"system," stood in public esteem high above the better-known and more restless financial magnates in metropolitan life. To be a director in the Equitable, the New York Life or the Mutual Life was accounted an honor; and this simple trust and loyal faith accorded them by the sturdy American people gave great weight to any opinions they vouchsafed

to utter.

We remember very distinctly during 1896 that many friends expressed fear of general business collapse in the event of Mr. Bryan's election, because of the convictions expressed by the great insurance chiefs, some of whom were nominally Democrats. They said: "These men are not moved by any partisan considerations. They are not exploiters of the people or beneficiaries of privilege. They are not even bankers, who might imagine they would sustain personal injury in the event of Democratic victory. But they are men who, though they may be mistaken, are certainly actuated only by the highest and most disinterested motives." And these friends voiced the general feeling of the American people toward the men who managed the great insurance corporations.

99

editor to prepare a series of papers revealing facts that were susceptible of proof. "But,' said he, "let me frankly warn you that if this exposure is made you may expect that all the power that enormous wealth and political influence can control will be invoked to crush you. I believe the 'system' will readily spend a million dollars to discredit or destroy your publication."

When young Mr. Hyde and Mr. Alexander fell out, the whole nation was amazed at the charges and counter-charges. When the highpriests of the "system," the "sleek and slippery" men, otherwise known as the "safe and sane" leaders, insisted that all differences be immediately harmonized; that the scandal be hushed up, and that general explanations be sent out to quiet the alarm of the people; and when Chauncey M. Depew read the riot act to the indiscreet ones while to the world he pointed out that all was now harmonious, it was hoped by the guilty ones in the insurance system and their confederates of Wall street that the peril had been averted.

We believe that no one thing had greater weight with the more serious and conscientious voters, on the farms as well as in the urban homes, than the solemn appeals made in behalf of "national honor," business integrity and rectitude by Chauncey M. Depew, complemented by the outspoken utterances of men like John A. McCall. He was indeed a brave man who would dare even to cast a shadow of suspicion on the motives of any individual within the charmed circle of the custodians of the trust fund of widows and orphans, not only because of the almost unshakable confidence felt by the people, but because of the financial and political power wielded by the community of wealth represented by the four great insurance companies that after the rise of the Prudential became identified as the "system." Men who knew the facts also knew and dreaded the power of the "system." Thus the confidence of the people and the power to crush critics made the position of the insurance officials well-nigh impregnable.

More than a year and a half ago a brilliant scholar, who is one of the best-versed insur

But the New York World, seizing on the opportunity for the unmasking of the festering moral corruption, began a series of editorial leaders devoted to the exposé of the true inwardness of the company, that have seldom if ever been equalled for boldness, lucidity or persistence. Governor Higgins and the corrupt party-machine of New York, no less than

investigation had followed the trail of insurance corruption to the citadels of political and financial power, proposed to a well-known

permission of W. R. Hearst.)

THE NEW CHAUFFEUR.

His Employer's Are Delighted with Him.

the recreant insurance department of the state, presided over by the discredited Hendricks, shrank from investigation until the World, the New York American and a few other influential journals created such a storm of public indignation that the governor could not resist the pressure and reluctantly consented to permit the legislature to appoint an investigating committee.

The results are now known to the world. We have seen that the great men of the insurance system and their confederates, who have been so long posing as the pillars of national honor and business integrity, were common gamblers who speculated with the sacred trust funds; that in league with the most daring speculators and trust promoters of Wall street they were, by the use of the vast funds at their command, making the favored ones enormously rich through systematic gambling with loaded dice and stacked cards; that through access to the insurance funds the most dangerous public-service magnates and franchisegrabbers were able to obtain funds to acquire the enormously valuable public utilities that if operated by the people would yield them untold millions of dollars, and thus the hard earnings of the people, saved for the widows and orphans, were being expended to permit a few men to levy extortion to the amount of millions on the public placed at their mercy. It was further shown that vast sums of the people's money had been systematically used to influence legislation and that by the corrupt use of this wealth safeguards once placed around the policy-holders' money had been removed for the benefit of the false stewards and their confederates; that the insurance department of the state had passed practically into the hands of the recreant and faithless officers of the insurance companies. It was shown that the master-spirits of the corporations, in addition to giving themselves princely salaries, were so manipulating other people's money entrusted to them that they were acquiring colossal fortunes.

