Note 163 — Chapter XII · Trapping of the Supervisors.

At the trial of The People vs. Ruef, No. 1437, Gallagher testified that Spreckels told him in substance as follows:

“Mr. Spreckels then stated that he was not actuated by vindictiveness in the matter, that he did not wish to make any more trouble or cause any more distress than was necessary in carrying out what he had undertaken, and that his purpose was to endeavor to stop the unlawful transactions,—dealings of corporations and large interests in this city with public officials; that his reason, that his view of the matter was that in order to accomplish that, that it would be necessary, or that he did not desire unnecessarily to injure anyone, and that the members of the Board of Supervisors and those who were engaged with them in the matter, outside of those who represented the corporations and big interests, were not as important from his standpoint as those who had, as those in control of those interests, because the members of the—the public officials and political bosses would come and go, but that the corporations and big interests remained; that they were, as he thought, the source of the trouble, and therefore, he did not consider it important, or so important, to punish the officials as to reach those that were in his judgment primarily responsible for the conditions, that he felt that the District Attorney would grant immunity to the members of the Board of Supervisors if they would tell the whole truth of their transactions with the corporations and other persons, large interests, that had had any dealings with them of an unlawful character. I think I then said to him I would consider the matter and would talk with the members of the Board of Supervisors about it.”