minutes before two, he testified that he saw a Ford automobile come down Market street and turn into Steuart street and stop. In the car were five people. Four of them he identified as Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings and Weinberg. The fifth was a man with a "stubby mustache" who has never been identified. Mooney, Billings and the man with the mustache got out, the last with a suitcase in his hand. They walked to the point where the explosion occurred, Billings took the suitcase and set it down. Then, after a hasty conversation accompanied by nervous consultations of watches, the man with the mustache disappeared in the crowd; Mooney and Billings got into the machine, which drove south toward Mission street. Oxman went back to his hotel and soon afterward the explosion occurred.

This testimony threw the attorneys for the defense into consternation. Oxman had not been heard of before. His testimony was clear and positive and it allowed the Mooneys time to get back to the Eilers building and on to the roof by 1.58. The cross-examination failed utterly to dislodge a single statement of Oxman's. He left the witness stand with his story intact. It had made a strong impression on everyone. A number of San Franciscans have told me that it convinced them of Mooney's guilt. The Sunset magazine published in its May issue a story by a reporter who had covered both the Billings and the Mooney trials. He was so impressed by the Oxman testimony that he said, "Without Oxman, had I been a juror, I might have returned a verdict of acquittal in the Mooney case; but with his testimony, under my oath, I would have been forced to convict."

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and Mooney was sentenced to be hung.

Enter "John Regal"

So much for the testimony on which Billings and Mooney were convicted. Soon after the termination of the Mooney trial, a woman from Portland, Ore., came forward and made affidavit that she had recognized Oxman, whom she had seen in Portland, viewing the parade from a point far removed from Steuart and Market streets at the very time when, according to his testimony, he was a witness of the placing of the suitcase. The San Francisco Chronicle on February 15 quoted District Attorney Fickert as saying in reply to this affidavit that he had three witnesses who would corroborate Oxman. The most important of these was "John Regal," who was "prepared to take the stand and corroborate, detail by detail, the testimony of the Oregon cattle man." In the light of later events this statement is important.

Mooney was sentenced to die on May 17. His attorneys asked for a new trial and it was denied by Judge Griffin,

JUDGE FRANKLIN A. GRIFFIN

the trial judge. Events moved on rapidly. Preparations were made for beginning the trial of Weinberg, the third of the defendants. But suddenly, in rapid succession, came certain disclosures that raised in the minds of many people who had had no doubts before serious doubts as to the validity of the convictions and the good faith of witnesses and officials.

Conflicting Testimony

THE attorneys for the defense learned that Mrs. Edeau and her daughter, Sadie Edeau, who were important witnesses in both the Billings and the Mooney trials, had told a story to Oakland police officials quite at variance from their testimony at the trials. They swore on the witness stand that on the day of the preparedness parade they saw Billings with a suitcase on the roof of 721 Market street at about 1.30 and that a little later they saw Billings, Weinberg and Mr. and Mrs. Mooney on the sidewalk in front of the building. They swore that the party went away together, going east in Market street. Thus they corroborated the story of Estelle Smith. When information was sought from Chief Petersen, of the Oakland police department, however, it developed that Mrs. Edeau had first come to him a few days after the explosion and told of seeing two old men with a suitcase at Steuart and Market some time before the explosion. Chief Petersen says that he sent Inspector Smith across the bay to San Francisco with Mrs. Edeau to see whether she could identify the suspects who were being held at the jail. She was shown Mooney and Billings and, according to Smith, said that those men were much younger than the ones she saw.

I talked with Chief Petersen and he showed me Smith's notes, made at the time, in which he stated that Mrs. Edeau had "failed to identify" the men. At no time, Chief Petersen told me, did Mrs. Edeau mention having been at 721 Market street, so it was with some surprise that he read in the papers that she had testified at the trial that she had seen the men there. With the attorneys for the defense, Chief Petersen called on Mrs. Edeau and asked her why she had so testified when she had never mentioned 721 Market street to him and after she had failed to identify the men in the jail. He says that Mrs. Edeau replied that God was leading her, that she had known all the time "in her heart" that Mooney and Billings were the men, even though she had failed to identify them in the jail, and that she was looking into the "brown eyes" of her dead husband, who was telling her to speak the truth.

