The Sentinel=record., 1914-07-14
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COM SION RENDERS REPORT ON
 ITS INVESTIGATION.
DIRECTORS HELD GUILTY
For the Mismanagement and Heavy Financial Losses and Suggests They May Be Financially Respon- sible to Those Who Lost Money.

I
 | Washington, D. C., July 13.-The story of the reckless and profligate" Financial operations of the New Ha-
 ven railroad, one of the most remark
 able chapters in the history of | American railroads and American l finance. was revealed in part today by the Interstate Commerce Commis-
 sion in report to the senate of its investigation of that road.
 It told of millions used like stage money, of corporations as pawns in
 a monster game with all New Eng which led the New Haven in the ten
 years just passed from the height of l prosperity to the point where a divi dead has been passed, where dis
 solution suit is threatening and where criminal indictments of many
 of the directors who figured in deals
 are at least possibility.
 lHampered by unwilling witnesses, by burned books and by all the mazes which lawyers invented to cover the
 trail the commission estimated that
 in the progress toward molopoliza- 1 ton of New England transportation
 the New Haven stockholders have
 lost between $65,000.000 and S90,000,-
 GOO, but little of which they may re- cover. In return, the report said,
 they have on their hands properties which pay no dividends, which eat into the earnings of the parent road and which will be a burden on it's capacity for many years to come. Of the present directing head Chairman Howard Elliott and Walker D. Hines, special counsel, the report says, They have co-operated with 1 the commission and rendered it sub
 stantial assistance throughout this investigation.
 The New Haven combination
 reared by Charles s. Mellen and ap. proved by the late J. P. Morgan and William Rockefeller, the commission finds to be clearly in violation of the sherman antitrust act and a mo- nopoly in practical control of the
 transportatio lof five states.
 The commissions report is unusual
 as regards the manner in which the directors of the New Haven are scored. 1t speaks of criminal malad-
 ministration and negligence, asserts with positiveness that the directors
 knew they were perfecting ar illegal
 combination, and says that the dream
 of transportation monopoly was un. sound and mischievous.
 The New Haven, the commission says, employed dummy directors, ma. nipulated accounts, used questionable
 methods in increasing it's own stock lpaid the dividends of subsidiaries to make showing, and used many
 other devices to deceive stockholders
 and the public. It dipped into DO i. l tics, was factor in invisible gov
 ernment,'' made large campaign con tributions to the two dominent politi.
 cal parties, bought officials and tried
 to disrupt public opinion. All this they did, the commission says, ito
 carry out scheme of private trans
 portation monopoly imperial in it's scope"
 | '1f these directors who were faith less to their stewardsip were held re- sponsible in the courts and at the bar
 of public opinion for their failure to
 do those things they should have
 done, the lessons to directors, who
 do not direct, would be very salu-
 tary' says the report.
 | Most of the directors of the New 1 Haven accepted their responsibility
 lightly. They failed to realize that
 their names gave confidence to the public and that their connection with
 the corporation led the public to in- vest When these directors were
 negligent and serious losses resulted ltherefrom, they were guilty of a grave dereliction of duty and q lbrearh of trust that was moral y
 wrong and criminal in it's fruits.
 Directors should be made individ-
 ually liable to civil and criminal laws
 for the manner in which they dis
 charge their trust. A corporation
 can be no better nor worse than those who operate it. It should be just as grave a crime to plunder Istockholders or the public through a