Nor was this all. Not only did the investigation reveal this riot of dishonesty and corruption, but it disclosed many of the masterspirits as utterly lacking in all regard for veracity. The most solemn and deliberate statements of many of these men were proved to be false. Master-spirits on the witness-stand deliberately swore to certain facts, and then, when the papers showed that they were admissions laden with criminal liability, returned

to the witness-stand and asked to be permitted to contradict the statements they had previously sworn to. Perjury was rife. Leading spirits and their most intimate associates in the wanton misuse of the people's money swore to the falsity of the sworn declarations of each other in the most bewildering and amazing manner; while the "yellow dog" or corruption funds, like puddles of mud on a country road after a drenching rain, appeared at every step.

These things have all been brought to light through the official investigation. At last the world has seen the true character of the class of men who have for years traduced and slandered high-minded and incorruptible statesmen who refused to be a party to graft or to wink at the wickedness of the princes of privilege; and the value of this exposure is greater than men yet imagine.

Has The Unholy Alliance Between The Insurance System and The Politicians Been Destroyed?

THE IMMEDIATE result of the exposure is the reverse of inspiring to friends of democracy and pure government. Some of the discredited ones have been forced to resign, but from the investigation three sinister influences—we may say the three of the most sinister influences of modern business life-issue as masters of these great gold mines. Thomas F. Ryan, the public-service cormorant, J. Pierpont Morgan, of the water-logged ship-trust fame, and the Rockefeller interests appear as the controlling power of the insurance companies.

In the course of the warfare of the commercial bandits for the rich spoils Mr. Ryan and Mr. Harriman came into savage conflict. On the one hand was Mr. Harriman, with his intimate friend Odell, the boss of the Republican party of New York. On the other hand Mr. Root had been Mr. Ryan's attorney, and the relationship was most intimate between them. Mr. Ryan also had relieved the President of the prince of rebaters, Mr. Paul Morton, when he became the Old Man of the Sea to the administration. Harriman refused to be harmonized. He made dark threats that warned Mr. Ryan that if Mr. Odell remained boss of New York there might be trouble in store for him-trouble that might threaten the furtherance of his bold plans. Suddenly as a thunderbolt from a clear sky, the weight of the administration's hand fell on the boss of the state of New York. Governor Higgins deserted his political creator and made common cause

with the Ryan-administration combination. Odell was dethroned; Ryan became the great power in the metropolitan insurance world, and the Roosevelt-Root-Higgins machine displaced the Odell-Harriman combination.

Governor Higgins at this writing refuses to remove Hendricks from the position of state superintendent of insurance, in spite of the fact that Hendricks testified on the witnessstand, as the Boston Herald pertinently remarks, that "he had knowledge of some of the worst abuses in the management of the big life insurance companies which he neither exposed nor sought to stop, and to incredible ignorance of other matters which it was his business to know." And what is more, the governor also refuses to allow the legislature to investigate the state departments. Clearly he, Mr. Ryan and the new machine dread the revelations that such investigations would bring to light, and there is little prospect of any real or vital legislation that will safeguard the funds of the policy-holders as the funds of the savings-bank depositors are safeguarded. Still the investigation has been the most propitious event of recent years, because it has revealed clearly and authoritatively the depths of moral depravity and the almost inconceivable extent of the business and political corruption that permeates the financial citadel of Wall street, even in the holiest of holies of the world of corporate and privileged wealth.

The people now know the facts. They also know the character of the men who have so long cruelly deceived them. They will have their reckoning; they will right the wrong.

The Standard Oil Company at The Bar.

