Corruption Then and Now

...And Sandburg told it in a two-liner: "Have you a criminal lawyer in this burg...

...Everything had a price...

...He pointed out that the New York City Charter said that a mayor could be removed by the governor...

...His technique was to perform the unspectacular job of research where it hurt: income-tax returns, bank deposit slips, savings accounts of an accused's family, brokerage statements, real estate, and other filed papers...

...Instead of working through some visible industry association with an elaborate Washington headquarters, a single phone call or personal lunch can speed contracts, waivers, and payments...

...Partial statements of major outside income and business interests are called for from Members of Congress but these reports are not open to full public scrutiny...

...Under Title 10 of the United States Code, Navy and Marine officers who sell material to their former service are stripped of their retirement pay...

...The cast of characters in municipal corruption continues to follow a familiar script...

...I recall a talk in Sicily with an astute political observer long resident in Palermo shortly after a series of murders in the streets and hills behind the capital...

...and they could somehow make it all appear legitimate...

...HERBERT AAITGANG is a member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times...

...We think so, but we haven't proved it on him yet...

...There are many examples of former members of regulatory commissions— Federal Communications, Securities, Interstate Commerce, and others— who have turned around and been hired by large corporations they once regulated...

...It was stuffed with $100 bills, part of a cache of $800,000 put aside by a former Secretary of State of Illinois...

...Similarly, Mayor Walker's records were exposed so that by the time he was put on the stand, Seabury literally knew more about his financial dealings than the mayor himself...

...This would not come as a surprise to Lincoln Steffens, who exposed the shame of a half-dozen Eastern and Midwestern cities in the early 1900s, nor to Judge Samuel Seabury, who took on the City of New York in the early 1930s, and caused the downfall of Mayor Jimmy Walker and the elevation of Fusion government in the name of Fiorello La Guardi...

...Efforts to force disclosure of the financial affairs of top officials in all three branches of the Federal Government have not been successful...

...But do you not admire," Plato wrote, "the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption...

...Unlike Jimmy Walker from the sidewalks of New York, the late Secretary Paul Powell was described by an old friend as "just a big old country boy...

...President Eisenhower said shortly before leaving office: "I think it's all right for Congress to look into these things [the connection between former officers and present military contracting officers] because we must be careful and I think that anyone acting in good faith would have nothing to fear of such an investigation...

...Eighty-five district leaders received token salaries of about $7,000 as keepers of various seals and records...

...City and country boy had common characteristics: They were public officials, not ordinary hoods...

...Presumably these gentlemen in mufti were not breaking the law by shifting from procurement for the Army, Air Force, and Navy to selling tanks, missiles, and ships back to their former subordinates...

...Often it makes it easier later to penetrate the labyrinth of doing business with a Federal agency that has a life-and-death power over franchises...

...The most obvious example of the link between big business and big Government contracts involves retired generals and admirals...

...But apart from legislators who have been able to vote themselves salary increases—Congress increased its own pay scale by forty-one per cent— most civil servants, elected and appointed, have seen the scales of private industry outweigh by far their own for comparable work...

...This almost tripled the number so engaged ten years before...

...The meaning of the Seabury investigations of New York should not be limited merely to the obvious modern examples of collusion between politicians and racketeers, to ordinary shakedownp and handouts, nor even to the pervasive tentacles of organized crime today...

...Elected and appointed public officials perform legitimate frauds that are accepted as the way things are and the way things get done...

...Quite often it is deemed valuable for a corporation's sense of public relations to "lend" its executives to the Government as a "public service" for a brief period...

...Within a private corporation, an executive having good contacts with Government agencies—who can drop the names of Presidential assistants—finds himself climbing the stock-option ladder rather quickly...

...Furthermore, persons on the Federal payroll are told to engage in "no business with the Government, either directly or indirectly, which is inconsistent with the conscientious performance of governmental duties...

...There were not just one but three investigations...

...The real Mafiosi are not trouble seekers," he explained...

...Seabury began to dig deeper and unearthed the case of Dr...

...The startling truth lay bare that corruption was not merely political," Steffens declared, "it was financial, commercial, social...

