Today in the Sobel Timeline: August 4

On August 4, 1899, the Nelson Subcommittee ended its investigation of Councilman Fritz Stark's accusation that Governor-General Ezra Gallivan had been accepting N.A. £1.5 million a year since 1893 from Kramer Associates President Diego Cortez y Catalán "to protect our common interests." The subcommittee's investigation found that Gallivan's personal wealth amounted to only N.A. £324,954, most of which was in government bonds, and thus that his supposed subsidy from Cortez did not exist. The investigation also revealed that Stark's documents were careful forgeries created by a mentally unbalanced clerk at the Mexican embassy named John Montalban. Despite these findings, the wave of political violence unleashed by Stark's accusations continued unabated.