America 1929: John F. Kennedy, the Great Writer

Chapter 155 The Big Conglomerate Behind the Scenes

Joseph's tent was located deep in Hoover Village, barely supported by a few tattered tarpaulins and a few wooden sticks.

The tent was cold and damp, and a woman with a fever lay on a tattered blanket in the corner.

Joseph told Arthur to wait outside.

A moment later, he dug out a hard-covered document box tightly wrapped in oil paper from the soil under the bedding.

He carefully unwrapped the oil paper, took out a thick, black-covered ledger, and handed it to Arthur.

"It's all here, Mr. Kennedy. All the bank's internal transfer records for the past four months."

Arthur took it, leaned against an abandoned handcart outside the tent, and opened the ledger.

This mechanism was already in operation before the Great Depression.

Local small banks, acting on the instructions of large Wall Street investment banks, aggressively marketed high-interest mortgage loans to farmers when agricultural product prices were high, creating a credit bubble.

Once a stock market crash occurs, agricultural product prices plummet, and farmers immediately default on their loans. Local small banks then face runs and go bankrupt.

At this moment, the real hunters entered the fray.

Wall Street giants set up shell companies in New York, such as the Midwest Agricultural Trust.

They took a huge amount of cash and bought up hundreds of thousands of farmers' mortgage loan contracts at extremely low prices.

After purchasing the debt, they immediately turned their backs on the farmers, refusing to give them any grace period for repayment and directly applying to the local court for a forced auction.

As soon as the court stamps its document, bulldozers drive into the farm.

The major conglomerates on the East Coast were enjoying a lavish meal behind the scenes.

Arthur flipped through the names crossed out in red pen and saw Ezra Hopkins on one of the pages.

Arthur's gaze suddenly stopped as he flipped through the last few pages of the ledger.

At the bottom of that page, there was a striking pencil annotation: "The Indiana regional liquidation has stalled. Indiana State Judiciary Committee Chairman Russell Harrison has formally refused to issue a joint foreclosure order. The Wall Street legal team has initiated emergency proceedings to prepare for an application for enforcement in the federal district court."

Arthur stared at the name "Russell Harrison" for a long time.

He remembered the name; it belonged to Benjamin Harrison's eldest son.

Isabella's uncle.

A former participant in the westward expansion movement, the Harrison family are political figures in their home state of Indiana.

It turned out to be the case.

Arthur instantly understood Elizabeth's true intention in getting him the congressional investigation pass and introducing him to Taft, Alice, and others.

Russell Harrison is using Indiana's judicial power to firmly block Wall Street's westward expansion. He refused to sign the joint deportation order.

But Wall Street is prepared to bypass the state government and use the power of the federal courts to exert pressure.

Russell is outwardly constrained by legal procedures and is left isolated.

He needs an extremely sharp knife, unconstrained by the rules of the system, to sever the chain of pressure from Wall Street from the outside.

Arthur closed the black book and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his coat.

"I'll take the ledger with me."

Joseph breathed a sigh of relief, as if a deadly bomb had been defused.

Arthur then took out another twenty dollars from his pocket and gave it to Joseph.

"Take your wife to see a doctor. Then leave Dayton immediately and go to Indianapolis. Find the Indianapolis Star's office and give them my name. They will provide you with asylum."

After giving his instructions, Arthur left Hoover and drove back to downtown Dayton.

It was completely dark, and the pickup truck's fuel gauge was nearing the red line. Arthur stopped at a gas station at an intersection.

"Fill it up," Arthur said to the gas station attendant who ran out.

Just as the gas station attendant pulled out the fuel nozzle, a dilapidated Chevrolet police car with its red lights flashed cut across the intersection and blocked Arthur's pickup truck.

Two policemen in wrinkled uniforms, with revolvers hanging from their waists, got out of the car.

They swaggered over to the pickup truck, and the fat policeman with a fierce face tapped the hood with his baton.

"New York license plate. You've come all the way to Ohio, did you bring enough money for the trip?" The fat policeman looked arrogantly at Arthur in the driver's seat.

This is a widespread form of corruption in small cities in the Midwest.

With local finances bankrupt and police unable to pay salaries, they began openly extorting out-of-town vehicles on the highway.

"What's wrong?" Arthur asked, sitting in the car.

The tall, thin policeman next to him sneered.

"Under the Dayton Temporary Ordinance, out-of-state vehicles entering the city must pay a $10 road maintenance fee. Otherwise, they will be detained and their vehicles impounded on vagrancy charges."

Arthur didn't take out any money. He silently took out a notebook and a pen from his pocket.

"What's your badge number?" Arthur asked the fat policeman.

The burly policeman paused for a moment, then gripped his holster and glared menacingly at Arthur: "Can't you fucking understand English? Here, my badge is the law! Give me the money, or get out of the car!"

Arthur didn't even bother to show his identification; dealing with thugs who only dared to extort money on the street, there was no need for a federal badge.

He closed the notebook, his gaze fixed on the fat policeman's face.

"My name is Arthur Kennedy."

"A contributing investigative reporter for the *New York Herald*. I'm writing an in-depth report on corruption in local law enforcement in the Midwest. Your earlier statement, 'My badge is the law,' will be on the front page of two million East Coast newspapers tomorrow morning."

"I'll portray you as a victim forced to carry out corrupt orders from superiors, or I'll portray you as the mastermind behind this extortion scheme. The choice is yours."

The fat policeman's hand froze on the holster.

The tall, thin policeman's expression changed drastically in an instant.

He glanced at Arthur in alarm, then grabbed the fat policeman's arm and whispered, "Old Ke! Don't mess with him! He says his name is Arthur Kennedy! The reporter who brought down the mayor of New York City! Are you crazy? Do you want the newspapers to expose our entire police department?"

The fat policeman's face twitched violently a few times.

Their previously arrogant demeanor was extinguished as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over their heads.

In this day and age, offending a very famous East Coast journalist is not a good idea.

It would be too much of a loss to kill him quietly in public.

"Misunderstanding, sir."

The chubby policeman stammered two steps back, removing his hand from the holster.

"We mistook the license plate—we thought it belonged to a homeless person. Have a safe journey!"

The two policemen didn't even dare to look at Arthur again. They scrambled back into their patrol car, forgetting to turn off the lights, and sped away into the dark streets.

"Sir, your gas tank is full." The gas station attendant stood respectfully to the side.

Arthur rolled down the window, handed over two dollars, stepped on the gas, and the pickup truck slowly drove out of the gas station.