Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/302



Mr. Calhoun went on to tell Mr. Spreckels in a very flattering way that he was the kind of man he wished to have with him, and he suggested that Mr. Spreckels take a stock interest in the United Railways. Mr. Spreckels put the whole business-aside with a reference to “people that didn’t live on Pacific Avenue and did not ride in automobiles and carriages.” He was quiet about it, but he understood it. He was being offered personal inducements to betray the other property owners with whom he had associated himself and of whom he was the leader; the price held out to him was expected to bribe him over to the side of the United Railways.

“Did you understand this to be bribery?” I asked Mr. Spreckels.

“Of course it was bribery,” he answerech “Bribes aren’t always offered in cash, and corruption isn’t- confined to politics, Anything that tempts any man from what he thinks to be his duty, is corruption.”

Mr. Spreckels resisted the temptation easily. He told Calhoun, as he told Calhoun’s predecessors, that he would fight, and he went out and organized a company to build and operate an underground trolley line in Bush Street. That is the offence charged up to him by his fellow capitalists now. At the time he proposed his