Submitting, on July 11, 1914, the results of its investigation to the United States Senate, the Interstate Commerce Commission reported that the facts as to the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway transaction constituted “a story of the profligate waste of corporate funds.” The fullest details are set forth in that report of the magnitude of the corruption used. Commenting upon Mr. Mellen’s testimony, the report declared: “The testimony is somewhat occult, but the character of the transaction is no less certain. This money was used for corrupt purposes, and the improper expenditures covered up by the transfer to the New Haven [New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company] of these worthless securities.… It seems very strange that Mr. Mellen was not able to identify with any particularity any one with whom he had these transactions except the late Thomas F. Byrnes. No comment is necessary to make clear to the mind the corrupt and unlawful nature of this transaction, and it would seem that the amount illegally expended could be recovered from Mr. Mellen and the directors who authorized it.…”[9] There is now pending (1917) a suit in the United States District Court brought by the stockholders against the former directors of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company and against the company for the return of $165,000,000 alleged to have been lost to the treasury of that railroad in various ways. To return, however, to the operations of the New York Contracting and Trucking Company: Another contract secured by that concern was a contract from the Consolidated Gas Company for grading the site for the Astoria gas plant; the franchise for the Astoria “Gas Grab” had been supported by Tammany. By 1905 it was estimated that the New York Contracting and Trucking Company or its offshoots had received contracts aggregating $15,000,000--all contracts from corporations and interests benefiting from the city government or depending upon favors from it. Yet two years previously this very company was a nonentity as far as securing large contracts were concerned, and none of its heads had any experience in the contracting business. Now in a certain well-understood field, it was virtually free from competition. None could now fail to note the great transition from the Tweed period when Tammany leaders used only the vulgar and criminal methods of stealing money out of the city treasury. Under Murphy’s leadership the obvious methods used were those of “honest graft”--the making of millions from contracts with public service corporations, and this was represented as legitimate business. Fully six Tammany district leaders were members of or “interested” in large contracting firms, although the heads of these, often of a nominal character, were not known as Tammany leaders. These concerns employed a total of many thousands of men, all of whom were expected to be useful at the primaries and elections.