From there, Lessler recounted, the conversation became surprisingly civil. “I remember getting down the books that I had on the subject and explaining to him in detail, so far as I could, what I knew about the boat, and he left me about 10 o’clock in the evening. He said to me, ‘Congressman, I am sorry that I came. I did not understand the situation.’ That was the end of that whole conversation. I have never spoken to him since on the subject.”
After hearing this tale, the committee met in executive session—where no public record would be made available—to investigate Lessler’s accusations. Doblin, the key witness, was not subpoenaed but rather summoned by Lessler to come to Washington to speak to the committee members, Lessler assuring him that anything he said would remain private.
When Doblin arrived in the capital, he learned that his testimony would not be private at all, but rather be part of a public hearing to begin on Friday, January 23, 1903. For reasons that would later be in dispute, he agreed to testify without first hiring a lawyer.
When the hearings opened, soon-to-be-former Congressman Lessler was the first witness, and he repeated what he had told the committee privately. Lemuel Quigg’s attorney pressed Lessler as to why he waited more than two weeks to inform other committee members of Doblin’s bribery attempt. Lessler claimed it was simply a matter of conflicting schedules and the holiday rush. Lessler also repeated that his relationship with Doblin was casual at best, despite Doblin having access to his office and telephone. No one asked why he had failed to report the conversation with McCullagh at all.
But of Lessler’s sympathies there could be no doubt. When asked if his motivation in bringing these charges was to “injure the Holland company,” he responded, “It has been common knowledge in Washington, in the vague, rumory way that we call ‘common knowledge,’ that all sorts of pressure has been brought, and as you know has been mentioned in this committee, about this submarine proposition; and my intention was to tell the members of my committee just what had happened in the proposition, and I repeat again that I thought I was telling the members of my committee and no one else.” Lessler repeatedly denied that he either desired or expected his remarks to his colleagues to spark an investigation, a statement either grossly naïve or one that reflected a culture of payoffs so pervasive that any new allegation would be considered unworthy of notice.
After Lessler was excused, the committee adjourned. The following day, January 24, in a rare Saturday session, Philip Doblin took the stand, without benefit of counsel. There, not requesting immunity from prosecution, he totally corroborated Lessler’s version of the events—he admitted to offering Lessler a bribe, and added that Quigg had told him that there was $1,000 “in it for him” if Lessler accepted. Even more damning, he noted that he had met with E. B. Frost at the Waldorf Astoria late in December, although there did not seem to be anything untoward in their conversation.
When asked why he had requested neither counsel nor immunity, Doblin, who had been around lawyers and politicians his entire life, claimed that the committee’s counsel threatened him, told him he must respond to any questions, and he merely complied. When he learned that the hearings would be public, Doblin added, he spoke with a lawyer friend of his, Leonard Obermier, but continued to believe that he needed to speak to the committee without official representation.
In testimony that lasted almost three hours, it was difficult for anyone to see Doblin as anything more than an amiable dupe, willing to transmit Quigg’s offer to Lessler in the hopes of gaining a powerful man’s favor, and perhaps a $1,000 bonus if he was successful. Incredibly, under questioning, Doblin did not even seem aware that offering money to a congressman in exchange for a vote was in violation of the law.
With Doblin disposed of, John McCullagh appeared and the contrast between the two witnesses could not have been sharper. McCullagh had spent almost three decades in the police department, rising through the ranks to become chief. He was famous for cleaning up the “Bloody Sixth” precinct, which included opium dens in Chinatown and the notorious “Five Points” district. After his retirement from the force, he had been handpicked by Theodore Roosevelt to head the newly created elections bureau, to combat the rampant fraud that accompanied many local elections. By all accounts, he had been zealous in the performance of his duties and elections were a lot cleaner as a result.
