Arizona republican., 1907-05-25
Nineteen Returned Against Corporation and
Municipal Officials
Bills Returned Against ScImitz and Officers of tt.
United Railroads. Half the Jury the Trial of the
Mayor Has Been Secured.

San Francisco. MaX X24.-SpeculatiOn
that has been rife for weeks as To
what the grand jury would do i'm the
matter of indicting high corporation
officials and municipal officers for al
legged bribery in connection with the
granting Of the overhead trolley fran
chise 10 the United Railroads. ended
tonight. when the inquisitorial body
returned nineteen indictments of
eighty-nine counts. charging crimes
of giving and accepting bribes. naming
as guilty. the following persons:
Mayor SchmitZ. Abraham Ruef. Pres
ident Patrick Calhoun. Assistant
President Thornwell Mutually of the
United Railroads. Attorneys Tirey L.
Ford, and William NJ. Abbott of that
corporation. President Louis Glass.
former agent for Theodore b. Halsey
of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph
company. the last named indictments
being in connection with the alleged
deal by which it is established that
the telephone corporation sought to
prevent the granting of a competitive
franchise To the Home Telephone COM
pany.
Fourteen indictments. containing
eighty-fOur counts. Were returned
jointly against Schmitz. Ruef Calhoun
Mutually. Ford. and Abbott. whom the
grand jury accused of bribing fourteen
supervisors in amounts ranging from
$4,000 To $4,000 each to vote for a
change in the franchise of the United
Railroads by which the corporation
Immediately after the fire gained au-
thority to electrify 25O miles of its
street railway system
Two additional indictments were re-
turned against SchmitZ. one charging
that he sought and accepted from
Ford and Ruef a bribe of $4,000 for
cooperation in the trolley deal. the
other charging that he sought and re-
ceiyed from Frank c. Drum and Ruef.
bribe of $3250 10 approve the vote of
the supervisorial board. fixing the
public gas rate for 1906 at So instead
OF 80 cents at the behest OF the San
Francisco Gas and Electric company.
Two Indictments were returned
against Louis Glass. charging him
with the bribery of two supervisors
who refused To vote for a franchise.
competitive with that held by the Pa
cific States company. These indict-
ments are additional to nine others re-
turned against him several weeks ago
in the same connection. The indict-
ment returned today against Halsey
is identical with those returned
against Glass and with the eleven pre-
viously voted against Halsey himself.
II was after o'clock when the grand
jury adjourned from the Native Sons
hall. and went in an automobile to
Judge Coffey's court to enter nineteen
true bills. Attorney \. \. Moore of
the United Railroads legal staff and
Attorney Earl Rogers OF Los Angeles
who had been especially engaged for
the defense Of Calhoun and his asso-
ciates. appeared for the railway cor
poration.
Judge Coffev announced that he
would fix the bail at $4,000 on each
of the eighty-nine counts. He gave the
accused until IL o'clock tomorrow
morning to furnish bonds and re-
marked that he would accept in lieu
thereof. cash bail OF $4,000 on each
count Assurance is given that there
is a pending arrangement for bail. No
arrests will be made by the prOsecu-
tion.
The failure of Jurors SOnnetag and
Young To accompany the grand jury
To Judge Coffeys court was not ex
planned. The fact that Sonnetag and
Young followed each other from the
grand jury chamber shortly before the
body started for court. and that they
appeared to be laboring under eX-
citement and anger. gave rise to the
report that the voting of the nineteen
indictments was not accomplished
without some friction.
The statement was made unofficial
ly that all but $4,000 of the ss90.O00