transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. the cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain. _profitable stock exchange investments_ _principal and interest guaranteed_ _henry voorce brandenburg & co. (incorporated) bankers 6 wall street, new york, n.y._ _copyrighted 1901 henry voorce brandenburg & co._ preface this book is published to show the absurdity of trying to make money speculating in wall street without adequate capital and the ease with which it can be made with capital and proper methods. the following pages open to the public a safe, conservative, and highly remunerative channel for the investment of their surplus funds, which does not have the element of risk and uncertainty that exists in general business. profitable stock exchange investments you read a great deal about the money lost in wall street. _as a matter of fact there isn't any money lost in wall street._ _it simply changes hands._ people talk loosely about gamblers and speculators losing all their money in the end. if money is lost, somebody has got to win it. the people who go plunging around in wall street making all sorts of speculations on margin naturally lose their money. they ought to expect to lose it, and they ought to lose it whether they expect to or not. they are simply gambling with all the odds against them. meanwhile, the wise and shrewd operators follow prudent, business-like methods and get the money. the vanderbilts, goulds and morgans of wall street are sometimes described as robbers waiting in their dens to slaughter the poor innocents who venture within reach. that is all nonsense. _they win because they know how to play the game, and others who have sense enough and patience enough to play the game in the same way will win too._ they absolutely cannot help winning. the purpose of this book is to inform the reader fully as to the methods by which money can be taken out of wall street--the methods used by the successful operators of the past twenty years to our knowledge--the methods which positively must win year in and year out. we purpose to give the public an opportunity to make a safe and profitable investment in wall street, and have their money handled for them according to correct and profitable methods. the men who win in wall street are those who invest in stocks--good, dividend-paying stocks, buying them when they are low, selling them when they are high. this is not gambling nor speculation any more than any legitimate business is gambling or speculation. in all classes of business we buy at a certain price, and sell at a higher price. _we buy under the most advantageous circumstances possible, paying the least possible price and selling at the highest market price._ this is what we are doing in wall street, and as we handle only the stocks of sound and stable corporations, the security behind our operations will be the strongest in the world. the gist of the matter is that the stocks of the leading and most stable corporations of the country are tossed about in wall street from speculator to speculator, going up and down constantly and varying enormously in the prices at which they are bought and sold. these changes in prices are nearly always due to a feverish and excited market. the stocks themselves do not actually vary in real value. they are worth a certain sum all the time. they are paying dividends on that sum and the stocks at their real value are always a good investment. yet by the manipulations of the speculators and on account of the exigencies of these wall street marginal gamblers such stocks can be bought at times at a fraction of their value, and by reason of the same causes can be sold at other times for far more than they are really worth. _the men who make the money in wall street are those who know what stocks are really worth and who buy when prices, go down and sell when they go up,_ buying and selling the same stocks over and over again, and making a handsome profit on every transaction. they do not care how low a stock they hold goes for the reason that the stock belongs to them, they know what it is actually worth as a dividend payer, and in the skyrocket performances of the speculators of the street they take no interest except as it gives them opportunities to buy and sell. they do not care how high a stock goes; they have no shortages to cover, but can simply sit back and sell as much of their holdings as they choose whenever they see an opportunity to make a big turn. such men will turn a block of stock in a given corporation over and over dozens of times in the course of a year, making so much money on it that even if the stock should disappear off the face of the earth altogether, they would still be far ahead on it, simply on account of the numerous advances and declines. by owning stocks in a large number of good, sound corporations, they will average to make a certain sum of money every day in the year. they spread their invested capital over a wide field in this manner, and the laws of average make them sure gainers at every stage of their operations. _this is, as you will observe, very similar to the principles upon which the great life insurance companies are managed._ many of these commenced business starting with but a few thousand dollars, and they now have assets of millions. they have piled up this enormous wealth by insuring the lives of human beings. every company which has not succeeded has failed because it did not issue a certain number of policies. _the secret of success is the large number of risks reducing the chance to a minimum._ no life insurance company could succeed if it insured but a few lives. by the law of average, insurance companies can tell just how many of the people they insure will die each year. when you make an application for life insurance the first question they will ask is your age, and by referring to their tables they can tell you the month and day when you will die. now, you may not actually die upon that day, but you do theoretically, and the point is that they have so many risks that the law of average, always prevailing, in the end brings everything out just as figured. the fact that one person lives longer than the date when his life should end is offset by the fact that another person dies sooner than expected, and thus the law of average is absolutely maintained. the postal authorities could not come anywhere near telling how many letters would be mailed in the city of new york on a certain day, but they can come with remarkable closeness to the average for a year in advance, and predict with certainty how many people will write letters and forget to address them during that time. _it is by the working out by the law of average as best exemplified by the insurance business that it is possible to work out a plan by which wall street stocks can be dealt in with absolute safety and certain profit._ of course, no man or company could purchase one hundred shares of stock without the risk of a loss. that is to say, no man should make a purchase of this kind unless he is in a position to buy again and again many times over and still hold all that he has previously purchased. buying a certain quantity of stock in one corporation is very much like an insurance company insuring the life of one man. but when you buy thousands of shares of stock in various corporations, some stocks going up and some going down, the law of average is an absolute protection and the statistics of stock fluctuations for the past twenty-five years show beyond the possibility of doubt that this is true. the fluctuations in the prices of good, dividend paying stocks are something remarkable. _some active stocks show a fluctuation of five thousand times their value in a year, thus offering a continual opportunity for money making._ these are the stocks which are constantly speculated upon, the stocks on which so much money is lost and upon which the cool headed and careful operators make so much. the western union telegraph company's shares have always paid 5% dividend, and the average market price has been about 90, making the income about 5-1/2. now, suppose it is purchased in ten-share blocks on every one per cent. decline and none sold above the average price, it will show an income of more than 43% per annum, besides some dividends. _suppose the very worst were to happen and there was a 20 point decline in western union, then we would have_ 10 shares at 90 $900 10 " " 89 890 10 " " 88 880 10 " " 87 870 10 " " 86 860 10 " " 85 850 10 " " 84 840 10 " " 83 830 10 " " 82 820 10 " " 81 810 10 " " 80 800 10 " " 79 790 10 " " 78 780 10 " " 77 770 10 " " 76 760 10 " " 75 750 10 " " 74 740 10 " " 73 730 10 " " 72 720 10 " " 71 710 10 " " 70 700 ------ total investment $16,800 it will be seen that $16,800 will handle a ten-share lot of western union telegraph through a regular "black friday" panic, with a resulting investment as stated above. it must be borne in mind that the average prices of these purchases is 80, giving a dividend of 6% on the investment, but when the market has resumed its normal condition (90), the profits will be $2,100, exclusive of dividends. if lots of 100 shares each were purchased, there would be profits of $21,000 exclusive of dividends. _the shares of the american sugar refining company fluctuate 4,900 times their par value every year, and our method applied to them will give a profit of from 200 to 300% per annum, exclusive of dividends._ while we refer to the possibilities in making investments in western union and american sugar company's shares, we include in our operations a number of different securities, all at the same time. for instance, when we would purchase one hundred shares of one stock, we divide it into five or ten different lots and do the same thing in, say, ten or twenty different stocks all at the same time; therefore, instead of having on hand a few large lots, we have two or three hundred small lots, purchased down to the lowest prices, and by purchasing outright a large quantity in little "lots" at different prices, the average cost eliminates the risk of loss and insures certain profits. according to the results of speculation and manipulation, the twenty different stocks that we deal in do not usually all go down at the same time. some are going up, while others are going down; therefore, we are receiving profits in one, while making advantageous investments in another. _we have been established in wall street for a number of years, and we know about the various stocks on the market, their value and earning capacity._ we know the stocks which are most sought after by investors, and the stocks which are used by speculators to make money out of the public. we now offer to the public the best plan for a legitimate investment speculation. we have an authorized issue of $500,000 debenture bonds due and payable in three years, with interest at 5%, payable semi-annually, for the purpose of buying and selling stocks and securities as dealt in upon the stock exchanges of new york. _in consideration of one-half of the net profits accruing from these investments we guarantee the bonds and interest at the rate of 5%, and conduct, manage and direct the business._ we distribute the net proceeds on the first of every month, one-half to the bondholders and one-half to our company. these bonds are issued in sums of $25 and upwards, as purchasers may direct, and are transferable only upon the books of the company. _the first thing to be sought is absolute safety in investment._ only sound, dividend paying securities will be bought and only at a bargain when it is known beyond question that the price is below their actual earning power. having purchased and paid for the securities the bondholders become the owners of them, and they will be placed in our vaults until such time as they can be sold at a handsome profit. _no get-rich-quick methods will be used, and no speculation indulged in._ no large amount of money will ever be tied up in one stock. the operations will be spread over a large amount of ground, making small investments in proper securities, thus practically eliminating all risk of loss. it is more certain than life insurance business. the chances of loss will be considerably smaller than they would be in banking, manufacturing or mercantile enterprises. purchases will commence when a stock is over-depressed and evidently selling below its real value. purchases will continue so long as the price continues to go down. these stocks will then be held and we will have every advantage over the market, instead of the market having the slightest advantage over us, as it does over ninety-nine out of a hundred speculators. _when the speculator is forced to sell at a low price we begin to buy._ when he is forced to buy at a high price we will be ready to sell. we have the advantage over the market at every stage of the game. the market cannot force us to do anything because we are in a position to do precisely as we please. _this business is strictly cash, buying for cash and selling for cash, trading in securities of strong, dividend paying corporations and going steadily forward every business day in the year._ no credit will be extended or asked. there will be no bad debts. no money has to be expended for plant, equipment or other costly things which figure in ordinary lines of business. _every cent of money will keep working all the time, and such of it as is not invested will be drawing interest in a trust company._ there will be absolutely nothing to worry about. when we want to buy other people are unloading. they have been frozen out and have to sell. the more freezing out there is, the more panicky things get, the better it is for us. there is more money to be made in one panicky day than there is in weeks of ordinary wall street trading. then, on the other hand, when everything is looking first-rate and prosperous, wall street is full of people who want to buy. there is where we are ready for them again. we bought the stocks when people had to sell them. now the people want to buy and we are right on hand with the goods--bought cheap at the proper time and now glad to sell at a goodly profit. this method of ours is nothing new or untried. it has stood the tests of time and made many a millionaire. _it is founded upon the firmest possible foundation, and has gone over squalls, slumps and panics, and in twenty years, to our personal knowledge, it has never failed to win._ we know of a number of people who have become rich by following this method. we know of one man who operated for fifteen years. he retired january 1, 1898, reputed to be worth twenty millions of dollars. he never lost, paid for what he bought, buying proper securities in small quantities at a declining market, going right along to the bottom still buying and then holding on until the market was in its normal condition and he could pocket his profits and be ready to do it all over again. you will note that this business absolutely cannot be affected by financial calamities. on the contrary, a panic is a blessing. it may seem to you that if this method of taking money out of wall street is so simple, that you can do it yourself. you certainly could if you had the capital, knew the stocks and their value thoroughly, could devote your whole time to it, and, what is more important, had the firmness and will power to follow the method and not be swerved from it by the temptation of speculation. not one man in a thousand can go into wall street and fail to be influenced by the wild speculation which is going on there, the apparent opportunities for getting rich in a minute, the tips and rumors and all that sort of thing. that is precisely why so many people are wrecked in wall street, and the reason why so few succeed is that they have not the patience and the cool, calm judgment requisite to play the game in the only way in which it can be beaten. the manager of our corporation will not be allowed to be influenced by anything except our instructions. he will be under sufficient bond to follow his instructions, which will be precisely as outlined above. he will be a buying and selling machine, oblivious to all outside influence. he must carry out our orders regardless of whatever may happen, and he is a man who can be depended upon to do it. _a corporation, being a machine, can succeed by this method for the reason that it must follow a certain outlined course and cannot, and dare not, deviate from it by a hair's breadth._ the individual left to himself in wall street soon finds himself figuring, speculating, making forecasts, listening to tipsters, reading financial newspapers, living with one eye on the ticker, and pretty soon he has forgotten all about the method he intended to follow, and is a plain, ordinary wall street gambler--and the shrewd and cautious wise heads of the street soon get his money. the marginal operator is always at the mercy of the market instead of having the market at his mercy. the wonder is not that so many of them lose so much money, but that any of them win at all. it is only a question of time until they are wiped out. the odds against them are altogether too great, and while they may weather a few slight squalls and run along smoothly for a time, sooner or later disaster comes, generally unexpected and overwhelming. what is the use of trying to make money in wall street by marginal speculation when the odds against you are so great? if you want to undertake to make money, why not make your attempt a scientific one? why not place the money you wish to invest where it will be handled in a manner by which, as shown by the statistics of twenty years, cannot fail to win. it is no more speculation than it is for a banker to loan money to his friends and associate business men. _in fact, it is not so speculative for the reason that we make investments in the stocks of companies of standing--stocks which are just as good as gold, and represent vast enterprises, enormous properties and great earning power._ it may be asked, what will occur at the end of a year's business if some of the stocks are selling below the price at which they were bought. the answer is that they are kept in our vaults because they are safe, sound, dividend-paying stocks, but the dealings in the securities will show a handsome profit, more than enough to pay for the shares on hand because the numerous little purchases and the accompanying reactions in these very stocks have already resulted in a large number of profits. generally speaking, there will be no stocks carried a whole year because we will never buy except under forced conditions, and the reactions are generally very prompt, so we will be able to sell out quickly at higher prices. _it matters not how much you may know about wall street and financial methods and matters in general, you cannot figure out a way in which we can fail to succeed._ suppose the worst kind of a panic comes, the worst possible period of financial depression; suppose, we have stocks on hand which are going lower and lower; suppose, we buy until our buying capacity is exhausted, and still stocks go down and down; in what way can we be injured? we do not owe anybody anything, and whatever money we have made is in the pockets of our bondholders. nobody has extended any credit to us, and nobody can hold a club over us. we have no running expenses that amount to anything--no big rents to pay, no insurance, or anything else of that sort. there is no pay-roll to meet, no big stocks of goods to worry about--simply nothing that can squeeze us a penny's worth. all that we have to do is to wait, and waiting under these conditions is the easiest thing in the world. _the stocks we own are all those in corporations, concerning whose solidity and assets there cannot be the slightest shade of doubt._ these stocks all have a certain value, as shown by the earning power of the corporations behind them. sooner or later, they have simply got to go back to their normal, actual, tangible value. so we simply wait until they go back there, and that is generally a question of a very short time. short or long, however, the time must come, and when it does come, we are in line to reap the richest kind of a harvest. there is absolutely no loop-hole in this proposition. there is absolutely less risk of loss than in any business or other enterprise you can mention. it is a business carried on with good, hard cash, and with every possible advantage in our favor. _the holder of even one bond of $25 stands upon the same footing as the owner of a large block, receiving regularly the pro rata earnings represented by his share._ the officers and directors are well known men of business, thoroughly familiar with wall street and its methods, most of them having been for many years actually engaged in some business requiring expert financial knowledge. the bondholders can be assured that their money will be invested and handled as set forth in this prospectus, first, because the officers and directors cannot have any motive for doing otherwise, inasmuch as they know that the method herein outlined is the only one which can win in wall street. they are also protected in every possible way, and every desired assurance will be given in this respect. _the books and records of this company, open to bondholders, will show at all times precisely what investments have been made, how money has been made upon them, what stock are owned by the bondholders, and so on._ these records can be compared with and verified by the financial records of the new york stock exchange, as published through the regular channels, so that the bondholder can at all times assure himself that we have done just what we claim to have done, and that he has secured his just and equitable share of the profits of the operation. _wall street dictionary_ we give below a few definitions of some of the more important words used in the financial operations of wall street. the street itself has been the center of finance of this country for nearly a hundred years, when the new york stock exchange was established. here are offices of the greatest and wealthiest financiers the world has ever known. it is the greatest speculative center in this or any other country. here are found the men who create and handle railroads and the largest industrial enterprises in the world. in the exchange millions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds are bought and sold every day. here are found hundreds of banks, trust and safe deposit institutions, private bankers and capitalists, a money center which controls seven-tenths of all the money in america. in wall street you may buy or sell one or more shares of the stock of any great railway or industrial company in the country. here is where all important enterprises are financed, and where the public sends enormous sums of money to be invested for speculative gain. investors. those who come into the market and purchase securities for the purpose of holding them as safe investments for their money, securing an interest or dividend income thereon. speculators. those who buy and sell upon margins for quick profits. they are non-producers. they are simply gamblers, with the odds badly against them. they sometimes prosper for a while, but lose their money in the end. investment speculators. those who buy stocks judiciously, selecting choice securities whose value is well known, buying when values are depressed, and selling when sufficient advance occurs to give them a good profit. this they repeat over and over again, and make money while the speculator on margin loses. it is to this class that we appeal. "a bull." a speculator who buys expecting to sell at a higher price. he is called "long" on the market, meaning that he is buying with the expectation that the market will go up and that he will sell out at a profit. his belief not only is that prices are going higher, but he uses all his influence in every possible effort to make them go higher. "a bear." a speculator who sells in the expectation of a decline. he is called "short" of the market. he is selling what he has not got. he does this in the expectation that prices are going down, and that he will be able to buy the stocks at a lower price than that he has to pay for them, and by delivering them at the price at which he sold to make his profit. he puts up his margin and takes his risk. as an illustration of what a "bear" is and does, suppose you believed that in a week's time corn would go down in price; therefore, you sell and promise to deliver so many bushels of corn at a certain price. if corn does go down, and you can buy it at a lower price than that at which you sold, you are a winner. if it disappoints you, and it goes up, you have to deliver it anyway, and are out of pocket. "a lamb." a man who thinks he knows all about the wall street game, and bases this belief on the fact that he keeps abreast with the times, reads all the financial columns in the newspapers, wades through all the wall street papers and watches the ticker faithfully and conscientiously. when he is sure he knows all about it he goes jauntily down into the street, and soon discovers that he knows nothing about it at all. he finds this out just at the moment when all his money is gone. "a flyer." a flyer is a more or less reckless gamble, which pretty nearly everybody feels strongly inclined to make once in a while. when a flyer turns out right it is a very profitable thing, but the trouble with it is that it rarely turns out right or anywhere near it. "a break." a rapid decline in prices of stock. "a bulge." a quick upward movement in prices of stock. "flat." stock loaned by one broker to another without interest is loaned "flat." "a hedger." one who buys a quantity of stock, and then for fear he has made a mistake, sells the same quantity in order to "hedge" against the loss that he fears is to come. a "hedger" usually makes nothing, because the profit on his purchase is offset by his sale, or vice versa. "liquidation." generally selling out of stocks previously purchased by the "bulls." "manipulation." forcing stocks too high or too low by misrepresentations, rumors and false sentiments. "option." a contract that one person will deliver to another a certain thing at a fixed price within a certain time. "point." one dollar or one per cent. a share on stock is one "point." stock advances and recedes by "points," and is always so quoted. "privileges." "puts," "calls" and "option" come under the general head of "privileges." "promoter." a broker who secures the capital to finance corporations. "realizing." closing out stocks or contracts of any kind to secure profits. "soft spot." a general but slight weakness shown in prices. "an oversold market." this means a market in which the traders have sold "short" to an extent which conditions do not warrant. they thereby place themselves at the mercy of the "manipulators," who stand ready to squeeze the "shorts" when the proper moment arrives. "an overbull market" means the reverse of this situation. "raiding the market." concerted action of sellers of all descriptions, who discover some cause for loss of confidence in the maintenance of prices and sell right and left every stock for which they can find a buyer. "a dull market." this describes a market where there are few transactions and small fluctuations. "a heavy market." one in which prices barely hold their own, and are inclined to sag off a little during the day, closing lower than they opened. "net gain." the actual amount of profit after taking broker's commission, war tax, or revenue stamps. "gross loss." the entire amount of loss suffered after adding broker's commission, war tax, etc., to the loss on the transaction. "round turn." this means a complete deal after having bought and sold or sold and bought, as the case may be. for instance, in stating a broker's commission you would say that it amounts to one-sixteenth for buying and the same for selling, or one-eighth for the "round turn." "commission." this is the remuneration which the broker receives from a customer in executing orders for the purchase or the sale of stocks or grain. this payment is based on the par value of stock or grain bought and sold, and not on prices at which the transaction was executed. "a pointer." information supposed to come from the inside and giving you an infallible tip on just what is going to happen. sometimes information of this kind is valuable, but rumors of the wildest kind are so continuously floating around the street that a "pointer" is more than likely to be an unfounded, silly rumor, which somehow has gotten into respectable company. if you know that the information comes from a reliable party who knows what he is talking about, and have money enough so that you can make an investment--not a speculation on narrow margin--and can afford to hold on after the methods of this company until prices rise, the "pointer" may prove a good thing. "a pool." a syndicate of men who combine forces to get control of a property. "a corner." when a "pool" or an individual quietly buys up the shares of a property so that they can absolutely control it, it is called a "corner." those who succeed in effecting a corner will not let the "bears" cover their "short," except at extraordinarily high prices. "a squall." depressing news that comes unexpectedly upon the market, and frightens the timid speculators into letting go their holdings. "a slump." a continuation of depressing influences which makes the margin dealers sell out. "a panic." a time when most of the "bulls" have been wiped out and everybody is a "bear" on the market and goes "short" because it is the prevailing sentiment. "squalls," "slumps" and "panics" are disastrous to the ordinary speculator, and ruin them by the thousands. they represent, however, the very best opportunity for money making, as has been shown in hundreds of instances. they will give this company the chance to buy the best sort of securities at prices so low as to make big profits a certainty. it is under these conditions that this company will make its purchases. with patience enough and capital enough it is possible by acting promptly at the time when these bargain days occur to make more money in wall street than in any other place in the world. "a rally." a state of affairs which exists almost immediately after the public has unloaded its "long" stocks and put out a "short" line. "a call." a privilege to buy a certain number of shares at a given price within a certain space of time. "a put." a privilege to sell a certain number of shares at a fixed price within a given period of time. "a spread." when an operator buys or sells both a "put" and a "call." "on curb." the private dealings made outside the exchanges. a curb-stone broker is a familiar figure and carries on his business every day in wall street. "insiders." there are two classes of wall street men known as "insiders." one is a class which is really inside. officials of corporations, of banks and trust companies and wealthy financiers who really control the properties dealt in the exchanges are really "insiders." they control the market, but never give out under any circumstances any information, and in most cases they do not know themselves just what they are going to do from one day to the next. the other set of "insiders" are those who only make the "lamb" think they are on the inside. they never have any money of their own to speculate with, and they sell their "knowledge" to outsiders for fraction profits when there are any. they advertise and give out their pretended information, and have it sent out all over the world, knowing that every city and town may be depended upon to produce "lambs." bucket shops. a place where you can bet whether a stock will go up or down. you do the guessing and the "bucket shop" makes the money. if you win sometimes you get your money back and sometimes you don't. "tipsters." the "tipster" in wall street is like the tout on the race track. he pretends to know all about it, and is a very solemn and mysterious individual. he tells one man to buy and another to sell, knowing that whichever way the market goes one of them will be a winner, and the "tipster" will get his share. the one who wins tells his friends, who think the "tipster" must be a wonderfully shrewd individual, and in this way he builds up a profitable business, and the "lambs" come flocking his way. he keeps on telling one set of his victims to buy a certain stock, and another set to sell it. whether the stock goes up or down the "tipster" wins, and those who are on the right side of this particular deal spread his name and fame among their acquaintances. "information bureaus." these bureaus are "tipsters" pure and simple, only they travel under the name of a "bureau," instead of their individual names. "a scalper." one who is in the market continually guessing and gambling on the rise or fall. he risks a thousand dollars to gain twelve and one-half dollars. dealing on margin. this means that the buyer of a stock only deposits with his broker a small part of the value of the shares he is buying or selling. he is simply gambling, and very hazardous gambling it is. if he guesses wrong, he must pay up more and more margin or lose altogether. dealing on margin is the favorite sport of the "lambs," and it is very profitable, indeed, to those who take advantage of their misfortunes. the odds are all against the speculator on margin, and sooner or later his money disappears and he disappears with it. a successful operator. a man who is neither "bull" nor a "bear," but simply waits and takes advantage of opportunities. he knows the power of money. he knows the weakness of the public, and how gullible it is. he knows how to worry and scare the people. he sets his machine for the game and gets it. ordinary market affairs do not interest him. when a "squall" appears he is notified instantly, and gets ready for business. he knows all about the stocks that he deals in, precisely what they are, and just what to do. he knows what to buy and just to a fraction when to commence to buy it. he gives his orders, pays no more attention to it, except to see how much he got. he buys just as closely to the bottom as it is possible to get, and when it is all over he goes away happy, asking to be notified when the market is up again. _conclusion._ the contents of this book, including the wall street definitions given above, should give the reader a pretty clear idea of what is done on the new york stock exchange, and just why and how the blundering public is continually losing its money and giving wall street a black name. _it should convince you that you cannot afford to attack wall street by the methods that have been tried so many thousands of times and found to be utter failures._ about the worst possible thing that can happen to a man is to take a "flyer" in wall street and win. his winning convinces him beyond a doubt that he knows all about it, and he goes deeper and deeper, sometimes winning a little, but oftener losing, until some extraordinary turn of the market, some unforeseen incident, or some reckless piece of speculation wipes him out. that is the record of the guesses of ninety-nine out of a hundred men who try to take money out of wall street. what is the use of following right along in their footsteps and trusting to dumb luck or something of that sort to pull you out? if you have any money that you want to make money with, go into wall street through our medium, and place your money in hands where it will not only be perfectly safe, but where it will be handled in the only way that can possibly beat wall street. there is no doubt at all about this. _the thing can be done, has been done, is being done, and will always be done._ and the men who are doing it are piling up enormous fortunes for themselves, they are the only men who get the money in the end. if you want to be on their side instead of on the losing side, the only possible way you can do so is in the manner outlined in this book and we offer you the best, most favorable and safest opportunity. _questions and answers._ q. how many small "lots" can you handle with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars? a. about one hundred. q. in case of a sudden "slump," say twenty per cent., what is the result? a. no change of base is made. q. suppose some lots are on hand bought at higher prices? a. they are kept until sold at a profit, meantime paying a dividend. q. why do you buy dividend paying stocks? a. because they carry themselves. q. how often do you make purchases in a declining market? a. that depends on the market, the stock, the times, and conditions generally, which can be properly judged by the managers, who are devoting all their time and facilities to the business, and know the exact condition of every property dealt in. q. what would be the effect of an unexpected calamity? a. panics are a great help to this method. q. how often do you make purchases or sales? a. about every day, as some one or more of the different stocks have moved sufficiently to do some purchasing or selling. q. do you expect to carry a stock a year before you can sell it? a. yes, if necessary, but not likely, because first purchase only begins when the stock can be had at a bargain and is only a small "lot," and when the average has been reached and sufficient profit made, all the little lots may be sold as one lot. it is not contemplated that this will be done unless it was desirable to close out in any particular stock. there may be some loss on first purchase, but the lowest purchases have handsome profits, and the transaction as a whole renders large returns, when it is closed out and the process commenced over again, and again. q. do you guarantee investments made in the bonds of your company? a. yes, because we know the security is absolutely safe, and we have on hand all the time during the three years either the cash or an equivalent amount in sound dividend shares in the most prosperous railway and industrial corporations in the world. q. do you guarantee interest on the bonds at the rate of five per cent.? a. yes, we guarantee the principal and that the profits to the investor shall not be less than five per cent. per annum, payable semi-annually, and we will pay it regularly, but it will be charged against the gross profits, the same as commissions. q. how much more than five per cent. do you expect the bonds will earn? a. at least 25 to 50 per cent. per annum. q. what are the denominations of the bonds? a. twenty-five dollars and upwards. we issue them in regular numbers to the purchasers for the amount of his or her investment, the same as a life insurance policy is issued. q. will these bonds have a market value during the three years? a. yes, and will sell above par after the first six months. q. why do you issue bonds for only twenty-five dollars? a. so as to give small investors the opportunity to join with capitalists for savings and better returns than they can get elsewhere. q. do you consider your bonds as safe and profitable as savings banks? a. yes, and more so, because the security is better than any savings bank which receives money, pays a low rate of interest, and loans it out on securities that do not always have a cash value. our bonds are secured by an equivalent in cash or the safest and soundest dividend paying securities in the world, and can be sold instantly every business day in the year; furthermore, they earn not less than 5 per cent. per annum, with a practical certainty of a great deal more. q. how do you buy the securities? a. through our brokers on the floor of the exchanges. q. can a bondholder in your company have information of the condition of these investments any time? a. yes, every day, if he wishes. _correspondence is invited, and the fullest information will be frankly given._ henry voorce brandenburg & co. incorporated, capital $100,000 bankers no. 6 wall street new york city h. v. brandenburg, _president_ charles austin bates, _treasurer_ capital _for_ good projects first-class propositions in railroad building, gas and water plants, electric lighting and power, street car lines, mines and industrial and mercantile projects fail because those who control them lack capital or the knowledge and facilities for obtaining it. it is our business to supply capital for meritorious enterprises. thousands of people have millions of dollars to invest, and yet hundreds of good enterprises lie dormant for lack of cash. there is plenty of money for any really good projects. we organize companies, effect consolidations, create and guarantee bond issues and act as trustees and fiscal agents. we buy and sell government bonds and other securities dealt in on the new york stock exchange and other exchanges, and give disinterested advice to clients seeking investments. we own and control investment securities paying from 3-1/2 to 12 per cent. dividends, and will be pleased to send our regular list on request. we buy and sell real estate and deal in real estate loans. henry voorce brandenburg & co. bankers 6 wall st., new york city branch offices girard building, philadelphia salisbury house, london successful stock speculation _by_ j. j. butler _written april 1922_ _published december 1922_ _published by_ national bureau of financial information 395 broadway, new york city _this book is not copyrighted_ we believe the principles expounded in this book are of immense value to everyone who buys speculative securities, and we do not object to anyone reproducing any part of it, whether or not we are given credit for it. national bureau of financial information transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. variant spellings have been retained. bold text has been indicated as +bold+. contents part 1 introductory chapters chapter page i. the purpose of this book 7 ii. what is speculation 9 iii. some terms explained 13 iv. a correct basis for speculating 17 part 2 what and when to buy and sell v. what stocks to buy 23 vi. what stocks not to buy 25 vii. when to buy stocks 29 viii. when not to buy stocks 33 ix. when to sell stocks 35 part 3 influences affecting stock prices x. movements in stock prices 41 xi. major movements in prices 43 xii. the money market and stock prices 47 xiii. minor movements in prices 49 xiv. technical conditions 51 xv. manipulations 53 part 4 topics of interest to speculators xvi. marginal trading 61 xvii. short selling 65 xviii. bucket shops 69 xix. choosing a broker 71 xx. puts and calls 73 xxi. stop loss orders 75 part 5 concluding chapters xxii. the desire to speculate 81 xxiii. two kinds of traders 87 xxiv. possibilities of profit 91 xxv. market information 95 xxvi. successful speculation 103 _part one_ introductory chapters chapter i. the purpose of this book this book is written for the purpose of giving our clients some ideas of the fundamental principles that guide us when we select stocks for them to buy, but these principles are valuable to every person who trades in listed stocks or in any other kind of speculative stocks. first of all, we want you to get a clear conception of the meaning of the word speculation, which is explained in the next chapter. our purpose is to protect you against losses as well as to enable you to make profits, and it is very important that you understand how to provide for safety in your speculating. it is a well known fact that there are tremendous losses in stock speculation, but we claim that almost all of these losses would be avoided if all speculators were guided by the principles expounded in this book. "what" and "when" are two very important words in stock speculation, and we cannot urge upon you too strongly to study carefully chapters v. to ix. chapters x. to xv. tell you much about the influences that affect the prices of stocks, a knowledge of which should also be a guide to you in making your selections. perhaps the most important chapter in the entire book is xxv., on market information. a careful reading of this chapter should convince you that much of the prevailing information about the stock market is misleading. that fact alone accounts for many of the losses in stock speculation. it has been our aim to state all facts briefly. the entire book is not long, and it will not require much of your time to read it through carefully. we are sure you will get many ideas from it that will help you. chapter ii. what is speculation? to speculate is to theorize about something that is uncertain. we can speculate about anything that is uncertain, but we use the word "speculation" in this book with particular reference to the buying and selling of stocks and bonds for the purpose of making a profit. when people buy stocks and bonds for the income they get from them and the amount of that income is fixed, they are said to invest and not to speculate. in nearly all investments there is also an element of speculation, because the market price of investments is subject to change. "investment" also conveys the idea of holding for some time whatever you have purchased, while speculation conveys the idea of selling for a quick profit rather than holding for income. to the minds of most people, the word "speculation" conveys the thought of risk, and many people think it means great risk. the dictionary gives for one of the meanings of speculation, "a risky investment for large profit," but speculation need not necessarily be risky at all. the author of this book once used the expression, "stock speculating with safety," and he was severely criticized by a certain financial magazine. evidently the editor of that magazine thought that "speculating" and "safety" were contradictory terms, but the expression is perfectly correct. stock speculating with safety is possible. of course, we all know that the word "safety" is seldom used in an absolute sense. we frequently read such expressions as: "the elevators in modern office buildings are run with safety." "it is possible to cross the ocean with safety." "you can travel from new york to san francisco in a railroad train with safety." and yet accidents do occur and people do lose their lives in elevators, steamships, and railroad trains. because serious accidents are comparatively rare, we use the word "safety." in like manner it is possible to purchase stocks sometimes when it is almost certain that the purchaser will make a profit, and that is "stock speculating with safety." when liberty bonds were selling in the 80's, many people bought them for speculation. they were not taking any risk, except the slight risk that the market price might go still lower before it would go higher, and that did not involve any risk for those who knew they could hold them. the fact that the market prices of liberty bonds would advance was based upon an economic law that never fails. that law is that when interest rates go up, the market prices of bonds go down, and when interest rates go down, the market prices of bonds go up. when liberty bonds were selling in the 80's, interest rates were so very high, it was certain that they would come down. that the market prices of liberty bonds would go up was also certain, but nobody could tell how much they would go up in a given time. it was that element of uncertainty that made them speculative, and not that there was any doubt about the fact that the market prices of them would go up. buying liberty bonds at that time was speculating with safety. if you read this book with understanding, you will know much about speculating with safety. chapter iii. some terms explained there are certain terms used in connection with stock speculation that are very familiar to those who come in contact with stock brokers, and yet are not always familiar to those who do business by mail. undoubtedly the majority of our readers are familiar with these terms, but we give these definitions for the benefit of the few who are not familiar with them. trader: a person who buys and sells stocks is usually referred to as a trader. the word probably originated when it was customary to trade one stock for another and later was used to refer to a person who sold one stock and bought another. he was a trader; but the person who buys stocks for a profit and sells them and takes his profit when he gets an opportunity, may not be a trader in the strict sense of the word. however, for convenience, we use the word "trader" in this book to refer to any one who buys or sells stocks. speculator: this word refers to a person who buys stocks for profit, with the expectation of selling at a higher price, without reference to the earnings of the stock. he may sell first, with the expectation of buying at a lower price, as explained in chapter xvii. on "short selling." in many cases where we use the word "trader," it would be more correct to use the word "speculator." investor: an investor differs from a speculator in the fact that he buys stocks or bonds with the expectation of holding them for some time for the income to be derived from them, without reference to their speculative possibilities. we believe that investors always should give some consideration to the speculative possibilities of their purchases. it frequently is possible to get speculative profits without increase of risk or loss of income. bull: one who believes that the market price of stocks will advance is called a bull. of course, it is possible to be a bull in one stock and a bear in another. the word is used very frequently with reference to the market, a bull market meaning a rising market. bear: the opposite of a bull is a bear. it refers to a person who believes that the market value of stocks will decline, and a bear market is a declining market. lambs: "lambs" refers to that part of the public that knows so little about stock speculating that they lose all their money sooner or later. the bulls and bears get them going and coming. if the lambs would read this book carefully, they would discover reasons why they lose their money. long and short: those who +own+ stocks are said to be long, and those who +owe+ stocks are said to be short. short selling is explained in chapter xvii. odd lot: stocks on exchanges are sold in certain lots. on the new york stock exchange, 100 shares is a lot; and on the consolidated stock exchange, 10 shares is a lot. less than these amounts is an odd lot. when you sell an odd lot you usually get 1/8 less than the market price; and when you buy an odd lot, you usually pay 1/8 more than the market price; that is, 1/8 of a dollar on each share where prices are quoted in dollars. point: it is a common expression to say that a stock went up or down a point, which means a dollar in a stock that is quoted in dollars, but a cent in a stock that is quoted in cents, as many of the stocks are on the new york curb. in cotton quotations, a point is 1/100 part of a cent. for instance, if cotton is quoted at 18.12, it means 18 cents and 12/100 of a cent per pound, and if it went up 30 points the quotation would be 18.42. reaction: every person who has traded in listed stocks probably is familiar with this word. it means to act in an opposite direction, but it is used especially to refer to a decline in the price of a stock that has been going up. rally: "rally" is the opposite of the sense in which "reaction" usually is used. when a stock is going down and it turns and goes up, it is called a rally. commitment: this term is used referring to a purchase of stock. it is more commonly used by investment bankers when they contract to buy an issue, but the term sometimes is used by traders. floating supply: the stock of a company that is in the hands of that part of the public who is likely to sell, is referred to as floating supply. chapter iv. a correct basis for speculating we maintain that there is only one basis upon which successful speculation can be carried on continually; that is, never to buy a security unless it is selling at a price below that which is warranted by assets, earning power, and prospective future earning power. there are many influences that affect the movements of stock prices, which are referred to in subsequent chapters. all of these should be studied and understood, but they should be used as secondary factors in relation to the value of the stock in which you are trading. if the market price of any stock is far below its intrinsic value and there is no reason why the future should bring about a change in this value that will decrease it, then you may be certain that important influences are working against the market price of the stock for the time being. in the course of time the market price will go up towards the real value. this matter will be more fully explained in subsequent chapters. you always should keep in mind the fact that when you buy a stock at a higher price than its intrinsic value, you are taking a risk. the stock may have great future possibilities, but it is risky to buy stocks when present assets and earnings do not warrant their market prices, no matter how attractive prospective future earnings may appear. however, the possibilities of profit sometimes are so great that one is justified in taking this risk. it is our belief that the majority of traders buy stocks because they are active in the market and somebody said they were a good buy, even though the real values may not be nearly as much as the market prices. as an example of this kind of trading, we want to call your attention to a news item that appeared in a new york paper. it stated that on april 1st, some brokers in detroit, as an april fool joke, gave out a tip to buy a. f. p., meaning april fool preferred, but when asked what it meant, replied "american fire protection." of course, there was no such stock, but there was active trading in it until the joke was discovered. evidently it is not necessary to list a stock on the detroit stock exchange in order to trade in it. this story may or may not be true, but we believe the statement that people trade in stocks they do not know anything about is true. you should be careful not to buy a stock merely because somebody says it is a good thing to buy, unless the person making the statement is in the business of giving information on stocks, because it may be only a rumor with no substantial basis. of course, if many people act on the rumor, there will be active trading in the stock, and it is frequently for that purpose that such rumors are started. _part two_ what and when to buy and sell chapter v. what stocks to buy in deciding what stocks to buy, it is well to consider first the classes of stocks, and then what particular stocks you should buy in the classes you select. we would first of all divide all stocks into two classes, those listed on the new york stock exchange and those not listed on the new york stock exchange. as a rule, it is better to buy stocks listed on the new york stock exchange, although there are frequent exceptions to this rule. then, the stocks listed on the new york stock exchange may be divided into classes, such as railroad stocks, public utility stocks, motor stocks, tire stocks, oil stocks, copper stocks, gold stocks, and so forth. at certain times certain stocks are in a much more favorable condition than at other times. in 1919, when the industrial stocks were selling at a very high price, the public utility stocks and gold stocks were selling low, because it was impossible to increase incomes in proportion to the increase in operating costs. but since the beginning of 1921, the condition of these two classes of stocks has been improving and the market has reflected that improvement. at the time of this writing (early in april, 1922) we are recommending the stocks of only a very few manufacturing companies; but we are recommending a number (not all) of the railroad and public utility stocks, and a few specially selected stocks among the other classes. in every instance, when you make a selection, you should consider the company's assets, present earnings, and prospective future earnings, and then take into consideration all the influences that affect price movements, as explained in subsequent chapters. chapter vi. what stocks not to buy a great deal more can be said about stocks you should not buy than about stocks you should buy, because the list is very much larger. stocks not listed on the new york stock exchange, as a rule, should not be bought by a careful speculator, but as stated in the previous chapter, there are exceptions to that rule. billions of dollars have been lost in the past by buying stocks that have become worthless. a few years ago a list of defunct securities was compiled, and it took two large volumes in which to enumerate them. new ones have been added to them every year. therefore, it is very important that you should give careful thought to the subject of what stocks +not+ to buy. nearly all promotion stocks (stocks in new companies) are a failure. an extremely small percentage of them are very successful, and the successful ones are referred to in the advertising of the new ones; but, on the basis of average, the chances are you will lose your money entirely in promotion stocks. we believe that most of the promotion companies are started in perfectly good faith, although some of them are swindles from the beginning; but no matter how honest and well meaning the organizers are, the chances of success are against them. therefore, we say that promotion stocks should not be bought by the ordinary man who is looking for a good speculation, because his chances of making a large profit with a minimum risk are very much better when he buys stocks listed on the new york stock exchange and uses good judgment in doing so. among the listed stocks there are many you should not buy. first of all, eliminate them by classes. do not buy the classes of stocks that are selling too high now. you may say that there are some exceptions in all classes. that may or may not be so, but in any event, you have a better chance of profiting by confining most of your purchases to the classes of stocks that are in the most favorable position. as a rule, when stocks are first listed, they sell much higher than they do a short time afterwards. of course, that is not always true. it is more likely to be true when a stock is listed during a very active market, when prices are more easily influenced by publicity. the high price of it is usually due to the fact that publicity is given to it, and as soon as the effect of this publicity wears off, the market price of the stock declines. it is a good rule never to buy stocks that brokers urge you to buy. your own common sense ought to tell you that a stock that is advertised extensively by brokers is likely to sell up in price while the advertising is going on and will drop in price just as soon as the advertising stops. many people notice that and they think they can profit by buying when the advertising starts and sell out when they get a good profit, but the majority of them lose money. the stock may not respond to the advertising, or if it does go up, they may wait too long before selling. those who do sell and make 200% or 300% profit in a very short time are almost sure to lose it all in an effort to repeat the transaction. many of those who read this know it is true from their own experience. you should leave such stocks strictly alone. you may win once or twice, but you are sure to lose if you keep it up. as a rule stocks of this kind have very little value and the brokers who boost them make their own money from the losses of their foolish followers. chapter vii. when to buy stocks stocks should be bought when they are cheap. by being cheap, we mean that the market price is much less than the intrinsic value. in chapters x. to xv. we talk about influences that affect the price movements of stocks. by studying these carefully you should be able to decide when stocks generally are cheap. of course, not all stocks are cheap at the same time, but the majority of listed stocks do go up and down at the same time, as a rule. at the time of this writing (in the early part of april, 1922) there are a great many stocks listed on the new york stock exchange that are selling at prices much less than their intrinsic values, but there are some stocks that should not be bought now, nor at any other time. there are some stocks listed on the new york stock exchange now that perhaps have no intrinsic value and never will have any. nevertheless we consider that right now[1] is one of the times for buying stocks. there are unusual bargains to be had, although keen discrimination is necessary in order to be able to pick out the bargains. as a usual thing, it is a good time to buy stocks when nearly everybody wants to sell them. when general business conditions are bad, trading on the stock exchanges very light, and everybody you meet appears to be pessimistic, then we advise you to look for bargains in stocks. the last six months of 1921 was an unusually good time for buying stocks. it is well known that the large interests accumulate stocks at such times. they buy only when the stocks are offered at a low price and try not to buy enough at any one time to give an appearance of activity in the market, but they buy continually when the market is very dull. it seems to be characteristic of human nature to think that business conditions are going to continue just as they are. when business is bad, nearly everybody thinks business will be bad for a long time, and when business is good, nearly everybody thinks business will be good almost indefinitely. as a matter of fact, conditions are always changing. it never is possible for either extremely good times nor for extremely bad times to continue indefinitely. you can buy stocks cheaper when there is very little demand for them, and you should arrange your affairs so as to be prepared to buy at such times. footnotes: [1] in our advisory letter of april 25, 1922, we advised our clients to refrain from margin buying for a while, because the market was advancing too rapidly. shortly after that there was a decided reaction in the market. chapter viii. when not to buy stocks there are times when stocks should not be bought, and that is when nearly all stocks have advanced beyond their real values. it is doubtful if there ever is a time when all stocks have advanced beyond their real values, but when the great majority of stocks have so advanced, there is likely to be a general decline in all stock prices. the stocks that are not selling too high will decline some in sympathy with the others. therefore, there are times when we advise our clients not to buy any stocks. some organizations giving advice in regard to the buying of stocks, advise their clients to refrain entirely from buying for periods of a year or longer, but we think it is seldom advisable to refrain entirely from buying for any great length of time. there usually are some good opportunities if you watch carefully for them. it is our business to watch for these opportunities and tell our clients about them. there are also times when the technical condition of the market is such that we advise our clients to refrain from buying for a while. see chapter xiv. chapter ix. when to sell stocks you should sell stocks when the market price is too high. that is a general rule, but it is necessary for you to study all the influences affecting stock prices to be able to decide more accurately when you should sell your stocks. we give you, in future chapters, much more information on judging the markets. another general rule, is to sell stocks when nearly everybody is buying them. it is a well known fact that the great majority of people buy stocks near the top and sell near the bottom. naturally when everybody is optimistic, stocks will sell up high, but sooner or later they will come down again, and when everything looks very promising is a good time to sell. it is better to lose a little of the profit that you might have made by holding on longer than not to be on the safe side. the man who tries to sell at the top nearly always loses, because stocks seldom sell as high as it is predicted they will, or, in other words, the prediction of higher prices is advanced more rapidly than the prices. we remember reading in 1916, when u. s. steel sold up around $136 a share, a prediction that it was going to sell up to $1000 a share. probably many people who read such news items consider them seriously. of course, that was a most exaggerated prediction, but during the extreme activity of a bull market, it seems that nearly everybody is talking in exaggerated terms of optimism. that is why most traders seldom ever take their profits in a bull market. they wait until stock prices start to come down, and then they are likely to think there will be rallies, and keep on waiting until they lose all their profits. on the other hand, some people make the mistake of selling too soon. just because your purchase shows a liberal profit is no reason why you should sell. the stock may have been very cheap when you bought it. in 1920, peoples gas sold below $30. those who bought it then were able to double their money by the close of 1921, and many sold out and took their profits. of course, if they invested the proceeds in other stocks that were just starting upward, they may not have lost anything, but there was no particular reason for selling peoples gas at that time. the public utilities generally were coming into their own, and nearly all of them were regarded by economic students as having unusual opportunities for profit. then again, it is not always a mistake to sell a stock in order to get funds to put into something else that seems more promising, even though the stock you sell is likely to go much higher. it is very important that you should try to sell your stocks at the right time. that is the main thing to keep in mind and it is better to sell too soon than too late. don't be too greedy and hold on for a big profit. read chapter xxiv. on the "possibilities of profit." _part three_ influences affecting stock prices chapter x. movements in stock prices it is due to the fact that stock prices constantly move up or down that speculation is possible. sometimes certain stocks remain almost at a standstill for a long period of time, but at least a part of the stocks listed on the exchanges move either up or down. if one always could tell just what way they were going to move, it would be comparatively easy to make a fortune within a short time. in the last twenty years, a great deal of time and money has been spent by statistical organizations in checking up statistics for the purpose of ascertaining a definite basis upon which to predict future movements in stock prices. several of these organizations use very different statistics upon which to base their conclusions, and yet their conclusions are very similar. they have proved beyond any question of doubt that some of these movements are clearly indicated by laws that never fail. we do not attempt in this book to explain the fundamental statistics upon which the predictions of business cycles are based, but in the next five chapters we explain some of the influences that affect the movements in stock prices. read these chapters very carefully, for your success in stock speculation will depend very largely upon your correct prediction of these movements. chapter xi. major movements in prices stock prices move up and down in cycles. these are the major movements in prices, but there may be many minor movements up and down within the major movements. these stock price movements nearly always precede a change in business conditions; that is, an upward movement in stock prices is an indication that business conditions are going to improve, and a downward movement in stock prices is an indication that business conditions are going to get worse. at the present writing, we are in a period of improvement. stock prices began to go up in august, 1921. the upward movement has been slow, but gradual. in a period of seven months, forty representative stocks show an upward movement of about 20 points, although business has not shown much improvement. a steady upward movement in stock prices is a sure sign that business conditions are beginning to improve, even though that improvement is not noticeable. these major stock movements are not an exact duplicate of any previous ones, and it is impossible to tell how long they will last or just what course they will take. certain influences could change a period of improvement into a period of prosperity very quickly. a period of prosperity is noted for high prices, high wages, and increasing production in all lines. everybody is optimistic. most people spend their money freely, and that makes times better. as prices go up and business increases, more money is required in business and interest rates go up. as a consequence, when interest rates go up, bond prices go down. during this period, speculative stocks are selling at their highest prices; and under the influence of this movement, many stocks that have no actual value sell up at high prices. of course, wise speculators sell all their stocks during this period. following a period of prosperity comes a period of decline. the first sign of it usually is a severe break in the stock market. at that time general business is running along at top speed and there is no sign of a let-up, but this break in the stock market should be a warning. most people think the break is merely a temporary reaction--they may refer to it as a healthy reaction--and they start buying stocks again, and put the market up, but it does not go up as high as it was before the break occurred. when stock prices do not rally beyond the prices at which they were before the break occurred, it is a sign that the turning point has been reached and that the bear market has started, although the majority of people do not realize this until a long time afterwards. next comes a period of depression, when we have low prices, low wages, hard times, tight money, and many commercial failures. many people who lost all their money during the speculation period, become thrifty and economize during the period of depression, and start in to save again. nearly everybody is pessimistic during this period. trading on the stock exchange is irregular and as a rule very light. this is the time to get stock bargains, but the general public as a rule doesn't take advantage of it. people are scared and think prices will go still lower. the big interests accumulate stocks during this period, and sell them during the period of prosperity. chapter xii. the money market and stock prices perhaps no other one thing influences the movement of stock prices so much, in a large way, as money conditions. it is impossible to have a big bull market without plenty of money. during a bull market nearly all stocks are bought on margin, which is explained in chapter xvi. this makes it necessary for brokers to borrow large sums of money. when money is tight, it is impossible to get enough to carry on a large movement in stocks. you will see, therefore, that the federal reserve bank has it in its power to regulate the stock market to some extent. in 1919 speculation was carried very much further than it should have been, but undoubtedly it would have been much worse had the federal reserve bank not raised interest rates and urged member banks to withdraw money from wall street. while there was considerable criticism of that action, it certainly was a good thing for the entire country. in a period of depression, the banks accumulate money, and there always is an abundance of money at the beginning of a bull market. during a period of prosperity the banks' reserves decrease and their loans increase. when you see these reserves go down to a very low point, it is usually time for you to sell your stocks. chapter xiii. minor movements in prices within the major movements of stock prices, there always are several minor movements, which are caused by various influences. one of the important causes is the technical condition of the market. another cause might be called a psychological one. when stocks are moving up steadily in a bull market, people closely connected with the market expect a reaction and watch for it. the newspapers predict it. consequently, there is sufficient let-up in buying to allow the pressure of selling by the bears to bring it about. however, the desire to buy during reactions is so general, many people rush in to buy and this buying, in addition to the covering by the shorts, puts the market up again; and if conditions are favorable for a bull market, prices will go up much higher than they were before. in like manner, we have rallies in bear markets. of course the professional bears sell during these rallies, with the expectation of buying later at a cheaper price. these minor price changes mean more to the majority of traders than the major movements. the major movements are so slow that people get out of patience, and yet those who are guided only by the major movements are operating on a much safer basis. we believe that a greater amount of money can be made, with a minimum risk, by being guided principally by the major movements, while taking advantage of the minor movements in a minor way. however, stocks do not move uniformly and there frequently is an opportunity to buy some particular stock at a bargain when nearly all stocks are selling too high. we try to pick out these opportunities for our clients. reports of earnings by various companies influence stock prices, as does also the paying of extra dividends or the passing up of dividends. a peculiar psychological influence is noticed when a company declares an extra dividend. the price of the stock usually goes up, while as a matter of fact the intrinsic value of the stock is decreased by the amount of this dividend; and sometimes it is advisable to sell a stock shortly after an advance in its dividend rate. chapter xiv. technical conditions technical conditions refer to the conditions that usually affect the supply and demand, such as short interests, floating supply, and stop loss orders. it is sometimes said that supply and demand must be equal or else there could not be any sales, but that is not so. there are always some people who are willing to sell at some price above the market who will not sell at the market; and when the demand for stock is greater than the supply, it goes up until it is supplied by some of these people who are holding it at a higher price. it works the same way when the supply is greater than the demand. there are always some people who will buy at some price below the market. therefore, when the supply is greater than the demand prices must go down. a stock may have an intrinsic value of $100 a share and yet be selling at $50 a share, and it can never sell higher than $50 until all stock that is offered at that price is bought. however, you should keep this in mind: if the real value is $100 a share, sooner or later the market price will approach that figure. that is why we so strongly urge our clients to buy stocks that have actual values, or at least prospective values far greater than their market prices, and either to buy them outright or margin them very heavily, and then hold them until the prices do go up. of course, when one finds that a mistake has been made, the sooner one sells and takes a loss the better. chapter xv. manipulations stock prices are influenced largely by manipulation. years ago when the volume of trading on the new york stock exchange was small compared with what it is today, it was possible to influence the entire market by manipulation, but it would be very difficult to do that today. it is only certain stocks that are manipulated; but if conditions are favorable, many other stocks may be influenced by them. there are different kinds of manipulation. one is for the insiders of a company to give out unfavorable news about their company if they want the price of the stock to go down, so that they can buy it in; or to give out very favorable news if they want the price to go up, so that they can sell out. this method is not practiced now to the extent that it was years ago. public opinion is strongly opposed to it, and we believe business men are acquiring a higher standard of business ethics. methods of this kind are legal but they are morally reprehensible. another method of manipulation is the forming of pools to buy in the stock of a company and force it up. if the market price of a stock is far below its real value, we believe it is justifiable for a pool to force it up, but the ordinary pool is merely a scheme to rob the public. there are four periods to the operation of such pools. first is the period of accumulation. a number of large holders of stock in a certain company will pool their stock, all agreeing not to sell except from the pool, in which all benefit proportionately. then they give out bad news about the company. that is very easy to do, because financial writers usually accept the news that is given to them without much investigation, especially writers on daily papers, because they have not the time to investigate. their copy must be ready in a few hours after they get the information. see chapter xxv. on "market information" for fuller explanation of the reason why financial news usually is misleading. the manipulators of stock prices can have financial news "made to order." when the general public reads this news and sees the stock going down, many of them get discouraged and sell. it is just the time they should not sell, but it is a well known fact that the majority of people do in the stock market just what they should not do. the more they sell the more the price goes down, and the pool operators accumulate the stock. having secured all the stock they want, they give out good news and continue to buy the stock until it starts to go up. the public reads this favorable news, and seeing the stock go up, will go into the market and buy, which puts it up higher. all the time financial writers are supplying good news about the stock and the public buys it. after they have sold all of it, the public may still be anxious for more, and the pool operators may go short of the stock. then they will begin giving out bad news, so that they can buy in stock at a lower price to cover their short interests. after that they have very little interest in the market. if it is declining too fast, they may support it occasionally by buying some stock and giving out some favorable news. that will make the market rally and they will sell out the newly acquired stock near the top of the rally. manipulations of this kind appear to be going on nearly all the time, and there does not seem to be any limit to the number of suckers who fall for them. but then, one can't blame the public when you realize how thoroughly unreliable is most of the market information given to them. still another kind of manipulation is "one-man" manipulation, where one man controls companies, which are known as "one-man" companies. usually the directors of these companies are friends or employees of his, and in many instances he has their resignations in his possession, so that they must do whatever he wants them to do. owing to the strict rules of the new york stock exchange, it is rather difficult for such manipulations to be carried on there. but there have been many of them on the new york curb. when the curb was operating on the street and was not under very much control, manipulations of this kind were very frequent. as an example, suppose a man of this kind has a mining company. when he wants the stock to go up, he sends the stockholders a great deal of information about the work at the mine, and perhaps sends them a telegram when a new vein of rich ore is found. the stockholders rush in to buy more stock, and that puts the price up. then he unloads stock on them to the extent that they will buy it. in a day or two, the stock may drop back to less than one half of what it was selling at. if this "one-man" manipulator wants to buy any stock, he will give out a little unfavorable news, and he can get stock at his own price. after that the news is good or bad according to whether the manipulator wants to buy or sell, but as a rule he has an abundance of stock that he wants to sell, and is continually giving out good news. a few years ago there was a man operating in new york who promoted several companies and manipulated them in a large way. he is out of business now, but the same thing is still done in a smaller way. it is our opinion that more money is lost by the public in manipulated stocks than in promotion stocks, and we read a great deal about the enormous losses in them. promotions that are failures may be perfectly legitimate and conducted in the utmost good faith, but manipulations are nearly always for the purpose of swindling the public. however, the lure of them is so great many people cannot withstand the temptations of them even after they have been "trimmed" several times. _part four_ topics of interest to speculators chapter xvi. marginal trading most people who trade in stocks buy on margin. the ordinary minimum margin is about 20% of the purchase price, because banks usually lend about 80% of the market value of stocks. if you put up 20% of the purchase price of your stocks with your broker, he has to pay the other 80%, but he can do that by borrowing that amount from his bank, and putting up the stock as security. in this way brokers are able to handle all the margin business that comes to them, as long as money can be borrowed. of course, there are some stocks that are not accepted by banks as collateral for loans, and you should not expect your broker to sell such stocks on margin. in fact, if he offers to do so, it looks as though he were running a bucket shop. see chapter xviii. many people think that buying stocks on margin is gambling and that people should not do it for that reason, but buying on margin is done in all lines of business, although it may not be known under that name. if you bought stock outright, but borrowed 80% of the purchase price from your banker to complete your payment for it and put up the stock with him as security, you would be buying on margin just the same. in like manner, if you bought a home and paid 20% with money you had and borrowed the other 80% of the purchase price, you would be buying a home on margin. the principal difference is that when you buy from a broker on margin, one of the conditions of his contract is that he has the right to sell your stock provided the market price drops down to the amount that you owe on the stock, whereas if you borrow money on a home, it is usually for a certain specified time and the lender cannot sell you out until that time expires. however, in principle, there is very little difference between the two transactions. most margin traders do not put up sufficient margin. if you put up only the minimum margin, your broker has the right to call on you for more margin if the price of the stock declines at all. unless you are fully prepared at all times to put up an additional margin when called upon, you should make smaller purchases and put up a heavy margin when you buy. the amount of margin depends upon the transaction, but we advise from 30% to 50%, and at times we advise not less than 50% margin on any purchase. in fact there are times when we advise not to buy stocks on margin at all. those who wish to be entirely free from worry should buy stocks when the prices are very low, pay for them in full, get their certificates, and put them away in a safe deposit box. however, when stocks are low the risk in buying on a liberal margin is very small, and the possibilities of profit are so much greater, we do not see any objection to taking advantage of this method of trading. chapter xvii. short selling by short selling, we mean selling a stock that you do not possess, with the intention of buying it later. short selling in general business is very common, and we think nothing of it. manufacturers frequently sell goods that are not yet made, to be delivered at some future time. selling stocks short is a similar transaction, except that in a majority of cases delivery of the stock must be made immediately. however, your broker can attend to that by borrowing the stock. as explained in the preceding chapter, when the market is active most of the trading is done on margin. your broker buys a stock for you, but as he has to pay for it in full, it is customary for him to take it to his bank and borrow money on it. a bank usually lends about 80% of the market value, but if some other broker wants to borrow this stock, he will lend the full value of it. if that particular stock is very scarce and hard to get, the lender of the stock may get the use of the money without any interest. therefore, there is an advantage to the broker in lending stock, and for that reason it is nearly always possible for a broker to arrange delivery of stock for you if you wish to sell short. when you instruct him later on to buy the stock for you, he will do so and deliver it to the broker from whom he borrowed it, who will return the money he received for it. when you sell stock short and the price goes up, you will have to pay a higher price for it. therefore, to protect himself against the possibility of losing, your broker demands a payment from you just the same as you pay margin when you buy stock. short selling is something that we do not recommend very much to our clients. we think it is not advisable to do any short selling as long as there are good opportunities to make money by buying; but when all bargains disappear, as they do sometimes, you must either sell short or else keep out of the market entirely. at such times, there may be many opportunities to make money by short selling, and we do not consider that there is any reason why our clients should not take advantage of them. of course, great care must be exercised in selling stocks short. you might sell a stock short because you know the market price is 100% greater than its real value, but it is possible for manipulators to force it up a great deal higher; and if you are not able to put up sufficient money with your broker to protect him, he will buy at a high price and you will lose the money you have put up with him. in some instances, stocks are cornered and the short interests are forced to buy the stocks at prices that represent enormous losses. it is a common thing to read about the short interests in certain stocks. all stocks that are sold short must be bought sooner or later, and when that buying takes place, it may affect the market very much. therefore, if it is known that there is a big short interest in a certain stock, we should expect the stock to sell at a higher price; but sometimes the short interests break the market and force the price down, especially when general conditions are in their favor. chapter xviii. bucket shops there has been so much publicity given to bucket shops, nearly everybody is familiar with the term. a broker runs a bucket shop when he sells stock to his clients on margin and either never buys the stock for their accounts, or else sells it immediately after buying it. the bucket shop simply gets your money on the supposition that you are more likely to be wrong than to be right. of course, if you take the bucket shop's advice you surely are likely to be wrong. bucket shops get their clients into the very speculative stocks, where there is likely to be a great deal of fluctuation in the price of the stocks, which gives them frequent opportunities to sell out their clients. when the market is going down or when there are many movements up and down in the price of stocks, the bucket shops make money rapidly, but occasionally there is a long period when the market is working against the bucket shops, and unless they have a great deal of money they must fail. in august, 1921, stock exchange stocks started to go up. the upward movement was very slow but it was continual. up to the time of this writing, there has not been a three-point reaction, except in a few stocks, in all of that time. without a fluctuating market, the bucket shop has no chance to clean out its customers. as a consequence, the bucket shops began to fail in the early part of 1922, and up to the present writing (april, 1922) there have been more than fifty of these failures. however, it is not likely that all the bucket shops will be put out of business. the more successful ones are likely to "weather the storm." many laws have been enacted against bucket shops, and we believe some way will be found to get rid of them at some future time; but we do not expect that to happen soon, and we warn our readers not to get into their hands, because if they do not get your money away from you one way they are likely to get it some other way. the man who runs a bucket shop usually has no conscience, and it certainly is an unfortunate thing for anyone to get mixed up with such a man. chapter xix. choosing a broker it is very important that you choose a good broker. no matter how careful you are, it is possible to make a mistake. however, if you choose a broker who is a member of the new york stock exchange, you have eliminated a very large percentage of your chances of getting a wrong broker. occasionally a member of the stock exchange fails and once in a while one is suspended for running a bucket shop or being connected with one, but these instances are very rare compared with the number of brokers who get into trouble who are not members of the new york stock exchange. the rules and regulations of the stock exchange protect you to a great extent. when you buy stock on margin, you leave your money in the hands of a broker, and you should know that he is responsible. no matter who your broker is, you should get a report on him. if you are a subscriber to bradstreet's or dun's agencies, get a report from them. if you are not a subscriber to any mercantile agency, you perhaps have a friend who can get a report for you, or your bank may get one for you. banks make a practice of getting reports of this kind for their clients. when asked to do so, we send our clients the names of brokers who are members of the new york stock exchange, but we prefer not to recommend any broker. of course, we cannot guarantee that a broker is all right. we simply use our best judgment, but, as we said before, you eliminate a large percentage of your chances of going wrong when you trade with a broker who is a member of the new york stock exchange. chapter xx. puts and calls a "put" is a negotiable contract giving the holder the privilege to sell a specified number of shares of a certain stock to the maker at a fixed price, within a specified time. a "call" is the exact reverse. it is a negotiable contract giving the holder the privilege to buy a specified number of shares of a certain stock from the maker at a fixed price, within a specified time. the price fixed in a put or call is set away from the market price a certain number of points, depending upon the stock and the condition of the market. when the market is steady and not fluctuating, the price fixed is frequently only two points away, but in a more active market it is considerably more. for instance, at the present time, u. s. steel is selling at about 95, and you can buy a call on it at 97 or a put at 93. that is by paying a certain amount, which at present is $137.50, you can have the privilege of buying 100 shares of u. s. steel at 97, within thirty days of the date of the purchase of your call. if steel should go up to 101 you could have your broker buy it at 97 and sell it at the market, and you would make a profit of four points, less the cost of your call and commissions. as a method of operating in the stock market, we do not recommend the buying of puts and calls. professional speculators may be able to use them to advantage sometimes, but for the outsider, who is not in close touch with the market, there is nothing about them to recommend. here is one point: the people who sell puts and calls fix the terms. if the market is irregular, they will set the point of buying or selling far away from the market price. these people are shrewd traders and they make the terms in their own favor. it is generally said that nearly all the buyers of puts and calls lose, and that is our opinion. therefore, we advise you to leave them alone. chapter xxi. stop loss orders a "stop-loss" is an order to your broker to sell you out if the market sells down a certain number of points. many speculators place stop loss orders only two points from the market price. the idea is that when the market starts to go down it is likely to continue going down, and by taking a two-point loss you may save a much greater loss. it also can be applied to a short sale, when you give your broker instructions to buy in the stock for you if it goes up a certain number of points. we read so much in the financial news about stop-loss orders or merely stop orders, which is the same thing, the average reader is likely to get the idea that it is something he must use for his own protection, but it is our opinion that it is something that should be used very seldom by those who trade along the broad lines recommended by us. if your purchases were made in stocks that were very cheap, you should continue to hold them in case of a reaction. if you bought them outright or on a substantial margin, you are not in danger, and you should look upon your loss merely as a paper loss. in the great majority of cases, you will be a great deal better off to hold on to your stocks than you would be if you had a stop-loss order. a large number of stop-loss orders is a good thing for the short interests. let us take u. s. steel again, as an example. suppose it is selling at 94 and it is believed that there are a large number of stop-loss orders at 92. the short interests may sell the stock heavily and force it down to 92. then the brokers with stop-loss orders would begin to sell; that would force the price down still lower, and the short interests could buy in to cover at this lower price. therefore, we believe that stop-loss orders are a bad thing and, as a rule, do not recommend them. there is one instance where a stop-loss order can be used to advantage, and that is near the top of a bull market. it is impossible to tell when the market has reached the top. if you sell out too soon, you may lose a profit of several points. of course, it is better to do that than to take a chance of a large loss. in that case, you might instruct your broker to place a stop-loss order at two or more points below the market, and keep moving it up as the market price moves up. then when the reaction does come, he will sell you out and prevent you from losing a large part of your profit. that is about the only instance where we recommend a stop-loss order, but we do recommend it to our clients sometimes, although seldom. if the stock you own is selling at more than 100 we would suggest that you make the stop loss order at least three points from the market, but for stocks selling below 100, a two-point stop-loss order might be used. however, the number of points should be decided upon in each particular case. in the special instructions to our clients, we tell them when we think they can use a stop-loss order to advantage. _part five_ concluding chapters chapter xxii. the desire to speculate it is said that the desire to speculate is very strong in the american people. that is why our country has made greater progress than any other country in the world, because progress is the result of speculation. we are not referring merely to stock speculations, but to the word in its broadest sense. every new undertaking is a speculation. an inventor speculates on what he is going to invent. often such speculations result in losses, because many inventors, or would-be-inventors, never accomplish very much. they spend their money, time, and efforts, and probably live years in poverty, and then if the invention is not profitable, they are heavy losers. many inventors spend the best years of their lives in poverty and never succeed. we hear a great deal about some of those who do succeed, but very little about those who fail--those whose speculations were unsuccessful--except when somebody accuses them of being crooks because they solicited money for the promotion of their inventions and did not succeed. it is the