McCarren himself was a “sporting man” and reputed to be a “thoroughbred” at that. He had his own elaborate racing stable, and it was said of him that he once uncomplainingly lost $30,000 on a bet, although the decision of the racing judges was open to question. In 1908 the failure of the brokerage firm of Ennis & Stoppani revealed the fact that McCarren was “carrying” $250,000 worth of stock, for which he had paid nothing, and which resulted in a loss to him of about $107,000. No demand had been made by the brokers upon McCarren for margins; in view of this fact he could not have been compelled to pay losses; it was said of him, however, that he gave a check to the receiver and took the stock. He was a “heavy operator” in real estate and in the stock market, and had personal relations with H. H. Rogers, Anthony N. Brady, William C. Whitney, J. Pierpont Morgan, W. K. Vanderbilt, August Belmont and other Wall Street magnates, of whose interests he was a recognized pusher in the Legislature. To return, however, to the hearings of the Legislative “Graft Hunt” Committee: facts brought out showed that the beet sugar interests had also debauched the Legislature and that State Senator John Raines, a leading Republican, received $9,000 in two years for pushing bounty bills to aid beet sugar interests. These facts were admitted by Henry F. Zimmerlin, former vice-president and Albany lobbyist of the Lyons Beet Sugar Refining Company. The full testimony tended to show that insurance companies, traction companies, construction companies and other interests paid large sums to defeat legislation that they did not want enacted, or were blackmailed into paying other large sums to have “strike bills” suppressed. But the report of the Legislative Investigating Committee, made on February 1, 1911, was harmless as far as specific findings of corruption were concerned. As to the charges of traction and race track corruption, the Committee reported that no definite and substantial charge, verified by knowledge, had been filed with it, and that “in consequence it finds nothing definite in regard to the traction and race track charges that it examined.”[3] There were one or two indictments, but no one, either bribers or bribed, had to go prison, although in charges made in a detached subsequent case, one solitary State Senator, Stilwell, was convicted of bribery charges and sentenced to prison; he was a comparatively obscure politician. Inasmuch as the Legislature for years had been dominantly Republican, these disclosures had a much more injurious political effect upon the Republican organization than upon Tammany, and they were of weight in bringing about the election of a Democratic Governor in the person of John A. Dix, in 1910. This was the first Democratic Governor of New York State elected in many years; the result was the enlargement of Tammany’s sway, and more offices and further fields of power and profit for “the Organization.”