Dark Tide (36 page)

Ogden most likely voted for Warren Harding and was no doubt generally inclined to agree with the president’s attitudes about government and big business. But the auditor’s strength of character, forged on the battlefields of France, and his sense of fair play, made it unlikely that Charles Choate would get his wish, unlikely that Ogden would be influenced by the prevailing economic prosperity or long-term ramifications. Hugh Ogden would consider and decide the molasses case on its merits alone.

The temperature hovered around the mid-80s, the highest ever in Manhattan for the end of March, when Damon Hall, Charles Choate, Henry F. Dolan, and a court stenographer arrived at the elegant Hotel Belmont to question Jell.

Damon Hall was miffed that he had to travel to New York at all. When the plaintiffs had added Jell to the witness list, Choate had tried desperately to prevent the USIA executive from taking the stand by arguing to the Superior Court that Jell’s testimony was not directly relevant to the case. The court disagreed and ordered Choate to make Jell available to Hall and the plaintiffs. Choate then pleaded with the court not to compel Jell to testify before Ogden, that traveling from New York to Boston would be an “immense inconvenience” for Jell, and requested instead that Jell be deposed by attorneys from both sides in New York City. The judge agreed, over Hall’s vociferous objections; Hall wanted Ogden to be able to look Jell directly in the eye, to watch his comportment under tough questioning.

Hall was not surprised that Choate had chosen the opulent Hotel Belmont as a way to establish Jell’s importance and stamp USIA’s corporate imprimatur on the proceedings. Far from the neutral surroundings of Hugh Ogden’s modest Boston courtroom, the Belmont dripped with haughty pretension. Built at the corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue in 1906, the twenty-story building, shaped like a tall wedge of cheese, boasted a spacious two-story lobby, grand staircases, floors and walls treated in red marble, mirrored elevator doors, and a dining room and massive sitting room with richly carpeted floors, and great red columns supporting arched ceilings. “New York has added another splendid hostelry to its already rich store,” one writer noted when the hotel opened fifteen years earlier. “To this monster hotel, one might aptly apply the expression for large New York enterprises: A city in itself.”

Hall believed Choate had chosen the Belmont to gain an edge, perhaps as a means to intimidate, but more likely with the hope that the civility and elegance of the hotel would lessen the tenacity of Hall’s questioning. Hall knew the tactic well; it was based on the same theory that said it was perfectly acceptable to criticize a government or corporate leader in private conversation, but impolite to confront him on the same topic face to face. Hall thought Choate was operating on a simple premise: plush surroundings equaled cushy questions.

But for Hall, who was not easily awed amidst resplendence, the trip to New York and the Belmont had just the opposite effect. He was angry at Choate for trying to prevent Jell from testifying in the first place, angrier still that Choate had protested Jell’s traveling to Boston to appear before Ogden. To him, that tactic had violated the basic premise of fairness. He viewed Choate as a worthy adversary and, while they were not friends, he had respected the defense counsel for his integrity and love for the law; Choate’s successful maneuvering to shelter Jell from Ogden’s scrutiny twisted the rules of law in a way Hall found distasteful and disappointing.

Since Ogden would not get to see Jell, it meant Hall’s direct examination needed to be more pointed than ever. Jell’s answers needed to
jump
from the page when Ogden read the deposition transcript.

The Belmont’s cut-glass chandeliers and frescoed walls notwithstanding, Damon Hall planned to tear into Arthur P. Jell like he was in a street fight.

Hall wasted little time with preliminaries. He quickly established that the forty-two-year-old Jell had spent his entire professional career as a financial administrator, that he had no technical or engineering training, and that he could not read building plans or specifications.

Jell then acknowledged that he had ordered Hammond Iron Works to construct the steel plates for the tank’s walls with a “factor of safety” of 3, which led Hall to this line of questioning:

Hall:
Was the factor of safety of 3 that you determined the result of any investigation or advice from technically trained engineers, builders, or architects?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
No?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you, prior to making that recommendation of a factor of safety of 3, make any investigation whatever as to the factor of safety which the ordinary engineering practice called for?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you consult
anyone
before making that suggestion as to a factor of safety of 3.

Jell:
I don’t remember having done so.

Hall:
Is it fair to say, then, that you arrived at that in your own mind?

Jell:
Not entirely. I had been told in the past by tank manufacturers that they built tanks with a factor of safety of 2. So I figured 3 would be sufficient.

Hall:
Do you know what manufacturers told you that?

Jell:
I do not.

Hall:
Or the size of the tanks to which they referred?

Jell:
I do not.

For Hall, it was not enough to show that Jell’s “factor of safety” specification was based on no credible knowledge or advice. It was also important that he get Jell to admit what had happened when Hammond Iron Works delivered plans and drawings based on those specifications:

Hall:
When Mr. Shellhammer [of Hammond Iron Works] showed you the plans in January of 1915, did you have any talk with him about the factor of safety in the specifications?

Jell:
I cannot remember.

Hall:
Do you remember that you did?

Jell:
No, I do not.

