The $3000 Snow Shovel: An Adventure in Graft

I

I BELIEVE I can honestly say that I have run up against more of the peculiar aspects and unsuspected forms of municipal graft than any other man in New York.

This is not a boast. I am not proud of my record as a baiter of graft and grafters. It’s an honest record, but it will never win me any medals. It merely happens that the nature of my business — municipal contracting — requires that I jump from one thing to another, digging into graft piles here, there, and everywhere.

One digging is usually enough for my purposes.

One digging is all I did with that $3000 snow shovel, for example.

Here’s how it all came about.

Every time snow falls on the streets of New York, the taxpayer’s burden rises by very perceptible notches, and the heads in charge of the city’s budget — the honest ones, at least — begin to ache. A common, garden variety of good snowfall costs New York City around $1,000,000. And don’t ever let yourself think that the army of snow shovelers gets it all.

Each year, the D. S. C. (Department of Street Cleaning, to you) used to buy something like 8000 snow pushers. I doubt if you or any average citizen ever gave these snow pushers a second glance. After all, they look pretty much like any other snow pushers. But behind them lies this little tale.

The city, which likes to be technical about its equipment, calls these snow pushers ‘pan scrapers.’ They consist, to be exact, of a rectangular piece of steel which is 30 inches wide and 15 inches long (the width necessarily being greater). And this piece is attached to a white ash-wood handle 5 1/2 feet long.

That’s the device you’ve seen used by motley crews of men pushing snow and slush into piles or down sewer openings.

Now in 1928, when the city advertised for bids for 8000 of these shovels, I accidentally discovered that this business had been going like clockwork, for some years past, to one shovel maker in the Middle West. He, or perhaps his slick agent, had been selling these shovels to New York taxpayers for about $5.00 apiece.

To me — no shovel maker — that seemed like a lot of money to be paying out for an ordinary shovel, or even an extraordinary shovel, purchased in such tremendous quantities. So I got hold of a copy of the city’s specifications for it. These consisted of five solid pages of minute details, diagrams, measurements, and a list of tests to which the shovel had to be subjected.

Somebody had done a lot of thinking on the shovel problem!

And incidentally, whoever it was that uttered that famous simile, ‘light as snow,’ never heard of these shovels. Their specified weight is thirty pounds. So I think it’s safe to say that when the army of the unemployed pushes these shovels around for eight hours it is earning at least some of its pay, even though the shovel maker may not always be earning all of his.

I naturally went into the specifications very carefully. And I noted that the shovels had to be made of a special steel alloy to comply with a strict ly prescribed chemical composition. It was further required that the blade of the shovel had to be heat-treated, and its edge stiffened with an additional piece of steel. Finally, the whole shovel scoop had to be subjected to a test for hardness, known as the Brinnell test — but I won’t bother you with the details of that right here.

On the surface, it looked as though some technical genius had outdone himself to protect the city against defective snow shovels. Just the same, I did n’t think there was five dollars’ worth of protection in them.

To make sure, I forwarded the specifications to a York, Pennsylvania, concern with whom I’d done some business before, asking them to let me know at what price they could make such a shovel, figuring on an order for 8000. They sent word that they would make these shovels for me, complying exactly with those specifications, for $2.50 each. And please just remember that even at half the previous selling price my manufacturers were n’t giving them away to me, either.

I walked down to City Hall with an armed-to-the-hilt feeling. I had tremendous leeway for making my bid. I felt almost certain that I was going to carry away that business.

I bid $4.83 per shovel.

There was only one other bid entered against mine. It was from the same Ohio firm that had practically owned the city shovel business. Their price was fifty cents higher than mine — or the not-so-slight differential of $4000 on the order.

That, you might say, was ominous. I thought so, too.

II

Next day I received a letter from the Deputy Commissioner of Street Cleaning. It read like this: —

I beg to call your attention to the fact that on your bid for pan scrapers opened this morning the following is part of the specifications: ‘Before being awarded the contract, the contractor must furnish a sample pan scraper fabricated by him which complies with the specifications and blueprint.’