Inspector Smith's notes show further that after Mrs. Edeau and her daughter had testified, District Attorney Fickert sent for him and asked him to corroborate their testimony. Smith told him that he could not do that because Mrs. Edeau

had failed, in his presence, to identify Mooney and Billings. Smith says that Fickert told him, in that case, to keep his mouth shut, observing, "You'd make a good witness for the defense."

Then word came that there was a man in Illinois named Rigall to whom Oxman had written letters offering him inducements to come to San Francisco and corroborate his testimony. Rigall had shown these letters to his attorney, and the latter had communicated with Mooney's counsel.

On the heels of this information Estelle Smith, of 721 Market street, the witness against Billings, came forward and swore that Oxman had tried to bribe her to testify against Weinberg, offering her, she stated, "a sum in five figures."

Attorney Edwin V. McKenzie, of the Mooney counsel, went to Grayville, Ill., the home of F. E. Rigall, and when he returned he had the Oxman letters in his pocket. On April 11 the San Francisco Bulletin published an extra announcing the discovery of the letters under the headline, Oxman Framed to Hang Tom Mooney. The next day it published photographic reproductions of the letters, written on the stationery of the Terminal hotel of San Francisco. They were as follows:

Mr. Ed Riggal,

The Famous Oxman Letters

Grayville, Ill.

Dear Ed has ben a Long time sence I hurd from you I have a chance for you to cum to San Frico as a Expurt Wittness in a very important case you will only hafto anscur 3 & 4 questiones and I will Post you on them you will get milegage and all that a witness can draw Proply 100 in the clearr so if you will come ans me quick in care of this Hotel and I will mange the Balance it is all ok but I need a wittness Let me no if you can come Jan 3 is the dait set for trile Pleas keep this confidential Answer hear

Mr. F. E. Rigall Grayville Il

Yours Truly

F. C. OXMAN
Dec. 18, 1916

Dear Ed Your Telegram Recived I will wire you Transportation in Plenty of time allso Expce money will Route you by Chicago, Omaha U.P. Ogden S. P. to San Frico I thought you can make the Trip and see California and save a letle money as you will Be alowed to collect 10c Per mile from the state which will Be about 200 Besids I can get your Expences and you will only hafto Say you seen me on July 22 in San Frisco and that will Be Easey dun. I will try and meet you on the wa out and Tolk it over the State of California will Pay you but I will attend to the Expces The case wont come up untill Jan 3 or 4 1917 so start about 29 off this month.

you know that the silent Road is the one and say nuthing to any Body the fewer People no it the Better when you ariv Registure as Evansville Ind little more milege.

Yours truly

F. C. OXMAN

Will you want to Return by Los Angeles can Route you that way

Mrs. J. D. Riggal

Grayville

12/25/1916

Dear Mrs Rigal As I am sending Ed Transpertation to morrow 26 it might be that I can use you allso about the 10. of so I can obtain you a ticket that you can see California if you would like the Trip Adrees me care this Hotell tell F. E. to say nothing untill he see me can probly use a Extry witness Been a long time I dont see you Yours Truly F. C. OXMAN

Mrs. Rigall is F. E. Rigall's mother.

The publication of these letters was like exploding a bombshell in the office of the district attorney. It took them entirely by surprise, and their actions indicated great bewilderment. The first tendency was to bluster. This would have no effect on Oxman's testimony. "I knew Rigall was the bunk from the beginning," said Cunha. But then it appeared that Rigall had come to San Francisco and had been entertained by the district attorney and his associates for ten days after they knew he was "the bunk." Rigall states that he

could not testify as to the happenings of July 22 because he was not in San Francisco on that day. Nevertheless, the prosecutors asked him to stay.