same thing with every new business. it is purely a speculation. it is a common saying that 95% of commercial undertakings fail. we do not know that that statement is correct, but there is no question but that the number of failures is very great, which shows the great risk in going into a new undertaking. it is far greater than the risk involved in stock speculating when it is done in accordance with the advice given in this book. yet, there would be no progress without speculating of this kind. if those entering a new business would make a careful study of the venture before entering it, and would exercise greater care and judgment in conducting it, the number of failures would be very much less. the same thing is true of stock speculating. the failures in stock speculating are caused mainly by ignorance and greediness. many people who would be satisfied with a fair return on their money in a business enterprise, think they ought to make a 100% profit in a few weeks in stock speculation. there is something about stock speculation that appeals to the greediness and pure gambling instincts of people. in the chapter on manipulation, we have told you how stock prices are put up and down. some outsider accidentally buys one of these stocks just before the price starts up. in thirty days he has made several hundred per cent profit. he does not realize that it was purely accidental as far as he was concerned, and he tries to do the same thing again, and loses all of his profits and probably all of his capital as well. a stock gambler (we use the word "gambler" to refer to a man who operates ignorantly) is watching a large number of extremely speculative stocks and suddenly notices one that takes a big jump in price. then he says to himself, "if i only had bought that stock on a ten-point margin, i would have made several hundred per cent profit." he picks out another stock that some one tells him is going to do equally as well. he buys as much of it as he can and puts up all the money he has as a margin, but the price doesn't go up. perhaps the price goes down and he loses his margin; but, it may remain almost stationary for a long period, sometimes for a year or more, and during all of this time, this man is worrying for fear he will lose his money. if he does not lose his money, it is tied up for a long time where he cannot use it to take advantage of real opportunities that come his way. it does not pay to take big risks. that is true in stock speculating the same as in any other undertaking. most speculators are keeping their minds all the time on the possibilities of profit and not thinking about the possibilities of losing. if you want to be successful in stock speculating, there is one thing you must learn to do, and that is never to think about the big profits you might have made if you had bought such and such a stock, because the probabilities are you could not have afforded to take the necessary risk in buying that stock. of course, after it is all over, it may look to you as though the buying of that stock was a sure thing, but the buying of such stocks is never a sure thing. the risk always exists. there is an old saying, and we believe a very true one, that a man who speculates with the idea of getting rich quickly loses all his money quickly, but that the man who speculates with the idea of making a fair return on his money usually gets rich. in our advice to our clients, we seldom recommend highly speculative stocks, because we consider the avoidance of loss more important than the making of profits. you may object to that statement, because you speculate to make profits, and not for the purpose of avoiding losses. nevertheless, if you are careful in keeping your losses down to a minimum, your profits are likely to be very liberal. any trader who trades for any great length of time is likely to make large profits sometimes, and yet the majority of them have greater losses than profits. it is said that more than 80% of all margin traders lose; but we do not consider that an argument against trading on margin, because these losses are mostly due to ignorance, greediness, and the taking of too great chances. do not suppress your desire to speculate. all progress would stop if people did not speculate. but do not speculate in stocks nor in anything else without any knowledge of what you are doing, and try to use as much good judgment and care as possible in all of your transactions. if you do not know what to do, get advice from someone who is supposed to know and who is not interested in having you buy or sell. stock speculating with safety is possible for those who make the effort to be guided by correct principles. chapter xxiii. two kinds of traders there are two kinds of stock traders. one kind nearly always makes a profit, and the other wins sometimes and loses other times, but eventually loses all if he does not change his methods. the first kind buys stocks on liberal margin or outright and is not worried when the market goes against him, because he has good reasons for believing that prices eventually will go up. if he does have to take a loss occasionally, it is likely to be small compared with his profits. the second kind wants to make a big profit quickly, and he buys stocks that he thinks are going to make big gains in the near future, but his selections are not based upon good judgment. we might designate these two traders as the careful trader and the reckless trader. the careful trader tries to get good advice on the markets and the values of stocks. if the advice appears to him to be conservative, he is guided by it; but if the reckless trader gets advice on stocks, he is not guided by it if it is of a conservative nature. if he does take advice, it is likely to be from one of those unreliable market tipsters who is very emphatic in his statements about what the market is going to do. the reckless trader lets his greed and desire for large and quick profits influence his judgment. once in a while one of these reckless traders realizes that he has made a great mistake, and he wants to change his attitude. usually he is holding several stocks that show a big loss and he does not know what to do with them. he reasons that they are selling so low now they surely will sell higher some time. perhaps his reasoning is good and perhaps it is not. the stocks may have no chance of going up for a very long time, if at all, but even though they have a good chance to go up later, it is better for him to sell them now if he can put the money derived from the sale into something else that has a better chance to make a profit. our advice is never to hesitate to sell and take a loss if you can put the proceeds from the sale into something better rather than leave it in the stock in which it is now. it is not so much a question whether or not the stock you are holding will go up, as it is whether or not you would buy that particular stock if you were just coming into the market to make a purchase. of course there is a loss of commissions when you sell a stock and buy something else, and for that reason we sometimes recommend holding a stock when we would not recommend buying it. if you have been a reckless trader in the past, the only thing for you to do is to change your methods and try to become a careful trader. it is much better to go to the extreme in carefulness and be satisfied with very small profits than to take great risks. chapter xxiv. possibilities of profit what are the possibilities of profit in stock speculation? that question is frequently asked but it is difficult to answer. james r. keene is quoted as having said: "many men come to wall street to get rich; they always go broke. others come to wall street to operate intelligently for fair returns; they usually get rich." while it is true that nearly all stock traders who try to make unusually large profits in a very short time in stock trading lose, yet unusual profits can be made if you exercise good judgment and have patience. roger w. babson, in his book entitled, "business barometers," speaks of the possibilities of profit in language that would be considered greatly exaggerated if used by a promoter, and yet he is extremely conservative in his advice to traders. he advises never to buy on margin, never to sell short, and staying out of the market entirely, neither buying or selling, for a great part of the time. here is a quotation from his book, which follows a detailed statement of an investment of $2,500 over a period of fifty years: "the preceding example shows that $2,500 conservatively invested in a few standard stocks about fifty years ago would today amount to over $1,000,000. these are not only strictly investment stocks, but are also stocks which have fluctuated comparatively little in price. this, moreover was possible by giving orders to buy or sell only once in every three or four years. "if other stocks which were not dividend payers and which have shown greater fluctuations were purchased, and advantage had been taken of the intermediate fluctuations, the $2,500 would have amounted to much larger figures. by intermediate movements is not meant the weekly movements which the ordinary professional operator notes, but the broader movements extending over many months and possibly a year or more. nevertheless, these broader intermediate movements should not be noticed by a conservative investor, as it is possible to correctly diagnose only the movements extending over longer periods. many brokers believe that it is possible to discern also these intermediate movements of six or eight months; and if so, the following results would have been possible. "$5,000 invested in 'st. paul' in 1870 would amount to over $10,000,000 today. "$5,000 invested in 'union pacific' in 1870 would amount to over $15,000,000 today. "$5,000 invested in 'central of new jersey' would amount to over $30,000,000 today. "$5,000 invested in 'northern pacific' would amount to over $50,000,000 today. "these figures are not based on the supposition that the investor was selling at the top of every rise or buying at the bottom of every decline, but that the transactions were made at average 'high' and average 'low' prices based upon the study of technical conditions." if such large profits can be made by following babson's advice, of course larger profits can be made by buying on conservative margin and by selling short when all the conditions are in favor of it. while there are possibilities of making extremely large profits without taking great risks, by those who are patient and exercise good judgment, one should be satisfied with a small profit, if it is the result of great care, in an effort to eliminate risk. of course, you can afford to take a much greater risk with a small part of your speculative fund than you can with all of it. the less money you have with which to speculate, the more careful you should be. some people cannot afford to speculate at all. they should invest their funds in good, safe investments, but this book is written for speculators. careful stock speculation carried on regularly over a period of years, we believe brings larger returns than almost anything else, and in the next chapter we tell you something about where to get information to guide you. chapter xxv. market information where do you get your market information? perhaps most people get it from the daily papers. when you look over the financial news of one of the leading metropolitan papers and see how much there is of it, you can get some idea of the enormous volume of work necessary to get this matter ready for the press in a few hours. there is no time to confirm reports. it is necessary that many of the articles be written from pure imagination, based on rumors. weekly and monthly periodicals can be more accurate in their information, but even they are not always dependable. much of the financial news published comes from agencies that are not reliable. read what henry clews says about them: "principally among these caterers are the financial news agencies and the morning wall street news sheet, both specially devoted to the speculative interests that centre at the stock exchange. the object of these agencies is a useful one; but the public have a right to expect that when they subscribe for information upon which immense transactions may be undertaken, the utmost caution, scrutiny and fidelity should be exercised in the procurement and publication of the news. anything that falls short of this is something worse than bad service and bad faith with subscribers; it is dishonest and mischievous. and yet it cannot be denied that much of the so-called news that reaches the public through these instrumentalities must come under this condemnation. the 'points,' the 'puffs,' the alarms and the canards, put out expressly to deceive and mislead, find a wide circulation through these mediums, with an ease which admits of no possible justification. how far these lapses are due to the haste inseparable from the compilation of news of such a character, how far to a lack of proper sifting and caution, how far to less culpable reasons i do not pretend to decide; but this will be admitted by every observer, that the circulation of pseudo news is the frequent cause of incalculable losses. nor is it alone in the matter of circulating false information that these news venders are at fault. the habit of retailing 'points' in the interest of cliques, the volunteering of advice as to what people should buy and what they should sell, the strong speculative bias that runs through their editorial opinions, these things appear to most people a revolting abuse of the true functions of journalism." of course, every trader gets market letters from one or more brokers. these are many and varied in character. some of them are prepared with great care and give reliable information, but you must remember that a broker's market letter is published for the purpose of getting business, and business is created only by the customers' trading. therefore it is to the broker's interest to have his customers make many trades instead of a few trades. in his book "business barometers," roger w. babson reproduces a letter written to him by the manager of the customers' room of a stock exchange house. we consider this letter so important to all traders, we are taking the liberty to reproduce it here: "hearing on every hand about the fortunes made in wall street, i decided, upon being graduated from college, to devote myself to finance. with this end in view, i secured a position with a first-class new york stock exchange house, finally becoming the 'handshaker' for the firm; that is, 'manager' of the customers' room. so i had an exceptional opportunity to size up the stock business. the chief duties of the manager are to meet customers when they visit the office, tell them how the market is acting, the latest news from the news-tickers and the gossip of the street. but the real duties are to get business for the house. once a most peculiar man came to the office. he was about forty-five years of age, dressed in a faded cutaway coat, high-water trousers, and an east side low-crown derby hat. in a high squeaky voice he said that he knew our milwaukee house and would like to open an account. of course, we were all smiles, for here was a new 'customer.' "one day while in boston he called us up on the long-distance telephone to make an inquiry about the grain market. one of my assistants, desiring to get a commission out of him, said 'we hear that southern pacific is going up; you had better get aboard.' he said 'all right; buy me a hundred at the market.' the stock was bought, but he never saw daylight on his purchase, for the market declined steadily afterward and by the time he got back from boston it showed a heavy loss. the man who advised its purchase had no special knowledge about the stock, but simply took a chance, knowing that the market had only two ways to go, and it might go up, in which case, besides making twenty-five dollars in commissions for the house, he would be patted on the back for his good judgment. if the market went down, as it did, he would still make twenty-five dollars. "i venture to say that 99% of the speculations on the new york stock exchange are based on such so-called 'tips'. the manager has got to get the business to keep his position and salary, and this can only be done by 'touting' people into the market. so he draws on the 'dope' sheets of the professional tipsters and his own feelings, and gives positive information to the bleating lamb that the standard oil is putting up st. paul, or that certain influential bankers are 'bulling' union pacific. the lamb buys the stock, the broker gets the commission, and then the lamb worries his heart out as he sees his one-thousand-dollar margin jumping around in value. now it has increased to eleven hundred dollars, then declined to nine hundred and fifty dollars, then nine hundred dollars, eight hundred dollars, then back to eight hundred and fifty dollars and then it takes the 'toboggan' to three hundred dollars upon which the broker calls for margins, and sells the customer out if they are not forthcoming, the whole speculation being based on the manager's 'feeling' that stocks ought to go up. "men of affairs who will not play poker at home, and are shocked at the mention of faro and roulette, which any old-timer will tell you are easier to beat than the stock market, think they are using business judgment when they try to make money on stock market 'tips'. anyone with common sense can see that a 10% margin has no more chance in an active market than a brush dam in a johnstown flood. one of the causes for this kind of speculating on a margin is that a broker's commission is only 12-1/2 cents per share and it does not pay to do small-lot business. the one-thousand-dollar margin would only buy ten shares outright and net the broker but $1.25 for buying and $1.25 for selling, whereas that same amount as margin on one hundred shares yields the broker $12.50 each way besides interest on the balance, the net result being that for any given amount of money a speculator on 10% margin multiplies his profits by ten and his losses by ten over those that would occur were he to buy the stock outright and take it home. the broker on his side multiplies his commission by ten over what he would receive were he to do an investment business." from the above letter you get an idea of the attitude of an employee of the average broker's office. he would not be considered loyal to his employer if he had a different attitude. when an attitude like this influences the broker's market letters, they are not reliable. you may ask whether there is any reliable information about the market. yes, there is. there are several large organizations that make a study of fundamental statistics and statistics of different companies and give information to their subscribers based upon this knowledge. we believe that is the only kind of information that is worth very much to a trader, except the statistical information--the number of shares sold and the prices at which they are sold--he gets from his daily or weekly papers. some of the principal organizations of this kind are as follows: _standard statistics company, inc. babson's statistical organization. the brookmire economic service. harvard economic service. poor's investment service. moody's investors service. richard d. wyckoff analytical staff._ the above are the principal organizations of this kind. subscriptions to their service cost from $85 to $1000 a year. in addition to these there are a few other organizations besides our own and individuals giving a somewhat similar service, but we know of none that gives such a service at as low a price as ours. you should not confuse the service given by the above organizations with that given by many organizations and individuals who attempt to tell you what the market is going to do from day to day. in other words, they give 'tips' on the market. there are a number who issue daily market letters of this kind and charge from $10 to $25 a month for their service, but it is a line of service that we do not recommend at all, because we consider that you would be taking a very great risk if you followed advice of that kind. you might make enormously large profits occasionally, but you would also have frequent losses, and when the losses did come they might be greater than all the previous profits. we want you to understand that that kind of advice is entirely different from what we are recommending. chapter xxvi. successful speculation success in stock speculation depends upon a few things that are very simple. if you know what to buy, when to buy, and when to sell, and will act in accordance with that knowledge, your success is assured. you may think it is impossible to know these things, but it is not so difficult as it is supposed to be. many people buy stocks at the wrong time, and most of those who do buy them at the right time, buy the wrong stocks. right now (early in april, 1922) is buying time in the stock market, and it is possible that this buying time may continue--with some interruptions--for another year or two, or even longer. it is more difficult, however, to tell you what stocks to buy. first of all, we advise you against buying stocks that are put up to high prices by manipulation. of course, if you get in one of those stocks right and get out right, your profits are very large, but you take a great risk, and those who win once or twice by this method are almost sure to lose everything sooner or later in an effort to do the same thing again. your chances are not much better than if you gambled at monte carlo. the chances in buying manipulated stocks are invariably against the outsider. there always is so much publicity about these very active speculative stocks that the public is attracted towards them. newspapers and brokers' market letters give altogether too much space to them. such stocks sell far too high, and when the break comes, it brings ruinous losses to many people. on the other hand, by following a conservative course, you really have a chance to make large profits with a minimum risk. we are giving below sixteen stocks that we recommended in our advisory letter of february 14th, 1922, with the approximate prices of them then and the approximate prices on march 31st.[2] in arriving at these prices, we took the closing prices on february 13th and on march 31st, and omitted the fractions. we recommended only sixteen stocks on that date, and you will see that every one of them made substantial gains. approximate approximate price price stock feb. 14, 1922 mar. 31, 1922 profit c. r. i. & p. pfd (6) 75 79 4 c. r. i. & p. pfd (7) 88 93 5 new york central 76 88 12 pacific gas & electric 64 68 4 consolidated gas 90 109 19 american telephone & telegraph 118 121 3 general motors deb. (6) 70 78 8 general motors deb. (7) 81 91 10 u. s. steel 87 95 8 dome mines 23 26 3 laclede gas 50 63 13 missouri pacific pfd 48 54 6 c. r. i. & p. common 33 40 7 am. smel. & refining 45 53 8 anaconda 47 51 4 erie common 10 11 1 --- --- -- total 1005 1120 115 let us suppose you bought ten shares of each of these stocks on february 14th. they would have cost you $10,050. we recommended 30% margin on the first ten, all of which were dividend payers; and 50% margin on the last six, because they were more speculative and would have been more affected by a reaction in the market. to buy ten shares of each on that margin basis would have required a little less than $3,500, but let us suppose you put up $3,500. after allowing for buying and selling commissions and interest on the balance of $6,550, but crediting you with dividends paid, your profit would be about 32% or at the rate of about 250% per annum. of course, we do not claim that by following the conservative course we advise, you always will make such large profits, although you might do just as well as that if you took advantage of some of the opportunities so frequently to be found in the market; but keen discrimination in what you buy always is necessary. however, let us suppose you made annual profits of one-fifth the above amount, or 50%, which is easily possible without taking the risks that are usually taken in stock speculating. if you invested $1000 and made 50% profit per annum, reinvesting your profit at the same rate each year for twenty years, you would have more than three million dollars. when there is a possibility of making such enormous profits as that by following careful methods, surely there is no argument in favor of taking the extreme risks that people do take in buying the highly speculative stocks, the prices of which are put up for the purpose of unloading them on the public. ten of the stocks we selected in the above list were dividend payers, and while the other six were not, they were considered worth much more than their market prices, and the list as a whole was conceded by conservative people as a safe one to buy. very frequently we are able to recommend a list of stocks that we believe will yield equally large profits, but the stocks you should buy are not the ones that are the most active nor the ones that are mentioned most frequently in the financial news and brokers' market letters. the stocks that most people buy are usually the very stocks that should be left alone. the stocks you should buy are usually the ones you hear very little about. there is only one safe way to speculate, and that is to be guided by a knowledge of the fundamental conditions of each stock and also of the industries they represent. there are several large organizations giving information of this kind, and those who have been guided by the fundamental statistics issued by them, almost invariably have made money in stock speculating. the value of that kind of service has been thoroughly demonstrated beyond any question. however, a subscription for the service of most of these organizations costs more than the average person can afford to pay. usually it is anywhere from $100 to $1,000 a year. we are giving a service for the purpose of guiding our clients to successful speculation for a fee of only $25 a year, $15 for six months, or $10 for three months. for this fee we tell you what stocks to buy, when to buy, and when to sell. we send you our recommendations at least twice a month, but send you additional advisory letters and lists oftener if conditions make it necessary. you also have the privilege of unlimited personal correspondence regarding your market problems. the cost of our service is very small, compared with what other reliable organizations charge. our service is based on the principles expounded in this book. we try to select stocks having the greatest possibilities of profit with minimum risk, and the sample of our service given in this chapter is proof of our success. national bureau of financial information 395 broadway, new york city footnotes: [2] we did not advise the sale of these stocks on march 31st, but the author figured profits to that date because this book was written shortly after that. if these stocks had been bought on or about february 14th, on the margin basis suggested by us, and sold six months later, the profit would have been more than 60%, or 120% yearly. the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 3. chapter xix. mr. harry brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the city hotel in hawkeye. mr. thompson had been kind enough to say that it didn't make any difference whether he was with the corps or not; and although harry protested to the colonel daily and to washington hawkins that he must go back at once to the line and superintend the lay-out with reference to his contract, yet he did not go, but wrote instead long letters to philip, instructing him to keep his eye out, and to let him know when any difficulty occurred that required his presence. meantime harry blossomed out in the society of hawkeye, as he did in any society where fortune cast him and he had the slightest opportunity to expand. indeed the talents of a rich and accomplished young fellow like harry were not likely to go unappreciated in such a place. a land operator, engaged in vast speculations, a favorite in the select circles of new york, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with public men at washington, one who could play the guitar and touch the banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in hawkeye. even miss laura hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes of her attractions. "gad," says harry to the colonel, "she's a superb creature, she'd make a stir in new york, money or no money. there are men i know would give her a railroad or an opera house, or whatever she wanted--at least they'd promise." harry had a way of looking at women as he looked at anything else in the world he wanted, and he half resolved to appropriate miss laura, during his stay in hawkeye. perhaps the colonel divined his thoughts, or was offended at harry's talk, for he replied, "no nonsense, mr. brierly. nonsense won't do in hawkeye, not with my friends. the hawkins' blood is good blood, all the way from tennessee. the hawkinses are under the weather now, but their tennessee property is millions when it comes into market." "of course, colonel. not the least offense intended. but you can see she is a fascinating woman. i was only thinking, as to this appropriation, now, what such a woman could do in washington. all correct, too, all correct. common thing, i assure you in washington; the wives of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives, and some who are not wives, use their influence. you want an appointment? do you go to senator x? not much. you get on the right side of his wife. is it an appropriation? you'd go 'straight to the committee, or to the interior office, i suppose? you'd learn better than that. it takes a woman to get any thing through the land office: i tell you, miss laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the senate and the house of representatives in one session, if she was in washington, as your friend, colonel, of course as your friend." "would you have her sign our petition?" asked the colonel, innocently. harry laughed. "women don't get anything by petitioning congress; nobody does, that's for form. petitions are referred somewhere, and that's the last of them; you can't refer a handsome woman so easily, when she is present. they prefer 'em mostly." the petition however was elaborately drawn up, with a glowing description of napoleon and the adjacent country, and a statement of the absolute necessity to the prosperity of that region and of one of the stations on the great through route to the pacific, of the, immediate improvement of columbus river; to this was appended a map of the city and a survey of the river. it was signed by all the people at stone's landing who could write their names, by col. beriah sellers, and the colonel agreed to have the names headed by all the senators and representatives from the state and by a sprinkling of ex-governors and ex-members of congress. when completed it was a formidable document. its preparation and that of more minute plots of the new city consumed the valuable time of sellers and harry for many weeks, and served to keep them both in the highest spirits. in the eyes of washington hawkins, harry was a superior being, a man who was able to bring things to pass in a way that excited his enthusiasm. he never tired of listening to his stories of what he had done and of what he was going to do. as for washington, harry thought he was a man of ability and comprehension, but "too visionary," he told the colonel. the colonel said he might be right, but he had never noticed anything visionary about him. "he's got his plans, sir. god bless my soul, at his age, i was full of plans. but experience sobers a man, i never touch any thing now that hasn't been weighed in my judgment; and when beriah sellers puts his judgment on a thing, there it is." whatever might have been harry's intentions with regard to laura, he saw more and more of her every day, until he got to be restless and nervous when he was not with her. that consummate artist in passion allowed him to believe that the fascination was mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity, while inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. her coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions of a modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little tendernesses into which she was occasionally surprised. he could never be away from her long, day or evening; and in a short time their intimacy was the town talk. she played with him so adroitly that harry thought she was absorbed in love for him, and yet he was amazed that he did not get on faster in his conquest. and when he thought of it, he was piqued as well. a country girl, poor enough, that was evident; living with her family in a cheap and most unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in america, scantily furnished and unadorned; without the adventitious aids of dress or jewels or the fine manners of society--harry couldn't understand it. but she fascinated him, and held him just beyond the line of absolute familiarity at the same time. while he was with her she made him forget that the hawkins' house was nothing but a wooden tenement, with four small square rooms on the ground floor and a half story; it might have been a palace for aught he knew. perhaps laura was older than harry. she was, at any rate, at that ripe age when beauty in woman seems more solid than in the budding period of girlhood, and she had come to understand her powers perfectly, and to know exactly how much of the susceptibility and archness of the girl it was profitable to retain. she saw that many women, with the best intentions, make a mistake of carrying too much girlishness into womanhood. such a woman would have attracted harry at any time, but only a woman with a cool brain and exquisite art could have made him lose his head in this way; for harry thought himself a man of the world. the young fellow never dreamed that he was merely being experimented on; he was to her a man of another society and another culture, different from that she had any knowledge of except in books, and she was not unwilling to try on him the fascinations of her mind and person. for laura had her dreams. she detested the narrow limits in which her lot was cast, she hated poverty. much of her reading had been of modern works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too scrupulous in the use of them. she wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury, she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not--thanks to some of the novels she had read--the nicest discrimination between notoriety and reputation; perhaps she did not know how fatal notoriety usually is to the bloom of womanhood. with the other hawkins children laura had been brought up in the belief that they had inherited a fortune in the tennessee lands. she did not by any means share all the delusion of the family; but her brain was not seldom busy with schemes about it. washington seemed to her only to dream of it and to be willing to wait for its riches to fall upon him in a golden shower; but she was impatient, and wished she were a man to take hold of the business. "you men must enjoy your schemes and your activity and liberty to go about the world," she said to harry one day, when he had been talking of new york and washington and his incessant engagements. "oh, yes," replied that martyr to business, "it's all well enough, if you don't have too much of it, but it only has one object." "what is that?" "if a woman doesn't know, it's useless to tell her. what do you suppose i am staying in hawkeye for, week after week, when i ought to be with my corps?" "i suppose it's your business with col. sellers about napoleon, you've always told me so," answered laura, with a look intended to contradict her words. "and now i tell you that is all arranged, i suppose you'll tell me i ought to go?" "harry!" exclaimed laura, touching his arm and letting her pretty hand rest there a moment. "why should i want you to go away? the only person in hawkeye who understands me." "but you refuse to understand me," replied harry, flattered but still petulant. "you are like an iceberg, when we are alone." laura looked up with wonder in her great eyes, and something like a blush suffusing her face, followed by a look of langour that penetrated harry's heart as if it had been longing. "did i ever show any want of confidence in you, harry?" and she gave him her hand, which harry pressed with effusion--something in her manner told him that he must be content with that favor. it was always so. she excited his hopes and denied him, inflamed his passion and restrained it, and wound him in her toils day by day. to what purpose? it was keen delight to laura to prove that she had power over men. laura liked to hear about life at the east, and especially about the luxurious society in which mr. brierly moved when he was at home. it pleased her imagination to fancy herself a queen in it. "you should be a winter in washington," harry said. "but i have no acquaintances there." "don't know any of the families of the congressmen? they like to have a pretty woman staying with them." "not one." "suppose col. sellers should, have business there; say, about this columbus river appropriation?" "sellers!" and laura laughed. "you needn't laugh. queerer things have happened. sellers knows everybody from missouri, and from the west, too, for that matter. he'd introduce you to washington life quick enough. it doesn't need a crowbar to break your way into society there as it does in philadelphia. it's democratic, washington is. money or beauty will open any door. if i were a handsome woman, i shouldn't want any better place than the capital to pick up a prince or a fortune." "thank you," replied laura. "but i prefer the quiet of home, and the love of those i know;" and her face wore a look of sweet contentment and unworldliness that finished mr. harry brierly for the day. nevertheless, the hint that harry had dropped fell upon good ground, and bore fruit an hundred fold; it worked in her mind until she had built up a plan on it, and almost a career for herself. why not, she said, why shouldn't i do as other women have done? she took the first opportunity to see col. sellers, and to sound him about the washington visit. how was he getting on with his navigation scheme, would it be likely to take him from home to jefferson city; or to washington, perhaps? "well, maybe. if the people of napoleon want me to go to washington, and look after that matter, i might tear myself from my home. it's been suggested to me, but--not a word of it to mrs. sellers and the children. maybe they wouldn't like to think of their father in washington. but dilworthy, senator dilworthy, says to me, 'colonel, you are the man, you could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of missouri; you've a respect for religion too, says he, and know how the cause of the gospel goes with improvements: which is true enough, miss laura, and hasn't been enough thought of in connection with napoleon. he's an able man, dilworthy, and a good man. a man has got to be good to succeed as he has. he's only been in congress a few years, and he must be worth a million. first thing in the morning when he stayed with me he asked about family prayers, whether we had 'em before or after breakfast. i hated to disappoint the senator, but i had to out with it, tell him we didn't have 'em, not steady. he said he understood, business interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as for him he never neglected the ordinances of religion. he doubted if the columbus river appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the divine blessing on it." perhaps it is unnecessary to say to the reader that senator dilworthy had not stayed with col. sellers while he was in hawkeye; this visit to his house being only one of the colonel's hallucinations--one of those instant creations of his fertile fancy, which were always flashing into his brain and out of his mouth in the course of any conversation and without interrupting the flow of it. during the summer philip rode across the country and made a short visit in hawkeye, giving harry an opportunity to show him the progress that he and the colonel had made in their operation at stone's landing, to introduce him also to laura, and to borrow a little money when he departed. harry bragged about his conquest, as was his habit, and took philip round to see his western prize. laura received mr. philip with a courtesy and a slight hauteur that rather surprised and not a little interested him. he saw at once that she was older than harry, and soon made up his mind that she was leading his friend a country dance to which he was unaccustomed. at least he thought he saw that, and half hinted as much to harry, who flared up at once; but on a second visit philip was not so sure, the young lady was certainly kind and friendly and almost confiding with harry, and treated philip with the greatest consideration. she deferred to his opinions, and listened attentively when he talked, and in time met his frank manner with an equal frankness, so that he was quite convinced that whatever she might feel towards harry, she was sincere with him. perhaps his manly way did win her liking. perhaps in her mind, she compared him with harry, and recognized in him a man to whom a woman might give her whole soul, recklessly and with little care if she lost it. philip was not invincible to her beauty nor to the intellectual charm of her presence. the week seemed very short that he passed in hawkeye, and when he bade laura good by, he seemed to have known her a year. "we shall see you again, mr. sterling," she said as she gave him her hand, with just a shade of sadness in her handsome eyes. and when he turned away she followed him with a look that might have disturbed his serenity, if he had not at the moment had a little square letter in his breast pocket, dated at philadelphia, and signed "ruth." chapter xx. the visit of senator abner dilworthy was an event in hawkeye. when a senator, whose place is in washington moving among the great and guiding the destinies of the nation, condescends to mingle among the people and accept the hospitalities of such a place as hawkeye, the honor is not considered a light one. all, parties are flattered by it and politics are forgotten in the presence of one so distinguished among his fellows. senator dilworthy, who was from a neighboring state, had been a unionist in the darkest days of his country, and had thriven by it, but was that any reason why col. sellers, who had been a confederate and had not thriven by it, should give him the cold shoulder? the senator was the guest of his old friend gen. boswell, but it almost appeared that he was indebted to col. sellers for the unreserved hospitalities of the town. it was the large hearted colonel who, in a manner, gave him the freedom of the city. "you are known here, sir," said the colonel, "and hawkeye is proud of you. you will find every door open, and a welcome at every hearthstone. i should insist upon your going to my house, if you were not claimed by your older friend gen. boswell. but you will mingle with our people, and you will see here developments that will surprise you." the colonel was so profuse in his hospitality that he must have made the impression upon himself that he had entertained the senator at his own mansion during his stay; at any rate, he afterwards always spoke of him as his guest, and not seldom referred to the senator's relish of certain viands on his table. he did, in fact, press him to dine upon the morning of the day the senator was going away. senator dilworthy was large and portly, though not tall--a pleasant spoken man, a popular man with the people. he took a lively interest in the town and all the surrounding country, and made many inquiries as to the progress of agriculture, of education, and of religion, and especially as to the condition of the emancipated race. "providence," he said, "has placed them in our hands, and although you and i, general, might have chosen a different destiny for them, under the constitution, yet providence knows best." "you can't do much with 'em," interrupted col. sellers. "they are a speculating race, sir, disinclined to work for white folks without security, planning how to live by only working for themselves. idle, sir, there's my garden just a ruin of weeds. nothing practical in 'em." "there is some truth in your observation, colonel, but you must educate them." "you educate the niggro and you make him more speculating than he was before. if he won't stick to any industry except for himself now, what will he do then?" "but, colonel, the negro when educated will be more able to make his speculations fruitful." "never, sir, never. he would only have a wider scope to injure himself. a niggro has no grasp, sir. now, a white man can conceive great operations, and carry them out; a niggro can't." "still," replied the senator, "granting that he might injure himself in a worldly point of view, his elevation through education would multiply his chances for the hereafter--which is the important thing after all, colonel. and no matter what the result is, we must fulfill our duty by this being." "i'd elevate his soul," promptly responded the colonel; "that's just it; you can't make his soul too immortal, but i wouldn't touch him, himself. yes, sir! make his soul immortal, but don't disturb the niggro as he is." of course one of the entertainments offered the senator was a public reception, held in the court house, at which he made a speech to his fellow citizens. col. sellers was master of ceremonies. he escorted the band from the city hotel to gen. boswell's; he marshalled the procession of masons, of odd fellows, and of firemen, the good templars, the sons of temperance, the cadets of temperance, the daughters of rebecca, the sunday school children, and citizens generally, which followed the senator to the court house; he bustled about the room long after every one else was seated, and loudly cried "order!" in the dead silence which preceded the introduction of the senator by gen. boswell. the occasion was one to call out his finest powers of personal appearance, and one he long dwelt on with pleasure. this not being an edition of the congressional globe it is impossible to give senator dilworthy's speech in full. he began somewhat as follows: "fellow citizens: it gives me great pleasure to thus meet and mingle with you, to lay aside for a moment the heavy duties of an official and burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in your great state. the good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. i look forward with longing to the time when i can lay aside the cares of office--" ["dam sight," shouted a tipsy fellow near the door. cries of "put him out."] "my friends, do not remove him. let the misguided man stay. i see that he is a victim of that evil which is swallowing up public virtue and sapping the foundation of society. as i was saying, when i can lay down the cares of office and retire to the sweets of private life in some such sweet, peaceful, intelligent, wide-awake and patriotic place as hawkeye (applause). i have traveled much, i have seen all parts of our glorious union, but i have never seen a lovelier village than yours, or one that has more signs of commercial and industrial and religious prosperity --(more applause)." the senator then launched into a sketch of our great country, and dwelt for an hour or more upon its prosperity and the dangers which threatened it. he then touched reverently upon the institutions of religion, and upon the necessity of private purity, if we were to have any public morality. "i trust," he said, "that there are children within the sound of my voice," and after some remarks to them, the senator closed with an apostrophe to "the genius of american liberty, walking with the sunday school in one hand and temperance in the other up the glorified steps of the national capitol." col. sellers did not of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so influential a person as the senator the desirability of improving the navigation of columbus river. he and mr. brierly took the senator over to napoleon and opened to him their plan. it was a plan that the senator could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be familiar with the like improvements elsewhere. when, however, they reached stone's landing the senator looked about him and inquired, "is this napoleon?" "this is the nucleus, the nucleus," said the colonel, unrolling his map. "here is the deepo, the church, the city hall and so on." "ah, i see. how far from here is columbus river? does that stream empty----" "that, why, that's goose run. thar ain't no columbus, thout'n it's over to hawkeye," interrupted one of the citizens, who had come out to stare at the strangers. "a railroad come here last summer, but it haint been here no mo'." "yes, sir," the colonel hastened to explain, "in the old records columbus river is called goose run. you see how it sweeps round the town--forty-nine miles to the missouri; sloop navigation all the way pretty much, drains this whole country; when it's improved steamboats will run right up here. it's got to be enlarged, deepened. you see by the map. columbus river. this country must have water communication!" "you'll want a considerable appropriation, col. sellers. "i should say a million; is that your figure mr. brierly." "according to our surveys," said harry, "a million would do it; a million spent on the river would make napoleon worth two millions at least." "i see," nodded the senator. "but you'd better begin by asking only for two or three hundred thousand, the usual way. you can begin to sell town lots on that appropriation you know." the senator, himself, to do him justice, was not very much interested in the country or the stream, but he favored the appropriation, and he gave the colonel and mr. brierly to and understand that he would endeavor to get it through. harry, who thought he was shrewd and understood washington, suggested an interest. but he saw that the senator was wounded by the suggestion. "you will offend me by repeating such an observation," he said. "whatever i do will be for the public interest. it will require a portion of the appropriation for necessary expenses, and i am sorry to say that there are members who will have to be seen. but you can reckon upon my humble services." this aspect of the subject was not again alluded to. the senator possessed himself of the facts, not from his observation of the ground, but from the lips of col. sellers, and laid the appropriation scheme away among his other plans for benefiting the public. it was on this visit also that the senator made the acquaintance of mr. washington hawkins, and was greatly taken with his innocence, his guileless manner and perhaps with his ready adaptability to enter upon any plan proposed. col. sellers was pleased to see this interest that washington had awakened, especially since it was likely to further his expectations with regard to the tennessee lands; the senator having remarked to the colonel, that he delighted to help any deserving young man, when the promotion of a private advantage could at the same time be made to contribute to the general good. and he did not doubt that this was an opportunity of that kind. the result of several conferences with washington was that the senator proposed that he should go to washington with him and become his private secretary and the secretary of his committee; a proposal which was eagerly accepted. the senator spent sunday in hawkeye and attended church. he cheered the heart of the worthy and zealous minister by an expression of his sympathy in his labors, and by many inquiries in regard to the religious state of the region. it was not a very promising state, and the good man felt how much lighter his task would be, if he had the aid of such a man as senator dilworthy. "i am glad to see, my dear sir," said the senator, "that you give them the doctrines. it is owing to a neglect of the doctrines, that there is such a fearful falling away in the country. i wish that we might have you in washington--as chaplain, now, in the senate." the good man could not but be a little flattered, and if sometimes, thereafter, in his discouraging work, he allowed the thought that he might perhaps be called to washington as chaplain of the senate, to cheer him, who can wonder. the senator's commendation at least did one service for him, it elevated him in the opinion of hawkeye. laura was at church alone that day, and mr. brierly walked home with her. a part of their way lay with that of general boswell and senator dilworthy, and introductions were made. laura had her own reasons for wishing to know the senator, and the senator was not a man who could be called indifferent to charms such as hers. that meek young lady so commended herself to him in the short walk, that he announced his intentions of paying his respects to her the next day, an intention which harry received glumly; and when the senator was out of hearing he called him "an old fool." "fie," said laura, "i do believe you are jealous, harry. he is a very pleasant man. he said you were a young man of great promise." the senator did call next day, and the result of his visit was that he was confirmed in his impression that there was something about him very attractive to ladies. he saw laura again and again daring his stay, and felt more and more the subtle influence of her feminine beauty, which every man felt who came near her. harry was beside himself with rage while the senator remained in town; he declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher game; and he attributed his own ill-luck to the senator's appearance. the fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his brains out in chagrin. perhaps laura enjoyed his torment, but she soothed him with blandishments that increased his ardor, and she smiled to herself to think that he had, with all his protestations of love, never spoken of marriage. probably the vivacious fellow never had thought of it. at any rate when he at length went away from hawkeye he was no nearer it. but there was no telling to what desperate lengths his passion might not carry him. laura bade him good bye with tender regret, which, however, did not disturb her peace or interfere with her plans. the visit of senator dilworthy had become of more importance to her, and it by and by bore the fruit she longed for, in an invitation to visit his family in the national capital during the winter session of congress. chapter xxi. o lift your natures up: embrace our aims: work out your freedom. girls, knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; drink deep until the habits of the slave, the sins of emptiness, gossip and spite and slander, die. the princess. whether medicine is a science, or only an empirical method of getting a living out of the ignorance of the human race, ruth found before her first term was over at the medical school that there were other things she needed to know quite as much as that which is taught in medical books, and that she could never satisfy her aspirations without more general culture. "does your doctor know any thing--i don't mean about medicine, but about things in general, is he a man of information and good sense?" once asked an old practitioner. "if he doesn't know any thing but medicine the chance is he doesn't know that:" the close application to her special study was beginning to tell upon ruth's delicate health also, and the summer brought with it only weariness and indisposition for any mental effort. in this condition of mind and body the quiet of her home and the unexciting companionship of those about her were more than ever tiresome. she followed with more interest philip's sparkling account of his life in the west, and longed for his experiences, and to know some of those people of a world so different from here, who alternately amused and displeased him. he at least was learning the world, the good and the bad of it, as must happen to every one who accomplishes anything in it. but what, ruth wrote, could a woman do, tied up by custom, and cast into particular circumstances out of which it was almost impossible to extricate herself? philip thought that he would go some day and extricate ruth, but he did not write that, for he had the instinct to know that this was not the extrication she dreamed of, and that she must find out by her own experience what her heart really wanted. philip was not a philosopher, to be sure, but he had the old fashioned notion, that whatever a woman's theories of life might be, she would come round to matrimony, only give her time. he could indeed recall to mind one woman--and he never knew a nobler--whose whole soul was devoted and who believed that her life was consecrated to a certain benevolent project in singleness of life, who yielded to the touch of matrimony, as an icicle yields to a sunbeam. neither at home nor elsewhere did ruth utter any complaint, or admit any weariness or doubt of her ability to pursue the path she had marked out for herself. but her mother saw clearly enough her struggle with infirmity, and was not deceived by either her gaiety or by the cheerful composure which she carried into all the ordinary duties that fell to her. she saw plainly enough that ruth needed an entire change of scene and of occupation, and perhaps she believed that such a change, with the knowledge of the world it would bring, would divert ruth from a course for which she felt she was physically entirely unfitted. it therefore suited the wishes of all concerned, when autumn came, that ruth should go away to school. she selected a large new england seminary, of which she had often heard philip speak, which was attended by both sexes and offered almost collegiate advantages of education. thither she went in september, and began for the second time in the year a life new to her. the seminary was the chief feature of fallkill, a village of two to three thousand inhabitants. it was a prosperous school, with three hundred students, a large corps of teachers, men and women, and with a venerable rusty row of academic buildings on the shaded square of the town. the students lodged and boarded in private families in the place, and so it came about that while the school did a great deal to support the town, the town gave the students society and the sweet influences of home life. it is at least respectful to say that the influences of home life are sweet. ruth's home, by the intervention of philip, was in a family--one of the rare exceptions in life or in fiction--that had never known better days. the montagues, it is perhaps well to say, had intended to come over in the mayflower, but were detained at delft haven by the illness of a child. they came over to massachusetts bay in another vessel, and thus escaped the onus of that brevet nobility under which the successors of the mayflower pilgrims have descended. having no factitious weight of dignity to carry, the montagues steadily improved their condition from the day they landed, and they were never more vigorous or prosperous than at the date of this narrative. with character compacted by the rigid puritan discipline of more than two centuries, they had retained its strength and purity and thrown off its narrowness, and were now blossoming under the generous modern influences. squire oliver montague, a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except in rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned new england mile away from the green. it was called a mansion because it stood alone with ample fields about it, and had an avenue of trees leading to it from the road, and on the west commanded a view of a pretty little lake with gentle slopes and nodding were now blossoming under the generous modern influences. squire oliver montague, a lawyer who had retired from the practice of his profession except in rare cases, dwelt in a square old fashioned new england groves. but it was just a plain, roomy house, capable of extending to many guests an unpretending hospitality. the family consisted of the squire and his wife, a son and a daughter married and not at home, a son in college at cambridge, another son at the seminary, and a daughter alice, who was a year or more older than ruth. having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent. if ruth did not find so much luxury in the house as in her own home, there were evidences of culture, of intellectual activity and of a zest in the affairs of all the world, which greatly impressed her. every room had its book-cases or book-shelves, and was more or less a library; upon every table was liable to be a litter of new books, fresh periodicals and daily newspapers. there were plants in the sunny windows and some choice engravings on the walls, with bits of color in oil or water-colors; the piano was sure to be open and strewn with music; and there were photographs and little souvenirs here and there of foreign travel. an absence of any "what-pots" in the corners with rows of cheerful shells, and hindoo gods, and chinese idols, and nests of use less boxes of lacquered wood, might be taken as denoting a languidness in the family concerning foreign missions, but perhaps unjustly. at any rate the life of the world flowed freely into this hospitable house, and there was always so much talk there of the news of the day, of the new books and of authors, of boston radicalism and new york civilization, and the virtue of congress, that small gossip stood a very poor chance. all this was in many ways so new to ruth that she seemed to have passed into another world, in which she experienced a freedom and a mental exhilaration unknown to her before. under this influence she entered upon her studies with keen enjoyment, finding for a time all the relaxation she needed, in the charming social life at the montague house. it is strange, she wrote to philip, in one of her occasional letters, that you never told me more about this delightful family, and scarcely mentioned alice who is the life of it, just the noblest girl, unselfish, knows how to do so many things, with lots of talent, with a dry humor, and an odd way of looking at things, and yet quiet and even serious often--one of your "capable" new england girls. we shall be great friends. it had never occurred to philip that there was any thing extraordinary about the family that needed mention. he knew dozens of girls like alice, he thought to himself, but only one like ruth. good friends the two girls were from the beginning. ruth was a study to alice; the product of a culture entirely foreign to her experience, so much a child in some things, so much a woman in others; and ruth in turn, it must be confessed, probing alice sometimes with her serious grey eyes, wondered what her object in life was, and whether she had any purpose beyond living as she now saw her. for she could scarcely conceive of a life that should not be devoted to the accomplishment of some definite work, and she had-no doubt that in her own case everything else would yield to the professional career she had marked out. "so you know philip sterling," said ruth one day as the girls sat at their sewing. ruth never embroidered, and never sewed when she could avoid it. bless her. "oh yes, we are old friends. philip used to come to fallkill often while he was in college. he was once rusticated here for a term." "rusticated?" "suspended for some college scrape. he was a great favorite here. father and he were famous friends. father said that philip had no end of nonsense in him and was always blundering into something, but he was a royal good fellow and would come out all right." "did you think he was fickle?" "why, i never thought whether he was or not," replied alice looking up. "i suppose he was always in love with some girl or another, as college boys are. he used to make me his confidant now and then, and be terribly in the dumps." "why did he come to you?" pursued ruth you were younger than he." "i'm sure i don't know. he was at our house a good deal. once at a picnic by the lake, at the risk of his own life, he saved sister millie from drowning, and we all liked to have him here. perhaps he thought as he had saved one sister, the other ought to help him when he was in trouble. i don't know." the fact was that alice was a person who invited confidences, because she never betrayed them, and gave abundant sympathy in return. there are persons, whom we all know, to whom human confidences, troubles and heart-aches flow as naturally its streams to a placid lake. this is not a history of fallkill, nor of the montague family, worthy as both are of that honor, and this narrative cannot be diverted into long loitering with them. if the reader visits the village to-day, he will doubtless be pointed out the montague dwelling, where ruth lived, the cross-lots path she traversed to the seminary, and the venerable chapel with its cracked bell. in the little society of the place, the quaker girl was a favorite, and no considerable social gathering or pleasure party was thought complete without her. there was something in this seemingly transparent and yet deep character, in her childlike gaiety and enjoyment of the society about her, and in her not seldom absorption in herself, that would have made her long remembered there if no events had subsequently occurred to recall her to mind. to the surprise of alice, ruth took to the small gaieties of the village with a zest of enjoyment that seemed foreign to one who had devoted her life to a serious profession from the highest motives. alice liked society well enough, she thought, but there was nothing exciting in that of fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young gentlemen one met in it. it must have worn a different aspect to ruth, for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have deemed possible for her. parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight strolls, nutting expeditions in the october woods,--alice declared that it was a whirl of dissipation. the fondness of ruth, which was scarcely disguised, for the company of agreeable young fellows, who talked nothings, gave alice opportunity for no end of banter. "do you look upon them as i subjects, dear?" she would ask. and ruth laughed her merriest laugh, and then looked sober again. perhaps she was thinking, after all, whether she knew herself. if you should rear a duck in the heart of the sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the nile. surely no one would have predicted when ruth left philadelphia that she would become absorbed to this extent, and so happy, in a life so unlike that she thought she desired. but no one can tell how a woman will act under any circumstances. the reason novelists nearly always fail in depicting women when they make them act, is that they let them do what they have observed some woman has done at sometime or another. and that is where they make a mistake; for a woman will never do again what has been done before. it is this uncertainty that causes women, considered as materials for fiction, to be so interesting to themselves and to others. as the fall went on and the winter, ruth did not distinguish herself greatly at the fallkill seminary as a student, a fact that apparently gave her no anxiety, and did not diminish her enjoyment of a new sort of power which had awakened within her. chapter xxii. in mid-winter, an event occurred of unusual interest to the inhabitants of the montague house, and to the friends of the young ladies who sought their society. this was the arrival at the sassacua hotel of two young gentlemen from the west. it is the fashion in new england to give indian names to the public houses, not that the late lamented savage knew how to keep a hotel, but that his warlike name may impress the traveler who humbly craves shelter there, and make him grateful to the noble and gentlemanly clerk if he is allowed to depart with his scalp safe. the two young gentlemen were neither students for the fallkill seminary, nor lecturers on physiology, nor yet life assurance solicitors, three suppositions that almost exhausted the guessing power of the people at the hotel in respect to the names of "philip sterling and henry brierly, missouri," on the register. they were handsome enough fellows, that was evident, browned by out-door exposure, and with a free and lordly way about them that almost awed the hotel clerk himself. indeed, he very soon set down mr. brierly as a gentleman of large fortune, with enormous interests on his shoulders. harry had a way of casually mentioning western investments, through lines, the freighting business, and the route through the indian territory to lower california, which was calculated to give an importance to his lightest word. "you've a pleasant town here, sir, and the most comfortable looking hotel i've seen out of new york," said harry to the clerk; "we shall stay here a few days if you can give us a roomy suite of apartments." harry usually had the best of everything, wherever he went, as such fellows always do have in this accommodating world. philip would have been quite content with less expensive quarters, but there was no resisting harry's generosity in such matters. railroad surveying and real-estate operations were at a standstill during the winter in missouri, and the young men had taken advantage of the lull to come east, philip to see if there was any disposition in his friends, the railway contractors, to give him a share in the salt lick union pacific extension, and harry to open out to his uncle the prospects of the new city at stone's landing, and to procure congressional appropriations for the harbor and for making goose run navigable. harry had with him a map of that noble stream and of the harbor, with a perfect net-work of railroads centering in it, pictures of wharves, crowded with steamboats, and of huge grain-elevators on the bank, all of which grew out of the combined imaginations of col. sellers and mr. brierly. the colonel had entire confidence in harry's influence with wall street, and with congressmen, to bring about the consummation of their scheme, and he waited his return in the empty house at hawkeye, feeding his pinched family upon the most gorgeous expectations with a reckless prodigality. "don't let 'em into the thing more than is necessary," says the colonel to harry; "give 'em a small interest; a lot apiece in the suburbs of the landing ought to do a congressman, but i reckon you'll have to mortgage a part of the city itself to the brokers." harry did not find that eagerness to lend money on stone's landing in wall street which col. sellers had expected, (it had seen too many such maps as he exhibited), although his uncle and some of the brokers looked with more favor on the appropriation for improving the navigation of columbus river, and were not disinclined to form a company for that purpose. an appropriation was a tangible thing, if you could get hold of it, and it made little difference what it was appropriated for, so long as you got hold of it. pending these weighty negotiations, philip has persuaded harry to take a little run up to fallkill, a not difficult task, for that young man would at any time have turned his back upon all the land in the west at sight of a new and pretty face, and he had, it must be confessed, a facility in love making which made it not at all an interference with the more serious business of life. he could not, to be sure, conceive how philip could be interested in a young lady who was studying medicine, but he had no objection to going, for he did not doubt that there were other girls in fallkill who were worth a week's attention. the young men were received at the house of the montagues with the hospitality which never failed there. "we are glad to see you again," exclaimed the squire heartily, "you are welcome mr. brierly, any friend of phil's is welcome at our house" "it's more like home to me, than any place except my own home," cried philip, as he looked about the cheerful house and went through a general hand-shaking. "it's a long time, though, since you have been here to say so," alice said, with her father's frankness of manner; "and i suspect we owe the visit now to your sudden interest in the fallkill seminary." philip's color came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a reply, harry came in with, "that accounts for phil's wish to build a seminary at stone's landing, our place in missouri, when col. sellers insisted it should be a university. phil appears to have a weakness for seminaries." "it would have been better for your friend sellers," retorted philip, "if he had had a weakness for district schools. col. sellers, miss alice, is a great friend of harry's, who is always trying to build a house by beginning at the top." "i suppose it's as easy to build a university on paper as a seminary, and it looks better," was harry's reflection; at which the squire laughed, and said he quite agreed with him. the old gentleman understood stone's landing a good deal better than he would have done after an hour's talk with either of it's expectant proprietors. at this moment, and while philip was trying to frame a question that he found it exceedingly difficult to put into words, the door opened quietly, and ruth entered. taking in the, group with a quick glance, her eye lighted up, and with a merry smile she advanced and shook hands with philip. she was so unconstrained and sincerely cordial, that it made that hero of the west feel somehow young, and very ill at ease. for months and months he had thought of this meeting and pictured it to himself a hundred times, but he had never imagined it would be like this. he should meet ruth unexpectedly, as she was walking alone from the school, perhaps, or entering the room where he was waiting for her, and she would cry "oh! phil," and then check herself, and perhaps blush, and philip calm but eager and enthusiastic, would reassure her by his warm manner, and he would take her hand impressively, and she would look up timidly, and, after his' long absence, perhaps he would be permitted to good heavens, how many times he had come to this point, and wondered if it could happen so. well, well; he had never supposed that he should be the one embarrassed, and above all by a sincere and cordial welcome. "we heard you were at the sassacus house," were ruth's first words; "and this i suppose is your friend?" "i beg your pardon," philip at length blundered out, "this is mr. brierly of whom i have written you." and ruth welcomed harry with a friendliness that philip thought was due to his friend, to be sure, but which seemed to him too level with her reception of himself, but which harry received as his due from the other sex. questions were asked about the journey and about the west, and the conversation became a general one, until philip at length found himself talking with the squire in relation to land and railroads and things he couldn't keep his mind on especially as he heard ruth and harry in an animated discourse, and caught the words "new york," and "opera," and "reception," and knew that harry was giving his imagination full range in the world of fashion. harry knew all about the opera, green room and all (at least he said so) and knew a good many of the operas and could make very entertaining stories of their plots, telling how the soprano came in here, and the basso here, humming the beginning of their airs--tum-ti-tum-ti-ti --suggesting the profound dissatisfaction of the basso recitative--down --among--the--dead--men--and touching off the whole with an airy grace quite captivating; though he couldn't have sung a single air through to save himself, and he hadn't an ear to know whether it was sung correctly. all the same he doted on the opera, and kept a box there, into which he lounged occasionally to hear a favorite scene and meet his society friends. if ruth was ever in the city he should be happy to place his box at the disposal of ruth and her friends. needless to say that she was delighted with the offer. when she told philip of it, that discreet young fellow only smiled, and said that he hoped she would be fortunate enough to be in new york some evening when harry had not already given the use of his private box to some other friend. the squire pressed the visitors to let him send for their trunks and urged them to stay at his house, and alice joined in the invitation, but philip had reasons for declining. they staid to supper, however, and in; the evening philip had a long talk apart with ruth, a delightful hour to him, in which she spoke freely of herself as of old, of her studies at philadelphia and of her plans, and she entered into his adventures and prospects in the west with a genuine and almost sisterly interest; an interest, however, which did not exactly satisfy philip--it was too general and not personal enough to suit him. and with all her freedom in speaking of her own hopes, philip could not, detect any reference to himself in them; whereas he never undertook anything that he did not think of ruth in connection with it, he never made a plan that had not reference to her, and he never thought of anything as complete if she could not share it. fortune, reputation these had no value to him except in ruth's eyes, and there were times when it seemed to him that if ruth was not on this earth, he should plunge off into some remote wilderness and live in a purposeless seclusion. "i hoped," said philip; "to get a little start in connection with this new railroad, and make a little money, so that i could came east and engage in something more suited to my tastes. i shouldn't like to live in the west. would you? "it never occurred to me whether i would or not," was the unembarrassed reply. "one of our graduates went to chicago, and has a nice practice there. i don't know where i shall go. it would mortify mother dreadfully to have me driving about philadelphia in a doctor's gig." philip laughed at the idea of it. "and does it seem as necessary to you to do it as it did before you came to fallkill?" it was a home question, and went deeper than philip knew, for ruth at once thought of practicing her profession among the young gentlemen and ladies of her acquaintance in the village; but she was reluctant to admit to herself that her notions of a career had undergone any change. "oh, i don't think i should come to fallkill to practice, but i must do something when i am through school; and why not medicine?" philip would like to have explained why not, but the explanation would be of no use if it were not already obvious to ruth. harry was equally in his element whether instructing squire montague about the investment of capital in missouri, the improvement of columbus river, the project he and some gentlemen in new york had for making a shorter pacific connection with the mississippi than the present one; or diverting mrs. montague with his experience in cooking in camp; or drawing for miss alice an amusing picture of the social contrasts of new england and the border where he had been. harry was a very entertaining fellow, having his imagination to help his memory, and telling his stories as if he believed them--as perhaps he did. alice was greatly amused with harry and listened so seriously to his romancing that he exceeded his usual limits. chance allusions to his bachelor establishment in town and the place of his family on the hudson, could not have been made by a millionaire, more naturally. "i should think," queried alice, "you would rather stay in new york than to try the rough life at the west you have been speaking of." "oh, adventure," says harry, "i get tired of new york. and besides i got involved in some operations that i had to see through. parties in new york only last week wanted me to go down into arizona in a big diamond interest. i told them, no, no speculation for me. i've got my interests in missouri; and i wouldn't leave philip, as long as he stays there." when the young gentlemen were on their way back to the hotel, mr. philip, who was not in very good humor, broke out, "what the deuce, harry, did you go on in that style to the montagues for?" "go on?" cried harry. "why shouldn't i try to make a pleasant evening? and besides, ain't i going to do those things? what difference does it make about the mood and tense of a mere verb? didn't uncle tell me only last saturday, that i might as well go down to arizona and hunt for diamonds? a fellow might as well make a good impression as a poor one." "nonsense. you'll get to believing your own romancing by and by." "well, you'll see. when sellers and i get that appropriation, i'll show you an establishment in town and another on the hudson and a box at the opera." "yes, it will be like col. sellers' plantation at hawkeye. did you ever see that?" "now, don't be cross, phil. she's just superb, that little woman. you never told me." "who's just superb?" growled philip, fancying this turn of the conversation less than the other. "well, mrs. montague, if you must know." and harry stopped to light a cigar, and then puffed on in silence. the little quarrel didn't last over night, for harry never appeared to cherish any ill-will half a second, and philip was too sensible to continue a row about nothing; and he had invited harry to come with him. the young gentlemen stayed in fallkill a week, and were every day at the montagues, and took part in the winter gaieties of the village. there were parties here and there to which the friends of ruth and the montagues were of course invited, and harry in the generosity of his nature, gave in return a little supper at the hotel, very simple indeed, with dancing in the hall, and some refreshments passed round. and philip found the whole thing in the bill when he came to pay it. before the week was over philip thought he had a new light on the character of ruth. her absorption in the small gaieties of the society there surprised him. he had few opportunities for serious conversation with her. there was always some butterfly or another flitting about, and when philip showed by his manner that he was not pleased, ruth laughed merrily enough and rallied him on his soberness--she declared he was getting to be grim and unsocial. he talked indeed more with alice than with ruth, and scarcely concealed from her the trouble that was in his mind. it needed, in fact, no word from him, for she saw clearly enough what was going forward, and knew her sex well enough to know there was no remedy for it but time. "ruth is a dear girl, philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as ever, but don't you see she has just discovered that she is fond of society? don't you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice." the last evening they were to spend in fallkill, they were at the montagues, and philip hoped that he would find ruth in a different mood. but she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye and in her laugh. "confound it," said philip to himself, "she's in a perfect twitter." he would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity. for ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times, and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and half-confidences. she even said "thee" to him once in reproach for a cutting speech he began. and the sweet little word made his heart beat like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said "thee" to him before. was she fascinated with harry's careless 'bon homie' and gay assurance? both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in the most mirthful manner. ruth sang for harry, and that young gentleman turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and then where he thought it would tell. yes, it was a merry evening, and philip was heartily glad when it was over, and the long leave-taking with the family was through with. "farewell philip. good night mr. brierly," ruth's clear voice sounded after them as they went down the walk. and she spoke harry's name last, thought philip. chapter xxiii. "o see ye not yon narrow road so thick beset wi' thorns and briers? that is the path of righteousness, though after it but few inquires. "and see ye not yon braid, braid road, that lies across the lily leven? that is the path of wickedness, though some call it the road to heaven." thomas the rhymer. phillip and harry reached new york in very different states of mind. harry was buoyant. he found a letter from col. sellers urging him to go to washington and confer with senator dilworthy. the petition was in his hands. it had been signed by everybody of any importance in missouri, and would be presented immediately. "i should go on myself," wrote the colonel, "but i am engaged in the invention of a process for lighting such a city as st. louis by means of water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for the mere cost of the machine. i've nearly got the lighting part, but i want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. it's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation going while i am perfecting it." harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from mr. duff brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations for the public good and men, besides, who, in the slang of the day, understood the virtues of "addition, division and silence." senator dilworthy introduced the petition into the senate with the remark that he knew, personally, the signers of it, that they were men interested; it was true, in the improvement of the country, but he believed without any selfish motive, and that so far as he knew the signers were loyal. it pleased him to see upon the roll the names of many colored citizens, and it must rejoice every friend of humanity to know that this lately emancipated race were intelligently taking part in the development of the resources of their native land. he moved the reference of the petition to the proper committee. senator dilworthy introduced his young friend to influential members, as a person who was very well informed about the salt lick extension of the pacific, and was one of the engineers who had made a careful survey of columbus river; and left him to exhibit his maps and plans and to show the connection between the public treasury, the city of napoleon and legislation for the benefit off the whole country. harry was the guest of senator dilworthy. there was scarcely any good movement in which the senator was not interested. his house was open to all the laborers in the field of total abstinence, and much of his time was taken up in attending the meetings of this cause. he had a bible class in the sunday school of the church which he attended, and he suggested to harry that he might take a class during the time he remained in washington, mr. washington hawkins had a class. harry asked the senator if there was a class of young ladies for him to teach, and after that the senator did not press the subject. philip, if the truth must be told, was not well satisfied with his western prospects, nor altogether with the people he had fallen in with. the railroad contractors held out large but rather indefinite promises. opportunities for a fortune he did not doubt existed in missouri, but for himself he saw no better means for livelihood than the mastery of the profession he had rather thoughtlessly entered upon. during the summer he had made considerable practical advance in the science of engineering; he had been diligent, and made himself to a certain extent necessary to the work he was engaged on. the contractors called him into their consultations frequently, as to the character of the country he had been over, and the cost of constructing the road, the nature of the work, etc. still philip felt that if he was going to make either reputation or money as an engineer, he had a great deal of hard study before him, and it is to his credit that he did not shrink from it. while harry was in washington dancing attendance upon the national legislature and making the acquaintance of the vast lobby that encircled it, philip devoted himself day and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of railroad building. he wrote some papers at this time for the "plow, the loom and the anvil," upon the strength of materials, and especially upon bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied into the english "practical magazine." they served at any rate to raise philip in the opinion of his friends the contractors, for practical men have a certain superstitious estimation of ability with the pen, and though they may a little despise the talent, they are quite ready to make use of it. philip sent copies of his performances to ruth's father and to other gentlemen whose good opinion he coveted, but he did not rest upon his laurels. indeed, so diligently had he applied himself, that when it came time for him to return to the west, he felt himself, at least in theory, competent to take charge of a division in the field. chapter xxiv. the capital of the great republic was a new world to country-bred washington hawkins. st. louis was a greater city, but its floating. population did not hail from great distances, and so it had the general family aspect of the permanent population; but washington gathered its people from the four winds of heaven, and so the manners, the faces and the fashions there, presented a variety that was infinite. washington had never been in "society" in st. louis, and he knew nothing of the ways of its wealthier citizens and had never inspected one of their dwellings. consequently, everything in the nature of modern fashion and grandeur was a new and wonderful revelation to him. washington is an interesting city to any of us. it seems to become more and more interesting the oftener we visit it. perhaps the reader has never been there? very well. you arrive either at night, rather too late to do anything or see anything until morning, or you arrive so early in the morning that you consider it best to go to your hotel and sleep an hour or two while the sun bothers along over the atlantic. you cannot well arrive at a pleasant intermediate hour, because the railway corporation that keeps the keys of the only door that leads into the town or out of it take care of that. you arrive in tolerably good spirits, because it is only thirty-eight miles from baltimore to the capital, and so you have only been insulted three times (provided you are not in a sleeping car--the average is higher there): once when you renewed your ticket after stopping over in baltimore, once when you were about to enter the "ladies' car" without knowing it was a lady's car, and once when you asked the conductor at what hour you would reach washington. you are assailed by a long rank of hackmen who shake their whips in your face as you step out upon the sidewalk; you enter what they regard as a "carriage," in the capital, and you wonder why they do not take it out of service and put it in the museum: we have few enough antiquities, and it is little to our credit that we make scarcely any effort to preserve the few we have. you reach your hotel, presently--and here let us draw the curtain of charity--because of course you have gone to the wrong one. you being a stranger, how could you do otherwise? there are a hundred and eighteen bad hotels, and only one good one. the most renowned and popular hotel of them all is perhaps the worst one known to history. it is winter, and night. when you arrived, it was snowing. when you reached the hotel, it was sleeting. when you went to bed, it was raining. during the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys down. when you got up in the morning, it was foggy. when you finished your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant, the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and all-pervading. you will like the climate when you get used to it. you naturally wish to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. the prominent features you soon locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. that building is the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000 of building it for that sum. you stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it is a very noble one. you understand, the capitol stands upon the verge of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front looks out over this noble situation for a city--but it don't see it, for the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the property owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures that the people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh behind the temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building, with, its imposing colonades, its, projecting, graceful wings, its, picturesque groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps, flowing down in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon a sorrowful little desert of cheap boarding houses. so you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol. and yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you would have to see the marvelous historical paintings that hang there, and the bas-reliefs--and what have you done that you should suffer thus? and besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the building, and you could not help seeing mr. lincoln, as petrified by a young lady artist for $10,000--and you might take his marble emancipation proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. which is not the case. nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for him. well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it--and why should you be interested in the delirium tremens of art? the capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within and without, but you need not examine it now. still, if you greatly prefer going into the dome, go. now your general glance gives you picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your lost boyhood and the parthenons done in molasses candy which made it blest and beautiful. still in the distance, but on this side of the water and close to its edge, the monument to the father of his country towers out of the mud--sacred soil is the, customary term. it has the aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. the skeleton of a decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that the spirit of washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol of its unappeasable gratitude. the monument is to be finished, some day, and at that time our washington will have risen still higher in the nation's veneration, and will be known as the great-great-grandfather of his country. the memorial chimney stands in a quiet pastoral locality that is full of reposeful expression. with a glass you can see the cow-sheds about its base, and the contented sheep nimbling pebbles in the desert solitudes that surround it, and the tired pigs dozing in the holy calm of its protecting shadow. now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and see the broad pennsylvania avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile or more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared granite pile, the treasury building-an edifice that would command respect in any capital. the stores and hotels that wall in this broad avenue are mean, and cheap, and dingy, and are better left without comment. beyond the treasury is a fine large white barn, with wide unhandsome grounds about it. the president lives there. it is ugly enough outside, but that is nothing to what it is inside. dreariness, flimsiness, bad taste reduced to mathematical completeness is what the inside offers to the eye, if it remains yet what it always has been. the front and right hand views give you the city at large. it is a wide stretch of cheap little brick houses, with here and there a noble architectural pile lifting itself out of the midst-government buildings, these. if the thaw is still going on when you come down and go about town, you will wonder at the short-sightedness of the city fathers, when you come to inspect the streets, in that they do not dilute the mud a