And thus the fabric of civilization grew, each addition to the structure being made to cover a want which experience developed. As time went on, some of the people accumulated the fruits of labor, money, in greater quantity than was requisite for their own needs, but which less thrifty or less fortunate brethren could so profitably employ in their own affairs as to be able to pay for its use a fair proportion of what it could be made to earn. Thereupon provision was made for a common place of safety for this surplus money, a place where experts in the handling and putting to use of money could employ their talents, first, safeguarding it and, then, loaning it to others. And the law was made to say that all money put into this common place should be so guarded as to be ready for its owner when he demanded it; that its owner should receive all it earned less the necessary expense of holding it, and that the amount it earned should be only such as those who borrowed it could fairly make it earn. This was invention No. 5: The Bank.

As the years followed one another, "the bank" became one of the most important of the people's institutions and grew in number and variety. There came to be many different forms of banks. For instance, national banks, which, under the control and regulation of the Government, became depositories for the circulation of the Government's money and were privileged to lend money to individuals or corporations with or without collateral. Funds confided by the people to these national banks had always to be ready for their owners. A second form was the savings-bank, which grew out of the requirements of small depositors and was governed by the laws of its community. The savings-bank used and safeguarded money confided to it in small sums, and these amounts could be withdrawn only by their owners in person, after an agreed term of notice. The savings-bank was allowed to lend only on real estate or certain other securities, the character of which was rigidly regulated by the law. In consequence, it could use its funds for long-time loans and mortgages, so it earned larger rates of interest than the national banks. The trust company was a third variation, coming somewhere between the national and the savings-bank, and was regulated, as was the latter, by the laws of the community in which it existed. The trust company, too, received deposits from the people, but was allowed a broader latitude in employing them. It was also authorized to engage in certain other business—for example, to act as manager for a deceased person's estate and even to buy and sell securities. Because of the extra-hazardous business in which it engaged and from which the other two institutions were legally debarred, the trust company earned and paid larger rates of interest to its depositors, and the men who handled its funds were allowed to take for their own remuneration profits in excess of those derived by the custodians of national and savings-banks.

Another deficiency in the business structure growing out of the increasing prosperity of the people was next provided for. When an enterprise became so large as to necessitate several owners for its conduct, the prescribing and defining of the relation of these owners to each other and to the common property became a task of increasing difficulty. So the idea arose of welding the enterprise itself into a separate entity which could do all the things the individual might, and yet exist apart from the individual and independent of his personal dealings and comings and goings. His ownership should be an undivided interest in the whole represented by certificates of stock or bonds, which could pass from him to another without interfering with the enterprise. This was invention No. 6: The Corporation. The law then provided regulations for the creation and conduct of these corporations which compelled them to keep their affairs in such shape that all could ascertain of what each consisted.

When these six organizations had been founded, the machinery for the conduct of the business of a civilized people was almost complete. But still one other want developed: with the multiplication of the corporation tokens of property, it became necessary that there should be some place where the worth of these might be ascertained either by purchase, sale, or loan under the regulation of experts. So there was created a common market-place, to which came all those who had corporation tokens of property to sell and those who desired to purchase them; and the prices these brought were announced to the world and became the measure of the value of the institution they represented. Rules for the regulation of the business of the market-place were gradually formulated, and invention No. 7—the Stock Exchange—came into existence.

With this addition, the people's organism for safeguarding and economically handling the funds of their labor to the best advantage of all concerned and without interfering with the rights and privileges of individuals was fully equipped. Each separate institution had grown out of an actual necessity and had its own legal organic function, fully understood and defined. And there was no branch of human industry which could not be safeguarded, handled, and perpetuated through this organism, nor could evil come from the existence of any one of these seven components. The robber, the thief, and the pirate, as defences against whom they had been erected, could not seize any of them or the people's savings which they were created to safeguard, because the constitution of each provided adequate penalties for such a seizure. As long as the members of the organism performed their ordained functions the fabric of the people's fortunes was safe from plunder.



CHAPTER IV

THE MAGIC "JIMMY"

It was at this stage that the class which is now the "System"—of which the mighty robber of barbaric days was the prototype—began to cast envious eyes at the accumulated earnings of a prosperous people locked up and safeguarded against depredation, while the owners (the public) rested easy in the conviction that they had fully protected themselves against the spoilsman. The "System" reasoned: "If only a way could be devised to win control of the seven institutions so that all the benefits the people intend for themselves may revert to me and yet I be exempt from the punishment provided for those who attempt unfairly and dishonestly to secure such benefits, I can get a much easier and surer possession of the results of the labor of the people than I was wont to when I took them by might."

A need defined is half relieved. Outside the treasure-house was the robber enviously surveying its strong walls and iron doors, its locks and bolts, specially designed to defy the felonious intentions of such as he. How safely to win his way in and possess himself of the piled-up gold was his problem. And as he waited and watched, the lawyer, at his solicitation, invented for him a magic "jimmy"—an instrument with which he could not only break through the outside door, but as easily force his way past the complex locks of the chambers inside. What was still better, this magic "jimmy" was also a license to enter upon and take possession of others' properties and use them for his own benefit. It conferred on its owner a legal privilege to steal. The robber was satisfied. The "jimmy" which the lawyer had brought him was the "trust."

All this sounds very hyperbolical and far-fetched, perhaps, but it is exactly what a "trust" is. The "trust" may also be defined as a master key to the people's financial structure, which enables its owner to enter any or all of the separate institutions I have mentioned, and combine any or all of them, without affecting their respective organisms, into a new organization which possesses the potencies and the privileges of each, but is unhampered by the legal restrictions of any one of them. Like electricity, the exact nature of a "trust" does not admit of rigid definition, but it is a force which can be exerted only in conjunction with financial organisms, which it joins and yet releases, adds power to, and exempts from consequences. Let us suppose that two men are made into a "trust"—this human combine becomes at once free from the bondage of matter and the senses, sees out of the back of its head and passes in and out through solid walls. It has all the combined strength and more that the two men had and all their human privileges and possessions, but it evades nature's laws as to individuals, and the laws of man both as to individuals and other material things.

To put the description in still another way, a "trust" is an institution which endows itself with the right to use any or all of the seven institutions of the people as the people use them, but so made that its user derives from the institutions the benefits the people intended for themselves, and yet is immune from the legal consequences of appropriating such benefits. Two or more men make a "trust" by combining—acquiring the control of—an insurance company, a trust company, and a savings-bank. The new organization is all of these institutions, performs the functions of all of them, yet can legally do with their incomes, capital, and surpluses things which, from the very nature of each, none of the institutions is allowed to do—the new organization is all of these institutions until the law attempts to bring it to book; then it evades being any one of them. The trust company is empowered to lend money on speculative ventures which the insurance company and savings-bank may not do, so the "trust" lends the insurance company's vast accumulations and the savings-bank's hoard through the trust company with great profit or tremendous loss and enjoys immunity from the consequences which should follow such disobedience of the law. Moreover, when the trust company shows a profit the "trust" appropriates it, and when a tremendous loss is sustained the insurance company or the savings-bank must bear it.

An illustration: A, B, and C form a "trust." A and B are president and controller of a savings-bank and an insurance company respectively. They organize a trust company with $1,000,000 capital, of which the insurance company furnishes the majority; they then elect C president and controller of the trust company, and make him their associate or a dummy. The trust company receives $5,000,000 of the people's money on deposit. The insurance company deposits $5,000,000 of its surplus funds, and the savings-bank $5,000,000 more. The trust company now has $15,000,000 of the people's savings in its control with which by law it is allowed to do certain things; but what it does with the $5,000,000 of the savings-bank and the $5,000,000 of the insurance company the law specifically says neither one of the institutions can do itself. The "trust" then purchases for $5,000,000 the stock of an industrial corporation. It borrows the $5,000,000 and an additional $5,000,000, which represents its own first profit, from the trust company through irresponsible dummies, depositing the industrial stock as collateral. The "trust" next causes the trust company to issue bonds for $15,000,000. These bonds are based upon and secured by nothing of worth but the stock. The trust company offers these bonds for sale. The insurance company buys $7,500,000 of the bonds, and the trust company, through dummies, the other $7,500,000. By the operation so far the "trust" shows a profit of $10,000,000. After making this profit and the true worth of the bonds becoming known, these decline back to the original worth of the stock upon which they are based, $5,000,000, and there is the tremendous loss of $10,000,000 made. The trust company "busts," and there is a loss to its depositors of $10,000,000. This loss is divided as follows: $3,333,000 to the savings-bank, $3,333,000 to the insurance company, and $3,333,000 directly to the people, less the small amount which will be recovered from the stockholders. (These losses will be affected in an unimportant way by the $1,000,000 original capital.)

In this case the "trust" has done nothing for which those responsible for it can be held civilly or criminally liable. Neither has the insurance company, the savings-bank, nor the trust company, and yet, if there had been no "Trust" and any one of the three institutions had made the loss directly through its own actions, the officers of that institution would have been civilly and perhaps criminally held responsible.

The utility and convenience of the "trust" having been demonstrated, it became a popular instrument for financiers desiring to accomplish all manner of illegal purposes. Especially was it an apt tool for the "System," which in the meantime was perfecting its control of the people's institutions. The owners of railroads running through the same territory, finding cumbersome and hampering the restrictions with which the community they served had safeguarded its interests, formed "trusts." Straightway there were valuable results—the combination was emancipated from the regulations which had bound its individual members; competition was eliminated and rates were raised.

