THE SWAY OF BRIBERY AND “HONEST GRAFT”
1903-1905
Graft of all kinds was rampant, as later official investigation showed,
in Tammany-controlled departments, but in the public mind the question
of this form of graft was vastly overshadowed by the revelations of the
New York legislative committee investigating the great life insurance
companies.
The disclosures showed that Republican legislators as well as
Democratic were bought; that enormous corruption funds had been
contributed to both political parties, and that one political machine
was no better than the other.
Bribery expenditures, the committee reported, were classified on the
various insurance companies’ books as “legal expenses.” The committee
described the amounts as extraordinarily large. In the year 1904 alone,
the Mutual Life Insurance Company thus disbursed $364,254.95; the
Equitable Life Assurance Society, $172,698.42, and the New York Life
Insurance Company, $204,019.25.[1]
Andrew C. Fields, long engaged by the Mutual Life Insurance Company
to manipulate legislation at Albany, lived there in a sumptuously
furnished house jocosely styled the “House of Mirth.” The expenditures
were charged to “legal expenses.” The Mutual thus expended more than
$2,000,000 in “legal expenses” from 1898 to 1904.[2] And from 1895
to 1904, the total payments made by the New York Life Insurance
Company to Andrew Hamilton, its chief lobbyist at Albany, amounted
to $1,312,197.16, all of which sum was soberly entered as “legal
expenses.”[3] A present of nearly $50,000 was contributed in 1894
by the New York Life Insurance Company to the campaign fund of the
Republican National Committee, and similar amounts in 1896 and 1900 to
the same recipient.[4] All of the large insurance companies regularly
contributed funds not only for national political campaigns, but for
those in the States; the Equitable, for example, gave $50,000 in
1904 to the Republican National Committee, and had also, for many
years, been giving $30,000 annually to the New York State Republican
Committee.[5] The legislative investigating committee found it
impossible to trace all of the directions of this continuous great
corruption. “Enormous sums,” the committee stated, “have been expended
in a surreptitious manner.”
Under the pressure of public opinion, District Attorney Jerome finally
caused the Grand Jury to proceed against a few of the figureheads
involved; the great magnates who had profited so enormously from the
huge frauds, were, so events proved, left untouched. Although it had
been clearly proved by the testimony that the frauds and corruptions
consummated were gigantic, not a single one of those of great wealth
implicated was ever sent to jail or even incommoded by the formality of
a trial.
In the face of such disclosures, the opponents of Tammany could not
well point to Tammany corruption as an exclusive product. It was a
time, too, when what was termed “muckraking” was almost at its height;
magazines and newspapers, were filled with articles exposing in detail
the corruptions and colossal manipulations and spoliation done by great
corporations and other vested interests, and the close connection
between these and the “bosses” and machines of both old political
parties. Public attention was concentrated more upon these nationwide
scandals than upon local graft--petty, indeed, in some respects,
compared to the great extortions of trusts and other industrial,
transportation and financial corporations.
These factors had their influence in developing in New York City
a powerful movement called the Municipal Ownership League, later
passing under the name of the Independence League. The head of this
organization was William R. Hearst. He had inherited a large fortune
from his father, United States Senator George Hearst. The estate
comprised a San Francisco newspaper; and William R. Hearst had come to
New York, where he now had a morning and an evening newspaper. Of a
sensational order, yet written in popular style, these newspapers had
an extensive circulation, and their agitational matter were in reality
the mainstay of his movement. Two of the local objectives of this
agitation were the scandalous overcrowding of the street car system
and the methods by which the subway system in New York City, built
by the city’s credit, had been turned over to the profit of private
interests. At the same time, no means was neglected to awaken popular
resentment against the “plunderbund” fattening on the people, and to
arouse indignation against the bossism of Tammany Hall. Day after day
effective articles, editorials and cartoons were published; written
in a simple style, understandable by the crudest intelligence, they
produced a great effect among the voters. Nothing quite like this
original kind of political journalism had ever been known in New York
City.
The operations of the New York Contracting and Trucking Company, in
particular, supplied facts which were used effectually by newspapers
and civic organizations to show the new methods by which Tammany
leaders were gathering in millions from contracts. This company, as we
have seen, was headed by John J. Murphy, brother of the Tammany Hall
chief, and by Alderman James E. Gaffney.
Its transactions revealed the great difference between Tweed’s methods
and those of the later leaders of Tammany Hall. Under the Tweed régime
tens of millions of dollars were stolen outright. The lesson of the
overthrow of the Tweed “ring” was not lost on his successors. Mr.
