This collapse of the railroad service started a clamor for investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of course brought terror to the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec. 20, 1913, we find the "Outlook" "putting the soft pedal" on the public indignation. "It must not be forgotten that such a road as the New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a National possession, and as it goes down or up, public interests go down or up with it," But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate Commerce Commission yielded to the public clamor, and an investigation was made—revealing such conditions of rottenness as to shock even the clerical retainers of Privilege. "Securities were inflated, debt was heaped upon debt", reports the horrified "Outlook"; and when its hero, Mr. Mellen—its industrial Shelley, "nervously organized, of delicate sensibility"—admitted that he had no authority as to the finances of the road and no understanding of them, but had taken all his orders from Morgan, the "Outlook" remarks, deeply wounded: "A pitiable position for the president of a great railway to assume." A little later, when things got hotter yet, we read:
In the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many obstacles, such as the burning of books, letters and documents, and the obstinacy of witnesses, who declined to testify until criminal proceedings were begun. The New Haven system has more than three hundred subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling alliances, many of which were seemingly planned, created and manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of concealment or deception.
But do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of their offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious stomach. A compromise was patched up between the government and the thieves who were too big to be prosecuted; this bargain was not kept by the thieves, and President Wilson declared in a public statement that the New Haven administration had "broken an agreement deliberately and solemnly entered into," in a manner to the President "inexplicable and entirely without justification." Which, of course, seemed to the "Outlook" dreadfully impolite language to be used concerning a "National possession"; it hastened to rebuke President Wilson, whose statement was "too severe and drastic."
A new compromise was made between the government and the thieves who were too big to be prosecuted, and the stealing went on. Now, as I work over this book, the President takes the railroads for war use, and reads to Congress a message proposing that the securities based upon the New Haven swindles, together with all the mass of other railroad swindles, shall be sanctified and secured by dividends paid out of the Public purse. New Haven securities take a big jump; and the "Outlook", needless to say, is enthusiastic for the President's policy. Here is a chance for the big thieves to baptize themselves—or shall we say to have the water in their stocks made "holy"? Says our pious editor, for the government to take property without full compensation "would be contrary to the whole spirit of America."
The Outlook for Graft
Anyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such crooked work as this, continued over a long period, is not done for nothing. Any magazine writer would know, the instant he saw the Baxter article, that Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and that the "Outlook" also was paid by the New Haven. Generally he has no way of proving such facts, and has to sit in silence; but when his board bill falls due and his landlady is persistent, he experiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of journalism who thrive at his expense. If he is a Socialist, he looks forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications' Graft Commission, with access to all magazine books which have not yet been burned!
In the case of the New Haven, we know a part of the price—thanks to the labors of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Needless to say, you will not find the facts recorded in the columns of the Outlook; you might have read it line by line from the palmy days of Mellen to our own, and you would have got no hint of what the Commission revealed about magazine and newspaper graft. Nor would you have got much more from the great metropolitan dailies, which systematically "played down" the expose, omitting all the really damaging details. You would have to go to the reports of the Commission—or to the files of "Pearson's Magazine", which is out of print and not found in libraries!
According to the New Haven's books, and by the admission of its own officials, the road was spending more than four hundred thousand dollars a year to influence newspapers and magazines in favor of its policies. (President Mellen stated that this was relatively less than any other railroad in the country was spending). There was a professor of the Harvard Law School, going about lecturing to boards of trade, urging in the name of economic science the repeal of laws against railroad monopolies—and being paid for his speeches out of railroad funds! There was a swarm of newspaper reporters, writing on railroad affairs for the leading papers of New England, and getting twenty-five dollars weekly, or two or three hundred on special occasions. Sums had been paid directly to more than a thousand newspapers—$3,000 to the Boston "Republic", and when the question was asked "Why?" the answer was, "That is Mayor Fitzgerald's paper." Even the ultra-respectable "Evening Transcript", organ of the Brahmins of culture, was down for $144 for typing, mimeographing and sending out "dope" to the country press. There was an item of $381 for 15,000 "Prayers"; and when asked about that President Mellen explained that it referred to a pamphlet called "Prayers from the Hills", embodying the yearnings of the back-country people for trolley-franchises to be issued to the New Haven. Asked why the pamphlet was called "Prayers", Mr. Mellen explained that "there was lots of biblical language in it."
And now we come to the "Outlook"; after five years of waiting, we catch our pious editors with the goods on them! There appears on the pay-roll of the New Haven, as one of its regular press-agents, getting sums like $500 now and then—would you think it possible?—Sylvester Baxter! And worse yet, there appears an item of $938.64 to the "Outlook", for a total of 9,716 copies of its issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years after Christ came to bring peace on earth and good will towards Wall Street!