This book is more than a fresh look at three of the most prominent men in the first third of the twentieth century, Charles Dawes, Samuel Insull, and Jesse H. Jones. The study of these three men prompts a consideration of a profound issue of public policy in the United States at both the state and federal levels. In the Dawes bailout, the bailout of the Jones real estate and financial empire, and the attempted rescue of Insull’s far-flung utility entities, there were complex schemes of self-dealing among private sector executives and public officials.