It was indeed a stiff, tough turn, yet I was watching the man rather out of curiosity to note how he could take a reverse than out of sympathy. I don't believe there was another man on earth who, similarly placed, would not have aroused my pity; but Addicks—no man or woman has pity for Addicks.

"Well," I repeated, "what are we going to do?"

He did not reply for a moment. I continued to look at him. The eyes haunted me. I noted that the lines round the lids had deepened into furrows. He half raised himself from the lounge.

"I've said they would never get me, and they won't." Instinctively his hand sought the pocket into which he had dropped what he had taken from the dresser's drawer. Then I knew. The yellow streak showed plain at last. I had guessed from the start it was there.

The stock manipulator in common with the successful general must have the capacity to deal with the unexpected. The faculty to see a situation whole must be his, to focus instantly the lay of the land, the enemy's plans and strength, his own resources, the strategic possibilities of his position; and instantly, if necessity demands it, he must be ready with a new plan of campaign fitted to the first emergency. The more rapidly his mind works the safer are the interests he is guarding. But if he has not this capacity, he can never be a market manipulator.

For a moment I could not but pause to admire the devilish ingenuity of the trap that had been sprung on us. The state of affairs that Addicks revealed was about the worst imaginable. I had been on this particular war-path so long that my mind instantly grasped the possibilities of destruction that lay in this new attack. I saw November 1st—no money to pay Rogers; everything forfeited; Addicks in a nauseating scandal; and all those friends of mine who had put their funds into Bay State because of their confidence in my ability to win out slaughtered. No, it should not be if I could prevent it. Other storms we had met and weathered, why not this? Even if it were a tornado, we would "ride her out." Perhaps we should not be afloat when the rollers subsided, but at least we should be at rest—on the bottom. I turned to Addicks, who, heaped up on his lounge, was staring into vacancy.

"Brace up, Addicks," I said. "We are not knocked out yet. At least let us find out what has struck us."

I was some moments in arousing him from his condition of despair, but finally he pulled himself together, and piece by piece we went over the situation. I had to agree with him that he was in an end-to-end-center-pull trap. The cunning machinery he had set up to meet just such an emergency, now that it was in hostile hands, was rather a source of danger than of safety. There was but one way out of the complication—we must undo this receivership and release our properties and funds before November 1st. Addicks, when he got his thinking loom running, declared the receivership was all a "Standard Oil" plot to ruin him. I felt sure it was an independent operation, but there was no time for controversy.

The telephone bell rang again. It was Fred Keller, talking from Addicks' house. We soon had all the details of the raid. This is what had happened. Dwight Braman, a former Boston broker, now a New York capitalist and promoter, had suddenly appeared in Wilmington, Del., accompanied by Roger Foster, a New York attorney representing Wm. Buchanan, one of the original holders of Bay State Gas income bonds. He held $100,000. They had gone before Judge Wales, and pleading that the interest on the bonds was in default and that Addicks was dissipating the assets of the company, had succeeded in inducing the judge to appoint Braman receiver. The whole performance was put through with such marvellous rapidity that not one of Addicks' innumerable henchmen had had a hint of it, and so no warning could be given in any direction. Braman, an adept in corporation try-outs, lost not a moment, for the instant his receivership appointment was signed he pounced down on the Delaware offices of the Bay State and seized everything they contained. He was waiting there for the first train to Philadelphia for the purpose of capturing the head offices of our corporation, which were located there, adjoining Addicks' private offices.

It was the moment for rapid action. We had an hour before Braman and Foster could reach Philadelphia, and in finance in that time continents' have been submerged and oceans pumped dry. Addicks instructed Fred Keller to rush the books of the company into a trunk, together with all the private papers in Addicks' safe, and to come at once to New York, where he would be beyond the jurisdiction of the Delaware court. We returned to the large parlor and hastily explained to the waiting directors what had occurred. Addicks instructed the Bay State secretary, who was present, to connect with the trunk upon its arrival and disappear. In the meantime the company's counsel advised that Addicks and the other directors barricade themselves in their rooms at the Hoffman to frustrate any attempt to get legal service on them, for we well knew that Braman and Foster, as soon as they realized they were balked in Philadelphia, would go to the New York courts for additional powers—which afterward they did.

This line of defence having been fully organized I hurried down town to 26 Broadway. I felt certain that Mr. Rogers had nothing to do with the Braman-Foster affair, but to satisfy Addicks and make assurance doubly sure I determined to see him. After being with him for five minutes I knew I had not been deceived. Rogers agreed with me that the situation looked as though it had been made for his interest, for it threatened to leave us absolutely at his mercy with nothing to prevent his checkmating Addicks at his own game. As I pointed out to him, however, there were disadvantages in the position which he must take into consideration. His acceptance of the opportunity would work such losses to the public and to my friends that though the responsibility might be laid to Braman and Foster, I would fight so viciously that no one would be spared. Besides, between the Addicks scandal and that other which we agreed must unquestionably lurk in the hasty appointment of the receiver, the whole affair must eventually be ventilated in court. It is always hard for Mr. Rogers to forego an advantage, but by this time he was tired of the wrangle and wanted peace, and, moreover, he did not relish the thought of court proceedings, so he admitted that my reasoning was good, and promised to do anything in his power to assist us.



CHAPTER XXIII

TWO GENTLEMEN OF FRENZIED FINANCE

The enemy did not leave us long in suspense. Next day Braman and Foster arrived in New York, bursting with a noble wrath at the failure of their coup in Philadelphia. An outrage had been worked upon them, upon the public, upon the majesty of the law. To hear their ravings one might have supposed them the evangelists of Justice righteously denouncing a desecration of the sacred altar; or, that we had deprived them of an inalienable right they had possessed to our property. It would have been humorous if the conditions had been less tragic.

No defender of property right is so vociferous as the financier who, having appropriated his neighbor's goods, argues that possession constitutes legal ownership. On a country road I once almost rode over two hoboes, who were so busy wrangling with one another that they had not heard my approach. I gathered that one of them, having filched a collection of laundry from a farmer's backyard, had placed it in charge of his mate while he went off for a second helping, and had returned just in time to stop the latter from decamping with the swag. The talk the original purloiner was giving his ungrateful assistant was one of the best expositions of virtue and honesty I've ever listened to.

We met the following Monday and in reply to my request that we talk things over, Foster delivered himself of an exalted exposition of the rights of deluded stockholders, the majesty of the law, and the stern duties of Mr. Braman, who, for the time being, had departed his private self and, until further notice, existed only as a rigid arm of the court. Just as I had arrived at the conclusion that I had got into the wrong shop, Braman took up the lecture by informing me of things I already had made myself familiar with, to wit, how he had at different times occupied similar roles in other corporations' affairs and how relentlessly he had exposed mismanagement and peculation. I suggested to him that in most such cases the receiverships seemed to have been dismissed in favor of the former managers. He waved his hands and replied that in this particular case there was absolutely no chance of control being returned to Addicks, who had outrageously abused his trust; "although, of course (this as a sort of second thought) you know, Mr. Lawson, if Mr. Foster on behalf of his client should receive the amount of his claim and the proper fee, from whatever source, I should be powerless to prevent the dismissal of the receiver."

Braman and Foster were a delightful combination. As the talented Chimmie Fadden would say: "Dey knew dere biz from de bar to de till an' from de till by de way of de cash register to de wine-cellar, so's dey could do de circuit wid dere lamps blinked and dere hands tied." With their corporation mix-up records I was familiar, and after a few minutes' talk realized that it would be impossible to do anything with them until they had kicked up against one or two of the bricks Addicks was now with renewed energy preparing to cast into their pathway. I left with an agreement to see them the following day, and a parting reminder that all natural history showed that unpicked ripe plums were in great danger of being blown from the tree with every passing breeze.

I hurried back to Addicks. "It's the old game," said I; "they are on the box and have the lines, and know just how badly we need our coach, and it's only a case of how much 'inducement' we can stand."

I left him and went down to 26 Broadway. I had not wasted time, but they had been there ahead of me.

