Some three or four years after the death and burial of the “Tom Titmouse” book and when its odoriferous memory had become less offensive, another effort was made to get control of the registration business, by the same parties in Kentucky. Mr. Brodhead did not appear prominently in this move, but worked through his echo, McDowell. The plan was to present a monster petition to the National Trotting Association, composed chiefly of track owners and track followers, to establish a trotting register. This petition purported to be from breeders, but in fact it embraced all the “swipes” and stable-boys about Lexington and Woodburn, I was told, and there were very few actual breeders in the list, and that few were men who were trying to breed trotters from runners. The movement was inspired and engineered in good degree from Woodburn, and Brodhead’s friends were at work in all directions securing the names of the “rag, tag and bobtail” whose names appeared on the petition, and a very great noise was raised about what was going to be done. Whether the association took any action on the petition, or what it was, I have no recollection, but whatever the disposition made of the petition, it never was heard of again. To the reader not familiar with the condition of things in Kentucky at that time, these persistent and renewed attempts to get control of the registration of trotting horses can hardly be comprehended. They did not grow out of ruffled tempers merely, as the result of friction, but out of strictly business considerations. Kentucky had a great variety of brood mares from which they were trying to breed trotters, and practically every one of them was tricked out with more or less running blood as tail-pieces to their pedigrees, while others were paraded with pedigrees showing a dozen or more successive crosses by thoroughbred horses, and not one of them with a name, a history or a breeder. There were many purchasers flocking to Kentucky with more money than knowledge for the purpose of buying a few animals to serve as the nucleus for a breeding stud, and it was no uncommon thing for such purchasers to estimate the value of a pedigree by its length. When the purchaser got home with his stock, his next step was to send them to me for registration, and here came in the “business” consideration. The pedigree having reached the office of the “Register,” unless it were already known to me, every cross had to be established circumstantially and specifically before it could be accepted, and at the precise point where reasonable information failed the pedigree was cut off. The purchaser then goes back upon the seller, and there the trouble begins. He writes me an indignant letter. “You’re interfering with my business, sah; that pedigree is just as I got it from Colonel Jones, sah; and he’s a gentleman, sah.” It was very seldom, indeed, that a man of this type could be mollified by assuring him that all pedigrees were judged by the same rule and requirement, whether they came from Maine or California or Kentucky. He generally remained an enemy to the “Register” because “it interfered with his business.” From early in the century, three or four counties out of about one hundred and twenty in Kentucky bred running horses and grades and raced them, but no records were kept of their breeding and nobody knows with certainty to-day anything about the more remote crosses. For a time the union of two or three trotting horses upon the top of a line of nameless dams extending ten or fifteen generations was looked upon as the perfection of a trotting pedigree. This notion, foolish as it was, gave Kentucky a great advantage over the breeders of all other sections of the country, and every exposure, with the evidence, that in nine cases out of ten these lines of nameless dams were in whole or in part pure fictions, was cutting the ground from under their supposed superiority in the breeding of their trotters. Under the arguments and illustrations of the Monthly, supported by the incontrovertible statistics of the “Year Book,” the Kentucky cry for “more running blood in the trotter,” was silenced as the child of ignorance and prejudice, and instead of looking for pedigrees tracing back to Godolphin Arabian, everybody began to look for pedigrees that traced to individuals and families distinguished for producing trotters, no difference what blood they possessed. Here the public mind reached the truth, and in grasping it the boasted predominance of Kentucky was crushed, and producing trotting blood was again placed on an equality in all parts of the land. The loss of the pretensions of one section could not be of any specific pecuniary advantage to any other section, but the establishing of the truth was of inestimable advantage to all. The loss of mere “pretentions” would not, in ordinary affairs, be considered a very great loss, but in this instance it was looked upon as a grievous wrong, because it interfered with their “business.” Every slippery fellow who failed to pass a bogus pedigree complained that it interfered with his “business.” Every gang of cheats that got together and hired the use of a track for a few days for the purpose of giving their horses bogus records, when detected, cried out vigorously that this was interfering with their “business.” Besides these, there were scores, perhaps hundreds, of others, ready for some such game to cheat the public, but when they learned the ordeal was severe, their courage failed and they contented themselves by threatening the “Register” for interfering with their “business.” Here was an army of jockeys and cheats, and all they needed to make their numbers formidable was a leader with courage and money, and whose “business” was their own, to seize registration and thus recoup the losses they had sustained in their “business.”