...Walker complained that he was being "transported back to Russia" and not getting a fair break but Roosevelt patiently said that he would get a "square deal...

...There are no penalties to dissuade defense contractors...

...Influence is not permanently influential...

...So—as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., says—it goes...

...Using Seabury's evidence, Roosevelt deftly exposed Walker's secret accounts and business links...

...No wire-tapping, bugging, or other electronic invasions of privacy were available—or required...

...It disclosed that a slush fund was maintained by a group of politicians and businessmen for Mayor Walker...

...There is the most delicate and dangerous balance between centralization and decentralization, affecting not only schools but many of the services 01 government...

...and never to accept, for himself or his family, favors or benefits under circumstances which might be construed by reasonable persons as influencing the performance of his governmental duties...

...He did...

...The magistrates were linked with the police and were the center of a system of political payoffs, quashing of indictments, bribery, and false imprisonment...

...Congress simply does not want to tell all or even part...

...Public ethics must be legislated to remove the options of conflict of interest...

...The first involved the magistrates' courts, the next the conduct and competency of the district attorney's office, finally a departmental investigation into the affairs of New York—right up to the Mayor's domain...

...the ramifications of boodle were so complex, various, and far-reaching that one mind could hardly grasp them...

...One former chairman who had made a reputation for himself by deploring the quality and sincerity of the industry his agency supervised then became a legal counsel and lobbyist for a major corporation which shaded commission regulations...

...A nice berth for a steamship at a Hudson pier, for example, cost fifty grand...

...They have ties with lawyers, mayors, members of parliament...

...As mayoral appointees, the magistrates "delivered" when called to do so by the political leaders who had arranged their jobs on the bench...

...The next target was the company's Storm King power plant up the Hudson—a project costing one hundred million dollars with a built-in kickback of five million dollars...

...Seabury asked Farley how he had managed to accumulate nearly $400,000 in six years when his job only paid $8,500 annually...

...It would have been the first case of corruption involving a nuclear power plant: political greed and gangsterism are never far behind the latest innovation and may reach for the moon, too...

...In the four decades since the biggest investigation of municipal corruption in this century, the lines of government have undergone radical revision and government itself has been challenged...

...It would require disclosure of real and personal property having a value of $5,000 or more, sources of income totaling $1,000 including capital gains, the identity of creditors to whom debts of $5,000 or more are owed, the value and source of each honorarium of $300, certain family assets, legal fees of $1,000 from law firms, and amounts and sources of political contributions...

...This board had discretionary power to permit variations in building regulations and therefore was the prey of real estate interests—and a rich source of graft...

...Tens of billions of dollars are destined to be spent every year for the weapons and alleged defense systems with their built-in obsolescence...

...subsidies to the oil industry today are perfectly legitimate' . . ." Judge Seabury and his eager assistants knew where the bodies were buried but also realized that only written evidence and tough cross-examination could bring indictments...

...often the rascals are replaced by new rascals from the other major political party...

...In the Naval Service Appropriation Act of 1896, payment of funds was prohibited to naval officers on the active or retired lists when employed by a company furnishing "supplies or war material" to the Government...

...Teapot Dome is studied as a scandal because of overt bribery, but subsidies to the oil industry today are perfectly "legitimate"—and I doubt if they will be even mentioned in the history of the Nixon or any other Administration...

...Conscience—the exercise of a private, unwritten code of ethics—is nice, but it needs a little official help from the law...

...Neither juries nor Tammany judges nor even mayors could dispute the records Seabury unearthed...

...Some have fallen off just as suddenly when their official friends were bounced or voted out of office...

...Some token strong-arm bandits and shotgun marksmen had been questioned for exceeding their authority...

...The whole field of conflicts of interest, outside hidden income and loans, franchises of public facilities, partnerships and stock ownership in private industry, fixing violations for major lobbyists and campaign fund donors— even the engineering of special-interest tax exemptions and laws favoring the few—is the greatest evil...

...The shifting demography of the country has caused great turmoil in municipalities and legislatures...

...It doesn't hurt...

...Finally, Governor Roosevelt sat as judge in Albany in the removal proceedings against Mayor Walker brought by Judge Seabury...

