They had been charging as high as four dollars per hundred; but now the Socialists demanded bids, and forced the local agents down to a dollar-sixty per hundred, and in one case as low as sixty cents per hundred. The representative of a Pennsylvania company made this bid, and the law required that the city should take the lowest bid. Mrs. Beals urged that the law be obeyed; against her on the board was an official of the Federal Coal Company, whose president and secretary were at that time in San Quentin penitentiary, charged with defrauding the government by short-weight—and getting fifteen hundred dollars a month salary from the company while in jail! Also a prominent politician, who frequently came to board meetings with so much liquor in him that you could smell it across the table. Also a local political woman and finally the university professor. Here was a plain issue of whether or not the school board should obey the law; and the university professor of the Black Hand voted to disobey the law. After a whole day’s fight, Mrs. Beals forced a reconsideration on this matter; the professor stuck by the gang, but the woman and the coal dealer changed, and so the city of Berkeley was saved five thousand dollars. Then came an old settler trying to sell some property to the board for many times its value. There was mysterious pulling of wires, and it was evident that the board was again going to disobey the law. So the Socialists raked up a forgotten statute, to the effect that the board could not buy land without the consent of the people. Under another forgotten statute they called a town meeting, which was most embarrassing to the grafters. The board dropped this proposition; also they dropped Mrs. Beals from the sites committee of the board, and put her on the supplies committee instead. Thus she saw another side of the system; one of the agents who sold school supplies told her he was glad there was now one school supplies committee in the state of California which did not have its hands held out!