Note 204 — Chapter XIV · The Source of the Bribe Money.

Ruef on this point testified before the Grand Jury as follows:

“I received from Mr. Frank G. Drum, $20,000 as an attorney’s fee as spoken of between ourselves, about the time that the gas rates were being fixed. Of that money, I gave to Mr. Gallagher for the Board of Supervisors about, as I remember It now, $14,000. It may have been a few hundred dollars more or less. I think about $14,000. Mr. Drum spoke to me about employing me in the service of the company some month or two before, I believe, and engaged me as attorney to represent the interests, as I understood it from him, which he represented in the company, at $1000 a month, of which I received, I believe, for two or three months. At the time of the fixing of the gas rates some of the Supervisors, as I was informed by Supervisor Gallagher, insisted upon fixing an extremely low rate, such a rate as would have been ruinous to the business of the company, a rate which neither I nor any one who had looked up the question would have considered under any circumstances to be reasonable, proper or maintainable, and said they were determined absolutely to reduce those rates. The matter was brought up at one of the Sunday evening caucuses and some of the members of the Board of Supervisors insisted that the board had been pledged by its platform to a rate of 75c. per thousand feet; they thought that was even too much and made some strong speeches and others maintained the 75c. rate and they contemplated fixing the 75c. rate that evening, that is to say, agreeing to do it at the proper time which I suppose was a week thereafter. In the meantime, the company sustained a heavy fire loss, not the fire of April 18th, but the previous fire, which caused them a great deal of damage, and I told Mr. Drum that it would be necessary for me, in order to protect the interests of the company and the interests which he represented, to have an additional attorney’s fee and I told him that I thought it would require $20,000. He considered the matter and one day, a day or two afterward, he agreed to pay me the additional attorney’s fee of $20,000 which I thereafter received.

“Q. Where did the conversation take place in which you told him about the necessity of having the $20,000? A. At his office in the Mills Building.”