I remember this drawing my Grandmother, Isabel Cooper, made from my childhood. It was in one of the scrapbooks she put together to chart the life and career of her husband, Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr.
Long before I delved into the government memoranda and correspondence from his career in his archives, I had a sense, through her, of my Grandfather the traveling bureaucrat.
But his archives and explorations of news stories from his time in government sharpen that view. He was a powerful government investigator, commissioner, and policy-shaper. American railroads were heavily regulated, and that regulation was built and administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission where first he directed the Bureau of Finance, and the he was a Commissioner.
When I knew him, he was a taciturn old man, retired from that work. What emerges from his archives and news stories of the times show a man with a quick wit, unafraid to use it. I wish I’d known him then.
His “stand no non sense” manner (see below) comes through too. It is one more familiar to me because his son, my father, inherited it.
(Please note that at this stage in his story, I cannot any longer bring my self to refer to him as “Charlie” — he had by the 1920s and forward, at least to many, strictly a Charles.)
A newspaper profile1)The Sooner Magazine, June 1930, pp. 313-314, reprinting an article from the San Francisco Chronicle. of Charles from 1930 gives a somewhat over-the-top sense of him at work. Here are some excerpts:
Rat-ta-tat-tat!
“Gentlemen,” admonishes a quiet, determined looking young man, from the depths of a big chair on the raised platform, “I cannot and will not listen to these exchanges between counsel! This is a quasi-judicial hearing; not a bickering pit nor a debating society!”. . .
Pompous attorneys representing some of the mightiest millions in America-the great “vested interests” which keep the wheels of our railroads rolling round-grin sheepishly and return to order. A Kansas farm “kid” of yesteryear has brought them to their legal senses-and compelled their admiration in the doing!. . .
Mahaffie, in his official capacity, tells men representing billions of dollars “where to head in” when they overstep the bounds of parliamentary propriety.. . .
There is little doubt that an intriguing poise and a sense of humor which seems forever bubbling just underneath the surface of his otherwise serious physiognomy have been important factors in his rise to what is considered, by the giants of the transportation world, one of the most important assignments in the entire structure of the federal government.
Mahaffie is not a light thinker-far from it–but his judgment of the genus homo (sometimes sapiens) is so keen that an occasional inward chuckle over the valiant efforts of the witnesses appearing before him, to paint a roseate picture with pigments of gray or ultramarine, cannot be escaped. His rapier-mind is usually several jumps ahead of the testimony given; and he enjoys himself accordingly.
To an even greater extent than he permits himself to “take pity” upon a struggling witness or floundering lawyer, Mahaffie strikes sternly at any effort to hoodwink or confuse him. The oily charlatan, the bluffing bully and the belligerent barrister are not halfway down to first base before a curt admonition to “come to order” or “dispense with those tactics” clicks from the lips of the examiner.
And a word from Mahaffie is sufficient. His reputation as an arbiter who will “stand no non sense” is Nation-wide.
This is one of a series of posts that explore the life of Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr. through family memories and items from a family archive. Charles was the author’s grandfather. He left a remarkable collection of papers, photos, and mementos which offer a lens through which to explore his life and legacies. For the full collection, click here.
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