In considering the conspiracy that resulted in the sale and transfer of the Wallace publications to the American Trotting Register Association, which means simply Lucas Brodhead, there are some antecedent conditions connected with these publications that need a brief explanation. The first volume of “Wallace’s American Trotting Register” was published in this city in 1871 and the second in 1874. An office was opened in this city in 1875 and the first number of Wallace’s Monthly was issued in October of that year. The National Association of Trotting Horse Breeders was organized December 20, 1876. The attendance was large and many of the States were represented by men of influence and standing. Mr. Charles Backman was elected president, and L. D. Packer secretary. From the favor with which the idea of a national organization was received and from the character of the men participating in it, I voluntarily and without judicial advice placed in the association the authority to appoint annually a Board of Censors to examine and decide all questions relating to disputed pedigrees sent for registration. The plan worked smoothly and satisfactorily for several years, in some of which there was not a single case to be examined. My publications were soon past the critical point, and they seemed to grow from their inherent strength, and not from pushing or advertising. The Breeders’ Association seemed to take the opposite chute, and after three or four years it became merely a name. At first there was trouble in finding a man to take the presidency, but at last a rich dry goods merchant was found who was willing to take the presidency, and add five hundred dollars a year to some stake for the honor conferred; and the secretary, L. D. Packer, was the mere satellite of the president, and was willing to give two weeks’ work every year for the privilege of drawing a thousand dollars a year from the treasury. The annual meetings became a mere formality, with an attendance of three or four and the two officers, who seemed to re-elect each other year after year, until the association was finally buried somewhere out in Michigan, I think, and the money that had accumulated in the treasury was, on his petition, donated to the secretary in consideration of his valuable services for so many years in carrying the association from the cradle to the tomb.
Owing to my relations to the Breeders’ Association, I felt that I was in honor bound to maintain its good name in the minds of the people, while every publication in the whole country was laughing at it, and that this was my duty as well as my interest until the time came for a final separation from it. True, when I made these efforts to uphold it I had to put my tongue in my cheek, for I knew that its management, like “the Old Man of the Sea,” was riding it to death. As my business continued to grow and prosper, I began to consider the propriety of forming a joint stock company of breeders, to own and control the property absolutely when I was ready to retire. Greatly to my surprise this proposition gave offense to the two gentlemen who managed the association, for I had not alluded to that in any possible manner. When explained to me it became perfectly plain that the offense was in the fact that making a legal corporation to own and control the property would leave no “position” for the president, no salary for the secretary and no further need for the N. A. of T. H. B.
The Wallace Trotting Register Company, in due time, was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, and commenced business October 1, 1889. The publications of the company were the “Register,” the Monthly and the “Year Book.” The capital stock of the company was fixed at one hundred thousand dollars, and as work came pouring in upon us more rapidly than we could handle it, labor became a burden and I had no time to distribute this stock among the breeders of every State, as I intended. This was the condition of things in the office in the following spring when, to my horror, I discovered I had been robbed of something over fifty-four thousand dollars and the thief escaped to Cuba. The blow was a stunner, and messages of sympathy came pouring in from all quarters, with many tenders of pecuniary assistance all of which were thankfully acknowledged, but all tenders of assistance were declined.
The capitalization at one hundred thousand dollars, and the robbery of fifty-four thousand dollars, and the company still not crushed, gave Mr. Brodhead a new view of the possibilities of the future, and inspired him with a new hope that he might yet reach the ambition of his life and gain control of the registration of all the trotting pedigrees of the country. Without much violence to the processes of Brodhead’s mind we can imagine the way in which he reasoned out the problem. “This has become a valuable property and is bound to be still more valuable,” he doubtless reasoned, “and it is possible it can be bought, but if bought it must be done before that stock is scattered among the breeders of the different States. There are Russell Allen and Malcolm Forbes and a whole lot of rich fellows just coming into the trotting horse business and I can show them that this property would be a good investment. With the money in one hand and the bluff of starting an opposition Register in the other, it is possible the property might be got for something like its value.” He next probably reasoned: “The first thing to consider here, is how to make that bluff sufficiently imposing and effective, in an authoritative way; and shall it be a mass meeting or a delegate meeting, and where shall it be held? I have seen Packer and he evidently wants to know what there is in it for him and Mali, in case they agree to call a National convention. They want to perpetuate their offices in their present so-called National Association. If it should be a mass convention, and held at Chicago, I could send up a few carloads of farmers’ sons from around here and every one of them would swear he was a breeder. If it should be a delegate convention from State Breeders’ Associations, there are several States that have no such associations, but I could get a few friends to organize for the purpose of sending delegates. The horse papers would be a unit on our side, for they have been ‘set on’ so often and so hard that they would like to see the old bear superseded. Beside this, every one of those papers has at least the one man who is competent to succeed Wallace, and every editor who has been in the business six months thinks he is fully qualified for that place. But the real roar of the shouting would come from the angry men whom Wallace has disappointed in refusing to accept their pedigrees or their performances because they were irregular. These men are very numerous and we must have as many of them present as possible. I think this plan will work,” he doubtless reasoned with himself, “if we can only keep Wallace in the dark till we get things fixed, and to throw him off his guard I will send him three or four pedigrees to register.”
