Chapter XXIX: Ruef's Last Refuge Fails

That a jury of twelve men had found Ruef guilty of bribe-giving did not mean necessarily that the broken boss would be confined at San Quentin, the prison to which he had been sentenced to serve his fourteen-year term. Indeed, the probabilities were very much against his suffering any such indignity. Ruef had, at the test, continued "true to his class"; he had not assisted the State in bringing the bribe-givers to account. Men, powerful in financial, social and political circles were unquestionably under the greatest obligation to him. He had not "gone back on his class." His "class" owed it to him to save him from stripes, as Ruef by his course had beyond question saved many of his "class" from stripes.

Having been convicted by a jury, the first move was for Ruef to appeal to the trial judge for a new trial. This appeal was denied him. Ruef then appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the District Court of Appeal. The three justices of the District Court of Appeal found nothing in Ruef's contention to warrant the granting of a new trial.[476] Thus four judges found that Ruef's trial had been fair, even technically fair. But Ruef's possibilities were not exhausted.

The Supreme Court could, if four of the seven members were so inclined, grant him a rehearing, and to the Supreme Court Ruef applied.

The California State Constitution provides that "the Supreme Court shall have power to order any cause pending ... before a district court of appeal to be heard and determined by the Supreme Court. The order last mentioned may be made before judgment has been pronounced by a district court of appeal, or within thirty days after such judgment shall have become final therein."

The District Court of Appeal found against Ruef on November 23, 1910; this action became final thirty days later, or on December 23, 1910. The Supreme Court had thirty days after December 23, that is to say, until January 22, 1911, to grant Ruef a rehearing, if a majority of the seven Supreme Justices so decided. If the Supreme Court failed to act before the close of January 22, Ruef, unless pardoned or paroled, would have to go to State prison.

Ruef, on December 31, 1910, petitioned the Supreme Court for a rehearing. On January 23, announcement was made that the Supreme Court, by a four to three decision, had decided to grant Ruef's petition. The decision was received with protest from one end of the State to the other.[478] The Legislature was in session at the time. Senator George W. Cartwright of Fresno introduced a resolution requesting the Assembly--where impeachment proceedings must originate--to take such steps as might be deemed necessary for investigation of the Supreme Court's conduct.

And finally there came the rumor--at first not generally believed, but later confirmed by the Supreme Justices themselves--that one of the Justices at least had signed the order granting Ruef his rehearing before the Attorney-General had filed his brief in answer to Ruef's petition. The Justice who had thus acted was Justice Henshaw, the same Supreme Court Justice who occupied prominent position in the picture of the banquet scene at the 1906 Santa Cruz convention, in which Ruef appears in the central position of honor.[480]

The facts later brought out involved the following dates:

December 31, 1910--Ruef's petition for rehearing was filed in Supreme Court.

January 10--W. H. Metson was granted permission to file a brief in the case as _Amicus Curiae_.

January 10--Justice Henshaw signed the order granting Ruef a rehearing.

January 11--Justice Henshaw left the State and was absent until after the order granting Ruef a rehearing had been filed.

January 12--Metson filed his brief as _Amicus Curiae_.

January 12--The Attorney-General filed his reply to Ruef's petition for a rehearing.

January 19--Justice Melvin signed the order granting Ruef's petition.

January 20--Attorney-General filed reply to Metson's brief.

January 21--Chief Justice Beatty, and Justices Shaw, Angellotti, Lorigan and Sloss met in the chambers of the Chief Justice for consultation regarding Ruef's petition. Justice Lorigan signed the order granting the petition. Justices Shaw, Angellotti and Sloss declined to concur in such order, and Chief Justice Beatty reserved his decision in the matter until January 22, 1911.

January 22, 1911--(Sunday, the last day on which the order could be signed) Chief Justice Beatty signed the order, his being the fourth name on the document, four signatures being necessary to make it effective.

January 23--A typewritten copy of the order was filed with the Clerk of the Court, the original being retained in the office of the secretaries to the Justices.

Up to this time, eleven judges had passed upon Ruef's case. Seven of them--one Superior Judge, three Judges of the District Court of Appeal and three Justices of the Supreme Court--had decided that Ruef had had a fair trial, that no technicality could be invoked to save him. Four of the eleven judges, in a way which, to the lay mind at least, was somewhat irregular, had decided to grant a rehearing. The public was not at all backward in expressing the opinion that this would mean a new trial; and that under conditions as they were at San Francisco, Ruef would not for a second time be convicted.[481] As is usual in such cases, the public was dissatisfied, suspicious, indignant, but without plan or remedy. Some demanded investigation at the hands of the Legislature; others wanted impeachment[482] proceedings instituted. Mr. William Denman, a leader of the California bar, urged before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Legislature owed it to the Supreme Court, as well as to itself and to the public, to make thorough investigation, and demanded of the committee if the Legislature on proper showing would declare the office of a Supreme Justice vacant.