Soon District Attorney Fickert and his assistant, Cunha, gave evidence of a different mood. They entered into conferences with the attorneys for the defense and with the editor of the Bulletin. The latter and Attorneys Maxwell McNutt, Thomas O'Connor and Edwin V. Mackenzie state that Assistant District Attorney Cunha came to them in despair, saying that his career was wrecked and asking what he could do. They state that they told him the way out was a new trial for Mooney, that he agreed to this and that District Attorney Fickert later also agreed. It was agreed further, according to these men, that Oxman would be prosecuted in police court for subornation of perjury and that the matter would not be taken before the grand jury where the public could not look on.

All this has been publicly stated, over their signatures, by Attorneys O'Connor and McKenzie and by the editor of the Bulletin. Cunha and Fickert now deny that they agreed to a new trial.

At any rate, on the very evening that Fickert is said to have made these promises, he went before the grand jury and arranged to have it take up the Oxman matter. Two days later he gave out a statement to the papers attacking the editor of the Bulletin and intimating that he had guilty knowledge of the bomb explosion. The grand jury decided that the matter ought not to be handled by Mr. Fickert and they asked the attorney-general to appoint a special prosecutor. Accordingly Judge Robert M. Clarke, of Los Angeles, was named to represent the attorney-general's office.

In the meantime Judge Griffin, who had sentenced Mooney to death and denied him a new trial, had read the Oxman letters. He called attorneys for both sides before him and said that if he had known of the Oxman letters when the motion was made for a new trial he would "unhesitatingly" have granted it. He asked the district attorney to "confess error" and move for a new trial. This the district attorney refused to do. Whereupon Judge Griffin said that he would ask the attorney-general of the state to take that action. Judge Griffin has since written to the attorney-general, calling his attention to the Oxman letters and urging him to take action looking to a new trial.

The next move in the drama was the arrest of Oxman. He had returned to San Francisco voluntarily on getting word of the publication of the letters and was arrested on a charge of subornation of perjury sworn to by Edwin V. McKenzie, of counsel for the defense. The defense was bound that Oxman should have an open police-court hearing, the district attorney seemed equally anxious to have the case handled by the grand jury.

Oxman's Postscript

THE first act of the district attorney's office was to get a lawyer for Oxman. They secured Samuel Shortridge, one of the leading attorneys of San Francisco and incidentally the attorney of John D. Spreckels, Jr., who was foreman of the grand jury. When Oxman appeared before the grand jury, he explained that he had added a postscript to the first letter to Rigall, saying that if Rigall had not been in San Francisco on July 22 he need not come as a witness. This had been written on a separate sheet and had not been published with the rest of the letter. A juror pointed out that there was space enough below Oxman's signature for such a postscript to be written on the same sheet. To this Oxman

replied that his reason for taking another sheet was that he did not know how long the postscript would be. It was only after he had written it that he found that it could have been put on the last sheet of his letter after all.

On the basis of this explanation the grand jury refused to indict Oxman and adopted resolutions commending District Attorney Fickert for the "able and fearless" manner in which he had been conducting the trials.

Judge Robert M. Clarke, the special investigator appointed by the attorney-general to present the Oxman matter before the grand jury, told the Bulletin next day that, in his opinion, there was ample evidence to warrant an indictment.

While the grand jury was in session a preliminary hearing was begun in police court of the charge of subornation of perjury. Attorney Shortbridge, for Oxman, attempted to stay proceedings by applying for a writ of habeas corpus, first in the District Court of Appeals. Failing there, he went to the Supreme Court of the state. The Supreme Court, after a hearing, decided that the proceedings in the police court were legal and valid, and remanded Oxman to the custody of that court. In deciding the case, Chief Justice Angellotti, of the Supreme Court, said: "I have read the record of the Oxman case and it seemed to me that Rigall's testimony was overwhelmingly sufficient to establish the crime charged against Oxman as far as the magistrate's authority to hold him to answer was concerned."

In the hearing before the Supreme Court, Assistant District Attorney A. R. Cotton refused to make an argument and told the court that he was in agreement with Oxman's attorney. It remained for Maxwell McNutt, attorney for Mooney, who was present as a "friend of the court,' to make the argument which was accepted by the court as the correct line of reasoning.