Croker refused to countenance such outworn, discarded and dangerous
methods of theft. They had resulted disastrously to Tammany in Tweed’s
day. In place of direct thieving methods of getting rich, indirect
methods, surrounded with secrecy and every possible precaution against
detection, were developed. Some Tammany district leaders became opulent
on blackmail and extortion, the circuitous route of which it was most
difficult to trace (in a legal sense) to its final destination. As for
Mr. Croker himself, the question was frequently put to him, “Where did
you get it?”[6] He could reply that his operations in amassing his
wealth were entirely legitimate; “inside” real estate speculations,
connections with trust companies and other corporations and stock
transactions. Knowing him to be the source of much legislation and
administrative favors worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of
dollars to corporations, his opponents were by no means wholly
satisfied with such an explanation, but whatever their suspicions
they could never prove that he had personally profited from selling
legislation. Essentially, however, Mr. Croker never posed as a business
man; he was a politician.
But by the period when Charles F. Murphy became “chief,” the
“business-man” type of leader had evolved. Under this plan--a plan that
afforded the most plausible opportunities for explaining the sudden
acquisition of wealth--Tammany men became open or secret partners
in contracting firms, using the pressure of political power to have
large contracts awarded to their concerns. It was not necessary
for these leaders to know anything of contracting; they could be
ignorant of every detail; their one aim was to get the contracts; the
actual skilled work could be done by hired professional men. No law
penalized such methods, respectable in every appearance. At the same
time, inasmuch as speculating in the stock market was legitimate in
law, fortunes could be made in acting upon advance information of
legislative or other official means concerning certain corporations.
The first large contract obtained by the New York Contracting and
Trucking Company was a $2,000,000 contract for excavating the site for
the new Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York City.
For a long time, notwithstanding reiterated protests from the press and
public organizations, the Board of Aldermen, controlled by Tammany, had
obstinately refused to vote for the franchise giving the Pennsylvania
Railroad power to use streets for its tunnel approaches and terminal
in Manhattan, New York City. Reports were circulated that the sum of
$300,000 had been demanded by the Aldermen, and that until that sum was
produced they would not vote for the franchise. It was noted that it
was “Big Jim” Gaffney, “outside man” for the New York Contracting and
Trucking Company and Alderman from Leader Charles F. Murphy’s district,
who, together with “Little Tim” Sullivan, Tammany leader in the Board
of Aldermen, took a leading part in persuading the Aldermen to hold
out against giving the franchise for the Pennsylvania tunnel. The
newspapers unanimously described the Aldermanic action as a “hold-up.”
Likewise, it was also noted that when from some mysterious quarter
orders reached Tammany Aldermen to vote for the franchise, it was
Alderman Gaffney who took the lead in rallying the Aldermen to vote it
through.
This sudden change of front after a protracted “hold-up,” puzzled
the public exceedingly, and sinister imputations were made. Not until
months later did the public begin to see illumination; it was then
announced that although the New York Contracting and Trucking Company
had not been the lowest bidder (its bid, according to report, was
$400,000 more than that of a competitor), nevertheless it had been
awarded the $2,000,000 contract for digging the Pennsylvania Railroad
site.
In the case of the awarding of a contract covering several million
dollars in February, 1905, to the New York Contracting and Trucking
Company for the six-track local improvement of the New York, New Haven
and Hartford Railroad, the circumstances were much the same.
A franchise had been asked for a project called the New York,
Westchester and Boston Railroad Company. At the same time, another
company calling itself the New York and Port Chester Railroad Company,
made a similar application and opposed the other company. Both
companies, as subsequent developments showed, were in fact owned by the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad; the opposition of one to the
other was evidently for mere effect.
For three years the Board of Aldermen refused to give the franchises,
either one of which would give the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad its own independent entrance into New York City. Somehow and
from somewhere the announcement was now made that unless the Board of
Aldermen acted, a law would be passed by the Legislature stripping it
of all power of granting franchises. This threat was executed; the
Legislature passed an act vesting franchise-granting power in the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment. It may here be parenthetically noted
that with the great powers increasingly vested in it the Board of
Estimate became the most compact and powerful instrument of government
that had ever been developed in the government of New York City.
This body is composed of eight officials. Of these, three
officials,--the Mayor, the Controller and the President of the Board of
Aldermen,--have, by reason of a greater vested plurality of votes, the
dominance of power. The other five members are the Borough Presidents.