...As for court-martial of accused officers, the chairman of an armed services subcommittee in the House said it would amount to an "old class reunion" and "legally constituted whitewash...

...Corruptio optimi p?ssima—the greatest evil is the good corrupted...

...But from one administration to the next, clean influence-peddling for a huge fee can corrupt public officials and be costly to the Government...

...His book on the Seabury investigation of New York City, "The Man Who Rode the Tiger," was recently released in a new Viking Compass edition...

...worse, idealistic individuals willing to devote their talents to government have become disillusioned...

...The great reporter, Steffens, and the great investigator, Seabury, both recognized that the private insolence of office led to corruption...

...It is more a statement of principles...

...they were free lancers who unfortunately gave the Mafia a bad name...

...Seabury declined public office for himself and insisted that the candidate for mayor be a fiery reformer who despised Tammany as much as he did—Fiorello La Guardi...

...These he placed more in the hothead category of young and inexperienced killers trying to make a name for themselves and horn in on the bigtime rackets...

...Steffens put it: "Politics is business...

...political greed and gangsterism are never far behind the latest innovation . . ." But it is the legitimatized corruption that has become the most despicable in the United States today...

...A letter of credit for $10,000 kept in the archives of the Chase National Bank was one of the most damaging pieces of evidence...

...It is true that the Mafia has found new opportunities in narcotics and gambling, hijacking and loan-sharking—and that the huge take has enabled the twenty-four "families" with their five thousand members to penetrate everyday businesses in major American cities...

...And then he needled me by adding sardonically, "Something like your five per centers in Washington...

...In the 1970's...

...Campaigning for La Guardi?, Seabury called for a relentless war on the "gangster and racketeer, to free industry from the tolls and extortions, so that profits could go where they belong—to the workers and employers, and not to political leaders and their gangster friends...

...By 1970, more than 2,000 former officers ranking from colonel to general and captain to admiral were employed by the hundred largest defense contractors...

...Emphasis added...

...His words anticipated the interlocking relationship between the Mafiosi "families" and the political leaders and public officials they controlled by payoffs and partnerships in our time...

...The result has been that candidates for many important offices have to be independently wealthy or under obligation to lobbies and sordid influences...

...they proceeded on the theory that doing business with government meant doing business...

...A code of ethics does exist for the Senate and House and employes of the Executive branch of Government—but it does not include enforcement provisions...

...The interrogation of the Honorable Thomas M. Farley, sheriff of New York County, leader of the Fourteenth Assembly District, and Tammany Hall sachem, became a standard—and added new phrases to the American political vacabulary...

...private ethics, lived...

...Such models have been proposed before without success...

...The deal was destined to grow into one of the most expensive for New Yorkers paying their electric bills to Con Ed...

...The long-held notion that power should be centralized and flow in clean rivers of authority from the Federal Government to the states and then the cities is no longer accepted because urban and suburban enclaves and even regional corridors—such as the unified link between New York and Washington, D.C.—have broken down traditional borders, populations, and democratic representation...

...A similar limitation, covering Army officers, was written into an appropriation act after World War I. But the "munitions lobby" became more voracious in the aerospace age and during the peak years of the Vietnam war...

...And former Governor Alfred E. Smith told him, "Jim, you're through—you must resign for the good of the Party...

...Areas of responsibility have dovetailed, leaving public officials confused...

...William F. ("Horse Doctor") Doyle, who practiced before the city's Board of Standards and Appeals...

...Criminal penalties can be a fine of $10,000 and imprisonment for a year, but these statutes are seldom enforced...

...The Association of the Bar of the City of New York has proposed a model code on conflicts of interest for > Congress and its employes...

...The sheriff explained that the added money somehow turned up in his "little tin box...

...Everyone in Government is admonished "never to discriminate unfairly by the dispensing of special favors or privileges to anyone whether for remuneration or not...

...In positions of public trust, there are perfectly respectable men who enrich themselves in office or shortly after leaving government service by using their inside knowledge for private gain or in acquiring a little experience in how to circumvent the regulations of the very agencies in which they served...

...Under Title 18 of the Code, no former Federal employe—for two years after he has left the service—may prosecute a claim on any matter directly related to his Government work...