little more and use them for canals. if you inquire around a little, you will find that there are more boardinghouses to the square acre in washington than there are in any other city in the land, perhaps. if you apply for a home in one of them, it will seem odd to you to have the landlady inspect you with a severe eye and then ask you if you are a member of congress. perhaps, just as a pleasantry, you will say yes. and then she will tell you that she is "full." then you show her her advertisement in the morning paper, and there she stands, convicted and ashamed. she will try to blush, and it will be only polite in you to take the effort for the deed. she shows you her rooms, now, and lets you take one--but she makes you pay in advance for it. that is what you will get for pretending to be a member of congress. if you had been content to be merely a private citizen, your trunk would have been sufficient security for your board. if you are curious and inquire into this thing, the chances are that your landlady will be ill-natured enough to say that the person and property of a congressman are exempt from arrest or detention, and that with the tears in her eyes she has seen several of the people's representatives walk off to their several states and territories carrying her unreceipted board bills in their pockets for keepsakes. and before you have been in washington many weeks you will be mean enough to believe her, too. of course you contrive to see everything and find out everything. and one of the first and most startling things you find out is, that every individual you encounter in the city of washington almost--and certainly every separate and distinct individual in the public employment, from the highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs department halls, the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy who purifies the department spittoons--represents political influence. unless you can get the ear of a senator, or a congressman, or a chief of a bureau or department, and persuade him to use his "influence" in your behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in washington. mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to you without "influence." the population of washington consists pretty much entirely of government employee and the people who board them. there are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there from every corner of the union and got their berths through the intercession (command is nearer the word) of the senators and representatives of their respective states. it would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get employment at three or four dollars a week in one of the great public cribs without any political grandee to back her, but merely because she was worthy, and competent, and a good citizen of a free country that "treats all persons alike." washington would be mildly thunderstruck at such a thing as that. if you are a member of congress, (no offence,) and one of your constituents who doesn't know anything, and does not want to go into the bother of learning something, and has no money, and no employment, and can't earn a living, comes besieging you for help, do you say, "come, my friend, if your services were valuable you could get employment elsewhere--don't want you here?" oh, no: you take him to a department and say, "here, give this person something to pass away the time at--and a salary"--and the thing is done. you throw him on his country. he is his country's child, let his country support him. there is something good and motherly about washington, the grand old benevolent national asylum for the helpless. the wages received by this great hive of employees are placed at the liberal figure meet and just for skilled and competent labor. such of them as are immediately employed about the two houses of congress, are not only liberally paid also, but are remembered in the customary extra compensation bill which slides neatly through, annually, with the general grab that signalizes the last night of a session, and thus twenty per cent. is added to their wages, for--for fun, no doubt. washington hawkins' new life was an unceasing delight to him. senator dilworthy lived sumptuously, and washington's quarters were charming --gas; running water, hot and cold; bath-room, coal-fires, rich carpets, beautiful pictures on the walls; books on religion, temperance, public charities and financial schemes; trim colored servants, dainty food --everything a body could wish for. and as for stationery, there was no end to it; the government furnished it; postage stamps were not needed --the senator's frank could convey a horse through the mails, if necessary. and then he saw such dazzling company. renowned generals and admirals who had seemed but colossal myths when he was in the far west, went in and out before him or sat at the senator's table, solidified into palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that once rare and awe-inspiring being, a congressman, was become a common spectacle--a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the president himself, and lived. and more; this world of enchantment teemed with speculation--the whole atmosphere was thick with hand that indeed was washington hawkins' native air; none other refreshed his lungs so gratefully. he had found paradise at last. the more he saw of his chief the senator, the more he honored him, and the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to stand out. to possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a man, washington said in a letter to louise, was a happy fortune for a young man whose career had been so impeded and so clouded as his. the weeks drifted by;--harry brierly flirted, danced, added lustre to the brilliant senatorial receptions, and diligently "buzzed" and "button-holed" congressmen in the interest of the columbus river scheme; meantime senator dilworthy labored hard in the same interest--and in others of equal national importance. harry wrote frequently to sellers, and always encouragingly; and from these letters it was easy to see that harry was a pet with all washington, and was likely to carry the thing through; that the assistance rendered him by "old dilworthy" was pretty fair--pretty fair; "and every little helps, you know," said harry. washington wrote sellers officially, now and then. in one of his letters it appeared that whereas no member of the house committee favored the scheme at first, there was now needed but one more vote to compass a majority report. closing sentence: "providence seems to further our efforts." (signed,) "abner dilworthy, u. s. s., per washington hawkins, p. s." at the end of a week, washington was able to send the happy news, officially, as usual,--that the needed vote had been added and the bill favorably reported from the committee. other letters recorded its perils in committee of the whole, and by and by its victory, by just the skin of its teeth, on third reading and final passage. then came letters telling of mr. dilworthy's struggles with a stubborn majority in his own committee in the senate; of how these gentlemen succumbed, one by one, till a majority was secured. then there was a hiatus. washington watched every move on the board, and he was in a good position to do this, for he was clerk of this committee, and also one other. he received no salary as private secretary, but these two clerkships, procured by his benefactor, paid him an aggregate of twelve dollars a day, without counting the twenty percent extra compensation which would of course be voted to him on the last night of the session. he saw the bill go into committee of the whole and struggle for its life again, and finally worry through. in the fullness of time he noted its second reading, and by and by the day arrived when the grand ordeal came, and it was put upon its final passage. washington listened with bated breath to the "aye!" "no!" "no!" "aye!" of the voters, for a few dread minutes, and then could bear the suspense no longer. he ran down from the gallery and hurried home to wait. at the end of two or three hours the senator arrived in the bosom of his family, and dinner was waiting. washington sprang forward, with the eager question on his lips, and the senator said: "we may rejoice freely, now, my son--providence has crowned our efforts with success." chapter xxv. washington sent grand good news to col. sellers that night. to louise he wrote: "it is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness for some manifestation of the divine favor. you shall know him, some day my louise, and knowing him you will honor him, as i do." harry wrote: "i pulled it through, colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no question about that. there was not a friend to the measure in the house committee when i began, and not a friend in the senate committee except old dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when i hauled off my forces. everybody here says you can't get a thing like this through congress without buying committees for straight-out cash on delivery, but i think i've taught them a thing or two--if i could only make them believe it. when i tell the old residenters that this thing went through without buying a vote or making a promise, they say, 'that's rather too thin.' and when i say thin or not thin it's a fact, anyway, they say, 'come, now, but do you really believe that?' and when i say i don't believe anything about it, i know it, they smile and say, 'well, you are pretty innocent, or pretty blind, one or the other--there's no getting around that.' why they really do believe that votes have been bought--they do indeed. but let them keep on thinking so. i have found out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has a little gift in the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for an appropriation against a money bag and give the money bag odds in the game. we've raked in $200,000 of uncle sam's money, say what they will--and there is more where this came from, when we want it, and i rather fancy i am the person that can go in and occupy it, too, if i do say it myself, that shouldn't, perhaps. i'll be with you within a week. scare up all the men you can, and put them to work at once. when i get there i propose to make things hum." the great news lifted sellers into the clouds. he went to work on the instant. he flew hither and thither making contracts, engaging men, and steeping his soul in the ecstasies of business. he was the happiest man in missouri. and louise was the happiest woman; for presently came a letter from washington which said: "rejoice with me, for the long agony is over! we have waited patiently and faithfully, all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand. a man is to pay our family $40,000 for the tennessee land! it is but a little sum compared to what we could get by waiting, but i do so long to see the day when i can call you my own, that i have said to myself, better take this and enjoy life in a humble way than wear out our best days in this miserable separation. besides, i can put this money into operations here that will increase it a hundred fold, yes, a thousand fold, in a few months. the air is full of such chances, and i know our family would consent in a moment that i should put in their shares with mine. without a doubt we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year from this time--i put it at the very lowest figure, because it is always best to be on the safe side--half a million at the very lowest calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry at last. oh, that will be a glorious day. tell our friends the good news--i want all to share it." and she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be kept still for the present. the careful father also told her to write washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a little and advise with one or two wise old heads. she did this. and she managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended upon her. harry joined the colonel at stone's landing, and that dead place sprang into sudden life. a swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was filled with the cheery music of labor. harry had been constituted engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into his work. he moved among his hirelings like a king. authority seemed to invest him with a new splendor. col. sellers, as general superintendent of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be --and more. these two grandees went at their imposing "improvement" with the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the foundations of the globe. they turned their first attention to straightening the river just above the landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance but increase the "fall." they started a cut-off canal across the peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had never been seen in that region before. there was such a panic among the turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found within three miles of stone's landing. they took the young and the aged, the decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water in disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs bringing up the rear. saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the appropriation had not come. harry said he had written to hurry up the money and it would be along presently. so the work continued, on monday. stone's landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time. sellers threw a lot or two on the market, "as a feeler," and they sold well. he re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and still had money left. he started a bank account, in a small way--and mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing--on the contrary, as a matter of life-long standing. he could not keep from buying trifles every day that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula, "charge it" harry sold a lot or two, also--and had a dinner party or two at hawkeye and a general good time with the money. both men held on pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however. at the end of a month things were looking bad. harry had besieged the new york headquarters of the columbus river slack-water navigation company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even answered. the workmen were clamorous, now. the colonel and harry retired to consult. "what's to be done?" said the colonel. "hang'd if i know." "company say anything?" "not a word." "you telegraphed yesterday?" yes, and the day before, too." "no answer?" "none-confound them!" then there was a long pause. finally both spoke at once: "i've got it!" "i've got it!" "what's yours?" said harry. "give the boys thirty-day orders on the company for the back pay." "that's it-that's my own idea to a dot. but then--but then----" "yes, i know," said the colonel; "i know they can't wait for the orders to go to new york and be cashed, but what's the reason they can't get them discounted in hawkeye?" "of course they can. that solves the difficulty. everybody knows the appropriation's been made and the company's perfectly good." so the orders were given and the men appeased, though they grumbled a little at first. the orders went well enough for groceries and such things at a fair discount, and the work danced along gaily for a time. two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the landing and moved in, and of course a far-sighted but easy-going journeyman printer wandered along and started the "napoleon weekly telegraph and literary repository"--a paper with a latin motto from the unabridged dictionary, and plenty of "fat" conversational tales and double-leaded poetry--all for two dollars a year, strictly in advance. of course the merchants forwarded the orders at once to new york--and never heard of them again. at the end of some weeks harry's orders were a drug in the market--nobody would take them at any discount whatever. the second month closed with a riot.--sellers was absent at the time, and harry began an active absence himself with the mob at his heels. but being on horseback, he had the advantage. he did not tarry in hawkeye, but went on, thus missing several appointments with creditors. he was far on his flight eastward, and well out of danger when the next morning dawned. he telegraphed the colonel to go down and quiet the laborers--he was bound east for money --everything would be right in a week--tell the men so--tell them to rely on him and not be afraid. sellers found the mob quiet enough when he reached the landing. they had gutted the navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved stock-books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the bonfire while it lasted. they had a liking for the colonel, but still they had some idea of hanging him, as a sort of make-shift that might answer, after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game. but they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first. within fifteen minutes his tongue had done its work and they were all rich men.--he gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of stone's landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as harry got east and started the money along. now things were blooming and pleasant again, but the men had no money, and nothing to live on. the colonel divided with them the money he still had in bank--an act which had nothing surprising about it because he was generally ready to divide whatever he had with anybody that wanted it, and it was owing to this very trait that his family spent their days in poverty and at times were pinched with famine. when the men's minds had cooled and sellers was gone, they hated themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it was too late, now--they agreed to hang him another time--such time as providence should appoint. chapter xxvi. rumors of ruth's frivolity and worldliness at fallkill traveled to philadelphia in due time, and occasioned no little undertalk among the bolton relatives. hannah shoecraft told another, cousin that, for her part, she never believed that ruth had so much more "mind" than other people; and cousin hulda added that she always thought ruth was fond of admiration, and that was the reason she was unwilling to wear plain clothes and attend meeting. the story that ruth was "engaged" to a young gentleman of fortune in fallkill came with the other news, and helped to give point to the little satirical remarks that went round about ruth's desire to be a doctor! margaret bolton was too wise to be either surprised or alarmed by these rumors. they might be true; she knew a woman's nature too well to think them improbable, but she also knew how steadfast ruth was in her purposes, and that, as a brook breaks into ripples and eddies and dances and sports by the way, and yet keeps on to the sea, it was in ruth's nature to give back cheerful answer to the solicitations of friendliness and pleasure, to appear idly delaying even, and sporting in the sunshine, while the current of her resolution flowed steadily on. that ruth had this delight in the mere surface play of life that she could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play called "flirtation," or take any delight in the exercise of those little arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and charming because they are not intellectual, ruth, herself, had never suspected until she went to fallkill. she had believed it her duty to subdue her gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what are called serious pursuits: in her limited experience she brought everything to the judgment of her own conscience, and settled the affairs of all the world in her own serene judgment hall. perhaps her mother saw this, and saw also that there was nothing in the friends' society to prevent her from growing more and more opinionated. when ruth returned to philadelphia, it must be confessed--though it would not have been by her--that a medical career did seem a little less necessary for her than formerly; and coming back in a glow of triumph, as it were, and in the consciousness of the freedom and life in a lively society and in new and sympathetic friendship, she anticipated pleasure in an attempt to break up the stiffness and levelness of the society at home, and infusing into it something of the motion and sparkle which were so agreeable at fallkill. she expected visits from her new friends, she would have company, the new books and the periodicals about which all the world was talking, and, in short, she would have life. for a little while she lived in this atmosphere which she had brought with her. her mother was delighted with this change in her, with the improvement in her health and the interest she exhibited in home affairs. her father enjoyed the society of his favorite daughter as he did few things besides; he liked her mirthful and teasing ways, and not less a keen battle over something she had read. he had been a great reader all his life, and a remarkable memory had stored his mind with encyclopaedic information. it was one of ruth's delights to cram herself with some out of the way subject and endeavor to catch her father; but she almost always failed. mr. bolton liked company, a house full of it, and the mirth of young people, and he would have willingly entered into any revolutionary plans ruth might have suggested in relation to friends' society. but custom and the fixed order are stronger than the most enthusiastic and rebellious young lady, as ruth very soon found. in spite of all her brave efforts, her frequent correspondence, and her determined animation, her books and her music, she found herself settling into the clutches of the old monotony, and as she realized the hopelessness of her endeavors, the medical scheme took new hold of her, and seemed to her the only method of escape. "mother, thee does not know how different it is in fallkill, how much more interesting the people are one meets, how much more life there is." "but thee will find the world, child, pretty much all the same, when thee knows it better. i thought once as thee does now, and had as little thought of being a friend as thee has. perhaps when thee has seen more, thee will better appreciate a quiet life." "thee married young. i shall not marry young, and perhaps not at all," said ruth, with a look of vast experience. "perhaps thee doesn't know thee own mind; i have known persons of thy age who did not. did thee see anybody whom thee would like to live with always in fallkill?" "not always," replied ruth with a little laugh. "mother, i think i wouldn't say 'always' to any one until i have a profession and am as independent as he is. then my love would be a free act, and not in any way a necessity." margaret bolton smiled at this new-fangled philosophy. "thee will find that love, ruth, is a thing thee won't reason about, when it comes, nor make any bargains about. thee wrote that philip sterling was at fallkill." "yes, and henry brierly, a friend of his; a very amusing young fellow and not so serious-minded as philip, but a bit of a fop maybe." "and thee preferred the fop to the serious-minded?" "i didn't prefer anybody; but henry brierly was good company, which philip wasn't always." "did thee know thee father had been in correspondence with philip?" ruth looked up surprised and with a plain question in her eyes. "oh, it's not about thee." "what then?" and if there was any shade of disappointment in her tone, probably ruth herself did not know it. "it's about some land up in the country. that man bigler has got father into another speculation." "that odious man! why will father have anything to do with him? is it that railroad?" "yes. father advanced money and took land as security, and whatever has gone with the money and the bonds, he has on his hands a large tract of wild land." "and what has philip to do with that?" "it has good timber, if it could ever be got out, and father says that there must be coal in it; it's in a coal region. he wants philip to survey it, and examine it for indications of coal." "it's another of father's fortunes, i suppose," said ruth. "he has put away so many fortunes for us that i'm afraid we never shall find them." ruth was interested in it nevertheless, and perhaps mainly because philip was to be connected with the enterprise. mr. bigler came to dinner with her father next day, and talked a great deal about mr. bolton's magnificent tract of land, extolled the sagacity that led him to secure such a property, and led the talk along to another railroad which would open a northern communication to this very land. "pennybacker says it's full of coal, he's no doubt of it, and a railroad to strike the erie would make it a fortune." "suppose you take the land and work the thing up, mr. bigler; you may have the tract for three dollars an acre." "you'd throw it away, then," replied mr. bigler, "and i'm not the man to take advantage of a friend. but if you'll put a mortgage on it for the northern road, i wouldn't mind taking an interest, if pennybacker is willing; but pennybacker, you know, don't go much on land, he sticks to the legislature." and mr. bigler laughed. when mr. bigler had gone, ruth asked her father about philip's connection with the land scheme. "there's nothing definite," said mr. bolton. "philip is showing aptitude for his profession. i hear the best reports of him in new york, though those sharpers don't 'intend to do anything but use him. i've written and offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. we want to know what it is. and if there is anything in it that his enterprise can dig out, he shall have an interest. i should be glad to give the young fellow a lift." all his life eli bolton had been giving young fellows a lift, and shouldering the loses when things turned out unfortunately. his ledger, take-it-altogether, would not show a balance on the right side; but perhaps the losses on his books will turn out to be credits in a world where accounts are kept on a different basis. the left hand of the ledger will appear the right, looked at from the other side. philip, wrote to ruth rather a comical account of the bursting up of the city of napoleon and the navigation improvement scheme, of harry's flight and the colonel's discomfiture. harry left in such a hurry that he hadn't even time to bid miss laura hawkins good-bye, but he had no doubt that harry would console himself with the next pretty face he saw --a remark which was thrown in for ruth's benefit. col. sellers had in all probability, by this time, some other equally brilliant speculation in his brain. as to the railroad, philip had made up his mind that it was merely kept on foot for speculative purposes in wall street, and he was about to quit it. would ruth be glad to hear, he wondered, that he was coming east? for he was coming, in spite of a letter from harry in new york, advising him to hold on until he had made some arrangements in regard to contracts, he to be a little careful about sellers, who was somewhat visionary, harry said. the summer went on without much excitement for ruth. she kept up a correspondence with alice, who promised a visit in the fall, she read, she earnestly tried to interest herself in home affairs and such people as came to the house; but she found herself falling more and more into reveries, and growing weary of things as they were. she felt that everybody might become in time like two relatives from a shaker establishment in ohio, who visited the boltons about this time, a father and son, clad exactly alike, and alike in manners. the son; however, who was not of age, was more unworldly and sanctimonious than his father; he always addressed his parent as "brother plum," and bore himself, altogether in such a superior manner that ruth longed to put bent pins in his chair. both father and son wore the long, single breasted collarless coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind, but with a row of hooks and eyes on either side in front. it was ruth's suggestion that the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the small of the back where the buttons usually are. amusing as this shaker caricature of the friends was, it oppressed ruth beyond measure; and increased her feeling of being stifled. it was a most unreasonable feeling. no home could be pleasanter than ruth's. the house, a little out of the city; was one of those elegant country residences which so much charm visitors to the suburbs of philadelphia. a modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with greenhouse, grapery and garden; and on one side, the garden sloped away in undulations to a shallow brook that ran over a pebbly bottom and sang under forest trees. the country about teas the perfection of cultivated landscape, dotted with cottages, and stately mansions of revolutionary date, and sweet as an english country-side, whether seen in the soft bloom of may or in the mellow ripeness of late october. it needed only the peace of the mind within, to make it a paradise. one riding by on the old germantown road, and seeing a young girl swinging in the hammock on the piazza and, intent upon some volume of old poetry or the latest novel, would no doubt have envied a life so idyllic. he could not have imagined that the young girl was reading a volume of reports of clinics and longing to be elsewhere. ruth could not have been more discontented if all the wealth about her had been as unsubstantial as a dream. perhaps she so thought it. "i feel," she once said to her father, "as if i were living in a house of cards." "and thee would like to turn it into a hospital?" "no. but tell me father," continued ruth, not to be put off, "is thee still going on with that bigler and those other men who come here and entice thee?" mr. bolton smiled, as men do when they talk with women about "business" "such men have their uses, ruth. they keep the world active, and i owe a great many of my best operations to such men. who knows, ruth, but this new land purchase, which i confess i yielded a little too much to bigler in, may not turn out a fortune for thee and the rest of the children?" "ah, father, thee sees every thing in a rose-colored light. i do believe thee wouldn't have so readily allowed me to begin the study of medicine, if it hadn't had the novelty of an experiment to thee." "and is thee satisfied with it?" "if thee means, if i have had enough of it, no. i just begin to see what i can do in it, and what a noble profession it is for a woman. would thee have me sit here like a bird on a bough and wait for somebody to come and put me in a cage?" mr. bolton was not sorry to divert the talk from his own affairs, and he did not think it worth while to tell his family of a performance that very day which was entirely characteristic of him. ruth might well say that she felt as if she were living in a house of cards, although the bolton household had no idea of the number of perils that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in america have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity and luxury hang. a sudden call upon mr. bolton for a large sum of money, which must be forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures, from no one of which a dollar could be realized. it was in vain that he applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period of sudden panic and no money. "a hundred thousand! mr. bolton," said plumly. "good god, if you should ask me for ten, i shouldn't know where to get it." and yet that day mr. small (pennybacker, bigler and small) came to mr. bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could not raise ten thousand dollars. only ten, and he was sure of a fortune. without it he was a beggar. mr. bolton had already small's notes for a large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and again, and always with the same result. but mr. small spoke with a faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that mr. bolton put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar, who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt. beautiful credit! the foundation of modern society. who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? that is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark:--"i wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now i owe two millions of dollars." chapter xxvii. it was a hard blow to poor sellers to see the work on his darling enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. it was hard to come down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a general superintendent and the most conspicuous man in the community. it was sad to see his name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed on with rhetorical tar and feathers. but his friends suffered more on his account than he did. he was a cork that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time. he had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then. on one of these occasions he said: "it's all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little while. there's $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again: harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that's to be expected--you can't move these big operations to the tune of fisher's hornpipe, you know. but harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll see! i expect the news every day now." "but beriah, you've been expecting it every day, all along, haven't you?" "well, yes; yes--i don't know but i have. but anyway, the longer it's delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start--same as every day you live brings you nearer to--nearer--" "the grave?" "well, no--not that exactly; but you can't understand these things, polly dear--women haven't much head for business, you know. you make yourself perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you'll see how we'll trot this right along. why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants to--that's no great matter--there's a bigger thing than that." "bigger than $200,000, beriah?" "bigger, child?--why, what's $200,000? pocket money! mere pocket money! look at the railroad! did you forget the railroad? it ain't many months till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming right along behind it. where'll it be by the middle of summer? just stop and fancy a moment--just think a little--don't anything suggest itself? bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all the time--but a man, why a man lives---"in the future, beriah? but don't we live in the future most too much, beriah? we do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along, but sometimes it's not a robust diet,--beriah. but don't look that way, dear--don't mind what i say. i don't mean to fret, i don't mean to worry; and i don't, once a month, do i, dear? but when i get a little low and feel bad, i get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don't mean anything in the world. it passes right away. i know you're doing all you can, and i don't want to seem repining and ungrateful--for i'm not, beriah--you know i'm not, don't you?" "lord bless you, child, i know you are the very best little woman that ever lived--that ever lived on the whole face of the earth! and i know that i would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme for you with all my might. and i'll bring things all right yet, honey --cheer up and don't you fear. the railroad----" "oh, i had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a body forgets everything. yes, the railroad--tell me about the railroad." "aha, my girl, don't you see? things ain't so dark, are they? now i didn't forget the railroad. now just think for a moment--just figure up a little on the future dead moral certainties. for instance, call this waiter st. louis. "and we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from st. louis to this potato, which is slouchburg: "then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from slouchburg to doodleville, shown by the black pepper: "then we run along the--yes--the comb--to the tumbler that's brimstone: "thence by the pipe to belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar: "thence to, to--that quill--catfish--hand me the pincushion, marie antoinette: "thence right along these shears to this horse, babylon: "then by the spoon to bloody run--thank you, the ink: "thence to hail columbia--snuffers, polly, please move that cup and saucer close up, that's hail columbia: "then--let me open my knife--to hark-from-the-tomb, where we'll put the candle-stick--only a little distance from hail columbia to hark-from-the-tomb--down-grade all the way. "and there we strike columbus river--pass me two or throe skeins of thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for hawkeye, and the rat trap for stone's landing-napoleon, i mean--and you can see how much better napoleon is located than hawkeye. now here you are with your railroad complete, and showing its continuation to hallelujah and thence to corruptionville. "now then-them you are! it's a beautiful road, beautiful. jeff thompson can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid, or a theodolite, or whatever they call it--he calls it sometimes one and sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, i reckon. but ain't it a ripping toad, though? i tell you, it'll make a stir when it gets along. just see what a country it goes through. there's your onions at slouchburg--noblest onion country that graces god's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around doodleville --bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips--if there's any in them; and i reckon there is, because congress has made an appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn't have done that just on conjecture, of course. and now we come to the brimstone region--cattle raised there till you can't rest--and corn, and all that sort of thing. then you've got a little stretch along through belshazzar that don't produce anything now--at least nothing but rocks--but irrigation will fetch it. then from catfish to babylon it's a little swampy, but there's dead loads of peat down under there somewhere. next is the bloody run and hail columbia country--tobacco enough can be raised there to support two such railroads. next is the sassparilla region. i reckon there's enough of that truck along in there on the line of the pocket-knife, from hail columbia to hark-from-the tomb to fat up all the consumptives in all the hospitals from halifax to the holy land. it just grows like weeds! i've got a little belt of sassparilla land in there just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little universal expectorant to get into shape in my head. and i'll fix that, you know. one of these days i'll have all the nations of the earth expecto--" "but beriah, dear--" "don't interrupt me; polly--i don't want you to lose the run of the map --well, take your toy-horse, james fitz-james, if you must have it--and run along with you. here, now--the soap will do for babylon. let me see --where was i? oh yes--now we run down to stone's lan--napoleon--now we run down to napoleon. beautiful road. look at that, now. perfectly straight line-straight as the way to the grave. and see where it leaves hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. that town's as bound to die as--well if i owned it i'd get its obituary ready, now, and notify the mourners. polly, mark my words--in three years from this, hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness. you'll see. and just look at that river--noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty earth! --calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! railroad goes all over it and all through it--wades right along on stilts. seventeen bridges in three miles and a half--forty-nine bridges from hark-from-the-tomb to stone's landing altogether--forty nine bridges, and culverts enough to culvert creation itself! hadn't skeins of thread enough to represent them all--but you get an idea--perfect trestle-work of bridges for seventy two miles: jeff thompson and i fixed all that, you know; he's to get the contracts and i'm to put them through on the divide. just oceans of money in those bridges. it's the only part of the railroad i'm interested in,--down along the line--and it's all i want, too. it's enough, i should judge. now here we are at napoleon. good enough country plenty good enough--all it wants is population. that's all right--that will come. and it's no bad country now for calmness and solitude, i can tell you--though there's no money in that, of course. no money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace--a man don't want to rip and tear around all the time. and here we go, now, just as straight as a string for hallelujah--it's a beautiful angle --handsome up grade all the way --and then away you go to corruptionville, the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever--good missionary field, too. there ain't such another missionary field outside the jungles of central africa. and patriotic?--why they named it after congress itself. oh, i warn you, my dear, there's a good time coming, and it'll be right along before you know what you're about, too. that railroad's fetching it. you see what it is as far as i've got, and if i had enough bottles and soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it along to where it joins onto the union pacific, fourteen hundred miles from here, i should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. so, don't you see? we've got the rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying about that $200,000 appropriation for? that's all right. i'd be willing to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from harry will--" the eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter, warm from the post-office. "things do look bright, after all, beriah. i'm sorry i was blue, but it did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. open the letter--open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out of our places. i am all in a fidget to know what it says." the letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay. the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 6. chapter xlvi. philip left the capitol and walked up pennsylvania avenue in company with senator dilworthy. it was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and inspiring; in the deepening wayside green, the pink flush of the blossoming peach trees, the soft suffusion on the heights of arlington, and the breath of the warm south wind was apparent, the annual miracle of the resurrection of the earth. the senator took off his hat and seemed to open his soul to the sweet influences of the morning. after the heat and noise of the chamber, under its dull gas-illuminated glass canopy, and the all night struggle of passion and feverish excitement there, the open, tranquil world seemed like heaven. the senator was not in an exultant mood, but rather in a condition of holy joy, befitting a christian statesman whose benevolent plans providence has made its own and stamped with approval. the great battle had been fought, but the measure had still to encounter the scrutiny of the senate, and providence sometimes acts differently in the two houses. still the senator was tranquil, for he knew that there is an esprit de corps in the senate which does not exist in the house, the effect of which is to make the members complaisant towards the projects of each other, and to extend a mutual aid which in a more vulgar body would be called "log-rolling." "it is, under providence, a good night's work, mr. sterling. the government has founded an institution which will remove half the difficulty from the southern problem. and it is a good thing for the hawkins heirs, a very good thing. laura will be almost a millionaire." "do you think, mr. dilworthy, that the hawkinses will get much of the money?" asked philip innocently, remembering the fate of the columbus river appropriation. the senator looked at his companion scrutinizingly for a moment to see if he meant any thing personal, and then replied, "undoubtedly, undoubtedly. i have had their interests greatly at heart. there will of course be a few expenses, but the widow and orphans will realize all that mr. hawkins, dreamed of for them." the birds were singing as they crossed the presidential square, now bright with its green turf and tender foliage. after the two had gained the steps of the senator's house they stood a moment, looking upon the lovely prospect: "it is like the peace of god," said the senator devoutly. entering the house, the senator called a servant and said, "tell miss laura that we are waiting to see her. i ought to have sent a messenger on horseback half an hour ago," he added to philip, "she will be transported with our victory. you must stop to breakfast, and see the excitement." the servant soon came back, with a wondering look and reported, "miss laura ain't dah, sah. i reckon she hain't been dah all night!" the senator and philip both started up. in laura's room there were the marks of a confused and hasty departure, drawers half open, little articles strewn on the floor. the bed had not been disturbed. upon inquiry it appeared that laura had not been at dinner, excusing herself to mrs. dilworthy on the plea of a violent headache; that she made a request to the servants that she might not be disturbed. the senator was astounded. philip thought at once of col. selby. could laura have run away with him? the senator thought not. in fact it could not be. gen. leffenwell, the member from new orleans, had casually told him at the house last night that selby and his family went to new york yesterday morning and were to sail for europe to-day. philip had another idea which, he did not mention. he seized his hat, and saying that he would go and see what he could learn, ran to the lodgings of harry; whom he had not seen since yesterday afternoon, when he left him to go to the house. harry was not in. he had gone out with a hand-bag before six o'clock yesterday, saying that he had to go to new york, but should return next day. in harry's-room on the table philip found this note: "dear mr. brierly:--can you meet me at the six o'clock train, and be my escort to new york? i have to go about this university bill, the vote of an absent member we must have here, senator dilworthy cannot go. yours, l. h." "confound it," said phillip, "the noodle has fallen into her trap. and she promised she would let him alone." he only stopped to send a note to senator dilworthy, telling him what he had found, and that he should go at once to new york, and then hastened to the railway station. he had to wait an hour for a train, and when it did start it seemed to go at a snail's pace. philip was devoured with anxiety. where could they, have gone? what was laura's object in taking harry? had the flight anything to do with selby? would harry be such a fool as to be dragged into some public scandal? it seemed as if the train would never reach baltimore. then there was a long delay at havre de grace. a hot box had to be cooled at wilmington. would it never get on? only in passing around the city of philadelphia did the train not seem to go slow. philip stood upon the platform and watched for the boltons' house, fancied he could distinguish its roof among the trees, and wondered how ruth would feel if she knew he was so near her. then came jersey, everlasting jersey, stupid irritating jersey, where the passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are to come out, and whether they have yet reached elizabeth. launched into jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to elizabeth. he has no notion what elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next time he goes that way, he will look out of the window and see what it is like; but he never does. or if he does, he probably finds that it is princeton or something of that sort. he gets annoyed, and never can see the use of having different names for stations in jersey. by and by. there is newark, three or four newarks apparently; then marshes; then long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of 'patent medicines and ready-made, clothing, and new york tonics for jersey agues, and jersey city is reached. on the ferry-boat philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying "'ere's the evening gram, all about the murder," and with breathless haste--ran his eyes over the following: shocking murder!!! tragedy in high life!! a beautiful woman shoots a distinguished confederate soldier at the southern hotel!!! jealousy the cause!!! this morning occurred another of those shocking murders which have become the almost daily food of the newspapers, the direct result of the socialistic doctrines and woman's rights agitations, which have made every woman the avenger of her own wrongs, and all society the hunting ground for her victims. about nine o'clock a lady deliberately shot a man dead in the public parlor of the southern hotel, coolly remarking, as she threw down her revolver and permitted herself to be taken into custody, "he brought it on himself." our reporters were immediately dispatched to the scene of the tragedy, and gathered the following particulars. yesterday afternoon arrived at the hotel from washington, col. george selby and family, who had taken passage and were to sail at noon to-day in the steamer scotia for england. the colonel was a handsome man about forty, a gentleman of wealth and high social position, a resident of new orleans. he served with distinction in the confederate army, and received a wound in the leg from which he has never entirely recovered, being obliged to use a cane in locomotion. this morning at about nine o'clock, a lady, accompanied by a gentleman, called at the office of the hotel and asked for col. selby. the colonel was at breakfast. would the clerk tell him that a lady and gentleman wished to see him for a moment in the parlor? the clerk says that the gentleman asked her, "what do you want to see him for?" and that she replied, "he is going to europe, and i ought to just say good by." col. selby was informed; and the lady and gentleman were shown to the parlor, in which were at the time three or four other persons. five minutes after two shots were fired in quick succession, and there was a rush to the parlor from which the reports came. col. selby was found lying on the floor, bleeding, but not dead. two gentlemen, who had just come in, had seized the lady, who made no resistance, and she was at once given in charge of a police officer who arrived. the persons who were in the parlor agree substantially as to what occurred. they had happened to be looking towards the door when the man--col. selby--entered with his cane, and they looked at him, because he stopped as if surprised and frightened, and made a backward movement. at the same moment the lady in the bonnet advanced towards him and said something like, "george, will you go with me?" he replied, throwing up his hand and retreating, "my god i can't, don't fire," and the next instants two shots were heard and he fell. the lady appeared to be beside herself with rage or excitement, and trembled very much when the gentlemen took hold of her; it was to them she said, "he brought it on himself." col. selby was carried at once to his room and dr. puffer, the eminent surgeon was sent for. it was found that he was shot through the breast and through the abdomen. other aid was summoned, but the wounds were mortal, and col selby expired in an hour, in pain, but his mind was clear to the last and he made a full deposition. the substance of it was that his murderess is a miss laura hawkins, whom he had known at washington as a lobbyist and had some business with her. she had followed him with her attentions and solicitations, and had endeavored to make him desert his wife and go to europe with her. when he resisted and avoided her she had threatened him. only the day before he left washington she had declared that he should never go out of the city alive without her. it seems to have been a deliberate and premeditated murder, the woman following him to washington on purpose to commit it. we learn that the, murderess, who is a woman of dazzling and transcendent beauty and about twenty six or seven, is a niece of senator dilworthy at whose house she has been spending the winter. she belongs to a high southern family, and has the reputation of being an heiress. like some other great beauties and belles in washington however there have been whispers that she had something to do with the lobby. if we mistake not we have heard her name mentioned in connection with the sale of the tennessee lands to the knobs university, the bill for which passed the house last night. her companion is mr. harry brierly, a new york dandy, who has been in washington. his connection with her and with this tragedy is not known, but he was also taken into custody, and will be detained at least as a witness. p. s. one of the persons present in the parlor says that after laura hawkins had fired twice, she turned the pistol towards herself, but that brierly sprung and caught it from her hand, and that it was he who threw it on the floor. further particulars with full biographies of all the parties in our next edition. philip hastened at once to the southern hotel, where he found still a great state of excitement, and a thousand different and exaggerated stories passing from mouth to mouth. the witnesses of the event had told it over so many time that they had worked it up into a most dramatic scene, and embellished it with whatever could heighten its awfulness. outsiders had taken up invention also. the colonel's wife had gone insane, they said. the children had rushed into the parlor and rolled themselves in their father's blood. the hotel clerk said that he noticed there was murder in the woman's eye when he saw her. a person who had met the woman on the stairs felt a creeping sensation. some thought brierly was an accomplice, and that he had set the woman on to kill his rival. some said the woman showed the calmness and indifference of insanity. philip learned that harry and laura had both been taken to the city prison, and he went there; but he was not admitted. not being a newspaper reporter, he could not see either of them that night; but the officer questioned him suspiciously and asked him who he was. he might perhaps see brierly in the morning. the latest editions of the evening papers had the result of the inquest. it was a plain enough case for the jury, but they sat over it a long time, listening to the wrangling of the physicians. dr. puffer insisted that the man died from the effects of the wound in the chest. dr. dobb as strongly insisted that the wound in the abdomen caused death. dr. golightly suggested that in his opinion death ensued from a complication of the two wounds and perhaps other causes. he examined the table waiter, as to whether col. selby ate any breakfast, and what he ate, and if he had any appetite. the jury finally threw themselves back upon the indisputable fact that selby was dead, that either wound would have killed him (admitted by the doctors), and rendered a verdict that he died from pistol-shot wounds inflicted by a pistol in the hands of laura hawkins. the morning papers blazed with big type, and overflowed with details of the murder. the accounts in the evening papers were only the premonitory drops to this mighty shower. the scene was dramatically worked up in column after column. there were sketches, biographical and historical. there were long "specials" from washington, giving a full history of laura's career there, with the names of men with whom she was said to be intimate, a description of senator dilworthy's residence and of his family, and of laura's room in his house, and a sketch of the senator's appearance and what he said. there was a great deal about her beauty, her accomplishments and her brilliant position in society, and her doubtful position in society. there was also an interview with col. sellers and another with washington hawkins, the brother of the murderess. one journal had a long dispatch from hawkeye, reporting the excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful intelligence. all the parties had been "interviewed." there were reports of conversations with the clerk at the hotel; with the call-boy; with the waiter at table with all the witnesses, with the policeman, with the landlord (who wanted it understood that nothing of that sort had ever happened in his house before, although it had always been frequented by the best southern society,) and with mrs. col. selby. there were diagrams illustrating the scene of the shooting, and views of the hotel and street, and portraits of the parties. there were three minute and different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically worded that nobody could understand them. harry and laura had also been "interviewed" and there was a statement from philip himself, which a reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he found him, philip never could conjecture. what some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion, they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and shootings. the statement from laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and consisted of nine parts of, the reporter's valuable observations to one of laura's, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked, "incoherent", but it appeared that laura claimed to be selby's wife, or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and that she was going to follow him to europe. when the reporter asked: "what made you shoot him miss. hawkins?" laura's only reply was, very simply, "did i shoot him? do they say i shot him?". and she would say no more. the news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. talk of it filled the town. the facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive, broached in the newspapers, were disputed over. during the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns of the union, from the. atlantic to the territories, and away up and down the pacific slope, and as far as london and paris and berlin, that morning the name of laura hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of people, while the owner of it--the sweet child of years ago, the beautiful queen of washington drawing rooms--sat shivering on her cot-bed in the darkness of a damp cell in the tombs. chapter xlvii. philip's first effort was to get harry out of the tombs. he gained permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day, and he found that hero very much cast down. "i never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow," he said to philip; "it's no place for a gentleman, they've no idea how to treat a gentleman. look at that provender," pointing to his uneaten prison ration. "they tell me i am detained as a witness, and i passed the night among a lot of cut-throats and dirty rascals--a pretty witness i'd be in a month spent in such company." "but what under heavens," asked philip, "induced you to come to new york with laura! what was it for?" "what for? why, she wanted me to come. i didn't know anything about that cursed selby. she said it was lobby business for the university. i'd no idea what she was dragging me into that confounded hotel for. i suppose she knew that the southerners all go there, and thought she'd find her man. oh! lord, i wish i'd taken your advice. you might as well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the newspapers the way i have. she's pure devil, that girl. you ought to have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass i am." "well, i'm not going to dispute a poor, prisoner. but the first thing is to get you out of this. i've brought the note laura wrote you, for one thing, and i've seen your uncle, and explained the truth of the case to him. he will be here soon." harry's uncle came, with; other friends, and in the course of the day made such a showing to the authorities that harry was released, on giving bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. his spirits rose with their usual elasticity as soon as he was out of centre street, and he insisted on giving philip and his friends a royal supper at delmonico's, an excess which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was committed with his usual reckless generosity. harry ordered, the supper, and it is perhaps needless to say, that philip paid the bill. neither of the young men felt like attempting to see laura that day, and she saw no company except the newspaper reporters, until the arrival of col. sellers and washington hawkins, who had hastened to new york with all speed. they found laura in a cell in the upper tier of the women's department. the cell was somewhat larger than those in the men's department, and might be eight feet by ten square, perhaps a little longer. it was of stone, floor and all, and tile roof was oven shaped. a narrow slit in the roof admitted sufficient light, and was the only means of ventilation; when the window was opened there was nothing to prevent the rain coming in. the only means of heating being from the corridor, when the door was ajar, the cell was chilly and at this time damp. it was whitewashed and clean, but it had a slight jail odor; its only furniture was a narrow iron bedstead, with a tick of straw and some blankets, not too clean. when col. sellers was conducted to this cell by the matron and looked in, his emotions quite overcame him, the tears rolled down his cheeks and his voice trembled so that he could hardly speak. washington was unable to say anything; he looked from laura to the miserable creatures who were walking in the corridor with unutterable disgust. laura was alone calm and self-contained, though she was not unmoved by the sight of the grief of her friends. "are you comfortable, laura?" was the first word the colonel could get out. "you see," she replied. "i can't say it's exactly comfortable." "are you cold?" "it is pretty chilly. the stone floor is like ice. it chills me through to step on it. i have to sit on the bed." "poor thing, poor thing. and can you eat any thing?" "no, i am not hungry. i don't know that i could eat any thing, i can't eat that." "oh dear," continued the colonel, "it's dreadful. but cheer up, dear, cheer up;" and the colonel broke down entirely. "but," he went on, "we'll stand by you. we'll do everything for you. i know you couldn't have meant to do it, it must have been insanity, you know, or something of that sort. you never did anything of the sort before." laura smiled very faintly and said, "yes, it was something of that sort. it's all a whirl. he was a villain; you don't know." "i'd rather have killed him myself, in a duel you know, all fair. i wish i had. but don't you be down. we'll get you the best counsel, the lawyers in new york can do anything; i've read of cases. but you must be comfortable now. we've brought some of your clothes, at the hotel. what else, can we get for you?" laura suggested that she would like some sheets for her bed, a piece of carpet to step on, and her meals sent in; and some books and writing materials if it was allowed. the colonel and washington promised to procure all these things, and then took their sorrowful leave, a great deal more affected than the criminal was, apparently, by her situation. the colonel told the matron as he went away that if she would look to laura's comfort a little it shouldn't be the worse for her; and to the turnkey who let them out he patronizingly said, "you've got a big establishment here, a credit to the city. i've got a friend in there--i shall see you again, sir." by the next day something more of laura's own story began to appear in the newspapers, colored and heightened by reporters' rhetoric. some of them cast a lurid light upon the colonel's career, and represented his victim as a beautiful avenger of her murdered innocence; and others pictured her as his willing paramour and pitiless slayer. her communications to the reporters were stopped by her lawyers as soon as they were retained and visited her, but this fact did not prevent--it may have facilitated--the appearance of casual paragraphs here and there which were likely to beget popular sympathy for the poor girl. the occasion did not pass without "improvement" by the leading journals; and philip preserved the editorial comments of three or four of them which pleased him most. these he used to read aloud to his friends afterwards and ask them to guess from which journal each of them had been cut. one began in this simple manner:- history never repeats itself, but the kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends. washington is not corinth, and lais, the beautiful daughter of timandra, might not have been the prototype of the ravishing laura, daughter of the plebeian house of hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from the sweet lips of the washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern lais would never have departed from the national capital if there had been there even one republican xenocrates who resisted her blandishments. but here the parallel: fails. lais, wandering away with the youth rippostratus, is slain by the women who are jealous of her charms. laura, straying into her thessaly with the youth brierly, slays her other lover and becomes the champion of the wrongs of her sex. another journal began its editorial with less lyrical beauty, but with equal force. it closed as follows:- with laura hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the dissolute colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he sowed, we have nothing to do. but as the curtain rises on this awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital under this administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm for the fate of the republic. a third newspaper took up the subject in a different tone. it said:- our repeated predictions are verified. the pernicious doctrines which we have announced as prevailing in american society have been again illustrated. the name of the city is becoming a reproach. we may have done something in averting its ruin in our resolute exposure of the great frauds; we shall not be deterred from insisting that the outraged laws for the protection of human life shall be vindicated now, so that a person can walk the streets or enter the public houses, at least in the day-time, without the risk of a bullet through his brain. a fourth journal began its remarks as follows:- the fullness with which we present our readers this morning the details of the selby-hawkins homicide is a miracle of modern journalism. subsequent investigation can do little to fill out the picture. it is the old story. a beautiful woman shoots her absconding lover in cold-blood; and we shall doubtless learn in due time that if she was not as mad as a hare in this month of march, she was at least laboring under what is termed "momentary insanity." it would not be too much to say that upon the first publication of the facts of the tragedy, there was an almost universal feeling of rage against the murderess in the tombs, and that reports of her beauty only heightened the indignation. it was as if she presumed upon that and upon her sex, to defy the law; and there was a fervent, hope that the law would take its plain course. yet laura was not without friends, and some of them very influential too. she had in keeping a great many secrets and a great many reputations, perhaps. who shall set himself up to judge human motives. why, indeed, might we not feel pity for a woman whose brilliant career had been so suddenly extinguished in misfortune and crime? those who had known her so well in washington might find it impossible to believe that the fascinating woman could have had murder in her heart, and would readily give ear to the current sentimentality about the temporary aberration of mind under the stress of personal calamity. senator dilworthy, was greatly shocked, of course, but he was full of charity for the erring. "we shall all need mercy," he said. "laura as an inmate of my family was a most exemplary female, amiable, affectionate and truthful, perhaps too fond of gaiety, and neglectful of the externals of religion, but a woman of principle. she may have had experiences of which i am ignorant, but she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own right mind." to the senator's credit be it said, he was willing to help laura and her family in this dreadful trial. she, herself, was not without money, for the washington lobbyist is not seldom more fortunate than the washington claimant, and she was able to procure a good many luxuries to mitigate the severity of her prison life. it enabled her also to have her own family near her, and to see some of them daily. the tender solicitude of her mother, her childlike grief, and her firm belief in the real guiltlessness of her daughter, touched even the custodians of the tombs who are enured to scenes of pathos. mrs. hawkins had hastened to her daughter as soon as she received money for the journey. she had no reproaches, she had only tenderness and pity. she could not shut out the dreadful facts of the case, but it had been enough for her that laura had said, in their first interview, "mother, i did not know what i was doing." she obtained lodgings near, the prison and devoted her life to her daughter, as if she had been really her own child. she would have remained in the prison day and night if it had been permitted. she was aged and feeble, but this great necessity seemed to give her new life. the pathetic story of the old lady's ministrations, and her simplicity and faith, also got into the newspapers in time, and probably added to the pathos of this wrecked woman's fate, which was beginning to be felt by the public. it was certain that she had champions who thought that her wrongs ought to be placed against her crime, and expressions of this feeling came to her in various ways. visitors came to see her, and gifts of fruit and flowers were sent, which brought some cheer into her hard and gloomy cell. laura had declined to see either philip or harry, somewhat to the former's relief, who had a notion that she would necessarily feel humiliated by seeing him after breaking faith with him, but to the discomfiture of harry, who still felt her fascination, and thought her refusal heartless. he told philip that of course he had got through with such a woman, but he wanted to see her. philip, to keep him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining operations at ilium. the law took its course with laura. she was indicted for murder in the first degree and held for trial at the summer term. the two most distinguished criminal lawyers in the city had been retained for her defence, and to that the resolute woman devoted her days with a courage that rose as she consulted with her counsel and understood the methods of criminal procedure in new york. she was greatly depressed, however, by the news from washington. congress adjourned and her bill had failed to pass the senate. it must wait for the next session. chapter xlviii it had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of pennybacker, bigler and small. these celebrated contractors usually made more money during the session of the legislature at harrisburg than upon all their summer work, and this winter had been unfruitful. it was unaccountable to bigler. "you see, mr. bolton," he said, and philip was present at the conversation, "it puts us all out. it looks as if politics was played out. we'd counted on the year of simon's re-election. and, now, he's reelected, and i've yet to see the first man who's the better for it." "you don't mean to say," asked philip, "that he went in without paying anything?" "not a cent, not a dash cent, as i can hear," repeated mr. bigler, indignantly. "i call it a swindle on the state. how it was done gets me. i never saw such a tight time for money in harrisburg." "were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put through in connection with the election? "not that i knew," said bigler, shaking his head in disgust. "in fact it was openly said, that there was no money in the election. it's perfectly unheard of." "perhaps," suggested philip, "it was effected on what the insurance companies call the 'endowment,' or the 'paid up' plan, by which a policy is secured after a certain time without further payment." "you think then," said mr. bolton smiling, "that a liberal and sagacious politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with keeping up his payments?" "whatever it is," interrupted mr. bigler, "it's devilish ingenious and goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me out, when i thought we had a dead sure thing. i tell you what it is, gentlemen, i shall go in for reform. things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a united states senatorship." it was melancholy, but mr. bigler was not a man to be crushed by one misfortune, or to lose his confidence in human nature, on one exhibition of apparent honesty. he was already on his feet again, or would be if mr. bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days. "we've got something with money in it," he explained to mr. bolton, "got hold of it by good luck. we've got the entire contract for dobson's patent pavement for the city of mobile. see here." mr. bigler made some figures; contract so; much, cost of work and materials so much, profits so much. at the end of three months the city would owe the company three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars-two hundred thousand of that would be profits. the whole job was worth at least a million to the company--it might be more. there could be no mistake in these figures; here was the contract, mr. bolton knew what materials were worth and what the labor would cost. mr. bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always a mistake in figures when bigler or small made them, and he knew that he ought to send the fellow about his business. instead of that, he let him talk. they only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the contract--that expended they would have city bonds. mr. bolton said he hadn't the money. but bigler could raise it on his name. mr. bolton said he had no right to put his family to that risk. but the entire contract could be assigned to him--the security was ample--it was a fortune to him if it was forfeited. besides mr. bigler had been unfortunate, he didn't know where to look for the necessaries of life for his family. if he could only have one more chance, he was sure he could right himself. he begged for it. and mr. bolton yielded. he could never refuse such appeals. if he had befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever. he shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more odious than small to his family it was bigler. "philip tells me," mrs. bolton said that evening, "that the man bigler has been with thee again to-day. i hope thee will have nothing more to do with him." "he has been very unfortunate," replied mr. bolton, uneasily. "he is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee into trouble. but thee didn't listen to him again?" "well, mother, his family is in want, and i lent him my name--but i took ample security. the worst that can happen will be a little inconvenience." mrs. bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or remonstrate; she knew what a "little inconvenience" meant, but she knew there was no help for it. if mr. bolton had been on his way to market to buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for it. mrs. bolton only asked (and the question showed that she was no mere provident than her husband where her heart was interested), "but has thee provided money for philip to use in opening the coal mine?" "yes, i have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found. philip has the control of it, as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital invested. he has great confidence in his success, and i hope for his sake he won't be disappointed." philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the bolton-family--by all except ruth. his mother, when he went home after his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of mrs. bolton, about whom and ruth she asked a thousand questions --an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache, which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and forms new ties. and to mrs. sterling; a widow, living on a small income in a remote massachusetts village, philadelphia was a city of many splendors. all its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease and surrounded by superior advantages. some of her neighbors had relations living in philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a guarantee of respectability to have relations in philadelphia. mrs. sterling was not sorry to have philip make his way among such well-to-do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too good for his deserts. "so, sir," said ruth, when philip came from new york, "you have been assisting in a pretty tragedy. i saw your name in the papers. is this woman a specimen of your western friends?" "my only assistance," replied philip, a little annoyed, was in trying to keep harry out of a bad scrape, and i failed after all. he walked into her trap, and he has been punished for it. i'm going to take him up to ilium to see if he won't work steadily at one thing, and quit his nonsense." "is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?" "i don't know, she has a kind of beauty--she is not like--' "not like alice?" "well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in washington--dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. ruth, do you believe a woman ever becomes a devil?" "men do, and i don't know why women shouldn't. but i never saw one." "well, laura hawkins comes very near it. but it is dreadful to think of her fate." "why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? do you suppose they will be so barbarous as that?" "i wasn't thinking of that--it's doubtful if a new york jury would find a woman guilty of any such crime. but to think of her life if she is acquitted." "it is dreadful," said ruth, thoughtfully, "but the worst of it is that you men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn an honest living by their own exertions. they are educated as if they were always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such thing as misfortune. i suppose, now, that you would all choose to have me stay idly at home, and give up my profession." "oh, no," said philip, earnestly, "i respect your resolution. but, ruth, do you think you would be happier or do more good in following your profession than in having a home of your own?" "what is to hinder having a home of my, own?" "nothing, perhaps, only you never would be in it--you would be away day and night, if you had any practice; and what sort of a home would that make for your husband?" "what sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband is always away riding about in his doctor's gig?" "ah, you know that is not fair. the woman makes the home." philip and ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which philip was always trying to give a personal turn. he was now about to go to ilium for the season, and he did not like to go without some assurance from ruth that she might perhaps love him some day; when he was worthy of it, and when he could offer her something better than a partnership in his poverty. "i should work with a great deal better heart, ruth," he said the morning he was taking leave, "if i knew you cared for me a little." ruth was looking down; the color came faintly to her cheeks, and she hesitated. she needn't be looking down, he thought, for she was ever so much shorter than tall philip. "it's not much of a place, ilium," philip went on, as if a little geographical remark would fit in here as well as anything else, "and i shall have plenty of time to think over the responsibility i have taken, and--" his observation did not seem to be coming out any where. but ruth looked up, and there was a light in her eyes that quickened phil's pulse. she took his hand, and said with serious sweetness: "thee mustn't lose heart, philip." and then she added, in another mood, "thee knows i graduate in the summer and shall have my diploma. and if any thing happens--mines explode sometimes--thee can send for me. farewell." the opening of the ilium coal mine was begun with energy, but without many omens of success. philip was running a tunnel into the breast of the mountain, in faith that the coal stratum ran there as it ought to. how far he must go in he believed he knew, but no one could tell exactly. some of the miners said that they should probably go through the mountain, and that the hole could be used for a railway tunnel. the mining camp was a busy place at any rate. quite a settlement of board and log shanties had gone up, with a blacksmith shop, a small machine shop, and a temporary store for supplying the wants of the workmen. philip and harry pitched a commodious tent, and lived in the full enjoyment of the free life. there is no difficulty in digging a bole in the ground, if you have money enough to pay for the digging, but those who try this sort of work are always surprised at the large amount of money necessary to make a small hole. the earth is never willing to yield one product, hidden in her bosom, without an equivalent for it. and when a person asks of her coal, she is quite apt to require gold in exchange. it was exciting work for all concerned in it. as the tunnel advanced into the rock every day promised to be the golden day. this very blast might disclose the treasure. the work went on week after week, and at length during the night as well as the daytime. gangs relieved each other, and the tunnel was every hour, inch by inch and foot by foot, crawling into the mountain. philip was on the stretch of hope and excitement. every pay day he saw his funds melting away, and still there was only the faintest show of what the miners call "signs." the life suited harry, whose buoyant hopefulness was never disturbed. he made endless calculations, which nobody could understand, of the probable position of the vein. he stood about among the workmen with the busiest air. when he was down at ilium he called himself the engineer of the works, and he used to spend hours smoking his pipe with the dutch landlord on the hotel porch, and astonishing the idlers there with the stories of his railroad operations in missouri. he talked with the landlord, too, about enlarging his hotel, and about buying some village lots, in the prospect of a rise, when the mine was opened. he taught the dutchman how to mix a great many cooling drinks for the summer time, and had a bill at the hotel, the growing length of which mr. dusenheimer contemplated with pleasant anticipations. mr. brierly was a very useful and cheering person wherever he went. midsummer arrived: philip could report to mr. bolton only progress, and this was not a cheerful message for him to send to philadelphia in reply to inquiries that he thought became more and more anxious. philip himself was a prey to the constant fear that the money would give out before the coal was struck. at this time harry was summoned to new york, to attend the trial of laura hawkins. it was possible that philip would have to go also, her lawyer wrote, but they hoped for a postponement. there was important evidence that they could not yet obtain, and he hoped the judge would not force them to a trial unprepared. there were many reasons for a delay, reasons which of course are never mentioned, but which it would seem that a new york judge sometimes must understand, when he grants a postponement upon a motion that seems to the public altogether inadequate. harry went, but he soon came back. the trial was put off. every week we can gain, said the learned counsel, braham, improves our chances. the popular rage never lasts long. chapter xlix. "we've struck it!" this was the announcement at the tent door that woke philip out of a sound sleep at dead of night, and shook all the sleepiness out of him in a trice. "what! where is it? when? coal? let me see it. what quality is it?" were some of the rapid questions that philip poured out as he hurriedly dressed. "harry, wake up, my boy, the coal train is coming. struck it, eh? let's see?" the foreman put down his lantern, and handed philip a black lump. there was no mistake about it, it was the hard, shining anthracite, and its freshly fractured surface, glistened in the light like polished steel. diamond never shone with such lustre in the eyes of philip. harry was exuberant, but philip's natural caution found expression in his next remark. "now, roberts, you are sure about this?" "what--sure that it's coal?" "o, no, sure that it's the main vein." "well, yes. we took it to be that" "did you from the first?" "i can't say we did at first. no, we didn't. most of the indications were there, but not all of them, not all of them. so we thought we'd prospect a bit." "well?" "it was tolerable thick, and looked as if it might be the vein--looked as if it ought to be the vein. then we went down on it a little. looked better all the time." "when did you strike it?" "about ten o'clock." "then you've been prospecting about four hours." "yes, been sinking on it something over four hours." "i'm afraid you couldn't go down very far in four hours--could you?" "o yes--it's a good deal broke up, nothing but picking and gadding stuff." "well, it does look encouraging, sure enough--but then the lacking indications--" "i'd rather we had them, mr. sterling, but i've seen more than one good permanent mine struck without 'em in my time." "well, that is encouraging too." "yes, there was the union, the alabama and the black mohawk--all good, sound mines, you know--all just exactly like this one when we first struck them." "well, i begin to feel a good deal more easy. i guess we've really got it. i remember hearing them tell about the black mohawk." "i'm free to say that i believe it, and the men all think so too. they are all old hands at this business." "come harry, let's go up and look at it, just for the comfort of it," said philip. they came back in the course of an hour, satisfied and happy. there was no more sleep for them that night. they lit their pipes, put a specimen of the coal on the table, and made it a kind of loadstone of thought and conversation. "of course," said harry, "there will have to be a branch track built, and a 'switch-back' up the hill." "yes, there will be no trouble about getting the money for that now. we could sell-out tomorrow for a handsome sum. that sort of coal doesn't go begging within a mile of a rail-road. i wonder if mr. bolton' would rather sell out or work it?" "oh, work it," says harry, "probably the whole mountain is coal now you've got to it." "possibly it might not be much of a vein after all," suggested philip. "possibly it is; i'll bet it's forty feet thick. i told you. i knew the sort of thing as soon as i put my eyes on it." philip's next thought was to write to his friends and announce their good fortune. to mr. bolton he wrote a short, business letter, as calm as he could make it. they had found coal of excellent quality, but they could not yet tell with absolute certainty what the vein was. the prospecting was still going on. philip also wrote to ruth; but though this letter may have glowed, it was not with the heat of burning anthracite. he needed no artificial heat to warm his pen and kindle his ardor when he sat down to write to ruth. but it must be confessed that the words never flowed so easily before, and he ran on for an hour disporting in all the extravagance of his imagination. when ruth read it, she doubted if the fellow had not gone out of his senses. and it was not until she reached the postscript that she discovered the cause of the exhilaration. "p. s.