CHAPTER XXXVII
TAMMANY’S PRESENT STATUS
1914-1917
Upon the removal of Governor Sulzer from office, Martin Glynn, as has already been noted, had become Governor of New York State. A Democrat, he consequently appointed men of the party to which he belonged to various offices. Tammany and its auxiliaries now had control of the Public Service Commission, First District.
But this control was abruptly ended by the effect of the disclosures made in the testimony before the (Thompson) Joint Legislative Committee probing into the affairs of the Public Service Commissions. Mr. Glynn was succeeded as Governor by Charles S. Whitman who had done such notable service as District Attorney of New York County. During 1915 the Joint Legislative Committee held many hearings at which much testimony of an upheaving nature was given.
One result of this inquiry was a series of grave charges against Edward E. McCall, Chairman of the Public Service Commission, First District, and, as we have seen, recent candidate of Tammany Hall for Mayor. Accompanied, by a request for Mr. McCall’s removal from office, these charges were made to Governor Whitman by the Joint Legislative Committee on December 12, 1915, and were supplemented by a bill of particulars, specifying twenty charges, formally filed ten days later.
The charges declared that Mr. McCall’s acceptance of his appointment to the Public Service Commission was in violation of law; that he was at the time the owner of stock in a corporation subject to the Public Service Commission’s supervision; that thereafter he attempted to transfer this stock to his wife “which attempt was a mere subterfuge and a clumsy effort to evade the statute”; and that as Chairman of the Public Service Commission he participated in the consideration of matters affecting the value of this stock.
Further, the charges accused Mr. McCall of accepting a retainer for legal services from a corporation, the chief owner of the stock of which was commonly reputed to be a controlling factor in the management of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company; and that in another case he accepted a retainer in an action then pending in the Supreme Court “in which action the engineers in the employ of the Public Service Commission will be necessary as material witnesses.” Other charges specified that he favored the public service corporations to the detriment of public interests. The sixteenth charge particularized that in the matter of the third tracking of the elevated railroads in Manhattan he failed to reserve the power of supervision to the Commission “and that as a result of such failure the lessee of the Manhattan Railway Company [the Interborough] has entered into extravagant and improvident contracts under which its stockholders and the people of the City of New York have suffered and will suffer large losses”. The seventeenth charge arraigned McCall for having authorized the construction of connecting lines by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company “at an extravagant and exorbitant price and without competition to the disadvantage of the city of New York and its inhabitants.” The eighteenth charge set forth that in the execution of the dual subway contracts “he permitted the inclusion of a provision under which the New York Municipal Railway Corporation will be permitted unwarrantedly to deduct from the earnings of that company, before the division of the net earnings between the company and the city can be accomplished, a sum aggregating more than $10,000,000.” In brief, the charges declared that McCall showed misconduct in office, favoritism, neglect of duty, and inefficiency.
After consideration of the charges, Governor Whitman, on December 6, 1915, removed Mr. McCall from office as the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, First District. The particular charge substantiated was that McCall violated that section of the Public Service Commissions law forbidding a Commissioner to hold stock in a corporation subject to the Commission’s supervision.
McCall, however, was not the only Public Service Commissioner involved in the revelations before the Joint Legislative Committee. At a session on December 16, 1915, Sidney G. Johnson, vice-president of the General Railway Signal Company, testified that Robert Colgate Wood, another Public Service Commissioner, demanded $5,000 from the Union Switch and Signal Company for using his influence as Commissioner to give that company a subway signal system contract. The offer, it was testified, was refused. On January 25, 1916, the Grand Jury in New York County indicted Mr. Wood for the alleged solicitation of a bribe. Meanwhile, on December 27, 1915, George V. S. Williams, another Public Service Commissioner, resigned from office on the plea that for some time he had been contemplating this step, and now that he was no longer “under fire” he could retire in justice to himself.