[94] Reports of House Committees, Second Session, 26th Congress, 1840-41, Report No. 1.

[95] Ibid., 1 and 2.

[96] Executive Documents, First Session, 23rd Congress, 1833-34, Doc. No. 132.

[97] Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, Vol. iii, Doc. No. 139.

[98] "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of Patents in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' The spoliation of their incessant guerilla upon his defenseless rights have unquestionably amounted to millions."

[99] Doc. No. 134, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, Vol. ii.

[100] Doc. 129, State Papers, 1819-21, Vol. ii.

[101] See Part I, Chapter II.

[102] "Allowed itself." The various New York legislatures from the end of the eighteenth century on were hotbeds of corruption. Time after time members were bribed to pass bills granting charters for corporations or other special privileges. (See the numerous specific instances cited in the author's "History of Tammany Hall," and subsequently in this work.) The Legislature of 1827 was notoriously corrupt.

[103] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1815:216—Journal of the [New York] Assembly, 1818:261; Journal of the Assembly, 1819. Also "A Statement and Exposition of The Title of John Jacob Astor to the Lands Purchased by him from the surviving children of Roger Morris and Mary, his Wife"; New York, 1827.

[104] MSS. Minutes of the (New York City) Common Council, xvi:239-40 and 405.

[105] Ibid., xx: 355-356.

[106] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xiii: 118 and 185.

[107] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xvii: 141-144. See also Annual Report of Controller for 1849, Appendix A.

[108] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xviii: 411-414.

[109] Doc. No. 33, Documents of the Board of Aldermen, xxii:26.

[110] Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 1832-33, iv: 416-418.

[111] Controller's Reports for 1831:7. Also Ibid. for 1841:28.

[112] Hammond's "Political History of the State of New York," 1:129-130.

[113] Journal of the [New York] Senate and Assembly, 1803:351 and 399.

[114] Ibid., 1812:134.

[115] Ibid., 1812:259-260. Frequently, in those days, the giving of presents was a part of corrupt methods.

[116] "The members [of the Legislature] themselves sometimes participated in the benefits growing out of charters created by their own votes; ... if ten banks were chartered at one session, twenty must be chartered the next, and thirty the next. The cormorants could never be gorged. If at one session you bought off a pack of greedy lobby agents ... they returned with increased numbers and more voracious appetite."—Hammond, ii:447-448.

[117] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1824:1317-1350. See also Chap. VIII, Part II of this work.

[118] "Letter and Authentic Documentary Evidence in Relation to the Trinity Church Property," etc., Albany, 1855. Hoffman, the best authority on the subject, says in his work published forty-five years ago: "Very extensive searches have proved unavailing to enable me to trace the sources of the title to much of this upper portion of Trinity Church property."—"State and Rights of the Corporation of New York," ii:189.

[119] In all of the official communications of Trinity Church up to 1867 this lease is referred to as the "Burr or Astor Lease."—"The Communication of the Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity Church in the city of New York in reply to a resolution of the House, passed March 4, 1854"; Document No. 130, Assembly Docs. 1854. Also Document No. 45, Senate Docs. 1856. Upon returning from exile Burr tried to break his lease to Astor, but the lease was so astutely drawn that the courts decided in Astor's favor.

[120] In his descriptive work on New York City of a half century ago, Matthew Hale Smith, in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York" (pp. 121-122), tells this story: "The Morley [Mortier] lease was to run until 1867. Persons who took the leases supposed that they took them for the full term of the Trinity lease. [John Jacob] Astor was too far-sighted and too shrewd for that. Every lease expired in 1864, leaving him [William B. Astor, the founder's heir] the reversion for three years, putting him in possession of all the buildings, and all of the improvements made on the lots, and giving him the right of renewal." Smith's account is faulty. Most of the leases expired in 1866. The value of the reversions was very large.

[121] Docs. No. 130 [New York] Assembly Docs., 1854:22-23.

[122] Journal of the [New York] Senate, Forty-second Session, 1819:67-70.

[123] Doc. No. 108, [New York] Senate Documents, 1834, Vol. ii. The committee stated that banks in the State outside of New York City, after paying all expenses, divided 11 per cent. among the stockholders in 1833 and had on hand as surplus capital 16 per cent. on their capital. New York City banks paid larger dividends.