"Lawson," said Mr. Rogers, "this time Addicks is up against a real condition, and phenomenal work will have to be done or his race is run. Braman and Foster have been here and made a strong bid for a partnership with me, but I did as agreed and sent them away with a cold 'I'm in no way interested.'"

Foster and Braman secured an order from the New York courts to take possession of all property, money, papers, and books claimed by the company, and formally laid siege to Addicks' quarters in the Hoffman. There was considerable excitement for the guests and the newspapers. Doors were battered down, but the astute and slippery Addicks led them a merry chase until they finally caught him hiding in a freight elevator which he was using for a private staircase, only to find he had no books, papers, or money.

The week that ensued was full of trouble and incident for all concerned. Addicks led an expedition to Wilmington in an effort to get the court to call off the receivership, but had his labor and the expense of his lawyers for his pains. Braman and Foster dragged us through a weary round of special hearings and demands of various kinds in the different courts, but by Tuesday night of the second week their ardor had cooled considerably and they were as puzzled how to let go of the bull they had captured as we were to find a way to make them do so.

Bright and early Wednesday morning Braman called on me, and when he threw his coat and hat into a chair he must have dropped his receivership cloak too, for after he had carefully closed the door and made sure we were without witness he said:

"If there's any business to be done in this matter it must be done quick."

I admitted no one could possibly appreciate this more than I—but what could be done? After bluffing for an hour and exchanging honest views for fifteen minutes we agreed that the situation stood thus:

If nothing were done before the coming Sunday, the 1st, the receivership would be permanent; the stock, which had fallen to $3 per share, would remain at that figure or go lower; my friends, the public, and myself would be tremendous losers; all the past of Bay State, the doings of Addicks and Rogers, and the appointment of the receiver would come in for thorough investigation; an awful scandal would be aired in public; every one would be covered more or less with mud; and no one could possibly be the gainer but "Standard Oil," for Braman agreed with me that the deal we had made with Rogers would probably stand in the courts.

On the other hand, if an arrangement could be arrived at by which we could have the receivership discharged, the company returned to its officers, or our equities preserved, all would be gainers by the move, for it would be proof positive that whatever the obstacles, we could overcome them, and the stock would go flying upward again.

After we had set out all the advantages, disadvantages, and possibilities of the situation, I bluntly plumped Braman with that inevitable question of all such "sit-downs": "What's the price?" And Braman as plumply and bluntly answered: "Buchanan, Foster's client, must have the face of his bonds and interest, $150,000, and we must have at least $150,000 for our trouble and expense."

My long experience in corporation affairs, and my intimate knowledge of the practices which the "System" with its votaries has made habitual was such that I was proof against shock from anything that could possibly turn up in even extraordinary financial deals, but I was just a bit staggered by the business-like way Braman demanded for himself and Foster $150,000 and the coolness with which he further explained that they must divide their share with certain influential persons without whose hearty cooperation the tangling-up which had been so cleverly accomplished would have been impossible. He made no bones of showing me that once "we gave up" it would only be a matter of the number of minutes required to get details fixed before everything would be as it was before he had interfered. I dwelt upon the possibilities of the judge not following orders to the letter and the minute, but he only smiled and answered: "Leave all that to us; if we don't make good as agreed, we get no pay." He was fully alive to the dangers of the game, and he impressed upon me he would take nobody's word for anything. With him and Foster nothing but money talked, and it must not be of the marked-bill kind either, meaning he would not take anything which could be tied up by injunctions and lawsuits after the receiver had been dismissed. However, he would play fair. He would not ask us to pay on anything but the actual delivery of the goods. He also frankly told me that he had named the very low figure, $150,000, because he expected to invest what he received in Bay State Gas stock at $3 and, upon its jumping to $10 or $20, to make half a million.

But this is outrageous, you say. You call the performance I have described by hard names! Surely our courts are not also the creatures of "frenzied finance"? you ask. I warn my readers that this narrative is no more than a record of events occurring within my own knowledge, and that dark and vicious as the pictures seem they are photographs of actual happenings. Nor should the public conclude that the dishonor and dishonesty revealed in connection with Bay State Gas are exceptional. On the contrary, such doings are the rule in the affairs of great financial corporations. Into the rigging and launching of almost every big financial operation in the United States during the last twenty years, double-dealing, sharp practice, and jobbery have entered; and, what is more, the men interested have participated in and profited thereby. To correct a popular fallacy I want to say that I am not referring here simply to moral derelictions but to actual legal crimes. If the details of the great reorganization and trustification deals put through since 1885 could be laid bare, eight out of ten of our most successful stock-jobbing financiers would be in a fair way to get into State or federal prisons. They do such things better in England. During the past ten years three "frenzied financiers" have practised their legerdemain in London—Ernest Hooley, Barney Barnato, and Whitaker Wright. The first is bankrupt and discredited; Barney Barnato jumped into the ocean at the height of his career, and Whitaker Wright, after numerous attempts to escape, was hauled up before an English judge and jury, promptly convicted and sentenced, and committed suicide by poison before leaving the court-room. I will agree at any time to set down from memory the names of a score of eminent American financiers, at this writing in full enjoyment of the envy and respect of their countrymen and the luxury purchased by their many millions, whose crimes, moral and legal, committed in the accumulation of these millions, would, if fully exposed, make the performances of Wright and Barnato seem like petty larceny in comparison.[12] But freedom and equality, as guaranteed us by the Declaration of Independence, have recently been capitalized, and "freedom" now means immunity from legal interference for financiers, while the latest acceptance of "equality" is that all victims of special privilege are treated alike by those who control and exercise such privilege. If the judges and the public prosecutors of these United States were equal to the sworn duties of their sacred offices, this "freedom" would have been confined long ago, and throughout this broad land there would be jails full of "frenzied financiers" who had imagined themselves licensed to rob the public.

But to return to Bay State Gas: "Braman," I said, "we see the situation through the same glasses, but before deciding as to prices let us see where the coin required is to come from. Until the receivership is dismissed not a cent can come from the Bay State treasury, so that eliminates Addicks. I, personally, am in such shape because of this same receivership that I can do nothing. So, as usual, it comes down to the man with unlimited money—Rogers. The question is, how to get Rogers to advance so large a sum in such a ticklish business? He does not want to get mixed up in a matter in which any one man's treachery might mean State's prison."

"Somebody's word ought to be good," he commented.

"Only two men's words would be of any avail," I interrupted—"yours and Addicks', and you have just made it clear that in this case neither would be worth the breath expended in pledging it."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Since the above was published the American people have become aroused, and as this book is going to press, scores of the greatest financiers in America are having under oath confessions squeezed from them in a life-insurance investigation conducted by the State of New York—confessions which reveal such a condition of perjury, bribery, and habitual sequestration of funds, as to make my statement seem mild.



CHAPTER XXIV

BUYING A BUNCH OF STATES

I left Braman and went down to Mr. Rogers. After a careful canvas of the situation it was settled that the only way out was for Rogers to furnish the money to release the receivership, in consideration of which accommodation Addicks should forfeit the old Boston companies to him through Bay State's failure to comply with the terms of the May contract which matured the following Monday. Rogers would administer these companies in trust, applying their earnings to the liquidation of the bonds, and after these latter had been paid off, would turn them back to the Bay State Company for the benefit of its stock; or he would release the companies to us whenever we could raise the money to redeem them. Thus Rogers would make sure of the amount of his original investment, the million dollars profit the May 1st deal permitted him, while I should have secured for my friends and the public the amount of their investment in the property and a good profit for the stockholders to boot. To secure Addicks' consent to this arrangement would be the difficulty; but there was one consideration that would probably induce him to give way—his terrible plight in case the receivership became permanent.

