The result was that Wilson hunted up Cone and tried to get a relinquishment. Cone offered to let Wilson have the land at the graded price—the first graded price, as Wilson understood it. This offer was naturally refused, and Cone subsequently bought the whole tract for $29,199.67. Although the facts are somewhat complicated, it seems clear that Mr. Cone received special treatment, due to his position as railroad commissioner. Of the Gerke transaction, Cone testified: I would say that the ranch was held under a deed of trust, and parties were foreclosing it, and at the time I bought it it would have been sold under a deed of trust in fourteen days, and the party came to me and asked what I would pay for it and I didn’t dream they intended to sell it because I didn’t know the condition the land was in, and they insisted on my making an offer that day for it. I made an offer and it was accepted. _Mr. Storke_: What was your profit on that transaction? _A._ I think in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand dollars, and the worst trade I ever made when I sold it. Finding of Legislative Committee Dealings of this kind were improper, to say the least, and calculated to interfere with the impartial discharge of a commissioner’s duties. On the whole subject a committee of the California legislature reported as follows: As to the second subject of inquiry, whether the Commissioners, or either of them, during their term of office, may have made any extraordinary acquisition of property ... your committee report that in their opinion Commissioner Stoneman did not make any extraordinary acquisition of property; that Commissioner Cone made a large acquisition to his wealth, which was already great when he was elected Railroad Commissioner, and your committee believe that such acquisition of wealth was largely due to extraordinary and unusual facilities afforded by the railroad officers; and that Commissioner Cone, in the purchase of thirty-four thousand acres of land for twenty-nine thousand dollars, was made a privileged purchaser, and received from the railroad company facilities in this regard denied to other applicants for portions of the tract; and further, that the transaction by which the Gerke farm was purchased by Commissioner Cone in April, 1881, and sold in September of the same year to Nicholas Smith, the Treasurer of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, at a profit of one hundred thousand dollars, gives rise to the suspicion that more was contemplated in the purchase and sale than appears on the face of the transaction. As to Commissioner Beerstecher, your committee find that by general report, and in the opinion of his associates, he was without means at the time of his election, and his sudden acquisition of wealth while Commissioner was without adequate explanation....