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 thieves to baptize themselves—­or shall we say to have the water in their stocks made “holy”?  Says our pious editor, for the government to take property without full compensation “would be contrary to the whole spirit of America.”

#The Outlook for Graft#

Anyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such crooked work as this, continued over a long period, is not done for nothing.  Any magazine writer would know, the instant he saw the Baxter article, that Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and that the “Outlook” also was paid by the New Haven.  Generally he has no way of proving such facts, and has to sit in silence; but when his board bill falls due and his landlady is persistent, he experiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of journalism who thrive at his expense.  If he is a Socialist, he looks forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications’ Graft Commission, with access to all magazine books which have not yet been burned!