--we have found coal." the news couldn't have come to mr. bolton in better time. he had never been so sorely pressed. a dozen schemes which he had in hand, any one of which might turn up a fortune, all languished, and each needed just a little more, money to save that which had been invested. he hadn't a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the wild tract which philip was experimenting on, and which had, no marketable value above the incumbrance on it. he had come home that day early, unusually dejected. "i am afraid," he said to his wife, "that we shall have to give up our house. i don't care for myself, but for thee and the children." "that will be the least of misfortunes," said mrs. bolton, cheerfully, "if thee can clear thyself from debt and anxiety, which is wearing thee out, we can live any where. thee knows we were never happier than when we were in a much humbler home." "the truth is, margaret, that affair of bigler and small's has come on me just when i couldn't stand another ounce. they have made another failure of it. i might have known they would; and the sharpers, or fools, i don't know which, have contrived to involve me for three times as much as the first obligation. the security is in my hands, but it is good for nothing to me. i have not the money to do anything with the contract." ruth heard this dismal news without great surprise. she had long felt that they were living on a volcano, that might go in to active operation at any hour. inheriting from her father an active brain and the courage to undertake new things, she had little of his sanguine temperament which blinds one to difficulties and possible failures. she had little confidence in the many schemes which had been about to lift her father out of all his embarrassments and into great wealth, ever since she was a child; as she grew older, she rather wondered that they were as prosperous as they seemed to be, and that they did not all go to smash amid so many brilliant projects. she was nothing but a woman, and did not know how much of the business prosperity of the world is only a, bubble of credit and speculation, one scheme helping to float another which is no better than it, and the whole liable to come to naught and confusion as soon as the busy brain that conceived them ceases its power to devise, or when some accident produces a sudden panic. "perhaps, i shall be the stay of the family, yet," said ruth, with an approach to gaiety; "when we move into a little house in town, will thee let me put a little sign on the door: dr. ruth bolton?" "mrs. dr. longstreet, thee knows, has a great income." "who will pay for the sign, ruth?" asked mr. bolton. a servant entered with the afternoon mail from the office. mr. bolton took his letters listlessly, dreading to open them. he knew well what they contained, new difficulties, more urgent demands fox money. "oh, here is one from philip. poor fellow. i shall feel his disappointment as much as my own bad luck. it is hard to bear when one is young." he opened the letter and read. as he read his face lightened, and he fetched such a sigh of relief, that mrs. bolton and ruth both exclaimed. "read that," he cried, "philip has found coal!" the world was changed in a moment. one little sentence had done it. there was no more trouble. philip had found coal. that meant relief. that meant fortune. a great weight was taken off, and the spirits of the whole household rose magically. good money! beautiful demon of money, what an enchanter thou art! ruth felt that she was of less consequence in the household, now that philip had found coal, and perhaps she was not sorry to feel so. mr. bolton was ten years younger the next morning. he went into the city, and showed his letter on change. it was the sort of news his friends were quite willing to listen to. they took a new interest in him. if it was confirmed, bolton would come right up again. there would be no difficulty about his getting all the money he wanted. the money market did not seem to be half so tight as it was the day before. mr. bolton spent a very pleasant day in his office, and went home revolving some new plans, and the execution of some projects he had long been prevented from entering upon by the lack of money. the day had been spent by philip in no less excitement. by daylight, with philip's letters to the mail, word had gone down to ilium that coal had been found, and very early a crowd of eager spectators had come up to see for themselves. the "prospecting" continued day and night for upwards of a week, and during the first four or five days the indications grew more and more promising, and the telegrams and letters kept mr. bolton duly posted. but at last a change came, and the promises began to fail with alarming rapidity. in the end it was demonstrated without the possibility of a doubt that the great "find" was nothing but a worthless seam. philip was cast down, all the more so because he had been so foolish as to send the news to philadelphia before he knew what he was writing about. and now he must contradict it. "it turns out to be only a mere seam," he wrote, "but we look upon it as an indication of better further in." alas! mr. bolton's affairs could not wait for "indications." the future might have a great deal in store, but the present was black and hopeless. it was doubtful if any sacrifice could save him from ruin. yet sacrifice he must make, and that instantly, in the hope of saving something from the wreck of his fortune. his lovely country home must go. that would bring the most ready money. the house that he had built with loving thought for each one of his family, as he planned its luxurious apartments and adorned it; the grounds that he had laid out, with so much delight in following the tastes of his wife, with whom the country, the cultivation of rare trees and flowers, the care of garden and lawn and conservatories were a passion almost; this home, which he had hoped his children would enjoy long after he had done with it, must go. the family bore the sacrifice better than he did. they declared in fact --women are such hypocrites--that they quite enjoyed the city (it was in august) after living so long in the country, that it was a thousand tunes more convenient in every respect; mrs. bolton said it was a relief from the worry of a large establishment, and ruth reminded her father that she should have had to come to town anyway before long. mr. bolton was relieved, exactly as a water-logged ship is lightened by throwing overboard the most valuable portion of the cargo--but the leak was not stopped. indeed his credit was injured instead of helped by the prudent step be had taken. it was regarded as a sure evidence of his embarrassment, and it was much more difficult for him to obtain help than if he had, instead of retrenching, launched into some new speculation. philip was greatly troubled, and exaggerated his own share in the bringing about of the calamity. "you must not look at it so!" mr. bolton wrote him. "you have neither helped nor hindered--but you know you may help by and by. it would have all happened just so, if we had never begun to dig that hole. that is only a drop. work away. i still have hope that something will occur to relieve me. at any rate we must not give up the mine, so long as we have any show." alas! the relief did not come. new misfortunes came instead. when the extent of the bigler swindle was disclosed there was no more hope that mr. bolton could extricate himself, and he had, as an honest man, no resource except to surrender all his property for the benefit of his creditors. the autumn came and found philip working with diminished force but still with hope. he had again and again been encouraged by good "indications," but he had again and again been disappointed. he could not go on much longer, and almost everybody except himself had thought it was useless to go on as long as he had been doing. when the news came of mr. bolton's failure, of course the work stopped. the men were discharged, the tools were housed, the hopeful noise of pickman and driver ceased, and the mining camp had that desolate and mournful aspect which always hovers over a frustrated enterprise. philip sat down amid the ruins, and almost wished he were buried in them. how distant ruth was now from him, now, when she might need him most. how changed was all the philadelphia world, which had hitherto stood for the exemplification of happiness and prosperity. he still had faith that there was coal in that mountain. he made a picture of himself living there a hermit in a shanty by the tunnel, digging away with solitary pick and wheelbarrow, day after day and year after year, until he grew gray and aged, and was known in all that region as the old man of the mountain. perhaps some day--he felt it must be so some day--he should strike coal. but what if he did? who would be alive to care for it then? what would he care for it then? no, a man wants riches in his youth, when the world is fresh to him. he wondered why providence could not have reversed the usual process, and let the majority of men begin with wealth and gradually spend it, and die poor when they no longer needed it. harry went back to the city. it was evident that his services were no longer needed. indeed, he had letters from his uncle, which he did not read to philip, desiring him to go to san francisco to look after some government contracts in the harbor there. philip had to look about him for something to do; he was like adam; the world was all before him whereto choose. he made, before he went elsewhere, a somewhat painful visit to philadelphia, painful but yet not without its sweetnesses. the family had never shown him so much affection before; they all seemed to think his disappointment of more importance than their own misfortune. and there was that in ruth's manner--in what she gave him and what she withheld--that would have made a hero of a very much less promising character than philip sterling. among the assets of the bolton property, the ilium tract was sold, and philip bought it in at the vendue, for a song, for no one cared to even undertake the mortgage on it except himself. he went away the owner of it, and had ample time before he reached home in november, to calculate how much poorer he was by possessing it. chapter l. it is impossible for the historian, with even the best intentions, to control events or compel the persons of his narrative to act wisely or to be successful. it is easy to see how things might have been better managed; a very little change here and there would have made a very, different history of this one now in hand. if philip had adopted some regular profession, even some trade, he might now be a prosperous editor or a conscientious plumber, or an honest lawyer, and have borrowed money at the saving's bank and built a cottage, and be now furnishing it for the occupancy of ruth and himself. instead of this, with only a smattering of civil engineering, he is at his mother's house, fretting and fuming over his ill-luck, and the hardness and, dishonesty of men, and thinking of nothing but how to get the coal out of the ilium hills. if senator dilworthy had not made that visit to hawkeye, the hawkins family and col. sellers would not now be dancing attendance upon congress, and endeavoring to tempt that immaculate body into one of those appropriations, for the benefit of its members, which the members find it so difficult to explain to their constituents; and laura would not be lying in the tombs, awaiting her trial for murder, and doing her best, by the help of able counsel, to corrupt the pure fountain of criminal procedure in new york. if henry brierly had been blown up on the first mississippi steamboat he set foot on, as the chances were that he would be, he and col. sellers never would have gone into the columbus navigation scheme, and probably never into the east tennessee land scheme, and he would not now be detained in new york from very important business operations on the pacific coast, for the sole purpose of giving evidence to convict of murder the only woman he ever loved half as much as he loves himself. if mr. bolton had said the little word "no" to mr. bigler, alice montague might now be spending the winter in philadelphia, and philip also (waiting to resume his mining operations in the spring); and ruth would not be an assistant in a philadelphia hospital, taxing her strength with arduous routine duties, day by day, in order to lighten a little the burdens that weigh upon her unfortunate family. it is altogether a bad business. an honest historian, who had progressed thus far, and traced everything to such a condition of disaster and suspension, might well be justified in ending his narrative and writing --"after this the deluge." his only consolation would be in the reflection that he was not responsible for either characters or events. and the most annoying thought is that a little money, judiciously applied, would relieve the burdens and anxieties of most of these people; but affairs seem to be so arranged that money is most difficult to get when people need it most. a little of what mr. bolton has weakly given to unworthy people would now establish his family in a sort of comfort, and relieve ruth of the excessive toil for which she inherited no adequate physical vigor. a little money would make a prince of col. sellers; and a little more would calm the anxiety of washington hawkins about laura, for however the trial ended, he could feel sure of extricating her in the end. and if philip had a little money he could unlock the stone door in the mountain whence would issue a stream of shining riches. it needs a golden wand to strike that rock. if the knobs university bill could only go through, what a change would be wrought in the condition of most of the persons in this history. even philip himself would feel the good effects of it; for harry would have something and col. sellers would have something; and have not both these cautious people expressed a determination to take an interest in the ilium mine when they catch their larks? philip could not resist the inclination to pay a visit to fallkill. he had not been at the montague's since the time he saw ruth there, and he wanted to consult the squire about an occupation. he was determined now to waste no more time in waiting on providence, but to go to work at something, if it were nothing better, than teaching in the fallkill seminary, or digging clams on hingham beach. perhaps he could read law in squire montague's office while earning his bread as a teacher in the seminary. it was not altogether philip's fault, let us own, that he was in this position. there are many young men like him in american society, of his age, opportunities, education and abilities, who have really been educated for nothing and have let themselves drift, in the hope that they will find somehow, and by some sudden turn of good luck, the golden road to fortune. he was not idle or lazy, he had energy and a disposition to carve his own way. but he was born into a time when all young men of his age caught the fever of speculation, and expected to get on in the world by the omission of some of the regular processes which have been appointed from of old. and examples were not wanting to encourage him. he saw people, all around him, poor yesterday, rich to-day, who had come into sudden opulence by some means which they could not have classified among any of the regular occupations of life. a war would give such a fellow a career and very likely fame. he might have been a "railroad man," or a politician, or a land speculator, or one of those mysterious people who travel free on all rail-roads and steamboats, and are continually crossing and recrossing the atlantic, driven day and night about nobody knows what, and make a great deal of money by so doing. probably, at last, he sometimes thought with a whimsical smile, he should end by being an insurance agent, and asking people to insure their lives for his benefit. possibly philip did not think how much the attractions of fallkill were increased by the presence of alice there. he had known her so long, she had somehow grown into his life by habit, that he would expect the pleasure of her society without thinking mach about it. latterly he never thought of her without thinking of ruth, and if he gave the subject any attention, it was probably in an undefined consciousness that, he had her sympathy in his love, and that she was always willing to hear him talk about it. if he ever wondered that alice herself was not in love and never spoke of the possibility of her own marriage, it was a transient thought for love did not seem necessary, exactly, to one so calm and evenly balanced and with so many resources in her herself. whatever her thoughts may have been they were unknown to philip, as they are to these historians; if she was seeming to be what she was not, and carrying a burden heavier than any one else carried, because she had to bear it alone, she was only doing what thousands of women do, with a self-renunciation and heroism, of which men, impatient and complaining, have no conception. have not these big babies with beards filled all literature with their outcries, their griefs and their lamentations? it is always the gentle sex which is hard and cruel and fickle and implacable. "do you think you would be contented to live in fallkill, and attend the county court?" asked alice, when philip had opened the budget of his new programme. "perhaps not always," said philip, "i might go and practice in boston maybe, or go to chicago." "or you might get elected to congress." philip looked at alice to see if she was in earnest and not chaffing him. her face was quite sober. alice was one of those patriotic women in the rural districts, who think men are still selected for congress on account of qualifications for the office. "no," said philip, "the chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render hint unfit to go there; of course there are exceptions; but do you know that i could not go into politics if i were a lawyer, without losing standing somewhat in my profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my intentions and unselfishness? why, it is telegraphed all over the country and commented on as something wonderful if a congressman votes honestly and unselfishly and refuses to take advantage of his position to steal from the government." "but," insisted alice, "i should think it a noble ambition to go to congress, if it is so bad, and help reform it. i don't believe it is as corrupt as the english parliament used to be, if there is any truth in the novels, and i suppose that is reformed." "i'm sure i don't know where the reform is to begin. i've seen a perfectly capable, honest man, time and again, run against an illiterate trickster, and get beaten. i suppose if the people wanted decent members of congress they would elect them. perhaps," continued philip with a smile, "the women will have to vote." "well, i should be willing to, if it were a necessity, just as i would go to war and do what i could, if the country couldn't be saved otherwise," said alice, with a spirit that surprised philip, well as he thought he knew her. "if i were a young gentleman in these times--" philip laughed outright. "it's just what ruth used to say, 'if she were a man.' i wonder if all the young ladies are contemplating a change of sex." "no, only a changed sex," retorted alice; "we contemplate for the most part young men who don't care for anything they ought to care for." "well," said philip, looking humble, "i care for some things, you and ruth for instance; perhaps i ought not to. perhaps i ought to care for congress and that sort of thing." "don't be a goose, philip. i heard from ruth yesterday." "can i see her letter?" "no, indeed. but i am afraid her hard work is telling on her, together with her anxiety about her father." "do you think, alice," asked philip with one of those selfish thoughts that are not seldom mixed with real love, "that ruth prefers her profession to--to marriage?" "philip," exclaimed alice, rising to quit the room, and speaking hurriedly as if the words were forced from her, "you are as blind as a bat; ruth would cut off her right hand for you this minute." philip never noticed that alice's face was flushed and that her voice was unsteady; he only thought of the delicious words he had heard. and the poor girl, loyal to ruth, loyal to philip, went straight to her room, locked the door, threw herself on the bed and sobbed as if her heart world break. and then she prayed that her father in heaven would give her strength. and after a time she was calm again, and went to her bureau drawer and took from a hiding place a little piece of paper, yellow with age. upon it was pinned a four-leaved clover, dry and yellow also. she looked long at this foolish memento. under the clover leaf was written in a school-girl's hand--"philip, june, 186-." squire montague thought very well of philip's proposal. it would have been better if he had begun the study of the law as soon as he left college, but it was not too late now, and besides he had gathered some knowledge of the world. "but," asked the squire, "do you mean to abandon your land in pennsylvania?" this track of land seemed an immense possible fortune to this new england lawyer-farmer. hasn't it good timber, and doesn't the railroad almost touch it?" "i can't do anything with it now. perhaps i can sometime." "what is your reason for supposing that there is coal there?" "the opinion of the best geologist i could consult, my own observation of the country, and the little veins of it we found. i feel certain it is there. i shall find it some day. i know it. if i can only keep the land till i make money enough to try again." philip took from his pocket a map of the anthracite coal region, and pointed out the position of the ilium mountain which he had begun to tunnel. "doesn't it look like it?" "it certainly does," said the squire, very much interested. it is not unusual for a quiet country gentleman to be more taken with such a venture than a speculator who, has had more experience in its uncertainty. it was astonishing how many new england clergymen, in the time of the petroleum excitement, took chances in oil. the wall street brokers are said to do a good deal of small business for country clergymen, who are moved no doubt with the laudable desire of purifying the new york stock board. "i don't see that there is much risk," said the squire, at length. "the timber is worth more than the mortgage; and if that coal seam does run there, it's a magnificent fortune. would you like to try it again in the spring, phil?" like to try it! if he could have a little help, he would work himself, with pick and barrow, and live on a crust. only give him one more chance. and this is how it came about that the cautious old squire montague was drawn into this young fellow's speculation, and began to have his serene old age disturbed by anxieties and by the hope of a great stroke of luck. "to be sure, i only care about it for the boy," he said. the squire was like everybody else; sooner or later he must "take a chance." it is probably on account of the lack of enterprise in women that they are not so fond of stock speculations and mine ventures as men. it is only when woman becomes demoralized that she takes to any sort of gambling. neither alice nor ruth were much elated with the prospect of philip's renewal of his mining enterprise. but philip was exultant. he wrote to ruth as if his fortune were already made, and as if the clouds that lowered over the house of bolton were already in the deep bosom of a coal mine buried. towards spring he went to philadelphia with his plans all matured for a new campaign. his enthusiasm was irresistible. "philip has come, philip has come," cried the children, as if some great good had again come into the household; and the refrain even sang itself over in ruth's heart as she went the weary hospital rounds. mr. bolton felt more courage than he had had in months, at the sight of his manly face and the sound of his cheery voice. ruth's course was vindicated now, and it certainly did not become philip, who had nothing to offer but a future chance against the visible result of her determination and industry, to open an argument with her. ruth was never more certain that she was right and that she was sufficient unto herself. she, may be, did not much heed the still small voice that sang in her maiden heart as she went about her work, and which lightened it and made it easy, "philip has come." "i am glad for father's sake," she said to philip, that thee has come. "i can see that he depends greatly upon what thee can do. he thinks women won't hold out long," added ruth with the smile that philip never exactly understood. "and aren't you tired sometimes of the struggle?" "tired? yes, everybody is tired i suppose. but it is a glorious profession. and would you want me to be dependent, philip?" "well, yes, a little," said philip, feeling his way towards what he wanted to say. "on what, for instance, just now?" asked ruth, a little maliciously philip thought. "why, on----" he couldn't quite say it, for it occurred to him that he was a poor stick for any body to lean on in the present state of his fortune, and that the woman before him was at least as independent as he was. "i don't mean depend," he began again. "but i love you, that's all. am i nothing--to you?" and philip looked a little defiant, and as if he had said something that ought to brush away all the sophistries of obligation on either side, between man and woman. perhaps ruth saw this. perhaps she saw that her own theories of a certain equality of power, which ought to precede a union of two hearts, might be pushed too far. perhaps she had felt sometimes her own weakness and the need after all of so dear a sympathy and so tender an interest confessed, as that which philip could give. whatever moved her--the riddle is as old as creation--she simply looked up to philip and said in a low voice, "everything." and philip clasping both her hands in his, and looking down into her eyes, which drank in all his tenderness with the thirst of a true woman's nature-"oh! philip, come out here," shouted young eli, throwing the door wide open. and ruth escaped away to her room, her heart singing again, and now as if it would burst for joy, "philip has come." that night philip received a dispatch from harry--"the trial begins tomorrow." chapter, li december 18--, found washington hawkins and col. sellers once more at the capitol of the nation, standing guard over the university bill. the former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. washington's distress of mind was chiefly on laura's account. the court would soon sit to try her, case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready money would be needed in the engineering of it. the university bill was sure to pass this, time, and that would make money plenty, but might not the, help come too late? congress had only just assembled, and delays were to be feared. "well," said the colonel, "i don't know but you are more or less right, there. now let's figure up a little on, the preliminaries. i think congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its lights. a man can't ask any fairer, than that. the first preliminary it always starts out on, is, to clean itself, so to speak. it will arraign two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter." "it goes up into the dozens, does it?" "well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for congress and anybody can vote for him, you can't expect immortal purity all the time--it ain't in nature. sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young hicks the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good indeed. as long as it averages as well as that, i think we can feel very well satisfied. even in these days, when people growl so much and the newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable minority of honest men in congress." "why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any good, colonel." "oh, yes it can, too" "why, how?" "oh, in many ways, many ways." "but what are the ways?" "well--i don't know--it is a question that requires time; a body can't answer every question right off-hand. but it does do good. i am satisfied of that." "all right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the preliminaries." "that is what i am coming to. first, as i said, they will try a lot of members for taking money for votes. that will take four weeks." "yes, that's like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the time for which the nation pays those men to work--that is what that is. and it pinches when a body's got a bill waiting." "a waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law? well, i never heard anybody express an idea like that before. but if it were, it would still be the fault of the minority, for the majority don't institute these proceedings. there is where that minority becomes an obstruction --but still one can't say it is on the wrong side.--well, after they have finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have bought their seats with money. that will take another four weeks." "very good; go on. you have accounted for two-thirds of the session." "next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like the sale of appointments to west point cadetships, and that sort of thing--mere trifling pocket-money enterprises that might better, be passed over in silence, perhaps, but then one of our congresses can never rest easy till it has thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes--and that is a thing to be applauded." "how long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?" "well, about two weeks, generally." "so congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. that's encouraging. colonel, poor laura will never get any benefit from our bill. her trial will be over before congress has half purified itself.--and doesn't it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all its impure members there, may not be enough members left to do business legally?" "why i did not say congress would expel anybody." "well won't it expel anybody?" "not necessarily. did it last year? it never does. that would not be regular." "then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?" "it is usual; it is customary; the country requires it." "then the country is a fool, i think." "oh, no. the country thinks somebody is going to be expelled." "well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?" "by that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. but all that inquiry is not lost. it has a good moral effect." "who does it have a good moral effect on?" "well--i don't know. on foreign countries, i think. we have always been under the gaze of foreign countries. there is no country in the world, sir, that pursues corruption as inveterately as we do. there is no country in the world whose representatives try each other as much as ours do, or stick to it as long on a stretch. i think there is something great in being a model for the whole civilized world, washington" "you don't mean a model; you mean an example." "well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. it shows that a man can't be corrupt in this country without sweating for it, i can tell you that." "hang it, colonel, you just said we never punish anybody for villainous practices." "but good god we try them, don't we! is it nothing to show a disposition to sift things and bring people to a strict account? i tell you it has its effect." "oh, bother the effect!--what is it they do do? how do they proceed? you know perfectly well--and it is all bosh, too. come, now, how do they proceed?" "why they proceed right and regular--and it ain't bosh, washington, it ain't bosh. they appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. then the accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn't remember this particular circumstance--at least with sufficient distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. so of course the thing is not proven--and that is what they say in the verdict. they don't acquit, they don't condemn. they just say, 'charge not proven.' it leaves the accused is a kind of a shaky condition before the country, it purifies congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn't seriously hurt anybody. it has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is the most admirable in the world, now." "so one of those long stupid investigations always turns out in that lame silly way. yes, you are correct. i thought maybe you viewed the matter differently from other people. do you think a congress of ours could convict the devil of anything if he were a member?" "my dear boy, don't let these damaging delays prejudice you against congress. don't use such strong language; you talk like a newspaper. congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members--now you know that. when they tried mr. fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him to be--well, you know what they proved him to be--and his own testimony and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did congress do then?--come!" "well, what did congress do?" "you know what congress did, washington. congress intimated plainly enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, the rose up and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his conduct! now you know that, washington." "it was a terrific thing--there is no denying that. if he had been proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling graves, i believe they would have suspended him for two days." "you can depend on it, washington. congress is vindictive, congress is savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. it will go to any length to vindicate its honor at such a time." "ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as usual in these tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached the same old result; that is to say, we are no better off than when we began. the land bill is just as far away as ever, and the trial is closer at hand. let's give up everything and die." "die and leave the duchess to fight it out all alone? oh, no, that won't do. come, now, don't talk so. it is all going to come out right. now you'll see." "it never will, colonel, never in the world. something tells me that. i get more tired and more despondent every day. i don't see any hope; life is only just a trouble. i am so miserable, these days!" the colonel made washington get up and walk the floor with him, arm in arm. the good old speculator wanted to comfort him, but he hardly knew how to go about it. he made many attempts, but they were lame; they lacked spirit; the words were encouraging; but they were only words--he could not get any heart into them. he could not always warm up, now, with the old hawkeye fervor. by and by his lips trembled and his voice got unsteady. he said: "don't give up the ship, my boy--don't do it. the wind's bound to fetch around and set in our favor. i know it." and the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. then he blew a trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in almost his breezy old-time way: "lord bless us, this is all nonsense! night doesn't last always; day has got to break some time or other. every silver lining has a cloud behind it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; though --i never could see any meaning to it. everybody uses it, though, and everybody gets comfort out of it. i wish they would start something fresh. come, now, let's cheer up; there's been as good fish in the sea as there are now. it shall never be said that beriah sellers --come in?" it was the telegraph boy. the colonel reached for the message and devoured its contents: "i said it! never give up the ship! the trial's, postponed till february, and we'll save the child yet. bless my life, what lawyers they, have in new-york! give them money to fight with; and the ghost of an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world, unless it might be the millennium or something like that. now for work again my boy. the trial will last to the middle of march, sure; congress ends the fourth of march. within three days of the end of the session they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be ready for national business: our bill will go through in forty-eight hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollar's to the jury--to the lawyers, i mean--and the verdict of the jury will be 'accidental murder resulting from justifiable insanity'--or something to, that effect, something to that effect.--everything is dead sure, now. come, what is the matter? what are you wilting down like that, for? you mustn't be a girl, you know." "oh, colonel, i am become so used to troubles, so used to failures, disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks me right down. everything has been so hopeless that now i can't stand good news at all. it is too good to be true, anyway. don't you see how our bad luck has worked on me? my hair is getting gray, and many nights i don't sleep at all. i wish it was all over and we could rest. i wish we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. i am so tired." "ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up--there's daylight ahead. don't give, up. you'll have laura again, and--louise, and your mother, and oceans and oceans of money--and then you can go away, ever so far away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place. and by george i'll go with you! i'll go with you--now there's my word on it. cheer up. i'll run out and tell the friends the news." and he wrung washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said: "i think you are the best soul and the noblest i ever knew, colonel sellers! and if the people only knew you as i do, you would not be tagging around here a nameless man--you would be in congress." the gladness died out of the colonel's face, and he laid his hand upon washington's shoulder and said gravely: "i have always been a friend of your family, washington, and i think i have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my lights. now i don't think there has ever been anything in my conduct that should make you feel justified in saying a thing like that." he turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving washington abashed and somewhat bewildered. when washington had presently got his thoughts into line again, he said to himself, "why, honestly, i only meant to compliment him--indeed i would not have hurt him for the world." chapter lii. the weeks drifted by monotonously enough, now. the "preliminaries" continued to drag along in congress, and life was a dull suspense to sellers and washington, a weary waiting which might have broken their hearts, maybe, but for the relieving change which they got out of am occasional visit to new york to see laura. standing guard in washington or anywhere else is not an exciting business in time of peace, but standing guard was all that the two friends had to do; all that was needed of them was that they should be on hand and ready for any emergency that might come up. there was no work to do; that was all finished; this was but the second session of the last winter's congress, and its action on the bill could have but one result--its passage. the house must do its work over again, of course, but the same membership was there to see that it did it.--the senate was secure--senator dilworthy was able to put all doubts to rest on that head. indeed it was no secret in washington that a two-thirds vote in the senate was ready and waiting to be cast for the university bill as soon as it should come before that body. washington did not take part in the gaieties of "the season," as he had done the previous winter. he had lost his interest in such things; he was oppressed with cares, now. senator dilworthy said to washington that an humble deportment, under punishment, was best, and that there was but one way in which the troubled heart might find perfect repose and peace. the suggestion found a response in washington's breast, and the senator saw the sign of it in his face. from that moment one could find the youth with the senator even oftener than with col. sellers. when the statesman presided at great temperance meetings, he placed washington in the front rank of impressive dignitaries that gave tone to the occasion and pomp to the platform. his bald headed surroundings made the youth the more conspicuous. when the statesman made remarks in these meetings, he not infrequently alluded with effect to the encouraging spectacle of one of the wealthiest and most brilliant young favorites of society forsaking the light vanities of that butterfly existence to nobly and self-sacrificingly devote his talents and his riches to the cause of saving his hapless fellow creatures from shame and misery here and eternal regret hereafter. at the prayer meetings the senator always brought washington up the aisle on his arm and seated him prominently; in his prayers he referred to him in the cant terms which the senator employed, perhaps unconsciously, and mistook, maybe, for religion, and in other ways brought him into notice. he had him out at gatherings for the benefit of the negro, gatherings for the benefit of the indian, gatherings for the benefit of the heathen in distant lands. he had him out time and again, before sunday schools, as an example for emulation. upon all these occasions the senator made casual references to many benevolent enterprises which his ardent young friend was planning against the day when the passage of the university bill should make his means available for the amelioration of the condition of the unfortunate among his fellow men of all nations and all. climes. thus as the weeks rolled on washington grew up, into an imposing lion once more, but a lion that roamed the peaceful fields of religion and temperance, and revisited the glittering domain of fashion no more. a great moral influence was thus brought, to bear in favor of the bill; the weightiest of friends flocked to its standard; its most energetic enemies said it was useless to fight longer; they had tacitly surrendered while as yet the day of battle was not come. chapter liii. the session was drawing toward its close. senator dilworthy thought he would run out west and shake hands with his constituents and let them look at him. the legislature whose duty it would be to re-elect him to the united states senate, was already in session. mr. dilworthy considered his re-election certain, but he was a careful, painstaking man, and if, by visiting his state he could find the opportunity to persuade a few more legislators to vote for him, he held the journey to be well worth taking. the university bill was safe, now; he could leave it without fear; it needed his presence and his watching no longer. but there was a person in his state legislature who did need watching --a person who, senator dilworthy said, was a narrow, grumbling, uncomfortable malcontent--a person who was stolidly opposed to reform, and progress and him,--a person who, he feared, had been bought with money to combat him, and through him the commonwealth's welfare and its politics' purity. "if this person noble," said mr. dilworthy, in a little speech at a dinner party given him by some of his admirers, "merely desired to sacrifice me.--i would willingly offer up my political life on the altar of my dear state's weal, i would be glad and grateful to do it; but when he makes of me but a cloak to hide his deeper designs, when he proposes to strike through me at the heart of my beloved state, all the lion in me is roused--and i say here i stand, solitary and alone, but unflinching, unquailing, thrice armed with my sacred trust; and whoso passes, to do evil to this fair domain that looks to me for protection, must do so over my dead body." he further said that if this noble were a pure man, and merely misguided, he could bear it, but that he should succeed in his wicked designs through, a base use of money would leave a blot upon his state which would work untold evil to the morals of the people, and that he would not suffer; the public morals must not be contaminated. he would seek this man noble; he would argue, he would persuade, he would appeal to his honor. when he arrived on the ground he found his friends unterrified; they were standing firmly by him and were full of courage. noble was working hard, too, but matters were against him, he was not making much progress. mr. dilworthy took an early opportunity to send for mr. noble; he had a midnight interview with him, and urged him to forsake his evil ways; he begged him to come again and again, which he did. he finally sent the man away at 3 o'clock one morning; and when he was gone, mr. dilworthy said to himself, "i feel a good deal relieved, now, a great deal relieved." the senator now turned his attention to matters touching the souls of his people. he appeared in church; he took a leading part in prayer meetings; he met and encouraged the temperance societies; he graced the sewing circles of the ladies with his presence, and even took a needle now and then and made a stitch or two upon a calico shirt for some poor bibleless pagan of the south seas, and this act enchanted the ladies, who regarded the garments thus honored as in a manner sanctified. the senator wrought in bible classes, and nothing could keep him away from the sunday schools--neither sickness nor storms nor weariness. he even traveled a tedious thirty miles in a poor little rickety stagecoach to comply with the desire of the miserable hamlet of cattleville that he would let its sunday school look upon him. all the town was assembled at the stage office when he arrived, two bonfires were burning, and a battery of anvils was popping exultant broadsides; for a united states senator was a sort of god in the understanding of these people who never had seen any creature mightier than a county judge. to them a united states senator was a vast, vague colossus, an awe inspiring unreality. next day everybody was at the village church a full half hour before time for sunday school to open; ranchmen and farmers had come with their families from five miles around, all eager to get a glimpse of the great man--the man who had been to washington; the man who had seen the president of the united states, and had even talked with him; the man who had seen the actual washington monument--perhaps touched it with his hands. when the senator arrived the church was crowded, the windows were full, the aisles were packed, so was the vestibule, and so indeed was the yard in front of the building. as he worked his way through to the pulpit on the arm of the minister and followed by the envied officials of the village, every neck was stretched and, every eye twisted around intervening obstructions to get a glimpse. elderly people directed each other's attention and, said, "there! that's him, with the grand, noble forehead!" boys nudged each other and said, "hi, johnny, here he is, there, that's him, with the peeled head!" the senator took his seat in the pulpit, with the minister' on one side of him and the superintendent of the sunday school on the other. the town dignitaries sat in an impressive row within the altar railings below. the sunday school children occupied ten of the front benches. dressed in their best and most uncomfortable clothes, and with hair combed and faces too clean to feel natural. so awed were they by the presence of a living united states senator, that during three minutes not a "spit ball" was thrown. after that they began to come to themselves by degrees, and presently the spell was wholly gone and they were reciting verses and pulling hair. the usual sunday school exercises were hurried through, and then the minister, got up and bored the house with a speech built on the customary sunday school plan; then the superintendent put in his oar; then the town dignitaries had their say. they all made complimentary reference to "their friend the, senator," and told what a great and illustrious man he was and what he had done for his country and for religion and temperance, and exhorted the little boys to be good and diligent and try to become like him some day. the speakers won the deathless hatred of the house by these delays, but at last there was an end and hope revived; inspiration was about to find utterance. senator dilworthy rose and beamed upon the assemblage for a full minute in silence. then he smiled with an access of sweetness upon the children and began: "my little friends--for i hope that all these bright-faced little people are my friends and will let me be their friend--my little friends, i have traveled much, i have been in many cities and many states, everywhere in our great and noble country, and by the blessing of providence i have been permitted to see many gatherings like this--but i am proud, i am truly proud to say that i never have looked upon so much intelligence, so much grace, such sweetness of disposition as i see in the charming young countenances i see before me at this moment. i have been asking myself as i sat here, where am i? am i in some far-off monarchy, looking upon little princes and princesses? no. am i in some populous centre of my own country, where the choicest children of the land have been selected and brought together as at a fair for a prize? no. am i in some strange foreign clime where the children are marvels that we know not of? no. then where am i? yes--where am i? i am in a simple, remote, unpretending settlement of my own dear state, and these are the children of the noble and virtuous men who have made me what i am! my soul is lost in wonder at the thought! and i humbly thank him to whom we are but as worms of the dust, that he has been pleased to call me to serve such men! earth has no higher, no grander position for me. let kings and emperors keep their tinsel crowns, i want them not; my heart is here! "again i thought, is this a theatre? no. is it a concert or a gilded opera? no. is it some other vain, brilliant, beautiful temple of soul-staining amusement and hilarity? no. then what is it? what did my consciousness reply? i ask you, my little friends, what did my consciousness reply? it replied, it is the temple of the lord! ah, think of that, now. i could hardly keep the tears back, i was so grateful. oh, how beautiful it is to see these ranks of sunny little faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the state and shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of life, and raptured souls in the happy fields of paradise hereafter. "children, honor your parents and be grateful to them for providing for you the precious privileges of a sunday school. "now my dear little friends, sit up straight and pretty--there, that's it--and give me your attention and let me tell you about a poor little sunday school scholar i once knew.--he lived in the far west, and his parents were poor. they could not give him a costly education; but they were good and wise and they sent him to the sunday school. he loved the sunday school. i hope you love your sunday school--ah, i see by your faces that you do! that is right! "well, this poor little boy was always in his place when the bell rang, and he always knew his lesson; for his teachers wanted him to learn and he loved his teachers dearly. always love your teachers, my children, for they love you more than you can know, now. he would not let bad boys persuade him to go to play on sunday. there was one little bad boy who was always trying to persuade him, but he never could. "so this poor little boy grew up to be a man, and had to go out in the world, far from home and friends to earn his living. temptations lay all about him, and sometimes he was about to yield, but he would think of some precious lesson he learned in his sunday school a long time ago, and that would save him. by and by he was elected to the legislature--then he did everything he could for sunday schools. he got laws passed for them; he got sunday schools established wherever he could. "and by and by the people made him governor--and he said it was all owing to the sunday school. "after a while the people elected him a representative to the congress of the united states, and he grew very famous.--now temptations assailed him on every hand. people tried to get him to drink wine; to dance, to go to theatres; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his sunday school saved him from all harm; he remembered the fate of the bad little boy who used to try to get him to play on sunday, and who grew up and became a drunkard and was hanged. he remembered that, and was glad he never yielded and played on sunday. "well, at last, what do you think happened? why the people gave him a towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. and what do you think it was? what should you say it was, children? it was senator of the united states! that poor little boy that loved his sunday school became that man. that man stands before you! all that he is, he owes to the sunday school. "my precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your sunday school, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then you will succeed in life and be honored of all men. above all things, my children, be honest. above all things be pure-minded as the snow. let us join in prayer." when senator dilworthy departed from cattleville, he left three dozen boys behind him arranging a campaign of life whose objective point was the united states senate. when be arrived at the state capital at midnight mr. noble came and held a three-hours' conference with him, and then as he was about leaving said: "i've worked hard, and i've got them at last. six of them haven't got quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right out for you on the first ballot to-morrow; but they're going to vote against you on the first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a body on the second--i've fixed all that! by supper time to-morrow you'll be re-elected. you can go to bed and sleep easy on that." after mr. noble was gone, the senator said: "well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming west for." chapter liv. the case of the state of new york against laura hawkins was finally set down for trial on the 15th day of february, less than a year after the shooting of george selby. if the public had almost forgotten the existence of laura and her crime, they were reminded of all the details of the murder by the newspapers, which for some days had been announcing the approaching trial. but they had not forgotten. the sex, the age, the beauty of the prisoner; her high social position in washington, the unparalleled calmness with which the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the event in the public mind, although nearly three hundred and sixty-five subsequent murders had occurred to vary the monotony of metropolitan life. no, the public read from time to time of the lovely prisoner, languishing in the city prison, the tortured victim of the law's delay; and as the months went by it was natural that the horror of her crime should become a little indistinct in memory, while the heroine of it should be invested with a sort of sentimental interest. perhaps her counsel had calculated on this. perhaps it was by their advice that laura had interested herself in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities of some of the poor creatures. that she had done this, the public read in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening light upon her character. the court room was crowded at an early hour, before the arrival of judges, lawyers and prisoner. there is no enjoyment so keen to certain minds as that of looking upon the slow torture of a human being on trial for life, except it be an execution; there is no display of human ingenuity, wit and power so fascinating as that made by trained lawyers in the trial of an important case, nowhere else is exhibited such subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence. all the conditions of intense excitement meet in a murder trial. the awful issue at stake gives significance to the lightest word or look. how the quick eyes of the spectators rove from the stolid jury to the keen lawyers, the impassive judge, the anxious prisoner. nothing is lost of the sharp wrangle of the counsel on points of law, the measured decision's of the bench; the duels between the attorneys and the witnesses. the crowd sways with the rise and fall of the shifting, testimony, in sympathetic interest, and hangs upon the dicta of the judge in breathless silence. it speedily takes sides for or against the accused, and recognizes as quickly its favorites among the lawyers. nothing delights it more than the sharp retort of a witness and the discomfiture of an obnoxious attorney. a joke, even if it be a lame, one, is no where so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial. within the bar the young lawyers and the privileged hangers-on filled all the chairs except those reserved at the table for those engaged in the case. without, the throng occupied all the seats, the window ledges and the standing room. the atmosphere was already something horrible. it was the peculiar odor of a criminal court, as if it were tainted by the presence, in different persons, of all the crimes that men and women can commit. there was a little stir when the prosecuting attorney, with two assistants, made his way in, seated himself at the table, and spread his papers before him. there was more stir when the counsel of the defense appeared. they were mr. braham, the senior, and mr. quiggle and mr. o'keefe, the juniors. everybody in the court room knew mr. braham, the great criminal lawyer, and he was not unaware that he was the object of all eyes as he moved to his place, bowing to his friends in the bar. a large but rather spare man, with broad shoulders and a massive head, covered with chestnut curls which fell down upon his coat collar and which he had a habit of shaking as a lion is supposed to shake his mane. his face was clean shaven, and he had a wide mouth and rather small dark eyes, set quite too near together: mr. braham wore a brown frock coat buttoned across his breast, with a rose-bud in the upper buttonhole, and light pantaloons. a diamond stud was seen to flash from his bosom; and as he seated himself and drew off his gloves a heavy seal ring was displayed upon his white left hand. mr. braham having seated himself, deliberately surveyed the entire house, made a remark to one of his assistants, and then taking an ivory-handled knife from his pocket began to pare his finger nails, rocking his chair backwards and forwards slowly. a moment later judge o'shaunnessy entered at the rear door and took his seat in one of the chairs behind the bench; a gentleman in black broadcloth, with sandy hair, inclined to curl, a round; reddish and rather jovial face, sharp rather than intellectual, and with a self-sufficient air. his career had nothing remarkable in it. he was descended from a long line of irish kings, and he was the first one of them who had ever come into his kingdom--the kingdom of such being the city of new york. he had, in fact, descended so far and so low that he found himself, when a boy, a sort of street arab in that city; but he had ambition and native shrewdness, and he speedily took to boot-polishing, and newspaper hawking, became the office and errand boy of a law firm, picked up knowledge enough to get some employment in police courts, was admitted to the bar, became a rising young politician, went to the legislature, and was finally elected to the bench which he now honored. in this democratic country he was obliged to conceal his royalty under a plebeian aspect. judge o'shaunnessy never had a lucrative practice nor a large salary but he had prudently laid away money-believing that a dependant judge can never be impartial--and he had lands and houses to the value of three or four hundred thousand dollars. had he not helped to build and furnish this very court house? did he not know that the very "spittoon" which his judgeship used cost the city the sum of one thousand dollars? as soon as the judge was seated, the court was opened, with the "oi yis, oi yis" of the officer in his native language, the case called, and the sheriff was directed to bring in the prisoner. in the midst of a profound hush laura entered, leaning on the arm of the officer, and was conducted to a seat by her counsel. she was followed by her mother and by washington hawkins, who were given seats near her. laura was very pale, but this pallor heightened the lustre of her large eyes and gave a touching sadness to her expressive face. she was dressed in simple black, with exquisite taste, and without an ornament. the thin lace vail which partially covered her face did not so much conceal as heighten her beauty. she would not have entered a drawing room with more self-poise, nor a church with more haughty humility. there was in her manner or face neither shame nor boldness, and when she took her seat in fall view of half the spectators, her eyes were downcast. a murmur of admiration ran through the room. the newspaper reporters made their pencils fly. mr. braham again swept his eyes over the house as if in approval. when laura at length raised her eyes a little, she saw philip and harry within the bar, but she gave no token of recognition. the clerk then read the indictment, which was in the usual form. it charged laura hawkins, in effect, with the premeditated murder of george selby, by shooting him with a pistol, with a revolver, shotgun, rifle, repeater, breech-loader, cannon, six-shooter, with a gun, or some other, weapon; with killing him with a slung-shot, a bludgeon, carving knife, bowie knife, pen knife, rolling pin, car, hook, dagger, hair pin, with a hammer, with a screw-driver; with a nail, and with all other weapons and utensils whatsoever, at the southern hotel and in all other hotels and places wheresoever, on the thirteenth day of march and all other days of the christian era wheresoever. laura stood while the long indictment was read; and at the end, in response to the inquiry, of the judge, she said in a clear, low voice; "not guilty." she sat down and the court proceeded to impanel a jury. the first man called was michael lanigan, saloon keeper. "have you formed or expressed any opinion on this case, and do you know any of the parties?" "not any," said mr. lanigan. "have you any conscientious objections to capital punishment?" "no, sir, not to my knowledge." "have you read anything about this case?" "to be sure, i read the papers, y'r honor." objected to by mr. braham, for cause, and discharged. patrick coughlin. "what is your business?" "well--i haven't got any particular business." "haven't any particular business, eh? well, what's your general business? what do you do for a living?" "i own some terriers, sir." "own some terriers, eh? keep a rat pit?" "gentlemen comes there to have a little sport. i never fit 'em, sir." "oh, i see--you are probably the amusement committee of the city council. have you ever heard of this case?" "not till this morning, sir." "can you read?" "not fine print, y'r honor." the man was about to be sworn, when mr. braham asked, "could your father read?" "the old gentleman was mighty handy at that, sir." mr. braham submitted that the man was disqualified judge thought not. point argued. challenged peremptorily, and set aside. ethan dobb, cart-driver. "can you read?" "yes, but haven't a habit of it." "have you heard of this case?" "i think so--but it might be another. i have no opinion about it." dist. a. "tha--tha--there! hold on a bit? did anybody tell you to say you had no opinion about it?" "n--n--o, sir." take care now, take care. then what suggested it to you to volunteer that remark?" "they've always asked that, when i was on juries." all right, then. have you any conscientious scruples about capital punishment?" "any which?" "would you object to finding a person guilty--of murder on evidence?" "i might, sir, if i thought he wan't guilty." the district attorney thought he saw a point. "would this feeling rather incline you against a capital conviction?" the juror said he hadn't any feeling, and didn't know any of the parties. accepted and sworn. dennis lafin, laborer. have neither formed nor expressed an opinion. never had heard of the case. believed in hangin' for them that deserved it. could read if it was necessary. mr. braham objected. the man was evidently bloody minded. challenged peremptorily. larry o'toole, contractor. a showily dressed man of the style known as "vulgar genteel," had a sharp eye and a ready tongue. had read the newspaper reports of the case, but they made no impression on him. should be governed by the evidence. knew no reason why he could not be an impartial juror. question by district attorney. "how is it that the reports made no impression on you?" "never believe anything i see in the newspapers." (laughter from the crowd, approving smiles from his honor and mr. braham.) juror sworn in. mr. braham whispered to o'keefe, "that's the man." avery hicks, pea-nut peddler. did he ever hear of this case? the man shook his head. "can you read?" "no." "any scruples about capital punishment?" "no." he was about to be sworn, when the district attorney turning to him carelessly, remarked, "understand the nature of an oath?" "outside," said the man, pointing to the door. "i say, do you know what an oath is?" "five cents," explained the man. "do you mean to insult me?" roared the prosecuting officer. "are you an idiot?" "fresh baked. i'm deefe. i don't hear a word you say." the man was discharged. "he wouldn't have made a bad juror, though," whispered braham. "i saw him looking at the prisoner sympathizingly. that's a point you want to watch for." the result of the whole day's work was the selection of only two jurors. these however were satisfactory to mr. braham. he had kept off all those he did not know. no one knew better than this great criminal lawyer that the battle was fought on the selection of the jury. the subsequent examination of witnesses, the eloquence expended on the jury are all for effect outside. at least that is the theory of mr. braham. but human nature is a queer thing, he admits; sometimes jurors are unaccountably swayed, be as careful as you can in choosing them. it was four weary days before this jury was made up, but when it was finally complete, it did great credit to the counsel for the defence. so far as mr. braham knew, only two could read, one of whom was the foreman, mr. braham's friend, the showy contractor. low foreheads and heavy faces they all had; some had a look of animal cunning, while the most were only stupid. the entire panel formed that boasted heritage commonly described as the "bulwark of our liberties." the district attorney, mr. mcflinn, opened the case for the state. he spoke with only the slightest accent, one that had been inherited but not cultivated. he contented himself with a brief statement of the case. the state would prove that laura hawkins, the prisoner at the bar, a fiend in the form of a beautiful woman, shot dead george selby, a southern gentleman, at the, time and place described. that the murder was in cold blood, deliberate and without provocation; that it had been long premeditated and threatened; that she had followed the deceased-from washington to commit it. all this would be proved by unimpeachable witnesses. the attorney added that the duty of the jury, however painful it might be, would be plain and simple. they were citizens, husbands, perhaps fathers. they knew how insecure life had become in the metropolis. tomorrow our own wives might be widows, their own children orphans, like the bereaved family in yonder hotel, deprived of husband and father by the jealous hand of some murderous female. the attorney sat down, and the clerk called?" "henry brierly." the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 7. chapter lv. henry brierly took the stand. requested by the district attorney to tell the jury all he knew about the killing, he narrated the circumstances substantially as the reader already knows them. he accompanied miss hawkins to new york at her request, supposing she was coming in relation to a bill then pending in congress, to secure the attendance of absent members. her note to him was here shown. she appeared to be very much excited at the washington station. after she had asked the conductor several questions, he heard her say, "he can't escape." witness asked her "who?" and she replied "nobody." did not see her during the night. they traveled in a sleeping car. in the morning she appeared not to have slept, said she had a headache. in crossing the ferry she asked him about the shipping in sight; he pointed out where the cunarders lay when in port. they took a cup of coffee that morning at a restaurant. she said she was anxious to reach the southern hotel where mr. simons, one of the absent members, was staying, before he went out. she was entirely self-possessed, and beyond unusual excitement did not act unnaturally. after she had fired twice at col. selby, she turned the pistol towards her own breast, and witness snatched it from her. she had seen a great deal with selby in washington, appeared to be infatuated with him. (cross-examined by mr. braham.) "mist-er.....er brierly!" (mr. braham had in perfection this lawyer's trick of annoying a witness, by drawling out the "mister," as if unable to recall the name, until the witness is sufficiently aggravated, and then suddenly, with a rising inflection, flinging his name at him with startling unexpectedness.) "mist-er.....er brierly! what is your occupation?" "civil engineer, sir." "ah, civil engineer, (with a glance at the jury). following that occupation with miss hawkins?" (smiles by the jury). "no, sir," said harry, reddening. "how long have you known the prisoner?" "two years, sir. i made her acquaintance in hawkeye, missouri." "m.....m...m. mist-er.....er brierly! were you not a lover of miss hawkins?" objected to. "i submit, your honor, that i have the right to establish the relation of this unwilling witness to the prisoner." admitted. "well, sir," said harry hesitatingly, "we were friends." "you act like a friend!" (sarcastically.) the jury were beginning to hate this neatly dressed young sprig. "mister......er....brierly! didn't miss hawkins refuse you?" harry blushed and stammered and looked at the judge. "you must answer, sir," said his honor. "she--she--didn't accept me." "no. i should think not. brierly do you dare tell the jury that you had not an interest in the removal of your rival, col. selby?" roared mr. braham in a voice of thunder. "nothing like this, sir, nothing like this," protested the witness. "that's all, sir," said mr. braham severely. "one word," said the district attorney. "had you the least suspicion of the prisoner's intention, up to the moment of the shooting?" "not the least," answered harry earnestly. "of course not, of course-not," nodded mr. braham to the jury. the prosecution then put upon the stand the other witnesses of the shooting at the hotel, and the clerk and the attending physicians. the fact of the homicide was clearly established. nothing new was elicited, except from the clerk, in reply to a question by mr. braham, the fact that when the prisoner enquired for col. selby she appeared excited and there was a wild look in her eyes. the dying deposition of col. selby was then produced. it set forth laura's threats, but there was a significant addition to it, which the newspaper report did not have. it seemed that after the deposition was taken as reported, the colonel was told for the first time by his physicians that his wounds were mortal. he appeared to be in great mental agony and fear; and said he had not finished his deposition. he added, with great difficulty and long pauses these words. "i--have --not--told--all. i must tell--put--it--down--i--wronged--her. years --ago--i--can't see--o--god--i--deserved----" that was all. he fainted and did not revive again. the washington railway conductor testified that the prisoner had asked him if a gentleman and his family went out on the evening train, describing the persons he had since learned were col. selby and family. susan cullum, colored servant at senator dilworthy's, was sworn. knew col. selby. had seen him come to the house often, and be alone in the parlor with miss hawkins. he came the day but one before he was shot. she let him in. he appeared flustered like. she heard talking in the parlor, i peared like it was quarrelin'. was afeared sumfin' was wrong: just put her ear to--the--keyhole of the back parlor-door. heard a man's voice, "i--can't--i can't, good god," quite beggin' like. heard--young miss' voice, "take your choice, then. if you 'bandon me, you knows what to 'spect." then he rushes outen the house, i goes in--and i says, "missis did you ring?" she was a standin' like a tiger, her eyes flashin'. i come right out. this was the substance of susan's testimony, which was not shaken in the least by severe cross-examination. in reply to mr. braham's question, if the prisoner did not look insane, susan said, "lord; no, sir, just mad as a hawnet." washington hawkins was sworn. the pistol, identified by the officer as the one used in the homicide, was produced washington admitted that it was his. she had asked him for it one morning, saying she thought she had heard burglars the night before. admitted that he never had heard burglars in the house. had anything unusual happened just before that. nothing that he remembered. did he accompany her to a reception at mrs. shoonmaker's a day or two before? yes. what occurred? little by little it was dragged out of the witness that laura had behaved strangely there, appeared to be sick, and he had taken her home. upon being pushed he admitted that she had afterwards confessed that she saw selby there. and washington volunteered the statement that selby, was a black-hearted villain. the district attorney said, with some annoyance; "there--there! that will do." the defence declined to examine mr. hawkins at present. the case for the prosecution was closed. of the murder there could not be the least doubt, or that the prisoner followed the deceased to new york with a murderous intent: on the evidence the jury must convict, and might do so without leaving their seats. this was the condition of the case two days after the jury had been selected. a week had passed since the trial opened; and a sunday had intervened. the public who read the reports of the evidence saw no chance for the prisoner's escape. the crowd of spectators who had watched the trial were moved with the most profound sympathy for laura. mr. braham opened the case for the defence. his manner was subdued, and he spoke in so low a voice that it was only by reason of perfect silence in the court room that he could be heard. he spoke very distinctly, however, and if his nationality could be discovered in his speech it was only in a certain richness and breadth of tone. he began by saying that he trembled at the responsibility he had undertaken; and he should, altogether despair, if he did not see before him a jury of twelve men of rare intelligence, whose acute minds would unravel all the sophistries of the prosecution, men with a sense, of honor, which would revolt at the remorseless persecution of this hunted woman by the state, men with hearts to feel for the wrongs of which she was the victim. far be it from him to cast any suspicion upon the motives of the able, eloquent and ingenious lawyers of the state; they act officially; their business is to convict. it is our business, gentlemen, to see that justice is done. "it is my duty, gentlemen, to untold to you one of the most affecting dramas in all, the history of misfortune. i shall have to show you a life, the sport of fate and circumstances, hurried along through shifting storm and sun, bright with trusting innocence and anon black with heartless villainy, a career which moves on in love and desertion and anguish, always hovered over by the dark spectre of insanity--an insanity hereditary and induced by mental torture,--until it ends, if end it must in your verdict, by one of those fearful accidents, which are inscrutable to men and of which god alone knows the secret. "gentlemen, i, shall ask you to go with me away from this court room and its minions of the law, away from the scene of this tragedy, to a distant, i wish i could say a happier day. the story i have to tell is of a lovely little girl, with sunny hair and laughing eyes, traveling with her parents, evidently people of wealth and refinement, upon a mississippi steamboat. there is an explosion, one of those terrible catastrophes which leave the imprint of an unsettled mind upon the survivors. hundreds of mangled remains are sent into eternity. when the wreck is cleared away this sweet little girl is found among the panic stricken survivors in the midst of a scene of horror enough to turn the steadiest brain. her parents have disappeared. search even for their bodies is in vain. the bewildered, stricken child--who can say what changes the fearful event wrought in her tender brain--clings to the first person who shows her sympathy. it is mrs. hawkins, this good lady who is still her loving friend. laura is adopted into the hawkins family. perhaps she forgets in time that she is not their child. she is an orphan. no, gentlemen, i will not deceive you, she is not an orphan. worse than that. there comes another day of agony. she knows that her father lives. who is he, where is he? alas, i cannot tell you. through the scenes of this painful history he flits here and there a lunatic! if he, seeks his daughter, it is the purposeless search of a lunatic, as one who wanders bereft of reason, crying where is my child? laura seeks her father. in vain just as she is about to find him, again and again-he disappears, he is gone, he vanishes. "but this is only the prologue to the tragedy. bear with me while i relate it. (mr. braham takes out a handkerchief, unfolds it slowly; crashes it in his nervous hand, and throws it on the table). laura grew up in her humble southern home, a beautiful creature, the joy, of the house, the pride of the neighborhood, the loveliest flower in all the sunny south. she might yet have been happy; she was happy. but the destroyer came into this paradise. he plucked the sweetest bud that grew there, and having enjoyed its odor, trampled it in the mire beneath his feet. george selby, the deceased, a handsome, accomplished confederate colonel, was this human fiend. he deceived her with a mock marriage; after some months he brutally, abandoned her, and spurned her as if she were a contemptible thing; all the time he had a wife in new orleans. laura was crushed. for weeks, as i shall show you by the testimony of her adopted mother and brother, she hovered over death in delirium. gentlemen, did she ever emerge from this delirium? i shall show you that when she recovered her health, her mind was changed, she was not what she had been. you can judge yourselves whether the tottering reason ever recovered its throne. "years pass. she is in washington, apparently the happy favorite of a brilliant society. her family have become enormously rich by one of those sudden turns, in fortune that the inhabitants of america are familiar with--the discovery of immense mineral wealth in some wild lands owned by them. she is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the benefit of the poor, by, the use of this wealth. but, alas, even here and now, the same, relentless fate pursued her. the villain selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of her life. he appeared to taunt her with her dishonor, he threatened exposure if she did not become again the mistress of his passion. gentlemen, do you wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason, was beside herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed upon her mind until she was no longer responsible for her acts? i turn away my head as one who would not willingly look even upon the just vengeance of heaven. (mr. braham paused as if overcome by his emotions. mrs. hawkins and washington were in tears, as were many of the spectators also. the jury looked scared.) "gentlemen, in this condition of affairs it needed but a spark--i do not say a suggestion, i do not say a hint--from this butterfly brierly; this rejected rival, to cause the explosion. i make no charges, but if this woman was in her right mind when she fled from washington and reached this city in company--with brierly, then i do not know what insanity is." when mr. braham sat down, he felt that he had the jury with him. a burst of applause followed, which the officer promptly, suppressed. laura, with tears in her eyes, turned a grateful look upon her counsel. all the women among the spectators saw the tears and wept also. they thought as they also looked at mr. braham; how handsome he is! mrs. hawkins took the stand. she was somewhat confused to be the target of so many, eyes, but her honest and good face at once told in laura's favor. "mrs. hawkins," said mr. braham, "will you' be kind enough to state the circumstances of your finding laura?" "i object," said mr. mcflinn; rising to his feet. "this has nothing whatever to do with the case, your honor. i am surprised at it, even after the extraordinary speech of my learned friend." "how do you propose to connect it, mr. braham?" asked the judge. "if it please the court," said mr. braham, rising impressively, "your honor has permitted the prosecution, and i have submitted without a word; to go into the most extraordinary testimony to establish a motive. are we to be shut out from showing that the motive attributed to us could not by reason of certain mental conditions exist? i purpose, may, it please your honor, to show the cause and the origin of an aberration of mind, to follow it up, with other like evidence, connecting it with the very moment of the homicide, showing a condition of the intellect, of the prisoner that precludes responsibility." "the state must insist upon its objections," said the district attorney. "the purpose evidently is to open the door to a mass of irrelevant testimony, the object of which is to produce an effect upon the jury your honor well understands." "perhaps," suggested the judge, "the court ought to hear the testimony, and exclude it afterwards, if it is irrelevant." "will your honor hear argument on that!" "certainly." and argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days, from all the counsel in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides, from volume after volume, whole libraries in fact, until no mortal man could say what the rules were. the question of insanity in all its legal aspects was of course drawn into the discussion, and its application affirmed and denied. the case was felt to turn upon the admission or rejection of this evidence. it was a sort of test trial of strength between the lawyers. at the end the judge decided to admit the testimony, as the judge usually does in such cases, after a sufficient waste of time in what are called arguments. mrs. hawkins was allowed to go on. chapter lvi. mrs. hawkins slowly and conscientiously, as if every detail of her family history was important, told the story of the steamboat explosion, of the finding and adoption of laura. silas, that its mr. hawkins, and she always loved laura, as if she had been their own, child. she then narrated the circumstances of laura's supposed marriage, her abandonment and long illness, in a manner that touched all hearts. laura had been a different woman since then. cross-examined. at the time of first finding laura on the steamboat, did she notice that laura's mind was at all deranged? she couldn't say that she did. after the recovery of laura from her long illness, did mrs. hawkins think there, were any signs of insanity about her? witness confessed that she did not think of it then. re-direct examination. "but she was different after that?" "o, yes, sir." washington hawkins corroborated his mother's testimony as to laura's connection with col. selby. he was at harding during the time of her living there with him. after col. selby's desertion she was almost dead, never appeared to know anything rightly for weeks. he added that he never saw such a scoundrel as selby. (checked by district attorney.) had he noticed any change in, laura after her illness? oh, yes. whenever, any allusion was made that might recall selby to mind, she looked awful--as if she could kill him. "you mean," said mr. braham, "that there was an unnatural, insane gleam in her eyes?" "yes, certainly," said washington in confusion. all this was objected to by the district attorney, but it was got before the jury, and mr. braham did not care how much it was ruled out after that. "beriah sellers was the next witness called. the colonel made his way to the stand with majestic, yet bland deliberation. having taken the oath and kissed the bible with a smack intended to show his great respect for that book, he bowed to his honor with dignity, to the jury with familiarity, and then turned to the lawyers and stood in an attitude of superior attention. "mr. sellers, i believe?" began mr. braham. "beriah sellers, missouri," was the courteous acknowledgment that the lawyer was correct. "mr. sellers; you know the parties here, you are a friend of the family?" "know them all, from infancy, sir. it was me, sir, that induced silas hawkins, judge hawkins, to come to missouri, and make his fortune. it was by my advice and in company with me, sir, that he went into the operation of--" "yes, yes. mr. sellers, did you know a major lackland?" "knew him, well, sir, knew him and honored him, sir. he was one of the most remarkable men of our country, sir. a member of congress. he was often at my mansion sir, for weeks. he used to say to me, 'col. sellers, if you would go into politics, if i had you for a colleague, we should show calhoun and webster that the brain of the country didn't lie east of the alleganies. but i said--" "yes, yes. i believe major lackland is not living, colonel?" there was an almost imperceptible sense of pleasure betrayed in the colonel's face at this prompt acknowledgment of his title. "bless you, no. died years ago, a miserable death, sir, a ruined man, a poor sot. he was suspected of selling his vote in congress, and probably he did; the disgrace killed' him, he was an outcast, sir, loathed by himself and by his constituents. and i think; sir"---the judge. "you will confine yourself, col. sellers to the questions of the counsel." "of course, your honor. this," continued the colonel in confidential explanation, "was twenty years ago. i shouldn't have thought of referring to such a trifling circumstance now. if i remember rightly, sir"-a bundle of letters was here handed to the witness. "do you recognize, that hand-writing?" "as if it was my own, sir. it's major lackland's. i was knowing to these letters when judge hawkins received them. [the colonel's memory was a little at fault here. mr. hawkins had never gone into detail's with him on this subject.] he used to show them to me, and say, 'col, sellers you've a mind to untangle this sort of thing.' lord, how everything comes back to me. laura was a little thing then. 'the judge and i were just laying our plans to buy the pilot knob, and--" "colonel, one moment. your honor, we put these letters in evidence." the letters were a portion of the correspondence of major lackland with silas hawkins; parts of them were missing and important letters were referred to that were not here. they related, as the reader knows, to laura's father. lackland had come upon the track of a man who was searching for a lost child in a mississippi steamboat explosion years before. the man was lame in one leg, and appeared to be flitting from place to place. it seemed that major lackland got so close track of him that he was able to describe his personal appearance and learn his name. but the letter containing these particulars was lost. once he heard of him at a hotel in washington; but the man departed, leaving an empty trunk, the day before the major went there. there was something very mysterious in all his movements. col. sellers, continuing his testimony, said that he saw this lost letter, but could not now recall the name. search for the supposed father had been continued by lackland, hawkins and himself for several years, but laura was not informed of it till after the death of hawkins, for fear of raising false hopes in her mind. here the distract attorney arose and said, "your honor, i must positively object to letting the witness wander off into all these irrelevant details." mr. braham. "i submit your honor, that we cannot be interrupted in this manner we have suffered the state to have full swing. now here is a witness, who has known the prisoner from infancy, and is competent to testify upon the one point vital to her safety. evidently he is a gentleman of character, and his knowledge of the case cannot be shut out without increasing the aspect of persecution which the state's attitude towards the prisoner already has assumed." the wrangle continued, waxing hotter and hotter. the colonel seeing the attention of the counsel and court entirely withdrawn from him, thought he perceived here his opportunity, turning and beaming upon the jury, he began simply to talk, but as the grandeur of his position grew upon him --talk broadened unconsciously into an oratorical vein. "you see how she was situated, gentlemen; poor child, it might have broken her, heart to let her mind get to running on such a thing as that. you see, from what we could make out her father was lame in the left leg and had a deep scar on his left forehead. and so ever since the day she found out she had another father, she never could, run across a lame stranger without being taken all over with a shiver, and almost fainting where she, stood. and the next minute she would go right after that man. once she stumbled on a stranger with a game leg; and she was the most grateful thing in this world--but it was the wrong leg, and it was days and days before she could leave her bed. once she found a man with a scar on his forehead and she was just going to throw herself into his arms,` but he stepped out just then, and there wasn't anything the matter with his legs. time and time again, gentlemen of the jury, has this poor suffering orphan flung herself on her knees with all her heart's gratitude in her eyes before some scarred and crippled veteran, but always, always to be disappointed, always to be plunged into new despair--if his legs were right his scar was wrong, if his scar was right his legs were wrong. never could find a man that would fill the bill. gentlemen of the jury; you have hearts, you have feelings, you have warm human sympathies; you can feel for this poor suffering child. gentlemen of the jury, if i had time, if i had the opportunity, if i might be permitted to go on and tell you the thousands and thousands and thousands of mutilated strangers this poor girl has started out of cover, and hunted from city to city, from state to state, from continent to continent, till she has run them down and found they wan't the ones; i know your hearts--" by this time the colonel had become so warmed up, that his voice, had reached a pitch above that of the contending counsel; the lawyers suddenly stopped, and they and the judge turned towards the colonel and remained far several seconds too surprised at this novel exhibition to speak. in this interval of silence, an appreciation of the situation gradually stole over the, audience, and an explosion of laughter followed, in which even the court and the bar could hardly keep from joining. sheriff. "order in the court." the judge. "the witness will confine his remarks to answers to questions." the colonel turned courteously to the judge and said, "certainly, your honor--certainly. i am not well acquainted with the forms of procedure in the courts of new york, but in the west, sir, in the west--" the judge. "there, there, that will do, that will do! "you see, your honor, there were no questions asked me, and i thought i would take advantage of the lull in the proceedings to explain to the, jury a very significant train of--" the judge. "that will do sir! proceed mr. braham." "col. sellers, have you any, reason to suppose that this man is still living?" "every reason, sir, every reason. "state why" "i have never heard of his death, sir. it has never come to my knowledge. in fact, sir, as i once said to governor--" "will you state to the jury what has been the effect of the knowledge of this wandering and evidently unsettled being, supposed to be her father, upon the mind of miss hawkins for so many years!" question objected to. question ruled out. cross-examined. "major sellers, what is your occupation?" the colonel looked about him loftily, as if casting in his mind what would be the proper occupation of a person of such multifarious interests and then said with dignity: "a gentleman, sir. my father used to always say, sir"-"capt. sellers, did you; ever see this man, this supposed father?" "no, sir. but upon one occasion, old senator thompson said to me, its my opinion, colonel sellers"-"did you ever see any body who had seen him?" "no, sir: it was reported around at one time, that"-"that is all." the defense then sent a day in the examination of medical experts in insanity who testified, on the evidence heard, that sufficient causes had occurred to produce an insane mind in the prisoner. numerous cases were cited to sustain this opinion. there was such a thing as momentary insanity, in which the person, otherwise rational to all appearances, was for the time actually bereft of reason, and not responsible for his acts. the causes of this momentary possession could often be found in the person's life. [it afterwards came out that the chief expert for the defense, was paid a thousand dollars for looking into the case.] the prosecution consumed another day in the examination of experts refuting the notion of insanity. these causes might have produced insanity, but there was no evidence that they have produced it in this case, or that the prisoner was not at the time of the commission of the crime in full possession of her ordinary faculties. the trial had now lasted two weeks. it required four days now for the lawyers to "sum up." these arguments of the counsel were very important to their friends, and greatly enhanced their reputation at the bar but they have small interest to us. mr. braham in his closing speech surpassed himself; his effort is still remembered as the greatest in the criminal annals of new york. mr. braham re-drew for the jury the picture, of laura's early life; he dwelt long upon that painful episode of the pretended marriage and the desertion. col. selby, he said, belonged, gentlemen; to what is called the "upper classes:" it is the privilege of the "upper classes" to prey upon the sons and daughters of the people. the hawkins family, though allied to the best blood of the south, were at the time in humble circumstances. he commented upon her parentage. perhaps her agonized father, in his intervals of sanity, was still searching for his lost daughter. would he one day hear that she had died a felon's death? society had pursued her, fate had pursued her, and in a moment of delirium she had turned and defied fate and society. he dwelt upon the admission of base wrong in col. selby's dying statement. he drew a vivid, picture of the villain at last overtaken by the vengeance of heaven. would the jury say that this retributive justice, inflicted by an outraged, and deluded woman, rendered irrational by the most cruel wrongs, was in the nature of a foul, premeditated murder? "gentlemen; it is enough for me to look upon the life of this most beautiful and accomplished of her sex, blasted by the heartless villainy of man, without seeing, at the-end of it; the horrible spectacle of a gibbet. gentlemen, we are all human, we have all sinned, we all have need of mercy. but i do not ask mercy of you who are the guardians of society and of the poor waifs, its sometimes wronged victims; i ask only that justice which you and i shall need in that last, dreadful hour, when death will be robbed of half its terrors if we can reflect that we have never wronged a human being. gentlemen, the life of this lovely and once happy girl, this now stricken woman, is in your hands." the jury were risibly affected. half the court room was in tears. if a vote of both spectators and jury could have been taken then, the verdict would have been, "let her go, she has suffered enough." but the district attorney had the closing argument. calmly and without malice or excitement he reviewed the testimony. as the cold facts were unrolled, fear settled upon the listeners. there was no escape from the murder or its premeditation. laura's character as a lobbyist in washington which had been made to appear incidentally in the evidence was also against her: the whole body of the testimony of the defense was shown to be irrelevant, introduced only to excite sympathy, and not giving a color of probability to the absurd supposition of insanity. the attorney then dwelt upon, the insecurity of life in the city, and the growing immunity with which women committed murders. mr. mcflinn made a very able speech; convincing the reason without touching the feelings. the judge in his charge reviewed the, testimony with great show of impartiality. he ended by saying that the verdict must be acquittal or murder in the first, degree. if you find that the prisoner committed a homicide, in possession of her reason and with premeditation, your verdict will be accordingly. if you find she was not in her right mind, that she was the victim of insanity, hereditary or momentary, as it has been explained, your verdict will take that into account. as the judge finished his charge, the spectators anxiously watched the faces of the jury. it was not a remunerative study. in the court room the general feeling was in favor of laura, but whether this feeling extended to the jury, their stolid faces did not reveal. the public outside hoped for a conviction, as it always does; it wanted an example; the newspapers trusted the jury would have the courage to do its duty. when laura was convicted, then the public would tern around and abuse the governor if he did; not pardon her. the jury went out. mr. braham preserved his serene confidence, but laura's friends were dispirited. washington and col. sellers had been obliged to go to washington, and they had departed under the unspoken fear the verdict would be unfavorable, a disagreement was the best they could hope for, and money was needed. the necessity of the passage of the university bill was now imperative. the court waited, for, some time, but the jury gave no signs of coming in. mr. braham said it was extraordinary. the court then took a recess for a couple of hours. upon again coming in, word was brought that the jury had not yet agreed. but the, jury, had a question. the point upon which, they wanted instruction was this. they wanted to know if col. sellers was related to the hawkins family. the court then adjourned till morning. mr. braham, who was in something of a pet, remarked to mr. o'toole that they must have been deceived, that juryman with the broken nose could read! chapter lvii. the momentous day was at hand--a day that promised to make or mar the fortunes of hawkins family for all time. washington hawkins and col. sellers were both up early, for neither of them could sleep. congress was expiring, and was passing bill after bill as if they were gasps and each likely to be its last. the university was on file for its third reading this day, and to-morrow washington would be a millionaire and sellers no longer, impecunious but this day, also, or at farthest the next, the jury in laura's case would come to a decision of some kind or other--they would find her guilty, washington secretly feared, and then the care and the trouble would all come back again, and these would be wearing months of besieging judges for new trials; on this day, also, the re-election of mr. dilworthy to the senate would take place. so washington's mind was in a state of turmoil; there were more interests at stake than it could handle with serenity. he exulted when he thought of his millions; he was filled with dread when he thought of laura. but sellers was excited and happy. he said: "everything is going right, everything's going perfectly right. pretty soon the telegrams will begin to rattle in, and then you'll see, my boy. let the jury do what they please; what difference is it going to make? to-morrow we can send a million to new york and set the lawyers at work on the judges; bless your heart they will go before judge after judge and exhort and beseech and pray and shed tears. they always do; and they always win, too. and they will win this time. they will get a writ of habeas corpus, and a stay of proceedings, and a supersedeas, and a new trial and a nolle prosequi, and there you are! that's the routine, and it's no trick at all to a new york lawyer. that's the regular routine --everything's red tape and routine in the law, you see; it's all greek to you, of course, but to a man who is acquainted with those things it's mere--i'll explain it to you sometime. everything's going to glide right along easy and comfortable now. you'll see, washington, you'll see how it will be. and then, let me think ..... dilwortby will be elected to-day, and by day, after to-morrow night be will be in new york ready to put in his shovel--and you haven't lived in washington all this time not to know that the people who walk right by a senator whose term is up without hardly seeing him will be down at the deepo to say 'welcome back and god bless you; senator, i'm glad to see you, sir!' when he comes along back re-elected, you know. well, you see, his influence was naturally running low when he left here, but now he has got a new six-years' start, and his suggestions will simply just weigh a couple of tons a-piece day after tomorrow. lord bless you he could rattle through that habeas corpus and supersedeas and all those things for laura all by himself if he wanted to, when he gets back." "i hadn't thought of that," said washington, brightening, but it is so. a newly-elected senator is a power, i know that." "yes indeed he is.--why it, is just human nature. look at me. when we first came here, i was mr. sellers, and major sellers, captain sellers, but nobody could ever get it right, somehow; but the minute our bill went, through the house, i was col. sellers every time. and nobody could do enough for me, and whatever i said was wonderful, sir, it was always wonderful; i never seemed to say any flat things at all. it was colonel, won't you come and dine with us; and colonel why don't we ever see you at our house; and the colonel says this; and the colonel says that; and we know such-and-such is so-and-so because my husband heard col. sellers say so. don't you see? well, the senate adjourned and left our bill high, and dry, and i'll be hanged if i warn't old sellers from that day, till our bill passed the house again last week. now i'm the colonel again; and if i were to eat all the dinners i am invited to, i reckon i'd wear my teeth down level with my gums in a couple of weeks." "well i do wonder what you will be to-morrow; colonel, after the president signs the bill!" "general, sir?