As time went on new "trust" possibilities were discovered and other institutions linked up—corporations of all kinds, insurance companies and national banks and savings-banks, were brought together for the benefit of the "System" and the detriment of the public. The end of the trustification of the institutions of the nation is not yet, but the people are to be shown a way by which the plundering process can be reversed and through which they can make their freedom complete and absolute by the complete and absolute enslavement of the "System" itself.



CHAPTER V

HOW THE "SYSTEM" DOES BUSINESS

To follow the various steps in the crimes of Amalgamated, my readers should know how the securities of a corporation are manufactured, how "put upon the market," how admitted to the Stock Exchange, how prices are made in the Stock Exchange, how fictitious and fraudulent quotations are created and disseminated, until the very shrewdest members of the Stock Exchange cannot distinguish those which are real from the fictitious in cases outside their own manufacturing. Then there is an elaborate and ingenious procedure by which public opinion is moulded, that is, by which people are made to believe that the prices at which they buy and sell the stocks and securities are bona fide; and this is a procedure as compact and as well understood by the "System's" votaries as are the methods of the bank-breaker or burglar—who sends his "pals" ahead to "pipe" the lay of the land—by felony's votaries. When I have shown these things, about which little is known to-day by the public, my readers will have no difficulty in comprehending what I shall lay before them of the actual robberies in the case of Amalgamated and other notorious enterprises.

The underlying principle of the several organisms through which the commerce of the country is conducted is the protection at once of the interests of the individuals composing them and of the public with which they do business. Provided this principle is adhered to, no harm can be wrought to either. Most of the contemporaneous swindles through which the people have been plundered were perpetrated through the agency of corporations, and this organism has become a sort of synonym for corrupt practice. Yet the original corporation invention as I have described it was devised to meet a real want of the people, and it has merely been diverted from its proper use by the lawless votaries of the "System." Consider the institution as we now understand it. Certain individuals decide to conduct their business in railroads, mines, manufactories, patents, etc., in the form of a corporation and apply to the community—the State Government—asking authorization to do so. They are compelled first to conform to the rules and regulations laid down by the State for the control of corporations, which say in one form or other:

"We create you for the purpose of doing those things that are best for the many, not the few, and if we knew you would use our authority to oppress the many in the interest of the few we would not create you." The fundamental privilege of incorporation is the legal authorization to issue paper titles of ownership to the business just incorporated. These are in the form of stocks and bonds. Whoever owns these paper titles shall possess the property and the business as the individuals did before they incorporated, and the law presumes that they shall manage and control that business, receive the benefits which come from it, and suffer any loss arising from its conduct, and that all these benefits and responsibilities shall be as laid down in the law. It follows that no harm other than that the law expressly prescribes penalties to prevent can come to any one from corporations thus created, always provided the laws are what they appear and what the people intended them to be, and that they are enforced as the people intended they should be.

It is most important to all concerned in a corporation that the paper ownership shall represent the real value of the property on which it is based, and no more. When the people exchange their savings for these authorized paper tokens, they should be able to rest confident in the State's guarantee that they are worth what they purport.

There have probably been jailed in the United States during the past twenty years thousands and thousands of American citizens whose aggregate stealings do not amount to one-tenth the total taken from the people by either the Amalgamated, the United States Steel, the American Tobacco Company, or a score of other fraudulently organized or fraudulently conducted corporations.

There are various ways of organizing corporations and issuing their stocks and bonds. Sometimes a company is organized to acquire a property; individuals and institutions set down their names to take and pay for the shares or bonds. With the money thus obtained the property is purchased. Or the individuals who own the property which is to be the basis of the corporation exchange it for all or part of the stocks and bonds. In the latter event those original owners usually sell to the public the tokens thus acquired.

Honest men in forming a corporation make publicly known the character and worth of the properties or enterprises they are organizing, what they have cost, what their profits are, and what may reasonably be expected by investors. The tricksters and the "System," with whom incorporation is generally but the first step in a conspiracy for plunder, surround the proceeding with an air of mystery and refuse information usually with: "We do our business quietly and in silence, and those who do not like our ways may keep out of this scheme." Their whole procedure is of that high and mighty order which impresses the ordinary mortal with a sense of confidence in the independence of its users and a conviction that their scheme must be so good that they do not care whether they sell or not. This is just the effect it is intended to produce.

The next step is to lead the people toward the shambles. This is done by "moulding public opinion," and for this interesting function the "System" and Wall Street have an equipment of magical potency. Public opinion is made through the daily press, through financial publications of various kinds, and through "news bureaus." Every great daily has a financial editor and a corps of experts in finance who spend their days on "the Street" cultivating the friendship of the financiers. At night they are round the clubs and hotels where the brokers and promoters congregate, debating the events of the day and organizing those of the morrow. There are also the strictly financial papers—daily, weekly, and monthly—whose corps of editors and news gatherers live on "the Street," and know and care for nothing but finance. And lastly, there are the news bureaus, with runners out everywhere to gather in items of news affecting stocks, Wall Street or finance. These are printed on small square sheets of paper, and delivered by an army of boys at brief intervals while the Stock Exchange is open at the offices of the bankers, brokers, insurance companies, and hotels; or the same matter is disseminated by means of an automatic printing machine called a news-ticker. For this service the offices pay the bureaus from $1 to $2 a day. News bureaus form an important cog in the machinery for making stock-markets, as it is through the news they furnish to the Stock Exchange and to the offices where investors and speculators gather together that the big operators affect the market. A decision to buy, sell, or "stand pat" is often based on the on dits of these printed slips.

The first step toward "moulding public opinion" is taken when the "System's" votaries send for the dishonest chief of a news bureau, a man usually up in every trick of the trade. I will later describe one of them, a scoundrel so able and experienced that, to use the vernacular of the gutter of "the Street," he can give cards and spades to the frenziedest of frenzied financiers. To this man the "System's" votary will say something like this: "We are going to work off blank millions of blank stock; it costs us thus and so, and we want to sell for so and so many millions." Nothing is kept back from this head panderer and procurer, for it would be useless to attempt to deceive him, and, to quote his always picturesque language: "Never send a sucker to fish for suckers or he'll lose your bait, so spread out your bricks and I'll get the 'gang' to polish up their gildings." After the quality and amount the "System" intends to work off in exchange for the people's savings are explained, that part of the plunder which is to come to the head news-bureau man is settled upon. The amount varies with the size and quality of the robbery to be perpetrated. In some cases as high as a million dollars in cash or stock or their equivalent has been paid to a "moulder of opinion" for simply so shaping up a game that the people might be deceived into thinking one dollar of worth was four, six, or eight dollars.

The head of the news bureau, having taken the contract to lay out and carry through the deceptive part of the scheme by which the people are to be buncoed, now begins operations. First, bargains are made with conscienceless financial editors of the daily and weekly newspapers, whereby for so much stock or for "puts" or "calls" or both,[17] they agree to insert in their paper's financial column whatever yarns are fed them by the bureau man, regardless of their truth or falsehood. To justify the attention paid the subject by each editor, a certain amount of money is spent in advertising, in the newspaper that employs him, the merits of the enterprise. The financial journals are dealt with about on the same basis. In return for straight advertising or for "puts" or "calls" they agree to insert the manufactured news. The news-bureau man then puts his entire staff to work inventing fairy tales of one kind or another to excite the interest and attention of the people, and these tales must be so concocted that the public is drawn into believing that the statements disseminated represent actual conditions. I shall, later, give real instances of the working of this nefarious game of "moulding public opinion," and present it in the lime-light necessary for its appreciation. To show the extent to which this "moulding" process is carried, I know in one instance of a high-priced financial scribe being sent to live in St. Petersburg for no other purpose than to send certain "news items" to a confederate located in Germany, who would get these items to a reputable English banking-house through whom they were given out in London as news: the whole object of this complicated system being that the news items might be sent back to New York without Wall Street suspecting they were bogus.

I must not be understood as meaning to say that all financial editors, news gatherers, or news bureaus are engaged in this, one of the lowest forms of swindling, for such is not the case. On the contrary, there are many of them whom no amount of money or influence could make waver in their allegiance to the truth and to honest dealings. With some of the others I hope to deal specifically later, and I shall not hesitate to set forth in detail certain transactions in which they have been engaged.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] A "put" is the right to sell to a certain firm or individual shares of stock at a stated price for a stated period, and a "call" the right to buy under the same conditions. The holder of the "put" or "call" is under no liability, as he can use the "put" as margin to buy stocks, or the "call" as margin to sell stocks, or he can hold them for the profit there may be in selling or buying the stock after it has declined or risen below or above the price named in the "puts" or "calls" he holds.