Having reached this point, the next problem was how to get the money. Rogers refused absolutely to be a party to any payment that could be traced back to him. He pointed out the sources of hazard; first, through treachery on the part of Foster, Braman, or Addicks, he might be accused of bribing a court officer, the receiver; Addicks might blackmail him by charging him with conspiracy, or a conspiracy charge might be brought by Bay State stockholders, and he be held for tremendous damages. He refused to put himself into any such trap. I put forward a dozen ways to meet the emergency, but he would have none of them. Finally he suggested a method which was certainly perfect of its kind. He began by letting me into the secret that the chances of a McKinley victory in the election the following week looked pretty bad, and that the latest canvass of the State showed that unless something radical were done, Bryan would surely win. Hanna had called into consultation half a dozen of the biggest financiers in Wall Street, and it was decided to turn at least five of the doubtful States. For this purpose a fund of $5,000,000 had been raised under Rogers' direction,[13] to be turned over to Mark Hanna and McKinley's cousin, Osborne, through John Moore, the Wall Street broker, who was acting as Rogers' representative in collecting the money. It would be legitimate for the National Committee to pay out money to carry Delaware, and he, Rogers, would arrange it that the coin to satisfy Braman and Foster should come through this channel. Thus he would be completely protected.

"Lawson," said Mr. Rogers, looking at me with intense and deadly seriousness, his voice charged with conviction, "if Bryan's elected, there will be such a panic in this country as the world has never seen, and with his money ideas and the crazy-headed radicals he will call to Washington to administer the nation's affairs, business will surely be destroyed and the working people will suffer untold misery. You know we all hate to do what Uncle Mark says is necessary, but it's a case of some of us sacrificing something for the country's good. Bryan's election would set our country back a century, and I believe it's the sacred duty of every honest American to do what he can to save his land from such a calamity."[14]

The "System's" conscience has its own quaint logic—the logic of self-interest—and this is how it reasoned: "The election of Bryan would disturb our control of American institutions, therefore American institutions would be destroyed by Bryan's election. On us, the 'System,' devolves the sacred if expensive duty of saving the nation, and, however abhorrent to our fine moral sense, patriotism compels us to spend millions in bribing and corrupting the electorate so that virtue, 'Standard Oil,' and J. P. Morgan may continue the good work of caring for the public's interests as their own."

As I listened to Rogers' exordium on the duties of a citizen in an emergency, I remembered the "Standard Oil" code—"Everything for God (our God); God (our God) in everything." It was so essentially "Standard Oil," this willingness to commit even that greatest wrong, subverting the will of the people in the exercise of their highest function—the election of a President—but only that good (their good) might come of it. It was no more than selfish greed tricked out in the noble trappings of morality, an infamous crime disguised as patriotism. Doubtless, the excellent, God-fearing, law-abiding citizens of the doubtful States who read this and learn how the "System" defeated their will at the polls will cry, "Monstrous! Can such things be in America?" and then will resume their interrupted occupation of "letting well enough alone." However, this is aside from my story.

Having clearly set forth the political situation through which we should be saved, Mr. Rogers proceeded to map out my own programme. First, I must perfect an alibi for him by going to Foster and Braman, and impressing upon them the fact that he was absolutely out of the affair, and must under no circumstances be brought into it; next, I must convince Addicks to the same effect, and in addition tell him that Mr. Rogers had angrily refused to get into the mix-up; I should then hold myself in readiness to meet John Moore and Hanna or Osborne as soon as an appointment could be arranged. That afternoon I got the word and went to 26 Broadway, and from there Mr. Rogers and I went over to John Moore's office, slipping in the private door from the rear street.

"John," said Mr. Rogers, "I am going to turn this matter over to you and Lawson, and I am to have nothing further to do with it. What you two agree to will be satisfactory to me, and remember, both of you, every dollar that is paid is paid by the National Committee, but after it's all settled, and if there is no slip-up, I will look to Lawson for whatever is expended. Is it understood?"

We agreed that it was, and Mr. Rogers left us.

John Moore deserves more than a mere passing mention here, for he was at this time a distinguished Wall Street character and one of the ablest practitioners of finance in the country. During the last fifteen years of his life, John Moore was party to more confidential financial jobs and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he handled them with great skill and high art. Big, jolly, generous, a royal eater and drinker, an associate of the rich, the friend of the poor, a many-times millionaire, who a few years before had been logging it on the rivers of Maine, his native State, John Moore well deserved his "Street" name, "Prince John." His firm, Moore & Schley, transacted an immense brokerage business, and numbered among its clients great capitalists and bankers all over the country. Especially were Moore & Schley famed for their discretion, and the highest proof of confidence reposed in the firm was the fact that it did the bulk of the stock speculating for what is known as "the Washington contingent." This is, perhaps, the most peculiar and delicate business that comes to "the Street." A big Wall Street house opens a Washington office and organizes an elaborate system of special wires, wires from which there can be no possibility of leakage. It is then ready for the patronage of members of Congress, United States Senators and national officials, whose honorable positions make them the custodians of national secrets of great commercial value. If, for instance, a new law is to be passed which must favorably affect a given stock, legislators who are on "the inside" often buy thousands of shares in order to reap the profit of the rise in value incidental to its passage. Or perhaps there is in prospect a law which will interfere with the special privilege of some other stock and reduce its price. Those in possession of advance information "go short" of that stock (sell for future delivery) to profit by the drop. There are many other opportunities the Washington "insider" of speculative turn may use to advantage. For instance, if a high official of the Government were about to issue a proclamation against a foreign nation, and should desire secretly to make a million or so out of the panic he knew must follow the announcement, he would cast about him for a broker who would preserve this sacred confidence. It would invariably be through the Moore firm that his secretary or confidential man would do the short selling. There are also the operations of lobbyists who, to affect important legislation for this great interest or the other, buy or sell stock for the benefit of legislators whose votes they desire to influence. Extreme caution is demanded in the execution of such orders, or all hands might by some slip-up find themselves wearing striped suits.[15]

Such a catastrophe seemed imminent some years ago when the Sugar Trust was before the United States Senate for some legislation necessary to bolster up its monopoly. Its agents had either been less cautious than usual in disguising the raw bribery they were perpetrating, or this particular Senate was too brazen to take the usual precautions to hide its greed from the world. In any case, so great an outcry was made in the press of the country that some sacrifice to the people's wrath was called for—one of those familiar sacrifices which, at intervals of ten or fifteen years in this republic, our rulers make to the great god Integrity. An investigation was organized, and a Senatorial inquisition had before it eminent sugar capitalists and many other distinguished gentlemen who could by no possibility shed light on the transactions, and then, realizing that a show of earnestness, at least, was demanded, it was agreed that some member of Moore & Schley's firm must go on the witness-stand, and, on refusing to tell which Senators had speculated in sugar, must be sent to jail. This grandstand play, it was calculated, and rightly, would so hold the attention of the American people that when the committee concluded its investigation with the usual loud acclaim of duty well done, its Draconian punishment of the unsubmissive broker would act as another ten years' stay against outcry.

When this stratagem was decided on, John Moore announced that he as head of the firm should be the sacrifice. But the representatives of the "System" and the Senate firmly refused to assign him that role, and instead, to his grief and anger, nominated for jail the associate member who had charge of Moore & Schley's Washington business, whom they declared the logical victim. During the thirty days that his friend and partner spent behind the bars John Moore's hair whitened more than in all the years before, and from that time until his death he refused firmly to take part in his old line of work, or was ever again his old jovial self.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Over a year after the publication of this statement startled the country, John A. McCall, President of the New York Life Insurance Company, and George W. Perkins, Vice-President of the same company and partner of J. Pierpont Morgan, were compelled to confess that they had contributed from their policy-holders' deposits, large amounts of money to a fund to defeat Bryan in 1896 and to the Republican campaign funds of the two following presidential elections, and that they gloried in it. At the same time Jacob Schiff, director of the Equitable Life and a partner in the great international banking-house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., admitted that funds belonging to the policy-holders of the "Big Three," the New York, the Mutual, and the Equitable, were used in a joint fund to influence the Legislature of every State in the Union.

[14] President McCall used almost the same language in September, 1905, in justifying his payment.

[15] The President was notified some few months ago that the cotton report was being juggled by employees of the United States Department of Agriculture in the interest of certain Wall Street speculators who were gambling in cotton. Investigation proved that it was the practice to falsify the report; and certain Government officials and brokers are now under indictment.



