sion 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