At another time the facts of his thefts of taxes might have been suppressed or toned down. But at this particular juncture Chicago happened to have a certain corporation counsel who, while mildly infected with conventional views, was not a truckler to wealth. Suit was brought in behalf of the city for recovery of $1,730,000 back taxes. So clear was the case that the trustees of Field's estate decided to compromise. On March 2, 1908, they delivered to John R. Thompson, treasurer of Cook County, a check for one million dollars. If the compound interest for the whole series of years during which Field cheated in taxation were added to the $1,730,000, it would probably be found that the total amount of his frauds had reached fully three million dollars. The chorus of astonishment that ascended when these facts were divulged was an edifying display. He who did not know that the entire propertied class made a regular profession of perjury and fraud in order to cheat the public treasury out of taxes, was either deliciously innocent or singularly uninformed. Year after year a host of municipal and State officials throughout the United States issued reports showing this widespread condition. Yet aside from their verbose complainings, which served political purpose in giving an air of official vigilance, the authorities did nothing. PERJURY AND CHEATING COMMON. As a matter of fact, the evasion of taxes by the Pullman Company had been a public scandal for many years. John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois in 1893-95, frequently referred to it in his speeches and public papers. Field, then, not only personally cheated the public treasury out of millions, but also the corporations which he controlled did likewise. The propertied class everywhere did the same. The unusually thorough report of the Illinois Labor Bureau of 1894 demonstrated how the most valuable land and buildings in Chicago were assessed at the merest fraction of their true value--the costliest commercial buildings at about one-tenth, and the richest residences at about one-fourteenth, of their actual value. As for personal property it contributed a negligible amount in taxes.[184] The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business Association in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets--the whole aggregate of the propertied class--systematically defrauded in taxes for many decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one.