THE NEXT PAGE
BARBARA BURSTIN details an interesection in the reform-minded lives of A. Leo Weil and Teddy Roosevelt
Barbara Burstin details an intersection in the reform-minded lives of A. Leo Weil and Teddy Roosevelt.
The “Bulldog” was Pittsburgh attorney A. Leo Weil; the ex-president was Teddy Roosevelt. It was Sept. 11, 1910. Both men were 52 years old. The former president was visiting the city, and 100,000 people were cramming Downtown to see and hear him.
On the same platform where the likes of Henry Clay, Edward VII of England, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield and William McKinley had stood, Roosevelt praised the people of the city, talking about their “unusual degree of energy, power, force, keen business intelligence, rigid industry, immense versatility of mind, all of the qualities of a vigorous, masterful people.”
Understandably, his words elicited hearty cheers from the audience massed under the balcony of the old Monongahela House. But Roosevelt didn’t just talk about how great Pittsburgh was; he also went on to urge that a “noble, spiritual and intellectual life” should be built on the foundation of the city’s industrial prosperity and how important it was for citizens to fight against corruption in government. No spiritual reckoning could come, he argued, with dishonesty and corruption in government.
And that was why he was ready and willing to comply with a request that had come from reformminded Pittsburghers to send an investigator from the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., to inspect the books of certain banks in Pittsburgh. What the inspector found was to provide an important piece of evidence in an unfolding scandal that was to capture national attention, embarrass the city fathers (and mothers), cause a major change in the city’s governing structure and catapult into the public spotlight the head of the Voters League, Adolphus Leo Weil — A. Leo for short.
Seeds of corruption
At the time, Weil was considered the city’s most outstanding trial lawyer, representing corporate clients in the oil, gas and steel industries. In 1905, he became head of the Voters League, an organization formed by him and others three years earlier to improve the governance of the city.
City Council at the time was composed of 155 members divided between two governing councils, the select council and the common council. As one cynical observer wryly commented, “While most cities are burdened with one foolish legislative body, Pittsburgh is burdened by two!” Weil believed that it was a setup for trouble, and he was right.
In 1908, the combined council had voted, as it did every four years, to choose which banks were to receive city funds for deposit. Accordingly, six banks had been selected. However, concerns were raised when it was revealed that other city banks had offered to pay a higher interest rate than what the designated six banks had offered. Mayor George Guthrie had vetoed the council decision, but the council promptly had overridden his veto. The Voters League and Weil smelled a proverbial rat.
But how were they going to prove that any illegal shenanigans were involved? That’s when they devised a plan. Soon two men appeared in town who claimed that they represented a wooden block company out of Scranton that was interested in bidding for a big contract for street paving in the city. They courted various members of city council including John Klein, a recognized leader in council, whetting his appetite for some kind of payoff in return for the contract.
The plot was thickening, but Weil felt he needed more evidence to win a bribery case in court, especially in a courtroom where the judges, in the League’s opinion, were beholden to corrupt party bosses.
Executing a sting
That’s when Roosevelt and the Treasury Department entered into the picture. Federal investigator Harrison Nesbit discovered payouts to Klein on the books of one of the banks. Nesbit summoned the president and cashier of the bank and soon got them to admit that the payment was a bribe to Klein and other council members to have them select the bank for city deposits. The bank president and the cashier were summarily dismissed by the bank’s board of directors, and, within a week at the end of
December 1908, the League secured the arrest of the bank’s president and cashier, John Klein, common council President William Brand, two other members of the common council and one member of the select council.
The men arrested all proclaimed their innocence, but that’s when the League sprang what else it had been up to. While the two representatives of this wooden block company had retreated from the scene, a Mr. Dolph had appeared, claiming to be the man who was the deal maker for the company. Dolph was, in reality, a renowned detective named Richard Wilson.
He played his role perfectly, quickly winning the confidence of Klein and his associates. They met at a local hotel room where the League had drilled holes into the doors of an adjoining bathroom. A League observer could then see and hear the illicit exchange, and at least one stenographer could record what was going on using paper cones that operated like megaphones through holes in the door.
A talkative and confident Klein explained to Dolph how he controlled the votes of all but six members of the two combined councils. The deal was consummated, with all the details overheard and recorded from behind closed doors.
So when Klein and the others were arrested proclaiming their innocence, the League already had the goods on them.
Given all the indisputable evidence that Weil and the League had collected, the Pittsburgh Dispatch in December 1908 editorialized that the whole affair “embodied a series of flesh creeping narratives that made the tales of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves sound like a hymnal.”
Soon the dominoes began to fall as the district attorney pushed steadily for indictments. Klein and the others were convicted and sentenced to jail. Within a few months, Klein made a full confession and went public, implicating about two-thirds of the councilmembers and some of the city’s foremost bankers and businessmen. By June 1910, 105 of the 155 councilmembers were accused of graft. Ninety-eight were indicted along with seven bankers. Many went to jail.
But Weil and the Voters League were nowhere near finished with their crusade to clean up the city.
By March 1911, Weil was before state legislators, demanding a new city charter that would cut the combined councils down to a nine-member council. Weil didn’t spare any punches when he told the legislators that “the majority of the present councils are wholly unfit for office”; that it had been wholly subservient to the mayor; that the mayor himself, William A. Magee, had taken funds from the city treasury for his personal use; and that civil service regulations have been “juggled and evaded.”
Continuing his barrage, Weil asserted that “under the mayor’s administration, the city has been wide open to the prostitute, the gambler, the speakeasy and the criminal class generally. It would require the genius of Dante to adequately portray the orgy of vice that prevails in our community protected by the administration of the city.” And the list went on. The Legislature, fearing further investigation, opted instead to approve the city charter bill that the League and other civic leaders had demanded.
Weil battled on against the vice and graft he saw around him. He went after Mayor Magee’s director of public works, his director of public safety and his director of public charities, charging them with malfeasance and mismanagement. His expose of the inefficiency and graft of the 61 city school boards resulted in a new school board with just nine members. He pushed through civil service regulations for police and firemen.
Weil himself would pay a heavy price for his determined campaign to root out corruption. Some of the businessmen he attacked were important clients and longtime friends. But money was not the issue for him. In fact, throughout his career, he sought to devote onethird of his time and one-third of his income to social causes. He remained head of the Voters League until 1920 and died 18 years later in 1938 at the age of 80.
I’m not sure that Weil and Roosevelt were ever able to sit down and compare notes. Both certainly had a lot they could discuss — corruption, greed, moral responsibility, honesty, political cronyism, civil service reform, police payouts, efficient management, good government and beyond. And it was very fitting and proper that both were described as bulls, or used the term to make a point. For Weil, he was called a “bulldog”; for Roosevelt, he originated the term “bully pulpit” and formed the Bull Moose Party while trying to make a political comeback in 1912.
Both were determined reformers in a progressive age when hopes were high for a better America. Forceful, independent, brash, not willing to compromise with their principles, fervently committed to rooting out corruption and graft, they were tough fighters. They came at their craft from totally different directions, but today, 110 years later, their legacy lives on.