At the hearing, McCullagh came armed with an affidavit from Henry Herts, one of the architects working on Isaac Rice’s Eighty-Ninth Street mansion. Herts, it seemed, had been talking to Rice, and in the course of conversation both the Holland submarine and Lessler’s opposition to funding additional boats came up. Rice “stated his regret that he had encountered opposition from Mr. Lessler, who he thought was not fully informed as to the merits of the boat. In the course of the conversation, I suggested to Mr. Rice that it would be proper for some gentleman who knew Mr. Lessler to interview him on the subject. Thereafter I consulted my brother, Mr. A. H. Herts, a member of the [Wall Street] firm of Freedman Bros. & Co., in reference to the matter. He informed me that the only person he knew of who was acquainted with Mr. Lessler was Mr. John McCullagh, the State superintendent of elections, and that he would see Mr. McCullagh, who is a personal friend of his of many years’ standing.”
Herts stressed that he was a member of no political organization, not did he have any interest in either the Holland Torpedo Boat Company or Electric Boat. But he went with his brother to see McCullagh “and laid the facts of the matter before him, explaining to him my interest in the matter, which was entirely personal. I impressed upon Superintendent McCullagh the fact that I was a firm believer in the utility and value of the submarine boat from having witnessed demonstrations of its efficiency, and that I considered the submarine boat one of the most important adjuncts to the national defense that had ever been discovered.”
McCullagh explained that he was only barely acquainted with Lessler, but agreed to speak to the congressman and pass along the message.
His recollection of the conversation bore little resemblance to the strong-arm threats to which Lessler had testified. “We sat down and talked for a little while about the interesting things that occurred during the special election . . . then said, ‘Now, Mr. Lessler, I have come here to ask for a favor. A personal friend of mine has requested me to come. He has no interest whatever that I know of in the Holland submarine boat. Neither have I. It is purely personal. If you can see your way clear to vote for this’ . . . we talked about the merits of the boat . . . ‘I believe it has got some merits.’
“He abruptly said to me, ‘I want to be frank with you, Mr. McCullagh. I won’t vote for it. You don’t understand this situation as I do.’ Then he spoke something about the governor of the State, in a general way, sending down to my office and asking a subordinate in my office his opinion about how to run the office, and how ridiculous it would be. He said, ‘I have made a thorough investigation of this thing, and I am perfectly familiar with the details. I want to say to you, Mr. McCullagh, that I am not a damn fool. I was not born yesterday, sir. I have got my suspicions about this thing. There is not a man on that committee with me that I would trust except one man.’ He named the man [almost certainly George Foss or Alston Dayton] but I will not.
“What brought that about was that I said, ‘Why, you are the only man, Mr. Lessler, that seems to be standing out on this thing. It seems to me ridiculous. You are a young man just elected to Congress. What is the object of it?’ Then he repeated just what I have said. ‘Furthermore, I have weighed the whole thing, and while I can’t prove it I believe there is a lobby here and there is boodle. The position of the whole thing down there, from my standpoint, and what I have seen of it, is wine, terrapin, and women’—and the ‘woman’ was the most vulgar expression I have ever heard a man use. I said, ‘Mr. Lessler, if that be true I am sorry I came here. I shall certainly go back and tell my friend in New York City.’ His secretary was sitting there. I did not know the man was nominated for Congress
, nor did I know that he was running for Congress, until he happened in my office [two months later].”
Perhaps it was coincidence but “wine, terrapin, and women” were exactly the terms Simon Lake used to describe the goings-on aboard the Josephine.
The committee members, especially Dayton tried to rattle him or catch him in an inconsistency, but McCullagh would not alter his testimony. Even when Dayton pressed him on why he would travel all the way to Washington to meet someone he didn’t know and urge him to vote on an appropriation he could not have cared less about, McCullagh steadfastly maintained that he had seen Lessler strictly out of friendship with Herts, had paid his own way, and had no financial interest in the outcome. McCullagh flatly denied ever saying “I have been sent by some men in New York who can re-elect you or beat you, to ask you to vote for the Holland submarine boat.” Lessler’s secretary denied hearing that phrase as well. McCullagh also flatly denied saying, “Then do it for me,” and that Lessler had ever said that he’d see anyone in hell first, an exchange than the secretary had also failed to mention in his testimony.