...The old gay mayor, he ain't what he used to be," cracked Franklin P. Adams in his newspaper column...

...at the end of the line are numbered accounts in Swiss banks...

...We call them the 'white' Mafia...

...Senator William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat who studied the military-industrial links, declared, "How hard a bargain will officers involved in procuring, planning or specification drive with contractors when they are one or two years from retirement and have the example of over 2,000 fellow officers doing well on the outside after retirement...

...By contrast, the Teapot Dome oil giveaway to private interests with the collusion of public officials during the Harding Administration amounted to mere hundreds of millions...

...As counsel, Judge Seabury faced the grand sachems of Tammany in their graft-taking roles as sheriffs and county clerks...

...The city-wide investigation inevitably had to follow and it remains the case history and precedent for other American investigations into corruption...

...Their conspiracy involved nothing less than extorting contracts from Consolidated Edison, affecting the transmission of electricity coming into New York City...

...If not actually owners, they get a skim of profits through "protection" and extortion...

...Furthermore, most of the recent evidence gathered by law-enforcement agencies has included conversations boasting of friendly judges, police captains, and elected officials whose expensive campaigns demand contributions from sources unknown...

...Senators in general are far more secretive, equating this with the lack of information required from Supreme Court Justices and the President himself...

...How deep this penetration goes is difficult to discover...

...In the 1970s, the defense stakes are even higher for these contractors and their hired brass and braid...

...The district attorney was then nailed for his puerile investigation of the magistrates and lack of ability to deal with unscrupulous bail bondsmen and corrupt policemen...

...At the time, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, seventy-nine, was chairman of the board of Sperry Rand, and Frank Pace, former Secretary of the Army, was president of General Dynamics—which at last count had more than one hundred former high-ranking officers on its payroll...

...In the background, helping some of the implicated parties to get together, was Vincent Albano, the Republican leader of Manhattan...

...Public office has always had to hold talented men and women with attractions of service and satisfaction more than financial rewards...

...He saw a system from city to city where corruption existed in banks and labor unions and dummy corporations as well as in political machines...

...It is assumed by businessmen who are not inclined to ask too many questions that certain services—trucking of soft goods as well as automobiles, garbage and rubbish removal by private carters, slot machines delivering cigarettes, food, and drink as well as jukebox music and other entertainment, and, of course, personnel connected with various closed crafts unions—are the province of criminals in some places...

...The attempt to stop these officers from doing business with their old subordinates has failed for a long time...

...Roosevelt went on without the Tammany taint to consolidate Democratic forces and win the Presidential election...

...Not all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen...

...It was conducted by a joint legislative committee on orders of the Governor—Franklin D. Roosevelt...

...In practice, military officers subject to suspension of retirement pay for dealing with the Pentagon use the amount of such pay for service merely as a floor to negotiate better deals as civilians with defense contractors...

...The investigations conducted by Judge Seabury can be studied profitably (better strike out that word) by public officials and students of metropolitan administration today...

...In 1970, the Nixon Administration, following the practice of its recent predecessors, approved subsidies to the oil industry that will cost the American people as consumer and taxpayer an estimated sixty billion dollars over this decade...

...In states and cities conflicts of interest abound, too...

...He deplored the crimes of violence and the inability of public officials to find the higher-ups who had ordered the executions...

...Almost forty years after Judge Seabury's expose of how Tammany did business and how business was not done without Tammany, Carmine De Sapio, the former Democratic leader of Manhattan, was sentenced for conspiring with Mayor John V. Lindsay's Water Commissioner, James Marcus, who had managed to ingratiate himself into the cabinet of a clean city administration...

...Some Congressmen do make voluntary disclosures beyond what is required...

...The other leading players included a wealthy contractor, Henry Fried, and a Mafia lieutenant, Antonio (Tony Ducks) Corallo...

...Plato said it for his time and Lincoln Steffens and Carl Sandburg for ours...

...Beneath the leaders were rosters of clubhouse fixers who performed such good and welfare assignments as killing traffic tickets, on the lowest level, to arranging for judicial "contracts" and departmental licenses, on the highest...