CHAPTER VI

HOW WALL STREET'S MANIPULATIONS AFFECT THE COUNTRY

What is the connection between the "System" and the minor financial institutions throughout the country which are owned and controlled by groups of sturdy men who know not Wall Street and its frenzied votaries, and who are ignorant of "made dollars"? Let us see. We will take five national banks in different parts of the country, each having a capital of $200,000 and deposits of $2,000,000. One is in the farming district of Kansas; another is in Louisiana in a cotton district; a third is in the orange groves of California; in the mining district of Montana is a fourth; the fifth in the logging and lumber country of Maine. These $10,000,000 of deposits represent savings earned by the type of men who have made America what it is, and who laugh when they read in their local papers: "Panic in Wall Street; stocks shrink a billion dollars in a day." "Fools and their money are easily parted," they say, "but Wall Street gets none of our honestly earned money." Now the officers of these five banks are honest men and they know nothing of the "System," yet the day of the panic they each telegraph to their Illinois correspondent, the big Chicago bank, "Loan our balance, $200,000, at best rate." That day the Chicago bank with similar telegrams from forty-five other correspondents in various parts of the country, wires its New York correspondent, the big Wall Street bank, "Loan our balance, $2,000,000, at best rates."

Thereupon the great New York bank sends its brokers out upon "the Street" to loan on inflated securities of one kind or another which its officers, the votaries of the "System," have purchased in immense quantities at slaughter prices the millions belonging to the Chicago bank and to other correspondents of its own in Cincinnati and Omaha and St. Louis and other big cities. The decline is stayed, and then the world learns that the panic is over and that the stocks, of which the people have been "shaken out" to the extent of a billion dollars, have recovered in a day $500,000,000 of it, and that probably in a few days more will recover the other $500,000,000. Who has recovered this vast sum? The people who had been "shaken out"? No, indeed! The votaries of the "System" have made it—they and the frenzied financiers whose haunt is Wall Street, and whose harvest is in such wreckage.

The part that the five little banks innocently played in this terrific robbery was unimportant. What is important is that it was the funds of their depositors and others like them which the "System" used to turn the Stock Market and make an immense profit out of the recovery of values. It is true the banks received but two and one-half or three per cent. for the use of their balances, and their officers would scorn the suggestion that they had put any of their money in jeopardy in a Wall Street gamble. But what I have outlined happened, and has happened many a time before and since, and goes to prove my assertion that every financial institution which is taking the money of the people for the ostensible purpose of safeguarding it or putting it to use for them, is a part of the machinery for the plundering of the people.

Sooner or later, every dollar taken by the "System" through Wall Street's manipulation of stocks directly affects every man, woman, and child in the United States. Let us, for example, see how a stock slump in New York affects the owner of a small life-insurance policy in Wyoming. The shares of the American and English ocean steamship companies were bought up by the "System" at double their worth and converted into a "trust." New stocks and bonds to a number of times their value were issued and sold to the public. The great insurance companies bought many millions worth of these securities, using for the purpose the money they had collected from the policy-holders, a dollar at a time. This "investment," at the moment it was made, actually represented a loss to the purchasing insurance companies of millions of money, for millions more than the property was worth or could possibly be made worth had gone to the people who formerly owned the steamship properties, and many millions more to the "System" as its share of the swag. And it should be remembered that the men who organized the steamship trust were the men who invested the insurance company's money in its securities.

The policy-holder in Wyoming knows about the steamship trust and about the terrible loss sustained by those who invested in its securities. He does not realize, however, that his insurance company has been buying such poor stuff, for he is persuaded it is a great and noble institution, and far above Wall Street and its rash gamblers. Even when he and his kind find their yearly dividends on their policies growing less and less and their premiums rising "because of the tremendous increase in the expense of doing business," they do not dream of connecting these misfortunes with the "System's" trustifications of inflated securities; nor do they associate them with the glowing accounts of the half-million-dollar seaside palace built by the insurance company's officer who entered the employ of the institution a few years before, with his salary for his fortune, and who is now pointed to as an example of thrift, being worth from ten to fifteen millions.



CHAPTER VII

ECONOMICS OF COPPER

A thorough familiarity with the facts and conditions set forth in the preceding chapters will help my readers to an understanding of the series of complicated transactions through which the snaky course of Amalgamated must be pursued. Its flotation was the most tremendous and public ever even attempted, much less successfully carried out, and in its market career the full resources of stock jugglery were exercised on its behalf. The crimes of Amalgamated are to the delinquencies of Bay State Gas as the screaming of eagles to the chirping of crickets. From its birth this great enterprise went hand-in-hand with fraud and financial dishonor, and the facts I shall proceed to reveal are so formidable in their indictment as to startle even those calloused to the trickery of modern stock deals.

An armistice followed that last desperate battle of the gas fight in the Delaware court-house, and gave me time to turn my whole attention to the plans I had long been maturing in my mind in connection with quite another project—"Coppers."

For sixty years past Boston had been the home of the copper industry. From it great fortunes had been derived, and there was in course of development a copper aristocracy which threatened the supremacy of the East India aristocracy that had so long lorded it in Boston society. Indeed, so far had the rival contingents progressed that there was a serious searching of the pretensions of any new-comer whose origin had to do with other enterprises. "Coppers" were respectable, were genteel, and, above all, were not "trade," for the average old-time Bostonian affects the Anglo-Saxon contempt for the traffickings of retail commerce.

For the benefit of those in the outer darkness, to whom the ways of Boston are strange, it may be explained that the East India trade goes elsewhere under other less euphonious names, and consisted in the swapping of New England rum, made from molasses, water, and other things, for human cotton-pickers. It was a most profitable industry, with a spice of adventure to it, and in which at the time it flourished a gentleman might honorably engage. It may be said that with the paradoxical conscientiousness characteristic of the Puritan mind, the first outcry against the personal ownership of human chattels was voiced by New England, and her leading citizens generously devoted the incomes of the fortunes their forefathers had amassed in the slave traffic to releasing their colored fellow-creatures from bondage. That, however, is still another story.

To return to "Coppers." In my young days in "the Street" in the early '70s, the first task I remember performing was making deliveries of copper stocks traded in by "the house" which was entitled to my twelve-year-old services in return for the three large dollars which I received each Saturday with far more honest pride than any three millions I have since handled. As I grew up I watched Calumet and Hecla advance from a dollar to 450 (it afterward sold at 900) because of its real worth, and imbibed the conviction, which all true Bostonians entertain, that money acquired through copper is at least 33 per cent. better than money from any other source. I sympathized with the State Street code which declares, or should: "Gold can be found in a day by any one with eyes, silver in a week by any one with hands, and money in a year by any one with sense enough to save it, but no man gets into copper without capital, fortitude, patience, and brains." As a matter of fact, it requires, even to-day, with all of to-day's facilities and rush, $5,000,000 in money and five years of spending it after a copper deposit has been found before it can be made to yield returns. Is it surprising that a project requiring so much money for so long a time should appeal to Boston's regard for endurance, expensiveness, and exclusiveness? Could there be found an enterprise better calculated to discourage the upstart?

My daily round of errands led me from broker to broker and from bank to bank, and always I heard talk of copper. It is not remarkable that my youthful mind became impressed with the profound importance of the metal and all pertaining to it. I picked up a great deal of information on the subject, which I fortified later with a careful study of copper the metal, copper the mine, and copper the investment. As I mulled over the immense returns obtained from their ventures by the men I knew had their money in copper, it struck me as extraordinary that this industry should be so much more profitable than others. Here was a great staple, a necessity of the people, which had been in use since men began to sit up, and would be needed until Father Time smashed his glass, that returned 100 per cent. gross profit on the business done in it, while the business done in any other staple did not return, gross, over ten to eighteen per cent.; which gross profit gave to the capital invested in copper a net profit of sixteen to twenty-five per cent., while that invested in the other staples returned a net profit of only three and three-fourths to four and one-fourth per cent.[18] The value of money had decreased with the world's development; the cost of the great commodities of life had all come down with the decline in interest—all but copper, which kept its old places throughout all the changes that had occurred in the relations of capital to labor and business. I realized that copper, in that year, would afford a gross profit of 100 cents on each $2 worth produced; that this great gross profit was legitimate, was not brought about through unfair restrictions or forced combination, or evasion of the country's laws, but was wholly natural, being founded on the fact that the supply was so limited that the demand prevented the price dropping below a certain figure, and that this under ordinary circumstances represented at least 100 per cent. of gross profit to the producer after he had paid for labor and material the highest ruling prices.

No better illustration of the main facts about copper can be found than the condition of the industry to-day, in 1905. The metal is now fifteen and a half cents per pound, and the consumption so great that the price still advances, yet if through an agreement among the producing mines this sales-rate should be dropped twenty-five per cent., it would so increase consumption as to force back the price to a point that would again discourage consumption; and yet in the old mines the cost of producing the metal sold at fifteen and a half is but six to seven and a half cents, in some even lower.

Compare these conditions with those existing in the steel industry. Therein unlawful combinations and unnatural restrictions are essential if those engaged would show a gross profit of even fifteen per cent. on their gross output. If more than fair or going returns are earned, then new capital flows into competition and the surplus again shrinks to an uninviting point. The same is true in wheat, corn, and cotton—big prices invite fresh investments and the planting of broader acreage. Hence the sorry spectacle of the cotton planter who, in 1905, will receive no more for his twenty per cent. increased crop, coming from over two millions increased acreage planted last year, than for his smaller one of the year before.

That my readers may quickly, and once for all, grasp the point I wish to make, I will illustrate:

The Steel trust in 1904 did a gross business of $432,000,000, upon which they made a profit of $71,400,000, and yet this vast amount was only five per cent. upon the trust's inflated capital of $1,400,000,000 odd; and as the "System," in regulating the capitalization, arranged that the preferred stock (and bonds), which represented the "System's" profit, should receive seven per cent., there was not a dollar in dividends for the $520,000,000 of common stock which had been sold to the people for, in round figures, $300,000,000.

