CHAPTER LXXXIX
DEFEAT OF THE PROSECUTION
While Heney lay upon the operating table of a San Francisco hospital, three prominent attorneys volunteered to take his place. They were Hiram Johnson, Matt I. Sullivan and J.J. Dwyer. Ruef's trial went on with renewed vigor three days after the attempted killing, though the defendant's attorneys exhausted every expedient for delay. It was a case so thorough and complete that nothing could save the prisoner. He was found guilty of bribing a Supervisor in the overhead trolley transaction and sentenced to serve fourteen years in San Quentin penitentiary.
Frank was in the court-room when Ruef's sentence was imposed. The Little Boss seemed oddly aged and nerveless; the old look of power was gone from his eyes. Frank recalled Ruef's plan of a political Utopia. The man had started with a golden dream, a genius for organization which might have achieved great things. But his lower self had conquered. He had sold his dream for gold. And retribution was upon him.
Frank thought of Patrick Calhoun, large, blustering, arrogant with the pride of an old Southern family; the power of limitless wealth between him and punishment; a masterful figure who had broken a labor union and who scoffed at Law. And Eugene Schmitz, once happy as a fiddler. Schmitz was trying to face it out in the community. Frank could not tell if that was courage or a sort of impudence.
During the holidays Frank visited his parents in San Diego. His granduncle, Benito Windham, had died abroad. And his mother was ailing. Frank and his father discussed the Prosecution.
"It has had its day," the elder Stanley said. "Your public is listless, sick of the whole rotten mess. They've lost the moral perspective. All they want is to have it over."
"I guess I feel the same way." Frank's eyes were downcast.
* * * * *
Sometimes Frank met Norah France at Aleta's apartment, but she carefully avoided further mention of the topic they had talked of on election night. Frank liked her poetry. With a spirit less morbid she would have made a name for herself he thought.
Aleta was doing more and more settlement work. She had been playing second lead at the theater and had had a New York offer. Frank could not understand why she refused it. But Norah did, though she kept the secret from Frank.
"Do you know how many talesmen have been called in the Calhoun trial?" Aleta asked, looking up from the newspaper. "There were nearly 1500 in the Ruef case. They called that a record." She laughed.
"Of course Pat Calhoun would wish to outdo Abe Ruef," said Frank. "That's only to be expected. He's had close to 2500, I reckon."
"Not quite," Aleta referred to the printed sheet. "Your paper says 2370 veniremen were called into court. That's what money can do. If he'd been some poor devil charged with stealing a bottle of milk from the doorstep, how long would it take to convict him?"
"It's a rotten world," the other girl spoke with a sudden gust of bitterness. "A world without honor or justice."
"Or a nightmare," said Frank, with a glance at Aleta.
"Well, if it is, I'm going to wake up soon--in one way or another," said Norah. "I will promise you that." To Frank the words seemed ominous. He left soon afterward.
The Calhoun trial dragged interminably. Heney, not entirely recovered from his wound, but back in court, faced a battery of the country's highest priced attorneys. There were A.A. and Stanley Moore, Alexander King, who was Calhoun's law partner in the South; Lewis F. Byington, a former district attorney; J.J. Barrett, Earl Rogers, a sensationally successful criminal defender from Los Angeles, and Garret McEnerney. Heney had but one assistant, John O'Gara, a deputy in Langdon's office.
For five long months the Prosecution fought such odds. Heney lost his temper frequently in court. He was on the verge of a nerve prostration. Anti-prosecution papers hinted that his faculties were failing. Langdon more or less withdrew from the fight. He was tired of it; had declined to be a candidate for the district attorneyship in the Fall. Heney was the Prosecution's only hope. He consented to run; which added to his legal labors the additional tasks of preparing for a campaign.
It was not to be wondered at that Heney failed to convict Calhoun. The jury disagreed after many ballots. A new trial was set. But before a jury was empanelled the November ballot gave the Prosecution its "coup de grace."
P.H. McCarthy was elected Mayor. Charles Fickert defeated Heney for the district attorneyship. An anti-Prosecution government took office.
"Big Jim" Gallagher, the Prosecution's leading witness, disappeared.
Fickert sought dismissal of the Calhoun case and finally obtained it.
* * * * *
San Francisco heaved a sigh of relief and turned its attention toward another problem. Its people planned a great world exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.
With the close of the Graft trials, San Francisco put its shoulders in concerted effort to the wheel. There were rivals now. San Diego claimed a prior plan. New Orleans was importuning Congress to support it in an Exposition. The Southern city sent its lobbying delegation to the Capitol. San Francisco seemed about to lose.
But the city was aroused to one of its outbursts of pioneer energy. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company was organized. A meeting was called at the Merchants' Exchange. There, in two hours, $4,000,000 was subscribed by local merchants.
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