CHAPTER XXV

ATHLETICS OF FINANCE

Entirely apart from his relationship with Mr. Rogers it was a great help in this Bay State emergency to have the aid of a man of John Moore's wealth of vim and wide knowledge of men and affairs. Freely and frankly I explained our situation to him with its innumerable complications until he had mastered its intricacies. A tough job he pronounced our proposition, and he was the authority on the subject. After our talk was ended he called in Osborne, who had evidently already been talked to. He said to Osborne:

"I've been over Addicks' affairs with Lawson, and there is no question in my mind and that of other friends of the party that he should have what is necessary to carry Delaware. You had better have the committee ready to put in between $350,000 and $400,000 if we call for it. I will see that it is kept down as low as possible."

Osborne then spoke his piece and replied that the committee would do whatever was decided best, and asked me to send Addicks around next day to explain just how he was pushing things in Delaware. All this was play-acting for the benefit of Rogers' alibi.

The next thing on my programme was to persuade Addicks to relinquish his hold on the old Boston gas companies, and this was likely to prove my most difficult task. I left John Moore, who agreed to hold himself in readiness at any hour to consult on and approve such settlement as I could arrange, and energetically started in on the Delaware financier. It was a trying ordeal. As soon as Addicks saw I had something to work on he began to demur and object. If he could not have things his way, he would do nothing. He knew that I had joined a conspiracy to ruin him; that I was in league with Rogers, who was in league with Braman and Foster, and that all were banded together to take all he had away from him. In the course of that two hours' wrestle I was tempted several times to throw up the whole affair, and there were some bitter and savage word-passages that left both of us heated. I could do nothing with him; he must hear from Rogers personally. Finally I got the "Standard Oil" wire, and Rogers talked so plainly and coldly as partially to sober him, but ended by agreeing to have his counsel talk things over with Addicks, which was a distinct concession. A little later Mr. Rogers' representative was at the Hoffman and he and Addicks had it hot and heavy. After about fifteen minutes of conference they had wellnigh come to blows. However, the hot exchanges had begun to tell. Addicks grew saner, but he insisted on seeing Foster and Braman. I warned him that he was fast getting our affairs into such shape that no one could patch them up, but to no avail. He must meet his enemies face to face if only to ram into their teeth that they were scoundrels. Finally, I got Braman on the telephone and explained that I was doing my best to quiet a crazy man, who would consent to nothing until after he had seen him and Foster and told them what thieves they were. I heard Braman chuckle. He said: "Bring him along to Foster's house at 10.30," and added: "It wouldn't be a bad idea to have an ambulance along, too." This suggested further complications, for Braman has the reputation on "the Street" of being more eager to face a wild man on a rampage than a sick one in a plaster cast, while Foster, although a little bit of a fellow, was never known to side-step or duck trouble. I slipped word down to Moore at the Waldorf to follow along to Foster's place in a cab.

There are several "spite houses" in New York. Foster's house was one of them. It is a narrow strip of a brownstone dwelling at 79 West 54th Street, built to express the enmity of one property owner for his neighbor who refused to pay an extortionate price for the land. It is about the width of a front door, and inside there is just about room to move around. It afforded a queer background for the scene enacted there that night.

Promptly at 10.30 Addicks and I were at the door, and by 10.32 the tunnel-like walls of the "spite house" resounded with as illuminating a verbal interchange of billingsgate biographies as I have ever listened to. At 10.35 I covered Addicks in a hasty but quite successful retreat which he beat to our cab. Thence to the Hoffman House, where I summoned Parker Chandler to aid in the calming of our raving associate. The next two hours were of the pulse-jumping, vein-tearing kind incidental to "frenzied finance," but they were not without avail, for Addicks finally agreed that he might consent to "something" provided the Bay State equities in the Boston companies were so preserved that he could eventually get them back into his hands by repayment to Rogers or by the redemption of bonds.

Having got thus far, I again went after Braman and Foster, who were at the Hotel Cambridge. We repaired for further conference to the University Club, which was then in the old A. T. Stewart marble palace on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. I shall never forget that session. It was past midnight, but the three of us battled with our smoky problem, now good-naturedly, now bitterly. At times it looked hopeless because of this obstinate demand or that steadfast refusal. It must have been three o'clock in the morning when I left them and stepped into the Waldorf for a moment to relieve Moore's vigil. Then back again to the Hoffman, where Addicks, Chandler, and some Bay State directors were nodding. By this time I was in no mood to say more than that I would be over in the morning, and that Addicks should go early to the National Committee's head-quarters and explain the desperation of conditions in Delaware to Hanna, Osborne, and their associates. At last I was free to return to the Brunswick for a few hours' rest.

In the country, cock-crow is the signal to be up and doing. In the city, the signal to be up and to do is a hoarse, metallic roar that would drown a million country cock-crows if each particular cock were as big as the mythical rooster of antiquity and could crow in proportion to his size. My readers who dwell on the hills and in dales and wheat-fields, and who are unfamiliar with the wild, weird early morning din of the city, may not know that the metropolitan cock-crow is made up of the jingle and jangle of a million tin milk cans jolted over a million blocks of stone to the tune of thousands of steel-shod feet, the shrill cries of an army of butcher and baker boys and the groans and the moans of countless troubled and tortured human souls. Cock-crow in the country means "Awake to another day of life." Cock-crow in the city is a signal for the slaves of Mammon to arise to another interval of flight and pursuit.

The great city cock was just getting ready to send forth his hoarse cry as I went to bed, and he was still on his roost a few hours later, when I awoke. I looked from my window of the Brunswick across the Square, now flooded with the pure sunlight of early morning, and all the kinks and quirks and hobgoblins which the rush and irritation of yesterday had generated seemed to have vanished, and I could not suppress a smile at the thought of the night before, when this battle—this puny, insignificant battle for a few dirty dollars—had almost raised feelings I now knew too well should only be aroused by real battles, battles in which noble principles were involved, and I felt better able to fight what I had thought, the night before, was going to be a hard battle.

"Pshaw!" said I, as I looked away and beyond the park to the grand battlefields of my better imagination, "what will it matter a hundred years hence what name appears against victor or vanquished in the archives of fame or the records of infamy when the student reads, 'A.D. 1896, Bay State Gas-"Standard Oil" war,'" for I saw that among the countless real deeds there would be no room for any record to mark the existence of any Gas or Dollar war.

With these thoughts still in mind I sat down to breakfast with Parker Chandler, and as I listened to his cheerful gossip of yesterday, I inwardly resolved that whatever the result of the day's effort, I would take it with a smile.

Thursday was another period of strenuous struggle and unceasing effort. I began early, and every moment was taken up with arguments, wrangles, pleadings! Chandler had agreed to see that Addicks kept his appointment with the National Committee and that a quorum of Bay State directors should be on hand in the Hoffman so that we could get quick action on any proposition that came up. This arranged I hurried over to see John Moore, then down for a last word with Mr. Rogers. Addicks came next for a spell; from him to Braman and Foster; back to John Moore; more interviews with lawyers and round the circle again. It seemed as though it were impossible to arrive at any agreement that some one of the principals interested would not kick over. At four o'clock Friday morning John Moore and myself ceased our labors for the day, both of us wellnigh exhausted. With all our efforts many of the vital points to our agreement were still in the air. A few hours' sleep and we were back at our task, and by six o'clock on Friday night the last obstacle had been overcome and the deal was completed.

There remained now the tremendous business of putting all the arrangements concluded into execution. A multitude of legal documents had to be drawn up and executed, first by Rogers and then by the Bay State board of directors and officers. It was a pile of work, but not a second was lost, and by 11.20 that night we were ready for the third act, which was to be performed simultaneously by different sets of actors in Boston and Wilmington. For this our officers were split. With the directors of the Boston corporations, Chandler, and Mr. Rogers' attorney to supervise the legal end of next day's transaction, I left on a special car attached to the midnight train for Boston; while Addicks and the Bay State directors set forth on another midnight train for Wilmington, Del., to be followed in the early morning by my New York partner, John Moore's partner, Braman, Foster, and more counsel representing Mr. Rogers. This contingent was to carry the money.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE CIRCLING OF THE VULTURES

I don't believe there ever was before or since a financial operation in which so many things, each of vital importance, had to be done at one and the same time.

