The San Francisco call., 1909-02-12
|COFF[Y TRIAL LIKE
CALHOUN HEARING
United Railroads Officials Take
Stand to Tell of Handling
Alleged Doodle Fund
Mysterious 100000 With
drawn From Mint Subject of
Days Proceedings

LAO pats pld ycu ny fdITlCk OdlnOun
and William M. Abbott and other off,
cials of the United Railroads in the
alleged bribery of the Schmitz board
of supervisors were retold yesterday at
the trial of Michael W. Coffey before
Judge Dunno. But for the absence of
the trolley magnate and the presence
of Coffey and a few other changes in
the court setting the trial yesterday
was rehearsal of the important
drama In which Calhoun is now hgur-
ing.
Calhoun's letters and kilograms of
authorization for the payment of
100000 to Tirey L. Ford were read
into the court record once again. Then
the money was traced to Fords office,
where 1t was placed temporarily on q
table in that officials room And from
there the money is alleged to have gone
to Ruef and from the curly boss to the
supervisors, one of whom was Michael
w. Coffey, the defendant The circum-
stances narrated by each witness clear
ly corroborated the testimony offered
by James L. Gallagher. A complete
chain Of circumstances was welded at
the close of the days session and those
who helped to do the welding were Off
t cials connected with the United Rail
roads.
WITNESS Is MISSING
There was an important witness
missing. George Starr, treasurer Of
the United Railroads. and his books,
were not to be found. Starr was in
charge of all moneys at the time when
the briberies occurred, but he is now
somewhere in New York George B.
Willcutt. auditor for the United Rail-
roads; Adam Dahler, acting treasurer
for the railway company; William M.
Abbott, counsel for the railway, and
George Francis, secretary to Tirey l..
Ford, were called as witnesses. They
added to the chain of evidence against
Coffey, Notwithstanding the reluctancy
displayed by several of the officials to
answer number of pertinent questions
asked by William Hoff Cook. the as
sistant prosecutor. Memories were
ominously dull in respect to several
discriminating circumstances, but with
the former testimony of the witnesses
at hand the assistant district attorney
managed to gain his point
The defense took little interest In
this procedure other than to object to
certain lines of testimony and to ask
the single question, Did you see any
one pay any money to Mr.. Coffey?"
Carroll Cook attempted at one stage
to adduce testimony from Willcutt in
an effort to show that certain large
SUMS Ol IlOU6t-IOI ICllcl PulPOoCS-
had been paid out by the company
without entry upon the books of the
corporation. This attempt was made
ostenSibly for the purpose of showing
that is was not unusual for the railway
company to pay out money in large
sums without making vouchers for it.
TRACES RELIEF FUND
William Hoff Cook declared, however,
that as the defense had raised this ques-
tion he proposed to show just where
the sos, 700 relief fund from the United
Railroads went and unlike the ac-
count of 100000, it was accounted for
in the usual way by vouchers made at
the various banks which did business
with the railway. The alleged Doodle
fund was never accounted for in the
books of the corporation, but handled
entirely, it is alleged by Ford and Alb
bott
E. D. Hawkins. chief book keeper
at the mint; Thomas P. Burns. cashier
w. K. Cole, former cashier In the
mint, and Jacob Selig. clerk at
the mint, were called by the prosecu-
tion as witnesses and. testified to the
facts concerning the withdrawal of
5000. 900 from the mint, which was ex-
changed for bills OF various denomina-
tions at the subtreasury.
Charles ]. Heggerty, Ruefs office
boy, was brought into court on an at
tachment, as he failed to appear as
witness earlier in the day. He told
of visits paid by Mullally and Ford to
Ruefs Office about the time when the
Doodle money changed hands. James
c. Sharpe, custodian of the Western
national bank safe. deposit vaults, and
Thomas c. Hinsch, gateman at the
bank. testified that Ruef had three safe
deposit boxes In the bank.