--general, without a doubt. yes, sir, tomorrow it will be general, let me congratulate you, sir; general, you've done a great work, sir;--you've done a great work for the niggro; gentlemen allow me the honor to introduce my friend general sellers, the humane friend of the niggro. lord bless me; you'll' see the newspapers say, general sellers and servants arrived in the city last night and is stopping at the fifth avenue; and general sellers has accepted a reception and banquet by the cosmopolitan club; you'll see the general's opinions quoted, too --and what the general has to say about the propriety of a new trial and a habeas corpus for the unfortunate miss hawkins will not be without weight in influential quarters, i can tell you." "and i want to be the first to shake your faithful old hand and salute you with your new honors, and i want to do it now--general!" said washington, suiting the action to the word, and accompanying it with all the meaning that a cordial grasp and eloquent eyes could give it. the colonel was touched; he was pleased and proud, too; his face answered for that. not very long after breakfast the telegrams began to arrive. the first was from braham, and ran thus: "we feel certain that the verdict will be rendered to-day. be it good or bad, let it find us ready to make the next move instantly, whatever it may be:" "that's the right talk," said sellers. "that braham's a wonderful man. he was the only man there that really understood me; he told me so himself, afterwards." the next telegram was from mr. dilworthy: "i have not only brought over the great invincible, but through him a dozen more of the opposition. shall be re-elected to-day by an overwhelming majority." "good again!" said the colonel. "that man's talent for organization is something marvelous. he wanted me to go out there and engineer that thing, but i said, no, dilworthy, i must be on hand here,--both on laura's account and the bill's--but you've no trifling genius for organization yourself, said i--and i was right. you go ahead, said i --you can fix it--and so he has. but i claim no credit for that--if i stiffened up his back-bone a little, i simply put him in the way to make his fight--didn't undertake it myself. he has captured noble--. i consider that a splendid piece of diplomacy--splendid, sir!" by and by came another dispatch from new york: "jury still out. laura calm and firm as a statue. the report that the jury have brought her in guilty is false and premature." "premature!" gasped washington, turning white. "then they all expect that sort of a verdict, when it comes in." and so did he; but he had not had courage enough to put it into words. he had been preparing himself for the worst, but after all his preparation the bare suggestion of the possibility of such a verdict struck him cold as death. the friends grew impatient, now; the telegrams did not come fast enough: even the lightning could not keep up with their anxieties. they walked the floor talking disjointedly and listening for the door-bell. telegram after telegram came. still no result. by and by there was one which contained a single line: "court now coming in after brief recess to hear verdict. jury ready." "oh, i wish they would finish!" said washington. "this suspense is killing me by inches!" then came another telegram: "another hitch somewhere. jury want a little more time and further instructions." "well, well, well, this is trying," said the colonel. and after a pause, "no dispatch from dilworthy for two hours, now. even a dispatch from him would be better than nothing, just to vary this thing." they waited twenty minutes. it seemed twenty hours. "come!" said washington. "i can't wait for the telegraph boy to come all the way up here. let's go down to newspaper row--meet him on the way." while they were passing along the avenue, they saw someone putting up a great display-sheet on the bulletin board of a newspaper office, and an eager crowd of men was collecting abort the place. washington and the colonel ran to the spot and read this: "tremendous sensation! startling news from saint's rest! on first ballot for u. s. senator, when voting was about to begin, mr. noble rose in his place and drew forth a package, walked forward and laid it on the speaker's desk, saying, 'this contains $7,000 in bank bills and was given me by senator dilworthy in his bed-chamber at midnight last night to buy --my vote for him--i wish the speaker to count the money and retain it to pay the expense of prosecuting this infamous traitor for bribery. the whole legislature was stricken speechless with dismay and astonishment. noble further said that there were fifty members present with money in their pockets, placed there by dilworthy to buy their votes. amidst unparalleled excitement the ballot was now taken, and j. w. smith elected u. s. senator; dilworthy receiving not one vote! noble promises damaging exposures concerning dilworthy and certain measures of his now pending in congress. "good heavens and earth!" exclaimed the colonel. "to the capitol!" said washington. "fly!" and they did fly. long before they got there the newsboys were running ahead of them with extras, hot from the press, announcing the astounding news. arrived in the gallery of the senate, the friends saw a curious spectacle--every senator held an extra in his hand and looked as interested as if it contained news of the destruction of the earth. not a single member was paying the least attention to the business of the hour. the secretary, in a loud voice, was just beginning to read the title of a bill: "house-bill--no. 4,231,--an-act-to-found-and-incorporate-the knobsindustrial-university!--read-first-and-second-time-considered-incommittee-of-the-whole-ordered-engrossed and-passed-to-third-reading-andfinal passage!" the president--"third reading of the bill!" the two friends shook in their shoes. senators threw down their extras and snatched a word or two with each other in whispers. then the gavel rapped to command silence while the names were called on the ayes and nays. washington grew paler and paler, weaker and weaker while the lagging list progressed; and when it was finished, his head fell helplessly forward on his arms. the fight was fought, the long struggle was over, and he was a pauper. not a man had voted for the bill! col. sellers was bewildered and well nigh paralyzed, himself. but no man could long consider his own troubles in the presence of such suffering as washington's. he got him up and supported him--almost carried him indeed--out of the building and into a carriage. all the way home washington lay with his face against the colonel's shoulder and merely groaned and wept. the colonel tried as well as he could under the dreary circumstances to hearten him a little, but it was of no use. washington was past all hope of cheer, now. he only said: "oh, it is all over--it is all over for good, colonel. we must beg our bread, now. we never can get up again. it was our last chance, and it is gone. they will hang laura! my god they will hang her! nothing can save the poor girl now. oh, i wish with all my soul they would hang me instead!" arrived at home, washington fell into a chair and buried his face in his hands and gave full way to his misery. the colonel did not know where to turn nor what to do. the servant maid knocked at the door and passed in a telegram, saying it had come while they were gone. the colonel tore it open and read with the voice of a man-of-war's broadside: "verdict of jury, not guilty and laura is free!" chapter lviii. the court room was packed on the morning on which the verdict of the jury was expected, as it had been every day of the trial, and by the same spectators, who had followed its progress with such intense interest. there is a delicious moment of excitement which the frequenter of trials well knows, and which he would not miss for the world. it is that instant when the foreman of the jury stands up to give the verdict, and before he has opened his fateful lips. the court assembled and waited. it was an obstinate jury. it even had another question--this intelligent jury--to ask the judge this morning. the question was this: "were the doctors clear that the deceased had no disease which might soon have carried him off, if he had not been shot?" there was evidently one jury man who didn't want to waste life, and was willing to stake a general average, as the jury always does in a civil case, deciding not according to the evidence but reaching the verdict by some occult mental process. during the delay the spectators exhibited unexampled patience, finding amusement and relief in the slightest movements of the court, the prisoner and the lawyers. mr. braham divided with laura the attention of the house. bets were made by the sheriff's deputies on the verdict, with large odds in favor of a disagreement. it was afternoon when it was announced that the jury was coming in. the reporters took their places and were all attention; the judge and lawyers were in their seats; the crowd swayed and pushed in eager expectancy, as the jury walked in and stood up in silence. judge. "gentlemen, have you agreed upon your verdict?" foreman. "we have." judge. "what is it?" foreman. "not guilty." a shout went up from the entire room and a tumult of cheering which the court in vain attempted to quell. for a few moments all order was lost. the spectators crowded within the bar and surrounded laura who, calmer than anyone else, was supporting her aged mother, who had almost fainted from excess of joy. and now occurred one of those beautiful incidents which no fiction-writer would dare to imagine, a scene of touching pathos, creditable to our fallen humanity. in the eyes of the women of the audience mr. braham was the hero of the occasion; he had saved the life of the prisoner; and besides he was such a handsome man. the women could not restrain their long pent-up emotions. they threw themselves upon mr. braham in a transport of gratitude; they kissed him again and again, the young as well as the advanced in years, the married as well as the ardent single women; they improved the opportunity with a touching self-sacrifice; in the words of a newspaper of the day they "lavished him with kisses." it was something sweet to do; and it would be sweet for a woman to remember in after years, that she had kissed braham! mr. braham himself received these fond assaults with the gallantry of his nation, enduring the ugly, and heartily paying back beauty in its own coin. this beautiful scene is still known in new york as "the kissing of braham." when the tumult of congratulation had a little spent itself, and order was restored, judge o'shaunnessy said that it now became his duty to provide for the proper custody and treatment of the acquitted. the verdict of the jury having left no doubt that the woman was of an unsound mind, with a kind of insanity dangerous to the safety of the community, she could not be permitted to go at large. "in accordance with the directions of the law in such cases," said the judge, "and in obedience to the dictates of a wise humanity, i hereby commit laura hawkins to the care of the superintendent of the state hospital for insane criminals, to be held in confinement until the state commissioners on insanity shall order her discharge. mr. sheriff, you will attend at once to the execution of this decree." laura was overwhelmed and terror-stricken. she had expected to walk forth in freedom in a few moments. the revulsion was terrible. her mother appeared like one shaken with an ague fit. laura insane! and about to be locked up with madmen! she had never contemplated this. mr. graham said he should move at once for a writ of 'habeas corpus'. but the judge could not do less than his duty, the law must have its way. as in the stupor of a sudden calamity, and not fully comprehending it, mrs. hawkins saw laura led away by the officer. with little space for thought she was, rapidly driven to the railway station, and conveyed to the hospital for lunatic criminals. it was only when she was within this vast and grim abode of madness that she realized the horror of her situation. it was only when she was received by the kind physician and read pity in his eyes, and saw his look of hopeless incredulity when she attempted to tell him that she was not insane; it was only when she passed through the ward to which she was consigned and saw the horrible creatures, the victims of a double calamity, whose dreadful faces she was hereafter to see daily, and was locked into the small, bare room that was to be her home, that all her fortitude forsook her. she sank upon the bed, as soon as she was left alone--she had been searched by the matron--and tried to think. but her brain was in a whirl. she recalled braham's speech, she recalled the testimony regarding her lunacy. she wondered if she were not mad; she felt that she soon should be among these loathsome creatures. better almost to have died, than to slowly go mad in this confinement. --we beg the reader's pardon. this is not history, which has just been written. it is really what would have occurred if this were a novel. if this were a work of fiction, we should not dare to dispose of laura otherwise. true art and any attention to dramatic proprieties required it. the novelist who would turn loose upon society an insane murderess could not escape condemnation. besides, the safety of society, the decencies of criminal procedure, what we call our modern civilization, all would demand that laura should be disposed of in the manner we have described. foreigners, who read this sad story, will be unable to understand any other termination of it. but this is history and not fiction. there is no such law or custom as that to which his honor is supposed to have referred; judge o'shaunnessy would not probably pay any attention to it if there were. there is no hospital for insane criminals; there is no state commission of lunacy. what actually occurred when the tumult in the court room had subsided the sagacious reader will now learn. laura left the court room, accompanied by her mother and other friends, amid the congratulations of those assembled, and was cheered as she entered a carriage, and drove away. how sweet was the sunlight, how exhilarating the sense of freedom! were not these following cheers the expression of popular approval and affection? was she not the heroine of the hour? it was with a feeling of triumph that laura reached her hotel, a scornful feeling of victory over society with its own weapons. mrs. hawkins shared not at all in this feeling; she was broken with the disgrace and the long anxiety. "thank god, laura," she said, "it is over. now we will go away from this hateful city. let us go home at once." "mother," replied laura, speaking with some tenderness, "i cannot go with you. there, don't cry, i cannot go back to that life." mrs. hawkins was sobbing. this was more cruel than anything else, for she had a dim notion of what it would be to leave laura to herself. "no, mother, you have been everything to me. you know how dearly i love you. but i cannot go back." a boy brought in a telegraphic despatch. laura took it and read: "the bill is lost. dilworthy ruined. (signed) washington." for a moment the words swam before her eyes. the next her eyes flashed fire as she handed the dispatch to her m other and bitterly said, "the world is against me. well, let it be, let it. i am against it." "this is a cruel disappointment," said mrs. hawkins, to whom one grief more or less did not much matter now, "to you and, washington; but we must humbly bear it." "bear it;" replied laura scornfully, "i've all my life borne it, and fate has thwarted me at every step." a servant came to the door to say that there was a gentleman below who wished to speak with miss hawkins. "j. adolphe griller" was the name laura read on the card. "i do not know such a person. he probably comes from washington. send him up." mr. griller entered. he was a small man, slovenly in dress, his tone confidential, his manner wholly void of animation, all his features below the forehead protruding--particularly the apple of his throat--hair without a kink in it, a hand with no grip, a meek, hang-dog countenance. a falsehood done in flesh and blood; for while every visible sign about him proclaimed him a poor, witless, useless weakling, the truth was that he had the brains to plan great enterprises and the pluck to carry them through. that was his reputation, and it was a deserved one. he softly said: "i called to see you on business, miss hawkins. you have my card?" laura bowed. mr. griller continued to purr, as softly as before. "i will proceed to business. i am a business man. i am a lecture-agent, miss hawkins, and as soon as i saw that you were acquitted, it occurred to me that an early interview would be mutually beneficial." "i don't understand you, sir," said laura coldly. "no? you see, miss hawkins, this is your opportunity. if you will enter the lecture field under good auspices, you will carry everything before you." "but, sir, i never lectured, i haven't any lecture, i don't know anything about it." "ah, madam, that makes no difference--no real difference. it is not necessary to be able to lecture in order to go into the lecture tour. if ones name is celebrated all over the land, especially, and, if she is also beautiful, she is certain to draw large audiences." "but what should i lecture about?" asked laura, beginning in spite of herself to be a little interested as well as amused. "oh, why; woman--something about woman, i should say; the marriage relation, woman's fate, anything of that sort. call it the revelations of a woman's life; now, there's a good title. i wouldn't want any better title than that. i'm prepared to make you an offer, miss hawkins, a liberal offer,--twelve thousand dollars for thirty nights." laura thought. she hesitated. why not? it would give her employment, money. she must do something. "i will think of it, and let you know soon. but still, there is very little likelihood that i--however, we will not discuss it further now." "remember, that the sooner we get to work the better, miss hawkins, public curiosity is so fickle. good day, madam." the close of the trial released mr. harry brierly and left him free to depart upon his long talked of pacific-coast mission. he was very mysterious about it, even to philip. "it's confidential, old boy," he said, "a little scheme we have hatched up. i don't mind telling you that it's a good deal bigger thing than that in missouri, and a sure thing. i wouldn't take a half a million just for my share. and it will open something for you, phil. you will hear from me." philip did hear, from harry a few months afterward. everything promised splendidly, but there was a little delay. could phil let him have a hundred, say, for ninety days? philip himself hastened to philadelphia, and, as soon as the spring opened, to the mine at ilium, and began transforming the loan he had received from squire montague into laborers' wages. he was haunted with many anxieties; in the first place, ruth was overtaxing her strength in her hospital labors, and philip felt as if he must move heaven and earth to save her from such toil and suffering. his increased pecuniary obligation oppressed him. it seemed to him also that he had been one cause of the misfortune to the bolton family, and that he was dragging into loss and ruin everybody who associated with him. he worked on day after day and week after week, with a feverish anxiety. it would be wicked, thought philip, and impious, to pray for luck; he felt that perhaps he ought not to ask a blessing upon the sort of labor that was only a venture; but yet in that daily petition, which this very faulty and not very consistent young christian gentleman put up, he prayed earnestly enough for ruth and for the boltons and for those whom he loved and who trusted in him, and that his life might not be a misfortune to them and a failure to himself. since this young fellow went out into the world from his new england home, he had done some things that he would rather his mother should not know, things maybe that he would shrink from telling ruth. at a certain green age young gentlemen are sometimes afraid of being called milksops, and philip's associates had not always been the most select, such as these historians would have chosen for him, or whom at a later, period he would have chosen for himself. it seemed inexplicable, for instance, that his life should have been thrown so much with his college acquaintance, henry brierly. yet, this was true of philip, that in whatever company he had been he had never been ashamed to stand up for the principles he learned from his mother, and neither raillery nor looks of wonder turned him from that daily habit had learned at his mother's knees.--even flippant harry respected this, and perhaps it was one of the reasons why harry and all who knew philip trusted him implicitly. and yet it must be confessed that philip did not convey the impression to the world of a very serious young man, or of a man who might not rather easily fall into temptation. one looking for a real hero would have to go elsewhere. the parting between laura and her mother was exceedingly painful to both. it was as if two friends parted on a wide plain, the one to journey towards the setting and the other towards the rising sun, each comprehending that every, step henceforth must separate their lives, wider and wider. chapter lix. when mr. noble's bombshell fell, in senator dilworthy's camp, the statesman was disconcerted for a moment. for a moment; that was all. the next moment he was calmly up and doing. from the centre of our country to its circumference, nothing was talked of but mr. noble's terrible revelation, and the people were furious. mind, they were not furious because bribery was uncommon in our public life, but merely because here was another case. perhaps it did not occur to the nation of good and worthy people that while they continued to sit comfortably at home and leave the true source of our political power (the "primaries,") in the hands of saloon-keepers, dog-fanciers and hod-carriers, they could go on expecting "another" case of this kind, and even dozens and hundreds of them, and never be disappointed. however, they may have thought that to sit at home and grumble would some day right the evil. yes, the nation was excited, but senator dilworthy was calm--what was left of him after the explosion of the shell. calm, and up and doing. what did he do first? what would you do first, after you had tomahawked your mother at the breakfast table for putting too much sugar in your coffee? you would "ask for a suspension of public opinion." that is what senator dilworthy did. it is the custom. he got the usual amount of suspension. far and wide he was called a thief, a briber, a promoter of steamship subsidies, railway swindles, robberies of the government in all possible forms and fashions. newspapers and everybody else called him a pious hypocrite, a sleek, oily fraud, a reptile who manipulated temperance movements, prayer meetings, sunday schools, public charities, missionary enterprises, all for his private benefit. and as these charges were backed up by what seemed to be good and sufficient, evidence, they were believed with national unanimity. then mr. dilworthy made another move. he moved instantly to washington and "demanded an investigation." even this could not pass without, comment. many papers used language to this effect: "senator dilworthy's remains have demanded an investigation. this sounds fine and bold and innocent; but when we reflect that they demand it at the hands of the senate of the united states, it simply becomes matter for derision. one might as well set the gentlemen detained in the public prisons to trying each other. this investigation is likely to be like all other senatorial investigations--amusing but not useful. query. why does the senate still stick to this pompous word, 'investigation?' one does not blindfold one's self in order to investigate an object." mr. dilworthy appeared in his place in the senate and offered a resolution appointing a committee to investigate his case. it carried, of course, and the committee was appointed. straightway the newspapers said: "under the guise of appointing a committee to investigate the late mr. dilworthy, the senate yesterday appointed a committee to investigate his accuser, mr. noble. this is the exact spirit and meaning of the resolution, and the committee cannot try anybody but mr. noble without overstepping its authority. that dilworthy had the effrontery to offer such a resolution will surprise no one, and that the senate could entertain it without blushing and pass it without shame will surprise no one. we are now reminded of a note which we have received from the notorious burglar murphy, in which he finds fault with a statement of ours to the effect that he had served one term in the penitentiary and also one in the u. s. senate. he says, 'the latter statement is untrue and does me great injustice.' after an unconscious sarcasm like that, further comment is unnecessary." and yet the senate was roused by the dilworthy trouble. many speeches were made. one senator (who was accused in the public prints of selling his chances of re-election to his opponent for $50,000 and had not yet denied the charge) said that, "the presence in the capital of such a creature as this man noble, to testify against a brother member of their body, was an insult to the senate." another senator said, "let the investigation go on and let it make an example of this man noble; let it teach him and men like him that they could not attack the reputation of a united states-senator with impunity." another said he was glad the investigation was to be had, for it was high time that the senate should crush some cur like this man noble, and thus show his kind that it was able and resolved to uphold its ancient dignity. a by-stander laughed, at this finely delivered peroration; and said: "why, this is the senator who franked his, baggage home through the mails last week-registered, at that. however, perhaps he was merely engaged in 'upholding the ancient dignity of the senate,'--then." "no, the modern dignity of it," said another by-stander. "it don't resemble its ancient dignity but it fits its modern style like a glove." there being no law against making offensive remarks about u. s. senators, this conversation, and others like it, continued without let or hindrance. but our business is with the investigating committee. mr. noble appeared before the committee of the senate; and testified to the following effect: he said that he was a member of the state legislature of the happy-land-of-canaan; that on the --day of -----he assembled himself together at the city of saint's rest, the capital of the state, along with his brother legislators; that he was known to be a political enemy of mr. dilworthy and bitterly opposed to his re-election; that mr. dilworthy came to saint's rest and reported to be buying pledges of votes with money; that the said dilworthy sent for him to come to his room in the hotel at night, and he went; was introduced to mr. dilworthy; called two or three times afterward at dilworthy's request--usually after midnight; mr. dilworthy urged him to vote for him noble declined; dilworthy argued; said he was bound to be elected, and could then ruin him (noble) if he voted no; said he had every railway and every public office and stronghold of political power in the state under his thumb, and could set up or pull down any man he chose; gave instances showing where and how he had used this power; if noble would vote for him he would make him a representative in congress; noble still declined to vote, and said he did not believe dilworthy was going to be elected; dilworthy showed a list of men who would vote for him--a majority of the legislature; gave further proofs of his power by telling noble everything the opposing party had done or said in secret caucus; claimed that his spies reported everything to him, and that-here a member of the committee objected that this evidence was irrelevant and also in opposition to the spirit of the committee's instructions, because if these things reflected upon any one it was upon mr. dilworthy. the chairman said, let the person proceed with his statement--the committee could exclude evidence that did not bear upon the case. mr. noble continued. he said that his party would cast him out if he voted for mr, dilworthy; dilwortby said that that would inure to his benefit because he would then be a recognized friend of his (dilworthy's) and he could consistently exalt him politically and make his fortune; noble said he was poor, and it was hard to tempt him so; dilworthy said he would fix that; he said, "tell, me what you want, and say you will vote for me;" noble could not say; dilworthy said "i will give you $5,000." a committee man said, impatiently, that this stuff was all outside the case, and valuable time was being wasted; this was all, a plain reflection upon a brother senator. the chairman said it was the quickest way to proceed, and the evidence need have no weight. mr. noble continued. he said he told dilworthy that $5,000 was not much to pay for a man's honor, character and everything that was worth having; dilworthy said he was surprised; he considered $5,000 a fortune--for some men; asked what noble's figure was; noble said he could not think $10,000 too little; dilworthy said it was a great deal too much; he would not do it for any other man, but he had conceived a liking for noble, and where he liked a man his heart yearned to help him; he was aware that noble was poor, and had a family to support, and that he bore an unblemished reputation at home; for such a man and such a man's influence he could do much, and feel that to help such a man would be an act that would have its reward; the struggles of the poor always touched him; he believed that noble would make a good use of this money and that it would cheer many a sad heart and needy home; he would give the, $10,000; all he desired in return was that when the balloting began, noble should cast his vote for him and should explain to the legislature that upon looking into the charges against mr. dilworthy of bribery, corruption, and forwarding stealing measures in congress he had found them to be base calumnies upon a man whose motives were pure and whose character was stainless; he then took from his pocket $2,000 in bank bills and handed them to noble, and got another package containing $5,000 out of his trunk and gave to him also. he---a committee man jumped up, and said: "at last, mr. chairman, this shameless person has arrived at the point. this is sufficient and conclusive. by his own confession he has received a bribe, and did it deliberately. "this is a grave offense, and cannot be passed over in silence, sir. by the terms of our instructions we can now proceed to mete out to him such punishment as is meet for one who has maliciously brought disrespect upon a senator of the united states. we have no need to hear the rest of his evidence." the chairman said it would be better and more regular to proceed with the investigation according to the usual forms. a note would be made of mr. noble's admission. mr. noble continued. he said that it was now far past midnight; that he took his leave and went straight to certain legislators, told them everything, made them count the money, and also told them of the exposure he would make in joint convention; he made that exposure, as all the world knew. the rest of the $10,000 was to be paid the day after dilworthy was elected. senator dilworthy was now asked to take the stand and tell what he knew about the man noble. the senator wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, adjusted his white cravat, and said that but for the fact that public morality required an example, for the warning of future nobles, he would beg that in christian charity this poor misguided creature might be forgiven and set free. he said that it was but too evident that this person had approached him in the hope of obtaining a bribe; he had intruded himself time and again, and always with moving stories of his poverty. mr. dilworthy said that his heart had bled for him--insomuch that he had several times been on the point of trying to get some one to do something for him. some instinct had told him from the beginning that this was a bad man, an evil-minded man, but his inexperience of such had blinded him to his real motives, and hence he had never dreamed that his object was to undermine the purity of a united states senator. he regretted that it was plain, now, that such was the man's object and that punishment could not with safety to the senate's honor be withheld. he grieved to say that one of those mysterious dispensations of an inscrutable providence which are decreed from time to time by his wisdom and for his righteous, purposes, had given this conspirator's tale a color of plausibility,--but this would soon disappear under the clear light of truth which would now be thrown upon the case. it so happened, (said the senator,) that about the time in question, a poor young friend of mine, living in a distant town of my state, wished to establish a bank; he asked me to lend him the necessary money; i said i had no, money just then, but world try to borrow it. the day before the election a friend said to me that my election expenses must be very large specially my hotel bills, and offered to lend me some money. remembering my young, friend, i said i would like a few thousands now, and a few more by and by; whereupon he gave me two packages of bills said to contain $2,000 and $5,000 respectively; i did not open the packages or count the money; i did not give any note or receipt for the same; i made no memorandum of the transaction, and neither did my friend. that night this evil man noble came troubling me again: i could not rid myself of him, though my time was very precious. he mentioned my young friend and said he was very anxious to have the $7000 now to begin his banking operations with, and could wait a while for the rest. noble wished to get the money and take it to him. i finally gave him the two packages of bills; i took no note or receipt from him, and made no memorandum of the matter. i no more look for duplicity and deception in another man than i would look for it in myself. i never thought of this man again until i was overwhelmed the next day by learning what a shameful use he had made of the confidence i had reposed in him and the money i had entrusted to his care. this is all, gentlemen. to the absolute truth of every detail of my statement i solemnly swear, and i call him to witness who is the truth and the loving father of all whose lips abhor false speaking; i pledge my honor as a senator, that i have spoken but the truth. may god forgive this wicked man as i do. mr. noble--"senator dilworthy, your bank account shows that up to that day, and even on that very day, you conducted all your financial business through the medium of checks instead of bills, and so kept careful record of every moneyed transaction. why did you deal in bank bills on this particular occasion?" the chairman--"the gentleman will please to remember that the committee is conducting this investigation." mr. noble--"then will the committee ask the question?" the chairman--"the committee will--when it desires to know." mr. noble--"which will not be daring this century perhaps." the chairman--"another remark like that, sir, will procure you the attentions of the sergeant-at-arms." mr. noble--"d--n the sergeant-at-arms, and the committee too!" several committeemen--"mr. chairman, this is contempt!" mr. noble--"contempt of whom?" "of the committee! of the senate of the united states!" mr. noble--"then i am become the acknowledged representative of a nation. you know as well as i do that the whole nation hold as much as three-fifths of the united states senate in entire contempt.--three-fifths of you are dilworthys." the sergeant-at-arms very soon put a quietus upon the observations of the representative of the nation, and convinced him that he was not, in the over-free atmosphere of his happy-land-of-canaan: the statement of senator dilworthy naturally carried conviction to the minds of the committee.--it was close, logical, unanswerable; it bore many internal evidences of its, truth. for instance, it is customary in all countries for business men to loan large sums of money in bank bills instead of checks. it is customary for the lender to make no memorandum of the transaction. it is customary, for the borrower to receive the money without making a memorandum of it, or giving a note or a receipt for it's use--the borrower is not likely to die or forget about it. it is customary to lend nearly anybody money to start a bank with especially if you have not the money to lend him and have to borrow it for the purpose. it is customary to carry large sums of money in bank bills about your person or in your trunk. it is customary to hand a large sure in bank bills to a man you have just been introduced to (if he asks you to do it,) to be conveyed to a distant town and delivered to another party. it is not customary to make a memorandum of this transaction; it is not customary for the conveyor to give a note or a receipt for the money; it is not customary to require that he shall get a note or a receipt from the man he is to convey it to in the distant town. it would be at least singular in you to say to the proposed conveyor, "you might be robbed; i will deposit the money in a bank and send a check for it to my friend through the mail." very well. it being plain that senator dilworthy's statement was rigidly true, and this fact being strengthened by his adding to it the support of "his honor as a senator," the committee rendered a verdict of "not proven that a bribe had been offered and accepted." this in a manner exonerated noble and let him escape. the committee made its report to the senate, and that body proceeded to consider its acceptance. one senator indeed, several senators--objected that the committee had failed of its duty; they had proved this man noble guilty of nothing, they had meted out no punishment to him; if the report were accepted, he would go forth free and scathless, glorying in his crime, and it would be a tacit admission that any blackguard could insult the senate of the united states and conspire against the sacred reputation of its members with impunity; the senate owed it to the upholding of its ancient dignity to make an example of this man noble --he should be crushed. an elderly senator got up and took another view of the case. this was a senator of the worn-out and obsolete pattern; a man still lingering among the cobwebs of the past, and behind the spirit of the age. he said that there seemed to be a curious misunderstanding of the case. gentlemen seemed exceedingly anxious to preserve and maintain the honor and dignity of the senate. was this to be done by trying an obscure adventurer for attempting to trap a senator into bribing him? or would not the truer way be to find out whether the senator was capable of being entrapped into so shameless an act, and then try him? why, of course. now the whole idea of the senate seemed to be to shield the senator and turn inquiry away from him. the true way to uphold the honor of the senate was to have none but honorable men in its body. if this senator had yielded to temptation and had offered a bribe, he was a soiled man and ought to be instantly expelled; therefore he wanted the senator tried, and not in the usual namby-pamby way, but in good earnest. he wanted to know the truth of this matter. for himself, he believed that the guilt of senator dilworthy was established beyond the shadow of a doubt; and he considered that in trifling with his case and shirking it the senate was doing a shameful and cowardly thing--a thing which suggested that in its willingness to sit longer in the company of such a man, it was acknowledging that it was itself of a kind with him and was therefore not dishonored by his presence. he desired that a rigid examination be made into senator dilworthy's case, and that it be continued clear into the approaching extra session if need be. there was no dodging this thing with the lame excuse of want of time. in reply, an honorable senator said that he thought it would be as well to drop the matter and accept the committee's report. he said with some jocularity that the more one agitated this thing, the worse it was for the agitator. he was not able to deny that he believed senator dilworthy to be guilty--but what then? was it such an extraordinary case? for his part, even allowing the senator to be guilty, he did not think his continued presence during the few remaining days of the session would contaminate the senate to a dreadful degree. [this humorous sally was received with smiling admiration--notwithstanding it was not wholly new, having originated with the massachusetts general in the house a day or two before, upon the occasion of the proposed expulsion of a member for selling his vote for money.] the senate recognized the fact that it could not be contaminated by sitting a few days longer with senator dilworthy, and so it accepted the committee's report and dropped the unimportant matter. mr. dilworthy occupied his seat to the last hour of the session. he said that his people had reposed a trust in him, and it was not for him to desert them. he would remain at his post till he perished, if need be. his voice was lifted up and his vote cast for the last time, in support of an ingenious measure contrived by the general from massachusetts whereby the president's salary was proposed to be doubled and every congressman paid several thousand dollars extra for work previously done, under an accepted contract, and already paid for once and receipted for. senator dilworthy was offered a grand ovation by his friends at home, who said that their affection for him and their confidence in him were in no wise impaired by the persecutions that had pursued him, and that he was still good enough for them. --[the $7,000 left by mr. noble with his state legislature was placed in safe keeping to await the claim of the legitimate owner. senator dilworthy made one little effort through his protege the embryo banker to recover it, but there being no notes of hand or, other memoranda to support the claim, it failed. the moral of which is, that when one loans money to start a bank with, one ought to take the party's written acknowledgment of the fact.] chapter lx. for some days laura had been a free woman once more. during this time, she had experienced--first, two or three days of triumph, excitement, congratulations, a sort of sunburst of gladness, after a long night of gloom and anxiety; then two or three days of calming down, by degrees --a receding of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that bore the spirit of a truce-days given to solitude, rest, self-communion, and the reasoning of herself into a realization of the fact that she was actually done with bolts and bars, prison, horrors and impending, death; then came a day whose hours filed slowly by her, each laden with some remnant, some remaining fragment of the dreadful time so lately ended--a day which, closing at last, left the past a fading shore behind her and turned her eyes toward the broad sea of the future. so speedily do we put the dead away and come back to our place in the ranks to march in the pilgrimage of life again. and now the sun rose once more and ushered in the first day of what laura comprehended and accepted as a new life. the past had sunk below the horizon, and existed no more for her; she was done with it for all time. she was gazing out over the trackless expanses of the future, now, with troubled eyes. life must be begun again--at eight and twenty years of age. and where to begin? the page was blank, and waiting for its first record; so this was indeed a momentous day. her thoughts drifted back, stage by stage, over her career. as far as the long highway receded over the plain of her life, it was lined with the gilded and pillared splendors of her ambition all crumbled to ruin and ivy-grown; every milestone marked a disaster; there was no green spot remaining anywhere in memory of a hope that had found its fruition; the unresponsive earth had uttered no voice of flowers in testimony that one who was blest had gone that road. her life had been a failure. that was plain, she said. no more of that. she would now look the future in the face; she would mark her course upon the chart of life, and follow it; follow it without swerving, through rocks and shoals, through storm and calm, to a haven of rest and peace or shipwreck. let the end be what it might, she would mark her course now --to-day--and follow it. on her table lay six or seven notes. they were from lovers; from some of the prominent names in the land; men whose devotion had survived even the grisly revealments of her character which the courts had uncurtained; men who knew her now, just as she was, and yet pleaded as for their lives for the dear privilege of calling the murderess wife. as she read these passionate, these worshiping, these supplicating missives, the woman in her nature confessed itself; a strong yearning came upon her to lay her head upon a loyal breast and find rest from the conflict of life, solace for her griefs, the healing of love for her bruised heart. with her forehead resting upon her hand, she sat thinking, thinking, while the unheeded moments winged their flight. it was one of those mornings in early spring when nature seems just stirring to a half consciousness out of a long, exhausting lethargy; when the first faint balmy airs go wandering about, whispering the secret of the coming change; when the abused brown grass, newly relieved of snow, seems considering whether it can be worth the trouble and worry of contriving its green raiment again only to fight the inevitable fight with the implacable winter and be vanquished and buried once more; when the sun shines out and a few birds venture forth and lift up a forgotten song; when a strange stillness and suspense pervades the waiting air. it is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. it is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, what is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up. it was into such a mood as this that laura had drifted from the musings which the letters of her lovers had called up. now she lifted her head and noted with surprise how the day had wasted. she thrust the letters aside, rose up and went and stood at the window. but she was soon thinking again, and was only gazing into vacancy. by and by she turned; her countenance had cleared; the dreamy look was gone out of her face, all indecision had vanished; the poise of her head and the firm set of her lips told that her resolution was formed. she moved toward the table with all the old dignity in her carriage, and all the old pride in her mien. she took up each letter in its turn, touched a match to it and watched it slowly consume to ashes. then she said: "i have landed upon a foreign shore, and burned my ships behind me. these letters were the last thing that held me in sympathy with any remnant or belonging of the old life. henceforth that life and all that appertains to it are as dead to me and as far removed from me as if i were become a denizen of another world." she said that love was not for her--the time that it could have satisfied her heart was gone by and could not return; the opportunity was lost, nothing could restore it. she said there could be no love without respect, and she would only despise a man who could content himself with a thing like her. love, she said, was a woman's first necessity: love being forfeited; there was but one thing left that could give a passing zest to a wasted life, and that was fame, admiration, the applause of the multitude. and so her resolution was taken. she would turn to that final resort of the disappointed of her sex, the lecture platform. she would array herself in fine attire, she would adorn herself with jewels, and stand in her isolated magnificence before massed, audiences and enchant them with her eloquence and amaze them with her unapproachable beauty. she would move from city to city like a queen of romance, leaving marveling multitudes behind her and impatient multitudes awaiting her coming. her life, during one hour of each day, upon the platform, would be a rapturous intoxication--and when the curtain fell; and the lights were out, and the people gone, to nestle in their homes and forget her, she would find in sleep oblivion of her homelessness, if she could, if not she would brave out the night in solitude and wait for the next day's hour of ecstasy. so, to take up life and begin again was no great evil. she saw her way. she would be brave and strong; she would make the best of, what was left for her among the possibilities. she sent for the lecture agent, and matters were soon arranged. straightway, all the papers were filled with her name, and all the dead walls flamed with it. the papers called down imprecations upon her head; they reviled her without stint; they wondered if all sense of decency was dead in this shameless murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this heartless seducer of the affections of weak and misguided men; they implored the people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless daughters, for the sake of decency, for the sake of public morals, to give this wretched creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient evidence to her and to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical admiration. everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed discourse, and marveled how she would handle it. laura's few friends wrote to her or came and talked with her, and pleaded with her to retire while it was yet time, and not attempt to face the gathering storm. but it was fruitless. she was stung to the quick by the comments of the newspapers; her spirit was roused, her ambition was towering, now. she was more determined than ever. she would show these people what a hunted and persecuted woman could do. the eventful night came. laura arrived before the great lecture hall in a close carriage within five minutes of the time set for the lecture to begin. when she stepped out of the vehicle her heart beat fast and her eyes flashed with exultation: the whole street was packed with people, and she could hardly force her way to the hall! she reached the ante-room, threw off her wraps and placed herself before the dressing-glass. she turned herself this way and that--everything was satisfactory, her attire was perfect. she smoothed her hair, rearranged a jewel here and there, and all the while her heart sang within her, and her face was radiant. she had not been so happy for ages and ages, it seemed to her. oh, no, she had never been so overwhelmingly grateful and happy in her whole life before. the lecture agent appeared at the door. she waved him away and said: "do not disturb me. i want no introduction. and do not fear for me; the moment the hands point to eight i will step upon the platform." he disappeared. she held her watch before her. she was so impatient that the second-hand seemed whole tedious minutes dragging its way around the circle. at last the supreme moment came, and with head erect and the bearing of an empress she swept through the door and stood upon the stage. her eyes fell upon only a vast, brilliant emptiness--there were not forty people in the house! there were only a handful of coarse men and ten or twelve still coarser women, lolling upon the benches and scattered about singly and in couples. her pulses stood still, her limbs quaked, the gladness went out of her face. there was a moment of silence, and then a brutal laugh and an explosion of cat-calls and hisses saluted her from the audience. the clamor grew stronger and louder, and insulting speeches were shouted at her. a half-intoxicated man rose up and threw something, which missed her but bespattered a chair at her side, and this evoked an outburst of laughter and boisterous admiration. she was bewildered, her strength was forsaking her. she reeled away from the platform, reached the ante-room, and dropped helpless upon a sofa. the lecture agent ran in, with a hurried question upon his lips; but she put forth her hands, and with the tears raining from her eyes, said: "oh, do not speak! take me away-please take me away, out of this. dreadful place! oh, this is like all my life--failure, disappointment, misery--always misery, always failure. what have i done, to be so pursued! take me away, i beg of you, i implore you!" upon the pavement she was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet; they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even assailing the vehicle with missiles. a stone crushed through a blind, wounding laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what further transpired during her flight. it was long before her faculties were wholly restored, and then she found herself lying on the floor by a sofa in her own sitting-room, and alone. so she supposed she must have sat down upon the sofa and afterward fallen. she raised herself up, with difficulty, for the air was chilly and her limbs were stiff. she turned up the gas and sought the glass. she hardly knew herself, so worn and old she looked, and so marred with blood were her features. the night was far spent, and a dead stillness reigned. she sat down by her table, leaned her elbows upon it and put her face in her hands. her thoughts wandered back over her old life again and her tears flowed unrestrained. her pride was humbled, her spirit was broken. her memory found but one resting place; it lingered about her young girlhood with a caressing regret; it dwelt upon it as the one brief interval of her life that bore no curse. she saw herself again in the budding grace of her twelve years, decked in her dainty pride of ribbons, consorting with the bees and the butterflies, believing in fairies, holding confidential converse with the flowers, busying herself all day long with airy trifles that were as weighty to her as the affairs that tax the brains of diplomats and emperors. she was without sin, then, and unacquainted with grief; the world was full of sunshine and her heart was full of music. from that--to this! "if i could only die!" she said. "if i could only go back, and be as i was then, for one hour--and hold my father's hand in mine again, and see all the household about me, as in that old innocent time--and then die! my god, i am humbled, my pride is all gone, my stubborn heart repents --have pity!" when the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there, the elbows resting upon the table and the face upon the hands. all day long the figure sat there, the sunshine enriching its costly raiment and flashing from its jewels; twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the figure remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the picture with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded, it with mellow light; by and by the darkness swallowed it up, and later the gray dawn revealed it again; the new day grew toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence was undisturbed. but now the keepers of the house had become uneasy; their periodical knockings still finding no response, they burst open the door. the jury of inquest found that death had resulted from heart disease, and was instant and painless. that was all. merely heart disease. chapter lxi. clay hawkins, years gone by, had yielded, after many a struggle, to the migratory and speculative instinct of our age and our people, and had wandered further and further westward upon trading ventures. settling finally in melbourne, australia, he ceased to roam, became a steady-going substantial merchant, and prospered greatly. his life lay beyond the theatre of this tale. his remittances had supported the hawkins family, entirely, from the time of his father's death until latterly when laura by her efforts in washington had been able to assist in this work. clay was away on a long absence in some of the eastward islands when laura's troubles began, trying (and almost in vain,) to arrange certain interests which had become disordered through a dishonest agent, and consequently he knew nothing of the murder till he returned and read his letters and papers. his natural impulse was to hurry to the states and save his sister if possible, for he loved her with a deep and abiding affection. his business was so crippled now, and so deranged, that to leave it would be ruin; therefore he sold out at a sacrifice that left him considerably reduced in worldly possessions, and began his voyage to san francisco. arrived there, he perceived by the newspapers that the trial was near its close. at salt lake later telegrams told him of the acquittal, and his gratitude was boundless--so boundless, indeed, that sleep was driven from his eyes by the pleasurable excitement almost as effectually as preceding weeks of anxiety had done it. he shaped his course straight for hawkeye, now, and his meeting with his mother and the rest of the household was joyful--albeit he had been away so long that he seemed almost a stranger in his own home. but the greetings and congratulations were hardly finished when all the journals in the land clamored the news of laura's miserable death. mrs. hawkins was prostrated by this last blow, and it was well that clay was at her side to stay her with comforting words and take upon himself the ordering of the household with its burden of labors and cares. washington hawkins had scarcely more than entered upon that decade which carries one to the full blossom of manhood which we term the beginning: of middle age, and yet a brief sojourn at the capital of the nation had made him old. his hair was already turning gray when the late session of congress began its sittings; it grew grayer still, and rapidly, after the memorable day that saw laura proclaimed a murderess; it waxed grayer and still grayer during the lagging suspense that succeeded it and after the crash which ruined his last hope--the failure of his bill in the senate and the destruction of its champion, dilworthy. a few days later, when he stood uncovered while the last prayer was pronounced over laura's grave, his hair was whiter and his face hardly less old than the venerable minister's whose words were sounding in his ears. a week after this, he was sitting in a double-bedded room in a cheap boarding house in washington, with col. sellers. the two had been living together lately, and this mutual cavern of theirs the colonel sometimes referred to as their "premises" and sometimes as their "apartments"--more particularly when conversing with persons outside. a canvas-covered modern trunk, marked "g. w. h." stood on end by the door, strapped and ready for a journey; on it lay a small morocco satchel, also marked "g. w. h." there was another trunk close by--a worn, and scarred, and ancient hair relic, with "b. s." wrought in brass nails on its top; on it lay a pair of saddle-bags that probably knew more about the last century than they could tell. washington got up and walked the floor a while in a restless sort of way, and finally was about to sit down on the hair trunk. "stop, don't sit down on that!" exclaimed the colonel: "there, now that's all right--the chair's better. i couldn't get another trunk like that --not another like it in america, i reckon." "i am afraid not," said washington, with a faint attempt at a smile. "no indeed; the man is dead that made that trunk and that saddle-bags." "are his great-grand-children still living?" said washington, with levity only in the words, not in the tone. "well, i don't know--i hadn't thought of that--but anyway they can't make trunks and saddle-bags like that, if they are--no man can," said the colonel with honest simplicity. "wife didn't like to see me going off with that trunk--she said it was nearly certain to be stolen." "why?" "why? why, aren't trunks always being stolen?" "well, yes--some kinds of trunks are." "very well, then; this is some kind of a trunk--and an almighty rare kind, too." "yes, i believe it is." "well, then, why shouldn't a man want to steal it if he got a chance?" "indeed i don't know.--why should he?" "washington, i never heard anybody talk like you. suppose you were a thief, and that trunk was lying around and nobody watching--wouldn't you steal it? come, now, answer fair--wouldn't you steal it? "well, now, since you corner me, i would take it,--but i wouldn't consider it stealing. "you wouldn't! well, that beats me. now what would you call stealing?" "why, taking property is stealing." "property! now what a way to talk that is: what do you suppose that trunk is worth?" "is it in good repair?" "perfect. hair rubbed off a little, but the main structure is perfectly sound." "does it leak anywhere?" "leak? do you want to carry water in it? what do you mean by does it leak?" "why--a--do the clothes fall out of it when it is--when it is stationary?" "confound it, washington, you are trying to make fun of me. i don't know what has got into you to-day; you act mighty curious. what is the matter with you?" "well, i'll tell you, old friend. i am almost happy. i am, indeed. it wasn't clay's telegram that hurried me up so and got me ready to start with you. it was a letter from louise." "good! what is it? what does she say?" "she says come home--her father has consented, at last." "my boy, i want to congratulate you; i want to shake you by the hand! it's a long turn that has no lane at the end of it, as the proverb says, or somehow that way. you'll be happy yet, and beriah sellers will be there to see, thank god!" "i believe it. general boswell is pretty nearly a poor man, now. the railroad that was going to build up hawkeye made short work of him, along with the rest. he isn't so opposed to a son-in-law without a fortune, now." "without a fortune, indeed! why that tennessee land--" "never mind the tennessee land, colonel. i am done with that, forever and forever--" "why no! you can't mean to say--" "my father, away back yonder, years ago, bought it for a blessing for his children, and--" "indeed he did! si hawkins said to me--" "it proved a curse to him as long as he lived, and never a curse like it was inflicted upon any man's heirs--" "i'm bound to say there's more or less truth--" "it began to curse me when i was a baby, and it has cursed every hour of my life to this day--" "lord, lord, but it's so! time and again my wife--" "i depended on it all through my boyhood and never tried to do an honest stroke of work for my living--" "right again--but then you--" "i have chased it years and years as children chase butterflies. we might all have been prosperous, now; we might all have been happy, all these heart-breaking years, if we had accepted our poverty at first and gone contentedly to work and built up our own wealth by our own toil and sweat--" "it's so, it's so; bless my soul, how often i've told si hawkins--" "instead of that, we have suffered more than the damned themselves suffer! i loved my father, and i honor his memory and recognize his good intentions; but i grieve for his mistaken ideas of conferring happiness upon his children. i am going to begin my life over again, and begin it and end it with good solid work! i'll leave my children no tennessee land!" "spoken like a man, sir, spoken like a man! your hand, again my boy! and always remember that when a word of advice from beriah sellers can help, it is at your service. i'm going to begin again, too!" "indeed!" "yes, sir. i've seen enough to show me where my mistake was. the law is what i was born for. i shall begin the study of the law. heavens and earth, but that brabant's a wonderful man--a wonderful man sir! such a head! and such a way with him! but i could see that he was jealous of me. the little licks i got in in the course of my argument before the jury--" "your argument! why, you were a witness." "oh, yes, to the popular eye, to the popular eye--but i knew when i was dropping information and when i was letting drive at the court with an insidious argument. but the court knew it, bless you, and weakened every time! and brabant knew it. i just reminded him of it in a quiet way, and its final result, and he said in a whisper, 'you did it, colonel, you did it, sir--but keep it mum for my sake; and i'll tell you what you do,' says he, 'you go into the law, col. sellers--go into the law, sir; that's your native element!' and into the law the subscriber is going. there's worlds of money in it!--whole worlds of money! practice first in hawkeye, then in jefferson, then in st. louis, then in new york! in the metropolis of the western world! climb, and climb, and climb--and wind up on the supreme bench. beriah sellers, chief justice of the supreme court of the united states, sir! a made man for all time and eternity! that's the way i block it out, sir--and it's as clear as day--clear as the rosy-morn!" washington had heard little of this. the first reference to laura's trial had brought the old dejection to his face again, and he stood gazing out of the window at nothing, lost in reverie. there was a knock-the postman handed in a letter. it was from obedstown. east tennessee, and was for washington. he opened it. there was a note saying that enclosed he would please find a bill for the current year's taxes on the 75,000 acres of tennessee land belonging to the estate of silas hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as provided by law. the bill was for $180--something more than twice the market value of the land, perhaps. washington hesitated. doubts flitted through his mind. the old instinct came upon him to cling to the land just a little longer and give it one more chance. he walked the floor feverishly, his mind tortured by indecision. presently he stopped, took out his pocket book and counted his money. two hundred and thirty dollars--it was all he had in the world. "one hundred and eighty . . . . . . . from two hundred and thirty," he said to himself. "fifty left . . . . . . it is enough to get me home . . . .. . . shall i do it, or shall i not? . . . . . . . i wish i had somebody to decide for me." the pocket book lay open in his hand, with louise's small letter in view. his eye fell upon that, and it decided him. "it shall go for taxes," he said, "and never tempt me or mine any more!" he opened the window and stood there tearing the tax bill to bits and watching the breeze waft them away, till all were gone. "the spell is broken, the life-long curse is ended!" he said. "let us go." the baggage wagon had arrived; five minutes later the two friends were mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station, the colonel endeavoring to sing "homeward bound," a song whose words he knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a trial to auditors. chapter lxii philip sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. the prospect was gloomy. his long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now. that is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was considerably beyond where the coal vein should pass (according to all his calculations) if there were a coal vein there; and so, every foot that the tunnel now progressed seemed to carry it further away from the object of the search. sometimes he ventured to hope that he had made a mistake in estimating the direction which the vein should naturally take after crossing the valley and entering the hill. upon such occasions he would go into the nearest mine on the vein he was hunting for, and once more get the bearings of the deposit and mark out its probable course; but the result was the same every time; his tunnel had manifestly pierced beyond the natural point of junction; and then his, spirits fell a little lower. his men had already lost faith, and he often overheard them saying it was perfectly plain that there was no coal in the hill. foremen and laborers from neighboring mines, and no end of experienced loafers from the village, visited the tunnel from time to time, and their verdicts were always the same and always disheartening--"no coal in that hill." now and then philip would sit down and think it all over and wonder what the mystery meant; then he would go into the tunnel and ask the men if there were no signs yet? none--always "none." he would bring out a piece of rock and examine it, and say to himself, "it is limestone--it has crinoids and corals in it--the rock is right" then he would throw it down with a sigh, and say, "but that is nothing; where coal is, limestone with these fossils in it is pretty certain to lie against its foot casing; but it does not necessarily follow that where this peculiar rock is coal must lie above it or beyond it; this sign is not sufficient." the thought usually followed:--"there is one infallible sign--if i could only strike that!" three or four tines in as many weeks he said to himself, "am i a visionary? i must be a visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one up by slow toil. this is not right, i will discharge the men and go at some honest work. there is no coal here. what a fool i have been; i will give it up." but he never could do it. a half hour of profound thinking always followed; and at the end of it he was sure to get up and straighten himself and say: "there is coal there; i will not give it up; and coal or no coal i will drive the tunnel clear through the hill; i will not surrender while i am alive." he never thought of asking mr. montague for more money. he said there was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make the request and foolish in mr. montague to grant it. he had been working three shifts of men. finally, the settling of a weekly account exhausted his means. he could not afford to run in debt, and therefore he gave the men their discharge. they came into his cabin presently, where he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands--the picture of discouragement and their spokesman said: "mr. sterling, when tim was down a week with his fall you kept him on half-wages and it was a mighty help to his family; whenever any of us was in trouble you've done what you could to help us out; you've acted fair and square with us every time, and i reckon we are men and know a man when we see him. we haven't got any faith in that hill, but we have a respect for a man that's got the pluck that you've showed; you've fought a good fight, with everybody agin you and if we had grub to go on, i'm d---d if we wouldn't stand by you till the cows come home! that is what the boys say. now we want to put in one parting blast for luck. we want to work three days more; if we don't find anything, we won't bring in no bill against you. that is what we've come to say." philip was touched. if he had had money enough to buy three days' "grub" he would have accepted the generous offer, but as it was, he could not consent to be less magnanimous than the men, and so he declined in a manly speech; shook hands all around and resumed his solitary communings. the men went back to the tunnel and "put in a parting blast for luck" anyhow. they did a full day's work and then took their leave. they called at his cabin and gave him good-bye, but were not able to tell him their day's effort had given things a mere promising look. the next day philip sold all the tools but two or three sets; he also sold one of the now deserted cabins as old, lumber, together with its domestic wares; and made up his mind that he would buy, provisions with the trifle of money thus gained and continue his work alone. about the middle of the after noon he put on his roughest clothes and went to the tunnel. he lit a candle and groped his way in. presently he heard the sound of a pick or a drill, and wondered, what it meant. a spark of light now appeared in the far end of the tunnel, and when he arrived there he found the man tim at work. tim said: "i'm to have a job in the golden brier mine by and by--in a week or ten days--and i'm going to work here till then. a man might as well be at some thing, and besides i consider that i owe you what you paid me when i was laid up." philip said, oh, no, he didn't owe anything; but tim persisted, and then philip said he had a little provision now, and would share. so for several days philip held the drill and tim did the striking. at first philip was impatient to see the result of every blast, and was always back and peering among the smoke the moment after the explosion. but there was never any encouraging result; and therefore he finally lost almost all interest, and hardly troubled himself to inspect results at all. he simply labored on, stubbornly and with little hope. tim staid with him till the last moment, and then took up his job at the golden brier, apparently as depressed by the continued barrenness of their mutual labors as philip was himself. after that, philip fought his battle alone, day after day, and slow work it was; he could scarcely see that he made any progress. late one afternoon he finished drilling a hole which he had been at work at for more than two hours; he swabbed it out, and poured in the powder and inserted the fuse; then filled up the rest of the hole with dirt and small fragments of stone; tamped it down firmly, touched his candle to the fuse, and ran. by and by the i dull report came, and he was about to walk back mechanically and see what was accomplished; but he halted; presently turned on his heel and thought, rather than said: "no, this is useless, this is absurd. if i found anything it would only be one of those little aggravating seams of coal which doesn't mean anything, and--" by this time he was walking out of the tunnel. his thought ran on: "i am conquered . . . . . . i am out of provisions, out of money. . . . . i have got to give it up . . . . . . all this hard work lost! but i am not conquered! i will go and work for money, and come back and have another fight with fate. ah me, it may be years, it may, be years." arrived at the mouth of the tunnel, he threw his coat upon the ground, sat down on, a stone, and his eye sought the westering sun and dwelt upon the charming landscape which stretched its woody ridges, wave upon wave, to the golden horizon. something was taking place at his feet which did not attract his attention. his reverie continued, and its burden grew more and more gloomy. presently he rose up and, cast a look far away toward the valley, and his thoughts took a new direction: "there it is! how good it looks! but down there is not up here. well, i will go home and pack up--there is nothing else to do" he moved off moodily toward his cabin. he had gone some distance before he thought of his coat; then he was about to turn back, but he smiled at the thought, and continued his journey--such a coat as that could be of little use in a civilized land; a little further on, he remembered that there were some papers of value in one of the pockets of the relic, and then with a penitent ejaculation he turned back picked up the coat and put it on. he made a dozen steps, and then stopped very suddenly. he stood still a moment, as one who is trying to believe something and cannot. he put a hand up over his shoulder and felt his back, and a great thrill shot through him. he grasped the skirt of the coat impulsively and another thrill followed. he snatched the coat from his back, glanced at it, threw it from him and flew back to the tunnel. he sought the spot where the coat had lain--he had to look close, for the light was waning--then to make sure, he put his hand to the ground and a little stream of water swept against his fingers: "thank god, i've struck it at last!" he lit a candle and ran into the tunnel; he picked up a piece of rubbish cast out by the last blast, and said: "this clayey stuff is what i've longed for--i know what is behind it." he swung his pick with hearty good will till long after the darkness had gathered upon the earth, and when he trudged home at length he knew he had a coal vein and that it was seven feet thick from wall to wall. he found a yellow envelope lying on his rickety table, and recognized that it was of a family sacred to the transmission of telegrams. he opened it, read it, crushed it in his hand and threw it down. it simply said: "ruth is very ill." chapter lxiii. it was evening when philip took the cars at the ilium station. the news of, his success had preceded him, and while he waited for the train, he was the center of a group of eager questioners, who asked him a hundred things about the mine, and magnified his good fortune. there was no mistake this time. philip, in luck, had become suddenly a person of consideration, whose speech was freighted with meaning, whose looks were all significant. the words of the proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound, and his common sayings are repeated as if they were solid wisdom. philip wished to be alone; his good fortune at this moment seemed an empty mockery, one of those sarcasms of fate, such as that which spreads a dainty banquet for the man who has no appetite. he had longed for success principally for ruth's sake; and perhaps now, at this very moment of his triumph, she was dying. "shust what i said, mister sederling," the landlord of the ilium hotel kept repeating. "i dold jake schmidt he find him dere shust so sure as noting." "you ought to have taken a share, mr. dusenheimer," said philip. "yaas, i know. but d'old woman, she say 'you sticks to your pisiness. so i sticks to 'em. und i makes noting. dat mister prierly, he don't never come back here no more, ain't it?" "why?" asked philip. "vell, dere is so many peers, and so many oder dhrinks, i got 'em all set down, ven he coomes back." it was a long night for philip, and a restless one. at any other time the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. now they were voices of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to crawl at a snail's pace. and it not only crawled, but it frequently stopped; and when it stopped it stood dead still and there was an ominous silence. was anything the matter, he wondered. only a station probably. perhaps, he thought, a telegraphic station. and then he listened eagerly. would the conductor open the door and ask for philip sterling, and hand him a fatal dispatch? how long they seemed to wait. and then slowly beginning to move, they were off again, shaking, pounding, screaming through the night. he drew his curtain from time to time and looked out. there was the lurid sky line of the wooded range along the base of which they were crawling. there was the susquehannah, gleaming in the moon-light. there was a stretch of level valley with silent farm houses, the occupants all at rest, without trouble, without anxiety. there was a church, a graveyard, a mill, a village; and now, without pause or fear, the train had mounted a trestle-work high in air and was creeping along the top of it while a swift torrent foamed a hundred feet below. what would the morning bring? even while he was flying to her, her gentle spirit might have gone on another flight, whither he could not follow her. he was full of foreboding. he fell at length into a restless doze. there was a noise in his ears as of a rushing torrent when a stream is swollen by a freshet in the spring. it was like the breaking up of life; he was struggling in the consciousness of coming death: when ruth stood by his side, clothed in white, with a face like that of an angel, radiant, smiling, pointing to the sky, and saying, "come." he awoke with a cry--the train was roaring through a bridge, and it shot out into daylight. when morning came the train was industriously toiling along through the fat lands of lancaster, with its broad farms of corn and wheat, its mean houses of stone, its vast barns and granaries, built as if, for storing the riches of heliogabalus. then came the smiling fields of chester, with their english green, and soon the county of philadelphia itself, and the increasing signs of the approach to a great city. long trains of coal cars, laden and unladen, stood upon sidings; the tracks of other roads were crossed; the smoke of other locomotives was seen on parallel lines; factories multiplied; streets appeared; the noise of a busy city began to fill the air;--and with a slower and slower clank on the connecting rails and interlacing switches the train rolled into the station and stood still. it was a hot august morning. the broad streets glowed in the sun, and the white-shuttered houses stared at the hot thoroughfares like closed bakers' ovens set along the highway. philip was oppressed with the heavy air; the sweltering city lay as in a swoon. taking a street car, he rode away to the northern part of the city, the newer portion, formerly the district of spring garden, for in this the boltons now lived, in a small brick house, befitting their altered fortunes. he could scarcely restrain his impatience when he came in sight of the house. the window shutters were not "bowed"; thank god, for that. ruth was still living, then. he ran up the steps and rang. mrs. bolton met him at the door. "thee is very welcome, philip." "and ruth?" "she is very ill, but quieter than, she has been, and the fever is a little abating. the most dangerous time will be when the fever leaves her. the doctor fears she will not have strength enough to rally from it. yes, thee can see her." mrs. bolton led the way to the little chamber where ruth lay. "oh," said her mother, "if she were only in her cool and spacious room in our old home. she says that seems like heaven." mr. bolton sat by ruth's bedside, and he rose and silently pressed philip's hand. the room had but one window; that was wide open to admit the air, but the air that came in was hot and lifeless. upon the table stood a vase of flowers. ruth's eyes were closed; her cheeks were flushed with fever, and she moved her head restlessly as if in pain. "ruth," said her mother, bending over her, "philip is here." ruth's eyes unclosed, there was a gleam of recognition in them, there was an attempt at a smile upon her face, and she tried to raise her thin hand, as philip touched her forehead with his lips; and he heard her murmur, "dear phil." there was nothing to be done but to watch and wait for the cruel fever to burn itself out. dr. longstreet told philip that the fever had undoubtedly been contracted in the hospital, but it was not malignant, and would be little dangerous if ruth were not so worn down with work, or if she had a less delicate constitution. "it is only her indomitable will that has kept her up for weeks. and if that should leave her now, there will be no hope. you can do more for her now, sir, than i can?" "how?" asked philip eagerly. "your presence, more than anything else, will inspire her with the desire to live." when the fever turned, ruth was in a very critical condition. for two days her life was like the fluttering of a lighted candle in the wind. philip was constantly by her side, and she seemed to be conscious of his presence, and to cling to him, as one borne away by a swift stream clings to a stretched-out hand from the shore. if he was absent a moment her restless eyes sought something they were disappointed not to find. philip so yearned to bring her back to life, he willed it so strongly and passionately, that his will appeared to affect hers and she seemed slowly to draw life from his. after two days of this struggle with the grasping enemy, it was evident to dr. longstreet that ruth's will was beginning to issue its orders to her body with some force, and that strength was slowly coming back. in another day there was a decided improvement. as philip sat holding her weak hand and watching the least sign of resolution in her face, ruth was able to whisper, "i so want to live, for you, phil!" "you will; darling, you must," said philip in a tone of faith and courage that carried a thrill of determination--of command--along all her nerves. slowly philip drew her back to life. slowly she came back, as one willing but well nigh helpless. it was new for ruth to feel this dependence on another's nature, to consciously draw strength of will from the will of another. it was a new but a dear joy, to be lifted up and carried back into the happy world, which was now all aglow with the light of love; to be lifted and carried by the one she loved more than her own life. "sweetheart," she said to philip, "i would not have cared to come back but for thy love." "not for thy profession?" "oh, thee may be glad enough of that some day, when thy coal bed is dug out and thee and father are in the air again." when ruth was able to ride she was taken into the country, for the pure air was necessary to her speedy recovery. the family went with her. philip could not be spared from her side, and mr. bolton had gone up to ilium to look into that wonderful coal mine and to make arrangements for developing it, and bringing its wealth to market. philip had insisted on re-conveying the ilium property to mr. bolton, retaining only the share originally contemplated for himself, and mr. bolton, therefore, once more found himself engaged in business and a person of some consequence in third street. the mine turned out even better than was at first hoped, and would, if judiciously managed, be a fortune to them all. this also seemed to be the opinion of mr. bigler, who heard of it as soon as anybody, and, with the impudence of his class called upon mr. bolton for a little aid in a patent car-wheel he had bought an interest in. that rascal, small, he said, had swindled him out of all he had. mr. bolton told him he was very sorry, and recommended him to sue small. mr. small also came with a similar story about mr. bigler; and mr. bolton had the grace to give him like advice. and he added, "if you and bigler will procure the indictment of each other, you may have the satisfaction of putting each other in the penitentiary for the forgery of my acceptances." bigler and small did not quarrel however. they both attacked mr. bolton behind his back as a swindler, and circulated the story that he had made a fortune by failing. in the pure air of the highlands, amid the golden glories of ripening september, ruth rapidly came back to health. how beautiful the world is to an invalid, whose senses are all clarified, who has been so near the world of spirits that she is sensitive to the finest influences, and whose frame responds with a thrill to the subtlest ministrations of soothing nature. mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass, of the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the sweetest music to the ear famishing for it. the world was all new and fresh to ruth, as if it had just been created for her, and love filled it, till her heart was overflowing with happiness. it was golden september also at fallkill. and alice sat by the open window in her room at home, looking out upon the meadows where the laborers were cutting the second crop of clover. the fragrance of it floated to her nostrils. perhaps she did not mind it. she was thinking. she had just been writing to ruth, and on the table before her was a yellow piece of paper with a faded four-leaved clover pinned on it--only a memory now. in her letter to ruth she had poured out her heartiest blessings upon them both, with her dear love forever and forever. "thank god," she said, "they will never know" they never would know. and the world never knows how many women there are like alice, whose sweet but lonely lives of self-sacrifice, gentle, faithful, loving souls, bless it continually. "she is a dear girl," said philip, when ruth showed him the letter. "yes, phil, and we can spare a great deal of love for her, our own lives are so full." appendix. perhaps some apology to the reader is necessary in view of our failure to find laura's father. we supposed, from the ease with which lost persons are found in novels, that it would not be difficult. but it was; indeed, it was impossible; and therefore the portions of the narrative containing the record of the search have been stricken out. not because they were not interesting--for they were; but inasmuch as the man was not found, after all, it did not seem wise to harass and excite the reader to no purpose. the authors the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 5. chapter xxxvii. that chairman was nowhere in sight. such disappointments seldom occur in novels, but are always happening in real life. she was obliged to make a new plan. she sent him a note, and asked him to call in the evening--which he did. she received the hon. mr. buckstone with a sunny smile, and said: "i don't know how i ever dared to send you a note, mr. buckstone, for you have the reputation of not being very partial to our sex." "why i am sure my, reputation does me wrong, then, miss hawkins. i have been married once--is that nothing in my favor?" "oh, yes--that is, it may be and it may not be. if you have known what perfection is in woman, it is fair to argue that inferiority cannot interest you now." "even if that were the case it could not affect you, miss hawkins," said the chairman gallantly. "fame does not place you in the list of ladies who rank below perfection." this happy speech delighted mr. buckstone as much as it seemed to delight laura. but it did not confuse him as much as it apparently did her. "i wish in all sincerity that i could be worthy of such a felicitous compliment as that. but i am a woman, and so i am gratified for it just as it is, and would not have it altered." "but it is not merely a compliment--that is, an empty complement--it is the truth. all men will endorse that." laura looked pleased, and said: "it is very kind of you to say it. it is a distinction indeed, for a country-bred girl like me to be so spoken of by people of brains and culture. you are so kind that i know you will pardon my putting you to the trouble to come this evening." "indeed it was no trouble. it was a pleasure. i am alone in the world since i lost my wife, and i often long for the society of your sex, miss hawkins, notwithstanding what people may say to the contrary." "it is pleasant to hear you say that. i am sure it must be so. if i feel lonely at times, because of my exile from old friends, although surrounded by new ones who are already very dear to me, how much more lonely must you feel, bereft as you are, and with no wholesome relief from the cares of state that weigh you down. for your own sake, as well as for the sake of others, you ought to go into society oftener. i seldom see you at a reception, and when i do you do not usually give me very, much of your attention" "i never imagined that you wished it or i would have been very glad to make myself happy in that way.