In the afternoon, Lemuel Quigg testified and expressed equal incredulity. Like McCullagh, he did not deny attempting to persuade Lessler to reexamine his opposition, but the genesis of the attempt was also based on friendship, not profit. According to Quigg, in early December, at the Waldorf Astoria, he happened on an old acquaintance, W. R. Kerr, a partner in the Batcheller Pneumatic Tube Company. Kerr asked Quigg if he knew Lessler, and Quigg said he did. Kerr than asked if, strictly as a favor, Quigg would speak with Lessler about the Holland torpedo boat, in which Kerr admitted he had an interest. When Quigg asked what the matter was with Lessler, Kerr replied, “He is not only opposing it, but he is opposing it in a very personal and bitter and vindictive way. The character of his opposition has been violent and noisy.” When Quigg asked what he could do, Kerr asked only that Quigg attempt to “cool him off a little,” a phrase Quigg specifically remembered.
Quigg agreed to speak to Lessler if he saw him, but warned that they didn’t meet often. But Kerr pressed and asked Quigg to make a special effort. Quigg said, “I cannot make much of an argument for the Holland torpedo boat, because I do not know much about it.”
“I do not expect you to do so,” Kerr replied, “but if you would ask him not to be so violent and pestiferous in his opposition, that is all I want you to do.”
Kerr continued to press, and ten days after their first meeting, Quigg finally tried to locate Lessler. The congressman’s office did not know his whereabouts, but said he was with Phil Doblin, so Quigg sought Doblin out. After speaking with Doblin, Quigg eventually went to Lessler’s office to press his case. Lessler flatly refused.
As Quigg recalled, “He talked, I should say, ten or fifteen minutes to explain to me the merits or the demerits of the boat. Well, I said that was all right, and that was a good reason for being opposed to the boat; but what was the use of making so much fuss about it? ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they are the worst lot down there. A set of rascals through and through. You have no idea of the abominable methods to which those people have resorted. They maintain the most unscrupulous lobby in Washington, and it is as much as anybody’s reputation is worth to have anything to do with them.’”
Quigg claimed to have been dubious, and then asking Lessler if anybody had attempted to bribe him.
“No,” Lessler replied, “nobody has attempted to bribe me; but they are down there and all around.”
Quigg said he replied, “I would not pay much attention to that. It is very natural that they should be down there and all around, and it is very natural that they should come here to you to talk over the thing and very natural that they should send their friends to you, and there is no ground for offense about that.” He added that as Lessler felt so strongly, he should do as he liked, but not to get “so excited and ill-tempered about it, and do not talk about this lobby business, because it seems to me very silly.” Lessler said that “he would go on opposing it, and I said that was all right, and I got up and went on out.”
When he was questioned, Quigg denied that Lessler had ever mentioned money, or even intimated that any offer had been made to him by Doblin or anyone else. Nor did he know either Isaac Rice or E. B. Frost, even though their offices were on the same floor in the same building in New York as his. He had no financial interest in Electric Boat nor any other company relating to the Holland submarine. He did admit to meeting with Doblin, known to be a close associate of Lessler’s, and ask that Doblin speak with the congressman and make one last try to persuade him to soften his tone.
As with McCullagh, Quigg was attacked in cross-examination, but his testimony also held up. “I should like to make the most sweeping as well as the most particular denial that I ever said anything to Mr. Doblin in Mr. Lessler’s interest,” he concluded, “or to Mr. Lessler in his own, or in Mr. Doblin’s, or to either of them, in respect of any money or other advantage that would come to both or either from doing anything in connection with the matter. And when I saw Mr. Lessler, I concluded my conversation by saying to him that I had no request whatever to make of him, as I think he has stated, substantially.”
The committee then adjourned for the day. McCullagh’s and Quigg’s denials notwithstanding, government bribery scandals were big news and this one was no exception. But however lurid were the following day’s headlines, such as the New York World’s lead, “Briber Acted for Ex-Congressman,” the headlines a few days later would be much more so—on January 26, the World’s headline would read, “Doblin Admits Perjury, But Is Not Arrested: Disgusts the House Committee on Naval Affairs by Swearing that His Testimony Against Quigg in the $5,000 Bribery Charge was False.”4
It seemed that with Sunday to think over both his testimony and his legal position Philip Doblin had a change of heart. He walked into the committee room Monday morning—this time with a lawyer—and retracted his entire testimony from the previous session.