Senator Shanahan, a member of the committee, was quick to reply that under such a showing the Legislature would certainly act. "But," added Shanahan--and here he touched the weak point of impeachment proceedings--"it would take months if not years. That is why impeachment proceedings will not be instituted. Impeachment proceedings from the trial of Warren Hastings to the present time have proved unsatisfactory."

But, however individuals differed on the question of impeachment proceedings, the general attitude was that the Attorney-General should take steps, if such course were practical, to have the order granting Ruef a rehearing set aside. This the Attorney-General did. He attacked the order before the tribunal which had made it, the highest tribunal in the State, the only one to which appeal could be made.

And the Supreme Court set the order aside, declaring it to be "ineffectual for any purpose and void."

But the Supreme Court did not set the order aside because Justice Henshaw had signed the document before the argument of the prosecution had been heard. The order was set aside on the ground that Henshaw, being absent from the State when the signature of the fourth Justice was attached thereto, was at the time, being absent from the State, unable to exercise any judicial function as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Without Henshaw's signature, the signatures of but three of the Supreme Justices appeared on the order. As the signatures of four of the Justices were required to make the order effective the Court declared it to be worthless.[483]

Thirty days from the time the judgment of the District Court of Appeal became final having expired, the Supreme Court could not interfere further. Ruef had lost his last technical play on a technicality. He went to State prison.

But Ruef did not go to State prison because a jury of twelve men had found him guilty of offering a bribe to a Supervisor; he did not go to State prison because seven out of eleven judges who passed upon the questions involved had found that he had had a fair trial. Ruef went to State prison when he did because a member of the Supreme Court of California was absent from the State at a time inopportune for Ruef.

Ordinarily, after his failure in the Supreme Court, Ruef would have had two more chances for escaping the full penalty of his bribe-giving, namely, parole at the hands of the State Board of Prison Directors, and pardon from the Governor.

But again was Ruef unfortunate. Hiram W. Johnson, as Governor of California, sat at Sacramento. He had gone into office pledged "to kick the Southern Pacific machine out of the State government." He was keeping his pledge. There was no pressure which men of Mr. Ruef's "class" could bring upon Governor Johnson to move him to grant Ruef freedom.

The possibility of parole was as remote, although the State Board of Prison Directors--who in California are appointed for ten-year terms--continued for a time under the old order.

One of the five directors was Tirey L. Ford[484] of the United Railroads. Ruef went to prison convicted of a charge of bribing a Supervisor to vote to give the United Railroads its overhead trolley permit. The evidence indicated, if it did not show, and Mr. Ruef has since confessed, that this money came to him from General Ford. Ruef, because of the crime, found himself confined in a prison of which General Ford was one of the five governors, with power of parole in his hands. But it developed that Governor Johnson had power to set aside such parole. So Ruef could expect little from even the Board of Prison Directors.

Scarcely had Ruef been placed behind the bars, however, than a State-wide campaign was inaugurated to compel his pardon or parole. The public was treated daily by the newspapers with descriptions of the discomfitures[485] which Ruef was suffering. When he was found, for example, smuggling sweet chocolates into prison, and was punished for it, the Ruef-friendly press cried out at the cruelty and unreasonableness of such punishment.[486]

The suffering which his imprisonment has brought upon the members of his family is dwelt upon at length. Letters from them, pleading for assistance for their imprisoned relative have been received by many whose assistance it was thought might prove effective in securing his release. But when Ruef was brought back from San Quentin prison to San Francisco to testify at Schmitz's trial, the pathetic story was published broadcast that these letter-writing relatives had been kept in ignorance of his imprisonment, and thought him to be traveling in Europe.[487]

One of the most contemptible stories circulated to create public opinion for his release was that Ruef had been made scapegoat because of his religion. Ruef is a Jew, circulators of this story insisted that he is in prison because he is a Jew, while the gentile bribe-givers go free.

As a matter of fact, the gentiles associated with Ruef have gone free because of Ruef's treachery to the graft prosecution, but this does not prevent the circulation of the story.

