George Stoneman
As a matter of fact the board did not take further action in regulation of passenger fares until August, 1882, a year and a half after the question had first been raised. By this time Cone had become convinced, so he says, that Stanford would concede no further reduction in railroad charges. On the 15th of August, Stoneman accordingly reintroduced his original passenger schedule, but slightly changed. The matter was laid over for a month, and in September, at a meeting at which only Cone and Stoneman were present, a substitute resolution was adopted, setting a maximum fare of four cents per mile. Stoneman thought the maximum should be three cents, but Cone would not consent. The new maxima were suspended in October “until further order of the board” in order to give the railroad companies an opportunity to be heard. Before the commission came together again, however, Stoneman had resigned. This left Beerstecher and Cone—with two as a quorum. It is eloquent of Beerstecher’s attitude that he attended no meeting of the board after November 22, 1882, and that on that day his action in respect to passenger rates was to move to postpone consideration.
In two years and seven months the only reductions in rates and fares secured by the Railroad Commission were certain cuts in the rates on products of agriculture conceded to the farmer member of the commission by his railroad friends. The commission formulated no principles and worked out no effective procedure. Even its reports to the legislature had little value. The first two were prepared by Mr. Beerstecher, the third by Mr. Tuttle, former railroad commissioner but no longer in any official way connected with regulation work. When the commission was not unanimous in its decisions, the division usually was that of Cone and Beerstecher against Stoneman—a fact which leads us back to the question of the nature of the influence which the Stanford group was able to exert.
Bribery Committed
The charge is made that the Central Pacific bought and paid for Beerstecher’s services while a member of the Railroad Commission, and that Cone was so influenced by his personal and business relations with the managers of the Central Pacific as to be unable to view their activities in the critical and impartial way which his position demanded. The evidence in the case is purely circumstantial, but seems to be convincing. So far as the former is concerned we have the admitted fact that Beerstecher was richer at the end of his term of office than at the beginning by at least $12,000 and probably by a good deal more. As he put it, he thought he saved his entire salary of $4,000 a year as commissioner, during these years. Beerstecher asserted incidentally that his legal practice while a member of the Railroad Board amounted to from $1,200 to $1,500 a year—although the records of the Superior Court of San Francisco, before which Beerstecher practiced, show that this was highly unlikely,[274] and the testimony of the bailiff to the commission is directly to the contrary. $12,000 may be regarded as adequate compensation for a man of Beerstecher’s type.[275]
Gerke Transaction