"The recent disclosures of the methods by which it was sought to unload Spring Valley's old junk, called a distributing system, together with its inadequate supply of inferior water, on the city at an outrageous figure by the swinging of the 'big stick' has not enhanced the value of the securities of the corporation in the view of the national examiners. Even the efforts to cloud the real purposes of the promoters of the Spring Valley job by calling it a civic uprising to stamp out municipal graft is said to have failed to mislead the Federal experts. The suggestion that the 'big stick' would force the city to purchase the plant of the decrepit corporation for $28,000,000 after its real estimate was appraised by an expert at $5,000,000 and held by the bondholders to be worth, as realty speculation, $15,000,000, has not enthused the Federal bank examiners in relation to the value of Spring Valley bonds as security for a national bank." The First National Bank did not hold Spring Valley Company securities. As the Tribune's charges were calculated to injure the bank, action for libel followed. At the hearings, it developed that the articles had been furnished the Tribune by the political editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, who testified that he was paid fifty dollars a week for his Tribune articles. This was more than his salary as political editor of the Chronicle. He admitted on the stand that he had heard what he stated in his article, "only as a matter of gossip." [89] The San Francisco Call, in an editorial article, printed October 22, expressed the general sentiment in San Francisco. The Call said: "San Francisco will welcome the undertaking by Mr. Francis J. Heney of the duty to search out and bring to justice the official boodlers and their brokers that afflict the body politic. Public opinion is unanimous in the belief that Supervisors have been bribed and that administrative functions such as those of the Board of Works and the Health Board have been peddled in secret market. Even the Board of Education is not exempted from suspicion. "These convictions, prevailing in the public mind, call for verification or refutation. The sudden affluence of certain members of the Board of Supervisors, the current and generally credited reports that the United Railroads paid upward of $500,000 in bribes to grease the way of its overhead trolley franchise, the appearance of public officials in the guise of capitalists making large investments in skating rinks and other considerable enterprises--these and other lines of investigation demand the probe. If there has been no dishonesty in office the officials should be the first to insist on a thorough inquiry.