ITEMS OF INTEREST March 30, 1907 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The long-looked-for indictments in the municipal graft cases in San Francisco were returned last week. Seventy-five indictments, charging bribery, were found on evidence presented to the Grand Jury after six months' probing into the municipal affairs of the city. Sixty-five are against one man, a leading politician, and ten against another. A number of big corporations are involved in the bribe giving. It is alleged that the United Railroads Company paid each supervisor (alderman) $40,000, and the two indicted men $400,000; that the Pacific States Telephone Company paid ten supervisors $5,000 each; that the Home Telephone Company paid ten supervisors $3,500 each, seven supervisors $6,000 each, and the two indicted men $150,000 (estimated); that the San Franciso Gas and Electric Company paid the supervisors $750 each.

In an interview respecting the Ohio River floods, the chief of the Forestry Service said: "The great flood which has wrought devastation and ruin in the Upper Ohio Valley is due fundamentally to the cutting away of the forests on the watersheds of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. ... The area of these watersheds is given by the United States Geological Survey as about nineteen thousand square miles. Not more than half this area would necessarily have to be in forest. Great floods are becoming common occurrences upon the eastern rivers which have their sources in the high mountains. Such floods, with increasing intensity, must be expected from year to year until the important watersheds are protected."

The contentions of the attorneys for the Standard Oil Company, that the Government, which is now prosecuting the company at Chicago on indictments charging it with accepting rebates, had not proven the existence of the route by which it claimed the alleged shipments in violation of law had been made, were swept away by Judge Landis in the United States District Court, who held that the Government had proved the existence of such a route. This decision opens the way for the introduction by the Government of evidence to the effect that freight had been handled for the oil company in the illegal manner charged in the indictments, and this phase of the trial has been entered upon.

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MAKING EVIL UNREAL
March 30, 1907
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