The first point passed upon by this Board was the question of whether
or not the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad Company was or
was not a defunct corporation. On March 30, 1904, Corporation Council
Delany (elected by Tammany Hall) reported to the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment that the Board had no jurisdiction to examine the legal
capacity or incapacity of the company.[7]
On June 24, 1904, the company received its franchise. The company was
really an adjunct of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad,
and its franchise gave it the right to operate more than sixteen
miles of four-track line within New York City; the company secured
practically all the available routes for entrance and exit to and from
New York City by way of the Bronx. It was the $6,000,000 contract for
constructing this railroad improvement that the New York Contracting
and Trucking Company secured.
The declaration was made that no other contractor had ventured to
compete for this work; and the explanation was offered in some quarters
that inasmuch as a large part of the work was located inside the city
limits and as an unfriendly city administration might do much to
hamper the carrying out of the contract, the New York, New Haven and
Hartford officials, with a cautious eye to the railroad’s interests,
were willing to award the contract to the Tammany firm and pay higher
prices. Mr. Gaffney asserted that politics had nothing to do with the
obtaining of the contract and that his company “had bid with other
contractors and won out,” but politicians did not take this statement
seriously. In February, 1907, the New York Contracting and Trucking
Company surrendered its contract for a consideration of $500,000
to another company, the Holbrook, Cabot & Daly Company, which had
previously done much of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad’s
construction work. It was not until seven years later that the fact,
originally suspected, as to why the contract had been given without
competition to the Gaffney-Murphy company, was authoritatively stated.
On May 20, 1914, Charles S. Mellen, long president of the New York, New
Haven and Hartford Railroad, testified before the Interstate Commerce
Commission that the contract had been turned over to that Tammany
concern “to avoid friction with the city,” meaning that by giving
the contract to the Tammany company, city officials would attempt
no “hold-up,” such as placing obstacles in the way of carrying the
construction work through.
Further disclosures strongly indicated that during the time when the
Westchester franchise was acquired by the New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad, certain powers in Tammany Hall “had to be taken care
of,” and that they benefited financially.
After being looted of large sums in financial jugglery, the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad had been thrown on the verge of
insolvency. It was revealed in 1918 that a certain $12,000,000 of New
York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad money put into the Westchester
project had mysteriously vanished in unexplained directions. The
Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1914, conducted an investigation
to find out specifically, if possible, what became of those missing
millions.
On April 24, 1914, Oakley Thorne, a New York banker, who had been the
agent of J. P. Morgan & Company in handling the $12,000,000 for the
purpose of secretly purchasing the Westchester and the Portchester
franchises for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, gave
certain testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission. He averred
that he had burned the books containing the particulars as to how he
had spent at least $8,000,000; he explained that he therefore could
not give names, amounts and dates. A letter written by Mr. Thorne in
October, 1906, to C. S. Mellen, president of the New York, New Haven
and Hartford Railroad, was produced. In this letter Thorne wrote that
“there are people in Fourteenth Street who are very strongly in favor
of Westchester and others in favor of Portchester,” and suggested that
“both sides will have to be taken care of.” Asked what the reference
to “Fourteenth Street” meant, Thorne replied, “Why, I believe, Tammany
Hall.” Mr. Thorne testified that he could not possibly remember the
names of any individuals in “Fourteenth Street” who “had to be taken
care of,” but he admitted that he knew that “Big Tim” Sullivan was
“friendly” to the Westchester “enterprise” and owned stock in it; at
the time this testimony was given Sullivan was dead.
Mr. Thorne asserted that he could not recall definite particulars,
but he could vaguely remember that there were persons in “Fourteenth
Street” who had, at the time, been “interested in the Westchester
City and Contract Company, the New York Development Company and other
concerns that subsequently formed a part of the Westchester combination
turned over to the New Haven [the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad Company] through Morgan & Company.” Certain “persons in
Fourteenth Street,” Mr. Thorne further testified, had to be bought off
because of their “nuisance value,” but precisely what was the nature of
that “nuisance value” was not explained. In the disposition of the many
millions of dollars placed in his hands, Mr. Thorne was not required to
make any accounting or give any vouchers.
Further details of later developments were given in the testimony of
Charles S. Mellen, president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad during the years when the above franchises were acquired.