[124] People of the State of New York vs. Manhattan Co.—Doc. No. 62, Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, 1832-33, Vol. ii.

[125] Doc. No. 68 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii.

[126] Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, xiii:426-427.

[127] In the course of this work, the word Government is frequently used to signify not merely the functions of the National Government, but those of the totality of Government, State and municipal, not less than National.

[128] Doc. No. 49 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii.

[129] "On the Penitentiary System in the United States," etc., by G. De Beaumont and A. De Tocqueville, Appendix 17, Statistical Notes: 244-245.

[130] A complete error. Walling, for more than thirty years Superintendent of Police of New York City, says in his "Memoirs" that he never knew an instance of a rich murderer who was hanged or otherwise executed. And have we all not noted likewise?

[131] "On the Penitentiary System," etc., 184-185.

[132] Prison Association of New York, Annual Reports, 1844-46. It is characteristic of the origin of all of these charity associations, that many of the founders of this prison association were some of the very men who had profited by bribery and theft. Horace Greeley was actuated by pure humanitarian motives, but such incorporators as Prosper Wetmore, Ulshoeffer, and others were, or had been, notorious in lobbying by bribing bank charters through the New York Legislature.

[133] "The New Yorker," Feb. 17, 1838.

[134] "Reminiscences of John Jacob Astor," New York "Herald," March 31, 1848.

[135] Doc. No. 24, Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix. The Merchant's Bank, for instance, was assessed in 1833 at $6,000; it had cost that sum twenty years before and in 1833 was worth three times as much.

[136] Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix, Doc. No. 18.

[137] Many eminent lawyers, elected or appointed to high official or judicial office, were financially interested in corporations, and very often profited in dubious ways. The case of Roger B. Taney, who, from 1836, was for many years, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, is a conspicuous example. After he was appointed United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1833, the United States Senate passed a resolution inquiring of him whether he were not a stockholder in the Union Bank of Maryland, in which bank he had ordered public funds deposited. He admitted that he was, but asserted that he had obtained the stock before he had selected that bank as a depository of public funds. (See Senate Docs., First Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. iii, Doc. No. 238.) It was Taney, who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, handed down the decision, in the Dred Scott case, that negro slaves, under the United States Constitution, were not eligible to citizenship and were without civil rights.

[138] These frauds at the polls went on, not only in every State but even in such newly-organized Territories as New Mexico. Many facts were brought out by contestants before committees of Congress. (See "Contested Elections," 1834 to 1865, Second Session, 38th Congress, 1864-65, Vol. v, Doc. No. 57.) In the case of Monroe vs. Jackson, in 1848, James Monroe claimed that his opponent was illegally elected by the votes of convicts and other non-voters brought over from Blackwell's Island. The majority of the House Elections Committee reported favoring Monroe's being seated. Aldermanic documents tell likewise of the same state of affairs in New York. (See the author's "History of Tammany Hall.") Similar practices were common in Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities, and in country townships.

[139] "The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York." By Moses Yale Beach.

[140] "Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of Philadelphia." By a Member of the Philadelphia Bar, 1845.

The misconception which often exists even among those who profess the deepest scholarship and the most certainty of opinion as to the development of men of great wealth was instanced by a misstatement of Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. In an address on "Anti-Democratic Tendencies in American Life" delivered some years ago, Dr. Adler asserted: "Before the Civil War there were three millionaires; now there are 4,000." The error of this assertion is evident.

[141] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":80-81.

[142] Proceedings of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix, Doc. No. 24. This poverty was the consequence, not of any one phase of the existing system, nor of the growth of any one fortune, but resulted from the whole industrial system. The chief form of the exploitation of the worker was that of his capacity as a producer; other forms completed the process. A considerable number of the paupers were immigrants, who, fleeing from exploitation at home, were kept in poverty in America, "the land of boundless resources." The statement often made that there were no tramps in the United States before the Civil War is wholly incorrect.

[143] Matthew Hale Smith in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York," 186-187.

[144] See Part III of this work, "The Great Railroad Fortunes".

[145] See Part III, Chapters iv, v, vi, etc.

[146] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, 1844-1865:213.

