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Thorne, a very prominent banker of New York. The examiners of the Interstate Commerce Commission subsequently found that the following was the distribution made of the money involved in this extraordinary purchase:

To C. H. Smith for "surrendering a

contract"

To J. P. McDonald, for negotiating the same

To Thorne and Perry in commissions

To Thorne and Perry for surrender

$1,050,000.00

375,000.

784,560.

ing their contract

275,000.

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260,000.

750,000.

4,722,347.15

To lawyers for "legal fees "

To N. Y. R. R. and Development
Company for stock

For New York City and Contract
Company, property

Underwriting, brokers' commissions
and miscellaneous not specifically
accounted for

816,093.15

In turning over the accounts of these transactions the examiners found entries of enormous sums paid to lawyers of prominence, including a justice of the Supreme Court and his firm, a Congressman ($65,900), two justices of the Supreme Court of New York and others.

Afterward President Mellen of the New Haven on the witness stand before the Commission was asked about this transaction and recalled that it was necessary to amend the franchise of one of the companies involved before the deal could go through, and he said that to get this change made it was necessary to deal liberally with the city politicians. The late Thomas Byrnes, formerly Superintendent of New York's police, Mellen said, acted as intermediary in the transaction of acquiring 24,000 shares of a certain stock, "held by persons of influence." Mr. Mellen said:

"When Byrnes came to me, he was all ready to turn over the stock. But I considered the franchises of the Westchester Company defective in many particulars. I told him there could be nothing doing until the franchises were amended. I gave him a list of the amendments I wanted and also insisted that certain litigation be cleared up. All of my demands were promptly met."

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Mellen said that the New York City officials he thought the Board of Estimate or the Board of Aldermen amended the franchises. He could not tell how the deal was put through or whether Police Inspector Byrnes did business direct with the politicians.

"I didn't want to know," he said. "All I was after was results for the New Haven road, and I would have done business with the devil himself had it been necesary."

And again:

"I am satisfied this stock was originally issued to contractors and they placed it where it would do the most good."

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'You mean they used it to bribe politicians?" “Well, I mean they used it to get influence. Of course, I don't know all about it. We found the shares of the road scattered. One big block was in Byrnes' hands. We had to have it, and I did business with Byrnes."

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What was the Westchester stock worth?' "I would say about 10 cents a pound." "Yet you exchanged good New Haven stock or money for it?"

"I did."

So here is where go some of the profits from the increased cost of living. The farmers do not get it and the workers do not get it, but the parasites are taking it in, hand over fist. And if the job were done when they get the money, there would be some limit to the essential graft. But the fact is that in nearly every case these transactions represent or culminate in the issuing of securities that constitute forever afterward a tax upon the operation of the railroad, to be paid by the public and passed along to the toiler.

Yet this New Haven railroad, thus revealed as a producer of wealth for the insiders, is notorious for the low scale of wages it pays to

its employees and in the last few years has borne an unenviable reputation for the number of its accidents.

But the New Haven is only one small example of where It Goes To. The cases of the 'Frisco, the Rock Island, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton and other roads offer illustrations just as gross. While the trainmen with equal chances of being injured and one chance in six of being killed are creating this wealth for very little pay, the gentlemen on the inside are raking it off for themselves in always increasing volume. Where they are not concealing behind huge stock issues and crooked deals, they are taking staggering dividends. Look for instance at this table of the recent dividends paid by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, as given by Poor's Manual, the standard authority in railroad finance:

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In addition to millions of dollars distributed in the shape of stock dividends.

So it is pretty plain here where It Goes To. The farmer doesn't Get It and the worker doesn't Get It, but the case is very different when you turn to the records of the fortunate gentlemen on the inside of these industries.

Those that have not told us that tariff tinkering would cure all our ills, and those that have not expatiated to us on the beauties of thrift and "getting on in the world," have been kind enough to say that Government Regulation of our troubles would make us all happy and cause papa's wages to go twice as far as they can go now.

These would seem to be persons of a degree of hopefulness only to be described as superhu

man.

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For twenty-five years we have been trying by regulation to achieve some beneficial change in the situation, and the net result of all the nation's effort in these directions has been ridiculous failure. The simple fact that in these twenty-five years the situation for the working class has not improved but only grown steadily worse, is in itself enough to condemn all these efforts at parlor and lady-like reform, for in all this time the cost of living has not ceased to

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