Before I took the train for Boston, just after the last deed had been signed, Braman, Foster, and I had come to a complete understanding in regard to the manner in which the court proceedings the following morning should be conducted. It was understood that no one should take another's word for anything, and consequently that no money should pass until specific performance of all the required conditions. Immediately on the release of the receivership, Foster and Braman were to be paid their "fee," and they asked that the $175,000 cash coming to them should be arranged in separate piles of bills. The two packages containing Foster's and part of Buchanan's, and Braman's $50,000 were to be in the joint custody of John Moore's representative and my partner, who, with Rogers' counsel and Addicks, had been assigned to represent Bay State in the court.

What would happen after the transfer of these several amounts was outside my jurisdiction. Addicks did not confide to me his own scheme of revenge, but of Braman and Foster's purposes I had a clear idea. As Braman had explained, the great winning of his adventure should be made in the stock plunge he and Foster contemplated in Bay State Gas stock, then selling at 3-1/2 to 4; but lest there be some slip-up in court, "buy" orders to their brokers were contingent on the word "go!" from Wilmington. To get this off at the right moment a clerk was taken along, whose only part in the play was to telephone this word "go!" They expected in this way to make at least half a million.[16]

Addicks' intentions, as I afterward learned, were less exalted but much more direct. He had conceived a plan whereby without danger to himself he could punish Braman and Foster for the wrong they had done Bay State, and at the same time meet his election expenses at no cost to his own pocket. In the course of his electioneering campaign in Delaware, conducted as all the world knows how, Addicks had gathered to his cause as tough and rascally a set of "heelers" as ever waylaid aged woman or lame man on the highway. A lieutenant who had been despatched to Delaware early Friday afternoon, when it had become evident that we should get things settled up, gathered the sturdiest members of this precious troop together and solemnly told them that a serious hitch had occurred in Addicks' game and that it looked as though, owing to the receivership, there would be no "stuff" to put in circulation this year. The men responsible for this outrage were to be in Wilmington on the following day and from the appearance of things would get the money Addicks had destined for his followers. He understood they were to receive it in cash, too—$175,000—cash that really belonged to Addicks, who had intended it for his good friends in Delaware. The thugs, properly indignant at the wrong that had been done "the Boss," dispersed rapidly to discuss the information among themselves. That night a group of leaders got together and figured out a little plan of campaign to frustrate the robbery of their beloved master. Court proceedings to release the receivership could not take long, and they calculated that the train schedule would detain Braman and Foster at least two hours in Wilmington after the adjournment. What more easy than the organizing of a little scuffle on the station platform or on the street and in the rush—well, many things happen in a rush. This simple procedure commended itself to all concerned, and that night there was much rejoicing among the Addicks camp-followers at the pleasant things that should be pulled "off" at the flim-flamming bee next day.

All these things were in the air when court opened in Wilmington on Saturday morning. A special telephone line had been run and arrangements made for a clear wire right into the directors' office in the head-quarters of the Gas Light Company in Boston. At the telephone in Wilmington sat my partner ready to communicate to me the exact course of the proceedings, so that I might simultaneously make the agreed transfers of our companies to Rogers. I knew my partner's voice; he knew mine. We, too, were taking no chances.

* NEW YORK, February 21, 1905.

Dear Mr. Lawson: In your article in Everybody's Magazine for January, among other misstatements upon which I shall not now comment—since you have committed yourself too far to make it likely that you will withdraw them—you accuse me of having speculated in Bay State Gas stock with Mr. Buchanan's money; and of having subsequently been sued by him. I hold Mr. Buchanan's receipt for the money collected for him, which I paid him the night that I returned from Delaware. He has never sued me. Please inform me whether you are willing and agree to strike out these statements from your article when published in book form, and also whether you will agree to withdraw the same in your magazine. I tried to call on you and discuss the case when in Boston, January 21st; and I also tried to meet you on the day after last Thanksgiving; but apparently you were unwilling to see me. I remain,

Very truly yours, ROGER FOSTER.

THOMAS W. LAWSON, ESQ., Boston, Mass.

FEBRUARY 23, 1905.

My Dear Mr. Foster: I received your letter of the 21st inst., and in reply will say, if I have done you any wrong in my story, "Frenzied Finance," or otherwise, it has been unintentional, and I regret it, and I seek this, the first opportunity, to give my regrets the same wide circulation as my original statements.

As I wrote you previous to the publication of the magazine containing the parts you refer to, I try to exercise the greatest care in allowing nothing to appear in my story but facts—facts I know to be facts, and in addition only such facts as are absolutely necessary to my work, which is the portrayal of those events of the past essential to a proper understanding by the people of the evils that have been done them, and how they have been done, that they may do what is necessary to undo them and to prevent their repetition in the future, and, in addition, such facts as it is fair for me to use. I repeat what I said to you then: I have absolutely no feeling in regard to you other than an intense desire to do you exact justice.

I dealt with you in the entire Bay State receivership affair in connection with Mr. Braman and I thought that I had every reason to believe that his Bay State Gas purchases were for your joint account; but now that you assure me they were not, I hasten to have such assurances chase my original story with the hope that they may speedily overtake it.

My information that you had been sued by Mr. Buchanan came to me in a way that left no doubt in my mind of its correctness—no doubt until I received your letter. Papers were sent to me some time ago by reputable attorneys in a suit of Buchanan against Braman and, I understood, yourself, along the lines outlined in my story, with the request that I allow my deposition to be taken, so that Buchanan could get at the facts in his attempt to recover the moneys claimed.

Your assurances to the contrary in regard to this matter I also hasten to start on the road you point out, and I will see that both statements are expunged from my book.

You are in error in thinking that I did not wish to see you when you were in Boston. I did not know in either case of your desires until it was too late to see you. I certainly would have had a "sit-down" with you if it had been possible.

Again assuring you not only that it is a pleasure to set forth the facts you have called to my attention, but that I am your debtor inasmuch as you have given me an opportunity to perform that duty which I owe to every individual my story treats of—to state facts and only facts with which they have been connected—believe me,

Yours truly, THOMAS W. LAWSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] See foot-note on pages 189 and 190.



CHAPTER XXVII

COURT CORRUPTION AND COIN

The closing scene of this most significant drama was enacted on Saturday morning in the Wilmington Circuit Court-room. There was nothing in the cold formality of the proceedings to indicate that here was the denouement of a serio-comedy in which greed and ambition had clashed in a battle for millions; nor in the amiable indifference of the men who got within the enclosed space below the judge's desk to suggest the murderous passions and fierce hatreds raging beneath the surface of the prevailing calm.

The dramatis personae were gathered in little groups representing the separate interests—Addicks and some of his lieutenants; my partner at the telephone; John Moore's partner and Rogers' counsel with their heads together; Braman and Foster nearer the judge, their eyes wandering toward two dress-suit cases piled before John Moore's partner, which, it was understood, contained the money. At a glance it was impossible to tell the one containing Buchanan's share from the other laden with the receivership loot, but each was tagged, and it was evident that possibilities of a mix-up had been carefully guarded against. Behind Braman was his clerk, and in the rear of the court-room sat as many of Addicks' thugs as could squeeze into the narrow space reserved for spectators. They, too, eyed the dress-suit cases avidly, for the information had been passed around that these innocent receptacles contained the "stuff," of which the "Boss" was about to be robbed.

Court came to order. Foster rose, announced that the claims of his client had been satisfied, and made a formal motion to dismiss the receivership. The Court formally consented, and as the clerk was entering the dismissal in his minute-book my partner telephoned the facts to me. I sent back the word that my directors were resigning—had resigned—that Rogers' directors were being elected—had been elected—that the Boston gas companies were now transferred to Rogers. My partner whispered my words to John Moore's partner and Rogers' counsel. At once the two dress-suit cases, each loaded with currency, were slipped to Braman and Foster. At the same time the messenger who was to telephone to their broker rose and quickly left the court-room. A brief period was consumed in signing receipts, certificates, and other legal papers, and then the performance was over. Addicks rose and went out among his henchmen in the rear, who eagerly surrounded him. In the bustle Braman and Foster, each with his own booty, fled.

