SAN FRANCISCO "GRAFTERS."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9154, 30 July 1908, Page 5

SAN FRANCISCO "GRAFTERS."

CABLE NEWS.

Unitcil Press Association —lsv Electric Tolcgrnph Copyright. ,

RUEF LIBERATED ON BAIL

Received July 29, 8.20 a.m. SAN FRANCISCO, July 23.

Ruef has befn liberated on £300,000(?) bail, in connection with the San Francisco corruption cases.

I What are known as the San Frar:ciso "graft" cases have caused a great sensation in America, and Ruef has figured prominently in these scandals. Mr Rudolph Spreckels, of San Francisco, has taken a leading part in breaking un the gang of grafters, and a cablegram from New York, last month, stated that President Roosevelt had written to Mr Spreckels telling him not to flinch but to keep up his fight against the "grafters" of San Francisco, "no matter what the biggest business men, the mob, or the highest social classes may say." The letter caused an immense sensation. Mr Spreckels was one of the four men who set themselves to get the gang of "grafters" out of power, and suceeded after a campaign which might have been imagined by a sensational novelist. Mr Spreckels guaranteed 100,000 dollars towards the expenses of the prosecution. "Bribery treachery and conscienceless swindling on an enormous scale" ran the London "Spectator's" summing up of the drama; "detectives trapping thieves in highly dramatic situations, kidnapped editors, judges threatened with lynching, and 'gun men' waiting with revolvers at odd corners—it is all an astonishing picture of what life may sMll mean in a civilised community of the twentieth century." The reformers succeeded in forcing Ruef, the corrupt bess, to confess, and in getting Schmitz, the mayor, convicted of corrupt practices, but the conviction of Schmitz was quashed on appeal, a decision which -wad received with consternation throughout America. In commenting on the amazing revelations of the London "Times's" correspondent, the "Spectator" pointed out that the main point to notice was that there were more a<its to come. The air was thick with distrust. Mr Spreckels, who* was championed by sound men as a pub-lic-spirited reformer, was being accused of prosecuting Schmitz and his gang for the vilest financial and political ends of his own. "Throughout the accounts of the trial there run vague hints that this is not all; that moving behind the veil there is a much more important person than small fry like Schmitz, or even Ruef, and that it is he, 'one of the most powerful and best known men in the United States,' whom the prosecution wish to get into their hands. Ruef, it is suggested, if he cared to tell all he knew, could put into the dock, men of such wealth and standing that their prosecution would convert the campaign started by Mr Spreckels into what 'The Times' correspondent believas it will eventually become—'one of the most important movements in the history of the United States."