scheme it was not regarded as bad. On the
contrary, it was spoken of as public-spirited. It
was perfectly understood then that Rudolph
Spreckels sought only to prove on Bush Street
that the underground trolley was feasible. He
expected to incur no loss; he must make the
road pay to prove his point. But there was to
be “ no big money in it,” either. One of the terms
stated in the papers and to be fixed in the franchise
grant from the city, was an agreement that the
city was to take over the plant at cost plus interest,
at any time it pleased after the demonstration
had been made. The scheme was conceived
neither as a self-sacrifice nor as selfish; it was
only a weapon made for a particular fight, the
fight for the city beautiful as against Patrick
Calhoun and dividends on the watered stock
of the street railway company.
But the earthquake knocked that weapon out of Rudolph Spreckels’s hand. The articles of incorporation were filed a day or two before the disaster of April 18, 1906, and Rudolph Spreckels, invited by Mayor Schmitz to join the Committee of Fifty that was to rehabilitate San Francisco and govern it, at last, as it should be governed, by its best citizens in its own best interest, as a community of men and women — Mr. Spreckels left his company in the air and devoted himself
