Mellen, Charles S. (Charles Sanger), 1851-1927

Newspaper clipping of cartoon showing Theodore Roosevelt depicted as a schoolmaster holding a big stick behind his back, saying “Will the young lad at the head of the class tell me what he knows about railroads. Med depicted as school boys are labeled Harriman, Morgan, Rogers, Newman, Hughitt, Mellen and McCrea. The students represent railroad officials and the cartoon refers to Roosevelts efforts to regulate railroads.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1903

The state Republican Convention in Connecticut adopted a resolution supporting President Roosevelt for renomination and named its delegates to the National Convention in Chicago. The fact that the president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, Charles S. Mellen, and two directors, Charles F. Brooker and Edwin Milner, were named delegates proves that not all railroad interests are against Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-05-12

Rear Admiral Presley Marion Rixey looks on as President Roosevelt fires at two targets shaped like a lion and elephant with the names “Foraker” and “Tillman” respectively on them. Two rabbits–“Mellen” and “Paul Morton–as well as a wolf–“E. H. Gary” also watch. Beside them is “the spear that knows no brother.” Caption: Prepare targets similar to those shown above, lead the Faunal Naturalist to the rifle range and he will do the rest.

comments and context

Comments and Context

McKee Barclay’s drawing represents, in cartooning terms, a mixed metaphor, calling upon several thematic and political threads in one image. President Roosevelt appears to be readying himself for his upcoming African safari by target practice; yet he concentrates by labelling two of targets with the names of two of the most persistent of the president’s critics, Senators Joseph Benson Foraker and “Pitchfork” Benjamin R. Tillman.

The understanding of the Interstate Commerce Commission is that the Sherman Antitrust Act does not apply to railroads, although without input from the Supreme Court on the matter they are unwilling to state so definitively. In any event, the particular matter of the merger of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company with the Boston and Maine Railroad is not a violation of the act.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-08

Many managers of trusts and mergers have been meeting privately with President Roosevelt in light of the administration’s increased prosecutions of trusts in violation of the Sherman Act. It is uncertain exactly what is discussed in their meetings, but most meetings have proven beneficial for the managers and their businesses.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-08

Charles S. Mellen, president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company, and President Roosevelt had an explosive private meeting wherein Mellen asked for an investigation into his company’s planned merger be expedited. The investigation had been a major issue during the recent Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-08

Charles S. Mellen had a spirited discussion with President Roosevelt requesting that an investigation into his railroad company’s planned merger be expedited. Mellen objected particularly to the embarrassment such an investigation causes and the indignity of the merger having been a major issue in the recent Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-07

Charles S. Mellen has asked President Roosevelt to expedite an investigation into his railroad company’s planned merger. The article notes this request comes the day after the defeat of Henry Melville Whitney, who had been in favor of the merger, in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-07

President of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company Charles S. Mellen has met with President Roosevelt to expedite an investigation into his railroad’s merger with another New England Line. Mellen argues that such investigations are embarrassing to businesses, hinder railroad development, and ought to be completed as quickly as possible once begun. Roosevelt has agreed to finish this investigation, but any companies that violate the Sherman Act will still be prosecuted.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-07

Charles S. Mellen, president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company, has met with President Roosevelt hoping to expedite a government investigation into his railroads. Mellen asserts that his company has not broken the law and argues that the government has no right to stymie the proceedings of private businesses in any case.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-07

The Department of Justice will not prosecute the merger of two New England railroad lines due largely to the intervention of Charles S. Mellen, president of one of the lines in question. Mellen, whom the article calls a “close personal friend” of President Roosevelt’s, met with the president privately to assure him the merger does not violate the Sherman Act and to push for expediting the investigation in the interest of allowing business to continue as necessary. Commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission Charles A. Prouty has already come out in favor of the merger as well.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-07

An article in the Evening Post reports on a purportedly unsolicited visit by Charles S. Mellen to the White House to discuss his railroad’s planned merger with the Boston and Maine Railroads, offering his services to expedite any investigation the federal government might make into the merger. Several handwritten annotations comment on the article.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-06

A man, probably Charles S. Mellen, stands amid a crowd of angry investors who have lost their savings and investments due to mismanagement of the New Haven Railroad. Caption: This cartoon appeared in PUCK at the time of the life-insurance scandal. Still more applicable is it to the former “High-Finance” Looter of the New Haven Railway system.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-12-31

Theodore Roosevelt stands on a hill in the background, as two large bears labeled “Interstate Commerce Commission” and “Federal Courts” break up a crowd of Wall Street capitalists and stock market manipulators, causing them to scatter in all directions. The men include Charles S. Mellen, William K. Vanderbilt, Henry Huttleston Rogers, J. Pierpont Morgan, James J. Hill, George Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, James McCrea, William H. Newman, Edward Henry Harriman, and Joseph Benson Foraker.

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler, and Puck magazine, editorially, stretched theology, or at least the province of Biblical allusions, in this cartoon “Elisha Roosevelt.” The brief passage from II Kings 2:23-24 recounts the story of Israelite prophet Elisha, having succeeded Elijah and seeing him bodily taken into the clouds, is unsure of his ability to be God’s anointed prophet.

Even more skeptical are a ragtag group of scoffers (sometimes misidentified as “children,” but Keppler called them “bad boys” with gray hair) who mock Elisha. As they really are mocking God, whose sovereign choice was Elisha, the Lord sent two ravenous bears to scatter the skeptics.

President Charles S. Mellen of the Northern Pacific Railroad announced to his friends that he is supporting President Roosevelt for the Republican nomination and will contribute $10,000 to the Republican campaign fund. This was surprising to many since Roosevelt was trying to dissolve the Northern Securities Company of which the Northern Pacific Railroad is a part.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-11

President Roosevelt is surprised at what Senator Lodge says about Edward Henry Harriman, and notes that he is skeptical of the motives of Charles S. Mellen and T. E. Byrnes in light of their actions against Charlie Morse during a steamboat merger several years ago. Lodge’s letter is so private that Roosevelt does not want to bring it to Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, and asks Lodge or any other people concerned to send another letter which can be put on file at the Department of Justice. In a handwritten postscript, Roosevelt offers sympathy and concern in light of the news that Lodge’s sister is dying.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-05-28

President Roosevelt has called in Charles Patrick Neill regarding the employers’ liability bill and tells Attorney General Bonaparte that Congress may have to recall the bill to avoid it being ruled unconstitutional. Roosevelt thought that suit was going to be brought regarding “the trolley line business,” as he thought it was a clear violation of the law.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-04-17

President Roosevelt thanks U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Asa P. French for the letter, and says that French is one of the people who helped him the whole time. Roosevelt asks French to write to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge about some of the details regarding trolley lines in Massachusetts.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-04

President Roosevelt has received George Cabot Lee’s letter and the enclosed magazine, although he takes issue with the fact that the article about trusts and stakeholders in it does not account for the facts as the administration has to face them. The stakeholders of a corporation are responsible for the actions of that corporation, and many corporations are owned in large part by their stakeholders. Thus it is the stakeholders’s responsibility to ensure that the corporation’s officials are behaving properly. The problem currently is that corporate organization shields guilty parties from facing responsibility for their actions, with agents being imprisoned for misconduct and the owners “go scot-free” or the corporation gets fined, even though it is their orders that lead to the wrongdoing. He does not believe in “letting bygones be bygones” and wants to abide by the statute of limitations.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-01-13

President Roosevelt writes to Secretary Bonaparte regarding railroad tycoon Charles. S. Mellen’s legal issues. The district courts of Massachusetts are examining the legality of Mellen’s lines, and Roosevelt is closely monitoring this issue.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-09