In the early morning of the day following, April 18, came the San Francisco earthquake and fire. For the moment the public forgot all differences in the common disaster. But the lines of division between exploiter and builder could not be wiped out, not even by the destruction of the city. The contest, which had, without any one realizing its full significance, been fast coming to a head before the fire, was to take definite shape after the disaster. FOOTNOTES: [26] Patrick Calhoun, in a letter to the press, dated March 21, 1906--less than a month before the great fire--stated that the time was near when the San Francisco street-car system would have to serve a million people. The 1910 census, taken four years after the fire, gave San Francisco a population of 416,912. [27] Ruef testified before the Grand Jury that the water deal would have been the most important pulled off by the Board of Supervisors. He testified that he had told Gallagher to tell the members of the Board there would be more money in it than had been received in any other deal. Ruef gave Gallagher to understand that the amount to be divided would be as much as $1,000,000. [28] The United Railroads was controlled by Eastern capital. Before the entrance of the United Railroads into the San Francisco field, California capital had dominated in purely local public utilities. [29] The public's opposition to the overhead trolley system was that the poles and wires would be a disfigurement of what were regarded as the best streets; that the wires were dangerous, and would interfere with the work of firemen in fighting fires; that San Francisco was as much entitled as Washington and New York to the best system. Rudolph Spreckels at the trial of Patrick Calhoun for offering a bribe, testified as to his own opposition: "I believed that the overhead trolley was unsightly; that it increased the risk of fire; that it was dangerous; that it was noisy and unsightly. I believed from my own observation of the operation of the underground conduit system in other cities that it was preferable, that it was more sightly, just as rapid, and in every way more in keeping with a city of the size and importance of San Francisco. Having been born here, and having large property interests I felt it my duty, as I always have, and hope I always shall, to protect the interests of this community and to protect the interests of its citizens and its property owners. That was my purpose in opposing that franchise and that grant."