[147] Doc. No. 46, Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, xxi, Part II.

[148] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, 1844-1865:734.

[149] Ibid:865.

[150] Proceedings of the [New York City] Sinking Fund Commission, 1882:2020-2023.

[151] Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, 1877, Part II. No. 8.

[152] New York Senate Journal, 1871:482-83.

[153] See Exhibits Doc. No. 8, Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, 1877.

[154] For a full account of the operations of the Tweed régime see the author's "History of Tammany Hall."

[155] Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health for 1866, Appendix A:38.

[156] "America's Successful Men of Affairs":36.

[157] "No church disdained his gifts." The morals and methods of the church, as exemplified by Trinity Church, were, judged by standards, much worse than those of Astor or of his fellow-landlords or capitalists. These latter did not make a profession of hypocrisy, at any rate. The condition of the tenements owned by Trinity Church was as shocking as could be found anywhere in New York City. We subjoin the testimony given by George C. Booth of the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor before a Senate Investigating Committee in 1885:

(Investigation of the Departments of the City of New York, by Special Committee of the [New York] Senate, 1885, 1:193-194.)

[158] See Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, iii:2312, etc.

[159] Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on Cities, 1890, iii: 2314-2315.

[160] As one of many illustrations of the ethics of the propertied class, the appended newspaper dispatch from Newport, R. I., on Jan. 2, 1903, brings out some significant facts:

"William C. Schermerhorn, whose death is announced in New York, and who was a cousin of Mrs. William Astor, was one of Newport's pioneer summer residents. He was one of New York's millionaires, and his Newport villa is situated on Narragansett avenue near Cliffside, opposite the Pinard cottages.

"Mr. Schermerhorn, with Mrs. Astor and ex-Commodore Gerry, of the New York Yacht Club, in order to avoid the inheritance tax of New York, and to take advantage of Newport's low tax-rate, obtained in January last through their counsel, Colonel Samuel R. Honey, a decree declaring their citizenship in Rhode Island. Since that time Mr. Schermerhorn's residence has been in this state. In last year's tax-list he was assessed for $150,000.

"Mr. Schermerhorn was a member of both the fashionable clubs on Bellevue avenue, the Newport Casino and the Newport Reading-Room."

[161] For further details on this point see Chapter ix, Part II.

[162] Some of this land and these water grants and piers were obtained by Peter Goelet during the corrupt administration of City Controller Romaine. Goelet, it seems, was allowed to pay in installments. Thus, an entry, on January 26, 1807, in the municipal records, reads: "On receiving the report of the Street Commissioner, Ordered that warrants issue to Messrs. Anderson and Allen for the three installments due to them from Mr. Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange Piers."—MSS. Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, xvi:286.

[163] "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable example of this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he stole $400,000 of that bank's funds.

[164] At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of the times, was prodigious. "His wealth is vast—not less than five or six millions," wrote Barrett in 1862—"The Old Merchants of New York City," 1:349.

[165] "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":104.

[166] See Part III, "Great Fortunes From Railroads."

[167] "Kings of Fortune":172.

[168] Census of 1900.

[169] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:104-253.

[170] In those parts of this work relating to great fortunes from railroads and from industries, this phase of commercial life is specifically dealt with. The enormities brazenly committed during the Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Napoleon had the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all wars is to the same effect.

[171] So valuable was a partnership in this firm that a writer says that Field paid Leiter "an unknown number of millions" when he bought out Leiter's interest.

[172] Census of 1900.

[173] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:370.

[174] See his work, "If Christ Came to Chicago." Much more specific and reliable is the report of the U. S. Industrial Commission. After giving the low wages paid to women in the different cities, it says: "It is manifest from the figures given that the amount of earnings in many cases is less than the actual cost of the necessities of life. The existence of such a state of affairs must inevitably lead in many cases to the adoption of a life of immorality and, in fact, there is no doubt that the low rate of wages paid to women is one of the most frequent causes of prostitution. The fact that the great mass of working women maintain their virtue in spite of low wages and dangerous environment is highly creditable to them."—Final Report of the Industrial Commission, 1902, xix:927.

[175] See an article on this point by the Rev. F. M. Goodchild in the "Arena" Magazine for March, 1896.