On May 14, 1914, Mr. Mellen testified, at a hearing before the
Interstate Commerce Commission, that the directors of that railroad
set aside a fund of $1,200,000, the value of 8,000 shares of New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad stock, which sum was distributed
among “people of influence” in the politics of New York City for
the procuring of certain much-desired changes in the charter of
the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad Company. Mr. Mellen
further testified that Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes, who, for many
years, had been head of the New York Police Department (and who was
deceased at the time of this hearing) had acted as the go-between in
this transaction; that Byrnes agreed to obtain thirteen different
modifications or “amendments” to the New York, Westchester and Boston
Railroad charter from New York city’s officials; and that to bring
about these results stock, or its equivalent in cash, to the sum
of $1,200,000, was given to Byrnes for distribution among Tammany
politicians whose identity Mr. Mellen declared that he did not know.
Mr. Mellen’s testimony revealed that some of these persons accepted
stock made out in the names of dummies, but that the majority demanded
and received cash for their “services.” All but $50,000 of the
$1,200,000 was distributed.
The records of the Board of Estimate in 1908 and 1909 bear out Mr.
Mellen’s testimony; they show that nearly every request for alterations
of the charter or extensions of time made by the New York, New Haven
and Hartford Railroad was granted. The Board of Estimate during the
years in question consisted of Mayor McClellan; Controller Herman A.
Metz; Patrick F. McGowan, President of the Board of Aldermen; John F.
Ahearn, President of the Borough of Manhattan; Bird S. Coler, President
of the Borough of Brooklyn; Louis F. Haffen, President of the Borough
of the Bronx; Lawrence Gresser, President of the Borough of Queens,
and George Cromwell, President of the Borough of Richmond.[8]
Continuing his testimony, Mr. Mellen stated, on May 20, 1914, that
upon further recollection he found that the amount distributed to
politicians in connection with securing the Westchester franchise and
alterations to the charter, really totaled $1,500,000 or $1,600,000.
Much of this amount was presented in the form of due bills sent in
by Tammany politicians by means of messengers; Mr. Mellen personally
handed over cash for the due bills, but the names of the recipients he
said he could not remember. “Do you know,” Mr. Mellen was asked, “what
all this Westchester and Portchester stock was doing in Tammany Hall?”
“I know,” he replied, “what it was doing to me when I took it on. It
was costing me lots of money.” “Do you know how all this stock reached
Tammany Hall?” “I have not the slightest idea. I could suppose a lot of
things, but I do not know anything about it.”
Submitting, on July 11, 1914, the results of its investigation
to the United States Senate, the Interstate Commerce Commission
reported that the facts as to the New York, Westchester and Boston
Railway transaction constituted “a story of the profligate waste of
corporate funds.” The fullest details are set forth in that report of
the magnitude of the corruption used. Commenting upon Mr. Mellen’s
testimony, the report declared: “The testimony is somewhat occult,
but the character of the transaction is no less certain. This money
was used for corrupt purposes, and the improper expenditures covered
up by the transfer to the New Haven [New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad Company] of these worthless securities.… It seems very strange
that Mr. Mellen was not able to identify with any particularity any one
with whom he had these transactions except the late Thomas F. Byrnes.
No comment is necessary to make clear to the mind the corrupt and
unlawful nature of this transaction, and it would seem that the amount
illegally expended could be recovered from Mr. Mellen and the directors
who authorized it.…”[9]
There is now pending (1917) a suit in the United States District Court
brought by the stockholders against the former directors of the New
York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company and against the company
for the return of $165,000,000 alleged to have been lost to the
treasury of that railroad in various ways.
To return, however, to the operations of the New York Contracting
and Trucking Company: Another contract secured by that concern was a
contract from the Consolidated Gas Company for grading the site for the
Astoria gas plant; the franchise for the Astoria “Gas Grab” had been
supported by Tammany.
By 1905 it was estimated that the New York Contracting and Trucking
Company or its offshoots had received contracts aggregating
$15,000,000--all contracts from corporations and interests benefiting
from the city government or depending upon favors from it. Yet
two years previously this very company was a nonentity as far as
securing large contracts were concerned, and none of its heads
had any experience in the contracting business. Now in a certain
well-understood field, it was virtually free from competition.