Thus the plan of the conspiracy, with all the elements to be employed, were evidently matured in Mr. Brodhead’s mind. There were two points about which he was specially solicitous. The first was that I should be kept wholly in the dark as to his movements and purposes, and the second was some apparently official authority for calling a convention at Chicago that would be of a nominally “national” character. On invitation Secretary Packer visited Woodburn, and for a promised consideration it was all arranged that the President and Secretary of the N. A. of T. H. B. would call a convention. With the initial step thus safely provided for, Mr. Brodhead was everywhere, east and west, north and south, beating up recruits. In a short time, evidently by preconcerted arrangement, there was an unusual number of horsemen in town, some of them very rich men, while the greater number were blowers of the Dr. Day type with a grievance. The horsemen were hustled together by Secretary Packer, in what was called an impromptu meeting, and there President Mali, after some apparent hesitation, fulfilled his part of the agreement and called the convention at Chicago, and thus Mr. Brodhead secured his share—and we will see how the other side fared further on.
When the convention assembled at Chicago it was indeed a motley mass. President Mali took his place as president, and called the convention to order, and Secretary Packer took his place as secretary. This, as I understand, was not by the choice of the convention, but by virtue of their positions in the N. A. of T. H. B. It was eventually determined that the meeting should be composed of delegates from State associations, and when the associations were called, several of them had never been heard of before and never have been heard of since. They were bogus associations, and were gotten up especially for the occasion. Some of the delegates bore names that never had been heard of in the office of the “Register,” and it may be inferred they never bred a standard horse. The names of others, again, were well known in the office from their efforts to get spurious and unknown crosses accepted. All these men were anxious for a new management. One man whom I had discharged from my office a few weeks before represented a New England State. He was guilty of a flagrant attempt at deception. He was a fawning sycophant, always laughing at his own supposed wit, and he was known in the office as “Uriah Heep.” The man who dominated the convention from beginning to end had not been appointed a delegate by his own association. The whole thing, as a convention, was about as hollow a sham as was ever enacted in Chicago. Next behind the gentlemen who by courtesy may be designated as delegates, sat the moneyed men who were anxiously looking for a good investment for some of their loose funds, and Brodhead had told them this property was paying twenty-five per cent. on a capitalization of one hundred thousand dollars, and he thought it could be made to pay more. Like many other fools, they thought it was a machine that when fired up in the morning would run itself. Next to the rich men sat a good sprinkling of farmers’ sons, some carloads of whom had been brought from Kentucky, and all ready to swear they were breeders. As Brodhead explained this incident to a gentleman who stated it to me: “If there was any attempt to pack the convention he was ready to do some packing himself, with these young men he had brought from Kentucky.”
On the outside circle there was a large number of young men and some older ones watching the proceedings with great intensity. They were restless, and some of them looked hungry, and every one of them was looking for a place if the purchase went through. One had a copy of the Bungtown Bugle in his pocket containing a report of the racing at the last county fair, written by him, and he thought that was sufficient evidence that he was qualified to take charge of the Monthly. Another had made, with his own hands, as he asserted, a tabulated pedigree on a large scale and shaded the letters beautifully and artistically with pokeberry juice; and what evidence could be more satisfactory that he was qualified to take charge of the department of registration? Every one of them seemed to think that there would be a good place for him in the new deal, and hence his enthusiasm at every incident that seemed to point in that direction. Thus the little cormorants as well as the big cormorants were all anxious for the prey.
While the soreheads were wrangling over how best to get hold of my property, and what they would do with it when they got it, I had several hours in the privacy of my own apartments to look over all the conditions of the situation, and the conclusions I then reached I have never had reason to change. It, therefore, may be of interest to all to know just what I thought at that crucial period, and I will give these thoughts as contemporaneous with the event:
“This meeting is a miserable sham, but the action of Mali and Packer has given it a pseudo-type of regularity as a national convention of horsemen, and this idea of ‘regularity’ will carry weight with many who know nothing of the bottom facts.