At the same time the Calumet & Hecla Copper Company produced and sold over $10,000,000 worth of copper, upon which it earned, net, over $5,000,000, which enabled it to pay to the people who had invested in its 100,000 shares of stock (par value, $25), 160 per cent., or a total of $4,000,000, and, at the same time, carry an enormous amount to its surplus.

In the commercial world copper occupies an impregnable position. To compete, it is first necessary to find a copper deposit; then to lock up a vast sum of money for a long term of years before returns begin to accrue. And new copper deposits are as rare and few and far between as Lincolns and Roosevelts in politics or Grants and Lees in war. In the last eight years, or since the metal has been prominently before the world of capital, but two great producers of copper have been created—the Copper Range at Lake Superior, Michigan, and the Greene Consolidated in Mexico—and these two mines have only, at the end of six years, after an immense expenditure of millions (Copper Range, with a capital of $38,500,000, 385,000 shares, par $100, which sold in the open market a few years ago at $6, now selling at $75, and Greene Consolidated, with a capital of $8,650,000, 865,000 shares, par $10, now selling in the open market at $25), reached the point of profitable production. Their combined output, while reaching the (for young mines) unprecedented amount of one hundred and odd million pounds of metal per annum, constitutes but a fraction of that which Mother Earth has given up during the period of their development, namely, 2,500,000,000 pounds, all of which has been disposed of and cannot again be used to satisfy a ravenous consumption.

It seemed to me, then, a curious anomaly that, while capital was chasing investments which promised but four per cent., it eschewed copper which yielded from sixteen to twenty-five per cent., and my investigations told me that a producing copper-mine is the surest business venture a man engages in, for, by the time it begins to produce profitably, it must be so far developed that its owners are certain of ore to work on for decades ahead. A good copper-mine is really a safe-deposit vault of stored-up dividends, which cannot be stolen nor destroyed by fire, flood, or famine. Calumet & Hecla, for instance, though it cost its first owners but a dollar a share, has paid out $87,000,000, or $870 per share, or 3,480 per cent. on its par value of $25, and while it has been paying dividends over thirty-five years, it paid last year $40 per share, and has more in sight than it has yet paid. And Copper Range, though but six years old, will be producing soon as much as Calumet & Hecla, and has now in sight ore to keep it going fifty or sixty years.

Having pieced together all the facts and circumstances in this connection, I was sure that I had grasped a principle of great commercial value, and I set about finding a cause why the world of capital should for so long have overlooked the tremendous potentialities of this industry. I found the cause in Boston herself, in the characteristics of the city, which was head-quarters for copper, and which had grown in financial power with the revenues her mines earned for her investors. Boston controlled and managed the copper industry, and had since the days when copper-mining was a hazardous pursuit, in which only bold and speculative souls dared engage. In the early days the canny Bostonian demanded for the honorable dollar his parent had earned—exchanging five-cent rum for human beings worth $1,000 apiece—at least twenty per cent. interest, and having acquired this habit, it became a principle, and such principles as these are clung to in Boston with the zeal of a miser for his hoard or of a martyr to his faith. Looking back over the years, I still recall with chagrin the quiescent hilarity of the scion of a Back Bay family whose good father had been one of the most successful and most brutal of all the "East India traders," when I suggested to him that he was fortunate in obtaining twenty per cent. on some copper ventures about which he was grumbling. (My readers must not confuse a Boston grumble with the ordinary ejaculations of discontent indulged in by the inhabitants of other portions of the world remote from the Hub of the Universe. A Boston grumble consists of an upward movement of the eyebrow, a slight twitch of the mustache and a murmur cross-bred from "Deuce take it!" and "Scoundrelly!") "Young man," he said, "my father said that such a hazardous venture as copper should return at least thirty per cent. to be safe, and I feel if I receive but twenty per cent. that something is radically and unpardonably wrong with the management of the mine." I did not pursue the argument, for I knew he inherited with his fortune a line of Boston reasoning, and I remembered once having watched a country boy put his tongue on a frosty iron door-knob. I knew better than to invoke again that wintry Boston smile, which in a Western or Southern community would be used to frappe mint-juleps or cold-storage hogs with.

No better illustration of the attitude of the shrewd New York investor to "Copper" can possibly be given than to detail my first interview with H. H. Rogers and William Rockefeller on the subject. To-day Mr. Rogers is known throughout the world as the leading figure of the copper world—the copper Czar, so to speak; yet it was only nine years ago when I said to him at the end of a gas-talk:

"Mr. Rogers, would Mr. Rockefeller and yourself look into Copper?"

"Copper?" said he in an amused way, "copper? What kind of copper?"

"Why, copper such as we know in Boston—copper the metal, copper the industry, copper stocks."

He burst into one of his jolly laughs. "Look into it? Why, I don't know a thing about copper other than that we had old copper kettles when I was a boy which were used to fry doughnuts in, but I suppose my plumbers would look at anything you wanted, for I remember I get big bills for copper tanks at the house."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] For those unacquainted with such business terms as "gross" or "net" profit: Gross profit on business done is that first profit which remains after deducting the first cost of producing the goods—in this case copper, the metal; and from this gross profit must be deducted other expenses, such as unusual development expenses, the expense of running the executive departments, interest, etc. This leaves the net profit which is available for dividends.



CHAPTER VIII

MY PLAN FOR "COPPERS"

The plan I had so carefully formulated in connection with "Coppers" was simple in application yet vast in scope. It was to buy up all the good producing mines at their market price, or double if necessary, to organize them into a new corporation and offer its stock to the public at a capitalization of double the original cost. By advertising the exceptional merits of the copper industry and the financial power of the men who were backing it, the public would become educated to a knowledge of the values of "Coppers." Under this education the world of capital would invest in copper shares until the price had advanced, because of so much capital seeking this form of investment, to a point where the net return was brought down to the going rate of, say, four per cent. This would mean that the old going prices of good producing Boston copper-mines would advance 100 to 200 per cent., which in turn meant that those who risked their money in the first venture (which I figured would require $100,000,000) would make $100,000,000 to $200,000,000, while at the same time the public would make $200,000,000 to $400,000,000. This seems like an "Aladdin-lamp" story when it is told, but, as a matter of fact, prices afterward did advance in this ratio, and 100 and 200 per cent. beyond, and many of them, notwithstanding the tremendous drops that have taken place since, still show from 200 to 300 per cent. advance over the prices then in vogue. Never in all the history of business was there afforded capitalists so fair an opportunity to make honestly and legitimately so vast a sum of money and at the same time to do so much for the people. Nor was there a more honorable undertaking nor one which a man could be more justly proud of carrying to success.

As time went on, this big enterprise was more and more in my thoughts, and I tested it in every way I knew, going over in my mind and trying out each successive step and link until I was certain the whole structure was unassailable. Then it became my purpose in life to launch the venture. The difficulties of the task were never for a moment overlooked, for I well knew that much money would be required, but with strong backing success was sure, and such a success was tremendously worth attaining. Next to putting in force my financial invention which would remedy the evils of the "System," this great copper project seemed the thing—the dollar thing—best worth doing in all the world. It was to execute this project that I allied myself with the "Standard Oil" party, for with their money and backing I knew I could carry through my plans on the lines I had so carefully mapped out.

The chief indictment my critics brought against me when my series of articles appeared in Everybody's Magazine was that I had turned "State's evidence." Having been "in with" "Standard Oil" in their robberies of the public, it was not until we disagreed and "split" that I thought of taking the public into my confidence. The truth is, my relation with "Standard Oil" was different from that any other man ever had with that mysterious and reticent institution, and throughout the copper crusade I insistently blurted out our plans and purposes through every channel of publicity I could command. At no time was there the slightest secrecy. From the very first day of the campaign I told the story as I tell it here, and I told it from the housetops by newspaper interviews and advertisements, market letters and circulars frankly and freely explaining what I was about. The absolute truth of the foregoing is easily proved through existing records, for the press of the country contains an almost continuous story, beginning in 1896 and running up to date, wherein I have openly and fairly told what I knew about "Coppers" and detailed the progress of our plans. Time and again, during this period, financial writers commented on my frankness, quoting brokers and bankers to the effect that "Lawson will surely have his head dropped into the 'Standard Oil' basket if he keeps telling people all he knows in this fashion." For the complete realization of my project the public's interest was essential. The creation of the vast business structure that I had designed required the participation of the great mass of the people, and I was determined that no subservience to the selfish ends of my associates should swerve me from my plan. I saw the enterprise whole; saw that there was great profit for all concerned, for "Standard Oil," for myself, and for the public; but if the public were not taken care of or were discouraged from participation, then my institution would surely be only another combination of capitalists and I should fail in my ambition.

