River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-01-28

N outside the Pacific coast
4 cities had heard little or
nothing of Patrick Cal
houn, the president of the United
Railways Of San Francisco, whose trial
on the charge of bribery has begun in
that city. OF Ruef and SchmitZ-the
boss" and the mayor of San Fran
cisco-and their docile pack Of super
visors much has been printed. 1t is
in connection with Calhoun's alleged
payment Of 100000 to Ruef and
Schmitz and the city council as bride
in order to get a franchise permitting
the traction system to be changed
from cable to overhead trolley that
Calhoun is on trial.
Calhoun has for his chief prosecutor
Francis J. Heney, the man who drove
United States Senator Mitchell into
disgrace and a felon's garb; who also
scared with the lash of the law the
great timber thieves-men of standing
and substance, but who nevertheless
were shameless plundererS of the
treasures of the vast public domains
in the west and northwest. He put
Eugene Schmitz in state prison and
made Abe Ruef a dweller in a cell
clothed in a convicts striped suit.
After the "Real Bosses"
Heney says that in prosecuting
Schmitz and Ruef he dealt only with
the "hired hands" of the corruption
lists of San Francisco, but that in pros
ecuting Calhoun he will be going after
one of the real bosses. Heney ascribes
TO Calhoun the same political mastery
over San Francisco and the same po-
ltical corruption that the world at
large ascribes to the Union and South
ern Pacific railroads in relation to the
whole state of California If a man
like Calhoun is to be prosecuted as
criminal because business has made
it necessary for public service cor
porations to be intimate with political
bosses and the gangs that trail at
their heels, wherein is business man
safe these days? asks Wall Street
That is what Wall Street would like
to know, and that is why Wall Street
is nervous over the case and is watch
ing the Calhoun trial with so much
interest.
Patrick Calhoun is one of the most
forcefu and interesting characters
that has been lifted into prominence
in the past few years in the course of
the exposures of municipal corruption
that have been going on in several
cities. Whether he is a much maligned
man or one of the biggest wolves of a
predatory pack is something that his
trial may throw light upon, though
it may not decide it definitely.
Grandson of Great Man.
He is a grandson of that great South
Carolinian, John G. Calhoun, and the
most noted of that famous statesman's
defendants Indeed he seems to pos
sess in his intellectual equipment
many of the strong traits of his dis
tinguished ancestor. Patrick Calhoun
is a remarkable man as a money
maker and a financier.
Saw His Opportunity.
In the early nineties the scent of
much money came family to Calhoun
thither What is now the traction
combine the United Railways of San
Francisco-was in those days a lot of
separate lines. The key to them all
was the system that had it's tracks
in Market street-a thorOughfare 200
feet wide, double the width of the
broad streets and avenues in this city,
and the main artery of the towns traf.
fic This property and some of the
tributary lines-they all run into Mar
ket street-was controlled by Messrs.
SIoss, Hellman and Gersel-not Jointly
but as individual representatives of
some of the great banking interests
on the coast How Calhoun got hold
of the Market street line and of all of
the feeders to it and of all the subur-
100000