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New Haven Railroad, The Its rise and fall By John L Weller 248 pages DJ
THE NEW HAVEN RAILROAD ITS RISE AND FALL By John L Weller
248 pages. Indexed
Hard Cover
Copyright 1969
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Prologue: The Guns of July 1
2 Pierpontifex Maximus and His Times 6
3 The Early New Haven 35
4 The Return of Mr. Mellen 45
5 The Trolley Follies 53
6 The Steamer Follies 71
7 The Westchester Follies 96
8 The Corsair Agreements 120
9 The Hatchet Man 128
10 Decline and Fall 143
11 The Follies of 1914 161
12 Epilogue: The Final Follies 196
Notes 233 Bibliography 239
Appendix 242
Index 243
1. Prologue: The Guns of July
FOR READERS OF the New York newspapers the guns of August 1914 were all but silenced by the guns of July trained upon the New Haven Railroad and its management. The fateful assassination at Sarajevo, duly reported on June 29, was promptly forgotten. Walter Millis, in his book: Road to War: America 1914-1917, remarked on this phenome: "That morning [Tuesday, June 30] there was announced the sensational indictment of Mr. Charles S. Mellen of the New Haven Railroad; it was recognized as the first frontal attack of the Administrawar upon the 'interests,' and that was a more exciting war than anything in Europe."
From that date until July 24, when the New York Times anthe Austrian ultimatum to Serbia as a matter of "serious but not sensational importance" 1 all signs of the impending holocaust--the lights burning late in the capitals of Europe, the exof diplomatic notes, the mobilization of armies and fleets-were crowded off the front pages by the revelations of New Haven wickedness.
Indeed, for more than a year the New Haven, its directors and its former president, Mr. Mellen, had been the target of a journalistic barrage such as no other American corporation has ever had to meet. A series of disastrous train wrecks had enlivened the campaign, serving up a steady diet of horrors, each more ghastly than the last; and even the good ( but not so gray then) New York Times had joined the parade, splashing its pages with photographs of locomotives crashed through wooden coaches and of rights-of-way littered with broken bodies.
Added to these sensations were disclosures of financial eccentricithat rocked the securities markets and undermined the belief, hitherto almost universal, in the impregnable security of New Haven investments and in the wisdom of the country's greatest financial leaders. The front pages of July 14 were devoted to the Interstate Commerce Commission's report to the Senate. The Times' three-colhead proclaimed: PROSECUTION OF NEW HAVEN DIRECIS CALLED FOR BY INTERSTATE BOARD-Mellen-RockeControl Arraigned in Scathing Report-Road Lost $65,871,299. Follow-up stories appeared on the front page daily for the next week, with another three-column spread on July 22 announcPresident Wilson's instructions that the malefactors be prosecuted with vigor.
There was no lack of news. United States Marines had landed at Vera Cruz; Rasputin, the "Richelieu of Russia," was stabbed by a peasant woman and lay at death's door; police lieutenant Charles Becker's trial for the murder of Herman Rosenthal was at its sensapeak; and Harry K. Thaw, killer of Sanford White, had bribed his way out of Matteawan. One would expect the affairs of a corporato receive scant attention at such a time but the New Haven story more than held its own. On May 23 the Times had been moved to editorial complaint: Neither Mexico nor Becker can drive Mr. MELoff the front page.
Mellen indeed was a colorful man, but the allegations of wronginvolved others more noted than he: J. Pierpont Morgan, last and greatest of the financial giants whom Matthew Josephson has called "The Robber Barons"; William Rockefeller, co-founder of the Standard Oil Trust and great-uncle of New York's present governor; former Senator Nelson Aldrich, wealthy Republican wheel-horse and relative by marriage of the Rockefellers; Lewis Cass Ledyard, pillar of the New York bar and executor of Morgan's estate; George F. Baker, chairman of New York's First National Bank; and a long list of others, including James Buchanan Brady-"Diamond Jim"-gourmand, suand consort of Lillian Russell.
Men of the highest standing had been eager in those days to be associated with the New Haven's affairs and the pinnacle of status was to be admitted to the elite club which constituted its board. In contrast to its present decrepit impoverishment the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company sixty years ago was a vast holding com, regarded as one of the richest and most powerful corporations in America. Under its control were nearly 10,000 miles of transportation systems extending beyond the New England states to the Pennsylvania anthracite regions, Lake Ontario and the Canadian border; and by sea from Canada to Florida and the Gulf. Its virtual monopoly of all transportation in New England was supplemented by ownership of electric, gas and water utilities. The employees of this complex were estimated by Mr. Mellen to number 125,000; the total capitalization was a closely guarded secret but it approximated $800,000,000.
Its power over the political institutions in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts was so complete that it was termed the "invisible government" of that area.2 Such were its resources that the great Pennsylvania and New York Central railroad companies ( the very lines which now have reluctantly absorbed it) had been obliged to call upon it for emergency loans of several millions each to tide them over the hard times of 1907-1908.3
Since the Administration's war was upon the "interests," the main thrust of the 1914 accusations was directed at such important personas J. P. Morgan and his son, president Mellen, Senator Aldrich, Rockefeller and George F. Baker, who professed his dislike for having to explain that he was out on bail.4 The newspapers and their readers also were titillated by the names of lesser fry caught up in the net, who seemed to have profited strangely through association with these nota.
A Yankee coal dealer with no apparent relation to the mighty, obviously unnerved by the publicity, was not so distraught as to relax his firm grip on some $2,700,000 gained without investing a dime. Mr. Oakleigh Thorne, a banker once nationally known but now retired, was delightfully nubiferous as to the disposition of some $11,000,000; a gentleman of the old school, he had thoughtfully destroyed any papers that might serve as painful reminders of less prosperous days. A youthful handyman from Portland, Maine, had only a "vague recollec" of cashing checks for $3,000,000; and various nameless and faceless individuals had devised the interesting custom of presenting Mr. Mellen with "due bills" which that urbane gentleman always graciously honored. ( To date, these had amounted to $1,200,000.) All this made fascinating reading and probably aroused pangs of envy in many who had been passed over in the distribution of all this largesse.
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