A saner view, breathing of better citizenship, came from Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the New York Free Synagogue. "Israel," said Rabbi Wise, "is not responsible for Ruef's crimes any more than the Roman or Protestant Church is responsible for the crimes of its communicants. But we of the House of Israel in America would be in part answerable for Ruef's misdeeds unless we made it clear, as we do, that Israel is unutterably pained by this blot upon its record of good citizenship in America."

By far the most astonishing support of the movement to free Ruef came from the San Francisco Bulletin and Fremont Older, its managing editor. Older was one of the strongest supporters of the graft prosecution, as was the paper under his management. But once the graft prosecution was concluded, Older and the Bulletin became the most persistent of the supporters of the movement to secure Ruef his freedom.[488] Largely through Older's influence, men of prominence throughout the country--with apparently no very clear knowledge of the situation--have been induced to express themselves as favorable to Ruef's release.

In the publicity campaign for Ruef's release which gives no indication of abatement, Ruef, and those who seek his release, are praised in the most extravagant terms, while those who will not enroll themselves in his interests are as extravagantly condemned.[489]

But in spite of all that is being done to create public opinion favorable to Ruef's release, the sober expression of machine-free press and public is that Ruef should be treated both on the score of parole and confinement precisely the same as any other prisoner.[490] This attitude was clearly presented by the Fresno Republican at the time Ruef was found smuggling chocolate sweets into the prison.

In the attitude of prison officials toward Ruef, the Republican pointed out, there are two alternatives. "One," the Republican went on to say, "is the course of Warden Hoyle, in treating Ruef like any other prisoner, and disciplining him humanely but sternly, for any infraction of the necessary prison rules. The other is to let Ruef have privileges which the other prisoners do not and can not have. News travels nowhere faster or surer than in prison. If Ruef bribes guards, the officials may not know it, but the prisoners will. If Ruef may have smuggled sweets, the other prisoner, whose every nerve-cell shrieks in agony for cocaine, but who knows he will be thrown in the dungeon if he smuggles it, will have no illusions about the smuggling privilege. If the very minions of justice do injustice, as between Abe Ruef and Convict No. 231,323, every man in that vast prison will be taught that he is the victim not of justice, but of force and favoritism. And if Ruef, at the expiration of a bare year, were to be paroled out, every other convict, whose very application can not be heard until he has served half his term, will know that he is suffering the penalty, not of his crime, but of his poverty and friendlessness. Shall Abe Ruef be suffered to teach that lesson? Shall he corrupt San Quentin prison as he did San Francisco? Or shall there be at last one place found where even Abe Ruef gets exact and equal justice?"

Ruef is getting equal justice at State prison, not because he corrupted San Francisco, not because a jury of twelve citizens found him guilty, not because seven out of eleven judges declared against him, but because the political machine, of which Ruef was one of the most powerful leaders, has been broken in California. Under the old order, to have kept Ruef jailed would have been impossible.

FOOTNOTES:

[476] See Cal. App. Rpts., vol. 14, page 576.

[478] Said the Sacramento Bee in an editorial article discussing
this order, the day after it was made public, January 24,
1911:

It cannot be denied that this order, by a bare majority of the
Supreme Court and--with the single exception of the Chief
Justice, by the three of its members least esteemed and
respected by the public--has excited disgust and exasperation
throughout California. There is a strong popular feeling and
belief that the Supreme Court should not thus have interposed
to save from punishment the most notorious scoundrel and
corruptionist in California, a man known to everybody as
having enriched himself by systematic grafting and by the
bribery of public servants in the interests of corporations, a
man with many indictments resting against him, but convicted
only on one.

"What adds to this general disgust and indignation over the
Supreme Court's order is apprehension that the rehearing before
that tribunal may result in the grant of a new trial for Ruef,
a reversal which in all probability would be equivalent to a
final discharge. Such changes have taken place in San Francisco
in the last two years, especially in the office of the District
Attorney, that a new trial would have small chance of ending in
conviction.

"No reasons are given by the Supreme Court for its order for a
rehearing, but presumably they are of a purely technical sort,
for the fact of Ruef's guilt was abundantly proved on the
trial."