With the case thus sent back to the lower court, Police Judge Brady held Oxman for trial in the Superior Court.

It is evident in all these proceedings that the district attorney's office has shown anything but eagerness to have Oxman brought to trial on the charge of subornation of perjury. Every move against him has been made with reluctance and every effort has been made to explain away his letters.

On April 24, District Attorney Fickert gave out a long statement to the papers. He called attention to the horrible nature of the crime, reviewed briefly the efforts to find the guilty men and bitterly arraigned the defendants, whom he called "anarchists and murderers," and the editor of the Bulletin, whom he charged with desiring the acquittal of "red-handed murderers, the blood of whose innocent victims calls aloud, not for vengeance, but for the just retribution of the law." He concluded with an appeal to the people of San Francisco to aid in upholding justice and seeing that "San Francisco is not made the home and refuge of anarchism."

"Law and Order"

In response to this appeal there appeared on Saturday, April 28, in every San Francisco paper except the Bulletin, an advertisement covering nearly a full page. It reminded the public of the bomb explosion nine months before. With the district attorney's office at work on the case, the public had turned to other matters, notably to patriotic service. While the public mind had been thus diverted "those very forces that made the bomb outrage of Preparedness Day possible have been taking full and measured and unscrupulous advantage of you to spread again their doctrine of anarchy, their intimidation of courts and of elected officials."

The advertisement contained a pledge of aid to the district attorney in order to avoid a "miscarriage of justice." It was signed "Law and Order Committee, Chamber of Commerce, by Frederick J. Koster, Chairman."

The Chamber of Commerce advertisement appeared under the caption "Law and Order." On the following Monday, April 30, another advertisement appeared, also under the caption "Law and Order." The advertisement reviewed the matter of the Oxman letters and "not as defendants but as accusers" demanded an investigation to determine whether or not perjury had been committed. This advertisement was signed by a "committee of citizens" of some twenty-five people, a majority of whom are representatives of organized labor. After all this more or less bewildering account, it may be well in the interest of clarity to restate the situation. Billings has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Mooney has been sentenced to be hung. Both sentences are automatically stayed by appeals pending before higher courts for new trials. These appeals were made before the Oxman disclosures and the letters do not figure in them. Oxman must be tried for subornation of perjury. Meanwhile, the trial of Mrs. Mooney is in progress.

Is Mooney Guilty?

I HAVE tried to set forth the most essential out of a maze of facts, all interesting and of greater or less significance, with respect to these trials. They justify the statement made at the beginning that it is a strange case. And what shall we say of it? Are the defendants guilty? Though two of them have been convicted, I must say in all honesty after spending more than two weeks in San Francisco, talking with attorneys for both sides, examining the records and discussing the matter with citizens, that I do not know. But I cannot avoid the conclusion that the way in which the case has been handled by the district attorney's office throws grave suspicion on the validity of the proceedings. From the very beginning of the case, when the defendants were held incommunicado for many days without opportunity to see friends or counsel, down to the time when Assistant District Attorney Cunha told me that they ought to be hung without ceremony, there is continuous evidence of far greater zeal for conviction than for justice.

The district attorney has repeatedly assailed the defendants as anarchists because they were defended in the columns of an anarchist publication, the Blast; and he would make it appear that if they are anarchists they must be murderers. When Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were arrested in New York for interfering with registration, a representative of the district attorney's office in San Francisco mentioned the fact as having a bearing on the guilt or innocence of the bomb-case defendants.

What are the facts as to the testimony on which two men have been convicted of murder? The witnesses in the Billings case hopelessly contradicted each other. Three of the most important ones were dropped when the Mooney trial came on, and a fourth altered his testimony on a vital point in order to fit into the testimony of the new witness, Oxman. Yet the district attorney will tell you today, as Cunha did tell me, that Mooney could have been convicted without Oxman because the rest of the evidence was the same as that which convicted Billings-a statement which the record shows to be false.