This is why I so persistently kept in the open throughout my "Copper" campaign. I fully realized how anomalous my position was and how far I had departed from "Standard Oil" precedents; but my thought was to protect the integrity of my enterprise, and the best way to do this was to have the people partners in its conception and development. To be perfectly frank, the prospect of millions of profit counted for less in my calculations than the honor and prestige I foresaw in the success of my copper structure. As proof of this, witness how I voluntarily gave back the millions I had secured, to make good. To create a great institution, to erect a new and absolutely staple investment, and in doing so to make millions for one's partners, one's self, and the public, would be to live not in vain. The knowledge of my attitude will perhaps help my readers to comprehend the enthusiasm with which I entered into my "Copper" crusade; help them to understand how strongly I resisted, and how deeply resented, the perversion of my fair structure into a pitfall for those I had expected to benefit. My indignation against the "System" is that which any honest man would feel against ruffians who had used his best ideas and his most generous feelings to lure innocent and unoffending people into some den of vice and infamy. If I have not troubled to correct the misstatements of detractors who, in an attempt to discredit my facts, have tried to pillory me as a traitor, it is because I knew that when my complete story reached the public it would make plain how and what I had been doing. The succeeding chapters of this narrative will yield unimpeachable evidence that all my dealing in "Coppers" as an associate of "Standard Oil" were open and as much in the interests of the people as it was possible to have them.



CHAPTER IX

BIRTH OF "COPPERS"

Active upon the Boston market during my Bay State Gas operations were two copper-mining companies—the Butte & Boston and the Boston & Montana. Their properties were in Montana and both were large producers of the metal, that is, they were old and equipped mines. These two organizations form to-day the most valuable part of the Amalgamated Copper Company—in fact, more than three-quarters of all the real worth owned by that corporation.

Butte & Boston and Boston & Montana were essentially Boston institutions, and were both officered and directed by the same set of men. It had come to my knowledge, in the course of my stock business, that there had been bought for the Butte & Boston, with its money, some very valuable mines; instead of transferring these to that corporation, however, its directors at the last minute had turned the titles over to the Boston & Montana. It is only fair to these men to say that up to the present this alleged fact has not been proven, although set forth in cases still pending in the courts. This curious proceeding was part of a plot the subsequent steps in which would be to run Butte & Boston through the bankruptcy mill, and, by placing it in the hands of a receiver, to drop the stock to a nominal figure, at which it might all be gathered in from the public. I verified my information sufficiently to decide to act, and swung the red danger-signal in a public statement telling the stockholders and people in general of the coming move. At once there arose a chorus of denials and recriminations from the management, and the cry, "He's short of the stock and is working a fake to scare us into throwing over our holdings that he may buy them," from the Stock Exchange, stockholders, and the hireling moulders of opinions, the "News Bureaus."

The role of Cassandra is not more popular to-day than it was in ancient Troy. The swinger of the red danger-signal is seldom heeded, and is invariably suspected of interested motives by the human moths circling round the flickering flames of frenzied finance. When I gave my warning, Butte & Boston was selling between 25 and 30. In accordance with their plan the insiders began to sell, and soon the price began to slide downward, for the great majority of the stock was held by the people. There was a halt when the denials of the management were heard, but only for a moment. The decline continued, growing swifter as it got lower until the stock struck $2 per share. At this stage, while the stock was on the way to $2, just as I had predicted, the property was cleverly slid into a receiver's hands by the very men who had so indignantly denied my statement that such would be their action. An assessment of $10 per share was next levied, and those who held on, hoping against hope, began to throw over their holdings for what they would bring—which was around a dollar.

So far the scheme had slipped smoothly along the single-rail track constructed for it by those in the deal, and just as my information had led me to expect. At this juncture, however, the train struck an open switch, and with a painful jolt for the conductor and the engineers it slid out on a siding—it was my siding. From the time the stock struck $2 a mysterious purchaser took in all that was offered, and when it struck bottom he was still buying. Suddenly the schemers "tumbled" that the plums they were shaking off the tree were dropping into some other bag than their own, and they started into competition for the coveted fruit.

Next day, and for several days afterward, there were strenuous doings in Butte & Boston on the Boston Stock Exchange. The trading was heavy and the price pushed up from the bottom to 6-1/2. Soon, however, it was slammed to 2-3/4, then back to 6 again, down to 3-1/4, back to 5-3/4, and so on, until the middle of the fourth day, when the rival News Bureau to the "System's" favorite opinion-moulder sprang the following notice set forth on a double-leaded sheet:

"We have just solved the Butte & Boston conundrum. The enormous blocks of stock purchased during the past few days have come in for transfer, and the management now know who owns the bag into which all the stock they have for months been planning to acquire dropped. We have unmistakable evidence that the bag belonged to Lawson, and that he now is in control of the Butte & Boston Company. A hasty investigation amongst the leading floor brokers which we have just made brings out a consensus of opinion that there will now be music in Coppers."

The announcement was calculated to interest a good many persons, and I was the target of a thousand inquiries. In answer to the innumerable calls for a denial or confirmation of the statement, I issued the following:

'Tis true. 'Tis my bag, and there are 46,000 shares in it.

It was not until the following morning that I realized what a rarely presumptuous thing I had done. I had invaded a valuable preserve. I had coarsely "butted into" a private copper domain without a by-your-leave to the natives who thought it belonged to them. I was an interloper, an intruder, an upstart. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that it now devolved on me to present what I had purchased to those who had been a bit late in getting to the bargain-counter, or that I should, at least, turn it over to the conscience fund of the Stock Exchange. The copper market reflected the indignation of the baffled schemers. It entered for once into an open competition with Donnybrook Fair, and to judge by the action and feeling developed in both individual and corporation classes, the Hub had Donnybrook jigged to a wind-up. In my various contests with the "System" I had accumulated a certain hardihood which now stood me in good stead. I had learned before this that breaking into a secluded treasure-trove is about as pleasant as taking the lining out of a steel furnace with the metal sizzling and the blower on.

I stood to my guns for the time being and then charged into the ranks of the enemy. I issued the following statement:

TO MY FELLOW-BROKERS AND THE PUBLIC

I have stumbled on the fact that the stock—capital 200,000 shares—of the Butte & Boston Copper Mining Company is a nugget. I bought about 46,000 shares of it at an average of something over 2-1/4, or, with the assessment paid, 12-1/4 per share. I am going to hold it until I get over 50 for it. Barring accidents, I shall get it.

I advise—strongly and unqualifiedly advise—all my friends and the public to load up with it at anything under that price. My friends and the public know whether or not I mean a thing when I say it. I pledge them that I not only mean this but that I shall fight it out, and shall not sell until there is an active and legitimate market for not only my stock, but for what they buy, at over $50 per share. All intending purchasers must bear in mind this is not a sure thing, for the men who are opposing, and will oppose me, are not conducting their operations from a graveyard, but are as lively and aggressive as Bengal tigers at raw-meat time; but they may rest easy in the knowledge that barring tripping over stumps or into bogs, I'll give whoever buy a run for their investments.

Buy and watch Butte all the time, and, above all, pay no attention to what the fake "News Bureau" says.

This was the formal declaration of war. State and Wall streets, familiar with my style of fighting, at once lined up and took sides. The papers entered the controversy. According to what one read, Butte & Boston was either the greatest mine in the world or a hole in the ground. Feeling intensified; Geneva and Queensberry conventions were forgotten; it became a go-as-you-please scramble; mud batteries filled the air with liquid dirt, and both sides used Gatling guns to fire off their libels. It was altogether a lusty and vociferous contest, which meant destruction and death for the lame, the halt, and the slow-footed who got between the fighting lines. I was naturally the chief mark for the enemy, and was deluged with vilification. In the Bay State campaign I had learned the personal cost of antagonizing the "System"; the copper magnates showed me that they had terrors at command which might make even "Standard Oil" jealous. In those days I don't believe my bank account varied thirty-five cents without the news being passed around before the ink on the bank-book was dry, and my family, down to my ten-year-old, received daily or weekly through the mails pictorial representations of their parent being hustled along to the realms where sulphur is the standard of all values. Here is a sample of my usual breakfast-table reading:

C. W. Barron, the proprietor of the "Boston News Bureau," feels it his duty to inform his readers, the banks and bankers and brokers and representative investors of New England, that that faking ass of State Street, that knave of knaves, Tom Lawson, is braying again, and such braying!—"Butte is to sell at 50, and going to be worth 50." It would be such a joke that this conservative paper would be only too happy to circulate this scoundrel's vaporings, if it were not for the sad part of such schemer's work—if it were not that the poor and ignorant unfortunates who are unacquainted with this knave, may buy Butte because of his advertised lies at $14 or $15 a share and thereby be robbed of what they can ill afford to lose. There is no more chance of Butte & Boston stock selling at $50, or even $25, than there is of Tom Lawson telling the truth; and this paper does not hesitate to say that if Butte stock ever does sell at 50, we will upon that day close up our office and forever leave Boston and our lucrative business of guarding investors against such knaves as this lying thief; for any man who would do what he is doing to fleece investors is a thief and should wear stripes, and it is surprising to us he has so long escaped.

It was not so long after the above appeared that Butte & Boston stock was selling at $130 per share, and that the same Mr. Barron was using his own and his "News Bureau's" best efforts to induce the people whose Butte showed them over $115 a share profit to exchange it for Amalgamated. At this latter time he was acting for "Standard Oil."

It may be added that this same Butte & Boston stock, which I was such a knave to advise the people to buy at twelve and fifteen, sells to-day in the form of a share of Amalgamated, for which it was exchanged at seventy-five to eighty-dollars, not cents.