[479] The Cartwright resolution was in full as follows:

"Whereas, The Supreme Court of this State on or about the 23rd
of January, 1911, rendered a decision in the case of the
People of the State of California vs. Abraham Ruef, in which
the defendant is granted a rehearing; and

"Whereas, Various newspapers have published criticisms
condemning said decision, and intimating that the Justices
participating therein were controlled by corrupt and unworthy
motives; and

"Whereas, The integrity of our courts has been frequently
assailed by public speakers and by many of our citizens, all
of which tends to destroy the confidence of The People in the
purity and integrity of our courts of justice; be it

"Resolved, by the Senate, That the Assembly be requested to
appoint a committee of the Assembly, such committee to be
authorized, empowered and instructed to investigate the whole
subject matter and particularly to investigate said decision,
the grounds upon which the decision is based and the conduct
of the Justices of the Supreme Court in relation to said
decision, and that the committee report to the Assembly the
results of such investigation, with such recommendations as to
the committee may seem meet and proper in the premises; be it
further

"Resolved, That said committee shall have power to summon
witnesses, and to send for persons and papers and to issue
subpoenaes and compel attendance of witnesses when necessary."

[480] See Chapter IV.

[481] This view was entirely justified by the outcome in the Coffey
case. Coffey was one of the boodle Supervisors who had at the
test refused "to go back on his class." He was tried for
bribe-taking and convicted. In the Court of Appeal practically
the same points were raised in his favor as were raised in the
Ruef case. The Appellate Court refused to interfere. The
Supreme Court, by a three to four decision, granted Coffey a
rehearing and later a new trial. The line-up of the eleven
judges was the same in Coffey's case as in Ruef's--seven found
Coffey had had a fair trial; four found that he had not. The
four--under the rules of the legal game--were more potent than
the seven. The jury verdict was nullified. The indictments
against Coffey were finally dismissed. Had the Supreme Court's
order for a rehearing of the Ruef case stood, the outcome
would have unquestionably been the same.

[482] Some of the ablest men in the State urged impeachment
proceedings. "If the charges," said United States Senator John
D. Works in a letter to State Senator Hewitt, "made against
Judge Henshaw by the Attorney-General of this State, under
oath, are true, why is it the Legislature of this State before
this has not commenced impeachment proceedings against him?

"The legislature has no right to shrink from this duty and
responsibility and relieve itself from taking such a step by
relegating that duty and responsibility to The People of the
State by the enactment of recall legislation. If Judge
Henshaw, or any other judge, has violated his duty to the
State and betrayed his office as the charges made against him
indicate, the duty of the legislature is imperative, and that
duty should be performed without hesitation and without
delay."

Justice Henshaw, in discussing Judge Works' letter, in an
interview in the San Francisco Examiner, February 15, 1911, is
quoted as saying: "All the charges made by Attorney General
Webb in his affidavit attacking the Ruef rehearing order of
January 30th are true. The orders were signed in the manner
stated and I told him so when he visited my office. There was
nothing unusual about it. It was done in accordance with the
usual practice of this court.

"We seldom meet in session to sign the orders. There may be
twenty cases to be passed on in one week. Each Justice looks
them over at his leisure and signs what orders he agrees to.

"I was out of the State, as Mr. Webb says, and at the time
that he says. I did not even imagine that there was a legal
point involved. The practice never has been questioned
before."

[483] The following is from the Supreme Court decision revoking the
Ruef order for a rehearing (see California App. Reports, Vol.
14, page 576): "The moment Justice Henshaw left the State, in
view of the authorities already referred to, he became unable
to exercise any judicial function as a Justice of the Supreme
Court, in this State or out of it, and this disability
continued during the whole period of his absence. During that
time his situation was the same as if he had absolutely ceased
to be a member of this court. It is true that there was a
suspension, only, of his judicial power, instead of a final
abrogation thereof, but the suspension, while it continued,
was as absolute in its effect on his judicial power as would
have been a complete vacancy in his office. Assent to or
concurrence in a decision or order of the court being the
exercise of a purely judicial function, his previous proposal
to concur in a proposed order, one that had not yet been made
and one that had not yet received the assent of other justices
making it an accomplished decision, temporarily ceased to be
effectual for any purpose, and so continued ineffectual for
any purpose during the whole period of his absence. Such
previously indicated willingness to concur could not
accomplish that which the absent justice himself could not
accomplish. The time having expired before he returned it
follows that he never concurred with even a single other
justice in the purported order. (1) Admittedly this order, if
it ever did become effectual, did not become so until January
22, 1911, when the fourth justice appended his name. At that
time, however, Justice Henshaw could not effectually join
therein, because of his absence from the State, and his
previously indicated willingness to join therein could have no
legal effect. The result is that only three justices of this
court concurred in the purported order, and as such order
could be made only by the concurrence of four justices, it was
ineffectual for any purpose and void."

