It finally was arranged that no one was to be placed on the executive committee who was personally objectionable to Hyde. The new directors were not to represent any faction, but all the policy holders. Thus we got control of the board and the policy holders were allowed to elect a majority of the executive committee and Mr. Hyde’s control was wrested from him. Thus, my action in standing fast with the committee of Equitable policy holders, demanding their rights, was an essential prelude to the famous life insurance investigation of 1905. The success of that investigation, once it got under way, is, of course, to the eternal credit of Charles Evans Hughes. His masterly grasp of the intricacies of the whole situation; his extraordinarily logical mind which enabled him to bring out the testimony in such a way as to build up an overwhelming and complete sense of the right and wrong of the matter, made his conduct of this investigation one of the most brilliant performances in the history of American law, and placed Mr. Hughes in the front rank of public servants. My own testimony at the investigation was useful in establishing confirmatory evidence of the corrupt manner in which life insurance moneys were used, as evidenced in the purchase, by Mr. McCurdy, of stock in other companies with policy holders’ money, but to the personal profit of the officers of the Mutual instead of to the Mutual itself. The outcome of the whole investigation is, of course, familiar to the public. It resulted in the enactment of laws which made these corrupt practices impossible, and thereby took the insurance company funds out of the speculative and promoting fields of American finance. The other needed reform--to clip the power of the New York bankers to control the credit resources of the country--was delayed until, under the compulsion of Woodrow Wilson’s leadership, the Federal Reserve Act was passed, and the power of Wall Street over credit for ever crushed. That Act democratized credit, and made it impossible for any man, or group of men, to concentrate and control it. Young Hyde was shorn of his glory. He was compelled to sell his majority of ownership in the Equitable for two and one half million dollars--whereas but a few years before I had been authorized by James Stillman to offer him ten million dollars for the control of the Equitable and its connections--and to remove himself from all authority in its affairs, and from all influence upon finance in general. He retired to that luxurious obscurity which was his natural level. Disgusted with America, which did not “appreciate” him, he returned to France where he had already spent several years, and there devoted himself to a life of pleasure and of mild intellectual avocations.