reconstruction operations on an extensive scale. It seems
perfectly clear that the chief motive which inspired these
extravagant leases was the determination of the individuals who
made up the syndicate to obtain physical possession and to make
huge profits on construction. The "construction accounts" of the
Metropolitan in New York form the most mysterious and incredible
chapter in its history. The Metropolitan reports show that they
spent anywhere from $500,000 to $600,000 a mile building
underground trolley lines which, at their own extravagant
estimate, should have cost only $150,000. In a few years untold
millions, wasted in this way, disappeared from the Metropolitan
treasury. In 1907 the Public Service Commission of New York began
investigating these "construction accounts," but it had not
proceeded far when the discovery was made that all the
Metropolitan books containing the information desired had been
destroyed. All the ledgers, journals, checks, and vouchers
containing the financial history of the Metropolitan since its
organization in 1893 had been sold for $117 to a junkman, who had
agreed in writing to grind them into pulp, so that they would be
safe from "prying eyes." We shall therefore never know precisely
how this money was spent. But here again the Chicago transactions
help us to an understanding. In 1898 Charles T. Yerkes, with that
cynical frankness which some people have regarded as a redeeming
trait in his character, opened his books for the preceding
twenty-five years to the Civic Federation of Chicago. These books
disclosed that Mr. Yerkes and his associates, Widener and Elkins,
had made many millions in reconstructing the Chicago lines at
prices which represented gross overcharges to the stockholders.
For this purpose Yerkes, Widener, and Elkins organized the United
States Construction Company and made contracts for installing the