You are therefore requested to submit to this department within 48 hours a sample pan scraper as required above.

Just like that. Practically no notice at all for producing a scraper as detailed as all that.

I was absolutely unable to understand why there could possibly be so much hurry about the matter. The bids had been opened less than twentyfour hours. Here it was the middle of May. The earliest snowfall the city could expect to cope with was a full six months away. They were giving me forty-eight hours to produce.

The Commissioner, I thought, was certainly playing safe — or something.

Under the circumstances, and knowing city officials as I do, I felt I should not get very far by talking to the Deputy Commissioner who had sent me the peremptory letter. So I went to see the Lord High Commissioner himself. As it happened, he had risen from the ranks of street cleaners and was what I should call an honest flunkey in the political machine. If there was wrongdoing to be done, others pulled the wires — he only went through the motions. He signed the papers.

I said to him: ‘Commissioner, I stand ready to produce a sample scraper as called for in the specifications. But you know as well as I do that in order to produce a single one of these shovels I am going to have to have dies manufactured. Obviously I can’t get them from the concern that’s been making them. You know something about these costs. You know I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the dies are going to stand me at least $2500. Now I’m not complaining. That’s part of the deal. But I have no assurance whatever that after I’ve submitted my sample scraper I shall secure the contract. Because, as you certainly know, the city reserves the right to reject all bids submitted on propositions like these, without giving me any explanation or redress.’

The Commissioner was listening with what I can best describe as a Commissioner’s ear — the kind that listens but does not register.

I was thinking all the time of my investment of $2500 in dies going to pot merely as the result of some extremely minor technicality in those involved specifications. I had seen things like that happen too often.

I finally told the Commissioner that I was ready to put up a bond guaranteeing the complete fulfillment of this contract. And I repeated that, despite the terms of the bid, I did n’t think it fair to make me plunk down $2500 for one scraper with no assurance that I should afterward get the contract.

You may wonder why I did not raise the issue of the shortness of time allowed for producing the sample shovel. I’ll answer you by saying that in this graft game you have to be a strategist. You’ll see the strategy presently.

‘Come back to-morrow at two o’clock,’ said the Commissioner.

That was fair enough.

I was there on the dot. And so, for once, was the Commissioner. With him came the letter-writ ing Deputy Commissioner, with a meaningful look in his eyes. And with the Deputy came a handful of assistants.

You’d have thought I was being tried for something or other. You’d have been right, too.

We talked things over. I restated my case. The Commissioner restated the specifications. The Deputy Commissioner nodded assent after every phrase was read. They were all adamant. Before they’d recommend awarding the contract to me, I’d have to show them I could produce the shovel. There were just no two ways about it.

Well, I was in a hole. My cash deposit had been put up with my bid, as the law requires. If I defaulted . . .

I tried one last plea.

‘Commissioner, if I produce a sample scraper that meets with your idea of a satisfactory performance of this contract, will you give me your personal assurance that I will get this contract?’

Nothing doing.

The Commissioner not only refused, but proceeded to rub it in. He suggested that if I did n’t want to go ahead with the thing I could of course withdraw from the picture. He would then place the contract against my account with the other bidder — the latter to get the business, I to pay the difference in price. This would be a mere matter of a $4000 loss before I’d so much as had a chance to start on the deal.

I had put my foot in it. Or, rather, both feet and both hands. I guess it was a sort of desperation that made me let go at the gang in the Commissioner’s office. ‘You know perfectly well that it’s a physical impossibility for anybody or any firm to produce one of these sample scrapers within fortyeight hours.’

The Deputy Commissioner started to deny this.

I shot back, ‘Why, it will take me six weeks alone to have the dies made.’

The Commissioner pricked up his ears this time.

‘The least you gentlemen can do is to let me have the necessary time to have one of these scrapers produced.’

With a reluctance which perhaps befitted the professional dignity of his office, the Commissioner granted the point.

III

It was clear enough now that if I could buy these shovels for $2.50, and the Street Cleaning Department could pay $5.00 for them, I must unquestionably be stepping on somebody’s financial toes. And the little procedure I had just been through must have been his not-so-gentle way of putting his foot on my neck.