My chief weapon in this Butte & Boston fight was publicity. Every morning while the battle waxed hottest I had huge, striking advertisements in the papers urging the public to buy and to hold on to what they had bought. My opponents responded in kind, and being intrenched in the management, told such alarming stories of the mine that it was often as much as I could do to prevent my followers from being scared into throwing over their holdings. The tremendous expense of this mode of warfare, together with the immense sums my market operations required, kept me hustling, and there were times when things looked distinctly blue. However, the value of victory is measured by the fierceness of the tussle, and far be it from me to complain of my opponents' energy. There was good fighting over Butte & Boston.

The more deeply I became interested in this struggle and the more familiar I grew with "Coppers," the more advantageous and profitable seemed the prospects of such a consolidation of copper properties as I had in mind. The large holdings of Butte & Boston I had accumulated in the battle gave me a practical basis for my structure, for I could now afford to do all my own part of the work of organization for what I would eventually make when the consolidation was brought about, and I could get for my shares what I knew they were worth. It was at this stage I broached the subject of "Coppers" to Mr. Rogers, and discovered to my surprise that he knew nothing about it or its possibilities, notwithstanding that "Standard Oil" has a department for the sole purpose of keeping the "System" posted about what the world is doing in various directions. Indeed, both he and Mr. Rockefeller laughed when I informed them that we had been trading in copper stocks in Boston long before the Standard Oil Company received its birth certificate.

Before I could get down to business on the subject I had to take advantage of five gas-talks, offering at each a few interesting and striking facts about the metal. One day Mr. Rogers said to me, laughing pleasantly: "Lawson, we're beginning to look for all your talks to taper off with, 'I wish I could get you to listen to Coppers!'"

"Why don't you then?" I said. "It's the biggest opportunity in the world to-day."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," replied Mr. Rogers. "If you will put through for us right away thus and so" (naming quite a difficult little bit of work in connection with the Brooklyn Gas Company), "and do it in good shape, I'll ask John Moore to run up to Boston next week and listen to your story. If he says it looks anything like good, I'll go over it with you to a finish."

The Brooklyn job was done on time, and I began on John Moore in my office at my hotel in Boston just after breakfast one bleak, rainy morning the week following. I talked for five straight-away hours, and he listened. He was a good listener. On all stock things he was admirably posted, and it was not necessary to waste words. I wasted none. I knew my subject from the letter-head to "Yours truly," and I was playing for a stake that looked as big to me as the sun does to a solitary-confinement life prisoner. At the end of the five uninterrupted hours I agreed with Moore that I had nothing more to produce, and I looked for my verdict. Before starting I had felt sure of winning him; when I was half through I knew nothing could stand against my arguments, and when I had said the last word I felt satisfied that, being human and intelligent, he must be convinced. It took him only ten minutes to show me that I had been talking against ten-inch armor-plate, and that he meant it absolutely when he said, "Lawson, I want to see it your way, but I can't."

It was John Moore's turn then, and he showed me the good thing in an industrial scheme he was floating at that time, and as he wound up he said pleasantly:

"Lawson, we must do something to show for our long talk, so I'll put you down for $50,000 underwriting." And he did.

If John Moore had seen "Coppers" as I tried to show them to him that wet morning he could not have made for himself less than three to five millions, for in the operation which hung on his decision I had expected to buy stocks that soon after doubled and trebled in value. Calumet & Hecla then sold at 256, and later as high as 900, while Boston & Montana, then 50, mounted to 520. On the other hand, the stock of which he had sold me $50,000 worth returned at the end of the year but a mere fraction of that amount, and was one of the worst failures of the industrial boom period. It cost John Moore not only an enormous amount of money, but also prestige, and its miscarriage was one of the few bad disappointments of his brilliant career. Afterward, when "Coppers" were the rage and all Wall Street was green with envy at our success and his enterprise was trying to hide itself behind the garbage barrels, John Moore said to me:

"Lawson, we all think we are the masters of our own fortunes, but we are not. We are only working on a schedule laid out by some One who does not take our desires into consideration."

And it is so. The ablest Wall Street man is only like the burglar who, after working for weeks to loot a second story, is astounded to find, while lugging his swag by the police station, that the bag he thought full of dead sealskins contains a live parrot with a lusty vocabulary, "Police! Robbers!"



CHAPTER X

ROGERS GRASPS "COPPERS"

The next day our gas business brought me to New York, and after Mr. Rogers and myself had threshed out the matter I had come about, he said with a smile:

"Well, I've heard from John Moore. Are you satisfied now? Will you drop that copper will-o'-the-wisp?"

"Far from it," I replied. "I'm surer than ever of my position. In going over the ground with Moore I got the whole business in perspective, and now I know I'm right. All his argument amounted to anyway was that it was impossible for so gigantic a thing to have lain out in the travelled highways all these years."

I ran on vigorously for a few moments, in a way I felt might pique his curiosity, if it did not gain my point. Finally he said:

"Well, Lawson, what more can I do?"

"This," I answered: "go over the matter fully with me yourself. I will surely carry it through one way or another; if not with you, with others, and I cannot drop it with you until I have your personal judgment."

Instantly came one of those flash decisions for which H. H. Rogers is noted among his business associates, the oft-proved correctness of which goes far toward making him the pre-eminent American financier of the day.

"Lawson," he said, "be in New York next Sunday, and I will listen until you have run the subject out."

That decision changed the face of the copper world.

Sunday is Mr. Rogers' pick of days for a lengthy hearing, and returning from church, he came directly to the "stowaway" rooms at the Murray Hill Hotel, at which we frequently met while the Wall Street world was trying to trace and keep track of our movements. I had been there for some time awaiting him and was keyed for the struggle.

Of my ability to land John Moore I had felt confident, yet I had failed; but this time in advance I knew success was mine. Experience has taught me that in all dollar matters the man to "talk up to" is the actual owner of the dollars you are after, who when he hears your story and weighs your goods can deal out the yes or no which means business. I had discovered some years before that few bull's-eyes are scored shooting at a target by mail or messenger. One's finest word-pictures sound better than they read, and if you would have the next man see them in as vivid colors as they appear on your mind's canvas, you must paint them before his eyes. The enthusiasm of the artist, his love of the subject, the deep or high tones of his voice, the very movements of his hands, are all factors in aiding the other man's vision. When he sees what you do, you have won. Nowadays when I have things to sell, I engage the eyes as well as the ears of my purchaser. When the other fellow would make me his customer, he must first sell his goods to my secretary, who may, if he can, sell them to me. Thus I am always able to dispose of the only merchandise I keep in stock, honest goods, and I seldom buy chromos for oils.

As I waited the coming of my most powerful customer, I could not keep my mind off the momentousness of the interview before me. I knew I was at a fork of the road, at one of those departure points from which coming events must date, and I thought of a dream I had had years before in which I found myself drifting with the grim ferryman across the brimming flood, the far bank of which is eternity. In my hand was a long staff with strange and irregular notches on it. And these represented the actions of my life. Some were shallow, others deep and wide, and as I ran my fingers up and down, I seemed to remember what each nick commemorated—the good things and the bad things, here a death, there a disappointment, this a victory, that an error. I wondered, as the circumstances of the dream came to my mind, what kind of marking this day's events would make on my life staff, and I felt a conviction that it would be both deep and wide.

Then, as I heard Mr. Rogers' footstep outside my door, I forgot all about dreams and notches and plunged into my argument.

"Mr. Rogers," I began, "you and your associates have unlimited money. You have not always had it. You have obtained it through business projects and you are using it in business projects to get more. There are two ways of adding new dollars to those in your possession: by taking them from others so they are losers and you the gainer, whereby you win at the cost of their happiness; or by expanding the world's wealth so that others gain when you do. You, I know, prefer the latter, that others should make money when you do, rather than that they should lose and suffer when you are benefited."

I did not then know "Standard Oil's" and the "System's" religion as I do now. I had yet to learn the cruelly cynical principles that guide this financial Juggernaut in its relation with men and things. I imputed to it the generosity and freedom which seemed to characterize Henry H. Rogers' personality, ignorant that the man and the machine he served might stand for different things. The "System's" Big Book says: "A dollar honestly made makes another for some one else; but a dollar taken is two dollars, because it increases our power and diminishes the people's. Between the 'System' and the people must be eternal war, and it is the price of the 'System's' existence that all opportunities of weakening the people are sternly utilized."

"Mr. Rogers," I continued, "I have discovered in 'Coppers' an opportunity whereby you and your associates can, by the investment of a hundred millions of dollars, obtain these results: First, your money will be as safe as in anything you now have it invested in. Second, by indorsing this form of investment with the seal of your business success, you will make it known to all who have money and there will at once arise a tremendous demand for its securities. This demand will drive prices up until dividend returns are in normal proportion to the legitimate value of the security, namely, four to six per cent., which is, as I can prove to you, a little more than can be got from anything else but 'Copper' with the same elements of safety. Third, when the advance I foresee occurs, your one hundred millions have doubled, and all those who have joined us in the venture or have held on to their stock will gain in the same proportion. As I estimate that we will have but a third interest in all the good American 'Coppers,' there should be something like $200,000,000 for the people, while we will have made $100,000,000. To bring this about I have planned a campaign which will make what you have done known from one end of the world to the other, and will persuade the people at large to look at 'Standard Oil' in a more favorable light than they do now. And, what is more, all this money can be made and all these benefits rendered without taxing any one a single additional dollar, for there will not be a penny a ton added to the price of copper the metal, nor a reduction of a mill a year taken from the wages of those who mine it or work it."