[176] In the course of inquiries among the Chicago religious missions in 1909, the author was everywhere informed that the great majority of native prostitutes were products of the department stores. Some of the conditions in these department stores, and how their owners have fought every effort to better these conditions, have been revealed in many official reports. The appended description is from the Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of Illinois, 1903-04, pp. ix and x:

"In this regard, and worthy of mention, reference might be made to the large dry goods houses and department stores located in Chicago and other cities, in which places it has been customary to employ a great number of children under the age of sixteen as messenger boys, bundle wrappers, or as cash boys or cash girls, wagon boys, etc. In previous years these children were required to come to work early in the morning and remain until late at night, or as long as the establishment was open for business, which frequently required the youngsters to remain anywhere from 8:00 to 9:00 o'clock in the morning until 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., their weak and immature bodies tired and worn out under the strain of the customary holiday rush. In the putting a stop to this practice of employing small children ten and thirteen hours per day, the department found it necessary to institute frequent prosecutions. While our efforts were successful, we met with serious opposition, and in some cases almost continuous litigation, some 300 arrests being necessary to bring about the desired results, which finally secured the eight hour day and a good night's rest for the small army of toilers engaged in the candy and paper box manufacturing establishments and department stores.

"In conducting these investigations and crusades the inspectors met with some surprises in the way of unique excuses. In Chicago a manager of a very representative first class department store, one of the largest of its kind, gave as his reason for not obeying the law, that they had never been interfered with before. Another, that the children preferred to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child labor movements."

[177] For detailed particulars see that part of this work comprising "Great Fortunes from Public Franchises."

[178] The acts here summarized are narrated specifically in Part III, "Great Fortunes from Railroads."

[179] "The Truth About the Trusts":266-267.

[180] "Industrial Evolution of the United States," 313.

[181] Parsons, "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":196. Also, Report of Chicago Chief of Police for 1894. This was a customary practice of railroad, industrial and mining capitalists. Further facts are brought out in other parts of this work.

[182] "Report on the Chicago Strike of June and July, 1894," by the United States Strike Commissioners, 1895.—Throughout all subsequent years, and at present, the Pullman Company has continued charging the public exorbitant rates for the use of its cars. Numerous bills have been introduced in various legislatures to compel the company to reduce its rates. The company has squelched these measures. Its consistent policy is well known of paying its porters and conductors such poor wages that the 15,000,000 passengers who ride in Pullman cars every year are virtually obliged to make up the deficiency by tips.

[183] Sweeping as this statement may impress the uninitiated, it is entirely within the facts. As one of many indisputable confirmations it is only necessary to refer to the extended debate over child labor in the United States Senate on January 23, 28, and 29, 1907, in which it was conclusively shown that more than half a million children under fifteen years of age were employed in factories, mines and sweatshops. It was also brought out how the owners of these properties bitterly resisted the passage or enforcement of restrictive laws.

[184] Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1894. The report, made public in August, 1909, of the Illinois Tax Reform League's investigation of the Chicago Board of Review's assessments, showed that these frauds in evading taxation not only continue, but on a much greater scale than ever before. The Illinois Tax Reform League asserted, among other statements, that Edward Morris, head of a large packing company, was not assessed on personal property, whereas he owned $43,000,000 worth of securities, which the League specified. The League called upon the Board of Review to assess J. Ogden Armour, one of the chiefs of the Beef Trust, on $30,840,000 of personal property. Armour was being yearly assessed on only $200,000 of personal property. These are two of the many instances given in the report in question. It is estimated (in 1909), that back taxes on at least a billion dollars of assessable corporate capital stock, are due the city from a multitude of individuals and corporations.

[185] "The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States":143.

[186] "Hundreds of millions of people." Not only are the 85,000,000 people of the United States compelled to render tribute, but the peoples of other countries all over the globe.

[187] "Marshall Field's Will" by Joseph Medill Patterson. Reprinted in pamphlet form from "Collier's Weekly."

[188] The number of men killed per 100,000 employed has increased from 267 a year in 1895 to about 355 at present. (See report of J. A. Holmes, chief of the technological branch of the United States Geological Survey.) The chief reason for this slaughter is because it is more profitable to hire cheap, inexperienced men, and not surround the work with proper safeguards.