It is conceded by every disinterested observer that Oxman was the chief and probably the deciding factor in the Mooney trial. Now Oxman is known to have written letters which

labelled him "Mr. Gee Viz." This slangy title was won by the big Austrian from his custom of exclaiming as he inspected splints or casts, "Gee viz, you're coming fine, so fine." He plays tricks on nature, this able surgeon. It pleases him to steal bones from strong legs, slip them into useless arms, and then sit back to smile at nature as she exerts herself to mend matters. He inserts tendons, stretches muscles, grafts skin, and at his touch dreadful malformations grow beautiful. He averages an operation a day throughout the year, and fits forty casts as a usual week's work.

Of the 454 orthopedic cases treated since the law became operative, more than 80 per cent have been materially improved or cured. The greatest success is obtained with children who have been left crippled as a result of early attacks of infantile paralysis. Those absolutely bedfast frequently regain full use of their members in a few months. By careful attention immediately after the attack, thorough massage and manipulation of the limbs, many of the deformities which usually follow that attack, such as those of the ankles and knees, are prevented. In this way the number of cases in which operations are necessary is reduced.

Not one operation is performed but many, in the straightening of deformed limbs. Muscles and tendons are transplanted, the healthy substituted for the paralyzed. Parents from the ninety-nine counties in the state have become mute with wonder as they caught sight of their children, a few months before unable to take a step, running about without crutches. The newspapers find human interest stories in the dramatic scenes which follow the return of Perkins children, and former playmates are compelled to seek out new nicknames, now more pertinent than "Crip."

Nor do they in this work perform miracles merely on crooked arms, legs and backs. Dreadful facial deformities, such as hare lip and cleft palate, are made imperceptible by early treatment. Within a few months, cases marked by a complete absence of the upper lip and such a wide cleft in the palate that there is really no roof to the mouth, have been closed up so no trace of defect remains. Such cases, which are under the direction of Dr. L. W. Dean of the medical college, usually require two or three separate operations and are accomplished by a gradual restoration of the parts. Scores of babies have been treated for such malformations.

Sight has been restored to blind children and infectious diseases threatening total blindness have been controlled. The state has thus brought beauty into many lives and will itself profit in return for its services. Viewed from a mer

cenary standpoint, the state's generosity has saved many thousands of dollars of the cost of educating blind children.

Closure of the esophagus from the drinking of lye or some acid is not by any means a rare occurrence, but the recovery of such children is considered extraordinary. Several cases have been taken into this hospital after it had become impossible for the victim to swallow even water. Nutrition is kept up and water hunger appeased through feeding the patient by means of a tube inserted through an opening made in the stomach. Then, by a series of operations, perhaps twenty, which involve the gradual dilatation of the parts, the passage is healed until food passes down its natural course.

While they are in the hospital, the crippled children do not grow dull from inaction. School days for them are not so humdrum as many of their more robust brothers and sisters find them. The individualized method of instruction is employed, and its success is phenomenal. The school opened last November with forty students, ranging from kindergarten to high school grades. Mental tests, given by educational authorities in the university at this time, were repeated during the Christmas holidays, and the examiners were astonished to discover a full year's progress within that brief interval. Such advancement gives evidence both of efficient methods of instruction and of exceptional mental ability among the children.

Two instructors, trained in special teaching methods for handicapped children, with the voluntary assistance of fourteen university women devoting one hour each day to the work, form the teaching corps of this exceedingly informal school. A set program with classes at regular times is the rule, but for the ambitious opportunity is granted for as rapid progress as they can make. This has been found to create competition and stimulate industry.

Women's clubs, lodges and students help furnish amusement to the little cripples. Each holiday brings suitable gifts for each of them. Presents, trips to picture shows and even occasional automobile rides help to drive away homesickness and banish pain. They themselves invent many games to brighten dull days. They have at different times held city elections, published a newspaper, and become proficient in the art of kodaking.

So when the long-looked-for day comes when they are allowed to go home, they have to take with them the memory of many pleasant days, a knowledge gained through books and helpful suggestions, and a body transformed from pain and ugly deformity into strength and beauty.

And their farewell is, "Good-bye, Mr. Gee Viz. I'll write you a letter some day."