Insull's Throne

[Tomasso]

Chicago's Civic Opera Building was built by a truly power-full man.

 

[vitanola]

You mean corrupt monopolist, don't you?

 

[Tomasso]

You mean corrupt monopolist, don't you?

That could probably be said about many of the men who built America.

 

[vitanola]

My grandfather was among the hundreds of thousands who lost his savings to Insull's Midwest Utilities fraud.

 

[dhermann1]

I thought of the famous fraud as soon as I saw the thread. Fascinating story. Deja vu all over again.

 

[Tomasso]

My grandfather was among the hundreds of thousands who lost his savings to Insull's Midwest Utilities fraud.

Actually, he was acquitted of all charges associated with the failure of his company, which many business historians have attributed to being grossly over-leveraged (as many other companies were at the time) and not to fraud. Still, he was portrayed as The Boogeyman and it's seemed to have stuck.

Both my grandfathers lost from the Insull failure, as they did with countless other companies in which they held stock at the time of the Crash.

 

[dhermann1]

My image of him is sort of like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. he fooled around with something that got way out of hand and took on a life of its own. Didn't he wind up committing suicide?

 

[vitanola]

Actually, he was acquitted of all charges associated with the failure of his company, which many business historians have attributed to being grossly over-leveraged (as many other companies were at the time) and not to fraud. Still, he was portrayed as The Boogeyman and it's seemed to have stuck.

Both my grandfathers lost from the Insull failure, as they did with countless other companies in which they held stock at the time of the Crash.

During the 1980's an 1990's a number of historians who were affiliated with various political "think tanks" (of an anti-regulatory nature) made a concerted effort to "rehabilitate' figures such as Insull, and denigrate their detractors.

I know one of these historians, a professor at the political Hillsdale College (a local institution) who, in his book "New Deal or Raw Deal?" quoted Henry Morganthau as saying in testimony before the House Ways and means committee on May, 9 1939 "“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . and an enormous debt to boot!”

This quotation has had considerable recent currency on the internet and in public discourse, due to its inclusion in the eminent professor's book.

When I tasked him with its inaccuracy, for the published diaries of Morganthau show that he was at his home in Dutchess County New York on May 9, 1939, the minutes of the Ways and Means committee show that he did not testify before it in that spring, and that the quotation is factually inaccurate, for in it Morganthau supposedly says "after eight years of this Administration..." barely SIX YEARS INTO THE ADMINISTRATION, (This is not the sort of mistake that a man as meticulous as Morganthau would make) the eminent professor simplay said that the date may have been mis-attributed, but "he should have said it if he didn't".

In subsequent lectures, the professor has attributed the quotation to to Morganthau's diaries, where it does not, in fact appear.

I believe that I have found its earliest appearance, in a 1947 article in the Chicago Tribune, which was then an intensely partisan Republican paper, under its editor Robert McCormack. The paper was known to invent or "enhance" quotations as necessary, in those days, as did the notorious Hearst papers.

Do not believe everything published as "history' without first checking out the affiliations of the source.

 

[Tomasso]

Do not believe everything published as "history' without first checking out the affiliations of the source.

So true. There are often multiple versions of a particular history.


Still, the fact remains that Insull was completely exonerated in a court of law. The more one reads of the case, the more it smells of a good old fashioned political witch hunt.

 

[Tomasso]

Didn't he wind up committing suicide?

Nope.

 

[vitanola]

He suffered a fatal heart attack in a Paris Metro station, as I recall.

Ivar Kruegar, the "Swedish Match King" committed suicide. There is little question that Kruegar was operating a scam.

 

[dhermann1]

Ahhhh! Somehow I get those 2 confused.

 

[Story]

Enlightening thread, Tomasso. Thanks for starting it.