--but one seldom gets an opportunity to say more than a sentence to you in a place like that. you are always the centre of a group--a fact which you may have noticed yourself. but if one might come here--" "indeed you would always find a hearty welcome, mr. buckstone. i have often wished you would come and tell me more about cairo and the pyramids, as you once promised me you would." "why, do you remember that yet, miss hawkins? i thought ladies' memories were more fickle than that." "oh, they are not so fickle as gentlemen's promises. and besides, if i had been inclined to forget, i--did you not give me something by way of a remembrancer?" "did i?" "think." "it does seem to me that i did; but i have forgotten what it was now." "never, never call a lady's memory fickle again! do you recognize this?" "a little spray of box! i am beaten--i surrender. but have you kept that all this time?" laura's confusion was very, pretty. she tried to hide it, but the more she tried the more manifest it became and withal the more captivating to look upon. presently she threw the spray of box from her with an annoyed air, and said: "i forgot myself. i have been very foolish. i beg that you will forget this absurd thing." mr. buckstone picked up the spray, and sitting down by laura's side on the sofa, said: "please let me keep it, miss hawkins. i set a very high value upon it now." "give it to me, mr. buckstone, and do not speak so. i have been sufficiently punished for my thoughtlessness. you cannot take pleasure in adding to my distress. please give it to me." "indeed i do not wish to distress you. but do not consider the matter so gravely; you have done yourself no wrong. you probably forgot that you had it; but if you had given it to me i would have kept it--and not forgotten it." "do not talk so, mr. buckstone. give it to me, please, and forget the matter." "it would not be kind to refuse, since it troubles you so, and so i restore it. but if you would give me part of it and keep the rest--" "so that you might have something to remind you of me when you wished to laugh at my foolishness?" "oh, by no means, no! simply that i might remember that i had once assisted to discomfort you, and be reminded to do so no more." laura looked up, and scanned his face a moment. she was about to break the twig, but she hesitated and said: "if i were sure that you--" she threw the spray away, and continued: "this is silly! we will change the subject. no, do not insist--i must have my way in this." then mr. buckstone drew off his forces and proceeded to make a wily advance upon the fortress under cover of carefully--contrived artifices and stratagems of war. but he contended with an alert and suspicious enemy; and so at the end of two hours it was manifest to him that he had made but little progress. still, he had made some; he was sure of that. laura sat alone and communed with herself; "he is fairly hooked, poor thing. i can play him at my leisure and land him when i choose. he was all ready to be caught, days and days ago --i saw that, very well. he will vote for our bill--no fear about that; and moreover he will work for it, too, before i am done with him. if he had a woman's eyes he would have noticed that the spray of box had grown three inches since he first gave it to me, but a man never sees anything and never suspects. if i had shown him a whole bush he would have thought it was the same. well, it is a good night's work: the committee is safe. but this is a desperate game i am playing in these days --a wearing, sordid, heartless game. if i lose, i lose everything--even myself. and if i win the game, will it be worth its cost after all? i do not know. sometimes i doubt. sometimes i half wish i had not begun. but no matter; i have begun, and i will never turn back; never while i live." mr. buckstone indulged in a reverie as he walked homeward: "she is shrewd and deep, and plays her cards with considerable discretion--but she will lose, for all that. there is no hurry; i shall come out winner, all in good time. she is the most beautiful woman in the world; and she surpassed herself to-night. i suppose i must vote for that bill, in the end maybe; but that is not a matter of much consequence the government can stand it. she is bent on capturing me, that is plain; but she will find by and by that what she took for a sleeping garrison was an ambuscade." chapter xxxviii. now this surprising news caus'd her fall in 'a trance, life as she were dead, no limbs she could advance, then her dear brother came, her from the ground he took and she spake up and said, o my poor heart is broke. the barnardcastle tragedy. "don't you think he is distinguished looking?" "what! that gawky looking person, with miss hawkins?" "there. he's just speaking to mrs. schoonmaker. such high-bred negligence and unconsciousness. nothing studied. see his fine eyes." "very. they are moving this way now. maybe he is coming here. but he looks as helpless as a rag baby. who is he, blanche?" "who is he? and you've been here a week, grace, and don't know? he's the catch of the season. that's washington hawkins--her brother." "no, is it?" "very old family, old kentucky family i believe. he's got enormous landed property in tennessee, i think. the family lost everything, slaves and that sort of thing, you know, in the war. but they have a great deal of land, minerals, mines and all that. mr. hawkins and his sister too are very much interested in the amelioration of the condition of the colored race; they have some plan, with senator dilworthy, to convert a large part of their property to something another for the freedmen." "you don't say so? i thought he was some guy from pennsylvania. but he is different from others. probably he has lived all his life on his plantation." it was a day reception of mrs. representative schoonmaker, a sweet woman, of simple and sincere manners. her house was one of the most popular in washington. there was less ostentation there than in some others, and people liked to go where the atmosphere reminded them of the peace and purity of home. mrs. schoonmaker was as natural and unaffected in washington society as she was in her own new york house, and kept up the spirit of home-life there, with her husband and children. and that was the reason, probably, why people of refinement liked to go there. washington is a microcosm, and one can suit himself with any sort of society within a radius of a mile. to a large portion of the people who frequent washington or dwell where, the ultra fashion, the shoddy, the jobbery are as utterly distasteful as they would he in a refined new england city. schoonmaker was not exactly a leader in the house, but he was greatly respected for his fine talents and his honesty. no one would have thought of offering to carry national improvement directors relief stock for him. these day receptions were attended by more women than men, and those interested in the problem might have studied the costumes of the ladies present, in view of this fact, to discover whether women dress more for the eyes of women or for effect upon men. it is a very important problem, and has been a good deal discussed, and its solution would form one fixed, philosophical basis, upon which to estimate woman's character. we are inclined to take a medium ground, and aver that woman dresses to please herself, and in obedience to a law of her own nature. "they are coming this way," said blanche. people who made way for them to pass, turned to look at them. washington began to feel that the eyes of the public were on him also, and his eyes rolled about, now towards the ceiling, now towards the floor, in an effort to look unconscious. "good morning, miss hawkins. delighted. mr. hawkins. my friend, miss medlar." mr. hawkins, who was endeavoring to square himself for a bow, put his foot through the train of mrs. senator poplin, who looked round with a scowl, which turned into a smile as she saw who it was. in extricating himself, mr. hawkins, who had the care of his hat as well as the introduction on his mind, shambled against miss blanche, who said pardon, with the prettiest accent, as if the awkwardness were her own. and mr. hawkins righted himself. "don't you find it very warm to-day, mr. hawkins?" said blanche, by way of a remark. "it's awful hot," said washington. "it's warm for the season," continued blanche pleasantly. "but i suppose you are accustomed to it," she added, with a general idea that the thermometer always stands at 90 deg. in all parts of the late slave states. "washington weather generally cannot be very congenial to you?" "it's congenial," said washington brightening up, "when it's not congealed." "that's very good. did you hear, grace, mr. hawkins says it's congenial when it's not congealed." "what is, dear?" said grace, who was talking with laura. the conversation was now finely under way. washington launched out an observation of his own. "did you see those japs, miss leavitt?" "oh, yes, aren't they queer. but so high-bred, so picturesque. do you think that color makes any difference, mr. hawkins? i used to be so prejudiced against color." "did you? i never was. i used to think my old mammy was handsome." "how interesting your life must have been! i should like to hear about it." washington was about settling himself into his narrative style, when mrs. gen. mcfingal caught his eye. "have you been at the capitol to-day, mr. hawkins?" washington had not. "is anything uncommon going on?" "they say it was very exciting. the alabama business you know. gen. sutler, of massachusetts, defied england, and they say he wants war." "he wants to make himself conspicuous more like," said laura. "he always, you have noticed, talks with one eye on the gallery, while the other is on the speaker." "well, my husband says, its nonsense to talk of war, and wicked. he knows what war is. if we do have war, i hope it will be for the patriots of cuba. don't you think we want cuba, mr. hawkins?" "i think we want it bad," said washington. "and santo domingo. senator dilworthy says, we are bound to extend our religion over the isles of the sea. we've got to round out our territory, and--" washington's further observations were broken off by laura, who whisked him off to another part of the room, and reminded him that they must make their adieux. "how stupid and tiresome these people are," she said. "let's go." they were turning to say good-by to the hostess, when laura's attention was arrested by the sight of a gentleman who was just speaking to mrs. schoonmaker. for a second her heart stopped beating. he was a handsome man of forty and perhaps more, with grayish hair and whiskers, and he walked with a cane, as if he were slightly lame. he might be less than forty, for his face was worn into hard lines, and he was pale. no. it could not be, she said to herself. it is only a resemblance. but as the gentleman turned and she saw his full face, laura put out her hand and clutched washington's arm to prevent herself from falling. washington, who was not minding anything, as usual, looked 'round in wonder. laura's eyes were blazing fire and hatred; he had never seen her look so before; and her face, was livid. "why, what is it, sis? your face is as white as paper." "it's he, it's he. come, come," and she dragged him away. "it's who?" asked washington, when they had gained the carriage. "it's nobody, it's nothing. did i say he? i was faint with the heat. don't mention it. don't you speak of it," she added earnestly, grasping his arm. when she had gained her room she went to the glass and saw a pallid and haggard face. "my god," she cried, "this will never do. i should have killed him, if i could. the scoundrel still lives, and dares to come here. i ought to kill him. he has no right to live. how i hate him. and yet i loved him. oh heavens, how i did love that man. and why didn't he kill me? he might better. he did kill all that was good in me. oh, but he shall not escape. he shall not escape this time. he may have forgotten. he will find that a woman's hate doesn't forget. the law? what would the law do but protect him and make me an outcast? how all washington would gather up its virtuous skirts and avoid me, if it knew. i wonder if he hates me as i do him?" so laura raved, in tears and in rage by turns, tossed in a tumult of passion, which she gave way to with little effort to control. a servant came to summon her to dinner. she had a headache. the hour came for the president's reception. she had a raving headache, and the senator must go without her. that night of agony was like another night she recalled. how vividly it all came back to her. and at that time she remembered she thought she might be mistaken. he might come back to her. perhaps he loved her, a little, after all. now, she knew he did not. now, she knew he was a cold-blooded scoundrel, without pity. never a word in all these years. she had hoped he was dead. did his wife live, she wondered. she caught at that--and it gave a new current to her thoughts. perhaps, after all --she must see him. she could not live without seeing him. would he smile as in the old days when she loved him so; or would he sneer as when she last saw him? if be looked so, she hated him. if he should call her "laura, darling," and look so! she must find him. she must end her doubts. laura kept her room for two days, on one excuse and another--a nervous headache, a cold--to the great anxiety of the senator's household. callers, who went away, said she had been too gay--they did not say "fast," though some of them may have thought it. one so conspicuous and successful in society as laura could not be out of the way two days, without remarks being made, and not all of them complimentary. when she came down she appeared as usual, a little pale may be, but unchanged in manner. if there were any deepened lines about the eyes they had been concealed. her course of action was quite determined. at breakfast she asked if any one had heard any unusual noise during the night? nobody had. washington never heard any noise of any kind after his eyes were shut. some people thought he never did when they were open either. senator dilworthy said he had come in late. he was detained in a little consultation after the congressional prayer meeting. perhaps it was his entrance. no, laura said. she heard that. it was later. she might have been nervous, but she fancied somebody was trying to get into the house. mr. brierly humorously suggested that it might be, as none of the members were occupied in night session. the senator frowned, and said he did not like to hear that kind of newspaper slang. there might be burglars about. laura said that very likely it was only her nervousness. but she thought she world feel safer if washington would let her take one of his pistols. washington brought her one of his revolvers, and instructed her in the art of loading and firing it. during the morning laura drove down to mrs. schoonmaker's to pay a friendly call. "your receptions are always delightful," she said to that lady, "the pleasant people all seem to come here." "it's pleasant to hear you say so, miss hawkins. i believe my friends like to come here. though society in washington is mixed; we have a little of everything." "i suppose, though, you don't see much of the old rebel element?" said laura with a smile. if this seemed to mrs. schoonmaker a singular remark for a lady to make, who was meeting "rebels" in society every day, she did not express it in any way, but only said, "you know we don't say 'rebel' anymore. before we came to washington i thought rebels would look unlike other people. i find we are very much alike, and that kindness and good nature wear away prejudice. and then you know there are all sorts of common interests. my husband sometimes says that he doesn't see but confederates are just as eager to get at the treasury as unionists. you know that mr. schoonmaker is on the appropriations." "does he know many southerners?" "oh, yes. there were several at my reception the other day. among others a confederate colonel--a stranger--handsome man with gray hair, probably you didn't notice him, uses a cane in walking. a very agreeable man. i wondered why he called. when my husband came home and looked over the cards, he said he had a cotton claim. a real southerner. perhaps you might know him if i could think of his name. yes, here's his card--louisiana." laura took the card, looked at it intently till she was sure of the address, and then laid it down, with, "no, he is no friend of ours." that afternoon, laura wrote and dispatched the following note. it was in a round hand, unlike her flowing style, and it was directed to a number and street in georgetown:- "a lady at senator dilworthy's would like to see col. george selby, on business connected with the cotton claims. can he call wednesday at three o'clock p. m.?" on wednesday at 3 p. m, no one of the family was likely to be in the house except laura. chapter xxxix. col. selby had just come to washington, and taken lodgings in georgetown. his business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war. there were many others in washington on the same errand, some of them with claims as difficult to establish as his. a concert of action was necessary, and he was not, therefore, at all surprised to receive the note from a lady asking him to call at senator dilworthy's. at a little after three on wednesday he rang the bell of the senator's residence. it was a handsome mansion on the square opposite the president's house. the owner must be a man of great wealth, the colonel thought; perhaps, who knows, said he with a smile, he may have got some of my cotton in exchange for salt and quinine after the capture of new orleans. as this thought passed through his mind he was looking at the remarkable figure of the hero of new orleans, holding itself by main strength from sliding off the back of the rearing bronze horse, and lifting its hat in the manner of one who acknowledges the playing of that martial air: "see, the conquering hero comes!" "gad," said the colonel to himself, "old hickory ought to get down and give his seat to gen. sutler--but they'd have to tie him on." laura was in the drawing room. she heard the bell, she heard the steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane. she had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart. the door opened and the colonel entered, standing in the full light of the opposite window. laura was more in the shadow and stood for an instant, long enough for the colonel to make the inward observation that she was a magnificent woman. she then advanced a step. "col. selby, is it not?" the colonel staggered back, caught himself by a chair, and turned towards her a look of terror. "laura? my god!" "yes, your wife!" "oh, no, it can't be. how came you here? i thought you were--" "you thought i was dead? you thought you were rid of me? not so long as you live, col. selby, not so long as you live;" laura in her passion was hurried on to say. no man had ever accused col. selby of cowardice. but he was a coward before this woman. may be he was not the man he once was. where was his coolness? where was his sneering, imperturbable manner, with which he could have met, and would have met, any woman he had wronged, if he had only been forewarned. he felt now that he must temporize, that he must gain time. there was danger in laura's tone. there was something frightful in her calmness. her steady eyes seemed to devour him. "you have ruined my life," she said; "and i was so young, so ignorant, and loved you so. you betrayed me, and left me mocking me and trampling me into the dust, a soiled cast-off. you might better have killed me then. then i should not have hated you." "laura," said the colonel, nerving himself, but still pale, and speaking appealingly, "don't say that. reproach me. i deserve it. i was a scoundrel. i was everything monstrous. but your beauty made me crazy. you are right. i was a brute in leaving you as i did. but what could i do? i was married, and--" "and your wife still lives?" asked laura, bending a little forward in her eagerness. the colonel noticed the action, and he almost said "no," but he thought of the folly of attempting concealment. "yes. she is here." what little color had wandered back into laura's face forsook it again. her heart stood still, her strength seemed going from her limbs. her last hope was gone. the room swam before her for a moment, and the colonel stepped towards her, but she waved him back, as hot anger again coursed through her veins, and said, "and you dare come with her, here, and tell me of it, here and mock me with it! and you think i will have it; george? you think i will let you live with that woman? you think i am as powerless as that day i fell dead at your feet?" she raged now. she was in a tempest of excitement. and she advanced towards him with a threatening mien. she would kill me if she could, thought the colonel; but he thought at the same moment, how beautiful she is. he had recovered his head now. she was lovely when he knew her, then a simple country girl, now she was dazzling, in the fullness of ripe womanhood, a superb creature, with all the fascination that a woman of the world has for such a man as col. selby. nothing of this was lost on him. he stepped quickly to her, grasped both her hands in his, and said, "laura, stop! think! suppose i loved you yet! suppose i hated my fate! what can i do? i am broken by the war. i have lost everything almost. i had as lief be dead and done with it." the colonel spoke with a low remembered voice that thrilled through laura. he was looking into her eyes as he had looked in those old days, when no birds of all those that sang in the groves where they walked sang a note of warning. he was wounded. he had been punished. her strength forsook her with her rage, and she sank upon a chair, sobbing, "oh! my god, i thought i hated him!" the colonel knelt beside her. he took her hand and she let him keep it. she, looked down into his face, with a pitiable tenderness, and said in a weak voice. "and you do love me a little?" the colonel vowed and protested. he kissed her hand and her lips. he swore his false soul into perdition. she wanted love, this woman. was not her love for george selby deeper than any other woman's could be? had she not a right to him? did he not belong to her by virtue of her overmastering passion? his wife--she was not his wife, except by the law. she could not be. even with the law she could have no right to stand between two souls that were one. it was an infamous condition in society that george should be tied to her. laura thought this, believed it; because she desired to believe it. she came to it as an original propositions founded an the requirements of her own nature. she may have heard, doubtless she had, similar theories that were prevalent at that day, theories of the tyranny of marriage and of the freedom of marriage. she had even heard women lecturers say, that marriage should only continue so long as it pleased either party to it --for a year, or a month, or a day. she had not given much heed to this, but she saw its justice now in a dash of revealing desire. it must be right. god would not have permitted her to love george selby as she did, and him to love her, if it was right for society to raise up a barrier between them. he belonged to her. had he not confessed it himself? not even the religious atmosphere of senator dilworthy's house had been sufficient to instill into laura that deep christian principle which had been somehow omitted in her training. indeed in that very house had she not heard women, prominent before the country and besieging congress, utter sentiments that fully justified the course she was marking out for herself. they were seated now, side by side, talking with more calmness. laura was happy, or thought she was. but it was that feverish sort of happiness which is snatched out of the black shadow of falsehood, and is at the moment recognized as fleeting and perilous, and indulged tremblingly. she loved. she was loved. that is happiness certainly. and the black past and the troubled present and the uncertain future could not snatch that from her. what did they say as they sat there? what nothings do people usually say in such circumstances, even if they are three-score and ten? it was enough for laura to hear his voice and be near him. it was enough for him to be near her, and avoid committing himself as much as he could. enough for him was the present also. had there not always been some way out of such scrapes? and yet laura could not be quite content without prying into tomorrow. how could the colonel manage to free himself from his wife? would it be long? could he not go into some state where it would not take much time? he could not say exactly. that they must think of. that they must talk over. and so on. did this seem like a damnable plot to laura against the life, maybe, of a sister, a woman like herself? probably not. it was right that this man should be hers, and there were some obstacles in the way. that was all. there are as good reasons for bad actions as for good ones,--to those who commit them. when one has broken the tenth commandment, the others are not of much account. was it unnatural, therefore, that when george selby departed, laura should watch him from the window, with an almost joyful heart as he went down the sunny square? "i shall see him to-morrow," she said, "and the next day, and the next. he is mine now." "damn the woman," said the colonel as he picked his way down the steps. "or," he added, as his thoughts took a new turn, "i wish my wife was in new orleans." chapter xl. open your ears; for which of you will stop, the vent of hearing when loud rumor speaks? i, from the orient to the drooping west, making the wind my post-horse, still unfold the acts commenced on this ball of earth: upon my tongues continual slanders ride; the which in every, language i pronounce, stuffing the ears of men with false reports. king henry iv. as may be readily believed, col. beriah sellers was by this time one of the best known men in washington. for the first time in his life his talents had a fair field. he was now at the centre of the manufacture of gigantic schemes, of speculations of all sorts, of political and social gossip. the atmosphere was full of little and big rumors and of vast, undefined expectations. everybody was in haste, too, to push on his private plan, and feverish in his haste, as if in constant apprehension that tomorrow would be judgment day. work while congress is in session, said the uneasy spirit, for in the recess there is no work and no device. the colonel enjoyed this bustle and confusion amazingly; he thrived in the air of-indefinite expectation. all his own schemes took larger shape and more misty and majestic proportions; and in this congenial air, the colonel seemed even to himself to expand into something large and mysterious. if he respected himself before, he almost worshipped beriah sellers now, as a superior being. if he could have chosen an official position out of the highest, he would have been embarrassed in the selection. the presidency of the republic seemed too limited and cramped in the constitutional restrictions. if he could have been grand llama of the united states, that might have come the nearest to his idea of a position. and next to that he would have luxuriated in the irresponsible omniscience of the special correspondent. col. sellers knew the president very well, and had access to his presence when officials were kept cooling their heels in the waiting-room. the president liked to hear the colonel talk, his voluble ease was a refreshment after the decorous dullness of men who only talked business and government, and everlastingly expounded their notions of justice and the distribution of patronage. the colonel was as much a lover of farming and of horses as thomas jefferson was. he talked to the president by the hour about his magnificent stud, and his plantation at hawkeye, a kind of principality--he represented it. he urged the president to pay him a visit during the recess, and see his stock farm. "the president's table is well enough," he used to say, to the loafers who gathered about him at willard's, "well enough for a man on a salary, but god bless my soul, i should like him to see a little old-fashioned hospitality--open house, you know. a person seeing me at home might think i paid no attention to what was in the house, just let things flow in and out. he'd be mistaken. what i look to is quality, sir. the president has variety enough, but the quality! vegetables of course you can't expect here. i'm very particular about mine. take celery, now --there's only one spot in this country where celery will grow. but i an surprised about the wines. i should think they were manufactured in the new york custom house. i must send the president some from my cellar. i was really mortified the other day at dinner to see blacque bey leave his standing in the glasses." when the colonel first came to washington he had thoughts of taking the mission to constantinople, in order to be on the spot to look after the dissemination, of his eye water, but as that invention; was not yet quite ready, the project shrank a little in the presence of vaster schemes. besides he felt that he could do the country more good by remaining at home. he was one of the southerners who were constantly quoted as heartily "accepting the situation." "i'm whipped," he used to say with a jolly laugh, "the government was too many for me; i'm cleaned out, done for, except my plantation and private mansion. we played for a big thing, and lost it, and i don't whine, for one. i go for putting the old flag on all the vacant lots. i said to the president, says i, 'grant, why don't you take santo domingo, annex the whole thing, and settle the bill afterwards. that's my way. i'd, take the job to manage congress. the south would come into it. you've got to conciliate the south, consolidate the two debts, pay 'em off in greenbacks, and go ahead. that's my notion. boutwell's got the right notion about the value of paper, but he lacks courage. i should like to run the treasury department about six months. i'd make things plenty, and business look up.'" the colonel had access to the departments. he knew all the senators and representatives, and especially, the lobby. he was consequently a great favorite in newspaper row, and was often lounging in the offices there, dropping bits of private, official information, which were immediately, caught up and telegraphed all over the country. but it need to surprise even the colonel when he read it, it was embellished to that degree that he hardly recognized it, and the hint was not lost on him. he began to exaggerate his heretofore simple conversation to suit the newspaper demand. people used to wonder in the winters of 187and 187-, where the "specials" got that remarkable information with which they every morning surprised the country, revealing the most secret intentions of the president and his cabinet, the private thoughts of political leaders, the hidden meaning of every movement. this information was furnished by col. sellers. when he was asked, afterwards, about the stolen copy of the alabama treaty which got into the "new york tribune," he only looked mysterious, and said that neither he nor senator dilworthy knew anything about it. but those whom he was in the habit of meeting occasionally felt almost certain that he did know. it must not be supposed that the colonel in his general patriotic labors neglected his own affairs. the columbus river navigation scheme absorbed only a part of his time, so he was enabled to throw quite a strong reserve force of energy into the tennessee land plan, a vast enterprise commensurate with his abilities, and in the prosecution of which he was greatly aided by mr. henry brierly, who was buzzing about the capitol and the hotels day and night, and making capital for it in some mysterious way. "we must create, a public opinion," said senator dilworthy. "my only interest in it is a public one, and if the country wants the institution, congress will have to yield." it may have been after a conversation between the colonel and senator dilworthy that the following special despatch was sent to a new york newspaper: "we understand that a philanthropic plan is on foot in relation to the colored race that will, if successful, revolutionize the whole character of southern industry. an experimental institution is in contemplation in tennessee which will do for that state what the industrial school at zurich did for switzerland. we learn that approaches have been made to the heirs of the late hon. silas hawkins of missouri, in reference to a lease of a portion of their valuable property in east tennessee. senator dilworthy, it is understood, is inflexibly opposed to any arrangement that will not give the government absolute control. private interests must give way to the public good. it is to be hoped that col. sellers, who represents the heirs, will be led to see the matter in this light." when washington hawkins read this despatch, he went to the colonel in some anxiety. he was for a lease, he didn't want to surrender anything. what did he think the government would offer? two millions? "may be three, may be four," said the colonel, "it's worth more than the bank of england." "if they will not lease," said washington, "let 'em make it two millions for an undivided half. i'm not going to throw it away, not the whole of it." harry told the colonel that they must drive the thing through, he couldn't be dallying round washington when spring opened. phil wanted him, phil had a great thing on hand up in pennsylvania. "what is that?" inquired the colonel, always ready to interest himself in anything large. "a mountain of coal; that's all. he's going to run a tunnel into it in the spring." "does he want any capital?", asked the colonel, in the tone of a man who is given to calculating carefully before he makes an investment. "no. old man bolton's behind him. he has capital, but i judged that he wanted my experience in starting." "if he wants me, tell him i'll come, after congress adjourns. i should like to give him a little lift. he lacks enterprise--now, about that columbus river. he doesn't see his chances. but he's a good fellow, and you can tell him that sellers won't go back on him." "by the way," asked harry, "who is that rather handsome party that's hanging 'round laura? i see him with her everywhere, at the capitol, in the horse cars, and he comes to dilworthy's. if he weren't lame, i should think he was going to run off with her." "oh, that's nothing. laura knows her business. he has a cotton claim. used to be at hawkeye during the war. "selby's his name, was a colonel. got a wife and family. very respectable people, the selby's." "well, that's all right," said harry, "if it's business. but if a woman looked at me as i've seen her at selby, i should understand it. and it's talked about, i can tell you." jealousy had no doubt sharpened this young gentleman's observation. laura could not have treated him with more lofty condescension if she had been the queen of sheba, on a royal visit to the great republic. and he resented it, and was "huffy" when he was with her, and ran her errands, and brought her gossip, and bragged of his intimacy with the lovely creature among the fellows at newspaper row. laura's life was rushing on now in the full stream of intrigue and fashionable dissipation. she was conspicuous at the balls of the fastest set, and was suspected of being present at those doubtful suppers that began late and ended early. if senator dilworthy remonstrated about appearances, she had a way of silencing him. perhaps she had some hold on him, perhaps she was necessary to his plan for ameliorating the condition the tube colored race. she saw col. selby, when the public knew and when it did not know. she would see him, whatever excuses he made, and however he avoided her. she was urged on by a fever of love and hatred and jealousy, which alternately possessed her. sometimes she petted him, and coaxed him and tried all her fascinations. and again she threatened him and reproached him. what was he doing? why had he taken no steps to free himself? why didn't he send his wife home? she should have money soon. they could go to europe--anywhere. what did she care for talk? and he promised, and lied, and invented fresh excuses for delay, like a cowardly gambler and roue as he was, fearing to break with her, and half the time unwilling to give her up. "that woman doesn't know what fear is," he said to himself, "and she watches me like a hawk." he told his wife that this woman was a lobbyist, whom he had to tolerate and use in getting through his claims, and that he should pay her and have done with her, when he succeeded. chapter xli. henry brierly was at the dilworthy's constantly and on such terms of intimacy that he came and went without question. the senator was not an inhospitable man, he liked to have guests in his house, and harry's gay humor and rattling way entertained him; for even the most devout men and busy statesmen must have hours of relaxation. harry himself believed that he was of great service in the university business, and that the success of the scheme depended upon him to a great degree. he spent many hours in talking it over with the senator after dinner. he went so far as to consider whether it would be worth his while to take the professorship of civil engineering in the new institution. but it was not the senator's society nor his dinners--at which this scapegrace remarked that there was too much grace and too little wine --which attracted him to the house. the fact was the poor fellow hung around there day after day for the chance of seeing laura for five minutes at a time. for her presence at dinner he would endure the long bore of the senator's talk afterwards, while laura was off at some assembly, or excused herself on the plea of fatigue. now and then he accompanied her to some reception, and rarely, on off nights, he was blessed with her company in the parlor, when he sang, and was chatty and vivacious and performed a hundred little tricks of imitation and ventriloquism, and made himself as entertaining as a man could be. it puzzled him not a little that all his fascinations seemed to go for so little with laura; it was beyond his experience with women. sometimes laura was exceedingly kind and petted him a little, and took the trouble to exert her powers of pleasing, and to entangle him deeper and deeper. but this, it angered him afterwards to think, was in private; in public she was beyond his reach, and never gave occasion to the suspicion that she had any affair with him. he was never permitted to achieve the dignity of a serious flirtation with her in public. "why do you treat me so?" he once said, reproachfully. "treat you how?" asked laura in a sweet voice, lifting her eyebrows. "you know well enough. you let other fellows monopolize you in society, and you are as indifferent to me as if we were strangers." "can i help it if they are attentive, can i be rude? but we are such old friends, mr. brierly, that i didn't suppose you would be jealous." "i think i must be a very old friend, then, by your conduct towards me. by the same rule i should judge that col. selby must be very new." laura looked up quickly, as if about to return an indignant answer to such impertinence, but she only said, "well, what of col. selby, sauce-box?" "nothing, probably, you'll care for. your being with him so much is the town talk, that's all?" "what do people say?" asked laura calmly. "oh, they say a good many things. you are offended, though, to have me speak of it?" "not in the least. you are my true friend. i feel that i can trust you. you wouldn't deceive me, harry?" throwing into her eyes a look of trust and tenderness that melted away all his petulance and distrust. "what do they say?" "some say that you've lost your head about him; others that you don't care any more for him than you do for a dozen others, but that he is completely fascinated with you and about to desert his wife; and others say it is nonsense to suppose you would entangle yourself with a married man, and that your intimacy only arises from the matter of the cotton, claims, for which he wants your influence with dilworthy. but you know everybody is talked about more or less in washington. i shouldn't care; but i wish you wouldn't have so much to do with selby, laura," continued harry, fancying that he was now upon such terms that his, advice, would be heeded. "and you believed these slanders?" "i don't believe anything against you, laura, but col. selby does not mean you any good. i know you wouldn't be seen with him if you knew his reputation." "do you know him?" laura asked, as indifferently as she could. "only a little. i was at his lodgings' in georgetown a day or two ago, with col. sellers. sellers wanted to talk with him about some patent remedy he has, eye water, or something of that sort, which he wants to introduce into europe. selby is going abroad very soon." laura started; in spite of her self-control. "and his wife!--does he take his family? did you see his wife?" "yes. a dark little woman, rather worn--must have been pretty once though. has three or four children, one of them a baby. they'll all go of course. she said she should be glad enough to get away from washington. you know selby has got his claim allowed, and they say he has had a run, of luck lately at morrissey's." laura heard all this in a kind of stupor, looking straight at harry, without seeing him. is it possible, she was thinking, that this base wretch, after, all his promises, will take his wife and children and leave me? is it possible the town is saying all these things about me? and a look of bitterness coming into her face--does the fool think he can escape so? "you are angry with me, laura," said harry, not comprehending in the least what was going on in her mind. "angry?" she said, forcing herself to come back to his presence. "with you? oh no. i'm angry with the cruel world, which, pursues an independent woman as it never does a man. i'm grateful to you harry; i'm grateful to you for telling me of that odious man." and she rose from her chair and gave him her pretty hand, which the silly fellow took, and kissed and clung to. and he said many silly things, before she disengaged herself gently, and left him, saying it was time to dress, for dinner. and harry went away, excited, and a little hopeful, but only a little. the happiness was only a gleam, which departed and left him thoroughly, miserable. she never would love him, and she was going to the devil, besides. he couldn't shut his eyes to what he saw, nor his ears to what he heard of her. what had come over this thrilling young lady-killer? it was a pity to see such a gay butterfly broken on a wheel. was there something good in him, after all, that had been touched? he was in fact madly in love with this woman. it is not for us to analyze the passion and say whether it was a worthy one. it absorbed his whole nature and made him wretched enough. if he deserved punishment, what more would you have? perhaps this love was kindling a new heroism in him. he saw the road on which laura was going clearly enough, though he did not believe the worst he heard of her. he loved her too passionately to credit that for a moment. and it seemed to him that if he could compel her to recognize her position, and his own devotion, she might love him, and that he could save her. his love was so far ennobled, and become a very different thing from its beginning in hawkeye. whether he ever thought that if he could save her from ruin, he could give her up himself, is doubtful. such a pitch of virtue does not occur often in real life, especially in such natures as harry's, whose generosity and unselfishness were matters of temperament rather than habits or principles. he wrote a long letter to laura, an incoherent, passionate letter, pouring out his love as he could not do in her presence, and warning her as plainly as he dared of the dangers that surrounded her, and the risks she ran of compromising herself in many ways. laura read the letter, with a little sigh may be, as she thought of other days, but with contempt also, and she put it into the fire with the thought, "they are all alike." harry was in the habit of writing to philip freely, and boasting also about his doings, as he could not help doing and remain himself. mixed up with his own exploits, and his daily triumphs as a lobbyist, especially in the matter of the new university, in which harry was to have something handsome, were amusing sketches of washington society, hints about dilworthy, stories about col. sellers, who had become a well-known character, and wise remarks upon the machinery of private legislation for the public-good, which greatly entertained philip in his convalescence. laura's name occurred very often in these letters, at first in casual mention as the belle of the season, carrying everything before her with her wit and beauty, and then more seriously, as if harry did not exactly like so much general admiration of her, and was a little nettled by her treatment of him. this was so different from harry's usual tone about women, that philip wondered a good deal over it. could it be possible that he was seriously affected? then came stories about laura, town talk, gossip which harry denied the truth of indignantly; but he was evidently uneasy, and at length wrote in such miserable spirits that philip asked him squarely what the trouble was; was he in love? upon this, harry made a clean breast of it, and told philip all he knew about the selby affair, and laura's treatment of him, sometimes encouraging him--and then throwing him off, and finally his belief that she would go, to the bad if something was not done to arouse her from her infatuation. he wished philip was in washington. he knew laura, and she had a great respect for his character, his opinions, his judgment. perhaps he, as an uninterested person whom she would have some confidence, and as one of the public, could say some thing to her that would show her where she stood. philip saw the situation clearly enough. of laura he knew not much, except that she was a woman of uncommon fascination, and he thought from what he had seen of her in hawkeye, her conduct towards him and towards harry, of not too much principle. of course he knew nothing of her history; he knew nothing seriously against her, and if harry was desperately enamored of her, why should he not win her if he could. if, however, she had already become what harry uneasily felt she might become, was it not his duty to go to the rescue of his friend and try to save him from any rash act on account of a woman that might prove to be entirely unworthy of him; for trifler and visionary as he was, harry deserved a better fate than this. philip determined to go to washington and see for himself. he had other reasons also. he began to know enough of mr. bolton's affairs to be uneasy. pennybacker had been there several times during the winter, and he suspected that he was involving mr. bolton in some doubtful scheme. pennybacker was in washington, and philip thought he might perhaps find out something about him, and his plans, that would be of service to mr. bolton. philip had enjoyed his winter very well, for a man with his arm broken and his head smashed. with two such nurses as ruth and alice, illness seemed to him rather a nice holiday, and every moment of his convalescence had been precious and all too fleeting. with a young fellow of the habits of philip, such injuries cannot be counted on to tarry long, even for the purpose of love-making, and philip found himself getting strong with even disagreeable rapidity. during his first weeks of pain and weakness, ruth was unceasing in her ministrations; she quietly took charge of him, and with a gentle firmness resisted all attempts of alice or any one else to share to any great extent the burden with her. she was clear, decisive and peremptory in whatever she did; but often when philip, opened his eyes in those first days of suffering and found her standing by his bedside, he saw a look of tenderness in her anxious face that quickened his already feverish pulse, a look that, remained in his heart long after he closed his eyes. sometimes he felt her hand on his forehead, and did not open his eyes for fear she world take it away. he watched for her coming to his chamber; he could distinguish her light footstep from all others. if this is what is meant by women practicing medicine, thought philip to himself, i like it. "ruth," said he one day when he was getting to be quite himself, "i believe in it?" "believe in what?" "why, in women physicians." "then, i'd better call in mrs. dr. longstreet." "oh, no. one will do, one at a time. i think i should be well tomorrow, if i thought i should never have any other." "thy physician thinks thee mustn't talk, philip," said ruth putting her finger on his lips. "but, ruth, i want to tell you that i should wish i never had got well if--" "there, there, thee must not talk. thee is wandering again," and ruth closed his lips, with a smile on her own that broadened into a merry laugh as she ran away. philip was not weary, however, of making these attempts, he rather enjoyed it. but whenever he inclined to be sentimental, ruth would cut him off, with some such gravely conceived speech as, "does thee think that thy physician will take advantage of the condition of a man who is as weak as thee is? i will call alice, if thee has any dying confessions to make." as philip convalesced, alice more and more took ruth's place as his entertainer, and read to him by the hour, when he did not want to talk --to talk about ruth, as he did a good deal of the time. nor was this altogether unsatisfactory to philip. he was always happy and contented with alice. she was the most restful person he knew. better informed than ruth and with a much more varied culture, and bright and sympathetic, he was never weary of her company, if he was not greatly excited by it. she had upon his mind that peaceful influence that mrs. bolton had when, occasionally, she sat by his bedside with her work. some people have this influence, which is like an emanation. they bring peace to a house, they diffuse serene content in a room full of mixed company, though they may say very little, and are apparently, unconscious of their own power. not that philip did not long for ruth's presence all the same. since he was well enough to be about the house, she was busy again with her studies. now and then her teasing humor came again. she always had a playful shield against his sentiment. philip used sometimes to declare that she had no sentiment; and then he doubted if he should be pleased with her after all if she were at all sentimental; and he rejoiced that she had, in such matters what he called the airy grace of sanity. she was the most gay serious person he ever saw. perhaps he waw not so much at rest or so contented with her as with alice. but then he loved her. and what have rest and contentment to do with love? chapter xlii mr. buckstone's campaign was brief--much briefer than he supposed it would be. he began it purposing to win laura without being won himself; but his experience was that of all who had fought on that field before him; he diligently continued his effort to win her, but he presently found that while as yet he could not feel entirely certain of having won her, it was very manifest that she had won him. he had made an able fight, brief as it was, and that at least was to his credit. he was in good company, now; he walked in a leash of conspicuous captives. these unfortunates followed laura helplessly, for whenever she took a prisoner he remained her slave henceforth. sometimes they chafed in their bondage; sometimes they tore themselves free and said their serfdom was ended; but sooner or later they always came back penitent and worshiping. laura pursued her usual course: she encouraged mr. buckstone by turns, and by turns she harassed him; she exalted him to the clouds at one time, and at another she dragged him down again. she constituted him chief champion of the knobs university bill, and he accepted the position, at first reluctantly, but later as a valued means of serving her--he even came to look upon it as a piece of great good fortune, since it brought him into such frequent contact with her. through him she learned that the hon. mr. trollop was a bitter enemy of her bill. he urged her not to attempt to influence mr. trollop in any way, and explained that whatever she might attempt in that direction would surely be used against her and with damaging effect. she at first said she knew mr. trollop, "and was aware that he had a blank-blank;"--[**her private figure of speech for brother--or son-in-law]--but mr. buckstone said that he was not able to conceive what so curious a phrase as blank-blank might mean, and had no wish to pry into the matter, since it was probably private, he "would nevertheless venture the blind assertion that nothing would answer in this particular case and during this particular session but to be exceedingly wary and keep clear away from mr. trollop; any other course would be fatal." it seemed that nothing could be done. laura was seriously troubled. everything was looking well, and yet it was plain that one vigorous and determined enemy might eventually succeed in overthrowing all her plans. a suggestion came into her mind presently and she said: "can't you fight against his great pension bill and, bring him to terms?" "oh, never; he and i are sworn brothers on that measure; we work in harness and are very loving--i do everything i possibly can for him there. but i work with might and main against his immigration bill, --as pertinaciously and as vindictively, indeed, as he works against our university. we hate each other through half a conversation and are all affection through the other half. we understand each other. he is an admirable worker outside the capitol; he will do more for the pension bill than any other man could do; i wish he would make the great speech on it which he wants to make--and then i would make another and we would be safe." "well if he wants to make a great speech why doesn't he do it?" visitors interrupted the conversation and mr. buckstone took his leave. it was not of the least moment to laura that her question had not been answered, inasmuch as it concerned a thing which did not interest her; and yet, human being like, she thought she would have liked to know. an opportunity occurring presently, she put the same question to another person and got an answer that satisfied her. she pondered a good while that night, after she had gone to bed, and when she finally turned over, to, go to sleep, she had thought out a new scheme. the next evening at mrs. gloverson's party, she said to mr. buckstone: "i want mr. trollop to make his great speech on the pension bill." "do you? but you remember i was interrupted, and did not explain to you--" "never mind, i know. you must' make him make that speech. i very. particularly desire, it." "oh, it is easy, to say make him do it, but how am i to make him!" "it is perfectly easy; i have thought it all out." she then went into the details. at length mr. buckstone said: "i see now. i can manage it, i am sure. indeed i wonder he never thought of it himself--there are no end of precedents. but how is this going to benefit you, after i have managed it? there is where the mystery lies." "but i will take care of that. it will benefit me a great deal." "i only wish i could see how; it is the oddest freak. you seem to go the furthest around to get at a thing--but you are in earnest, aren't you?" "yes i am, indeed." "very well, i will do it--but why not tell me how you imagine it is going to help you?" "i will, by and by.--now there is nobody talking to him. go straight and do it, there's a good fellow." a moment or two later the two sworn friends of the pension bill were talking together, earnestly, and seemingly unconscious of the moving throng about them. they talked an hour, and then mr. buckstone came back and said: "he hardly fancied it at first, but he fell in love with it after a bit. and we have made a compact, too. i am to keep his secret and he is to spare me, in future, when he gets ready to denounce the supporters of the university bill--and i can easily believe he will keep his word on this occasion." a fortnight elapsed, and the university bill had gathered to itself many friends, meantime. senator dilworthy began to think the harvest was ripe. he conferred with laura privately. she was able to tell him exactly how the house would vote. there was a majority--the bill would pass, unless weak members got frightened at the last, and deserted--a thing pretty likely to occur. the senator said: "i wish we had one more good strong man. now trollop ought to be on our side, for he is a friend of the negro. but he is against us, and is our bitterest opponent. if he would simply vote no, but keep quiet and not molest us, i would feel perfectly cheerful and content. but perhaps there is no use in thinking of that." "why i laid a little plan for his benefit two weeks ago. i think he will be tractable, maybe. he is to come here tonight." "look out for him, my child! he means mischief, sure. it is said that he claims to know of improper practices having been used in the interest of this bill, and he thinks be sees a chance to make a great sensation when the bill comes up. be wary. be very, very careful, my dear. do your very-ablest talking, now. you can convince a man of anything, when you try. you must convince him that if anything improper has been done, you at least are ignorant of it and sorry for it. and if you could only persuade him out of his hostility to the bill, too--but don't overdo the thing; don't seem too anxious, dear." "i won't; i'll be ever so careful. i'll talk as sweetly to him as if he were my own child! you may trust me--indeed you may." the door-bell rang. "that is the gentleman now," said laura. senator dilworthy retired to his study. laura welcomed mr. trollop, a grave, carefully dressed and very respectable looking man, with a bald head, standing collar and old fashioned watch seals. "promptness is a virtue, mr. trollop, and i perceive that you have it. you are always prompt with me." "i always meet my engagements, of every kind, miss hawkins." "it is a quality which is rarer in the world than it has been, i believe. i wished to see you on business, mr. trollop." "i judged so. what can i do for you?" "you know my bill--the knobs university bill?" "ah, i believe it is your bill. i had forgotten. yes, i know the bill." "well, would you mind telling me your opinion of it?" "indeed, since you seem to ask it without reserve, i am obliged to say that i do not regard it favorably. i have not seen the bill itself, but from what i can hear, it--it--well, it has a bad look about it. it--" "speak it out--never fear." "well, it--they say it contemplates a fraud upon the government." "well?" said laura tranquilly. "well! i say 'well?' too." "well, suppose it were a fraud--which i feel able to deny--would it be the first one?" "you take a body's breath away! would you--did you wish me to vote for it? was that what you wanted to see me about?" "your instinct is correct. i did want you--i do want you to vote for it." "vote for a fr--for a measure which is generally believed to be at least questionable? i am afraid we cannot come to an understanding, miss hawkins." "no, i am afraid not--if you have resumed your principles, mr. trollop." "did you send for we merely to insult me? it is time for me to take my leave, miss hawkins." "no-wait a moment. don't be offended at a trifle. do not be offish and unsociable. the steamship subsidy bill was a fraud on the government. you voted for it, mr. trollop, though you always opposed the measure until after you had an interview one evening with a certain mrs. mccarter at her house. she was my agent. she was acting for me. ah, that is right--sit down again. you can be sociable, easily enough if you have a mind to. well? i am waiting. have you nothing to say?" "miss hawkins, i voted for that bill because when i came to examine into it--" "ah yes. when you came to examine into it. well, i only want you to examine into my bill. mr. trollop, you would not sell your vote on that subsidy bill--which was perfectly right--but you accepted of some of the stock, with the understanding that it was to stand in your brother-in-law's name." "there is no pr--i mean, this is, utterly groundless, miss hawkins." but the gentleman seemed somewhat uneasy, nevertheless. "well, not entirely so, perhaps. i and a person whom we will call miss blank (never mind the real name,) were in a closet at your elbow all the while." mr. trollop winced--then he said with dignity: "miss hawkins is it possible that you were capable of such a thing as that?" "it was bad; i confess that. it was bad. almost as bad as selling one's vote for--but i forget; you did not sell your vote--you only accepted a little trifle, a small token of esteem, for your brother-in-law. oh, let us come out and be frank with each other: i know you, mr. trollop. i have met you on business three or four times; true, i never offered to corrupt your principles--never hinted such a thing; but always when i had finished sounding you, i manipulated you through an agent. let us be frank. wear this comely disguise of virtue before the public--it will count there; but here it is out of place. my dear sir, by and by there is going to be an investigation into that national internal improvement directors' relief measure of a few years ago, and you know very well that you will be a crippled man, as likely as not, when it is completed." "it cannot be shown that a man is a knave merely for owning that stock. i am not distressed about the national improvement relief measure." "oh indeed i am not trying to distress you. i only wished, to make good my assertion that i knew you. several of you gentlemen bought of that stack (without paying a penny down) received dividends from it, (think of the happy idea of receiving dividends, and very large ones, too, from stock one hasn't paid for!) and all the while your names never appeared in the transaction; if ever you took the stock at all, you took it in other people's names. now you see, you had to know one of two things; namely, you either knew that the idea of all this preposterous generosity was to bribe you into future legislative friendship, or you didn't know it. that is to say, you had to be either a knave or a--well, a fool --there was no middle ground. you are not a fool, mr. trollop." "miss hawking you flatter me. but seriously, you do not forget that some of the best and purest men in congress took that stock in that way?" "did senator bland?" "well, no--i believe not." "of course you believe not. do you suppose he was ever approached, on the subject?" "perhaps not." "if you had approached him, for instance, fortified with the fact that some of the best men in congress, and the purest, etc., etc.; what would have been the result?" "well, what would have been the result?" "he would have shown you the door! for mr. blank is neither a knave nor a fool. there are other men in the senate and the house whom no one would have been hardy enough to approach with that relief stock in that peculiarly generous way, but they are not of the class that you regard as the best and purest. no, i say i know you mr. trollop. that is to say, one may suggest a thing to mr. trollop which it would not do to suggest to mr. blank. mr. trollop, you are pledged to support the indigent congressmen's retroactive appropriation which is to come up, either in this or the next session. you do not deny that, even in public. the man that will vote for that bill will break the eighth commandment in any other way, sir!" "but he will not vote for your corrupt measure, nevertheless, madam!" exclaimed mr. trollop, rising from his seat in a passion. "ah, but he will. sit down again, and let me explain why. oh, come, don't behave so. it is very unpleasant. now be good, and you shall have, the missing page of your great speech. here it is!"--and she displayed a sheet of manuscript. mr. trollop turned immediately back from the threshold. it might have been gladness that flashed into his face; it might have been something else; but at any rate there was much astonishment mixed with it. "good! where did you get it? give it me!" "now there is no hurry. sit down; sit down and let us talk and be friendly." the gentleman wavered. then he said: "no, this is only a subterfuge. i will go. it is not the missing page." laura tore off a couple of lines from the bottom of the sheet. "now," she said, "you will know whether this is the handwriting or not. you know it is the handwriting. now if you will listen, you will know that this must be the list of statistics which was to be the 'nub' of your great effort, and the accompanying blast the beginning of the burst of eloquence which was continued on the next page--and you will recognize that there was where you broke down." she read the page. mr. trollop said: "this is perfectly astounding. still, what is all this to me? it is nothing. it does not concern me. the speech is made, and there an end. i did break down for a moment, and in a rather uncomfortable place, since i had led up to those statistics with some grandeur; the hiatus was pleasanter to the house and the galleries than it was to me. but it is no matter now. a week has passed; the jests about it ceased three or four days ago. the, whole thing is a matter of indifference to me, miss hawkins." "but you apologized; and promised the statistics for next day. why didn't you keep your promise." "the matter was not of sufficient consequence. the time was gone by to produce an effect with them." "but i hear that other friends of the soldiers' pension bill desire them very much. i think you ought to let them have them." "miss hawkins, this silly blunder of my copyist evidently has more interest for you than it has for me. i will send my private secretary to you and let him discuss the subject with you at length." "did he copy your speech for you?" "of course he did. why all these questions? tell me--how did you get hold of that page of manuscript? that is the only thing that stirs a passing interest in my mind." "i'm coming to that." then she said, much as if she were talking to herself: "it does seem like taking a deal of unnecessary pains, for a body to hire another body to construct a great speech for him and then go and get still another body to copy it before it can be read in the house." "miss hawkins, what do yo mean by such talk as that?" "why i am sure i mean no harm--no harm to anybody in the world. i am certain that i overheard the hon. mr. buckstone either promise to write your great speech for you or else get some other competent person to do it." "this is perfectly absurd, madam, perfectly absurd!" and mr. trollop affected a laugh of derision. "why, the thing has occurred before now. i mean that i have heard that congressmen have sometimes hired literary grubs to build speeches for them.--now didn't i overhear a conversation like that i spoke of?" "pshaw! why of course you may have overheard some such jesting nonsense. but would one be in earnest about so farcical a thing?" "well if it was only a joke, why did you make a serious matter of it? why did you get the speech written for you, and then read it in the house without ever having it copied?" mr. trollop did not laugh this time; he seemed seriously perplexed. he said: "come, play out your jest, miss hawkins. i can't understand what you are contriving--but it seems to entertain you--so please, go on." "i will, i assure you; but i hope to make the matter entertaining to you, too. your private secretary never copied your speech." "indeed? really you seem to know my affairs better than i do myself." "i believe i do. you can't name your own amanuensis, mr. trollop." "that is sad, indeed. perhaps miss hawkins can?" "yes, i can. i wrote your speech myself, and you read it from my manuscript. there, now!" mr. trollop did not spring to his feet and smite his brow with his hand while a cold sweat broke out all over him and the color forsook his face --no, he only said, "good god!" and looked greatly astonished. laura handed him her commonplace-book and called his attention to the fact that the handwriting there and the handwriting of this speech were the same. he was shortly convinced. he laid the book aside and said, composedly: "well, the wonderful tragedy is done, and it transpires that i am indebted to you for my late eloquence. what of it? what was all this for and what does it amount to after all? what do you propose to do about it?" "oh nothing. it is only a bit of pleasantry. when i overheard that conversation i took an early opportunity to ask mr. buckstone if he knew of anybody who might want a speech written--i had a friend, and so forth and so on. i was the friend, myself; i thought i might do you a good turn then and depend on you to do me one by and by. i never let mr. buckstone have the speech till the last moment, and when you hurried off to the house with it, you did not know there was a missing page, of course, but i did. "and now perhaps you think that if i refuse to support your bill, you will make a grand exposure?" "well i had not thought of that. i only kept back the page for the mere fun of the thing; but since you mention it, i don't know but i might do something if i were angry." "my dear miss hawkins, if you were to give out that you composed my speech, you know very well that people would say it was only your raillery, your fondness for putting a victim in the pillory and amusing the public at his expense. it is too flimsy, miss hawkins, for a person of your fine inventive talent--contrive an abler device than that. come!" "it is easily done, mr. trollop. i will hire a man, and pin this page on his breast, and label it, 'the missing fragment of the hon. mr. trollop's great speech--which speech was written and composed by miss laura hawkins under a secret understanding for one hundred dollars--and the money has not been paid.' and i will pin round about it notes in my handwriting, which i will procure from prominent friends of mine for the occasion; also your printed speech in the globe, showing the connection between its bracketed hiatus and my fragment; and i give you my word of honor that i will stand that human bulletin board in the rotunda of the capitol and make him stay there a week! you see you are premature, mr. trollop, the wonderful tragedy is not done yet, by any means. come, now, doesn't it improve?" mr trollop opened his eyes rather widely at this novel aspect of the case. he got up and walked the floor and gave himself a moment for reflection. then he stopped and studied laura's face a while, and ended by saying: "well, i am obliged to believe you would be reckless enough to do that." "then don't put me to the test, mr. trollop. but let's drop the matter. i have had my joke and you've borne the infliction becomingly enough. it spoils a jest to harp on it after one has had one's laugh. i would much rather talk about my bill." "so would i, now, my clandestine amanuensis. compared with some other subjects, even your bill is a pleasant topic to discuss." "very good indeed! i thought. i could persuade you. now i am sure you will be generous to the poor negro and vote for that bill." "yes, i feel more tenderly toward the oppressed colored man than i did. shall we bury the hatchet and be good friends and respect each other's little secrets, on condition that i vote aye on the measure?" "with all my heart, mr. trollop. i give you my word of that." "it is a bargain. but isn't there something else you could give me, too?" laura looked at him inquiringly a moment, and then she comprehended. "oh, yes! you may have it now. i haven't any, more use for it." she picked up the page of manuscript, but she reconsidered her intention of handing it to him, and said, "but never mind; i will keep it close; no one shall see it; you shall have it as soon as your vote is recorded." mr. trollop looked disappointed. but presently made his adieux, and had got as far as the hall, when something occurred to laura. she said to herself, "i don't simply want his vote under compulsion--he might vote aye, but work against the bill in secret, for revenge; that man is unscrupulous enough to do anything. i must have his hearty co-operation as well as his vote. there is only one way to get that." she called him back, and said: "i value your vote, mr. trollop, but i value your influence more. you are able to help a measure along in many ways, if you choose. i want to ask you to work for the bill as well as vote for it." "it takes so much of one's time, miss hawkins--and time is money, you know." "yes, i know it is--especially in congress. now there is no use in you and i dealing in pretenses and going at matters in round-about ways. we know each other--disguises are nonsense. let us be plain. i will make it an object to you to work for the bill." "don't make it unnecessarily plain, please. there are little proprieties that are best preserved. what do you propose?" "well, this." she mentioned the names of several prominent congressmen. "now," said she, "these gentlemen are to vote and work for the bill, simply out of love for the negro--and out of pure generosity i have put in a relative of each as a member of the university incorporation. they will handle a million or so of money, officially, but will receive no salaries. a larger number of statesmen are to, vote and work for the bill--also out of love for the negro--gentlemen of but moderate influence, these--and out of pure generosity i am to see that relatives of theirs have positions in the university, with salaries, and good ones, too. you will vote and work for the bill, from mere affection for the negro, and i desire to testify my gratitude becomingly. make free choice. have you any friend whom you would like to present with a salaried or unsalaried position in our institution?" "well, i have a brother-in-law--" "that same old brother-in-law, you good unselfish provider! i have heard of him often, through my agents. how regularly he does 'turn up,' to be sure. he could deal with those millions virtuously, and withal with ability, too--but of course you would rather he had a salaried position?" "oh, no," said the gentleman, facetiously, "we are very humble, very humble in our desires; we want no money; we labor solely, for our country and require no reward but the luxury of an applauding conscience. make him one of those poor hard working unsalaried corporators and let him do every body good with those millions--and go hungry himself! i will try to exert a little influence in favor of the bill." arrived at home, mr. trollop sat down and thought it all over--something after this fashion: it is about the shape it might have taken if he had spoken it aloud. "my reputation is getting a little damaged, and i meant to clear it up brilliantly with an exposure of this bill at the supreme moment, and ride back into congress on the eclat of it; and if i had that bit of manuscript, i would do it yet. it would be more money in my pocket in the end, than my brother-in-law will get out of that incorporatorship, fat as it is. but that sheet of paper is out of my reach--she will never let that get out of her hands. and what a mountain it is! it blocks up my road, completely. she was going to hand it to me, once. why didn't she! must be a deep woman. deep devil! that is what she is; a beautiful devil--and perfectly fearless, too. the idea of her pinning that paper on a man and standing him up in the rotunda looks absurd at a first glance. but she would do it! she is capable of doing anything. i went there hoping she would try to bribe me--good solid capital that would be in the exposure. well, my prayer was answered; she did try to bribe me; and i made the best of a bad bargain and let her. i am check-mated. i must contrive something fresh to get back to congress on. very well; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; i will work for the bill--the incorporatorship will be a very good thing." as soon as mr. trollop had taken his leave, laura ran to senator dilworthy and began to speak, but he interrupted her and said distressfully, without even turning from his writing to look at her: "only half an hour! you gave it up early, child. however, it was best, it was best--i'm sure it was best--and safest." "give it up! i!" the senator sprang up, all aglow: "my child, you can't mean that you--" "i've made him promise on honor to think about a compromise tonight and come and tell me his decision in the morning." "good! there's hope yet that--" nonsense, uncle. i've made him engage to let the tennessee land bill utterly alone!" "impossible! you--" "i've made him promise to vote with us!" "incredible! abso--" "i've made him swear that he'll work for us!" "pre posterous!--utterly pre--break a window, child, before i suffocate!" "no matter, it's true anyway. now we can march into congress with drums beating and colors flying!" "well--well--well. i'm sadly bewildered, sadly bewildered. i can't understand it at all--the most extraordinary woman that ever--it's a great day, it's a great day. there--there--let me put my hand in benediction on this precious head. ah, my child, the poor negro will bless--" "oh bother the poor negro, uncle! put it in your speech. good-night, good-bye--we'll marshal our forces and march with the dawn!" laura reflected a while, when she was alone, and then fell to laughing, peacefully. "everybody works for me,"--so ran her thought. "it was a good idea to make buckstone lead mr. trollop on to get a great speech written for him; and it was a happy part of the same idea for me to copy the speech after mr. buckstone had written it, and then keep back a page. mr. b. was very complimentary to me when trollop's break-down in the house showed him the object of my mysterious scheme; i think he will say, still finer things when i tell him the triumph the sequel to it has gained for us. "but what a coward the man was, to believe i would have exposed that page in the rotunda, and so exposed myself. however, i don't know--i don't know. i will think a moment. suppose he voted no; suppose the bill failed; that is to suppose this stupendous game lost forever, that i have played so desperately for; suppose people came around pitying me--odious! and he could have saved me by his single voice. yes, i would have exposed him! what would i care for the talk that that would have made about me when i was gone to europe with selby and all the world was busy with my history and my dishonor? it would be almost happiness to spite somebody at such a time." chapter xliii. the very next day, sure enough, the campaign opened. in due course, the speaker of the house reached that order of business which is termed "notices of bills," and then the hon. mr. buckstone rose in his place and gave notice of a bill "to found and incorporate the knobs industrial university," and then sat down without saying anything further. the busy gentlemen in the reporters' gallery jotted a line in their note-books, ran to the telegraphic desk in a room which communicated with their own writing-parlor, and then hurried back to their places in the gallery; and by the time they had resumed their seats, the line which they had delivered to the operator had been read in telegraphic offices in towns and cities hundreds of miles away. it was distinguished by frankness of language as well as by brevity: "the child is born. buckstone gives notice of the thieving knobs university job. it is said the noses have been counted and enough votes have been bought to pass it." for some time the correspondents had been posting their several journals upon the alleged disreputable nature of the bill, and furnishing daily reports of the washington gossip concerning it. so the next morning, nearly every newspaper of character in the land assailed the measure and hurled broadsides of invective at mr. buckstone. the washington papers were more respectful, as usual--and conciliatory, also, as usual. they generally supported measures, when it was possible; but when they could not they "deprecated" violent expressions of opinion in other journalistic quarters. they always deprecated, when there was trouble ahead. however, 'the washington daily love-feast' hailed the bill with warm approbation. this was senator balaam's paper--or rather, "brother" balaam, as he was popularly called, for he had been a clergyman, in his day; and he himself and all that he did still emitted an odor of sanctity now that he had diverged into journalism and politics. he was a power in the congressional prayer meeting, and in all movements that looked to the spread of religion and temperance. his paper supported the new bill with gushing affection; it was a noble measure; it was a just measure; it was a generous measure; it was a pure measure, and that surely should recommend it in these corrupt times; and finally, if the nature of the bill were not known at all, the 'love feast' would support it anyway, and unhesitatingly, for the fact that senator dilworthy was the originator of the measure was a guaranty that it contemplated a worthy and righteous work. senator dilworthy was so anxious to know what the new york papers would say about the bill; that he had arranged to have synopses of their editorials telegraphed to him; he could not wait for the papers themselves to crawl along down to washington by a mail train which has never run over a cow since the road was built; for the reason that it has never been able to overtake one. it carries the usual "cow-catcher" in front of the locomotive, but this is mere ostentation. it ought to be attached to the rear car, where it could do some good; but instead, no provision is made there for the protection of the traveling public, and hence it is not a matter of surprise that cows so frequently climb aboard that train and among the passengers. the senator read his dispatches aloud at the breakfast table. laura was troubled beyond measure at their tone, and said that that sort of comment would defeat the bill; but the senator said: "oh, not at all, not at all, my child. it is just what we want. persecution is the one thing needful, now--all the other forces are secured. give us newspaper persecution enough, and we are safe. vigorous persecution will alone carry a bill sometimes, dear; and when you start with a strong vote in the first place, persecution comes in with double effect. it scares off some of the weak supporters, true, but it soon turns strong ones into stubborn ones. and then, presently, it changes the tide of public opinion. the great public is weak-minded; the great public is sentimental; the great public always turns around and weeps for an odious murderer, and prays for-him, and carries flowers to his prison and besieges the governor with appeals to his clemency, as soon as the papers begin to howl for that man's blood.--in a word, the great putty-hearted public loves to 'gush,' and there is no such darling opportunity to gush as a case of persecution affords." "well, uncle, dear; if your theory is right, let us go into raptures, for nobody can ask a heartier persecution than these editorials are furnishing." "i am not so sure of that, my daughter. i don't entirely like the tone of some of these remarks. they lack vim, they lack venom. here is one calls it a 'questionable measure.' bah, there is no strength in that. this one is better; it calls it 'highway robbery.' that sounds something like. but now this one seems satisfied to call it an 'iniquitous scheme'. 'iniquitous' does not exasperate anybody; it is weak--puerile. the ignorant will imagine it to be intended for a compliment. but this other one--the one i read last--has the true ring: 'this vile, dirty effort to rob the public treasury, by the kites and vultures that now infest the filthy den called congress'--that is admirable, admirable! we must have more of that sort. but it will come--no fear of that; they're not warmed up, yet. a week from now you'll see." "uncle, you and brother balaam are bosom friends--why don't you get his paper to persecute us, too?" "it isn't worth while, my, daughter. his support doesn't hurt a bill. nobody reads his editorials but himself. but i wish the new york papers would talk a little plainer. it is annoying to have to wait a week for them to warm up. i expected better things at their hands--and time is precious, now." at the proper hour, according to his previous notice, mr. buckstone duly introduced his bill entitled "an act to found and incorporate the knobs industrial university," moved its proper reference, and sat down. the speaker of the house rattled off this observation: "'fnobjectionbilltakuzhlcoixrssoreferred!'" habitues of the house comprehended that this long, lightning-heeled word signified that if there was no objection, the bill would take the customary course of a measure of its nature, and be referred to the committee on benevolent appropriations, and that it was accordingly so referred. strangers merely supposed that the speaker was taking a gargle for some affection of the throat. the reporters immediately telegraphed the introduction of the bill.--and they added: "the assertion that the bill will pass was premature. it is said that many favorers of it will desert when the storm breaks upon them from the public press." the storm came, and during ten days it waxed more and more violent day by day. the great "negro university swindle" became the one absorbing topic of conversation throughout the union. individuals denounced it, journals denounced it, public meetings denounced it, the pictorial papers caricatured its friends, the whole nation seemed to be growing frantic over it. meantime the washington correspondents were sending such telegrams as these abroad in the land; under date of-saturday. "congressmen jex and fluke are wavering; it is believed they will desert the execrable bill." monday. "jex and fluke have deserted!" thursday. "tubbs and huffy left the sinking ship last night" later on: "three desertions. the university thieves are getting scared, though they will not own it." later: "the leaders are growing stubborn--they swear they can carry it, but it is now almost certain that they no longer have a majority!" after a day or two of reluctant and ambiguous telegrams: "public sentiment seems changing, a trifle in favor of the bill --but only a trifle." and still later: "it is whispered that the hon. mr. trollop has gone over to the pirates. it is probably a canard. mr. trollop has all along been the bravest and most efficient champion of virtue and the people against the bill, and the report is without doubt a shameless invention." next day: "with characteristic treachery, the truckling and pusillanimous reptile, crippled-speech trollop, has gone over to the enemy. it is contended, now, that he has been a friend to the bill, in secret, since the day it was introduced, and has had bankable reasons for being so; but he himself declares that he has gone over because the malignant persecution of the bill by the newspapers caused him to study its provisions with more care than he had previously done, and this close examination revealed the fact that the measure is one in every way worthy of support. (pretty thin!) it cannot be denied that this desertion has had a damaging effect. jex and fluke have returned to their iniquitous allegiance, with six or eight others of lesser calibre, and it is reported and believed that tubbs and huffy are ready to go back. it is feared that the university swindle is stronger to-day than it has ever been before." later-midnight: "it is said that the committee will report the bill back to-morrow. both sides are marshaling their forces, and the fight on this bill is evidently going to be the hottest of the session.--all washington is boiling." chapter xliv. "it's easy enough for another fellow to talk," said harry, despondingly, after he had put philip in possession of his view of the case. "it's easy enough to say 'give her up,' if you don't care for her. what am i going to do to give her up?" it seemed to harry that it was a situation requiring some active measures. he couldn't realize that he had fallen hopelessly in love without some rights accruing to him for the possession of the object of his passion. quiet resignation under relinquishment of any thing he wanted was not in his line. and when it appeared to him that his surrender of laura would be the withdrawal of the one barrier that kept her from ruin, it was unreasonable to expect that he could see how to give her up. harry had the most buoyant confidence in his own projects always; he saw everything connected with himself in a large way and in rosy lines. this predominance of the imagination over the judgment gave that appearance of exaggeration to his conversation and to his communications with regard to himself, which sometimes conveyed the impression that he was not speaking the truth. his acquaintances had been known to say that they invariably allowed a half for shrinkage in his statements, and held the other half under advisement for confirmation. philip in this case could not tell from harry's story exactly how much encouragement laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning her. he had never seen him desponding before. the "brag" appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now and then in a comical imitation of its old self. philip wanted time to look about him before he decided what to do. he was not familiar with washington, and it was difficult to adjust his feelings and perceptions to its peculiarities. coming out of the sweet sanity of the bolton household, this was by contrast the maddest vanity fair one could conceive. it seemed to him a feverish, unhealthy atmosphere in which lunacy would be easily developed. he fancied that everybody attached to himself an exaggerated importance, from the fact of being at the national capital, the center of political influence, the fountain of patronage, preferment, jobs and opportunities. people were introduced to each other as from this or that state, not from cities or towns, and this gave a largeness to their representative feeling. all the women talked politics as naturally and glibly as they talk fashion or literature elsewhere. there was always some exciting topic at the capitol, or some huge slander was rising up like a miasmatic exhalation from the potomac, threatening to settle no one knew exactly where. every other person was an aspirant for a place, or, if he had one, for a better place, or more pay; almost every other one had some claim or interest or remedy to urge; even the women were all advocates for the advancement of some person, and they violently espoused or denounced this or that measure as it would affect some relative, acquaintance or friend. love, travel, even death itself, waited on the chances of the dies daily thrown in the two houses, and the committee rooms there. if the measure went through, love could afford to ripen into marriage, and longing for foreign travel would have fruition; and it must have been only eternal hope springing in the breast that kept alive numerous old claimants who for years and years had besieged the doors of congress, and who looked as if they needed not so much an appropriation of money as six feet of ground. and those who stood so long waiting for success to bring them death were usually those who had a just claim. representing states and talking of national and even international affairs, as familiarly as neighbors at home talk of poor crops and the extravagance of their ministers, was likely at first to impose upon philip as to the importance of the people gathered here. there was a little newspaper editor from phil's native town, the assistant on a peddletonian weekly, who made his little annual joke about the "first egg laid on our table," and who was the menial of every tradesman in the village and under bonds to him for frequent "puffs," except the undertaker, about whose employment he was recklessly facetious. in washington he was an important man, correspondent, and clerk of two house committees, a "worker" in politics, and a confident critic of every woman and every man in washington. he would be a consul no doubt by and by, at some foreign port, of the language of which he was ignorant--though if ignorance of language were a qualification he might have been a consul at home. his easy familiarity with great men was beautiful to see, and when philip learned what a tremendous underground influence this little ignoramus had, he no longer wondered at the queer appointments and the queerer legislation. philip was not long in discovering that people in washington did not differ much from other people; they had the same meannesses, generosities, and tastes: a washington boarding house had the odor of a boarding house the world over. col. sellers was as unchanged as any one philip saw whom he had known elsewhere. washington appeared to be the native element of this man. his pretentions were equal to any he encountered there. he saw nothing in its society that equalled that of hawkeye, he sat down to no table that could not be unfavorably contrasted with his own at home; the most airy scheme inflated in the hot air of the capital only reached in magnitude some of his lesser fancies, the by-play of his constructive imagination. "the country is getting along very well," he said to philip, "but our public men are too timid. what we want is more money. i've told boutwell so. talk about basing the currency on gold; you might as well base it on pork. gold is only one product. base it on everything! you've got to do something for the west. how am i to move my crops? we must have improvements. grant's got the idea. we want a canal from the james river to the mississippi. government ought to build it." it was difficult to get the colonel off from these large themes when he was once started, but philip brought the conversation round to laura and her reputation in the city. "no," he said, "i haven't noticed much. we've been so busy about this university. it will make laura rich with the rest of us, and she has done nearly as much as if she were a man. she has great talent, and will make a big match. i see the foreign ministers and that sort after her. yes, there is talk, always will be about a pretty woman so much in public as she is. tough stories come to me, but i put'em away. 