“The fact is that the statements I made regarding Mr. Quigg were not true. I was told by Lessler, ‘You have got to stand for this story,’ and I said, ‘Oh, that can’t be done.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Then I am politically dead.’ Then I said, ‘Well, you will carry me with you.’ He said, ‘You will be all right. You just appear before this committee. I will go and see the Speaker and I will fix it up.’ He goes out of the room and comes back and says he has seen the Speaker, and it will be all right. And he says, ‘Now, all you have got to do is to go up before the committee and substantiate my story.’”
As Doblin would tell it that Monday, the bribe offer was phony, concocted by Lessler to ensure defeat of the Roberts bill. But Lessler had intended the tale to remain behind closed doors and never to be for public consumption. When asked later in his testimony where Lessler had come up with the $5,000 figure, Doblin said the congressman, when first speaking to his colleagues about the underhanded methods of Electric Boat, told Doblin he had “blurted it out.” He had then been forced to embellish the story to include Quigg and McCullagh, both of whom had spoken with him of behalf of the Roberts bill. Once the bribery story was out, he became in need of a close associate to corroborate it, and for that delicate task, he had chosen his good friend, Phil Doblin. Lessler, aware of how fragile his position was, assured Doblin that the bribery charge would remain off the record—in that way, the Roberts bill would certainly fail without the necessity of putting anyone at risk of a perjury charge. Whether any other members of the committee knew the whole truth, Doblin could not tell, but those members against the Roberts bill were not about to question Lessler’s story.
Doblin was fully aware that this second rendition would be greeted with a good deal more skepticism than the one that preceded it, so this time he had brought proof. After his initial statement, Doblin turned to Gustavus Rogers, the lawyer he had engaged in New York, and asked for a sheaf of telegrams. The first one, dated January 20, was from Lessler. Doblin told the committee it was how he had first been sum
moned to Washington. “Take midnight train and come to me. Want to see you. Keep this confidential.” It was signed, “Monte.”
From that moment, the tenor of the hearing changed—it seemed certain, at the least, that Montague Lessler—Monte—did not have the offhand, casual relationship with Doblin he had originally described. (It was later established that Lessler had recommended Doblin for jobs with the election commission and may have, on more than one occasion, loaned him money.)
When Doblin arrived in Washington, he said, he went directly to Lessler’s hotel room. There, Lessler told him the bribery story that he must stick to. Doblin said he could not.
“You needn’t have any fear,” Lessler told him. “There is nothing going to happen to you. You appear before this [subcommittee empanelled to investigate the bribery allegation]. They are friends of mine. They will report to the whole committee and there won’t be anything further to it.”
Lessler then left the hotel room to speak with like-minded colleagues, and two hours later, Lessler’s secretary returned to fetch Doblin. “Come along with me,” he said, “and we will get into the Capitol. Nobody will see you. You will be able to go up through a side elevator which is right close to the Naval Committee door, and you can get in, and I will see that nobody sees you.”
After Doblin was snuck into the committee room, “I sat down, and after a little time Mr. Foss handed me a cigar. I took the cigar and smoked it. It made me feel, agreeably to the conversation I had with Lessler, that these were friends of his, and he was inclined to be a good fellow anyhow. He specially was to me from time to time, and I took it for granted that it was all right.”
Then Doblin recounted an extraordinary exchange with some of the committee members, in literally a smoke-filled room. “One of the gentlemen said, ‘Wasn’t it Mr. Quigg said to you that there was $5,000 in it for Lessler and $1,000 for you?’ And I said, ‘No, sir; I didn’t say that at that time.’ There was a discussion in the room as to how I stood. I refused to answer at that time until the gentlemen seemed to all agree. ‘There is nothing to it; you just go on and make your statement.’ Feeling agreeably at home, I made my statement according to the way I read it in the paper, and [Ohio Congressman Robert] Tayler put in my mouth—I think it was Mr. Tayler—something about the money proposition which I didn’t state before, until I realized that I was in the hands of my friends.” From there, he decided, “I will back up Lessler. There won’t be anything about it. All there would be to it is the [subcommittee] will report to the whole committee and Lessler will be vindicated and I will be vindicated and that will be all right.”
Going Deep Page 27
