WRECKING A RAILROAD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 34, 30 June 1914, Page 3

WRECKING A RAILROAD.

PIER PONT MORGAN'S METHODS. REMARKABLE DISCLOSURES.

Ah amazing Btory of low three million dollars was diverted from t/he treasury of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad—generally known #'i the New H"in«n Company—(lias lately been toldl by tae former president of the corporation, Chailea S. Mellen, under examination by tho Interstate Commerce Commission, Not the least re' mirkable portion of the confession as ftfr Mellen's frank disclosures may almost be called, was the revelation of the meek and absolute deference paid to the late Pierpont Morgan in the financial Tftp', saving altqat ■ the •anogt-tfiicklp populated portion of the Continent, is now on the verge of going into the hands of | a receiver, so reckleswy and scandalously has it been managed. diaries Meller has for the past fifteen years been regarded as a man of standing and importance in railway affairs of the United States. As president of the New Havsn he was paid a salary of £IO,OOO a year. Y«t, by his own admission, he was a puppet, a ruWser stamp, in the hands of 'Morgan. One considerable item In the wrecking of the New Have 1 railroad, for it is financially a wreck, vas the purchase by it for more than £2.000,000 of another railway, the Westchester, in New York. Mellen said this purchase was made be-\ cause Morgan ordered it, and for no other reason. Speaking of one b'lX'k of. 24,000 shares <?.? the We&tchcster roa.l I purchased by his company, Mellen said i he considered it worHb about "ten cents 1 0 pound." He thought he ought to > know why, as he phrased it, "w were paying 11,000,000 dollars for a great, big basketful of stuff we did' not know the value of," and he asked Morgan to tell hrm, and was humiliated for hi* pains. Morgan asked him, "Do yoa lihink you know more about it than I d«?" and MeKcn admitted that, he didn't, and dropped the subject. "Were you afraidl of Mr. Morgan?" he was asked.

"Perhaps there was some measure of cowardice about my feeling," was Mdlen's reply. ''You can put it that Way. I stood in g.'eat awe of Mr. Morgan, greater than of any man I ever know." Ovw and over again in his testimony he referred to the "master mind" nf Morgan, ami admitted that he felt that in disagreeing with the tatter lie would be wrong nine times out of ten. When other directors asked hioi to explain the motives for spending the li ,000,000 dollars, 'lie referred them to Morgan, I'm, in t>he colloquial language, of the) witness, "they ducked.",lie was not tilie only one afraid to face the Napoleon of American finance. Morgan said he recalled no instance in which Morgan did not get his own way in the management of the railroad. Hero are one 'or t.w > questions and answers flowing Mellen's utter subserviency, to the ,late financier and art connoisseur:—.

"Didn't Morgan have more power than any State Government under which yo.i operated V

"He never tried to exercise any siicii power." "He was in control of the, New England situation."

"I can best answer that by quoting the old .saying, 'Where McGregor sits, there is the head of the table.'"

"What wo aid the meetings of the directors of the New' Haven 'have been like without Mr. Morgan-?" "About as tanw as a lot »f cdws without a bull."

Other testimony Showed that the property of the Westchester Railway, purchased for 11,000,000 dollars, was' woTtli about 5,000,000 dollars. Another syjjtsm acquired for 20,000,000 dollars (£4,000.000) is valued at about '8,000,000 dollars. These, revelations of railway mismanagement, and others of similar nature, though not so gigantic, have started anew the agitation of Government ownership of all lines duing ar inter-State business. It is the opinion of many people of conservative minds that only a more rigorous system 'pf railway corporations cam prevent Government ownership. There, is no doubt, that someone has profited enormously at the expense of the. stockholders of the New Haven Company. Some of the testimony pointed to the conclusion that the properties unloaded on the company at fictitious values profited New York Tammany leaders more than anyone el'se.