None could now fail to note the great transition from the Tweed
period when Tammany leaders used only the vulgar and criminal methods
of stealing money out of the city treasury. Under Murphy’s leadership
the obvious methods used were those of “honest graft”--the making of
millions from contracts with public service corporations, and this was
represented as legitimate business. Fully six Tammany district leaders
were members of or “interested” in large contracting firms, although
the heads of these, often of a nominal character, were not known as
Tammany leaders. These concerns employed a total of many thousands
of men, all of whom were expected to be useful at the primaries and
elections.
At this time there was discernible the beginnings of a growing feeling
that reform officials, while prosecuting gamblers and comparatively
petty offenders of all stripes, somehow were singularly ineffective in
bringing about the prosecution of corporation magnates charged with
looting on a large scale. This feeling had not crystallized as yet, but
it was felt in some quarters.
Some of District Attorney Jerome’s former supporters were impressed
by the fact that despite his campaign promises, he had not caused
the indictment or other prosecution of the men who had looted the
Metropolitan Street Railway Company. James W. Osborne, a noted
attorney, had declared in open court in 1903, that the “insiders” had,
by means of duplicating of construction accounts, manipulation and
in other ways, stolen $30,000,000. Mr. Amory declared and specified
that an additional $60,000,000 had, by various processes of devious
manipulation, gone to enrich the “insiders”--a total of $90,000,000.
On April 25, 1903, Mr. Osborne gave out this statement: “We have
produced evidence before Magistrate Barlow which shows a crime has been
committed, and now it is up to the District Attorney to say whether he
will avail himself of that evidence and proceed against those who have
committed the crime. We have charged in open court that $30,000,000
has been stolen, and that [statement] never has been disproved by the
Metropolitan Company or its counsel. I told Mr. Nicoll, counsel for Mr.
Vreeland [president of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company] openly
he would not be able to disprove my charges.”
Mr. Amory openly declared that Mr. Jerome’s investigation of the
matter in 1903 was not undertaken in good faith. “It was,” he wrote,
“a deliberate whitewash. I have documentary evidence to prove it.” Mr.
Amory charged that of the twenty-seven distinct written charges filed
with Mr. Jerome against the Metropolitan management, Mr. Jerome’s
accountant reported on only seven, and these latter were of minor
importance, involving chiefly technicalities of accounts and not
serious crimes. Yet Mr. Jerome, was Mr. Amory’s indignant comment,
represented that the accountant’s report was “very clear and full and
takes up every charge” and that Mr. Jerome had reported that “the
specific charges so far as they involve criminal wrong-doing are
entirely without foundation.”[10]
While thus declaring that he could find nothing on which to base
prosecution of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company magnates,
District Attorney Jerome showed by other acts, it was complained,
that petty criminals would be prosecuted to the limit of the law. He
was charged with discriminating between rich and powerful business
offenders, on the one side, and on the other, poor and relatively
uninfluential violators of the law.
On one occasion Mr. Jerome appeared before labor unions, delivered
homilies on the virtues, and warned them that he would make short
shrift of labor grafters. This lecture had reference to the case of Sam
Parks, a labor leader, charged with grafting on employers and receiving
money for prompting or “calling off” strikes. District Attorney
Jerome waited for no elaborate formal investigation; he immediately
started the machinery of his office against Parks and caused him to be
convicted. Already a dying consumptive, Parks was sentenced to prison,
where he died shortly after. But no action, it was pointed out, was
taken against powerful construction companies that had bribed Parks
and other labor leaders to declare strikes on buildings for which
competitors had the contracts.[11] Another much-discussed incident
was the result of a collision of railroad trains in the Park Avenue
tunnel--a collision maiming and killing many persons. The obsolete
and dangerous condition of this tunnel had long been known. It was
commented that District Attorney Jerome did not make the slightest move
against the railroad directors; he hurriedly caused the indictment
and arrest of Wisker, a railroad engineer, as the sole culprit and
proceeded with despatch to his trial. The jury, however, refused to
convict the engineer.
Considering that Mr. Jerome was a leading reformer, such contrasts
were gradually calculated to make the very mention of reform odious
to the observing of the working people. The complaint was generally
heard that the big grafters were safe and immune, while petty offenders
were dealt with rigorously. Nevertheless, a large number of voters,
influenced by a stream of praise from the press, still believed in Mr.
Jerome’s promises and motives, and his action in 1905 in not securing
a renomination from political bosses but procuring it independently by
means of a petition circulated among electors, strengthened the old
belief that he was sincere and was independent of political and other
domination. Much was made of the fact of his independent renomination.
