my property,” he said, “but I suppose that other
people don’t want it in front of their property,
either. Certainly the city’s supervisors should
treat all streets alike, and we shouldn’t ask them
to favour us particularly.”
He moved that they oppose the overhead trolley on the whole Sutter Street (cable) system. That was agreed to; the old petition was torn up and a new one drawn. Solicitors were engaged to get signatures, and with 75 per cent, of the property-owners’ names upon it, the paper was presented to the Board of Supervisors. And the supervisors refused the grant. But this was the old, so-called Phelan Board, which held over into the Schmitz administration. In 1905, when “Labour” came into complete control, the out- look for Mr. Calhoun and his street railways was better. It was known that the “Labour” supervisors would sell out to “ Capital. And it was supposed that, of course, Capital would sell out to Capital.
The United Railways Company tried to “get” Rudolph Spreckels. I mean that Patrick Cal- houn offered Rudolph Spreckels a bribe. Let me hasten to add that business men may not call it bribery; such as Mr. Calhoun would call his proposition to Mr. Spreckels business, and it was “business.” But one of the evidences
