Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-10-20

tinction for some of those concerned.
prison for others and suicide for one
If Morse is the innocent martyr he
would have us believe he has been fol-
lowed by strange and sinister fate.
The Original Ioeman.
The first of these happenings was the
formation of the notorious New York
ice trust. Morse was the ice trust. He
gathered in practically all the ice com
pauies that did business in the metrop-
oils and when he had things just right
put up the price 100 per cent. in order
to control the dock privileges which
We're necessary TO his monopoly he let
in some of the big politicians of Tam
many Hall. John +. Carroll, the then
leader of the Wigwam, was one and
Mayor Robert a. Van Wyck another
The poor people were the ones to suf
fer most. The campaign against the
unholy league of greed was taken m
by the press. and before it was over
the whole city was in an uproar. Van
Wyck could not appear in n meeting
without being chilled by yells of Ice.
icer' He was driven from public l:fc,
and Tammany was defeated at the
next election.
The second occurrence was the mys-
FERROUS Dodge Morse divorce suit. Aft
er the Geath of his first wife Morse
married a Divorce. Mrs Clemence
Cowles Dodge. Dodge, the divorced
husband, at one time had money, but
later was dining car conductor.
Some time after Mrs. Dodge's marriage
to Morse society was electrified by Il
statement from Dodge that he had
never been served with notice in the
divorce proceedings and that there
fore his wife's decree and subsequent
marriage were illegal. AS Mrs. Dodge
Morse'S lawyer was dead. there was
no way to disprove the charge. The
woman was heartbrOken, had her mar
riage to Morse legally annulled and
fed to Europe. Dodge later admitted
that he was a perjurer and tried to
make his escape to Mexico. He was
apprehended in Texas and there was
furnished funds from some mySgeri-
Gus source to fight extradition. Even
tuaily he was taken back TO New York.
The next sensational development in
the notorious case was the news that
an uncle of Morse had engineered the
affair without his nephew's knowledge.
The lawyer who had done the dirty
work was Abe Hummel. who was SEN
fenced to year on Blackwell's island
and disbarred- Morse remarked Mrs.
Dodge. and to her credit he it said
that she has stood by him with true
wifely fidelity through all his later
troubles.
Organizing the Ship Trust.
One of Morse's biggest coups was the
organization of the coastwise steam
ship trust. He started with the Hud-
son river and Providence lines and
from these reached out until he had
most of the steamers plying the At
lantic seaboard waters. 1t was sac
at the time that he had more vessels
under his control than were contained
in the navy of any single nation. This
bubble burst later, along with Morse's
1ther concerns.
Not satisfied with his spectacular ad-
ventures in ice. matrimony and steam
ships, Morse's ambition sought another
field. He wanted to be a banking
King. For this purpose he absorbed a
string of New York city banks extend
ing from the Battery to Harlem. At
this stage he was one of the big fig
ures in the financial world. Worth
perhaps $50, 100000, president or di-
rector of banks and corporations to the
number of nearly score, a manipula-
tor of acknowledged ability, he was
crowding close to the Wall street lead
ers. He had with him such men as E.
Augustus Heinze, the copper king;
President Barney of the Knickerbock-