Show r r I ROBBING fOBBING THE STRICKEN 1 t When some people want to express s r in ir 1 superlative terms their opinion of ot a aman Ii man mn who wh is dishonest and mean they I say He Ho would steal the nickels oft off of I n mans eyes That seems en entirely entirely too mild an expression to apply to Abe Ruef and his fellow criminals wo have hayo been be looting the stricken city j I of San Francisco The stories coming from frim tho t grand jury room in which Thief Ruef and the other conspirator c have hau j have benn beon indicted over oer and over again J reek r ek so of all that is vile in grafting I t that the reader finds It hard to believe is that all aU of ot them can be true Si i The Tb published records show that S when wIen tho the great city of ot San Francisco lay h after the earthquake and fire that all aU but destroyed it ft the theS S thoughts of these men were confined to channels of graft possibilities pos They I seem to have devoted their entire wak waking big ing time to predatory schemes I and to t carrying them into Int operation ti They said to men who wanted to build buildup buildup buildup up the cIty eft to 1 p restore its public utilities utilities t ties to work of or lifting San from the Slough of or Despond You must cross our palms with coin b yon can turn a wheel string a aIrE aI I wire IrE or lay a brick Under ordinary circumstances we be believe believe beS S lieve the giver of or bribes Is worse voie wo e than thim th taker of bribes in this specific In hi Instance Instance hiS S stance the bribe takers seem Beem the worse wone criminals If it is possible to differentiate differentiate differentiate in degrees of or guilt in n such cases S Here there was an Intolerance of de do delay 1 lay The of or San Francisco t were in a hurry They did not stop to toI toc I consider c th the ethical side Ide of or the matter p at all Their onlY thought was to bur hur burI I I ry and they figured that It was cheaper to pay bribes than to be indefinitely de delayed delayed So the th grafters enjoyed a pe perio rio of or uninterrupted plundering All of ot their pillage did not come out of ot the hands of citizens who attempted to stand for fer public spirit Predatory corporations contributed much of It the tho under world much the craft that ply pl their trade below the deadline much One day an assistant district attorney Francis J Heney who brought about the conviction of men higher up in the Oregon land frauds came to tl San Francisco and started a housecleaning The work was discouragingly a slow and difficult at the out outset outs outset set s L Now Mr Ir Heney is In comparatively smooth water The rascals as ax so many other banded ban d rascals have done before ber re are squealing on one another They are telling all they know about their crimes each earh seeking to make blacker the offense of ot the other in the hope that his hla own penalty may be minimized But the penitentiary is yawning for all of them Mr 11 Heney has evidence enough to send every mothers sn f n of the grafters grafter from Ruef down to the humblest one to t prison for long terms of ot years The sooner the cleanup is made the better it will wiil be for San Francisco and for all the other cities clUes tn in the land t |