Have you not hitherto chosen San Francisco’s Police Commissions and do you not now exercise a dictatorial power over the city’s police, especially the Harbor Police? Were not the Judges of the two United States Courts in San Francisco appointed at the instance of Leland Stanford? How many Superior Courts are there in the State in which a citizen may bring an action against you in full confidence that he will be fairly and impartially dealt with? Doubtless there are such but the difficulty is to find them. Before the recent elections how long did you control the government of San Francisco? Have you not dictated the government of Oakland for the past twenty-five years? Until last election had you not continuous control of Alameda County’s government?...[327] When one desires to test the accuracy of accusations like those of Casserly and of Bassett, one has first to remember that they are in accord with the substantially uncontradicted declarations of men of all degrees of prominence in California over a period of fifty years. Political campaigns have been waged on the question of the railroad versus the people. Not only newspapers like the _Sacramento Union_ and the _San Francisco Examiner_, but men like John T. Doyle, at one time state railroad commissioner, General Howard, a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1879, and H. H. Haight, at one time governor of the state of California, have asserted that railroad influence was a real and important factor in the politics of California. While neither a corporation nor an individual can properly be convicted on the strength of current report, the presence of so much smoke, over so long a period, is fair evidence of some fire. Documentary Evidence Direct testimony relating to the political activity of the Huntington group comes from Mr. Huntington himself in two ways. In the first place there have been published certain letters which passed between Huntington and his associate, Mr. Colton, in the years 1875 to 1878. These documents have been referred to in other connections. They came out in the course of court proceedings, and have the weight of confidential communications, not intended for publication. Extracts from these letters will presently be given. Besides this, certain statements were given by Huntington to the press in 1890 which bear directly upon the point at issue. These statements were intended to discredit Stanford, but in the course of the heated controversy to which they gave rise they were not denied by Stanford nor withdrawn by their author. On May 1, 1875, Huntington wrote Colton: