|
The San Francisco graft trials were a series of attempts from 1905 to 1908 to prosecute members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz, attorney Abe Ruef, who were receiving bribes, and business owners who were paying the bribes. Political boss and attorney Ruef was at the center of the corruption, acting as attorney to Mayor Eugene Schmitz. He approved all contracts and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment from business owners, keeping a portion for himself and distributing the remainder to the Mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors. Former mayor James Phelan along with banker Rudolph Spreckels and editor Fremont Older of the ''San Francisco Bulletin'' asked United States District Attorney Francis Heney, fresh from a successful stint as special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General's office in prosecuting the Oregon land fraud scandal, to help put an end to the corruption. Heney charged Ruef and Schmitz with numerous counts of bribery and brought them to trial. Heney rejected a juror because he was an ex-con and publicly accused Ruef of trying to plant him on the jury. During the trial, the rejected juror shot Heney in the face, but Heney survived. The juror was found dead in jail the next morning, and many suspected Ruef and his allies of complicity in his death. Some members of the public thought that Sheriff William Biggy was negligent, and when he fell off a boat late one night and drowned, some thought it may have been suicide, but others thought he may have been murdered. Ruef's trial was eventually brought to a successful close by Assistant District Attorney Hiram Johnson and after several appeals Ruef served four years in San Quentin Prison. While there he wrote a series of tell-all columns for Older's ''Bulletin'' newspaper implicating a number of companies, executives, and public officials. Mayor Schmitz was found guilty, jailed, and then released and retried, but did not serve any time. All of the business owners and supervisors implicated received immunity for their testimony about Ruef's and Schmitz's complicity and were not arrested or charged. When new District Attorney Fisker, a former athlete, was elected, he stopped the investigations and all further prosecutions. == Background == During the first decade of the 20th Century in the United States, employers supported an open shop movement and were decidedly anti-union. They were able to obtain government support to prevent workers from organizing. California was a center of corruption at the time, indirectly influenced by the Southern Pacific Railroad which had exerted a large degree of control over California politics for many years. This is evidenced by the refusal of Stephen T. Gage, one of the directors of the Southern Pacific Railway, and Richard Chute, a salaried employe of the same company, to obey a summons from the 1891 Wallace Grand Jury until compelled by the California State Supreme Court. Thee companies and other well-funded interest groups and individuals used their economic power and influence to form trusts and monopolies that guaranteed them power. Many of these wealthy and powerful people lived in San Francisco, the largest port on the West Coast, and when necessary could reinforce their hold on power through corrupt politicians and city bosses.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「San Francisco graft trials」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|