Whether some special privileges beyond the ownership of basic natural resources was necessary to bring about combinations on a large scale, the leaders in such combinations seem to have engaged extensively in politics, contributing to the campaign funds of both parties, helping to select their candidates, and maintaining expensive lobbies at Washington and at the capitals of the several states. Mr. Havemeyer admitted before a Senate committee in 1893 that the Sugar Trust was "a Democrat in a Democratic state and a Republican in a Republican state"; and added that in his opinion all other large corporations made contributions to the two leading parties as a matter of course, for "protection." The testimony taken by the New York insurance investigating committee in 1905 and by the Clapp committee of the United States Senate in 1912 revealed the fact that during the period between 1896 and 1912 millions of dollars had been contributed to the Republican party by the men who had been most active in organizing the great industrial combinations, and that representatives of the same group had also given aid and comfort to the Democratic party,[51] although the latter, being out of power at Washington, could not levy tribute with the same effectiveness. The statesman of the new capitalism was Mr. Marcus A. Hanna. Mr. Hanna was born in 1837 of pioneer stock of the second or third generation, after the roughness of the earlier days was somewhat smoothed away without injury to the virility of the fiber. He entered business in Cleveland in 1858 at a time when a remarkable group of business men, including Mr. John D. Rockefeller, were laying the foundation of their fortunes. Endowed with hard, practical, economic sense, he refused to be carried away by the enthusiasm that was sweeping thousands of young men of his age into the Union army, and he accordingly remained at his post of business.[52] It was fortunate for his career that he did not lose those four years, for it was then that he made the beginnings of his great estate in coal, iron, oil, and merchandising.