The Republicans withdrew their candidate for District Attorney and
nominated Mr. Jerome, and the press in general enthusiastically
supported him. He was reelected. It was not until some years later when
the full effects of his administration could be popularly realized in
perspective, that Jerome fell into general disfavor with the voters.
As an instance of the methods of contractors under the Tammany régime
during this time, it is only necessary to mention the facts, later
disclosed in an investigation by John Purroy Mitchel, Commissioner
of Accounts, as to how in 1904 defective hose was sold to the Fire
Department. The Windsor Fire Appliance Company (of which the president
and chief stockholder was Michael F. Loughman, later appointed Deputy
Commissioner of Water Supply) sold 25,000 feet of hose to New York City
for $23,410.25. Although this hose did not answer the specifications
of the contract, it was accepted. The consequence was that it burst
many times at fires, some of them serious. The same was true of equally
worthless hose supplied by other contractors.
The municipal election in 1905 was a triangular contest. Tammany Hall
did not fear the Republican ticket headed by William M. Ivins for
Mayor. But it did have intense uneasiness over the possibility of Mr.
Hearst triumphing; his movement was too plainly making inroads among
large numbers of voters that ordinarily would have voted the Tammany
ticket. Tammany was particularly bent upon winning inasmuch as by the
provisions of the revised charter the term of the incoming Mayor and
other officials had been changed to a four-year incumbency. Hearst
was the Municipal Ownership League’s candidate for Mayor, and Tammany
renominated Mayor McClellan. So effective were Hearst’s onslaughts
on “Boss” Murphy and the elements represented by him that during the
campaign Mayor McClellan repeatedly made promises that he would
thereafter pursue an independent course, should he be reelected.
Mr. Hearst’s vote returns came in so heavily after the polls were
closed that it looked as though he were certainly elected. That very
night there was a strange interruption, lasting about an hour, in the
public giving-out of the returns. Then as the returns were resumed,
it appeared that although the vote between McClellan and Hearst was
extremely close, McClellan had a little the better of it. The next
day it was announced that Mayor McClellan was reelected by a close
margin. Mr. Hearst and his followers declared that manifest fraud had
been committed, and took steps to have a recount. Meantime while this
process was dragging along, Mayor McClellan was widely criticized for
his action in immediately claiming his reelection, opposing a recount,
and not showing faith in the legitimacy of his claims by waiting with
dignity until there had been a careful official recount.
The final official recount gave this result: McClellan, 228,407 votes
Hearst, 224,929 votes; Ivins, 137,184 votes. It may be added here that
in the very next year--in 1906--Hearst accepted a Tammany indorsement
when he ran for Governor, but he was defeated by Charles E. Hughes,
who, as counsel for the Legislative Insurance Committee, had achieved
wide popularity for his exposure of the insurance company iniquities.
With the reelection of Mr. McClellan, Tammany Hall confidently looked
forward to four more years of unquestioned control of the immense
budget and enormous opportunities embodied in the rule of New York City.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Report of the New York Legislative Insurance Committee_, 1906,
Vol. X, p. 16.
[2] _Ibid._
[3] _Ibid._, p. 50.
[4] _Ibid._, pp. 62 and 398.
[5] _Ibid._, p. 10.
[6] Mr. Croker, in 1900, had admitted his liability to an English tax
on a yearly income of $100,000.
[7] The company had filed articles of incorporation in 1872, but
was charged with being an abortive corporation in that it had never
completed the necessary formalities required by law.
[8] As we shall see later, the political composition of the Board of
Estimate was at this time considerably mixed; during his second term
Mayor McClellan was fighting Mr. Murphy, leader of Tammany Hall, and
had the backing of Senator McCarren and of McCarren’s lieutenant,
Controller Metz. Mr. McGowan, president of the Board of Aldermen,
was supposed to be a Tammany man, but was not on good terms with the
“Organization” and was credited with being aligned with McClellan and
Metz.
[9] _Interstate Commerce Commission Report No. 6569_, In re _Financial
Transactions of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co._,
July 11, 1914, pp. 35, 38, etc. The above are but a few extracts from
this comprehensive report.
[10] _The Truth About Metropolitan_, by W. N. Amory, pp. 60-64.
[11] In an effective article in _McClure’s Magazine_, Mr. Ray Stannard
Baker showed how one of these big companies bribed walking delegates to
declare strikes on buildings being put up by rival contractors in order
that it--the briber--might be able to get a reputation for building
within contract time, and thus exclude competitors from getting further
contracts.