Let us see what was happening at the Boston end of the wire while all this dumb show was being enacted in the Wilmington court-house. My directors and officials were lined up against the walls of the directors' room in the Boston Gas Light Company's office like so many members of young John D. Rockefeller's Sunday-school class, inasmuch as they were prepared to listen, sing, or shout "Amen!" at any time they received the nod of the class-leader. In an adjoining room Rogers' counsel had a similar line-up, with the difference that my men were about to shed the crowns which the others were waiting to receive, and which would transform them from humble business men into royal gas kings. Through the open wire I was in such close touch with the scene in the Wilmington court-room that I was almost sure I heard the subdued weeping of the blindfolded Lady of the Scales on the bills which occupied such a prominent part in the disreputable proceedings. Nothing now could impede the course of events, so I concluded to take Time by the headgear and secure what Bay State stock was in the market before Braman and Foster got in their work. Over another wire which was at my elbow I gave the word "go!" to my own brokers in Boston and New York, and when a few minutes later they told me they were securing thousands of shares, and that the stock was climbing toward 10, I could not repress an inward chuckle at the thought that the money we had so reluctantly parted with would spread over only one-half or one-third the surface it was originally intended to cover.

It was all over in a few minutes, and when my partner said, "It's done," and "By Jove, there go Dwight Braman and Roger Foster on the dead run with a dress-suit case apiece!" I held my sides as Parker Chandler in his inimitable way bawled: "Tom, let's leave our straw hats on the pegs, for we'll probably be back next spring figuring out how to pump air enough through the gas-measuring meters to pay for that money we've just loaned Braman and Foster for a day or two."

Braman and Foster, as I have observed before, knew their business. The danger to which $175,000 in currency would be exposed, in a territory controlled by Addicks, had appealed to their cautious instincts, and once outside the court-room they literally took to their heels and ran for a corner of the railway yard, where awaiting them was a special car and engine. They jumped aboard, yelling to the engineer: "Let her go." In the meantime eager-eyed ruffians searched the streets and hung round the hotels, looking for two men with dress-suit cases. A hundred of them were on the station platform, awaiting the departure of the regular train. Ten minutes before leaving-time one of the henchmen appeared among the gang, and passed round the word that the gents and the "stuff" had got off by a special, and it was no use waiting any longer. Later that afternoon, Addicks, to use his own words, in one of his rendezvous, "dealt out his own good money in place of that he had hoped would take care of the people's rights."

It was a fierce session of the Stock Exchange that Saturday morning. Shortly before closing time a new set of brokers were frantically grabbing for Bay State stock round 10, and Monday morning, when all the world knew that the receivership had been lifted and our company was itself again, the same crowd continued to buy fiercely. To these eager purchasers I resold all that I had previously gathered, and enough short besides, to compensate me for some of the losses I had previously suffered, for this latter I was enabled to repurchase at half price, when news came that another suit had begun against Bay State. This latter drop in price so shattered the nerves of Braman and Foster that they retired, having made up their minds that they did not know quite as much about one end of "frenzied finance" as they did about the other. As a matter of fact, nothing came of the suit in question, for it was evident when the transfer of the Boston gas companies to Rogers' control became known, that Bay State Gas receiverships had played their last successful engagement.

My readers will not object if I again call their attention to the inevitable workings of the law of compensation. The losses occasioned by the market action of Bay State stock in these four days so mixed up Braman and Foster in their financial accounts that later they were sued by their client, Buchanan, who in court stated that he in turn was so confused as to what was done in connection with this business that he really knew less after it was over than before the suits were brought. But one thing was indelibly impressed upon his mind—that his bonds had disappeared in the whirl and he had not received anything for them. I think this suit is still pending.



CHAPTER XXVIII

PEACE AT LAST

When the curtain fell on the closing scene of the performance in the Delaware court there ensued a brief interval of quiet in the affairs of Bay State Gas. Rejoicing in the temporary diversion of public attention, the chief actors proceeded to assume their former roles, and soon affairs began to move at their old gait. Rogers took possession of all the Boston gas companies and patiently awaited the coming down the pike of some traveller with more money than brains. Having successfully corrupted the State of Delaware, Addicks was being measured for the senatorial toga, when accidentally the blind lady dropped her scales on his unprotected head, which catastrophe laid him out long enough to enable another to sneak the prize he had so long striven for. We are not at present concerned with the affairs of Delaware, and it suffices to say in passing, that after a heated contest one Richard Kenney was chosen to the senatorial seat Addicks had so long coveted, and that this man, a typical Delaware vote-rancher, after being sworn in as United States Senator, was brought back to Wilmington and tried for robbing a Delaware bank, his accomplices being some other heelers of Addicks. The disclosures made in the trial showed that the case in all characteristics conformed to the Addicks standard of indecency, for the bank officials, not satisfied with "blowing in" every dollar of deposits and capital the institution owned or controlled, had actually "lifted" in addition the building in which the bank was situated. One of the court functionaries who had heard the evidence tersely remarked: "Talk about stealing a red-hot stove: this is a case where they took the funnel with it to keep the draught going until they set it up in a new location!"

But Delaware, as my readers have doubtless gathered long ere this, is its own kind of a country, and rewards and punishments are so perversely adjusted that it seems a sort of Topsyturvydom. In this instance certain of Addicks' heelers went to State's prison and death; Kenney returned to the Senate to help make laws for the great free people of America, while the chief conspirator, with a threat to sue the blindfolded lady for damage done, began to set out the pieces on the Bay State Gas chessboard with a view to trying certain new moves that had occurred to his perpetual-motion mind.

The situation of Bay State Gas stock was fully understood by the public. While Rogers had possession of the Boston companies, he simply held them in trust, and must give them up whenever the parent corporation had coin enough to redeem them. The securities were still in the hands of the public and my friends, and my own duty to get Bay State Gas on its feet was plain. It was again a case of raising money, and to do this we had the issue of securities which we were preparing to float just before Foster and Braman swooped down on us. Addicks agreed that if I would undertake the marketing of this stock, he would issue only enough of it to redeem the properties from Rogers. His directors met and formally "resoluted" on this point, and I felt satisfied before going ahead that there was no danger of this money being put in jeopardy without actually stealing it. The company, for the nonce, had no other business but to pay office rent and clerk hire, and in spite of Addicks' financial immorality, all who knew him were aware he took no chances of ever getting himself sent to jail. So I began to sell the stock in the open market.



PART II



CHAPTER I

THE MAGIC WORLD OF FINANCE

Though this is the twentieth century and enlightenment is supposed to prevail throughout this broad land of ours, the majority of people still regard the world of finance as the world of magic. Within the fairy realm of finance the laws of nature apparently are suspended, and, overnight, wonders are worked. The ordinary mortal, wise in all other walks of life, sees the man who yesterday stood beside him at the plough or at the bench emerging from the mysterious portals bearing the fruits of the endeavors of a hundred or a thousand lives, although a moment ago he passed through them with nothing. Who can deny the magic that thus demonstrates its power, or fail to accord veneration to the magicians that work such marvels? No wonder the ordinary mortal feels that he has no license to enter the world of finance save on his knees, hat in hand, bearing tribute to the divinities enthroned within this enchanted territory.

It is my purpose to do away with this extraordinary deception and to show it up as one of the artifices with which tricksters, since the beginning of the world, have imposed upon the people. There should be nothing in finance that any man or woman of ordinary intelligence and experience cannot understand, and I purpose to explain here the machinery of the "System" so that every one will exactly understand it from headlight to rear-end lantern. Many intelligent people have no clear idea of what a certificate of stock or a bond really is, and the words "money," "stock-exchange," and "finance" are mere terms which they glibly use without knowledge of their meaning.

It is not difficult to understand the grocery or the dry-goods business. Standard articles of well-known form are sold by weight or measure over the counters for fair prices. The patrons of such businesses insist on knowing what they are buying—what they are to get in exchange for the money which is the fruit of their labor, and then, after they have been told, and they trade, they require that the goods be as described or they will know why not. The average American would consider it a huge joke should his grocer undertake to induce him to buy one hundred times more sugar than he could use, on the ground that he might find in the sugar bags when he reached home gold and diamonds. But would he not wrathfully seek the police if, after opening his sugar bag, for which he had paid $1, he found it contained only 50 cents' worth of sugar? He would tell you if you met him at this stage: "You can bet that chap on the corner cannot get away with any such trick as that—not in America. He might in Zanzibar or in the kingdom of the Sultan of Sulu, but I will show him he cannot rob Americans in these enlightened times." The grocer would be hustled to jail without a "by your leave," and thenceforward his name would be a by-word among all honest tradesmen.