Here I halted. I had made a beginning, and I was familiar with Mr. Rogers' system of diagnosis and treatment. Propositions placed on his operating-table are invariably dissected in parts—this is the winner's method; so if, under the probe of his keen mind, one section or limb is found stiff, dead, or unhitchable to that to which it belongs, he at once stops operating and the corpse is removed.

"How is it the situation is as you outline it?"

I drew the picture of copper Boston as I have given it in the early part of this chapter. It astonished him.

"How do you prove that safety in this class of investment is more assured than in others?"

I reeled off the facts: A copper-mine, from the very nature of the business, must be developed years and years ahead before it entered the ranks as a regular producer. The price of the metal being practically fixed within certain limits, the mine's value, present and future, could always be told to a certainty.

He saw it. He put me through a thorough examination about my second claim that the price would advance 100 per cent. I again astonished him by showing him what a market there was and had been for many years for copper stocks, and that it was simply a question of educating investors at large to their merits to advance them to the price my plans called for.

When he came to the question of the amount to be invested and the aggregate amount of profit, he did not attempt to disguise his surprise when I showed him there were 150,000 shares of Boston & Montana which had been selling at 20-odd and were now 50-odd, and could surely be bought between 50 and 100; and 200,000 shares of Butte & Boston, 100,000 outside of what I and those who had bought with me owned that could be had at an average of 20 or 25; that there were 100,000 shares of Calumet & Hecla, selling at 250, large quantities of which could be gathered in between that price and 400, and so on through the list. Mine after mine I enumerated to him, all as sure dividend earners in the future as they had been in the past, to an aggregate, without touching any of the uncertain ones, which it would surely take one hundred millions to purchase, and as I called them off, he listened patiently while I gave him a full history of each.

Then I outlined my sensational but never before attempted plan of campaign for educating the public, he vigorously questioning me as to details and particulars the while.

It does not take Henry H. Rogers months, weeks, nor even days to grasp any plan, however vast, nor many minutes to come to a decision after he has grasped it. I believe he would, if the world were going to be auctioned off next week, be the first man on earth to decide upon a limit price that he would take it at, and three minutes after it was knocked down to him he would be selling stock in it at 150 per cent. profit.

Just before lunch-time I saw that the effect of my arguments on Mr. Rogers was the exact opposite to that they had made on John Moore. When I had come to a finish, Mr. Rogers simply said: "It's curious, Lawson, why I have not listened to you before. I'll talk with William Rockefeller to-morrow. No—I'll make it this afternoon if I can get at him."

And his eyes snapped a bit when, as I was helping him on with his coat, he said, "We must not lose a minute in getting to work."

As he left the hotel and before I crossed the street to the Grand Central to take my train back to Boston—I suppose I should not say it, but I shook my own hand in self-congratulation. How many times since I have thought that had old Dame Fate but hung out a danger-signal for this faithful servitor of her behests, or had but given him a glimpse ahead through the years 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904, instead of using his hands in cordial self-clasping he would have employed his feet in the more fitting task of kicking himself.

If Henry H. Rogers had been slow at getting started on "Coppers," once in he made up for his early tardiness. After our Sunday interview things moved swiftly forward. Before noon next day he called me up on the telephone to say that both he and William Rockefeller were impatient to have my facts and figures verified, and would I at once send my data to start his experts on? I mailed him a bale of "pointers," and from that hour until the flotation of Amalgamated Mr. Rogers' enthusiasm on "Coppers" constantly grew until there actually came a time when it went beyond my own. It took him months to complete that rounding-up of the situation which is the absolutely necessary preliminary to the making of final decisions on any far-reaching and important project to which the magic name of "Standard Oil" is to be permanently attached.

This period of waiting I duly improved by continuing my fight on Butte & Boston, and by way of intensifying the campaign I included Boston & Montana in the tussle, and led a fierce attack into the stronghold of my opponents. While this war was at its bitter height I received word from 26 Broadway that at last reports were all in, and that they were ready to talk business. Next day I was in New York.

"Lawson," said Mr. Rogers, "our experts have examined your plans step by step and have verified your conclusions. It is an exceptional situation, and one we are equipped to handle."

Then and there we had a "to-a-finish-sit-down," and while I had in my time gone pretty thoroughly into the general subject of "Coppers," and thought myself well informed thereon, I was surprised at the completeness and detail of the reports that had been prepared for the "System's" master. In beautiful shape, concise, clear, comprehensive, the entire copper industry of the world was spread out before me. Every mine had its place and its history—not merely the mines of America, but those of Europe as well; and fully set forth were the extent and cost of the product of each, the profit it made, the men who owned it, and—miraculous "Standard Oil"—the standing, financial and otherwise, of the men who might have to be dealt with in our prospective trades.

Rogers smiled watching my growing surprise as I ran over the extraordinary budget of facts he had collected. I said to him:

"This is wonderful. You have here all there's to be known about the subject, and I marvel how you got hold of so much inside information."

"'Standard Oil' has its own way of doing things," he replied. "You told us your copper plans would mean an investment of $100,000,000 of our money, and now's the time, not after we have parted with it, to find just what we are to get for it."

The world has never yet heard of "Standard Oil" locking its barn door after some one has stolen its mule; for that matter, it is not of record that any one ever locked the gate after his barn had been visited by "Standard Oil." The reason is that, with the thoroughness characteristic of this great reaping-machine, it never fails to take the barn with the mule.

At this meeting it was agreed that Henry H. Rogers, William Rockefeller, and myself should become partners in my plan of "Coppers," they to furnish the capital and to have three-quarters of the profit, I to have the remaining quarter. The campaign for the execution of the enterprise I agreed to work out and submit as soon as possible, and we parted.

As I bade them good-by Mr. Rogers said to me:

"Your baby is born, Lawson, and if you put the same kind of work on raising it you have in bringing it into the world, it will be a giant."

From that day it was understood that we were together, and that all my dealings in "Coppers" outside Butte & Boston were for the joint account—that is, they were to have the right to come into all my operations. Those they did not care to join in I had the right to put through alone. On the other hand, I must not undertake anything on their behalf without a specific understanding with them.

Thus began Amalgamated, that extraordinary dollar-thing which shot up in a night and grew as grows the whirlwind, until even its creators wondered at its mightiness. It waxed greater and stronger while the world watched and waited, until finally there came that tremendous and unprecedented culmination when lines of investors fought round the portals of the greatest money mart in America, the National City Bank, for a chance to obtain the $100 shares of this $75,000,000 institution. And the world wondered indeed when it was announced that Amalgamated had been oversubscribed over $300,000,000.

Thus began Amalgamated. It might have brought to all the world good-will and happiness, and to the men who made it much glory and the great regard of their fellows. Instead, it has wrought havoc and desolation, and its Apache-like trail is strewn with the scalped and mutilated corpses of its victims. The very name Amalgamated conjures up visions of hatred and betrayal, of ambush, pitfalls, and assassination. It stands forth the Judas of corporations, a monument to greed and a warning to rapacity. May the story that I am to tell so set forth its infamies and horrors that never again shall such a monster be suffered to violate and defile our civilization.



CHAPTER XI

THE COPPER CAMPAIGN OPENS

My plans for the great copper campaign were most carefully diagrammed, then spread before Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockefeller, who, before approving, tested every detail of them. The formal scope of our action decided on, it was agreed that I should be free to work in my own way, and it was understood that I should, as far as possible, carry the campaign on my own shoulders, using to the limit my personal capital and credit. "Coppers" was to be a Lawson operation on the face of it, and I was determined, for many reasons, to avail myself of "Standard Oil's" aid only in taking care of completed transactions and not at all in the preliminary negotiations. This was not always possible, but my attitude in the matter and my desire to make a brilliant showing explain the straits I was sometimes put to in conducting some of my deals. From the start I had a big personal stake in the success of my campaign, for at the time I first showed Mr. Rogers my hand I had 46,000 shares of Butte & Boston, and my following among the public owned as many more. They had agreed that the profits on this stock, when it was taken into the consolidation, should be mine entirely in payment of my own work and risk.

There was another transaction I had in mind which also fairly belonged to me. As I have stated, I had undertaken to dispose of Bay State Gas stock, and by this time I had succeeded in placing a large number of the shares. The proceeds, $2,300,000, were in the treasury of the company. Now the charter of Addicks' company permitted it to buy, sell, and deal in anything and everything, and I saw here a good opportunity to enable Bay State to earn the balance of the money necessary to relieve its indebtedness to Mr. Rogers—between four and six millions of dollars. So I explained to Mr. Rogers that as soon as our copper deal had progressed to a point where there was absolutely no risk, and a large gain was assured, I would make a bargain with Bay State whereby for a part of the profits I would pilot the investment of the company's cash in Butte & Boston. This proposition he considered fair, and he agreed that neither he nor Mr. Rockefeller would consider themselves "in" on that bargain, save as indirectly profiting by it through the successful winding up of their Boston gas investments.

