CHARLES E. HUGHES
633
CHARLES E. HUGHES, THE PILOT OF THE INSURANCE INVESTIGATION BY LINDSAY RUSSELL WHEN Mr. Hughes rejected the Republican nomination for mayor of New York, he did no more than was expected by those who knew him. No one, except, perhaps, the machine politicians, doubted that he would refuse to renounce his duties as chief counsel of the insurance investigating committee, even had there been a prospect of his winning the election. He is not the sort of man to shun an obliga tion for personal considerations. Although the "insurance inquisitor" as he had been called since the New York State Legislature selected him for their advisor, was scarcely known a year ago, except to the bench and bar of New York City as an able advocate, and in educational circles as a competent instructor in legal topics, he now holds a position among the leaders of the American Bar. The elevation, how ever rapid, is not questioned. The fact would have been recognized throughout the country if he had never been mentioned in connection with the mayoralty. Two mil lion or more of insurance policy-holders had been praising his efforts in their behalf for a month before political preferment was held out to him. It was the investigation of the Gas Trust that first ushered Mr. Hughes into the limelight as a lawyer of national reputation. That was last winter. The members of the bar, of course, had known him as a man of learning, intellect and skill in handling cases, but there had been little in his career to distinguish him from scores of other attor neys able to win suits involving large busi ness interests. The judges of the courts, high and low, had recognized his ability as equal to that of almost any New York barrister; but in none of his important court appearances had there been proof of his
preeminent qualifications for the work that has made him famous. The insurance committee, having before it the memory of his successful exposure of the Consolidated Gas Company's outrageous monopoly in Greater New York, was quick to choose him as the right man to discover the corruptions and ailments of the socalled "mutual" companies. Even after he had accepted the trust, despite his record in the gas inquiry-, there were cynics who prophesied a "whitewash" for the insurance corporations. But the prophets did not know Hughes. The investigation had been in progress less than a week, when they found that he meant to carry it to the bitter end. The committee, itself, had it wished to do so, could not stop him; the blustering of the scorched financiers did not frighten him; the manceuvers of the politicians, some of whom had been benefited by the lavishness of the insurance lobby, did not deceive him. Mr. Hughes' methods as an examiner of witnesses was disclosed in both the investi gations, but naturally did not attract as much attention in the gas inquiry as when he attacked the question of insurance, with its interest for men and women throughout the world. There is not a newspaper reader in America to-day, who has not heard how Hughes made playthings of the "mu tual" corporation presidents, those auto crats whose very names had been a terror to less bold inquisitors. It has become common gossip how he forced them to con fess their carelessness and drove them to the wall in their meager defense of worse faults. The story of his proof of campaign contributions, fabulous salaries, wasteful extravagance, gross favoritism, financial jugglery and personal misappropriations has spread over the world until every man who