And so it goes in every business but finance—finance, the most important of all, the business into which is merged all other businesses, the business of taking and preserving the results of all other businesses, of all other human endeavor. Over our land to-day are big, able Americans, long-headed and experienced, adept at a jack-knife swap or a horse trade—industrious farmers, hard-handed miners, shrewd manufacturers, each in his own line a good business man, yet these sturdy traders, whom the "gold-brick" artist or the "green-goods" practitioner would never dream of tackling, come weekly into Wall Street, or into such branch shops as exist in every community on the continent, and are done out of their savings like the veriest "come-ons." Humbly they take, in return for the gold earned with the sweat of their brows, a piece of paper of a given value which they return later and exchange for half the amount the paper cost them originally. In the space between purchase and sale fifty per cent. of their investment has disappeared—has been filched away, but yet they have no resentment. They evince none of the feelings of the man whose pocket has been picked or whose till has been robbed. On the contrary, their sentiment is of admiration for the banker, the broker, the financier through whose agency their money has been lost.

Take, for instance, the prosperous tanner who goes to his banker with $100,000, the fruit of ten years' success, and exchanges this sum for 1,000 shares of Steel Preferred. Now, if he were to examine this security with half the thought or investigation he gives to a $500 car-load of bark, he would learn that there was not 20 cents on the dollar of real value behind it. In six months the eminent tanner is again at the banker's offering for sale his thousand shares of steel. In the meantime it has declined in value and he has to part with it for $50,000. But he does not complain; indeed, he bows his way out of the palatial office of the great man and is full of sincere thanks when the banker promises to let him know the next good thing on the market. Suppose our tanner had purchased ten cars of tan bark and found that each car-load was short ten per cent. Would he not at once go to his attorney and exclaim emphatically that he would spend thousands rather than let the scoundrel who had tricked him get away with his swag?

Suppose our grocer waxing rich invests his funds in the Sugar trust. He thinks he knows all there is to be known about sugar. The business of the trust is to make the sweet commodity and sell it to the people. No mystery or magic, surely, about this simple pursuit. Yet when our grocer invests his savings, the sugar stock is many dollars more valuable than when, scared into selling by fluctuations which he cannot see any reason for, he tries to get back his investment. So many times have investors been milked of their savings by this one trust during the past twenty years that in the coffers of its creators and jugglers are hundreds of millions of money that once belonged to the people for which they have received absolutely nothing in return.

Both the tanner and the grocer must know, when they look up and down Wall Street at the great office buildings which tower into the sky on either side of the street, that these are huge hives of expensive bees who, from New Year's to New Year's, do not produce a dollar. They should realize that the hundreds of millions spent each year for the expense of running the "System's" game, and the millions which the game-makers flaunt in their faces, must have been derived from such as they—the men who produce.

It is the phenomenon of the age that millions of people throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on them twelve months later.

You may ask if I desire to convey the idea that the great financial institutions and trusts of this country, which have their head centre in Wall Street, are all concerned in a conspiracy to rob the people of their savings. You think, doubtless, that so sweeping a statement goes beyond the truth. I desire to go on record right here in declaring that all financial institutions which in any way are engaged in taking from the people the money that is their surplus earnings or their capital, for the ostensible purpose of safeguarding it, or putting it in use for them, or exchanging it for stocks, bonds, policies, or other paper evidences of worth, are a part of the machinery for the plundering of the people.

This is a terrible charge, I am well aware, but it is based upon a thorough knowledge of the subject and made with a full appreciation of its gravity. I do not mean to say that all the men who handle and control the different institutions I mentioned have guilty knowledge of the bearing of their actions. Many of them are of the purest minds and most honest intentions, and are quite incapable of participating voluntarily in a conspiracy to wrong any one. They do not know, however, that the relation between their own minor institution and the general financial structure constitutes the former an agency for the "System," which controls and has organized the general financial structure into an instrument for converting the money of the public to its own purposes. In fact, the "System" has cunningly possessed itself of the financial mechanism of the country and is running it, not for the object for which the machine was devised, but for the benefit and personal profit of its votaries, and so the vast correlated organization of banks, trust companies, and insurance corporations which were brought into being for the safe handling of the people's savings has become an agency for transferring these savings to the control of unscrupulous manipulators, who take liberal toll of every dollar that passes through their hands.

The duty of the American people is to unloosen the thraldom of the "System" on our financial mechanism; to pluck out of their high places the dishonest usurpers who have degraded the purposes of our financial institutions, and to restore those institutions to their legitimate functions. When the people are fully awakened to the condition I describe, surely they will arise in their wrath and sweep the money-changers from the temple.



CHAPTER II

THE "SYSTEM" AND THE LOUISIANA LOTTERY COMPARED

Years ago one of the greatest evils in this country was the Louisiana Lottery. Through that lottery millions and millions annually were taken from the people and transferred to a few unprincipled schemers, who soon found themselves in possession of enormous fortunes. Wise men called for the abatement of this awful drain on the savings of the nation, but the law-abiding, God-fearing people of the country met their plaints with "Why should we be bothered about this matter? If fools and knaves elect to gamble in such palpably fraudulent ways, let them gamble, and their losses are no affair of ours. It is none of our business." But presently these honest people had it pounded into their well-meaning heads that the principal instrument by which the swindle was conducted was their own mail service, one of the most important branches of their Government; that, in fact, in each and every city, town, village, and cross-road in all our virtuous land, Government officials were acting as distributing agents for this huge corrupter and robber.

Then the people rose in their irresistible might, and between the rising of one day's sun and its setting this powerful machine went as goes the gum-drop on the red-hot stove cover at a pop-corn soiree. It melted, leaving nothing but a faint odor and a thin stain, both of which disappeared in the next morning's scrubbing, and the Louisiana Lottery was as though it had never been. Yet during its reign its insolent votaries could prove to the absolute satisfaction of all intelligent, patriotic men that it was useless for any man or set of men to attempt the lottery's destruction, because they would be met with the accumulated resistance of the reckless spending of the vast amounts of festered dollars which had been stolen from the people. The argument of these comparatively petty thieves was: "No men nor sets of men can hope to 'stack up' against us, for their money comes hard, cents and dollars at a time; they are obliged to earn it, while we get ours in chunks by simply taking it. We can buy lawyers and can hire law-makers, and we can lease Government officials, and we can outbid any honest men, who are the only ones who object to our game. In the market for legislative or business talent you cannot get within touching distance of us." Yet the people had but to sneeze and this foul parasite was detached from their free and honest structure and was wafted away with the dead leaves and the dust to bottomless nowhere.

In the height of its prosperity the Louisiana Lottery took from the people only a paltry ten or twenty million dollars a year, while to-day there are single groups of banks, trust companies, corporations, and trusts which take from the people by might, by trick, and by theft hundreds of millions each year; and there are scores of such groups. The Sugar trust has been the instrument of gathering, in one year, a hundred millions of the people's savings, and the Steel trust alone has robbed the people of over five hundred millions of dollars in a single twelve months.

