"Yesterday," said the Chronicle the morning after the election, "was a great day for San Francisco. It was the turn of the tide. It was the beginning of the ascent to nobler ideals and better days. The passions of the conflict will soon die away. With an honest government assured, capital will not shun us but seek us. And we can look back on the events of the last six years as we remember a nightmare from which we awake to find ourselves in security and peace." "The indicted bribe-givers," said the Call, "may as well make up their minds that there is no way of escape for them except through trial and by the verdicts of the juries. The people have spoken and they have said that the clean-up must be thorough. The sweeping success of Langdon means that the prosecution of the grafters will be pressed to its fitting conclusion upon the facts and under the law. There need be no delay now. Soon all the cases should be settled and another chapter added to the history of San Francisco--a chapter in which will have been written the means, the manner and the fullness of our atonement for Schmitz-Ruef chapter just before it, the vindication of the city's good name." CHAPTER XXII. HIGHER COURTS FREE SCHMITZ AND RUEF. On January 8, 1908, the municipal officials elected with Mayor Taylor assumed the duties of their office. That day, Ruef was taken from the custody of the elisor and locked up in the county jail. In the jail with him were Schmitz, convicted of the extortion charge to which Ruef had pleaded guilty, and Glass, who had been convicted of bribery. The following day, January 9, the Appellate Court, for the First District, handed down a decision in the Schmitz extortion case, which, later sustained by the Supreme Court, unlocked the prison doors not only for Schmitz, but for Ruef also.[341] The decision was the first serious setback in the graft cases that District Attorney Langdon's office had received. The prosecution had prevented Ruef seizing the District Attorney's office; had defeated the efforts of the defense to have the indicting Grand Jury declared an invalid body; had overcome the resistance of the defendants to facing trial jurors; had, after meeting the clever opposition of the best legal talent obtainable for money, forced trials before juries and secured convictions; and finally, the prosecution had met the defense before the larger jury of The People, and, at the polls, had won again. But, with a stroke of the pen, the Appellate Court swept aside the greater part of the accomplishment of fifteen-months struggle against corruption. The court found the indictment under which Schmitz had been convicted of extortion to be insufficient and ordered the defendant to be discharged as to the indictment.