[484] Ford's term as prison director expired January 12, 1914. He
continued in office until his term had expired and his
successor had been appointed. After Ruef had confessed that
the trolley bribe money had come to him through Ford, the
Sacramento Bee of August 30, 1912, after reciting the
allegations of Ruef's confession, said:

"There, in brief, is the tale which Abraham Ruef tells with
much particularity. It is now in order for the Board of Prison
Directors to ask the resignation of Prison Director Ford.

"Undoubtedly, Governor Johnson would make a demand to that
effect were he in the State.

"Much sorrow, if not sympathy, has been felt for Tirey L. Ford
all over California. The Bee has expressed some itself. The
feeling has been that a man of naturally fine principles and
honorable sentiments had been warped by his environments, and
had done under instructions that at which his better nature
rebelled.

"It would be futile now to discuss what Tirey L. Ford should
have done and should not have done; or to declare that no
temptation should have led him to perform any other than legal
work for the United Railroads.

"The Bee will say as little as it can say conscientiously
under the circumstances. Human nature is human nature the
world over. And The Bee men cannot forget the long, long years
of intimate friendship with and faith in Tirey L. Ford. But
every consideration of the eternal fitness of things demands
that he should no longer remain a member of the State Board of
Prison Directors."

[485] The following is a fair sample of the articles descriptive of
Ruef's suffering in prison, which have been inflicted upon the
California public ever since Ruef donned stripes; it appeared
in The San Francisco Bulletin of December 21, 1912: "Ruef is
an epicure. As discordant sounds do violence to the feelings
of a musician gifted with an exquisite ear, so coarse, badly
cooked or tasteless food does violence to the epicure who is
gifted with exquisite nerves for inhaling, tasting and
appreciating delicate flavors. The gastric juices of the
epicure cannot become freely active on mere hunger as with men
not so endowed. Digestion with the epicure must wait upon the
fine dictates of the palate; and a stomach so guarded cannot
wantonly change to an extreme opposite without material
suffering. To eat merely to be filled, to overeat, to eat
hurriedly, is for the epicure, as one epicure puts it, 'to
commit moral sins.' Ruef since his imprisonment has been
compelled to do all these things."

[486] To this complaint of cruelty to Ruef, The Fresno Republican
made sharp answer: "A visitor," said The Republican, "smuggled
articles to Ruef--nothing more dangerous than sweet chocolate
and newspaper clippings, to be sure, but still a covert
violation of a necessary rule--so Ruef is deprived of visitors
and letters for two months, and the automatic application of a
general rule postpones his application for parole for six
months. Whereat there is wailing and woe, and the San
Francisco Call says that Ruef's friends regard it as
particularly unfortunate that he should be deprived of
visitors just at the time when a movement for his parole is
going on.

"To all: Let us be sympathetic. Only let us make it general.
Ruef shall have his sweet chocolate. But all the other
prisoners shall have it too. Ruef shall sneak things into
prison, inside his blouse, by bribing the guards. But all the
other prisoners shall have all the like privileges, though it
is known that some of them would prefer dope, daggers and
dynamite to sweet chocolate."

[487] Commenting upon this the Sacramento Bee, in its issue of
February 9, 1912, said: "In an effort to create sympathy for
Abraham Ruef, a story was originated at San Francisco, and has
found wide publicity as news, that the aged mother of the
felon has been kept in ignorance of his imprisonment, and does
not even know of his conviction for bribery.

"Yet letters purporting to come from and to be signed by
Ruef's mother, and pleading for his parole, have been received
by The Bee and other newspapers for months past. Either these
letters were forgeries and fabrications, or this tale of the
mother's ignorance of Ruef's confinement is mere fiction.

"In either case a contemptible trick has been played by some
agency both active and unscrupulous in seeking to promote
Ruef's release. After this the public and the newspapers may
well be suspicious of sympathetic stories respecting Ruef and
his confinement. If he is personally responsible for the
effort to exploit his mother in the manner here related, he is
even a more despicable specimen of humanity than the known
facts of his career would indicate."