To-day the "System" and its methods are as clearly and as sharply defined in the tangibility of their relation to the people as was ever the Louisiana Lottery. On certain days the Louisiana Lottery sold its tickets, which the people bought with their savings. On a certain day the drawing took place, at which all those who had parted with their dollars expected to receive them back together with immense profits, and upon that day disappointment was spread broadcast among the many and unhealthy joy among the few. So with the "System." On certain days the public is sold their stock, bond, and insurance policy certificates. Upon other days they look for their savings and profits. On the contrary, they learn that their savings have decreased in value or have been wiped out, and that there never was any chance of profit. My critics will say that such a comparison cannot hold, for in the lottery nothing was dealt in but gambling tickets, whereas the stock or bond certificate represents an ownership in the material things of the country. This is the fallacy the "System" spends millions every year to foster and disseminate. Between the two the difference is in favor of the Louisiana Lottery, for both are gambles and the lottery game was square. Those who ran it had for their trouble a fixed percentage of the profits, an enormous percentage, it is true, but the general fund was never encroached upon by the controllers. Who is to say what percentage the votaries of the "System" take in their game? It depends on how much their victims have to lose. The public have been persuaded, too, that in purchasing stocks they do not gamble, but only invest, or, at the worst, speculate, so they are deceived as well as plundered. A few millions each year satisfied the lottery owners; the votaries of the "System," among whom the "swag" must be divided, demand millions upon millions each. The tickets of the lottery had a definite value at all times until the drawing took place. The stocks and bonds of the "System" have no rigid or unalterable value when issued or at any other time, and do not represent a fixed ownership in all the savings of the people which have been paid for them.

Morally, legally, or ethically, the Louisiana Lottery, with all its attendant curses, was a far better institution for the people to bump up against every month than is the "System" against which the whole people are now directly or indirectly dealing every working day of the year. Startling this statement may be, but not more startling than the facts. The records of the lottery company will show how many dollars it took in from the public; how many were returned in prizes and expenses; and how many went into the pockets of the owners. The records of the banks, corporations, trusts, and stock-exchanges will exhibit how many dollars were paid into the "System" by the people; how much they received back in return therefor; how much the expense of conducting the business was; and how much profit went to the votaries of the "System." Compare the two and it will be found that there is annually taken by the "System" from the people a hundred, yes, a thousand times more than the Louisiana Lottery ever obtained in the same period.

This being the fact, for how long will the people allow such a monstrous wrong to be done? How long will they suffer a few men to siphon automatically the money of the many into their own pockets?

It is only a matter of simple mathematics to ascertain the day, and that only a few years away, when ten men will be as absolutely and completely the legal owners of the entire United States and all there is of value in it, as John D. Rockefeller is the absolute legal owner of the large section of it of which he is to-day possessed.

When that day is here, the people will legally be the slaves of these ten men.

If this is so—and it is as surely so as it is that the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees to every man, woman, and child who is a part of it perpetual freedom—it is so because the legal interest alone to which the ten men will be entitled and which they must receive (or our entire structure will fall) will of itself bring to their coffers all the wealth in existence within a given time. If this is so, then why have the American people allowed themselves to reach this condition? Why are they to-day not only resting peacefully under this worse than death-bringing yoke, but assisting in the further riveting of this badge of dishonor and degradation?

The reason is simple: They have been lulled to sleep by the "System" and its cunning votaries until they have but a dull appreciation not only of existing conditions but of their coming consequences. It is almost incredible that a people as intelligent as the American people, and as alert to that individual and national honor which they have bought with so much of their blood and their peace of body and mind, can be so deceived and juggled with. When one looks about, however, and notes happenings of which one personally knows, and the degradation and dishonor to which public opinion is seemingly indifferent, nothing is incredible.

One sees a certain man openly displaying five hundred millions of dollars, a sum which represents the life earnings of 150,000 of our population, and knows that this man has secured this incredible amount during forty years of his life. One sees the second highest and most honorable office in the nation, a United States Senatorship, openly bought for a few stolen dollars by a man who up to the very day of its purchase was a watch repairer in a small country town, and who had never done a single meritorious deed or been possessed of worldly goods to the extent of $5,000. One sees a wily adventuress secure from the banks, which exist only to safeguard the people's deposited savings, hundreds of thousands of dollars on her bare story that she was the possessor of some mysterious documents. One sees a $6-a-week office-boy of one of the "System's" votaries able to borrow for the "System," on his bare note, four millions of dollars from a New York institution which only exists to safeguard the people's savings—although the law says that such institutions shall not loan to any man on any kind of collateral, even Government bonds, one-tenth that sum. One sees two men, drunk with their success, gouging and tearing at each other's hearts in Wall Street, and sees their gouging and tearing bring about a panic which takes from the people in an hour over a billion dollars and drives scores to suicide, murder, and defalcation—the two men continuing meanwhile as ornamental pillars of society instead of wearing prison stripes. One sees a great railroad corporation, in which are millions of the trust funds of widows, orphans, and charitable institutions, caught "short" (having sold something it did not own) in the stock-gambling game and held up to the tune of ten million dollars by a reckless stock gambler, who says "If you don't settle to-night it will be twenty millions to-morrow"; and the toll is paid, while the great banker who conducts the release of the hold-up charges the further tribute of twelve million dollars for his services. And then one sees this twenty-two millions of "commission" tacked on to the capital stock of the great railroad which is subsequently capitalized into a "bond" and sold to great life-insurance companies as a first-class investment for their trust funds.

When one sees these things and a hundred other as rankly fraudulent, one should not wonder at anything American connected with dollars.

Such things occur because the "System" has so far been able to keep the public in ignorance of its doings. On the surface there is nothing to suggest that a set of vampires have captured the high places of finance and are sucking away the life-blood of the nation. Our banks and trust companies all present a fair exterior and apparently are the same safe and honorable institutions they were before the canker fastened on them. Only its votaries know what the "System" is, and their way is the way of silence and darkness. A tie, stronger and more effective than the oath of the Mafia, binds them to its service, and woe be to him who dares divulge its methods. He who is bold enough to enter upon a recital of these secrets must be strong indeed to withstand the bribes to silence which would be placed in his hands. The "System" can well afford to pay any price rather than be brought face to face with its past, with an enraged people for referee. And even if the being be found who will venture an expose of the conspiracy, he will find it strangely difficult to get his story past the traps and pitfalls which will be placed between it and the people for whose enlightenment it is intended.



CHAPTER III

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCE

Finance is easy enough to comprehend if it be explained, but so long as an explanation is deadly to the interests of the men who control it, one can be sure none will be offered. There is no term more common to-day than "trusts," and we are surrounded by "trusts," institutions whose workings during the past twenty years have awakened intense public curiosity to know what a "trust" is. Yet there is not extant a definition of a "trust" which conveys to the rank and file of the people any real idea of what a "trust" is. So vague is the general understanding of the "trust's" functions and purposes that the most intelligent and honest statesmen struggle and hopelessly flounder when they attempt to define them, and we have at the present time the able chief of our nation talking of regulating them by law, when, as a matter of fact, a "trust" is, top, sides, bottom, outsides, and insides, an absolutely illegal institution, created outside the law, existing outside the law, and having for its purpose the performance of those things and only those things which the law says cannot be performed legally. Imagine our law-makers gravely meeting to make laws for the control and regulation of the pick-pocket or burglar or counterfeiting industry, or endeavoring to prescribe legally the times, places, and amounts of national bank defalcations, or the kind of ink, paper, and pens which must be used by forgers in the pursuit of their profession—imagine it!

In entering upon an explanation of the workings of the "System," it is necessary to set forth plainly the fundamentals of finance, the few rules and inventions by and through which humanity regulates its affairs. In the beginning, of course, might was right and men supplied their wants by force, trickery, or cunning. In time the disadvantages of this became obvious, for while the stronger could overcome the weaker and satisfy desire, a combination of the weaker units acting together could always wrest the prize from the individual. To equalize things, the people got together and made for themselves rules and regulations governing the conduct of their lives and their relations with one another. This was invention No. 1: Law. Presently it developed that the physical barter of the commodities of labor was not a satisfactory basis of exchange; so to the statutes already in existence a new one was added providing an interchangeable token of value. This was invention No. 2: Money. The statute insisted that the money be of a fair and just standard, by which all the people should receive the equivalent of their labor, and no more. As conditions became more settled, there grew up a realization of the value of a man's life to those dependent on him, and of the fact that when he died his wife and his children were deprived of the livelihood his labor won for them. A new regulation was added to the code, providing that men contributing to a fund during their lifetime should be entitled at death to leave to their heirs a sum in proportion to the amount of their contribution to the fund, less the actual expense of caring therefor. This was Life Insurance—invention No. 3. But there were other calamities less distant than death to be guarded against, and a common fund, also based on the contributions of individuals, to aid and relieve in case of fire and kindred calamities, was organized. Hence invention No. 4: Fire Insurance.