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Senator Hastings is a man of many interests. Until this month he served as a "gladhand man" at $10,000 a year under Barren Collier (car cards). Terminal Cab Corp. (General Motors subsidiary) gives him another $10,000 a year. He told Inquisitor Seabury last week that he had taken Mayor Walker over to Brooklyn early one Sunday morning to witness a feat of alchemy. A chemical company which Senator Hastings partly owned with Publisher Paul Block thought it had a way to manufacture gold out of baser metal. The alchemy did not work, but the company was happily discovered to have a tile which just suited the requirements of the Board of Transportation for use in the city's subways.
Inquisitor Seabury attempted to show how, in 1925, the Messrs. Hastings & Walker got into the Equitable Coach Co. deal, a grandiose but fruitless scheme to get a city franchise, start a bus line, swap stock and concessions with other municipal services and ultimately control the city's entire privately-owned transit system. "A little syndicate" was formed with $282,000 worth of contributions from three members: Frank R. Fageol of Kent, Ohio, builder of motor coaches; his vice president Charles B. Rose (now president of America-La France & Foamite Corp.); President William O'Neil of General Tire & Rubber Co. Senator Hastings was put on the syndicate's payroll for $1,000 a month, on General Tire's payroll for another $1,000. He was "loaned" $10,000, promised one-third ($700,000 worth) of Equitable's common stock to dispose of as he liked. He was promised campaign contributions on the eve of the Walker election and so lavishly "entertained" that Entertainer J. Allan Smith was dropped from the syndicate. Throughout these dealings, which ended when the syndicate and Mayor Walker failed to get sufficient financial backing for the State Transit Commission to countenance the project, telegrams referred, apparently meaning Mayor Walker, to "John's [Senator Hastings'] boy friend." Last week it was also apparent that when the syndicate was passing around good things to those who could help it get a franchise, "Boy Friend" Walker was not forgotten.
From the records of Equitable Trust Co. (not connected with the bus firm), Mr. Seabury produced evidence that in August, 1927, a fortnight after "Boy Friend" Walker had succeeded in getting a franchise for Equitable Coach Co., but a day before his signature made the franchise effective, the syndicate's "entertainer," one J. Allan Smith, bought the Mayor's $10,000 letter of credit. Next day the Mayor sailed for Europe on a junket which proved so costly that Mr. Smith had to settle an overdraft of $3,000.
Decrying "innuendoes" and "half-truths," Senator Hastings explained that through Senator Bernard L. Downing he had paid Mr. Smith for the letter of credit. But he could produce no receipts, and Senator Downing is now dead.
Who financed Mayor Walker's sundry private car trips through the country during his seven years of office, Senator Hastings did not reveal. But he did say that he considered himself responsible for a $2,008.34 debt, still unpaid, to Pullman Co. for the chartered car in which he and his dapper friend dashed out to get in on California's Mooney Case last winter.