[488] Older, in a letter to Dr. S. W. Hopkins, of Lodi, gives his
reasons for working for Ruef's release as follows:

"San Francisco, September 25, 1911. Dr. S. W. Hopkins,
President Board of Health, Lodi, Cal. Dear Sir: If you read my
article in the Survey, I think there is much in it that you
did not understand. Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I
tried to. I wanted those who read the Survey article to
believe that I at least no longer think we are going to better
the world by punishing men individually. I do not feel that it
is good for people or for the editor of the Pacific Christian
to want vengeance administered to our brothers and sisters. I
think vengeance, and by vengeance I mean punishment, makes us
all worse rather than better. I have asked for mercy for Ruef
because I felt that I, above all others, had done most to
bring about his downfall. If you have followed the long fight
the Bulletin has made during the past eight or nine years, you
will recall that I was fighting Ruef long years before the
city woke up. You will also recall that I attacked him
bitterly with all the invectives that I could personally
command, and all that I could hire. I cartooned him in
stripes. I described him on his way to San Quentin; told how I
thought he would act en route, and what his manner would be
when the barber shaved his head, and how he would feel when
locked up in a cell. I was vindictive, unscrupulous, savage. I
went to Washington and enlisted Heney in the fight. Burns
came, and Spreckels joined in the chase. Then I pursued with
the same relentless spirit in the wake of these men. At last,
after eight years of a man-hunting and man-hating debauch,
Ruef crossed over and became what I had wanted him to be, what
I had longed and dreamed that he might be--a convict, stripped
of his citizenship, stripped of everything society values
except the remnant of an ill-gotten fortune. It was then I
said to myself: 'I have got him. He is in stripes. He is in a
cell. His head is shaved. He is in tears. He is helpless,
beaten, chained--killed, so far as his old life is concerned.
You have won. How do you like your victory? Do you enjoy the
picture now that it is complete? You painted it. Every savage
instinct in your nature is expressed on the canvas.'

"My soul revolted. I thought over my own life and the many
unworthy things I had done to others, the injustice, the
wrongs I had been guilty of, the human hearts I had wantonly
hurt, the sorrow I had caused, the half-truths I had told, and
the mitigating truths I had withheld, the lies I had allowed
to go undenied. And then I saw myself also stripped, that is,
stripped of all pretense, sham, self-righteousness, holding
the key to another man's cell. I dropped the key. I never want
to see it again. Let it be taken up and held by those who feel
they are justified in holding it. I want no more jail keys.
For the rest of my life I want to get a little nearer to the
forgiving spirit that Christ expressed.

"Isn't what I am accusing myself of, true of all of us? Think
it over. Think of your own life. Think of the lives of those
around you, and see if you cannot discern that we are all
guilty. And then think whether or not you believe that society
will be benefited by denying Ruef a parole, which only gives
him a half liberty and still holds him under the restrictions
of the prison until his term is finished.

"I am surprised at the tone of the article you sent me,
published in the Pacific Christian. It reads like a chapter
out of the Old Testament rather than the New. But I fear that
the world is being governed more upon the lines of the Old
Testament than the New. I agree with the article about the
young men who have been sent to prison for years. I would
release them all if I could. But I can't. I can't even release
Ruef, because society has not advanced far enough to make it
possible. But I can at least be true to myself and express
what I honestly feel.

"I wish as a favor to me that you would send a copy of this
letter to the Pacific Christian, as I am leaving for the East
and will not have time. I should like them to know what I am
writing you. Sincerely yours,
"Fremont Older."

[489] The San Jose Mercury, controlled by Congressman E. A. Hayes,
in its issue of September 22, 1911, published one of these
Ruef campaign articles. The following description of Ruef
occurs:

"Not many months have gone since Ruef found domicile in States
prison. But what changes Time has wrought in that brief
period. The little man sits in his cell, lonely and solemn, as
he meditates on the singularities of mankind. With no
bitterness in his soul, without a thought of revenge twisting
his sense of peace and good will toward man, he passes the
time planning the comforts of his fellow unfortunates and
reading and rereading the letters that come so regularly from
the loved ones whose burdens he so gladly carried and to whose
joy he so gladly contributed. He is neither unhappy nor
without hope."

The same article contains another word picture--of Francis J.
Heney. It reads:

"But if Older has turned 'right about face,' Heney, the other
member of the firm, has not. He remains the unforgiving,
snarling, short-haired bulldog, with his hand against every
man, and every man's hand against him."

Such is the character of the publicity campaign to release
Ruef from prison.

[490] When in 1914 Governor Johnson became candidate for
re-election, extraordinary efforts were made to compel him to
pardon, or to consent to the release of Ruef on parole. So
persistent were Ruef advocates, that the Governor found it
necessary to issue a statement of his position regarding Ruef.
That statement will be found in full on page xxviii of the
Appendix.