But Ruef was more clever, more far-seeing than any of the Supervisors. His course from the beginning indicates that, in considering confession, he carefully weighed against the power of the regularly constituted authorities of San Francisco to protect him if he testified for the State, the ability of organized corruptionists to punish for betrayal. Ruef realized that although the all-powerful State "machine," labeled Republican, of which the San Francisco organization labeled Union Labor, which he had built up, was but a part, had for the moment lost control of the San Francisco District Attorney's office, but the "machine" still dominated the other departments of the municipal government, as well as of the State government[208]. Ruef realized that Langdon might die; that the State Attorney General might set Langdon aside and himself conduct the graft prosecution. And he realized that some day a district attorney other than Langdon would be prosecutor in San Francisco. In any of these events, what would be the lot of the man who had betrayed the scarcely-known captains of the powerful machine? On the other hand, the hour when the evidence which the District Attorney had accumulated against him would be presented before a trial jury, approached with deadly certainty. Such considerations led to Ruef devoting his days to resistance of the proceeding against him in the trial court, where a jury to try him on one of the five extortion charges on which he had been indicted, was being impaneled, while his nights were given to scheming to wring from the District Attorney immunity from punishment for the extortions and briberies which had been brought to his door. The period was one of activity for both District Attorney and Ruef. On the whole, however, the District Attorney had the liveliest time of it. To be sure, Ruef had been brought before the trial judge; that is to say, the impaneling of a trial jury had begun, but Ruef's technical fight had not been abandoned for a moment. The appearance of Ruef under arrest was signal for a fight to have him admitted to bail. But release under bonds Judge Dunne denied him on the ground of the immediate approach of his trial, and because he had attempted to put himself beyond the process of the court. Ruef's attorneys appealed to the United States District Court for a writ of habeas corpus, but this was denied them. His attorneys filed affidavits alleging bias and prejudice on the part of Judge Dunne against Ruef, and demanding a change of venue. And with these various motions, all of which the District Attorney was called upon to meet, was the appeal from Judge Hebbard's order to the Federal Supreme Court, which was considered in a previous chapter.