I went to my manufacturer in York. There was nothing for me to do but go ahead and at least place the order for the dies.

Meanwhile my manufacturer went to work looking around for the special steel called for in the specifications. Strangely, and yet not so strangely, he found it was made by only one steel company, which was in Pittsburgh. Of course, all I cared about at the moment was to get hold of just two or three sheets of that steel for the sample I had promised to have within six weeks.

I mentioned earlier in my story that the most severe specification of the whole lot was the Brinnell hardness test. The test is made with a machine which has a diamond-point projection. Under tremendous pressure this point is brought down on the metal, and the impression which it makes on the steel is then measured in thousandths of an inch.

A mighty exacting test, and I ’m telling you that the steel was n’t the only hard element in this deal.

Mind you, I had closed the die contract with the manufacturer in York. I had no contract from the city. He had no contract for the steel.

We both went to Pittsburgh.

You might say that the steel maker was true to his trade. ‘Sorry, gentlemen. Of course we make this steel you require. We’d like nothing better than to supply you with the steel for these 8000 shovels. We’ve made the steel for these shovels before. But it just so happens that our entire output of this particular kind of steel is contracted for by a concern in Ohio. We simply can’t let you have it.’

That, to put it gently, was a sock on the jaw. We retired to our corner.

But I haven’t been in this graftbaiting business for a generation without learning how strings are pulled — and I pulled mine. Through devious methods, we managed to get hold of three sheets of the super-hard steel. The dies were made. The sample shovel was in my office within six weeks. I immediately marched it off to an independent laboratory to have the Brinnell test made. I was taking no chances.

The shovel passed the test.

Next morning, I loaded myself and my shovel into a taxicab and rode down Broadway. It was no ticker-tape procession, but I felt a good deal like the shovel king of New York parading to what I thought would be my triumph.

That shovel had already cost me, with minor expenditures added to it, approximately $3000. At that rate, it could just as well have been made of platinized gold! It felt like that to me when I handed it to an office flunkey in the Commissioner’s headquarters. From there it went to the city laboratories. They of course could n’t find anything wrong with it.

I went back to the Commissioner’s office with the results of the official test. I reminded him of the difficulties that had been placed in my way, of my promise to make good on delivering a shovel up to specifications, of the heavy expense to which I had already been put.

‘I’ve done my part, Commissioner. I don’t think it’s more than right for you to see to it that I get my contract from the city right away.’

‘What’s the hurry? It is n’t going to snow for a long time.’

I said that I had every right to the protection of a signed city contract, and that I did not intend to be held up by any underling’s desire to fool around with the shovel, the specifications, and the terms of the contract, hoping to find some minor technicality to delay the matter further.

I waited about a week, and the city finally sent me the contract for the 8000 super-hard ultra-refined pan scrapers.

IV

So far, I had the city’s word. And just exactly one shovel. That left 7999 to go, and I still did n’t know how, when, or where I was finally going to obtain them.

I went to York again. This time I could at least tell my friend that he would have to plan on making delivery within sixty days.

I could tell him, but what could he do about it?

He still had not found a source of supply for his steel. It was technically true that I had signed a contract with him, and that I also had the city’s contract in my pocket. So, if he did n’t deliver, I could sue and collect from him.

But if I did n’t deliver I should be a defaulter on a city job. And that, if you’re doing business with the city regularly, can put you out of business.

It just so happened that I knew a fellow who at the time was working in the Buffalo plant of a famous automobile manufacturer. And it also happened that one of the directors of the motor-car company was also a director of the Pittsburgh company making that much-wanted steel.

Buffalo suddenly decided that it was in immediate need of a large quota of extra-hard steel for experimental purposes. And, needless to say, Buffalo easily got the needed steel.

But not for experimental purposes.

In thirty days, that steel arrived in York, Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, via Buffalo, New York.

What was that about going around Robin Hood’s barn?

On schedule, four carloads of snow shovels — or, if you prefer, pan scrapers — rolled out of York and into the D. S. C. warehouse in Brooklyn.

There is money, you see, in snow.