"Senator Sanford of Mendocino said that it was an attempt to muzzle the press and to prevent people from ascertaining what was going on in criminal lawsuits, but the Senate refused to reconsider the vote by which it had passed the unconstitutional bill." Keane also pressed an amendment to the codes to prevent stenographers and bookkeepers testifying against their employers. During the discussion in the Senate Committee on the Change of Venue bill, Keane offered an amendment to make this measure take effect immediately. [141] On the way across San Francisco Bay to take the train at Oakland, in the words of newspaper reports of the incident, members of Mayor Schmitz's personal following who accompanied him, "were frankly delighted with the prospect of the indicted Mayor returning from the national capital covered with glory, and acclaimed the savior of the country from a war with Japan." Ruef regarded the incident cynically. "As soon as Schmitz got aboard that train," said Ruef on the day of the Mayor's departure, "the nation was saved." CHAPTER XI. RUEF A FUGITIVE. Three months[142] after his indictment in the "French Restaurant" extortion cases--three months of continuous fighting to evade the issue--Ruef found his last technical obstruction, as far as the State courts were concerned, swept away, and was forced to enter his plea to the charge contained in the indictment. He pleaded "not guilty." His trial was set for March 5. Up to the day before the date fixed for the trial to begin, nothing had come up to indicate further delay. On March 4, however, Ruef's bondsmen surrendered him into the custody of the Sheriff. Ruef then applied to Superior Judge J. C. B. Hebbard for a writ of habeas corpus. The application was based on the allegation dealt with in a previous chapter, that Grand Juror Wise was ineligible, because he had been drawn as a trial juror within a year before the impanelment of the Grand Jury of which he was a member. On the ground that Wise was ineligible for Grand Jury service, Ruef's attorneys contended, their client's restraint was in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the Federal Constitution, thereby raising a Federal issue and paving the way for appeal to the Federal courts. In opposing Ruef's new move, Hiram W. Johnson,[143] who had been employed to assist the District Attorney in the "graft" prosecution, pointed out that the cases named in the petition were pending in a co-ordinate branch of the Superior Court; that they were set for trial the following day; that the points, including the Federal points, had been made subject of extensive arguments before Hebbard's colleague, Judge Dunne, and in the course of those arguments every question presented in the proceedings had been passed upon.