One feature of the testimony later before the Joint Legislative Committee especially attracting public attention was the imputation that in the contract for the third-tracking of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company’s elevated railroads, a fund of $2,000,000 was surreptitiously provided in the form of a commission to John F. Stevens. Formerly Mr. Stevens had been associated in the construction of the Panama Canal with Mr. Shonts who now was president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. This company, in the third-tracking work, wanted exemption from supervision by the Public Service Commission. According to a memorandum preserved by George W. Young, an Interborough director, this contract with Mr. Stevens was entered into (so, it was asserted, Mr. Shonts told Mr. Lane, another director), because “in connection with the securing of the contract which had been closed between the City of Greater New York and the Interborough, Mr. Shonts had found it necessary to make certain commitments and incur certain obligations, and that it was by means of the Stevens contract that he expected to meet and pay these commitments and obligations.”[1] The Joint Legislative Committee thus comments on the testimony: “It is perfectly clear that Mr. Shonts did tell Mr. Lane something about commitments and obligations in respect to this strange proposition; it is equally clear that he was not under any business commitment or honorable obligation to Mr. Stevens. He made a request of the Public Service [Commission] Chairman for an exception from the general contract, relieving third tracking from official supervision, and had told the reason for it in his desire to give the contract to Mr. Stevens. He did obtain exemption from supervision, and that applied to the contractor to whom finally the contract was awarded.”[2] The chairman of the Public Service Commission here referred to was Edward E. McCall. Whatever may be the shadowy implications conveyed in this report, no statement is made that any corruption was used, nor is any proof presented that any official was improperly influenced. The salient fact was that McCall, in an era when corporation activities were more and more rigorously scrutinized by official bodies, should have reverted to by-gone standards and graciously allowed a removal of that very supervision which it was expected the Public Service Commission would insist upon exercising. Tammany Hall’s nominee in the municipal campaign of 1913 was this same Edward E. McCall. When an attorney, Mr. McCall had been connected with certain operations of the New York Life Insurance Company, of which corporation his brother, John A. McCall, was president. It appeared from the testimony before the Legislative Insurance Investigating Committee, in 1905, that Edward E. McCall had given notes, totalling about $10,000, to “Andy” Hamilton, the chief legislative lobbyist at Albany of that company and distributor of the “Yellow Dog Fund.”