the whole thing.
He was the handler of the works"
and in case our bid was not the high
est he was simply to say: Gentlemen,
these bids are not high enough, and I
move that we reject them all and ad-
vertise for new ones" OF course that
would give US a perfect line on all the
bidders, and our next bid would have
been high enough to secure it.
Q. But that was not rendered neces-
sary, for the reason that some one took
measures to ascertain the contents of
those bids and gave you the informa-
ton as to exactly what they were?
A. Yes. sir; we ascertained the con-
tents of those bids and we bid just s41
month more than Mr.. Mcdonald. The
bid of the San Francisco Investment
Company being the highest, it was
awarded the contract, and we then
asked for further services, and among
these was the reduction of the bond re-
quired for the payment of rent. We
had offered in our tender a bond for
100000. This was reduced by the
board to 10000
@. On whose motion? Walters?
A. Well, 1 can't say who made the
motion. 1t was done in this way: Jake
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