Almost incredible as have been the shameful revelations of moral depravity on the part of the insurance grafters and their confederates in the gambling world of Wall street, another revelation quite as typical and significant of the new order, since the government has passed virtually from the hands of the people into the hands of the masters of corporate wealth, was exhibited when the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri ordered certain officials of the Standard Oil Company to testify relative to charges of law-breaking on the part of the oil-trust. The action of the officials of the most powerful corporation in the land serves to emphasize the claim of reformers who charge that the multimillionaire princes of privilege either control legislation and gov

"John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller, H. M. Flagler, James R. Taylor, Robert H. McNoll, Charles R. Nichols, Richard P. Tinsley, Walter Jennings, C. M. Pratt, Silas H. Paine, W. C. Teagle, Wesley Tilford, H. M. Tilford, W. E. Bemis, Charles T. White, George B. Wilson, M. H. Van Beuren, H. R. Payne, W. P. Cowan and H. Clay Pierce."

The New York American of January 16th gave a detailed account of the flight of several of these men who dared not face the attorneygeneral of Missouri. It also described briefly the high-handed tactics of John D. Rockefeller in protecting himself from the summonsservers acting for the Supreme Court of Missouri. After describing how Mr. Charles M. Pratt suddenly cancelled his extensive social programme for the winter and hastily fled from Brooklyn, to avoid answering questions that would establish the criminality or innocence of the master-spirits of the Standard Oil Trust, the American continues:

ing the court summons; they were to all practical purposes fugitives from justice, and they were giving the country a dangerous example of the lawlessness of corporate wealth when it cannot make the laws and control the courts. But Mr. Rogers' contempt for law and the high courts was a little too obvious. It might be well to let the people understand that the courts could do nothing with the Standard Oil Company, but it was not wise to be to blatant in imparting the information. Hence on one day we find those three conspicuous organs of corporate and privileged wealth and reaction, the New York Sun, Times and Evening Post, remonstrating with the indiscreet high-priest of plutocracy.

The Hearst newspapers published an extended editorial dealing with Mr. Rogers and the three newspaper critics, and it would be well for America if it could be circulated by the millions, as it is one of those illuminating and highly suggestive exposures of facts that the people are only beginning to realize but which the trusts, through their control of legislation and their contempt for the machinery of justice, are forcing the masses to take cognizance of. It is written in the bold, incisive manner for which Mr. Arthur Brisbane is justly famous and probably came from his pen. After noticing the criticisms of the Sun, Times and Post, usually so ready to applaud the action of any of the master-spirits in the trusts or the world of high finance, this editorial points out that the surprising course of the journals in question was probably due to a suggestion from Mr. Rockefeller himself, and to the word of caution from the corporation journals the editor of the Hearst papers adds his warning as follows:

"The advice which cool Mr. Rockefeller has given to hot Mr. Rogers through the three tame newspapers is good, wise advice-from the Trust point-of-view.

"It is foolish of Mr. Rogers to act as though he thought the nation's laws a farce and its judges jokes.

"It is unwise of Rogers to let all the people know what jokes and farces the laws and the judges really are-where Trusts are concerned.

"We shall add our voice to the remonstrances of Mr. Rockefeller's editors.

"Mr. Rogers, does it not occur to you, as you laugh at the Supreme Court and sneer at the people's judges, how much you depend on those courts and judges?

"Don't you know what would happen to you, and your millions of money taken from the people, if you should finally succeed in destroying public respect for the law?

"You have no respect for courts or judges? Certainly not. We all know that. John D. Rockefeller, the man that made you rich, has no respect for laws either. But he knows too much to let the people know how he feels. "It is easy to start a ball rolling, Mr. Rogers -hard to stop it, sometimes.

"You laugh at the law to-day and insist on your right to continue plundering the people. "Suppose the people, in their turn, should take a notion to laugh at the law and to begin plundering you. It would not seem so amusing, would it?

"Mr. Rogers, you and the others like youforceful, arrogant, inflated by money's passing power are the real hope of the anarchists and the enemies of public order. They build

"Henry H. Rogers, the executive head of the Standard Oil Company, on the witness stand yesterday in the proceedings brought by the State of Missouri against this, the greatest trust in the world, afforded the most amazing spectacle that any law court ever witnessed. For three hours he exhibited a monumental disregard for law and legal exactions. Sneering and cynical in speech, insolent and defiant in retort, he lolled in his chair in an attitude of amused tolerance of the proceedings, apparently serenely confident in his own mind that no law of State or nation could reach him or his company."-News Item.