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.