Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1909-02-06

newspaper reading public
N outside the Pacific coast
n 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 Calhouns alleged
payment of 100000 to Ruef and
Schmitz and the city council as a bride
in order to get franchise permitting
the traction system to be changed
from cable to overhead trolley that
Calhoun is on trial.
Wall Street will watch this trial
the calling to the bar of justice of Pat
rick Calhoun, the traction lord, the
man of millions, the strengthened hun
ter with the Wall Street pack-with
an interest such as has attended no
criminal prosecution in America for
many years. Half the people in. Wall
Street know Calhoun. His Office is in
No. so Broad street, and from there
he directs the great interests of which
he is the head Wall Street credits
him with being the biggest influence
in California affairs next to Hartman,
and the street has the same respect
and fear for each of them, for both
Hartman and Calhoun are magnifi-
cent fighters and never give and never
ask quarter.
Calhoun has for his chief prosecutor
Francis j. Heney, the man who drove
United States Senator Mitchell into
disgrace and 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 convict's striped suit.
After the "ReaI 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-
litical corruption that the world at
| large ascribes to the Union and South
| srn Pacific railroads in relation to the
whole state of California. If a man
like Calhoun is to be prosecuted as a
| 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 a 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
1 ing the Calhoun trial with so much
I interest.
Patrick Calhoun is one of the most
| forceful 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 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 c. Calhoun, and the
most noted of that famous statesman's
defendants Indeed he seems to pos
4
many of the strong traits of his dis
| tinguished ancestor. Patrick Calhoun
is a remarkable man as money
maker and a financier
Calhoun is said to have an unerring
scent for money, like all the great
| financiers. In the early eighties the
! trail led him to Cleveland, o. Those
| were boom" days all over the United
| States, and especially in Cleveland
| Euclid avenue. which is the fashion
able thoroughfare of that city-cor-
responding to Fifth avenue in New
York-was quite dormant so far as
real estate speculation was concerned
Calhoun saw that a lot of people in
Cleveland were likely to get rich
quickly and need handsome homes.
He decided that there was a mint of
| money to be made in real estate along
the thOroughfare named after the
father OF geometry. So ne went after
It and hunted out the punches of dol