Los Angeles herald., 1907-10-29
HENEYSPEAKS
FOR LANGDON
GRAFT PROSECUTOR ENTERS Po.
LITIcAL FIGHT
Big Audience In San Francisco Cheers
speakers-McGowan Denounced
as Insincere in His
Promises
By Associated Press.

By Associated Press.
SAN FRANCISCO. Oct. 2S.-Francis ].
Heney tonight made his first political
speech of the present city and county
campaign, addressing a crowd of 5000
men and women at Nineteenth and Mis-
sion streets. in behalf of the candidacy
Of District Attorney w. H. Langdon for
reelection. Other speakers were Special
Prosecutor Hiram w. Johnson of the
bribery-graft prosecution, who presided
over the meeting. and Mr.. Langdon.
With these men on the platform were
Rudolph Spreckels, the financial guaran-
tor Of the prosecutionsh; William j.
Burns, who gathered the evidence against
public service corporation officials;
Charles w. Cobb. Heneys law partner;
Francis ]. Heney and his brother BenJa-
min Heney, mining engineer and con-
tractor, whose home is in Arizona.
The speeches of Johnson, Langdon and
Heney were pleas for the chance to
carry to completion their avowed task
of cleansing San Francisco from "the
curse of graft and furnishing as the law
provides the rich boodlers who have
by wholesale corrupted her public SER
wants, and who stand ready to corrupt
and debauch and Doodle afresh if allowed
their liberty and given the opportunity"
Mr.. johnson told his hearers that
equality before the law, whether the
rich pilferer of corporation privileges,
shall stand no higher in the courts of JUS
tice than the poor wretch who thieves a
loaf of bread" is the principle which
they are to affirm or repudiate by their
ballots on November 5. He foresaw in
the reelection Of Langdon the seal of
San Francisco's moral rehabilitation; In
his defeat an "open and shameless return
to the infamous regime of another
Schmitz and Ruef, and all the social and
political degradation their names stand
for"
Adverting to one of the elements OPP
posed to the bribery-graft prosecution,
he branded a portion of the San Fran
cisco business public as a minority
whose only horizon is personal profit and
whose only guide post is the dollar sign"
Concluding he asked for Langdon a
majority of 10000 votes.
Langdon said: my election or defeat
is merely a question of continuing or
stopping these prosecutions Do you, or
do you not want crimes tnat have been
committed against government to be
punished?"
Mr.. Heney was introduced as "the fight
ing man of California"
Heney denounced as palpably insincere
the promise of Langdon's opponent, ex-
State Senator Frank MCGOWAN. to1prose-
cute 'all offenders against the law,
meaning thereby the DrlDe-taklng ex-
supervisors who have been granted inn
munity as the price OF their testimony.
as we'll as the indicted corporationists;
and he reused his audience to a great
pitch by holding up his right hand and
taking a dramatic pledge to prosecute
Patrick Calhoun between November and
January l. 1908, with all Of my energy
and ability. so help me God"
Heney kept the crowd intensely inter-
ested by sketching in brief outings the
bribery-graft Investigation and prosecu-
tion. a vivid and sensational story which
he crowned with the ringing sentiment:
''You could afford another earthquake
and fire, and you could and would re-
build but no city could have another
such boodling board of supervisors and
survive"