Hall:
With such experience as you had, were you able, by looking at the plans and specifications, to determine from them what factor of safety had been provided in them?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you submit the plans or specifications to any architect or engineer?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you submit them to the New York office of U.S. Industrial Alcohol? Did you show them to any officer of USIA?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did anyone ask to see them, to inspect them?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
I want to ask one more time, before I go on with the next line of inquiry, whether … the factor of safety as determined upon was the result of any investigation or advice from technically trained engineers, builders, or architects?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Your answer is “no”?

Jell:
No.

And then, once Hammond had finished the steel plates and delivered them:

Hall:
Upon the delivery of the metal for this tank in Boston, did you have any engineer or builder examine the material [to ensure it conformed to] specifications?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Or any metallurgist?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you seek the advice or consult with
any
person outside of the employees of Hammond Iron Works, as to the quality and fitness of the steel which was delivered, or the method of construction?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Did you at any time have or ask for
any
test to be made of the steel being fabricated on your behalf?

Jell:
No.

Jell then acknowledged that he had been frustrated by delays as he attempted to secure the waterfront site for the tank from Boston Elevated, and that the delay was “causing us embarrassment … without a tank of our own, we were compelled to purchase from a dealer in molasses, who charged us a higher price than we could have it delivered at our own tank.” Later, after the steel arrived and the sale of the property had been completed, Jell testified that he ordered Hammond to hire additional crews to finish the work before the
Miliero
arrived on December 31, 1915. Work continued right up until the day the molasses ship steamed into Boston Harbor.

Hall:
Did you at any time after the tank was erected, and before the steamer arrived, have any investigation made of the tank by any architect, engineer, or man who was familiar with steel construction, as to the sufficiency of the tank as erected?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Referring to the contract for the erection of the tank, do you recall that it provided for a water test after the tank was created? That the tank be filled with water to test for leaks?

Jell:
Yes.

Hall:
Was any water test made of the tank—except by putting in six inches of water, as you have already testified—before it was put into service?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Why not?

Jell:
Well, for one reason, there was not time … It would have been impossible to empty the water again before the arrival of the steamer. It would have been impossible to fill the tank. There was not a supply of water at that point sufficient to fill the tank within a reasonable time. We had only a very small water connection and it would have taken many days, possibly have run into weeks, to have filled the tank with water.

Hall:
Do you mean by that, or do you not, that if you had made that water test, it would have delayed the unloading of the steamer?

Jell:
Yes.

Hall:
That is what you mean?

Jell:
Yes, sir.

Hall:
Did you investigate to see whether there were water mains on Commercial Street which would have afforded ample quantities of water to fill it in much less than weeks?

Jell:
I did not.

Relentless, Hall concluded this line of testimony, no doubt secretly cheering Jell’s response:

Hall:
Any other reasons why the water test was not made?

Jell:
It was considered an unnecessary expense.

Hall:
By whom was it considered an unnecessary expense?

Jell:
By me.

Hall then introduced into evidence Jell’s letter to Hammond thanking them for “rushing” the tank’s construction, and induced Jell to admit that Gonzales had reported leaks in the tank, though Jell thought his employee was exaggerating or “misinformed.” But later, Jell appeared to contradict himself when he said he
had
ordered the tank caulked twice and repainted in response to Gonzales’s concerns.

The plaintiffs’ counsel then finished his direct questioning of the USIA assistant treasurer:

Hall:
Well, now, Mr. Jell, at any time before December 31, 1915 [when the tank was completed], and the date when this catastrophe occurred, did you have any architect or engineer, or any person familiar with steel construction, inspect this tank?

Jell:
No.

Hall:
Do you know of any such inspection having been made by any such persons?

Jell:
I do not.

Hall:
Do you know of any engineer employed by the company, or any architect, or expert in steel construction employed by USIA, of your own knowledge, who ever visited the tank prior to the disaster?

Jell:
Not to my knowledge.

After a short break in the sweltering meeting room, Charles Choate tried to salvage something for the defense in his cross-examination. Under his friendly questioning, Jell pointed out that USIA had larger molasses tanks in Baltimore that had never had problems (one holding 3 million gallons), and that he trusted Hammond Iron Works because they were a reputable steel manufacturer. When Hammond did not object to Jell’s “factor of safety” specification, Jell assumed that his number was sufficient and that Hammond would deliver steel plates with the proper factor of safety. As for testing the tank, Jell said it was for “leaks only” and, in response to Choate’s question added, “it hasn’t anything to do with the strength of the tank.”

Choate focused more on the anarchist activity in the area, the police presence during the war, and the report from Gonzales that a caller had threatened to destroy the tank.

Choate:
You did regard his report and this threat as sufficient importance to ask for special protection [guards]?

Jell:
Yes.

Choate:
And you got it?

Jell:
Yes.

On redirect, however, Hall questioned how Jell could “disbelieve” Gonzales’s numerous reports about the tank’s leaks, but conclude that his comments about the telephone threat were credible enough to ask for extra police protection on the waterfront. “You said you paid no attention to what Gonzales said to you, except in the instance of the police report [due to the phone threat], because you didn’t consider him a responsible person,” Hall said. “Do you remember saying that?” Jell replied: “Yes.”