It is impossible for any great move to be begun in the stock-market without some suggestion getting into the air which notifies "the Street"[19] that "something is up." Not long after my alliance with Rogers had been formally arranged, the atmosphere of State Street grew thick with rumors about "Coppers." Some of these announced that I had hitched up with "Standard Oil"; others denied it; between them all a movement was created, and the leading stocks became very active and increased rapidly in price.

We had agreed that the first companies to go into our consolidation should be Butte & Boston, Boston & Montana, Calumet & Hecla, Osceola, Quincy, Tamarack, and any other of the long-established properties of which we could get hold. It would be difficult, we knew, to purchase the control of the Calumet & Hecla, for its owners thought too highly of their investment to part with it, but it was safe to buy whatever was offered, and if we accumulated less than a majority of the shares we could easily resell at a large profit. I began my operation with Boston & Montana stock, buying cautiously and obtaining it at fair prices, and this transaction, though conducted quietly, added fresh fuel to the rumor blaze. Finally Boston became so excited over the situation that I came out with a public statement in which I frankly showed what I was trying to do. In all such affairs, however, the explanations of any man known in his business as a stock speculator or manipulator are never accepted as true. It is assumed that such announcements are merely blinds to disguise his real purpose; that they are feints or manoeuvres in his campaign. So when I declared that I was working out plans for the consolidation of all good Boston "Coppers," and that associated with me were the strongest capitalists in the world, a laugh went up from a goodly portion of "the Street." The hireling news bureaus shrieked at my presumption and the absurdity of my combination, and when after a hot day's operations I was quoted in the financial press as telling my followers that it was "Standard Oil" money which was to back "Coppers," Barron, whose News Bureau moulded opinion for the opposing copper magnates, came out with a statement:

"Lawson is spreading in his peculiar underground ways that the Standard Oil crowd is looking into Coppers. Just enough countrymen swallowed his yarns to enable him to boost prices over six points to-day, but by to-morrow, when the Rockefellers or Rogers of Standard Oil put their foot down on his transparent lies, those who were foolish enough to listen to his ridiculous fakes will find they must sell at a loss. We can say, on a high authority in Standard Oil, that they have never bought nor contemplate buying a share of any copper stock."

My enemies were numerous and powerful, and there were many other announcements of the same character as Barron's tending to cast ridicule on my movement and expose me as a falsifier. Indeed, notwithstanding the merits of the plan and the benefit it must confer on all copper properties, I was assailed as fiercely as though I had advocated anarchy or had prepared a scheme of wholesale plundering. In stock affairs innovations are resented and resisted even more fiercely than in other walks of life, and the Boston money crowd fought me tooth and nail. The titles I acquired in those days were varied and startling. For one set I was a "charlatan," "wizard," "fakir," an "unprincipled manipulator"; in another I was a "copper king" or a "prince of plungers." Feeling ran high, and prices rose and fell in the most erratic and extravagant fashion. Certain stocks advanced or receded from five to ten points in as many hours or minutes. Fortunes were made and lost daily. Many people, confused by the conflict of opinions and announcements, sold their holdings, only to repurchase at higher prices as prices continued to mount. So fiercely was I attacked that it almost seemed at times as if my enemies might prevail in spite of the great powers at my back. Indeed, there were tense moments when my fate as well as my plans trembled in the balance. Several times I was sent for by Rogers and his colleagues for a war council, and sometimes, as I detailed my lines of defence and enumerated my resources, I suspected that even these storm-seasoned warriors were tiring of the fray.

The fiercest fighting at that early period centred round Butte & Boston and Boston & Montana. Many a spirited engagement we fought on the floor of the Exchange. Perhaps the fiercest of these began when, after a strenuous rush one morning, I rapidly carried the price of Butte up. This exploit so enraged my adversaries that they got together and organized a powerful combination against me. This included several of the leading banks and trust companies of Boston that held large amounts of stocks as collateral for my loans. At a given moment it was arranged that all these loans, aggregating millions of dollars, should be called; and further to intensify the complication they expected to bring about, a great friend in common attempted to scare Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Rogers by informing them that the titles to the copper properties were defective, and that a man, then unknown, named Heinze, who had made himself very strong with the Montana courts, was about to make a move to confiscate them. There was a hurry call for me from New York, and this time the explanations had to be very full, for "Standard Oil" had an impression that while my general plan might be meritorious, it was possible that I had the details "skewed." However, I satisfied them as to the facts and then hurried back to tackle my own problem, for these individual engagements I handled myself, using my own personal resources to take care of them. The emergency that had developed thus suddenly was so serious as to be alarming, and it devolved on me to act, and at once. Blows in finance are like those at sea—the most dangerous are the quick-come-quick-go kind. I recalled one I had run into a short time before on my sailing yacht. We were broad-reaching down the New England coast, close in, with a 20-knot sou'wester blowing. Suddenly, without apparent reason, my skipper put the wheel hard down and brought the craft up standing. A second later a "twister" from the hills hit us, and adroitly he headed her into it.

"How in the world did you know that was coming?" I asked.

"I smelt her, sir," the old sea-dog replied, "just smelt her."

For those unacquainted with the freaky ways of our New England coast winds it may be explained that when a "twister" off the hills gets ready to do business in a 20-knot sou'wester it sends no messenger boys ahead to distribute its itinerary handbills. You hear one shriek and the blow is upon you; and woe betide the unthinking skipper who attempts holding his craft to her course or paying her off till she catches it full. He is likely to have mourners at home if a married man, and "cussing" owners if the craft is not his own. As my old sea-dog afterward wisely observed: "When you smell a land 'twister,' act first and think atterwards, or your widow 'ill get blear-eyed watching for you to make harbor."

In the stock-market it was decidedly a case of "act first and think atterwards." The "twister" was a fierce one, for not only were my stocks assailed, but the rumor machines were turning out all sorts of yarns affecting my credit, as the knowledge gradually filtered through the market that my loans had been called. My stocks broke badly, and when the market closed it really seemed as though I might have to verify the report that they would wind me up the next day.

It was at this particular stage that the Bay State was let into the deal. I had a long consultation with Addicks that night and showed him my hand. He agreed that with what I already had of the stock and "Standard Oil's" backing, the venture came as near being an absolutely sure thing as could ever be found in stocks. My proposition was that I should secure for the Bay State Company 50,000 shares of Butte at an average of 20 to 25, and that I should have half the profits of the venture provided they aggregated over two millions of dollars. Coming to Addicks in this emergency was cold-blooded business on my part, and, it goes without saying, was frozen-blooded business on his, for he evidently saw then what I did not until later, that there was an excellent opportunity to practise his pet game—make money and double-cross his partner while doing so. We clinched the deal that night, and next day in the market I turned the tables, for I took every share my opponents offered for sale, and the stock, instead of dropping out of sight, became firm, then began to mount, and never after fell again.

The Bay State's venture showed a profit afterward of four millions of dollars, but of my share of this large sum I was deprived, as I will detail later.

At this juncture there occurred one of those strange and sad fatalities which with its attendant circumstances helps to explain why those of us who play with stock-markets grow superstitious. I have spoken of my secretary, Mr. Vinal, a man of admirable discretion and absolute loyalty, who was my right hand in executing the minutiae of the various operations I then was engaged in. In such affairs the fidelity of one's aides must be beyond all question, for if the merest detail of one's plans leaks out at the critical moment, one is undone beyond recovery. After my talk with Addicks I had laid out the campaign for the next day's engagement and called in Vinal to explain to him his own part. He was to attend to taking up and transferring the loans that had been called, and I armed him with my power of attorney and blank checks, instructing him to put these matters through without further consultation with me, for my entire time must belong to my brokers during the battle of prices which I knew must inevitably come with the stroke of the gong that opened the Exchange next morning at ten, and which would rage until its close at three. As I had anticipated, the assault was fierce. It was give and take, charge and retreat, all day. A few minutes after twelve, Vinal pushed through a crowd of brokers to me and said: "I'm about half through my shifting, but a telephone has just come from Mrs. Lawson saying that something has happened at the school and will I at once get a carriage and bring your daughters home. It will take half an hour. Shall I go?" I replied: "You had better, but get back as quickly as possible." A minute later a thought occurred to me, and I sent a boy to call Vinal back. He reported that my secretary had jumped into "Ben's" cab ("Ben" was a cabman whose stand had been in front of my office, 33 State Street, since my boyhood days). I returned to the fray. Fifteen minutes later the appalling message that startled all Boston at the time came over the ticker tape: "Terrible Explosion! Boston Gas Company's pipes in the Subway have blown scores to death." Then there floated in to me a rumor, vague, indefinite, that Vinal was a victim. I jumped into a cab and in a few moments was at the undertaker's to whose place the corpses were being removed. The undertaker stepped up to me and said: "Poor Vinal! Don't look at him, for it is frightful. He was on the very apex of the explosion, and he and 'Ben' were both instantly killed and are frightfully burned. The only thing recognizable is this envelope, which I found among the rags that were left of his coat." He handed me over the large envelope in which I had seen Vinal that very morning depositing the various documents, checks, and securities which he required for his day's operations. It was burned around the edges, but the contents were uninjured, and among the papers was a carefully prepared memorandum showing to a dot where my secretary had left off in his exchanges. He had evidently just finished making notes, for so carefully arranged were the contents of the envelope that all that was necessary to complete the business was to turn it over to Vinal's assistant. No further explanation was required. That envelope represented two millions of money and securities.