'taint likely one of si hawkins's children would do that--for she is the same as a child of his. i told her, though, to go slow," added the colonel, as if that mysterious admonition from him would set everything right. "do you know anything about a col. selby?" "know all about him. fine fellow. but he's got a wife; and i told him, as a friend, he'd better sheer off from laura. i reckon he thought better of it and did." but philip was not long in learning the truth. courted as laura was by a certain class and still admitted into society, that, nevertheless, buzzed with disreputable stories about her, she had lost character with the best people. her intimacy with selby was open gossip, and there were winks and thrustings of the tongue in any group of men when she passed by. it was clear enough that harry's delusion must be broken up, and that no such feeble obstacle as his passion could interpose would turn laura from her fate. philip determined to see her, and put himself in possession of the truth, as he suspected it, in order to show harry his folly. laura, after her last conversation with harry, had a new sense of her position. she had noticed before the signs of a change in manner towards her, a little less respect perhaps from men, and an avoidance by women. she had attributed this latter partly to jealousy of her, for no one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances. but now, if society had turned on her, she would defy it. it was not in her nature to shrink. she knew she had been wronged, and she knew that she had no remedy. what she heard of col. selby's proposed departure alarmed her more than anything else, and she calmly determined that if he was deceiving her the second time it should be the last. let society finish the tragedy if it liked; she was indifferent what came after. at the first opportunity, she charged selby with his intention to abandon her. he unblushingly denied it. he had not thought of going to europe. he had only been amusing himself with sellers' schemes. he swore that as soon as she succeeded with her bill, he would fly with her to any part of the world. she did not quite believe him, for she saw that he feared her, and she began to suspect that his were the protestations of a coward to gain time. but she showed him no doubts. she only watched his movements day by day, and always held herself ready to act promptly. when philip came into the presence of this attractive woman, he could not realize that she was the subject of all the scandal he had heard. she received him with quite the old hawkeye openness and cordiality, and fell to talking at once of their little acquaintance there; and it seemed impossible that he could ever say to her what he had come determined to say. such a man as philip has only one standard by which to judge women. laura recognized that fact no doubt. the better part of her woman's nature saw it. such a man might, years ago, not now, have changed her nature, and made the issue of her life so different, even after her cruel abandonment. she had a dim feeling of this, and she would like now to stand well with him. the spark of truth and honor that was left in her was elicited by his presence. it was this influence that governed her conduct in this interview. "i have come," said philip in his direct manner, "from my friend mr. brierly. you are not ignorant of his feeling towards you?" "perhaps not." "but perhaps you do not know, you who have so much admiration, how sincere and overmastering his love is for you?" philip would not have spoken so plainly, if he had in mind anything except to draw from laura something that would end harry's passion. "and is sincere love so rare, mr. sterling?" asked laura, moving her foot a little, and speaking with a shade of sarcasm. "perhaps not in washington," replied philip,--tempted into a similar tone. "excuse my bluntness," he continued, "but would the knowledge of his love; would his devotion, make any difference to you in your washington life?" "in respect to what?" asked laura quickly. "well, to others. i won't equivocate--to col. selby?" laura's face flushed with anger, or shame; she looked steadily at philip and began, "by what right, sir,--" "by the right of friendship," interrupted philip stoutly. "it may matter little to you. it is everything to him. he has a quixotic notion that you would turn back from what is before you for his sake. you cannot be ignorant of what all the city is talking of." philip said this determinedly and with some bitterness. it was a full minute before laura spoke. both had risen, philip as if to go, and laura in suppressed excitement. when she spoke her voice was very unsteady, and she looked down. "yes, i know. i perfectly understand what you mean. mr. brierly is nothing--simply nothing. he is a moth singed, that is all--the trifler with women thought he was a wasp. i have no pity for him, not the least. you may tell him not to make a fool of himself, and to keep away. i say this on your account, not his. you are not like him. it is enough for me that you want it so. mr. sterling," she continued, looking up; and there were tears in her eyes that contradicted the hardness of her language, "you might not pity him if you knew my history; perhaps you would not wonder at some things you hear. no; it is useless to ask me why it must be so. you can't make a life over--society wouldn't let you if you would--and mine must be lived as it is. there, sir, i'm not offended; but it is useless for you to say anything more." philip went away with his heart lightened about harry, but profoundly saddened by the glimpse of what this woman might have been. he told harry all that was necessary of the conversation--she was bent on going her own way, he had not the ghost of a chance--he was a fool, she had said, for thinking he had. and harry accepted it meekly, and made up his own mind that philip didn't know much about women. chapter xlv. the galleries of the house were packed, on the momentous day, not because the reporting of an important bill back by a committee was a thing to be excited about, if the bill were going to take the ordinary course afterward; it would be like getting excited over the empaneling of a coroner's jury in a murder case, instead of saving up one's emotions for the grander occasion of the hanging of the accused, two years later, after all the tedious forms of law had been gone through with. but suppose you understand that this coroner's jury is going to turn out to be a vigilance committee in disguise, who will hear testimony for an hour and then hang the murderer on the spot? that puts a different aspect upon the matter. now it was whispered that the legitimate forms of procedure usual in the house, and which keep a bill hanging along for days and even weeks, before it is finally passed upon, were going to be overruled, in this case, and short work made of the, measure; and so, what was beginning as a mere inquest might, torn out to be something very different. in the course of the day's business the order of "reports of committees" was finally reached and when the weary crowds heard that glad announcement issue from the speaker's lips they ceased to fret at the dragging delay, and plucked up spirit. the chairman of the committee on benevolent appropriations rose and made his report, and just then a blue-uniformed brass-mounted little page put a note into his hand. it was from senator dilworthy, who had appeared upon the floor of the house for a moment and flitted away again: "everybody expects a grand assault in force; no doubt you believe, as i certainly do, that it is the thing to do; we are strong, and everything is hot for the contest. trollop's espousal of our cause has immensely helped us and we grow in power constantly. ten of the opposition were called away from town about noon,(but--so it is said--only for one day). six others are sick, but expect to be about again tomorrow or next day, a friend tells me. a bold onslaught is worth trying. go for a suspension of the rules! you will find we can swing a two-thirds vote--i am perfectly satisfied of it. the lord's truth will prevail. "dilworthy." mr. buckstone had reported the bills from his committee, one by one, leaving the bill to the last. when the house had voted upon the acceptance or rejection of the report upon all but it, and the question now being upon its disposal--mr. buckstone begged that the house would give its attention to a few remarks which he desired to make. his committee had instructed him to report the bill favorably; he wished to explain the nature of the measure, and thus justify the committee's action; the hostility roused by the press would then disappear, and the bill would shine forth in its true and noble character. he said that its provisions were simple. it incorporated the knobs industrial university, locating it in east tennessee, declaring it open to all persons without distinction of sex, color or religion, and committing its management to a board of perpetual trustees, with power to fill vacancies in their own number. it provided for the erection of certain buildings for the university, dormitories, lecture-halls, museums, libraries, laboratories, work-shops, furnaces, and mills. it provided also for the purchase of sixty-five thousand acres of land, (fully described) for the purposes of the university, in the knobs of east tennessee. and it appropriated [blank] dollars for the purchase of the land, which should be the property of the national trustees in trust for the uses named. every effort had been made to secure the refusal of the whole amount of the property of the hawkins heirs in the knobs, some seventy-five thousand acres mr. buckstone said. but mr. washington hawkins (one of the heirs) objected. he was, indeed, very reluctant to sell any part of the land at any price; and indeed--this reluctance was justifiable when one considers how constantly and how greatly the property is rising in value. what the south needed, continued mr. buckstone, was skilled labor. without that it would be unable to develop its mines, build its roads, work to advantage and without great waste its fruitful land, establish manufactures or enter upon a prosperous industrial career. its laborers were almost altogether unskilled. change them into intelligent, trained workmen, and you increased at once the capital, the resources of the entire south, which would enter upon a prosperity hitherto unknown. in five years the increase in local wealth would not only reimburse the government for the outlay in this appropriation, but pour untold wealth into the treasury. this was the material view, and the least important in the honorable gentleman's opinion. [here he referred to some notes furnished him by senator dilworthy, and then continued.] god had given us the care of these colored millions. what account should we render to him of our stewardship? we had made them free. should we leave them ignorant? we had cast them upon their own resources. should we leave them without tools? we could not tell what the intentions of providence are in regard to these peculiar people, but our duty was plain. the knobs industrial university would be a vast school of modern science and practice, worthy of a great nation. it would combine the advantages of zurich, freiburg, creuzot and the sheffield scientific. providence had apparently reserved and set apart the knobs of east tennessee for this purpose. what else were they for? was it not wonderful that for more than thirty years, over a generation, the choicest portion of them had remained in one family, untouched, as if, separated for some great use! it might be asked why the government should buy this land, when it had millions of yes, more than the railroad companies desired, which, it might devote to this purpose? he answered, that the government had no such tract of land as this. it had nothing comparable to it for the purposes of the university: this was to be a school of mining, of engineering, of the working of metals, of chemistry, zoology, botany, manufactures, agriculture, in short of all the complicated industries that make a state great. there was no place for the location of such a school like the knobs of east tennessee. the hills abounded in metals of all sorts, iron in all its combinations, copper, bismuth, gold and silver in small quantities, platinum he--believed, tin, aluminium; it was covered with forests and strange plants; in the woods were found the coon, the opossum, the fox, the deer and many other animals who roamed in the domain of natural history; coal existed in enormous quantity and no doubt oil; it was such a place for the practice of agricultural experiments that any student who had been successful there would have an easy task in any other portion of the country. no place offered equal facilities for experiments in mining, metallurgy, engineering. he expected to live to see the day, when the youth of the south would resort to its mines, its workshops, its laboratories, its furnaces and factories for practical instruction in all the great industrial pursuits. a noisy and rather ill-natured debate followed, now, and lasted hour after hour. the friends of the bill were instructed by the leaders to make no effort to check it; it was deemed better strategy to tire out the opposition; it was decided to vote down every proposition to adjourn, and so continue the sitting into the night; opponents might desert, then, one by one and weaken their party, for they had no personal stake in the bill. sunset came, and still the fight went on; the gas was lit, the crowd in the galleries began to thin, but the contest continued; the crowd returned, by and by, with hunger and thirst appeased, and aggravated the hungry and thirsty house by looking contented and comfortable; but still the wrangle lost nothing of its bitterness. recesses were moved plaintively by the opposition, and invariably voted down by the university army. at midnight the house presented a spectacle calculated to interest a stranger. the great galleries were still thronged--though only with men, now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. the reporters' gallery, was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists in the reporters' waiting-room, chatting, smoking, and keeping on the 'qui vive' for the general irruption of the congressional volcano that must come when the time was ripe for it. senator dilworthy and philip were in the diplomatic gallery; washington sat in the public gallery, and col. sellers was, not far away. the colonel had been flying about the corridors and button-holing congressmen all the evening, and believed that he had accomplished a world of valuable service; but fatigue was telling upon him, now, and he was quiet and speechless--for once. below, a few senators lounged upon the sofas set apart for visitors, and talked with idle congressmen. a dreary member was speaking; the presiding officer was nodding; here and there little knots of members stood in the aisles, whispering together; all about the house others sat in all the various attitudes that express weariness; some, tilted back, had one or more legs disposed upon their desks; some sharpened pencils indolently; some scribbled aimlessly; some yawned and stretched; a great many lay upon their breasts upon the desks, sound asleep and gently snoring. the flooding gaslight from the fancifully wrought roof poured down upon the tranquil scene. hardly a sound disturbed the stillness, save the monotonous eloquence of the gentleman who occupied the floor. now and then a warrior of the opposition broke down under the pressure, gave it up, and went home. mr. buckstone began to think it might be safe, now, to "proceed to business." he consulted with trollop and one or two others. senator dilworthy descended to the floor of the house and they went to meet him. after a brief comparison of notes, the congressmen sought their seats and sent pages about the house with messages to friends. these latter instantly roused up, yawned, and began to look alert. the moment the floor was unoccupied, mr. buckstone rose, with an injured look, and said it was evident that the opponents of the bill were merely talking against time, hoping in this unbecoming way to tire out the friends of the measure and so defeat it. such conduct might be respectable enough in a village debating society, but it was trivial among statesmen, it was out of place in so august an assemblage as the house of representatives of the united states. the friends of the bill had been not only willing that its opponents should express their opinions, but had strongly desired it. they courted the fullest and freest discussion; but it seemed to him that this fairness was but illy appreciated, since gentlemen were capable of taking advantage of it for selfish and unworthy ends. this trifling had gone far enough. he called for the question. the instant mr. buckstone sat down, the storm burst forth. a dozen gentlemen sprang to their feet. "mr. speaker!" "mr. speaker!" "mr. speaker!" "order! order! order! question! question!" the sharp blows of the speaker's gavel rose above the din. the "previous question," that hated gag, was moved and carried. all debate came to a sudden end, of course. triumph no. 1. then the vote was taken on the adoption of the report and it carried by a surprising majority. mr. buckstone got the floor again and moved that the rules be suspended and the bill read a first time. mr. trollop--"second the motion!" the speaker--"it is moved and--" clamor of voices. "move we adjourn! second the motion! adjourn! adjourn! order! order!" the speaker, (after using his gavel vigorously)--"it is moved and seconded that the house do now adjourn. all those in favor--" voices--"division! division! ayes and nays! ayes and nays!" it was decided to vote upon the adjournment by ayes and nays. this was in earnest. the excitement was furious. the galleries were in commotion in an instant, the reporters swarmed to their places. idling members of the house flocked to their seats, nervous gentlemen sprang to their feet, pages flew hither and thither, life and animation were visible everywhere, all the long ranks of faces in the building were kindled. "this thing decides it!" thought mr. buckstone; "but let the fight proceed." the voting began, and every sound ceased but the calling if the names and the "aye!" "no!" "no!" "aye!" of the responses. there was not a movement in the house; the people seemed to hold their breath. the voting ceased, and then there was an interval of dead silence while the clerk made up his count. there was a two-thirds vote on the university side--and two over. the speaker--"the rules are suspended, the motion is carried--first reading of the bill!" by one impulse the galleries broke forth into stormy applause, and even some of the members of the house were not wholly able to restrain their feelings. the speaker's gavel came to the rescue and his clear voice followed: "order, gentlemen--! the house will come to order! if spectators offend again, the sergeant-at-arms will clear the galleries!" then he cast his eyes aloft and gazed at some object attentively for a moment. all eyes followed the direction of the speaker's, and then there was a general titter. the speaker said: "let the sergeant-at arms inform the gentleman that his conduct is an infringement of the dignity of the house--and one which is not warranted by the state of the weather." poor sellers was the culprit. he sat in the front seat of the gallery, with his arms and his tired body overflowing the balustrade--sound asleep, dead to all excitements, all disturbances. the fluctuations of the washington weather had influenced his dreams, perhaps, for during the recent tempest of applause he had hoisted his gingham umbrella, and calmly gone on with his slumbers. washington hawkins had seen the act, but was not near enough at hand to save his friend, and no one who was near enough desired to spoil the effect. but a neighbor stirred up the colonel, now that the house had its eye upon him, and the great speculator furled his tent like the arab. he said: "bless my soul, i'm so absent-minded when i, get to thinking! i never wear an umbrella in the house--did anybody 'notice it'? what-asleep? indeed? and did you wake me sir? thank you--thank you very much indeed. it might have fallen out of my hands and been injured. admirable article, sir--present from a friend in hong kong; one doesn't come across silk like that in this country--it's the real--young hyson, i'm told." by this time the incident was forgotten, for the house was at war again. victory was almost in sight, now, and the friends of the bill threw themselves into their work with enthusiasm. they soon moved and carried its second reading, and after a strong, sharp fight, carried a motion to go into committee of the whole. the speaker left his place, of course, and a chairman was appointed. now the contest raged hotter than ever--for the authority that compels order when the house sits as a house, is greatly diminished when it sits as committee. the main fight came upon the filling of the blanks with the sum to be appropriated for the purchase of the land, of course. buckstone--"mr. chairman, i move you, sir, that the words 'three millions of' be inserted." mr. hadley--"mr. chairman, i move that the words two and a half dollars be inserted." mr. clawson--"mr. chairman, i move the insertion of the words five and twenty cents, as representing the true value of this barren and isolated tract of desolation." the question, according to rule, was taken upon the smallest sum first. it was lost. then upon the nest smallest sum. lost, also. and then upon the three millions. after a vigorous battle that lasted a considerable time, this motion was carried. then, clause by clause the bill was read, discussed, and amended in trifling particulars, and now the committee rose and reported. the moment the house had resumed its functions and received the report, mr. buckstone moved and carried the third reading of the bill. the same bitter war over the sum to be paid was fought over again, and now that the ayes and nays could be called and placed on record, every man was compelled to vote by name on the three millions, and indeed on every paragraph of the bill from the enacting clause straight through. but as before, the friends of the measure stood firm and voted in a solid body every time, and so did its enemies. the supreme moment was come, now, but so sure was the result that not even a voice was raised to interpose an adjournment. the enemy were totally demoralized. the bill was put upon its final passage almost without dissent, and the calling of the ayes and nays began. when it was ended the triumph was complete--the two-thirds vote held good, and a veto was impossible, as far as the house was concerned! mr. buckstone resolved that now that the nail was driven home, he would clinch it on the other side and make it stay forever. he moved a reconsideration of the vote by which the bill had passed. the motion was lost, of course, and the great industrial university act was an accomplished fact as far as it was in the power of the house of representatives to make it so. there was no need to move an adjournment. the instant the last motion was decided, the enemies of the university rose and flocked out of the hall, talking angrily, and its friends flocked after them jubilant and congratulatory. the galleries disgorged their burden, and presently the house was silent and deserted. when col. sellers and washington stepped out of the building they were surprised to find that the daylight was old and the sun well up. said the colonel: "give me your hand, my boy! you're all right at last! you're a millionaire! at least you're going to be. the thing is dead sure. don't you bother about the senate. leave me and dilworthy to take care of that. run along home, now, and tell laura. lord, it's magnificent news--perfectly magnificent! run, now. i'll telegraph my wife. she must come here and help me build a house. everything's all right now!" washington was so dazed by his good fortune and so bewildered by the gaudy pageant of dreams that was already trailing its long ranks through his brain, that he wandered he knew not where, and so loitered by the way that when at last he reached home he woke to a sudden annoyance in the fact that his news must be old to laura, now, for of course senator dilworthy must have already been home and told her an hour before. he knocked at her door, but there was no answer. "that is like the duchess," said he. "always cool; a body can't excite her-can't keep her excited, anyway. now she has gone off to sleep again, as comfortably as if she were used to picking up a million dollars every day or two" then he vent to bed. but he could not sleep; so he got up and wrote a long, rapturous letter to louise, and another to his mother. and he closed both to much the same effect: "laura will be queen of america, now, and she will be applauded, and honored and petted by the whole nation. her name will be in every one's mouth more than ever, and how they will court her and quote her bright speeches. and mine, too, i suppose; though they do that more already, than they really seem to deserve. oh, the world is so bright, now, and so cheery; the clouds are all gone, our long struggle is ended, our, troubles are all over. nothing can ever make us unhappy any more. you dear faithful ones will have the reward of your patient waiting now. how father's wisdom is proven at last! and how i repent me, that there have been times when i lost faith and said, the blessing he stored up for us a tedious generation ago was but a long-drawn curse, a blight upon us all. but everything is well, now--we are done with poverty, sad toil, weariness and heart-break; all the world is filled with sunshine." the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 2. chapter x. only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral, when something happened which was to change the drift of laura's life somewhat, and influence in a greater or lesser degree the formation of her character. major lackland had once been a man of note in the state--a man of extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning. he had been universally trusted and honored in his day, but had finally, fallen into misfortune; while serving his third term in congress, and while upon the point of being elevated to the senate--which was considered the summit of earthly aggrandizement in those days--he had yielded to temptation, when in distress for money wherewith to save his estate; and sold his vote. his crime was discovered, and his fall followed instantly. nothing could reinstate him in the confidence of the people, his ruin was irretrievable--his disgrace complete. all doors were closed against him, all men avoided him. after years of skulking retirement and dissipation, death had relieved him of his troubles at last, and his funeral followed close upon that of mr. hawkins. he died as he had latterly lived--wholly alone and friendless. he had no relatives--or if he had they did not acknowledge him. the coroner's jury found certain memoranda upon his body and about the premises which revealed a fact not suspected by the villagers before-viz., that laura was not the child of mr. and mrs. hawkins. the gossips were soon at work. they were but little hampered by the fact that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare circumstance that laura's real parents were unknown, and stopped there. so far from being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom from it. they supplied all the missing information themselves, they filled up all the blanks. the town soon teemed with histories of laura's origin and secret history, no two versions precisely alike, but all elaborate, exhaustive, mysterious and interesting, and all agreeing in one vital particular-to-wit, that there was a suspicious cloud about her birth, not to say a disreputable one. laura began to encounter cold looks, averted eyes and peculiar nods and gestures which perplexed her beyond measure; but presently the pervading gossip found its way to her, and she understood them--then. her pride was stung. she was astonished, and at first incredulous. she was about to ask her mother if there was any truth in these reports, but upon second thought held her peace. she soon gathered that major lackland's memoranda seemed to refer to letters which had passed between himself and judge hawkins. she shaped her course without difficulty the day that that hint reached her. that night she sat in her room till all was still, and then she stole into the garret and began a search. she rummaged long among boxes of musty papers relating to business matters of no, interest to her, but at last she found several bundles of letters. one bundle was marked "private," and in that she found what she wanted. she selected six or eight letters from the package and began to devour their contents, heedless of the cold. by the dates, these letters were from five to seven years old. they were all from major lackland to mr. hawkins. the substance of them was, that some one in the east had been inquiring of major lackland about a lost child and its parents, and that it was conjectured that the child might be laura. evidently some of the letters were missing, for the name of the inquirer was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to "this handsome-featured aristocratic gentleman," as if the reader and the writer were accustomed to speak of him and knew who was meant. in one letter the major said he agreed with mr. hawkins that the inquirer seemed not altogether on the wrong track; but he also agreed that it would be best to keep quiet until more convincing developments were forthcoming. another letter said that "the poor soul broke completely down when be saw laura's picture, and declared it must be she." still another said: "he seems entirely alone in the world, and his heart is so wrapped up in this thing that i believe that if it proved a false hope, it would kill him; i have persuaded him to wait a little while and go west when i go." another letter had this paragraph in it: "he is better one day and worse the next, and is out of his mind a good deal of the time. lately his case has developed a something which is a wonder to the hired nurses, but which will not be much of a marvel to you if you have read medical philosophy much. it is this: his lost memory returns to him when he is delirious, and goes away again when he is himself-just as old canada joe used to talk the french patois of his boyhood in the delirium of typhus fever, though he could not do it when his mind was clear. now this poor gentleman's memory has always broken down before he reached the explosion of the steamer; he could only remember starting up the river with his wife and child, and he had an idea that there was a race, but he was not certain; he could not name the boat he was on; there was a dead blank of a month or more that supplied not an item to his recollection. it was not for me to assist him, of course. but now in his delirium it all comes out: the names of the boats, every incident of the explosion, and likewise the details of his astonishing escape--that is, up to where, just as a yawl-boat was approaching him (he was clinging to the starboard wheel of the burning wreck at the time), a falling timber struck him on the head. but i will write out his wonderful escape in full to-morrow or next day. of course the physicians will not let me tell him now that our laura is indeed his child--that must come later, when his health is thoroughly restored. his case is not considered dangerous at all; he will recover presently, the doctors say. but they insist that he must travel a little when he gets well--they recommend a short sea voyage, and they say he can be persuaded to try it if we continue to keep him in ignorance and promise to let him see l. as soon as he returns." the letter that bore the latest date of all, contained this clause: "it is the most unaccountable thing in the world; the mystery remains as impenetrable as ever; i have hunted high and low for him, and inquired of everybody, but in vain; all trace of him ends at that hotel in new york; i never have seen or heard of him since, up to this day; he could hardly have sailed, for his name does not appear upon the books of any shipping office in new york or boston or baltimore. how fortunate it seems, now, that we kept this thing to ourselves; laura still has a father in you, and it is better for her that we drop this subject here forever." that was all. random remarks here and there, being pieced together gave laura a vague impression of a man of fine presence, abort forty-three or forty-five years of age, with dark hair and eyes, and a slight limp in his walk--it was not stated which leg was defective. and this indistinct shadow represented her father. she made an exhaustive search for the missing letters, but found none. they had probably been burned; and she doubted not that the ones she had ferreted out would have shared the same fate if mr. hawkins had not been a dreamer, void of method, whose mind was perhaps in a state of conflagration over some bright new speculation when he received them. she sat long, with the letters in her lap, thinking--and unconsciously freezing. she felt like a lost person who has traveled down a long lane in good hope of escape, and, just as the night descends finds his progress barred by a bridge-less river whose further shore, if it has one, is lost in the darkness. if she could only have found these letters a month sooner! that was her thought. but now the dead had carried their secrets with them. a dreary, melancholy settled down upon her. an undefined sense of injury crept into her heart. she grew very miserable. she had just reached the romantic age--the age when there is a sad sweetness, a dismal comfort to a girl to find out that there is a mystery connected with her birth, which no other piece of good luck can afford. she had more than her rightful share of practical good sense, but still she was human; and to be human is to have one's little modicum of romance secreted away in one's composition. one never ceases to make a hero of one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the style of his heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of his admiration and raise up others in their stead that seem greater. the recent wearing days and nights of watching, and the wasting grief that had possessed her, combined with the profound depression that naturally came with the reaction of idleness, made laura peculiarly susceptible at this time to romantic impressions. she was a heroine, now, with a mysterious father somewhere. she could not really tell whether she wanted to find him and spoil it all or not; but still all the traditions of romance pointed to the making the attempt as the usual and necessary, course to follow; therefore she would some day begin the search when opportunity should offer. now a former thought struck her--she would speak to mrs. hawkins. and naturally enough mrs. hawkins appeared on the stage at that moment. she said she knew all--she knew that laura had discovered the secret that mr. hawkins, the elder children, col. sellers and herself had kept so long and so faithfully; and she cried and said that now that troubles had begun they would never end; her daughter's love would wean itself away from her and her heart would break. her grief so wrought upon laura that the girl almost forgot her own troubles for the moment in her compassion for her mother's distress. finally mrs. hawkins said: "speak to me, child--do not forsake me. forget all this miserable talk. say i am your mother!--i have loved you so long, and there is no other. i am your mother, in the sight of god, and nothing shall ever take you from me!" all barriers fell, before this appeal. laura put her arms about her mother's neck and said: "you are my mother, and always shall be. we will be as we have always been; and neither this foolish talk nor any other thing shall part us or make us less to each other than we are this hour." there was no longer any sense of separation or estrangement between them. indeed their love seemed more perfect now than it had ever been before. by and by they went down stairs and sat by the fire and talked long and earnestly about laura's history and the letters. but it transpired that mrs. hawkins had never known of this correspondence between her husband and major lackland. with his usual consideration for his wife, mr. hawkins had shielded her from the worry the matter would have caused her. laura went to bed at last with a mind that had gained largely in tranquility and had lost correspondingly in morbid romantic exaltation. she was pensive, the next day, and subdued; but that was not matter for remark, for she did not differ from the mournful friends about her in that respect. clay and washington were the same loving and admiring brothers now that they had always been. the great secret was new to some of the younger children, but their love suffered no change under the wonderful revelation. it is barely possible that things might have presently settled down into their old rut and the mystery have lost the bulk of its romantic sublimity in laura's eyes, if the village gossips could have quieted down. but they could not quiet down and they did not. day after day they called at the house, ostensibly upon visits of condolence, and they pumped away at the mother and the children without seeming to know that their questionings were in bad taste. they meant no harm they only wanted to know. villagers always want to know. the family fought shy of the questionings, and of course that was high testimony "if the duchess was respectably born, why didn't they come out and prove it?--why did they, stick to that poor thin story about picking her up out of a steamboat explosion?" under this ceaseless persecution, laura's morbid self-communing was renewed. at night the day's contribution of detraction, innuendo and malicious conjecture would be canvassed in her mind, and then she would drift into a course of thinking. as her thoughts ran on, the indignant tears would spring to her eyes, and she would spit out fierce little ejaculations at intervals. but finally she would grow calmer and say some comforting disdainful thing--something like this: "but who are they?--animals! what are their opinions to me? let them talk--i will not stoop to be affected by it. i could hate----. nonsense--nobody i care for or in any way respect is changed toward me, i fancy." she may have supposed she was thinking of many individuals, but it was not so--she was thinking of only one. and her heart warmed somewhat, too, the while. one day a friend overheard a conversation like this: --and naturally came and told her all about it: "ned, they say you don't go there any more. how is that?" "well, i don't; but i tell you it's not because i don't want to and it's not because i think it is any matter who her father was or who he wasn't, either; it's only on account of this talk, talk, talk. i think she is a fine girl every way, and so would you if you knew her as well as i do; but you know how it is when a girl once gets talked about--it's all up with her--the world won't ever let her alone, after that." the only comment laura made upon this revelation, was: "then it appears that if this trouble had not occurred i could have had the happiness of mr. ned thurston's serious attentions. he is well favored in person, and well liked, too, i believe, and comes of one of the first families of the village. he is prosperous, too, i hear; has been a doctor a year, now, and has had two patients--no, three, i think; yes, it was three. i attended their funerals. well, other people have hoped and been disappointed; i am not alone in that. i wish you could stay to dinner, maria--we are going to have sausages; and besides, i wanted to talk to you about hawkeye and make you promise to come and see us when we are settled there." but maria could not stay. she had come to mingle romantic tears with laura's over the lover's defection and had found herself dealing with a heart that could not rise to an appreciation of affliction because its interest was all centred in sausages. but as soon as maria was gone, laura stamped her expressive foot and said: "the coward! are all books lies? i thought he would fly to the front, and be brave and noble, and stand up for me against all the world, and defy my enemies, and wither these gossips with his scorn! poor crawling thing, let him go. i do begin to despise thin world!" she lapsed into thought. presently she said: "if the time ever comes, and i get a chance, oh, i'll----" she could not find a word that was strong enough, perhaps. by and by she said: "well, i am glad of it--i'm glad of it. i never cared anything for him anyway!" and then, with small consistency, she cried a little, and patted her foot more indignantly than ever. chapter xi two months had gone by and the hawkins family were domiciled in hawkeye. washington was at work in the real estate office again, and was alternately in paradise or the other place just as it happened that louise was gracious to him or seemingly indifferent--because indifference or preoccupation could mean nothing else than that she was thinking of some other young person. col. sellers had asked him several times, to dine with him, when he first returned to hawkeye, but washington, for no particular reason, had not accepted. no particular reason except one which he preferred to keep to himself--viz. that he could not bear to be away from louise. it occurred to him, now, that the colonel had not invited him lately--could he be offended? he resolved to go that very day, and give the colonel a pleasant surprise. it was a good idea; especially as louise had absented herself from breakfast that morning, and torn his heart; he would tear hers, now, and let her see how it felt. the sellers family were just starting to dinner when washington burst upon them with his surprise. for an instant the colonel looked nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and mrs. sellers looked actually distressed; but the next moment the head of the house was himself again, and exclaimed: "all right, my boy, all right--always glad to see you--always glad to hear your voice and take you by the hand. don't wait for special invitations--that's all nonsense among friends. just come whenever you can, and come as often as you can--the oftener the better. you can't please us any better than that, washington; the little woman will tell you so herself. we don't pretend to style. plain folks, you know--plain folks. just a plain family dinner, but such as it is, our friends are always welcome, i reckon you know that yourself, washington. run along, children, run along; lafayette,--[**in those old days the average man called his children after his most revered literary and historical idols; consequently there was hardly a family, at least in the west, but had a washington in it--and also a lafayette, a franklin, and six or eight sounding names from byron, scott, and the bible, if the offspring held out. to visit such a family, was to find one's self confronted by a congress made up of representatives of the imperial myths and the majestic dead of all the ages. there was something thrilling about it, to a stranger, not to say awe inspiring.]--stand off the cat's tail, child, can't you see what you're doing?--come, come, come, roderick dhu, it isn't nice for little boys to hang onto young gentlemen's coat tails --but never mind him, washington, he's full of spirits and don't mean any harm. children will be children, you know. take the chair next to mrs. sellers, washington--tut, tut, marie antoinette, let your brother have the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is." washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were in his right mind. was this the plain family dinner? and was it all present? it was soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner: it was all on the table: it consisted of abundance of clear, fresh water, and a basin of raw turnips--nothing more. washington stole a glance at mrs. sellers's face, and would have given the world, the next moment, if he could have spared her that. the poor woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood in her eyes. washington did not know what to do. he wished he had never come there and spied out this cruel poverty and brought pain to that poor little lady's heart and shame to her cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. col. sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who should say "now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before him "let me help you, washington--lafayette pass this plate washington--ah, well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, i tell you. speculation--my! the whole atmosphere's full of money. i would'nt take three fortunes for one little operation i've got on hand now--have anything from the casters? no? well, you're right, you're right. some people like mustard with turnips, but--now there was baron poniatowski --lord, but that man did know how to live!--true russian you know, russian to the back bone; i say to my wife, give me a russian every time, for a table comrade. the baron used to say, 'take mustard, sellers, try the mustard,--a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without, mustard,' but i always said, 'no, baron, i'm a plain man and i want my food plain--none of your embellishments for beriah sellers--no made dishes for me! and it's the best way--high living kills more than it cures in this world, you can rest assured of that.--yes indeed, washington, i've got one little operation on hand that--take some more water--help yourself, won't you?--help yourself, there's plenty of it. --you'll find it pretty good, i guess. how does that fruit strike you?" washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better. he did not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked loathed them in their natural state. no, he kept this to himself, and praised the turnips to the peril of his soul. "i thought you'd like them. examine them--examine them--they'll bear it. see how perfectly firm and juicy they are--they can't start any like them in this part of the country, i can tell you. these are from new jersey --i imported them myself. they cost like sin, too; but lord bless me, i go in for having the best of a thing, even if it does cost a little more--it's the best economy, in the long run. these are the early malcolm--it's a turnip that can't be produced except in just one orchard, and the supply never is up to the demand. take some more water, washington--you can't drink too much water with fruit--all the doctors say that. the plague can't come where this article is, my boy!" "plague? what plague?" "what plague, indeed? why the asiatic plague that nearly depopulated london a couple of centuries ago." "but how does that concern us? there is no plague here, i reckon." "sh! i've let it out! well, never mind--just keep it to yourself. perhaps i oughtn't said anything, but its bound to come out sooner or later, so what is the odds? old mcdowells wouldn't like me to--to --bother it all, i'll jest tell the whole thing and let it go. you see, i've been down to st. louis, and i happened to run across old dr. mcdowells--thinks the world of me, does the doctor. he's a man that keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for he knows that he's got a reputation that covers the whole earth--he won't condescend to open himself out to many people, but lord bless you, he and i are just like brothers; he won't let me go to a hotel when i'm in the city--says i'm the only man that's company to him, and i don't know but there's some truth in it, too, because although i never like to glorify myself and make a great to-do over what i am or what i can do or what i know, i don't mind saying here among friends that i am better read up in most sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in these days. well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly on the quiet, about this matter of the plague. "you see it's booming right along in our direction--follows the gulf stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do, and within three months it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirlwind! and whoever it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral. well you can't cure it, you know, but you can prevent it. how? turnips! that's it! turnips and water! nothing like it in the world, old mcdowells says, just fill yourself up two or three times a day, and you can snap your fingers at the plague. sh!--keep mum, but just you confine yourself to that diet and you're all right. i wouldn't have old mcdowells know that i told about it for anything--he never would speak to me again. take some more water, washington--the more water you drink, the better. here, let me give you some more of the turnips. no, no, no, now, i insist. there, now. absorb those. they're, mighty sustaining--brim full of nutriment--all the medical books say so. just eat from four to seven good-sized turnips at a meal, and drink from a pint and a half to a quart of water, and then just sit around a couple of hours and let them ferment. you'll feel like a fighting cock next day." fifteen or twenty minutes later the colonel's tongue was still chattering away--he had piled up several future fortunes out of several incipient "operations" which he had blundered into within the past week, and was now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water. and at such a time washington ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and distracted his attention. one was, that he discovered, to his confusion and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. he had not needed the dreadful "fruit," and had not wanted it; and when he saw the pathetic sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to give them, he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing young things with all his heart. the other matter that disturbed him was the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach. it grew and grew, it became more and more insupportable. evidently the turnips were "fermenting." he forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but his anguish conquered him at last. he rose in the midst of the colonel's talk and excused himself on the plea of a previous engagement. the colonel followed him to the door, promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get some of the early malcolms for him, and insisting that he should not be such a stranger but come and take pot-luck with him every chance he got. washington was glad enough to get away and feel free again. he immediately bent his steps toward home. in bed he passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray, and then a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with gratitude. weak and languid, he made shift to turn himself about and seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of unconciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in his heart he had cursed the colonel's preventive of rheumatism, before, and now let the plague come if it must--he was done with preventives; if ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again, let him die the death. if he dreamed at all that night, no gossiping spirit disturbed his visions to whisper in his ear of certain matters just then in bud in the east, more than a thousand miles away that after the lapse of a few years would develop influences which would profoundly affect the fate and fortunes of the hawkins family. chapter xii "oh, it's easy enough to make a fortune," henry said. "it seems to be easier than it is, i begin to think," replied philip. "well, why don't you go into something? you'll never dig it out of the astor library." if there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy to "go into something" it is in broadway on a spring morning, when one is walking city-ward, and has before him the long lines of palace-shops with an occasional spire seen through the soft haze that lies over the lower town, and hears the roar and hum of its multitudinous traffic. to the young american, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in all his wide horizon. he is embarrassed which to choose, and is not unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. he has no traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for himself. philip sterling used to say that if he should seriously set himself for ten years to any one of the dozen projects that were in his brain, he felt that he could be a rich man. he wanted to be rich, he had a sincere desire for a fortune, but for some unaccountable reason he hesitated about addressing himself to the narrow work of getting it. he never walked broadway, a part of its tide of abundant shifting life, without feeling something of the flush of wealth, and unconsciously taking the elastic step of one well-to-do in this prosperous world. especially at night in the crowded theatre--philip was too young to remember the old chambers' street box, where the serious burton led his hilarious and pagan crew--in the intervals of the screaming comedy, when the orchestra scraped and grunted and tooted its dissolute tunes, the world seemed full of opportunities to philip, and his heart exulted with a conscious ability to take any of its prizes he chose to pluck. perhaps it was the swimming ease of the acting, on the stage, where virtue had its reward in three easy acts, perhaps it was the excessive light of the house, or the music, or the buzz of the excited talk between acts, perhaps it was youth which believed everything, but for some reason while philip was at the theatre he had the utmost confidence in life and his ready victory in it. delightful illusion of paint and tinsel and silk attire, of cheap sentiment and high and mighty dialogue! will there not always be rosin enough for the squeaking fiddle-bow? do we not all like the maudlin hero, who is sneaking round the right entrance, in wait to steal the pretty wife of his rich and tyrannical neighbor from the paste-board cottage at the left entrance? and when he advances down to the foot-lights and defiantly informs the audience that, "he who lays his hand on a woman except in the way of kindness," do we not all applaud so as to drown the rest of the sentence? philip never was fortunate enough to hear what would become of a man who should lay his hand on a woman with the exception named; but he learned afterwards that the woman who lays her hand on a man, without any exception whatsoever, is always acquitted by the jury. the fact was, though philip sterling did not know it, that he wanted several other things quite as much as he wanted wealth. the modest fellow would have liked fame thrust upon him for some worthy achievement; it might be for a book, or for the skillful management of some great newspaper, or for some daring expedition like that of lt. strain or dr. kane. he was unable to decide exactly what it should be. sometimes he thought he would like to stand in a conspicuous pulpit and humbly preach the gospel of repentance; and it even crossed his mind that it would be noble to give himself to a missionary life to some benighted region, where the date-palm grows, and the nightingale's voice is in tune, and the bul-bul sings on the off nights. if he were good enough he would attach himself to that company of young men in the theological seminary, who were seeing new york life in preparation for the ministry. philip was a new england boy and had graduated at yale; he had not carried off with him all the learning of that venerable institution, but he knew some things that were not in the regular course of study. a very good use of the english language and considerable knowledge of its literature was one of them; he could sing a song very well, not in time to be sure, but with enthusiasm; he could make a magnetic speech at a moment's notice in the class room, the debating society, or upon any fence or dry-goods box that was convenient; he could lift himself by one arm, and do the giant swing in the gymnasium; he could strike out from his left shoulder; he could handle an oar like a professional and pull stroke in a winning race. philip had a good appetite, a sunny temper, and a clear hearty laugh. he had brown hair, hazel eyes set wide apart, a broad but not high forehead, and a fresh winning face. he was six feet high, with broad shoulders, long legs and a swinging gait; one of those loose-jointed, capable fellows, who saunter into the world with a free air and usually make a stir in whatever company they enter. after he left college philip took the advice of friends and read law. law seemed to him well enough as a science, but he never could discover a practical case where it appeared to him worth while to go to law, and all the clients who stopped with this new clerk in the ante-room of the law office where he was writing, philip invariably advised to settle--no matter how, but settle--greatly to the disgust of his employer, who knew that justice between man and man could only be attained by the recognized processes, with the attendant fees. besides philip hated the copying of pleadings, and he was certain that a life of "whereases" and "aforesaids" and whipping the devil round the stump, would be intolerable. [note: these few paragraphs are nearly an autobiography of the life of charles dudley warner whose contributions to the story start here with chapter xii. d.w.] his pen therefore, and whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into other scribbling. in an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers accepted by first-class magazines, at three dollars the printed page, and, behold, his vocation was open to him. he would make his mark in literature. life has no moment so sweet as that in which a young man believes himself called into the immortal ranks of the masters of literature. it is such a noble ambition, that it is a pity it has usually such a shallow foundation. at the time of this history, philip had gone to new york for a career. with his talent he thought he should have little difficulty in getting an editorial position upon a metropolitan newspaper; not that he knew anything about news paper work, or had the least idea of journalism; he knew he was not fitted for the technicalities of the subordinate departments, but he could write leaders with perfect ease, he was sure. the drudgery of the newspaper office was too distaste ful, and besides it would be beneath the dignity of a graduate and a successful magazine writer. he wanted to begin at the top of the ladder. to his surprise he found that every situation in the editorial department of the journals was full, always had been full, was always likely to be full. it seemed to him that the newspaper managers didn't want genius, but mere plodding and grubbing. philip therefore read diligently in the astor library, planned literary works that should compel attention, and nursed his genius. he had no friend wise enough to tell him to step into the dorking convention, then in session, make a sketch of the men and women on the platform, and take it to the editor of the daily grapevine, and see what he could get a line for it. one day he had an offer from some country friends, who believed in him, to take charge of a provincial daily newspaper, and he went to consult mr. gringo--gringo who years ago managed the atlas--about taking the situation. "take it of course," says gringo, take anything that offers, why not?" "but they want me to make it an opposition paper." "well, make it that. that party is going to succeed, it's going to elect the next president." "i don't believe it," said philip, stoutly, "its wrong in principle, and it ought not to succeed, but i don't see how i can go for a thing i don't believe in." "o, very well," said gringo, turning away with a shade of contempt, "you'll find if you are going into literature and newspaper work that you can't afford a conscience like that." but philip did afford it, and he wrote, thanking his friends, and declining because he said the political scheme would fail, and ought to fail. and he went back to his books and to his waiting for an opening large enough for his dignified entrance into the literary world. it was in this time of rather impatient waiting that philip was one morning walking down broadway with henry brierly. he frequently accompanied henry part way down town to what the latter called his office in broad street, to which he went, or pretended to go, with regularity every day. it was evident to the most casual acquaintance that he was a man of affairs, and that his time was engrossed in the largest sort of operations, about which there was a mysterious air. his liability to be suddenly summoned to washington, or boston or montreal or even to liverpool was always imminent. he never was so summoned, but none of his acquaintances would have been surprised to hear any day that he had gone to panama or peoria, or to hear from him that he had bought the bank of commerce. the two were intimate at that time,--they had been class, mates--and saw a great deal of each other. indeed, they lived together in ninth street, in a boarding-house, there, which had the honor of lodging and partially feeding several other young fellows of like kidney, who have since gone their several ways into fame or into obscurity. it was during the morning walk to which reference has been made that henry brierly suddenly said, "philip, how would you like to go to st. jo?" "i think i should like it of all things," replied philip, with some hesitation, "but what for." "oh, it's a big operation. we are going, a lot of us, railroad men, engineers, contractors. you know my uncle is a great railroad man. i've no doubt i can get you a chance to go if you'll go." "but in what capacity would i go?" "well, i'm going as an engineer. you can go as one." "i don't know an engine from a coal cart." "field engineer, civil engineer. you can begin by carrying a rod, and putting down the figures. it's easy enough. i'll show you about that. we'll get trautwine and some of those books." "yes, but what is it for, what is it all about?" "why don't you see? we lay out a line, spot the good land, enter it up, know where the stations are to be, spot them, buy lots; there's heaps of money in it. we wouldn't engineer long." "when do you go?" was philip's next question, after some moments of silence. "to-morrow. is that too soon?" "no, its not too soon. i've been ready to go anywhere for six months. the fact is, henry, that i'm about tired of trying to force myself into things, and am quite willing to try floating with the stream for a while, and see where i will land. this seems like a providential call; it's sudden enough." the two young men who were by this time full of the adventure, went down to the wall street office of henry's uncle and had a talk with that wily operator. the uncle knew philip very well, and was pleased with his frank enthusiasm, and willing enough to give him a trial in the western venture. it was settled therefore, in the prompt way in which things are settled in new york, that they would start with the rest of the company next morning for the west. on the way up town these adventurers bought books on engineering, and suits of india-rubber, which they supposed they would need in a new and probably damp country, and many other things which nobody ever needed anywhere. the night was spent in packing up and writing letters, for philip would not take such an important step without informing his friends. if they disapprove, thought he, i've done my duty by letting them know. happy youth, that is ready to pack its valise, and start for cathay on an hour's notice. "by the way," calls out philip from his bed-room, to henry, "where is st. jo.?" "why, it's in missouri somewhere, on the frontier i think. we'll get a map." "never mind the map. we will find the place itself. i was afraid it was nearer home." philip wrote a long letter, first of all, to his mother, full of love and glowing anticipations of his new opening. he wouldn't bother her with business details, but he hoped that the day was not far off when she would see him return, with a moderate fortune, and something to add to the comfort of her advancing years. to his uncle he said that he had made an arrangement with some new york capitalists to go to missouri, in a land and railroad operation, which would at least give him a knowledge of the world and not unlikely offer him a business opening. he knew his uncle would be glad to hear that he had at last turned his thoughts to a practical matter. it was to ruth bolton that philip wrote last. he might never see her again; he went to seek his fortune. he well knew the perils of the frontier, the savage state of society, the lurking indians and the dangers of fever. but there was no real danger to a person who took care of himself. might he write to her often and, tell her of his life. if he returned with a fortune, perhaps and perhaps. if he was unsuccessful, or if he never returned--perhaps it would be as well. no time or distance, however, would ever lessen his interest in her. he would say good-night, but not good-bye. in the soft beginning of a spring morning, long before new york had breakfasted, while yet the air of expectation hung about the wharves of the metropolis, our young adventurers made their way to the jersey city railway station of the erie road, to begin the long, swinging, crooked journey, over what a writer of a former day called a causeway of cracked rails and cows, to the west. chapter xiii. what ever to say be toke in his entente, his langage was so fayer & pertynante, yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde, but veryly the thyng. caxton's book of curtesye. in the party of which our travelers found themselves members, was duff brown, the great railroad contractor, and subsequently a well-known member of congress; a bluff, jovial bost'n man, thick-set, close shaven, with a heavy jaw and a low forehead--a very pleasant man if you were not in his way. he had government contracts also, custom houses and dry docks, from portland to new orleans, and managed to get out of congress, in appropriations, about weight for weight of gold for the stone furnished. associated with him, and also of this party, was rodney schaick, a sleek new york broker, a man as prominent in the church as in the stock exchange, dainty in his dress, smooth of speech, the necessary complement of duff brown in any enterprise that needed assurance and adroitness. it would be difficult to find a pleasanter traveling party one that shook off more readily the artificial restraints of puritanic strictness, and took the world with good-natured allowance. money was plenty for every attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of toil. even philip soon caught the prevailing spirit; barry did not need any inoculation, he always talked in six figures. it was as natural for the dear boy to be rich as it is for most people to be poor. the elders of the party were not long in discovering the fact, which almost all travelers to the west soon find out; that the water was poor. it must have been by a lucky premonition of this that they all had brandy flasks with which to qualify the water of the country; and it was no doubt from an uneasy feeling of the danger of being poisoned that they kept experimenting, mixing a little of the dangerous and changing fluid, as they passed along, with the contents of the flasks, thus saving their lives hour by hour. philip learned afterwards that temperance and the strict observance of sunday and a certain gravity of deportment are geographical habits, which people do not usually carry with them away from home. our travelers stopped in chicago long enough to see that they could make their fortunes there in two week's tine, but it did not seem worth while; the west was more attractive; the further one went the wider the opportunities opened. they took railroad to alton and the steamboat from there to st. louis, for the change and to have a glimpse of the river. "isn't this jolly?" cried henry, dancing out of the barber's room, and coming down the deck with a one, two, three step, shaven, curled and perfumed after his usual exquisite fashion. "what's jolly?" asked philip, looking out upon the dreary and monotonous waste through which the shaking steamboat was coughing its way. "why, the whole thing; it's immense i can tell you. i wouldn't give that to be guaranteed a hundred thousand cold cash in a year's time." "where's mr. brown?" "he is in the saloon, playing poker with schaick and that long haired party with the striped trousers, who scrambled aboard when the stage plank was half hauled in, and the big delegate to congress from out west." "that's a fine looking fellow, that delegate, with his glossy, black whiskers; looks like a washington man; i shouldn't think he'd be at poker." "oh, its only five cent ante, just to make it interesting, the delegate said." "but i shouldn't think a representative in congress would play poker any way in a public steamboat." "nonsense, you've got to pass the time. i tried a hand myself, but those old fellows are too many for me. the delegate knows all the points. i'd bet a hundred dollars he will ante his way right into the united states senate when his territory comes in. he's got the cheek for it." "he has the grave and thoughtful manner of expectoration of a public man, for one thing," added philip. "harry," said philip, after a pause, "what have you got on those big boots for; do you expect to wade ashore?" "i'm breaking 'em in." the fact was harry had got himself up in what he thought a proper costume for a new country, and was in appearance a sort of compromise between a dandy of broadway and a backwoodsman. harry, with blue eyes, fresh complexion, silken whiskers and curly chestnut hair, was as handsome as a fashion plate. he wore this morning a soft hat, a short cutaway coat, an open vest displaying immaculate linen, a leathern belt round his waist, and top-boots of soft leather, well polished, that came above his knees and required a string attached to his belt to keep them up. the light hearted fellow gloried in these shining encasements of his well shaped legs, and told philip that they were a perfect protection against prairie rattle-snakes, which never strike above the knee. the landscape still wore an almost wintry appearance when our travelers left chicago. it was a genial spring day when they landed at st. louis; the birds were singing, the blossoms of peach trees in city garden plots, made the air sweet, and in the roar and tumult on the long river levee they found an excitement that accorded with their own hopeful anticipations. the party went to the southern hotel, where the great duff brown was very well known, and indeed was a man of so much importance that even the office clerk was respectful to him. he might have respected in him also a certain vulgar swagger and insolence of money, which the clerk greatly admired. the young fellows liked the house and liked the city; it seemed to them a mighty free and hospitable town. coming from the east they were struck with many peculiarities. everybody smoked in the streets, for one thing, they noticed; everybody "took a drink" in an open manner whenever he wished to do so or was asked, as if the habit needed no concealment or apology. in the evening when they walked about they found people sitting on the door-steps of their dwellings, in a manner not usual in a northern city; in front of some of the hotels and saloons the side walks were filled with chairs and benches--paris fashion, said harry--upon which people lounged in these warm spring evenings, smoking, always smoking; and the clink of glasses and of billiard balls was in the air. it was delightful. harry at once found on landing that his back-woods custom would not be needed in st. louis, and that, in fact, he had need of all the resources of his wardrobe to keep even with the young swells of the town. but this did not much matter, for harry was always superior to his clothes. as they were likely to be detained some time in the city, harry told philip that he was going to improve his time. and he did. it was an encouragement to any industrious man to see this young fellow rise, carefully dress himself, eat his breakfast deliberately, smoke his cigar tranquilly, and then repair to his room, to what he called his work, with a grave and occupied manner, but with perfect cheerfulness. harry would take off his coat, remove his cravat, roll up his shirt-sleeves, give his curly hair the right touch before the glass, get out his book on engineering, his boxes of instruments, his drawing paper, his profile paper, open the book of logarithms, mix his india ink, sharpen his pencils, light a cigar, and sit down at the table to "lay out a line," with the most grave notion that he was mastering the details of engineering. he would spend half a day in these preparations without ever working out a problem or having the faintest conception of the use of lines or logarithms. and when he had finished, he had the most cheerful confidence that he had done a good day's work. it made no difference, however, whether harry was in his room in a hotel or in a tent, philip soon found, he was just the same. in camp he would get himself, up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows, and "working" at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping rustics were looking on all the while it was perfectly satisfactory to him. "you see," he says to philip one morning at the hotel when he was thus engaged, "i want to get the theory of this thing, so that i can have a check on the engineers." "i thought you were going to be an engineer yourself," queried philip. "not many times, if the court knows herself. there's better game. brown and schaick have, or will have, the control for the whole line of the salt lick pacific extension, forty thousand dollars a mile over the prairie, with extra for hard-pan--and it'll be pretty much all hardpan i can tell you; besides every alternate section of land on this line. there's millions in the job. i'm to have the sub-contract for the first fifty miles, and you can bet it's a soft thing." "i'll tell you what you do, philip," continued larry, in a burst of generosity, "if i don't get you into my contract, you'll be with the engineers, and you jest stick a stake at the first ground marked for a depot, buy the land of the farmer before he knows where the depot will be, and we'll turn a hundred or so on that. i'll advance the money for the payments, and you can sell the lots. schaick is going to let me have ten thousand just for a flyer in such operations." "but that's a good deal of money." "wait till you are used to handling money. i didn't come out here for a bagatelle. my uncle wanted me to stay east and go in on the mobile custom house, work up the washington end of it; he said there was a fortune in it for a smart young fellow, but i preferred to take the chances out here. did i tell you i had an offer from bobbett and fanshaw to go into their office as confidential clerk on a salary of ten thousand?" "why didn't you take it ?" asked philip, to whom a salary of two thousand would have seemed wealth, before he started on this journey. "take it? i'd rather operate on my own hook;" said harry, in his most airy manner. a few evenings after their arrival at the southern, philip and harry made the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had frequently seen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual word with. he had the air of a man of business, and was evidently a person of importance. the precipitating of this casual intercourse into the more substantial form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, and occurred in this wise. meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, he asked them to give him the time, and added: "excuse me, gentlemen--strangers in st. louis? ah, yes-yes. from the east, perhaps? ah; just so, just so. eastern born myself--virginia. sellers is my name--beriah sellers. "ah! by the way--new york, did you say? that reminds me; just met some gentlemen from your state, a week or two ago--very prominent gentlemen --in public life they are; you must know them, without doubt. let me see --let me see. curious those names have escaped me. i know they were from your state, because i remember afterward my old friend governor shackleby said to me--fine man, is the governor--one of the finest men our country has produced--said he, 'colonel, how did you like those new york gentlemen?--not many such men in the world,--colonel sellers,' said the governor--yes, it was new york he said--i remember it distinctly. i can't recall those names, somehow. but no matter. stopping here, gentlemen--stopping at the southern?" in shaping their reply in their minds, the title "mr." had a place in it; but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title "colonel" came from their lips instead. they said yes, they were abiding at the southern, and thought it a very good house. "yes, yes, the southern is fair. i myself go to the planter's, old, aristocratic house. we southern gentlemen don't change our ways, you know. i always make it my home there when i run down from hawkeye--my plantation is in hawkeye, a little up in the country. you should know the planter's." philip and harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been so famous in its day--a cheerful hostelrie, philip said it must have been where duels were fought there across the dining-room table. "you may believe it, sir, an uncommonly pleasant lodging. shall we walk?" and the three strolled along the streets, the colonel talking all the way in the most liberal and friendly manner, and with a frank open-heartedness that inspired confidence. "yes, born east myself, raised all along, know the west--a great country, gentlemen. the place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a fortune, simply pick it up, it's lying round loose here. not a day that i don't put aside an opportunity; too busy to look into it. management of my own property takes my time. first visit? looking for an opening?" "yes, looking around," replied harry. "ah, here we are. you'd rather sit here in front than go to my apartments? so had i. an opening eh?" the colonel's eyes twinkled. "ah, just so. the country is opening up, all we want is capital to develop it. slap down the rails and bring the land into market. the richest land on god almighty's footstool is lying right out there. if i had my capital free i could plant it for millions." "i suppose your capital is largely in your plantation?" asked philip. "well, partly, sir, partly. i'm down here now with reference to a little operation--a little side thing merely. by the way gentlemen, excuse the liberty, but it's about my usual time"-the colonel paused, but as no movement of his acquaintances followed this plain remark, he added, in an explanatory manner, "i'm rather particular about the exact time--have to be in this climate." even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being understood the colonel politely said, "gentlemen, will you take something?" col. sellers led the way to a saloon on fourth street under the hotel, and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country. "not that," said the colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the counter a bottle of apparently corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before on the same order; "not that," with a wave of the hand. "that otard if you please. yes. never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the evening, in this climate. there. that's the stuff. my respects!" the hospitable gentleman, having disposed of his liquor, remarking that it was not quite the thing--"when a man has his own cellar to go to, he is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors"--called for cigars. but the brand offered did not suit him; he motioned the box away, and asked for some particular havana's, those in separate wrappers. "i always smoke this sort, gentlemen; they are a little more expensive, but you'll learn, in this climate, that you'd better not economize on poor cigars" having imparted this valuable piece of information, the colonel lighted the fragrant cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his fingers into his right vest pocket. that movement being without result, with a shade of disappointment on his face, he felt in his left vest pocket. not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and annoyed air, anxiously slapped his right pantaloon's pocket, and then his left, and exclaimed, "by george, that's annoying. by george, that's mortifying. never had anything of that kind happen to me before. i've left my pocket-book. hold! here's a bill, after all. no, thunder, it's a receipt." "allow me," said philip, seeing how seriously the colonel was annoyed, and taking out his purse. the colonel protested he couldn't think of it, and muttered something to the barkeeper about "hanging it up," but the vender of exhilaration made no sign, and philip had the privilege of paying the costly shot; col. sellers profusely apologizing and claiming the right "next time, next time." as soon as beriah sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them depart, he did not retire apartments in the planter's, but took his way to his lodgings with a friend in a distant part of the city. chapter xiv. the letter that philip sterling wrote to ruth bolton, on the evening of setting out to seek his fortune in the west, found that young lady in her own father's house in philadelphia. it was one of the pleasantest of the many charming suburban houses in that hospitable city, which is territorially one of the largest cities in the world, and only prevented from becoming the convenient metropolis of the country by the intrusive strip of camden and amboy sand which shuts it off from the atlantic ocean. it is a city of steady thrift, the arms of which might well be the deliberate but delicious terrapin that imparts such a royal flavor to its feasts. it was a spring morning, and perhaps it was the influence of it that made ruth a little restless, satisfied neither with the out-doors nor the in-doors. her sisters had gone to the city to show some country visitors independence hall, girard college and fairmount water works and park, four objects which americans cannot die peacefully, even in naples, without having seen. but ruth confessed that she was tired of them, and also of the mint. she was tired of other things. she tried this morning an air or two upon the piano, sang a simple song in a sweet but slightly metallic voice, and then seating herself by the open window, read philip's letter. was she thinking about philip, as she gazed across the fresh lawn over the tree tops to the chelton hills, or of that world which his entrance, into her tradition-bound life had been one of the means of opening to her? whatever she thought, she was not idly musing, as one might see by the expression of her face. after a time she took up a book; it was a medical work, and to all appearance about as interesting to a girl of eighteen as the statutes at large; but her face was soon aglow over its pages, and she was so absorbed in it that she did not notice the entrance of her mother at the open door. "ruth?" "well, mother," said the young student, looking up, with a shade of impatience. "i wanted to talk with thee a little about thy plans." "mother; thee knows i couldn't stand it at westfield; the school stifled me, it's a place to turn young people into dried fruit." "i know," said margaret bolton, with a half anxious smile, thee chafes against all the ways of friends, but what will thee do? why is thee so discontented?" "if i must say it, mother, i want to go away, and get out of this dead level." with a look half of pain and half of pity, her mother answered, "i am sure thee is little interfered with; thee dresses as thee will, and goes where thee pleases, to any church thee likes, and thee has music. i had a visit yesterday from the society's committee by way of discipline, because we have a piano in the house, which is against the rules." "i hope thee told the elders that father and i are responsible for the piano, and that, much as thee loves music, thee is never in the room when it is played. fortunately father is already out of meeting, so they can't discipline him. i heard father tell cousin abner that he was whipped so often for whistling when he was a boy that he was determined to have what compensation he could get now." "thy ways greatly try me, ruth, and all thy relations. i desire thy happiness first of all, but thee is starting out on a dangerous path. is thy father willing thee should go away to a school of the world's people?" "i have not asked him," ruth replied with a look that might imply that she was one of those determined little bodies who first made up her own mind and then compelled others to make up theirs in accordance with hers. "and when thee has got the education thee wants, and lost all relish for the society of thy friends and the ways of thy ancestors, what then?" ruth turned square round to her mother, and with an impassive face and not the slightest change of tone, said, "mother, i'm going to study medicine?" margaret bolton almost lost for a moment her habitual placidity. "thee, study medicine! a slight frail girl like thee, study medicine! does thee think thee could stand it six months? and the lectures, and the dissecting rooms, has thee thought of the dissecting rooms?" "mother," said ruth calmly, "i have thought it all over. i know i can go through the whole, clinics, dissecting room and all. does thee think i lack nerve? what is there to fear in a person dead more than in a person living?" "but thy health and strength, child; thee can never stand the severe application. and, besides, suppose thee does learn medicine?" "i will practice it." "here?" "here." "where thee and thy family are known?" "if i can get patients." "i hope at least, ruth, thee will let us know when thee opens an office," said her mother, with an approach to sarcasm that she rarely indulged in, as she rose and left the room. ruth sat quite still for a tine, with face intent and flushed. it was out now. she had begun her open battle. the sight-seers returned in high spirits from the city. was there any building in greece to compare with girard college, was there ever such a magnificent pile of stone devised for the shelter of poor orphans? think of the stone shingles of the roof eight inches thick! ruth asked the enthusiasts if they would like to live in such a sounding mausoleum, with its great halls and echoing rooms, and no comfortable place in it for the accommodation of any body? if they were orphans, would they like to be brought up in a grecian temple? and then there was broad street! wasn't it the broadest and the longest street in the world? there certainly was no end to it, and even ruth was philadelphian enough to believe that a street ought not to have any end, or architectural point upon which the weary eye could rest. but neither st. girard, nor broad street, neither wonders of the mint nor the glories of the hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always signing the declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors of the chestnut street windows, and the bargains on eighth street. the truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the yearly meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious event was scarcely exceeded by the preparations for the opera in more worldly circles. "is thee going to the yearly meeting, ruth?" asked one of the girls. "i have nothing to wear," replied that demure person. "if thee wants to see new bonnets, orthodox to a shade and conformed to the letter of the true form, thee must go to the arch street meeting. any departure from either color or shape would be instantly taken note of. it has occupied mother a long time, to find at the shops the exact shade for her new bonnet. oh, thee must go by all means. but thee won't see there a sweeter woman than mother." "and thee won't go?" "why should i? i've been again and again. if i go to meeting at all i like best to sit in the quiet old house in germantown, where the windows are all open and i can see the trees, and hear the stir of the leaves. it's such a crush at the yearly meeting at arch street, and then there's the row of sleek-looking young men who line the curbstone and stare at us as we come out. no, i don't feel at home there." that evening ruth and her father sat late by the drawing-room fire, as they were quite apt to do at night. it was always a time of confidences. "thee has another letter from young sterling," said eli bolton. "yes. philip has gone to the far west." "how far?" "he doesn't say, but it's on the frontier, and on the map everything beyond it is marked 'indians' and 'desert,' and looks as desolate as a wednesday meeting." "humph. it was time for him to do something. is he going to start a daily newspaper among the kick-a-poos?" "father, thee's unjust to philip. he's going into business." "what sort of business can a young man go into without capital?" "he doesn't say exactly what it is," said ruth a little dubiously, "but it's something about land and railroads, and thee knows, father, that fortunes are made nobody knows exactly how, in a new country." "i should think so, you innocent puss, and in an old one too. but philip is honest, and he has talent enough, if he will stop scribbling, to make his way. but thee may as well take care of theeself, ruth, and not go dawdling along with a young man in his adventures, until thy own mind is a little more settled what thee wants." this excellent advice did not seem to impress ruth greatly, for she was looking away with that abstraction of vision which often came into her grey eyes, and at length she exclaimed, with a sort of impatience, "i wish i could go west, or south, or somewhere. what a box women are put into, measured for it, and put in young; if we go anywhere it's in a box, veiled and pinioned and shut in by disabilities. father, i should like to break things and get loose!" what a sweet-voiced little innocent, it was to be sure. "thee will no doubt break things enough when thy time comes, child; women always have; but what does thee want now that thee hasn't?" "i want to be something, to make myself something, to do something. why should i rust, and be stupid, and sit in inaction because i am a girl? what would happen to me if thee should lose thy property and die? what one useful thing could i do for a living, for the support of mother and the children? and if i had a fortune, would thee want me to lead a useless life?" "has thy mother led a useless life?" "somewhat that depends upon whether her children amount to anything," retorted the sharp little disputant. "what's the good, father, of a series of human beings who don't advance any?" friend eli, who had long ago laid aside the quaker dress, and was out of meeting, and who in fact after a youth of doubt could not yet define his belief, nevertheless looked with some wonder at this fierce young eagle of his, hatched in a friend's dove-cote. but he only said, "has thee consulted thy mother about a career, i suppose it is a career thee wants?" ruth did not reply directly; she complained that her mother didn't understand her. but that wise and placid woman understood the sweet rebel a great deal better than ruth understood herself. she also had a history, possibly, and had sometime beaten her young wings against the cage of custom, and indulged in dreams of a new social order, and had passed through that fiery period when it seems possible for one mind, which has not yet tried its limits, to break up and re-arrange the world. ruth replied to philip's letter in due time and in the most cordial and unsentimental manner. philip liked the letter, as he did everything she did; but he had a dim notion that there was more about herself in the letter than about him. he took it with him from the southern hotel, when he went to walk, and read it over and again in an unfrequented street as he stumbled along. the rather common-place and unformed hand-writing seemed to him peculiar and characteristic, different from that of any other woman. ruth was glad to hear that philip had made a push into the world, and she was sure that his talent and courage would make a way for him. she should pray for his success at any rate, and especially that the indians, in st. louis, would not take his scalp. philip looked rather dubious at this sentence, and wished that he had written nothing about indians. chapter xv. eli bolton and his wife talked over ruth's case, as they had often done before, with no little anxiety. alone of all their children she was impatient of the restraints and monotony of the friends' society, and wholly indisposed to accept the "inner light" as a guide into a life of acceptance and inaction. when margaret told her husband of ruth's newest project, he did not exhibit so much surprise as she hoped for. in fact he said that he did not see why a woman should not enter the medical profession if she felt a call to it. "but," said margaret, "consider her total inexperience of the world, and her frail health. can such a slight little body endure the ordeal of the preparation for, or the strain of, the practice of the profession?" "did thee ever think, margaret, whether, she can endure being thwarted in an, object on which she has so set her heart, as she has on this? thee has trained her thyself at home, in her enfeebled childhood, and thee knows how strong her will is, and what she has been able to accomplish in self-culture by the simple force of her determination. she never will be satisfied until she has tried her own strength." "i wish," said margaret, with an inconsequence that is not exclusively feminine, "that she were in the way to fall in love and marry by and by. i think that would cure her of some of her notions. i am not sure but if she went away, to some distant school, into an entirely new life, her thoughts would be diverted." eli bolton almost laughed as he regarded his wife, with eyes that never looked at her except fondly, and replied, "perhaps thee remembers that thee had notions also, before we were married, and before thee became a member of meeting. i think ruth comes honestly by certain tendencies which thee has hidden under the friend's dress." margaret could not say no to this, and while she paused, it was evident that memory was busy with suggestions to shake her present opinions. "why not let ruth try the study for a time," suggested eli; "there is a fair beginning of a woman's medical college in the city. quite likely she will soon find that she needs first a more general culture, and fall, in with thy wish that she should see more of the world at some large school." there really seemed to be nothing else to be done, and margaret consented at length without approving. and it was agreed that ruth, in order to spare her fatigue, should take lodgings with friends near the college and make a trial in the pursuit of that science to which we all owe our lives, and sometimes as by a miracle of escape. that day mr. bolton brought home a stranger to dinner, mr. bigler of the great firm of pennybacker, bigler & small, railroad contractors. he was always bringing home somebody, who had a scheme; to build a road, or open a mine, or plant a swamp with cane to grow paper-stock, or found a hospital, or invest in a patent shad-bone separator, or start a college somewhere on the frontier, contiguous to a land speculation. the bolton house was a sort of hotel for this kind of people. they were always coming. ruth had known them from childhood, and she used to say that her father attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does flies. ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by getting the rest of the world into schemes. mr. bolton never could say "no" to any of them, not even, said ruth again, to the society for stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they were sold at retail. mr. bigler's plan this time, about which he talked loudly, with his mouth full, all dinner time, was the building of the tunkhannock, rattlesnake and young-womans-town railroad, which would not only be a great highway to the west, but would open to market inexhaustible coal-fields and untold millions of lumber. the plan of operations was very simple. "we'll buy the lands," explained he, "on long time, backed by the notes of good men; and then mortgage them for money enough to get the road well on. then get the towns on the line to issue their bonds for stock, and sell their bonds for enough to complete the road, and partly stock it, especially if we mortgage each section as we complete it. we can then sell the rest of the stock on the prospect of the business of the road through an improved country, and also sell the lands at a big advance, on the strength of the road. all we want," continued mr. bigler in his frank manner, "is a few thousand dollars to start the surveys, and arrange things in the legislature. there is some parties will have to be seen, who might make us trouble." "it will take a good deal of money to start the enterprise," remarked mr. bolton, who knew very well what "seeing" a pennsylvania legislature meant, but was too polite to tell mr. bigler what he thought of him, while he was his guest; "what security would one have for it?" mr. bigler smiled a hard kind of smile, and said, "you'd be inside, mr. bolton, and you'd have the first chance in the deal." this was rather unintelligible to ruth, who was nevertheless somewhat amused by the study of a type of character she had seen before. at length she interrupted the conversation by asking, "you'd sell the stock, i suppose, mr. bigler, to anybody who was attracted by the prospectus?" "o, certainly, serve all alike," said mr. bigler, now noticing ruth for the first time, and a little puzzled by the serene, intelligent face that was turned towards him. "well, what would become of the poor people who had been led to put their little money into the speculation, when you got out of it and left it half way?" it would be no more true to say of mr. bigler that he was or could be embarrassed, than to say that a brass counterfeit dollar-piece would change color when refused; the question annoyed him a little, in mr. bolton's presence. "why, yes, miss, of course, in a great enterprise for the benefit of the community there will little things occur, which, which--and, of course, the poor ought to be looked to; i tell my wife, that the poor must be looked to; if you can tell who are poor--there's so many impostors. and then, there's so many poor in the legislature to be looked after," said the contractor with a sort of a chuckle, "isn't that so, mr. bolton?" eli bolton replied that he never had much to do with the legislature. "yes," continued this public benefactor, "an uncommon poor lot this year, uncommon. consequently an expensive lot. the fact is, mr. bolton, that the price is raised so high on united states senator now, that it affects the whole market; you can't get any public improvement through on reasonable terms. simony is what i call it, simony," repeated mr. bigler, as if he had said a good thing. mr. bigler went on and gave some very interesting details of the intimate connection between railroads and politics, and thoroughly entertained himself all dinner time, and as much disgusted ruth, who asked no more questions, and her father who replied in monosyllables: "i wish," said ruth to her father, after the guest had gone, "that you wouldn't bring home any more such horrid men. do all men who wear big diamond breast-pins, flourish their knives at table, and use bad grammar, and cheat?" "o, child, thee mustn't be too observing. mr. bigler is one of the most important men in the state; nobody has more influence at harrisburg. i don't like him any more than thee does, but i'd better lend him a little money than to have his ill will." "father, i think thee'd better have his ill-will than his company. is it true that he gave money to help build the pretty little church of st. james the less, and that he is, one of the vestrymen?" "yes. he is not such a bad fellow. one of the men in third street asked him the other day, whether his was a high church or a low church? bigler said he didn't know; he'd been in it once, and he could touch the ceiling in the side aisle with his hand." "i think he's just horrid," was ruth's final summary of him, after the manner of the swift judgment of women, with no consideration of the extenuating circumstances. mr. bigler had no idea that he had not made a good impression on the whole family; he certainly intended to be agreeable. margaret agreed with her daughter, and though she never said anything to such people, she was grateful to ruth for sticking at least one pin into him. such was the serenity of the bolton household that a stranger in it would never have suspected there was any opposition to ruth's going to the medical school. and she went quietly to take her residence in town, and began her attendance of the lectures, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. she did not heed, if she heard, the busy and wondering gossip of relations and acquaintances, gossip that has no less currency among the friends than elsewhere because it is whispered slyly and creeps about in an undertone. ruth was absorbed, and for the first time in her life thoroughly happy; happy in the freedom of her life, and in the keen enjoyment of the investigation that broadened its field day by day. she was in high spirits when she came home to spend first days; the house was full of her gaiety and her merry laugh, and the children wished that ruth would never go away again. but her mother noticed, with a little anxiety, the sometimes flushed face, and the sign of an eager spirit in the kindling eyes, and, as well, the serious air of determination and endurance in her face at unguarded moments. the college was a small one and it sustained itself not without difficulty in this city, which is so conservative, and is yet the origin of so many radical movements. there were not more than a dozen attendants on the lectures all together, so that the enterprise had the air of an experiment, and the fascination of pioneering for those engaged in it. there was one woman physician driving about town in her carriage, attacking the most violent diseases in all quarters with persistent courage, like a modern bellona in her war chariot, who was popularly supposed to gather in fees to the amount ten to twenty thousand dollars a year. perhaps some of these students looked forward to the near day when they would support such a practice and a husband besides, but it is unknown that any of them ever went further than practice in hospitals and in their own nurseries, and it is feared that some of them were quite as ready as their sisters, in emergencies, to "call a man." if ruth had any exaggerated expectations of a professional life, she kept them to herself, and was known to her fellows of the class simply as a cheerful, sincere student, eager in her investigations, and never impatient at anything, except an insinuation that women had not as much mental capacity for science as men. "they really say," said one young quaker sprig to another youth of his age, "that ruth bolton is really going to be a saw-bones, attends lectures, cuts up bodies, and all that. she's cool enough for a surgeon, anyway." he spoke feelingly, for he had very likely been weighed in ruth's calm eyes sometime, and thoroughly scared by the little laugh that accompanied a puzzling reply to one of his conversational nothings. such young gentlemen, at this time, did not come very distinctly into ruth's horizon, except as amusing circumstances. about the details of her student life, ruth said very little to her friends, but they had reason to know, afterwards, that it required all her nerve and the almost complete exhaustion of her physical strength, to carry her through. she began her anatomical practice upon detached portions of the human frame, which were brought into the demonstrating room--dissecting the eye, the ear, and a small tangle of muscles and nerves--an occupation which had not much more savor of death in it than the analysis of a portion of a plant out of which the life went when it was plucked up by the roots. custom inures the most sensitive persons to that which is at first most repellant; and in the late war we saw the most delicate women, who could not at home endure the sight of blood, become so used to scenes of carnage, that they walked the hospitals and the margins of battle-fields, amid the poor remnants of torn humanity, with as perfect self-possession as if they were strolling in a flower garden. it happened that ruth was one evening deep in a line of investigation which she could not finish or understand without demonstration, and so eager was she in it, that it seemed as if she could not wait till the next day. she, therefore, persuaded a fellow student, who was reading that evening with her, to go down to the dissecting room of the college, and ascertain what they wanted to know by an hour's work there. perhaps, also, ruth wanted to test her own nerve, and to see whether the power of association was stronger in her mind than her own will. the janitor of the shabby and comfortless old building admitted the girls, not without suspicion, and gave them lighted candles, which they would need, without other remark than "there's a new one, miss," as the girls went up the broad stairs. they climbed to the third story, and paused before a door, which they unlocked, and which admitted them into a long apartment, with a row of windows on one side and one at the end. the room was without light, save from the stars and the candles the girls carried, which revealed to them dimly two long and several small tables, a few benches and chairs, a couple of skeletons hanging on the wall, a sink, and cloth-covered heaps of something upon the tables here and there. the windows were open, and the cool night wind came in strong enough to flutter a white covering now and then, and to shake the loose casements. but all the sweet odors of the night could not take from the room a faint suggestion of mortality. the young ladies paused a moment. the room itself was familiar enough, but night makes almost any chamber eerie, and especially such a room of detention as this where the mortal parts of the unburied might--almost be supposed to be, visited, on the sighing night winds, by the wandering spirits of their late tenants. opposite and at some distance across the roofs of lower buildings, the girls saw a tall edifice, the long upper story of which seemed to be a dancing hall. the windows of that were also open, and through them they heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick transition, and heard the prompter's drawl. "i wonder," said ruth, "what the girls dancing there would think if they saw us, or knew that there was such a room as this so near them." she did not speak very loud, and, perhaps unconsciously, the girls drew near to each other as they approached the long table in the centre of the room. a straight object lay upon it, covered with a sheet. this was doubtless "the new one" of which the janitor spoke. ruth advanced, and with a not very steady hand lifted the white covering from the upper part of the figure and turned it down. both the girls started. it was a negro. the black face seemed to defy the pallor of death, and asserted an ugly life-likeness that was frightful. ruth was as pale as the white sheet, and her comrade whispered, "come away, ruth, it is awful." perhaps it was the wavering light of the candles, perhaps it was only the agony from a death of pain, but the repulsive black face seemed to wear a scowl that said, "haven't you yet done with the outcast, persecuted black man, but you must now haul him from his grave, and send even your women to dismember his body?" who is this dead man, one of thousands who died yesterday, and will be dust anon, to protest that science shall not turn his worthless carcass to some account? ruth could have had no such thought, for with a pity in her sweet face, that for the moment overcame fear and disgust, she reverently replaced the covering, and went away to her own table, as her companion did to hers. and there for an hour they worked at their several problems, without speaking, but not without an awe of the presence there, "the new one," and not without an awful sense of life itself, as they heard the pulsations of the music and the light laughter from the dancing-hall. when, at length, they went away, and locked the dreadful room behind them, and came out into the street, where people were passing, they, for the first time, realized, in the relief they felt, what a nervous strain they had been under. chapter xvi. while ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation, and the spring was wearing away, philip and his friends were still detained at the southern hotel. the great contractors had concluded their business with the state and railroad officials and with the lesser contractors, and departed for the east. but the serious illness of one of the engineers kept philip and henry in the city and occupied in alternate watchings. philip wrote to ruth of the new acquaintance they had made, col. sellers, an enthusiastic and hospitable gentleman, very much interested in the development of the country, and in their success. they had not had an opportunity to visit at his place "up in the country" yet, but the colonel often dined with them, and in confidence, confided to them his projects, and seemed to take a great liking to them, especially to his friend harry. it was true that he never seemed to have ready money, but he was engaged in very large operations. the correspondence was not very brisk between these two young persons, so differently occupied; for though philip wrote long letters, he got brief ones in reply, full of sharp little observations however, such as one concerning col. sellers, namely, that such men dined at their house every week. ruth's proposed occupation astonished philip immensely, but while he argued it and discussed it, he did not dare hint to her his fear that it would interfere with his most cherished plans. he too sincerely respected ruth's judgment to make any protest, however, and he would have defended her course against the world. this enforced waiting at st. louis was very irksome to philip. his money was running away, for one thing, and he longed to get into the field, and see for himself what chance there was for a fortune or even an occupation. the contractors had given the young men leave to join the engineer corps as soon as they could, but otherwise had made no provision for them, and in fact had left them with only the most indefinite expectations of something large in the future. harry was entirely happy; in his circumstances. he very soon knew everybody, from the governor of the state down to the waiters at the hotel. he had the wall street slang at his tongue's end; he always talked like a capitalist, and entered with enthusiasm into all the land and railway schemes with which the air was thick. col. sellers and harry talked together by the hour and by the day. harry informed his new friend that he was going out with the engineer corps of the salt lick pacific extension, but that wasn't his real business. "i'm to have, with another party," said harry, "a big contract in the road, as soon as it is let; and, meantime, i'm with the engineers to spy out the best land and the depot sites." "it's everything," suggested' the colonel, "in knowing where to invest. i've known people throwaway their money because they were too consequential to take sellers' advice. others, again, have made their pile on taking it. i've looked over the ground; i've been studying it for twenty years. you can't put your finger on a spot in the map of missouri that i don't know as if i'd made it. when you want to place anything," continued the colonel, confidently, "just let beriah sellers know. that's all." "oh, i haven't got much in ready money i can lay my hands on now, but if a fellow could do anything with fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, as a beginning, i shall draw for that when i see the right opening." "well, that's something, that's something, fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, say twenty--as an advance," said the colonel reflectively, as if turning over his mind for a project that could be entered on with such a trifling sum. "i'll tell you what it is--but only to you mr. brierly, only to you, mind; i've got a little project that i've been keeping. it looks small, looks small on paper, but it's got a big future. what should you say, sir, to a city, built up like the rod of aladdin had touched it, built up in two years, where now you wouldn't expect it any more than you'd expect a light-house on the top of pilot knob? and you could own the land! it can be done, sir. it can be done!" the colonel hitched up his chair close to harry, laid his hand on his knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low voice, "the salt lick pacific extension is going to run through stone's landing! the almighty never laid out a cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the natural center of all that region of hemp and tobacco." "what makes you think the road will go there? it's twenty miles, on the map, off the straight line of the road?" "you can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers have been over it. between us, i have talked with jeff thompson, the division engineer. he understands the wants of stone's landing, and the claims of the inhabitants--who are to be there. jeff says that a railroad is for --the accommodation of the people and not for the benefit of gophers; and if, he don't run this to stone's landing he'll be damned! you ought to know jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic engineers in this western country, and one of the best fellows that ever looked through the bottom of a glass." the recommendation was not undeserved. there was nothing that jeff wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from sharing his last dollar with him, to winging him in a duel. when he understood from col. sellers. how the land lay at stone's landing, he cordially shook hands with that gentleman, asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, "why, god bless my soul, colonel, a word from one virginia gentleman to another is 'nuff ced.' there's stone's landing been waiting for a railroad more than four thousand years, and damme if she shan't have it." philip had not so much faith as harry in stone's landing, when the latter opened the project to him, but harry talked about it as if he already owned that incipient city. harry thoroughly believed in all his projects and inventions, and lived day by day in their golden atmosphere. everybody liked the young fellow, for how could they help liking one of such engaging manners and large fortune? the waiters at the hotel would do more for him than for any other guest, and he made a great many acquaintances among the people of st. louis, who liked his sensible and liberal views about the development of the western country, and about st. louis. he said it ought to be the national capital. harry made partial arrangements with several of the merchants for furnishing supplies for his contract on the salt lick pacific extension; consulted the maps with the engineers, and went over the profiles with the contractors, figuring out estimates for bids. he was exceedingly busy with those things when he was not at the bedside of his sick acquaintance, or arranging the details of his speculation with col. sellers. meantime the days went along and the weeks, and the money in harry's pocket got lower and lower. he was just as liberal with what he had as before, indeed it was his nature to be free with his money or with that of others, and he could lend or spend a dollar with an air that made it seem like ten. at length, at the end of one week, when his hotel bill was presented, harry found not a cent in his pocket to meet it. he carelessly remarked to the landlord that he was not that day in funds, but he would draw on new york, and he sat down and wrote to the contractors in that city a glowing letter about the prospects of the road, and asked them to advance a hundred or two, until he got at work. no reply came. he wrote again, in an unoffended business like tone, suggesting that he had better draw at three days. a short answer came to this, simply saying that money was very tight in wall street just then, and that he had better join the engineer corps as soon as he could. but the bill had to be paid, and harry took it to philip, and asked him if he thought he hadn't better draw on his uncle. philip had not much faith in harry's power of "drawing," and told him that he would pay the bill himself. whereupon harry dismissed the matter then and thereafter from his thoughts, and, like a light-hearted good fellow as he was, gave himself no more trouble about his board-bills. philip paid them, swollen as they were with a monstrous list of extras; but he seriously counted the diminishing bulk of his own hoard, which was all the money he had in the world. had he not tacitly agreed to share with harry to the last in this adventure, and would not the generous fellow divide; with him if he, philip, were in want and harry had anything? the fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young engineer, who lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a little sallow but an "acclimated" man. everybody said he was "acclimated" now, and said it cheerfully. what it is to be acclimated to western fevers no two persons exactly agree. some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some malignant type of fever less probable. some regard it as a sort of initiation, like that into the odd fellows, which renders one liable to his regular dues thereafter. others consider it merely the acquisition of a habit of taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters, composed of whiskey and assafoetida, out of the acclimation jug. jeff thompson afterwards told philip that he once asked senator atchison, then acting vice-president: of the united states, about the possibility of acclimation; he thought the opinion of the second officer of our great government would be, valuable on this point. they were sitting together on a bench before a country tavern, in the free converse permitted by our democratic habits. "i suppose, senator, that you have become acclimated to this country?" "well," said the vice-president, crossing his legs, pulling his wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing chicken to hop quickly one side by the accuracy of his aim, and speaking with senatorial deliberation, "i think i have. i've been here twenty-five years, and dash, dash my dash to dash, if i haven't entertained twenty-five separate and distinct earthquakes, one a year. the niggro is the only person who can stand the fever and ague of this region." the convalescence of the engineer was the signal for breaking up quarters at st. louis, and the young fortune-hunters started up the river in good spirits. it was only the second time either of them had been upon a mississippi steamboat, and nearly everything they saw had the charm of novelty. col. sellers was at the landing to bid thorn good-bye. "i shall send you up that basket of champagne by the next boat; no, no; no thanks; you'll find it not bad in camp," he cried out as the plank was hauled in. "my respects to thompson. tell him to sight for stone's. let me know, mr. brierly, when you are ready to locate; i'll come over from hawkeye. goodbye." and the last the young fellows saw of the colonel, he was waving his hat, and beaming prosperity and good luck. the voyage was delightful, and was not long enough to become monotonous. the travelers scarcely had time indeed to get accustomed to the splendors of the great saloon where the tables were spread for meals, a marvel of paint and gilding, its ceiling hung with fancifully cut tissue-paper of many colors, festooned and arranged in endless patterns. the whole was more beautiful than a barber's shop. the printed bill of fare at dinner was longer and more varied, the proprietors justly boasted, than that of any hotel in new york. it must have been the work of an author of talent and imagination, and it surely was not his fault if the dinner itself was to a certain extent a delusion, and if the guests got something that tasted pretty much the same whatever dish they ordered; nor was it his fault if a general flavor of rose in all the dessert dishes suggested that they hid passed through the barber's saloon on their way from the kitchen. the travelers landed at a little settlement on the left bank, and at once took horses for the camp in the interior, carrying their clothes and blankets strapped behind the saddles. harry was dressed as we have seen him once before, and his long and shining boots attracted not a little the attention of the few persons they met on the road, and especially of the bright faced wenches who lightly stepped along the highway, picturesque in their colored kerchiefs, carrying light baskets, or riding upon mules and balancing before them a heavier load. harry sang fragments of operas and talked abort their fortune. philip even was excited by the sense of freedom and adventure, and the beauty of the landscape. the prairie, with its new grass and unending acres of brilliant flowers--chiefly the innumerable varieties of phlox-bore the look of years of cultivation, and the occasional open groves of white oaks gave it a park-like appearance. it was hardly unreasonable to expect to see at any moment, the gables and square windows of an elizabethan mansion in one of the well kept groves. towards sunset of the third day, when the young gentlemen thought they ought to be near the town of magnolia, near which they had been directed to find the engineers' camp, they descried a log house and drew up before it to enquire the way. half the building was store, and half was dwelling house. at the door of the latter stood a regress with a bright turban on her head, to whom philip called, "can you tell me, auntie, how far it is to the town of magnolia?" "why, bress you chile," laughed the woman, "you's dere now." it was true. this log horse was the compactly built town, and all creation was its suburbs. the engineers' camp was only two or three miles distant. "you's boun' to find it," directed auntie, "if you don't keah nuffin 'bout de road, and go fo' de sun-down." a brisk gallop brought the riders in sight of the twinkling light of the camp, just as the stars came out. it lay in a little hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. a half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. the twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the "hi, hi's" of the spectators. mr. jeff thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable engineer, gave the travelers a hearty welcome, offered them ground room in his own tent, ordered supper, and set out a small jug, a drop from which he declared necessary on account of the chill of the evening. "i never saw an eastern man," said jeff, "who knew how to drink from a jug with one hand. it's as easy as lying. so." he grasped the handle with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied his lips to the nozzle. it was an act as graceful as it was simple. "besides," said mr. thompson, setting it down, "it puts every man on his honor as to quantity." early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine o'clock everybody was under his blanket, except jeff himself, who worked awhile at his table over his field-book, and then arose, stepped outside the tent door and sang, in a strong and not unmelodious tenor, the star spangled banner from beginning to end. it proved to be his nightly practice to let off the unexpended seam of his conversational powers, in the words of this stirring song. it was a long time before philip got to sleep. he saw the fire light, he saw the clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed he saw jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, "oh, say, can you see?", it was the first time he had ever slept on the ground. chapter xvii. ----"we have view'd it, and measur'd it within all, by the scale the richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom! there will be made seventeen or eighteeen millions, or more, as't may be handled!" the devil is an ass. nobody dressed more like an engineer than mr. henry brierly. the completeness of his appointments was the envy of the corps, and the gay fellow himself was the admiration of the camp servants, axemen, teamsters and cooks. "i reckon you didn't git them boots no wher's this side o' sent louis?" queried the tall missouri youth who acted as commissariy's assistant. "no, new york." "yas, i've heern o' new york," continued the butternut lad, attentively studying each item of harry's dress, and endeavoring to cover his design with interesting conversation. "'n there's massachusetts.", "it's not far off." "i've heern massachusetts was a-----of a place. les, see, what state's massachusetts in?" "massachusetts," kindly replied harry, "is in the state of boston." "abolish'n wan't it? they must a cost right smart," referring to the boots. harry shouldered his rod and went to the field, tramped over the prairie by day, and figured up results at night, with the utmost cheerfulness and industry, and plotted the line on the profile paper, without, however, the least idea of engineering practical or theoretical. perhaps there was not a great deal of scientific knowledge in the entire corps, nor was very much needed. they were making, what is called a preliminary survey, and the chief object of a preliminary survey was to get up an excitement about the road, to interest every town in that part of the state in it, under the belief that the road would run through it, and to get the aid of every planter upon the prospect that a station would be on his land. mr. jeff thompson was the most popular engineer who could be found for this work. he did not bother himself much about details or practicabilities of location, but ran merrily along, sighting from the top of one divide to the top of another, and striking "plumb" every town site and big plantation within twenty or thirty miles of his route. in his own language he "just went booming." this course gave harry an opportunity, as he said, to learn the practical details of engineering, and it gave philip a chance to see the country, and to judge for himself what prospect of a fortune it offered. both he and harry got the "refusal" of more than one plantation as they went along, and wrote urgent letters to their eastern correspondents, upon the beauty of the land and the certainty that it would quadruple in value as soon as the road was finally located. it seemed strange to them that capitalists did not flock out there and secure this land. they had not been in the field over two weeks when harry wrote to his friend col. sellers that he'd better be on the move, for the line was certain to go to stone's landing. any one who looked at the line on the map, as it was laid down from day to day, would have been uncertain which way it was going; but jeff had declared that in his judgment the only practicable route from the point they then stood on was to follow the divide to stone's landing, and it was generally understood that that town would be the next one hit. "we'll make it, boys," said the chief, "if we have to go in a balloon." and make it they did in less than a week, this indomitable engineer had carried his moving caravan over slues and branches, across bottoms and along divides, and pitched his tents in the very heart of the city of stone's landing. "well, i'll be dashed," was heard the cheery voice of mr. thompson, as he stepped outside the tent door at sunrise next morning. "if this don't get me. i say, yon, grayson, get out your sighting iron and see if you can find old sellers' town. blame me if we wouldn't have run plumb by it if twilight had held on a little longer. oh! sterling, brierly, get up and see the city. there's a steamboat just coming round the bend." and jeff roared with laughter. "the mayor'll be round here to breakfast." the fellows turned out of the tents, rubbing their eyes, and stared about them. they were camped on the second bench of the narrow bottom of a crooked, sluggish stream, that was some five rods wide in the present good stage of water. before them were a dozen log cabins, with stick and mud chimneys, irregularly disposed on either side of a not very well defined road, which did not seem to know its own mind exactly, and, after straggling through the town, wandered off over the rolling prairie in an uncertain way, as if it had started for nowhere and was quite likely to reach its destination. just as it left the town, however, it was cheered and assisted by a guide-board, upon which was the legend "10 mils to hawkeye." the road had never been made except by the travel over it, and at this season--the rainy june--it was a way of ruts cut in the black soil, and of fathomless mud-holes. in the principal street of the city, it had received more attention; for hogs; great and small, rooted about in it and wallowed in it, turning the street into a liquid quagmire which could only be crossed on pieces of plank thrown here and there. about the chief cabin, which was the store and grocery of this mart of trade, the mud was more liquid than elsewhere, and the rude platform in front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places of refuge for all the loafers of the place. down by the stream was a dilapidated building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended out from it, into the water. in fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. above the town the stream was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all ways in the soggy soil; the absence of a plank here and there in the flooring made the crossing of the bridge faster than a walk an offense not necessary to be prohibited by law. "this, gentlemen," said jeff, "is columbus river, alias goose run. if it was widened, and deepened, and straightened, and made, long enough, it would be one of the finest rivers in the western country." as the sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream, the thin stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed, but the light was not able to enliven the dull water nor give any hint of its apparently fathomless depth. venerable mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the old logs in the stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first inhabitants of the metropolis to begin the active business of the day. it was not long, however, before smoke began to issue from the city chimneys; and before the engineers, had finished their breakfast they were the object of the curious inspection of six or eight boys and men, who lounged into the camp and gazed about them with languid interest, their hands in their pockets every one. "good morning; gentlemen," called out the chief engineer, from the table. "good mawning," drawled out the spokesman of the party. "i allow thish-yers the railroad, i heern it was a-comin'." "yes, this is the railroad; all but the rails and the ironhorse." "i reckon you kin git all the rails you want oaten my white oak timber over, thar," replied the first speaker, who appeared to be a man of property and willing to strike up a trade. "you'll have to negotiate with the contractors about the rails, sir," said jeff; "here's mr. brierly, i've no doubt would like to buy your rails when the time comes." "o," said the man, "i thought maybe you'd fetch the whole bilin along with you. but if you want rails, i've got em, haint i eph." "heaps," said eph, without taking his eyes off the group at the table. "well," said mr. thompson, rising from his seat and moving towards his tent, "the railroad has come to stone's landing, sure; i move we take a drink on it all round." the proposal met with universal favor. jeff gave prosperity to stone's landing and navigation to goose run, and the toast was washed down with gusto, in the simple fluid of corn; and with the return compliment that a rail road was a good thing, and that jeff thompson was no slouch. about ten o'clock a horse and wagon was descried making a slow approach to the camp over the prairie. as it drew near, the wagon was seen to contain a portly gentleman, who hitched impatiently forward on his seat, shook the reins and gently touched up his horse, in the vain attempt to communicate his own energy to that dull beast, and looked eagerly at the tents. when the conveyance at length drew up to mr. thompson's door, the gentleman descended with great deliberation, straightened himself up, rubbed his hands, and beaming satisfaction from every part of his radiant frame, advanced to the group that was gathered to welcome him, and which had saluted him by name as soon as he came within hearing. "welcome to napoleon, gentlemen, welcome. i am proud to see you here mr. thompson. you are, looking well mr. sterling. this is the country, sir. right glad to see you mr. brierly. you got that basket of champagne? no? those blasted river thieves! i'll never send anything more by 'em. the best brand, roederer. the last i had in my cellar, from a lot sent me by sir george gore--took him out on a buffalo hunt, when he visited our, country. is always sending me some trifle. you haven't looked about any yet, gentlemen? it's in the rough yet, in the rough. those buildings will all have to come down. that's the place for the public square, court house, hotels, churches, jail--all that sort of thing. about where we stand, the deepo. how does that strike your engineering eye, mr. thompson? down yonder the business streets, running to the wharves. the university up there, on rising ground, sightly place, see the river for miles. that's columbus river, only forty-nine miles to the missouri. you see what it is, placid, steady, no current to interfere with navigation, wants widening in places and dredging, dredge out the harbor and raise a levee in front of the town; made by nature on purpose for a mart. look at all this country, not another building within ten miles, no other navigable stream, lay of the land points right here; hemp, tobacco, corn, must come here. the railroad will do it, napoleon won't know itself in a year." "don't now evidently," said philip aside to harry. "have you breakfasted colonel?" "hastily. cup of coffee. can't trust any coffee i don't import myself. but i put up a basket of provisions,--wife would put in a few delicacies, women always will, and a half dozen of that burgundy, i was telling you of mr. briefly. by the way, you never got to dine with me." and the colonel strode away to the wagon and looked under the seat for the basket. apparently it was not there. for the colonel raised up the flap, looked in front and behind, and then exclaimed, "confound it. that comes of not doing a thing yourself. i trusted to the women folks to set that basket in the wagon, and it ain't there." the camp cook speedily prepared a savory breakfast for the colonel, broiled chicken, eggs, corn-bread, and coffee, to which he did ample justice, and topped off with a drop of old bourbon, from mr. thompson's private store, a brand which he said he knew well, he should think it came from his own sideboard. while the engineer corps went to the field, to run back a couple of miles and ascertain, approximately, if a road could ever get down to the landing, and to sight ahead across the run, and see if it could ever get out again, col. sellers and harry sat down and began to roughly map out the city of napoleon on a large piece of drawing paper. "i've got the refusal of a mile square here," said the colonel, "in our names, for a year, with a quarter interest reserved for the four owners." they laid out the town liberally, not lacking room, leaving space for the railroad to come in, and for the river as it was to be when improved. the engineers reported that the railroad could come in, by taking a little sweep and crossing the stream on a high bridge, but the grades would be steep. col. sellers said he didn't care so much about the grades, if the road could only be made to reach the elevators on the river. the next day mr. thompson made a hasty survey of the stream for a mile or two, so that the colonel and harry were enabled to show on their map how nobly that would accommodate the city. jeff took a little writing from the colonel and harry for a prospective share but philip declined to join in, saying that he had no money, and didn't want to make engagements he couldn't fulfill. the next morning the camp moved on, followed till it was out of sight by the listless eyes of the group in front of the store, one of whom remarked that, "he'd be doggoned if he ever expected to see that railroad any mo'." harry went with the colonel to hawkeye to complete their arrangements, a part of which was the preparation of a petition to congress for the improvement of the navigation of columbus river. chapter xviii. eight years have passed since the death of mr. hawkins. eight years are not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they maybe years of destiny that shall fix the current of the century following. such years were those that followed the little scrimmage on lexington common. such years were those that followed the double-shotted demand for the surrender of fort sumter. history is never done with inquiring of these years, and summoning witnesses about them, and trying to understand their significance. the eight years in america from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations. as we are accustomed to interpret the economy of providence, the life of the individual is as nothing to that of the nation or the race; but who can say, in the broader view and the more intelligent weight of values, that the life of one man is not more than that of a nationality, and that there is not a tribunal where the tragedy of one human soul shall not seem more significant than the overturning of any human institution whatever? when one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of womanhood, he may well stand in awe before the momentous drama. what capacities she has of purity, tenderness, goodness; what capacities of vileness, bitterness and evil. nature must needs be lavish with the mother and creator of men, and centre in her all the possibilities of life. and a few critical years can decide whether her life is to be full of sweetness and light, whether she is to be the vestal of a holy temple, or whether she will be the fallen priestess of a desecrated shrine. there are women, it is true, who seem to be capable neither of rising much nor of falling much, and whom a conventional life saves from any special development of character. but laura was not one of them. she had the fatal gift of beauty, and that more fatal gift which does not always accompany mere beauty, the power of fascination, a power that may, indeed, exist without beauty. she had will, and pride and courage and ambition, and she was left to be very much her own guide at the age when romance comes to the aid of passion, and when the awakening powers of her vigorous mind had little object on which to discipline themselves. the tremendous conflict that was fought in this girl's soul none of those about her knew, and very few knew that her life had in it anything unusual or romantic or strange. those were troublous days in hawkeye as well as in most other missouri towns, days of confusion, when between unionist and confederate occupations, sudden maraudings and bush-whackings and raids, individuals escaped observation or comment in actions that would have filled the town with scandal in quiet times. fortunately we only need to deal with laura's life at this period historically, and look back upon such portions of it as will serve to reveal the woman as she was at the time of the arrival of mr. harry brierly in hawkeye. the hawkins family were settled there, and had a hard enough struggle with poverty and the necessity of keeping up appearances in accord with their own family pride and the large expectations they secretly cherished of a fortune in the knobs of east tennessee. how pinched they were perhaps no one knew but clay, to whom they looked for almost their whole support. washington had been in hawkeye off and on, attracted away occasionally by some tremendous speculation, from which he invariably returned to gen. boswell's office as poor as he went. he was the inventor of no one knew how many useless contrivances, which were not worth patenting, and his years had been passed in dreaming and planning to no purpose; until he was now a man of about thirty, without a profession or a permanent occupation, a tall, brown-haired, dreamy person of the best intentions and the frailest resolution. probably however the, eight years had been happier to him than to any others in his circle, for the time had been mostly spent in a blissful dream of the coming of enormous wealth. he went out with a company from hawkeye to the war, and was not wanting in courage, but he would have been a better soldier if he had been less engaged in contrivances for circumventing the enemy by strategy unknown to the books. it happened to him to be captured in one of his self-appointed expeditions, but the federal colonel released him, after a short examination, satisfied that he could most injure the confederate forces opposed to the unionists by returning him to his regiment. col. sellers was of course a prominent man during the war. he was captain of the home guards in hawkeye, and he never left home except upon one occasion, when on the strength of a rumor, he executed a flank movement and fortified stone's landing, a place which no one unacquainted with the country would be likely to find. "gad," said the colonel afterwards, "the landing is the key to upper missouri, and it is the only place the enemy never captured. if other places had been defended as well as that was, the result would have been different, sir." the colonel had his own theories about war as he had in other things. if everybody had stayed at home as he did, he said, the south never would have been conquered. for what would there have been to conquer? mr. jeff davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the confederate army, but col. sellers said, no, his duty was at home. and he was by no means idle. he was the inventor of the famous air torpedo, which came very near destroying the union armies in missouri, and the city of st. louis itself. his plan was to fill a torpedo with greek fire and poisonous and deadly missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned out. he intended to use this invention in the capture of st. louis, exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it until the army of occupation would gladly capitulate. he was unable to procure the greek fire, but he constructed a vicious torpedo which would have answered the purpose, but the first one prematurely exploded in his wood-house, blowing it clean away, and setting fire to his house. the neighbors helped him put out the conflagration, but they discouraged any more experiments of that sort. the patriotic old gentleman, however, planted so much powder and so many explosive contrivances in the roads leading into hawkeye, and then forgot the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel the highways, and used to come to town across the fields, the colonel's motto was, "millions for defence but not one cent for tribute." when laura came to hawkeye she might have forgotten the annoyances of the gossips of murpheysburg and have out lived the bitterness that was growing in her heart, if she had been thrown less upon herself, or if the surroundings of her life had been more congenial and helpful. but she had little society, less and less as she grew older that was congenial to her, and her mind preyed upon itself; and the mystery of her birth at once chagrined her and raised in her the most extravagant expectations. she was proud and she felt the sting of poverty. she could not but be conscious of her beauty also, and she was vain of that, and came to take a sort of delight in the exercise of her fascinations upon the rather loutish young men who came in her way and whom she despised. there was another world opened to her--a world of books. but it was not the best world of that sort, for the small libraries she had access to in hawkeye were decidedly miscellaneous, and largely made up of romances and fictions which fed her imagination with the most exaggerated notions of life, and showed her men and women in a very false sort of heroism. from these stories she learned what a woman of keen intellect and some culture joined to beauty and fascination of manner, might expect to accomplish in society as she read of it; and along with these ideas she imbibed other very crude ones in regard to the emancipation of woman. there were also other books-histories, biographies of distinguished people, travels in far lands, poems, especially those of byron, scott and shelley and moore, which she eagerly absorbed, and appropriated therefrom what was to her liking. nobody in hawkeye had read so much or, after a fashion, studied so diligently as laura. she passed for an accomplished girl, and no doubt thought herself one, as she was, judged by any standard near her. during the war there came to hawkeye a confederate officer, col. selby, who was stationed there for a time, in command of that district. he was a handsome, soldierly man of thirty years, a graduate of the university of virginia, and of distinguished family, if his story might be believed, and, it was evident, a man of the world and of extensive travel and adventure. to find in such an out of the way country place a woman like laura was a piece of good luck upon which col. selby congratulated himself. he was studiously polite to her and treated her with a consideration to which she was unaccustomed. she had read of such men, but she had never seen one before, one so high-bred, so noble in sentiment, so entertaining in conversation, so engaging in manner. it is a long story; unfortunately it is an old story, and it need not be dwelt on. laura loved him, and believed that his love for her was as pure and deep as her own. she worshipped him and would have counted her life a little thing to give him, if he would only love her and let her feed the hunger of her heart upon him. the passion possessed her whole being, and lifted her up, till she seemed to walk on air. it was all true, then, the romances she had read, the bliss of love she had dreamed of. why had she never noticed before how blithesome the world was, how jocund with love; the birds sang it, the trees whispered it to her as she passed, the very flowers beneath her feet strewed the way as for a bridal march. when the colonel went away they were engaged to be married, as soon as he could make certain arrangements which he represented to be necessary, and quit the army. he wrote to her from harding, a small town in the southwest corner of the state, saying that he should be held in the service longer than he had expected, but that it would not be more than a few months, then he should be at liberty to take her to chicago where he had property, and should have business, either now or as soon as the war was over, which he thought could not last long. meantime why should they be separated? he was established in comfortable quarters, and if she could find company and join him, they would be married, and gain so many more months of happiness. was woman ever prudent when she loved? laura went to harding, the neighbors supposed to nurse washington who had fallen ill there. her engagement was, of course, known in hawkeye, and was indeed a matter of pride to her family. mrs. hawkins would have told the first inquirer that. laura had gone to be married; but laura had cautioned her; she did not want to be thought of, she said, as going in search of a husband; let the news come back after she was married. so she traveled to harding on the pretence we have mentioned, and was married. she was married, but something must have happened on that very day or the next that alarmed her. washington did not know then or after what it was, but laura bound him not to send news of her marriage to hawkeye yet, and to enjoin her mother not to speak of it. whatever cruel suspicion or nameless dread this was, laura tried bravely to put it away, and not let it cloud her happiness. communication that summer, as may be imagined, was neither regular nor frequent between the remote confederate camp at harding and hawkeye, and laura was in a measure lost sight of--indeed, everyone had troubles enough of his own without borrowing from his neighbors. laura had given herself utterly to her husband, and if he had faults, if he was selfish, if he was sometimes coarse, if he was dissipated, she did not or would not see it. it was the passion of her life, the time when her whole nature went to flood tide and swept away all barriers. was her husband ever cold or indifferent? she shut her eyes to everything but her sense of possession of her idol. three months passed. one morning her husband informed her that he had been ordered south, and must go within two hours. "i can be ready," said laura, cheerfully. "but i can't take you. you must go back to hawkeye." "can't-take-me?" laura asked, with wonder in her eyes. "i can't live without you. you said-----" "o bother what i said,"--and the colonel took up his sword to buckle it on, and then continued coolly, "the fact is laura, our romance is played out." laura heard, but she did not comprehend. she caught his arm and cried, "george, how can you joke so cruelly? i will go any where with you. i will wait any where. i can't go back to hawkeye." "well, go where you like. perhaps," continued he with a sneer, "you would do as well to wait here, for another colonel." laura's brain whirled. she did not yet comprehend. "what does this mean? where are you going?" "it means," said the officer, in measured words, "that you haven't anything to show for a legal marriage, and that i am going to new orleans." "it's a lie, george, it's a lie. i am your wife. i shall go. i shall follow you to new orleans." "perhaps my wife might not like it!" laura raised her head, her eyes flamed with fire, she tried to utter a cry, and fell senseless on the floor. when she came to herself the colonel was gone. washington hawkins stood at her bedside. did she come to herself? was there anything left in her heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands of the only man she had ever loved? she returned to hawkeye. with the exception of washington and his mother, no one knew what had happened. the neighbors supposed that the engagement with col. selby had fallen through. laura was ill for a long time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could conquer death almost. and with her health came back her beauty, and an added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness. is there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in the face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible experience? is the pathos in the eyes of the beatrice cenci from her guilt or her innocence? laura was not much changed. the lovely woman had a devil in her heart. that was all. the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 4. chapter xxviii. whatever may have been the language of harry's letter to the colonel, the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, from the following episode of his visit to new york: he called, with official importance in his mien, at no.-wall street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of the "columbus river slack-water navigation company." he entered and gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of ante-room. the porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he would like to see? "the president of the company, of course." "he is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them directly." that a copper-plate card with "engineer-in-chief" on it should be received with such tranquility as this, annoyed mr. brierly not a little. but he had to submit. indeed his annoyance had time to augment a good deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a frill half hour in the ante-room before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the presence. he found a stately dignitary occupying a very official chair behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a room with sumptuously carpeted and furnished, and well garnished with pictures. "good morning, sir; take a seat--take a seat." "thank you sir," said harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as his ruffled dignity prompted. "we perceive by your reports and the reports of the chief superintendent, that you have been making gratifying progress with the work.--we are all very much pleased." "indeed? we did not discover it from your letters--which we have not received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with--which were not honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part of it having come to hand." "why, my dear mr. brierly, there must be some mistake, i am sure we wrote you and also mr. sellers, recently--when my clerk comes he will show copies--letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment." "oh, certainly, we got those letters. but what we wanted was money to carry on the work--money to pay the men." "certainly, certainly--true enough--but we credited you both for a large part of your assessments--i am sure that was in our letters." "of course that was in--i remember that." "ah, very well then. now we begin to understand each other." "well, i don't see that we do. there's two months' wages due the men, and----" "how? haven't you paid the men?" "paid them! how are we going to pay them when you don't honor our drafts?" "why, my dear sir, i cannot see how you can find any fault with us. i am sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.--now let us look at the thing a moment. you subscribed for 100 shares of the capital stock, at $1,000 a share, i believe?" "yes, sir, i did." "and mr. sellers took a like amount?" "yes, sir." "very well. no concern can get along without money. we levied a ten per cent. assessment. it was the original understanding that you and mr. sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a month each, while in active service. you were duly elected to these places, and you accepted them. am i right?" "certainly." "very well. you were given your instructions and put to work. by your reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said work. two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to $2,400--about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the assessment--viz, something over $8,000 apiece. now instead of requiring you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to new york, the company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors, laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it. and they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little compliment --and a very neat one it was, too, i am sure. the work you did fell short of $10,000, a trifle. let me see--$9,640 from $20,000 salary $2;400 added--ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and mr. sellers is $7,960, which i will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus----" "confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us $2,400, we owe the company $7,960?" "well, yes." "and that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars besides?" "owe them! oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these people?" "but i do mean it!" the president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. his brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept saying, "oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! oh, it is bound to be found out--nothing can prevent it--nothing!" then he threw himself into his chair and said: "my dear mr. brierson, this is dreadful--perfectly dreadful. it will be found out. it is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. how could you be so thoughtless--the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!" "they ought, ought they? then why the devil--my name is not bryerson, by the way--why the mischief didn't the compa--why what in the nation ever became of the appropriation? where is that appropriation?--if a stockholder may make so bold as to ask." the appropriation?--that paltry $200,000, do you mean?" "of course--but i didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. though i grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. but where is it?" "my dear sir, you surprise me. you surely cannot have had a large acquaintance with this sort of thing. otherwise you would not have expected much of a result from a mere initial appropriation like that. it was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future and real appropriations to cluster around." "indeed? well, was it a myth, or was it a reality? whatever become of it?" "why the--matter is simple enough. a congressional appropriation costs money. just reflect, for instance--a majority of the house committee, say $10,000 apiece--$40,000; a majority of the senate committee, the same each--say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or two such committees, say $10,000 each--$20,000; and there's $100,000 of the money gone, to begin with. then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 each --$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral congressman or senator here and there--the high moral ones cost more, because they. give tone to a measure--say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then a lot of small-fry country members who won't vote for anything whatever without pay--say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to members--say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for congressmen's wives and children--those go a long way--you can't sped too much money in that line--well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000--along there somewhere; and then comes your printed documents--your maps, your tinted engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a line --because you've got to keep the papers all light or you are gone up, you know. oh, my dear sir, printing bills are destruction itself. ours so far amount to--let me see--10; 52; 22; 13;--and then there's 11; 14; 33 --well, never mind the details, the total in clean numbers foots up $118,254.42 thus far!" "what!" "oh, yes indeed. printing's no bagatelle, i can tell you. and then there's your contributions, as a company, to chicago fires and boston fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing--head the list, you see, with the company's full name and a thousand dollars set opposite --great card, sir--one of the finest advertisements in the world--the preachers mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious charity--one of the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent donation. ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and some cents up to this time." "good heavens!" "oh, yes. perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the advertising line was to get an officer of the u. s. government, of perfectly himmalayan official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a religious paper of enormous circulation--i tell you that makes our bonds go handsomely among the pious poor. your religious paper is by far the best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll 'lead' your article and put it right in the midst of the reading matter; and if it's got a few scripture quotations in it, and some temperance platitudes and a bit of gush here and there about sunday schools, and a sentimental snuffle now and then about 'god's precious ones, the honest hard-handed poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and never a man suspects that it is an advertisement; but your secular paper sticks you right into the advertising columns and of course you don't take a trick. give me a religious paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll just look at their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people think a good deal as i do--especially people who have got little financial schemes to make everybody rich with. of course i mean your great big metropolitan religious papers that know how to serve god and make money at the same time--that's your sort, sir, that's your sort--a religious paper that isn't run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an advertising medium--no use to anybody--in our line of business. i guess our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of newspaper reporters out to napoleon. never paid them a cent; just filled them up with champagne and the fat of the land, put pen, ink and paper before them while they were red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. and if a sentimental squeamishness held one or two of them back from taking a less rosy view of napoleon, our hospitalities tied his tongue, at least, and he said nothing at all and so did us no harm. let me see--have i stated all the expenses i've been at? no, i was near forgetting one or two items. there's your official salaries--you can't get good men for nothing. salaries cost pretty lively. and then there's your big high-sounding millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as stockholders--another card, that--and they are stockholders, too, but you have to give them the stock and non-assessable at that--so they're an expensive lot. very, very expensive thing, take it all around, is a big internal improvement concern--but you see that yourself, mr. bryerman--you see that, yourself, sir." "but look here. i think you are a little mistaken about it's ever having cost anything for congressional votes. i happen to know something about that. i've let you say your say--now let me say mine. i don't wish to seem to throw any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all liable to be mistaken. but how would it strike you if i were to say that i was in washington all the time this bill was pending? and what if i added that i put the measure through myself? yes, sir, i did that little thing. and moreover, i never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never promised one. there are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. my dear sir, i am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head--for never a cent was paid a congressman or senator on the part of this navigation company." the president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through this harangue, and then said: "is that so?" "every word of it." "well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a little. you are acquainted with the members down there, of course, else you could not have worked to such advantage?" "i know them all, sir. i know their wives, their children, their babies --i even made it a point to be on good terms with their lackeys. i know every congressman well--even familiarly." "very good. do you know any of their signatures? do you know their handwriting?" "why i know their handwriting as well as i know my own--have had correspondence enough with them, i should think. and their signatures --why i can tell their initials, even." the president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some letters and certain slips of paper. then he said: "now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a genuine letter? do you know this signature here?--and this one? do you know who those initials represent--and are they forgeries?" harry was stupefied. there were things there that made his brain swim. presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to his face. the president said: "that one amuses you. you never suspected him?" "of course i ought to have suspected him, but i don't believe it ever really occurred to me. well, well, well--how did you ever have the nerve to approach him, of all others?" "why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his help. he is our mainstay. but how do those letters strike you?" "they strike me dumb! what a stone-blind idiot i have been!" "well, take it all around, i suppose you had a pleasant time in washington," said the president, gathering up the letters; "of course you must have had. very few men could go there and get a money bill through without buying a single" "come, now, mr. president, that's plenty of that! i take back everything i said on that head. i'm a wiser man to-day than i was yesterday, i can tell you." "i think you are. in fact i am satisfied you are. but now i showed you these things in confidence, you understand. mention facts as much as you want to, but don't mention names to anybody. i can depend on you for that, can't i?" "oh, of course. i understand the necessity of that. i will not betray the names. but to go back a bit, it begins to look as if you never saw any of that appropriation at all?" "we saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it--and that was all. several of us took turns at log-rolling in washington, and if we had charged anything for that service, none of that $10,000 would ever have reached new york." "if you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been in a close place i judge?" "close? have you figured up the total of the disbursements i told you of?" "no, i didn't think of that." "well, lets see: spent in washington, say, ........... $191,000 printing, advertising, etc., say .... $118,000 charity, say, ....................... $16,000 total, ............... $325,000 the money to do that with, comes from --appropriation, ...................... $200,000 ten per cent. assessment on capital of $1,000,000 ..................... $100,000 total, ............... $300,000 "which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment. salaries of home officers are still going on; also printing and advertising. next month will show a state of things!" "and then--burst up, i suppose?" "by no means. levy another assessment" "oh, i see. that's dismal." "by no means." "why isn't it? what's the road out?" "another appropriation, don't you see?" "bother the appropriations. they cost more than they come to." "not the next one. we'll call for half a million--get it and go for a million the very next month."--"yes, but the cost of it!" the president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately. he said: "all these people are in the next congress. we shan't have to pay them a cent. and what is more, they will work like beavers for us--perhaps it might be to their advantage." harry reflected profoundly a while. then he said: "we send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races of other lands. how much cheaper and better it would be if those people could only come here and drink of our civilization at its fountain head." "i perfectly agree with you, mr. beverly. must you go? well, good morning. look in, when you are passing; and whenever i can give you any information about our affairs and pro'spects, i shall be glad to do it." harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. the colonel found himself in a rather uncomfortable place--no $1,200 salary forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of nearly $4,000. polly's heart was nearly broken; the "blues" returned in fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that nothing could keep back now. there was mourning in another quarter, too, for louise had a letter. washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the tennessee land, and had demanded $150,000! so the trade fell through, and now washington was wailing because he had been so foolish. but he wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000. louise had a good cry-several of them, indeed--and the family charitably forebore to make any comments that would increase her grief. spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good progress. but by and by something happened. hawkeye had always declined to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now hawkeye was frightened; and before col. sellers knew what he was about, hawkeye, in a panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that napoleon's attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the railroad concluded to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of going miles out of its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of stone's landing. the thunderbolt fell. after all the colonel's deep planning; after all his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to ruins abort him. hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing, and down went stone's landing! one by one its meagre parcel of inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall approached. town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly lethargy fell upon the place once more, the "weekly telegraph" faded into an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of yore. chapter xxix. philip sterling was on his way to ilium, in the state of pennsylvania. ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which mr. bolton had commissioned him to examine. on the last day of the journey as the railway train philip was on was leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the drawing-room car, and hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied. philip saw from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was starting. in a few moments the conductor entered, and without waiting an explanation, said roughly to the lady, "now you can't sit there. that seat's taken. go into the other car." "i did not intend to take the seat," said the lady rising, "i only sat down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat." "there aint any. car's full. you'll have to leave." "but, sir," said the lady, appealingly, "i thought--" "can't help what you thought--you must go into the other car." "the train is going very fast, let me stand here till we stop." "the lady can have my seat," cried philip, springing up. the conductor turned towards philip, and coolly and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot, with contempt in every line of his face, turned his back upon him without a word, and said to the lady, "come, i've got no time to talk. you must go now." the lady, entirely disconcerted by such rudeness, and frightened, moved towards the door, opened it and stepped out. the train was swinging along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side; the step was a long one between the cars and there was no protecting grating. the lady attempted it, but lost her balance, in the wind and the motion of the car, and fell! she would inevitably have gone down under the wheels, if philip, who had swiftly followed her, had not caught her arm and drawn her up. he then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her bewildered thanks, and returned to his car. the conductor was still there, taking his tickets, and growling something about imposition. philip marched up to him, and burst out with, "you are a brute, an infernal brute, to treat a woman that way." "perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it," sneered the conductor. philip's reply was a blow, given so suddenly and planted so squarely in the conductor's face, that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger, who was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a conductor, and against the side of the car. he recovered himself, reached the bell rope, "damn you, i'll learn you," stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen, and then, as the speed slackened; roared out, "get off this train." "i shall not get off. i have as much right here as you." "we'll see," said the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. the passengers protested, and some of them said to each other, "that's too bad," as they always do in such cases, but none of them offered to take a hand with philip. the men seized him, wrenched him from his seat, dragged him along the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the car, and, then flung his carpet-bag, overcoat and umbrella after him. and the train went on. the conductor, red in the face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered through the car, muttering "puppy, i'll learn him." the passengers, when he had gone, were loud in their indignation, and talked about signing a protest, but they did nothing more than talk. the next morning the hooverville patriot and clarion had this "item":- slightually overboard. "we learn that as the down noon express was leaving h---yesterday a lady! (god save the mark) attempted to force herself into the already full palatial car. conductor slum, who is too old a bird to be caught with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was full, and when she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go into the car where she belonged. thereupon a young sprig, from the east, blustered like a shanghai rooster, and began to sass the conductor with his chin music. that gentleman delivered the young aspirant for a muss one of his elegant little left-handers, which so astonished him that he began to feel for his shooter. whereupon mr. slum gently raised the youth, carried him forth, and set him down just outside the car to cool off. whether the young blood has yet made his way out of bascom's swamp, we have not learned. conductor slum is one of the most gentlemanly and efficient officers on the road; but he ain't trifled with, not much. we learn that the company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train, and newly upholstered the drawing-room car throughout. it spares no effort for the comfort of the traveling public." philip never had been before in bascom's swamp, and there was nothing inviting in it to detain him. after the train got out of the way he crawled out of the briars and the mud, and got upon the track. he was somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that. he plodded along over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body. in the scuffle, his railway check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed the loss, if the company would permit him to walk over their track if they should know he hadn't a ticket. philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station, where he could wait for a train, and he had ample time for reflection. at first he was full of vengeance on the company. he would sue it. he would make it pay roundly. but then it occurred to him that he did not know the name of a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in the world. he then thought he would seek out that conductor, lie in wait for him at some station, and thrash him, or get thrashed himself. but as he got cooler, that did not seem to him a project worthy of a gentleman exactly. was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane? and when he came to this point, he began to ask himself, if he had not acted very much like a fool. he didn't regret striking the fellow--he hoped he had left a mark on him. but, after all, was that the best way? here was he, philip sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. why should he have put himself in such a ridiculous position? wasn't it enough to have offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps from death? suppose he had simply said to the conductor, "sir, your conduct is brutal, i shall report you." the passengers, who saw the affair, might have joined in a report against the conductor, and he might really have accomplished something. and, now! philip looked at leis torn clothes, and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a fight with such an autocrat. at the little station where philip waited for the next train, he met a man--who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood, and told him his adventure. he was a kindly sort of man, and seemed very much interested. "dum 'em," said he, when he had heard the story. "do you think any thing can be done, sir?" "wal, i guess tain't no use. i hain't a mite of doubt of every word you say. but suin's no use. the railroad company owns all these people along here, and the judges on the bench too. spiled your clothes! wal, 'least said's soonest mended.' you haint no chance with the company." when next morning, he read the humorous account in the patriot and clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before the public in a fight with the railroad company. still philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry the matter into the courts, even with the certainty of defeat. he confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been violated before his own eyes. he confessed that every citizen's first duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished; and he knew that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more. as a finality he was obliged to confess that he was a bad citizen, and also that the general laxity of the time, and the absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the individual himself were ingrained in him, am he was no better than the rest of the people. the result of this little adventure was that philip did not reach ilium till daylight the next morning, when he descended sleepy and sore, from a way train, and looked about him. ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge, through which a rapid stream ran. it consisted of the plank platform on which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza (unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole--bearing the legend, "hotel. p. dusenheimer," a sawmill further down the stream, a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of the slab variety. as philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast crouching on the piazza. it did not stir, however, and he soon found that it was only a stuffed skin. this cheerful invitation to the tavern was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region a few weeks before. philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked fore-arm, as he was waiting admittance, having pounded upon the door. "yait a bit. i'll shoost--put on my trowsers," shouted a voice from the window, and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord. "morgen! didn't hear d' drain oncet. dem boys geeps me up zo spate. gom right in." philip was shown into a dirty bar-room. it was a small room, with a stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit of the "spitters," a bar across one end--a mere counter with a sliding glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels, and a wash-sink in one corner. on the walls were the bright yellow and black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and sylph-like women in a paradisaic costume, balancing themselves upon the tips of their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds, and kissing their hands to the spectators meanwhile. as philip did not desire a room at that hour, he was invited to wash himself at the nasty sink, a feat somewhat easier than drying his face, for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much a fixture as the sink itself, and belonged, like the suspended brush and comb, to the traveling public. philip managed to complete his toilet by the use of his pocket-handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the landlord, implied in the remark, "you won'd dake notin'?" he went into the open air to wait for breakfast. the country he saw was wild but not picturesque. the mountain before him might be eight hundred feet high, and was only a portion of a long unbroken range, savagely wooded, which followed the stream. behind the hotel, and across the brawling brook, was another level-topped, wooded range exactly like it. ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and rawness. p. dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal appearance. perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "ilium fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "aeneas," with the inquiry "where is old anchises?" at first he had replied, "dere ain't no such man;" but irritated by its senseless repetition, he had latterly dropped into the formula of, "you be dam." philip was recalled from the contemplation of ilium by the rolling and growling of the gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing till the house was apparently unable to contain it; when it burst out of the front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table. the dining room was long, low and narrow, and a narrow table extended its whole length. upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance might have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom. upon the table was the usual service, the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row of plated and rusty castors, the sugar bowls with the zinc tea-spoons sticking up in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the discouraged-looking plates of butter. the landlord waited, and philip was pleased to observe the change in his manner. in the barroom he was the conciliatory landlord. standing behind his guests at table, he had an air of peremptory patronage, and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry, as he seized philip's plate, "beefsteak or liver?" quite took away philip's power of choice. he begged for a glass of milk, after trying that green hued compound called coffee, and made his breakfast out of that and some hard crackers which seemed to have been imported into ilium before the introduction of the iron horse, and to have withstood a ten years siege of regular boarders, greeks and others. the land that philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant from ilium station. a corner of it touched the railroad, but the rest was pretty much an unbroken wilderness, eight or ten thousand acres of rough country, most of it such a mountain range as he saw at ilium. his first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. by their help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations as to the prospect of coal. the landlord at ilium endeavored to persuade philip to hire the services of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and exactly where the strata ran. but philip preferred to trust to his own study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation. he spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations; and made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain about a mile from the railroad, and that the place to run in a tunnel was half way towards its summit. acting with his usual promptness, philip, with the consent of mr. bolton, broke ground there at once, and, before snow came, had some rude buildings up, and was ready for active operations in the spring. it was true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place, and the people at ilium said he "mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there;" but philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in ages past, and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the rich vein that had made the fortune of the golden briar company. chapter xxx. once more louise had good news from her washington--senator dilworthy was going to sell the tennessee land to the government! louise told laura in confidence. she had told her parents, too, and also several bosom friends; but all of these people had simply looked sad when they heard the news, except laura. laura's face suddenly brightened under it--only for an instant, it is true, but poor louise was grateful for even that fleeting ray of encouragement. when next laura was alone, she fell into a train of thought something like this: "if the senator has really taken hold of this matter, i may look for that invitation to his house at, any moment. i am perishing to go! i do long to know whether i am only simply a large-sized pigmy among these pigmies here, who tumble over so easily when one strikes them, or whether i am really--." her thoughts drifted into other channels, for a season. then she continued:-"he said i could be useful in the great cause of philanthropy, and help in the blessed work of uplifting the poor and the ignorant, if he found it feasible to take hold of our land. well, that is neither here nor there; what i want, is to go to washington and find out what i am. i want money, too; and if one may judge by what she hears, there are chances there for a--." for a fascinating woman, she was going to say, perhaps, but she did not. along in the fall the invitation came, sure enough. it came officially through brother washington, the private secretary, who appended a postscript that was brimming with delight over the prospect of seeing the duchess again. he said it would be happiness enough to look upon her face once more--it would be almost too much happiness when to it was added the fact that she would bring messages with her that were fresh from louise's lips. in washington's letter were several important enclosures. for instance, there was the senator's check for $2,000--"to buy suitable clothing in new york with!" it was a loan to be refunded when the land was sold. two thousand--this was fine indeed. louise's father was called rich, but laura doubted if louise had ever had $400 worth of new clothing at one time in her life. with the check came two through tickets--good on the railroad from hawkeye to washington via new york--and they were "dead-head" tickets, too, which had been given to senator dilworthy by the railway companies. senators and representatives were paid thousands of dollars by the government for traveling expenses, but they always traveled "deadhead" both ways, and then did as any honorable, high-minded men would naturally do--declined to receive the mileage tendered them by the government. the senator had plenty of railway passes, and could. easily spare two to laura--one for herself and one for a male escort. washington suggested that she get some old friend of the family to come with her, and said the senator would "deadhead" him home again as soon as he had grown tired, of the sights of the capital. laura thought the thing over. at first she was pleased with the idea, but presently she began to feel differently about it. finally she said, "no, our staid, steady-going hawkeye friends' notions and mine differ about some things --they respect me, now, and i respect them--better leave it so--i will go alone; i am not afraid to travel by myself." and so communing with herself, she left the house for an afternoon walk. almost at the door she met col. sellers. she told him about her invitation to washington. "bless me!" said the colonel. "i have about made up my mind to go there myself. you see we've got to get another appropriation through, and the company want me to come east and put it through congress. harry's there, and he'll do what he can, of course; and harry's a good fellow and always does the very best he knows how, but then he's young--rather young for some parts of such work, you know--and besides he talks too much, talks a good deal too much; and sometimes he appears to be a little bit visionary, too, i think the worst thing in the world for a business man. a man like that always exposes his cards, sooner or later. this sort of thing wants an old, quiet, steady hand--wants an old cool head, you know, that knows men, through and through, and is used to large operations. i'm expecting my salary, and also some dividends from the company, and if they get along in time, i'll go along with you laura--take you under my wing--you mustn't travel alone. lord i wish i had the money right now. --but there'll be plenty soon--plenty." laura reasoned with herself that if the kindly, simple-hearted colonel was going anyhow, what could she gain by traveling alone and throwing away his company? so she told him she accepted his offer gladly, gratefully. she said it would be the greatest of favors if he would go with her and protect her--not at his own expense as far as railway fares were concerned, of course; she could not expect him to put himself to so much trouble for her and pay his fare besides. but he wouldn't hear of her paying his fare--it would be only a pleasure to him to serve her. laura insisted on furnishing the tickets; and finally, when argument failed, she said the tickets cost neither her nor any one else a cent --she had two of them--she needed but one--and if he would not take the other she would not go with him. that settled the matter. he took the ticket. laura was glad that she had the check for new clothing, for she felt very certain of being able to get the colonel to borrow a little of the money to pay hotel bills with, here and there. she wrote washington to look for her and col. sellers toward the end of november; and at about the time set the two travelers arrived safe in the capital of the nation, sure enough. chapter xxxi she the, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare to doe him ease, or doe him remedy: many restoratives of vertues rare and costly cordialles she did apply, to mitigate his stubborne malady. spenser's faerie queens. mr. henry brierly was exceedingly busy in new york, so he wrote col. sellers, but he would drop everything and go to washington. the colonel believed that harry was the prince of lobbyists, a little too sanguine, may be, and given to speculation, but, then, he knew everybody; the columbus river navigation scheme was, got through almost entirely by his aid. he was needed now to help through another scheme, a benevolent scheme in which col. sellers, through the hawkinses, had a deep interest. "i don't care, you know," he wrote to harry, "so much about the niggroes. but if the government will buy this land, it will set up the hawkins family--make laura an heiress--and i shouldn't wonder if beriah sellers would set up his carriage again. dilworthy looks at it different, of course. he's all for philanthropy, for benefiting the colored race. there's old balsam, was in the interior--used to be the rev. orson balsam of iowa--he's made the riffle on the injun; great injun pacificator and land dealer. balaam'a got the injun to himself, and i suppose that senator dilworthy feels that there is nothing left him but the colored man. i do reckon he is the best friend the colored man has got in washington." though harry was in a hurry to reach washington, he stopped in philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the detriment of his business both in new york and washington. the society at the bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business much more important than his. philip was there; he was a partner with mr. bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there was much to be arranged in preparation for the spring work, and philip lingered week after week in the hospitable house. alice was making a winter visit. ruth only went to town twice a week to attend lectures, and the household was quite to mr. bolton's taste, for he liked the cheer of company and something going on evenings. harry was cordially asked to bring his traveling-bag there, and he did not need urging to do so. not even the thought of seeing laura at the capital made him restless in the society of the two young ladies; two birds in hand are worth one in the bush certainly. philip was at home--he sometimes wished he were not so much so. he felt that too much or not enough was taken for granted. ruth had met him, when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued entirely unrestrained. she neither sought his company nor avoided it, and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other could have done. it was impossible to advance much in love-making with one who offered no obstacles, had no concealments and no embarrassments, and whom any approach to sentimentality would be quite likely to set into a fit of laughter. "why, phil," she would say, "what puts you in the dumps to day? you are as solemn as the upper bench in meeting. i shall have to call alice to raise your spirits; my presence seems to depress you." "it's not your presence, but your absence when you are present," began philip, dolefully, with the idea that he was saying a rather deep thing. "but you won't understand me." "no, i confess i cannot. if you really are so low, as to think i am absent when i am present, it's a frightful case of aberration; i shall ask father to bring out dr. jackson. does alice appear to be present when she is absent?" "alice has some human feeling, anyway. she cares for something besides musty books and dry bones. i think, ruth, when i die," said philip, intending to be very grim and sarcastic, "i'll leave you my skeleton. you might like that." "it might be more cheerful than you are at times," ruth replied with a laugh. "but you mustn't do it without consulting alice. she might not. like it." "i don't know why you should bring alice up on every occasion. do you think i am in love with her?" "bless you, no. it never entered my head. are you? the thought of philip sterling in love is too comical. i thought you were only in love with the ilium coal mine, which you and father talk about half the time." this is a specimen of philip's wooing. confound the girl, he would say to himself, why does she never tease harry and that young shepley who comes here? how differently alice treated him. she at least never mocked him, and it was a relief to talk with one who had some sympathy with him. and he did talk to her, by the hour, about ruth. the blundering fellow poured all his doubts and anxieties into her ear, as if she had been the impassive occupant of one of those little wooden confessionals in the cathedral on logan square. has, a confessor, if she is young and pretty, any feeling? does it mend the matter by calling her your sister? philip called alice his good sister, and talked to her about love and marriage, meaning ruth, as if sisters could by no possibility have any personal concern in such things. did ruth ever speak of him? did she think ruth cared for him? did ruth care for anybody at fallkill? did she care for anything except her profession? and so on. alice was loyal to ruth, and if she knew anything she did not betray her friend. she did not, at any rate, give philip too much encouragement. what woman, under the circumstances, would? "i can tell you one thing, philip," she said, "if ever ruth bolton loves, it will be with her whole soul, in a depth of passion that will sweep everything before it and surprise even herself." a remark that did not much console philip, who imagined that only some grand heroism could unlock the sweetness of such a heart; and philip feared that he wasn't a hero. he did not know out of what materials a woman can construct a hero, when she is in the creative mood. harry skipped into this society with his usual lightness and gaiety. his good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his hearers. he was not long in finding out that alice liked to hear about philip, and harry launched out into the career of his friend in the west, with a prodigality of invention that would have astonished the chief actor. he was the most generous fellow in the world, and picturesque conversation was the one thing in which he never was bankrupt. with mr. bolton he was the serious man of business, enjoying the confidence of many of the monied men in new york, whom mr. bolton knew, and engaged with them in railway schemes and government contracts. philip, who had so long known harry, never could make up his mind that harry did not himself believe that he was a chief actor in all these large operations of which he talked so much. harry did not neglect to endeavor to make himself agreeable to mrs. bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the warmest interest in the friends' faith. it always seemed to him the most peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear quaker aunt in providence of whom mrs. bolton constantly reminded him. he insisted upon going with mrs. bolton and the children to the friends meeting on first day, when ruth and alice and philip, "world's people," went to a church in town, and he sat through the hour of silence with his hat on, in most exemplary patience. in short, this amazing actor succeeded so well with mrs. bolton, that she said to philip one day, "thy friend, henry brierly, appears to be a very worldly minded young man. does he believe in anything?" "oh, yes," said philip laughing, "he believes in more things than any other person i ever saw." to ruth, harry seemed to be very congenial. he was never moody for one thing, but lent himself with alacrity to whatever her fancy was. he was gay or grave as the need might be. no one apparently could enter more fully into her plans for an independent career. "my father," said harry, "was bred a physician, and practiced a little before he went into wall street. i always had a leaning to the study. there was a skeleton hanging in the closet of my father's study when i was a boy, that i used to dress up in old clothes. oh, i got quite familiar with the human frame." "you must have," said philip. "was that where you learned to play the bones? he is a master of those musical instruments, ruth; he plays well enough to go on the stage." "philip hates science of any kind, and steady application," retorted harry. he didn't fancy philip's banter, and when the latter had gone out, and ruth asked, "why don't you take up medicine, mr. brierly?" harry said, "i have it in mind. i believe i would begin attending lectures this winter if it weren't for being wanted in washington. but medicine is particularly women's province." "why so?" asked ruth, rather amused. "well, the treatment of disease is a good deal a matter of sympathy. a woman's intuition is better than a man's. nobody knows anything, really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man." "you are very complimentary to my sex." "but," said harry frankly; "i should want to choose my doctor; an ugly woman would ruin me, the disease would be sure to strike in and kill me at sight of her. i think a pretty physician, with engaging manners, would coax a fellow to live through almost anything." "i am afraid you are a scoffer, mr. brierly." "on the contrary, i am quite sincere. wasn't it old what's his name? that said only the beautiful is useful?" whether ruth was anything more than diverted with harry's company; philip could not determine. he scorned at any rate to advance his own interest by any disparaging communications about harry, both because he could not help liking the fellow himself, and because he may have known that he could not more surely create a sympathy for him in ruth's mind. that ruth was in no danger of any serious impression he felt pretty sure, felt certain of it when he reflected upon her severe occupation with her profession. hang it, he would say to himself, she is nothing but pure intellect anyway. and he only felt uncertain of it when she was in one of her moods of raillery, with mocking mischief in her eyes. at such times she seemed to prefer harry's society to his. when philip was miserable about this, he always took refuge with alice, who was never moody, and who generally laughed him out of his sentimental nonsense. he felt at his ease with alice, and was never in want of something to talk about; and he could not account for the fact that he was so often dull with ruth, with whom, of all persons in the world, he wanted to appear at his best. harry was entirely satisfied with his own situation. a bird of passage is always at its ease, having no house to build, and no responsibility. he talked freely with philip about ruth, an almighty fine girl, he said, but what the deuce she wanted to study medicine for, he couldn't see. there was a concert one night at the musical fund hall and the four had arranged to go in and return by the germantown cars. it was philip's plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place. he was fond of music, too, in a sympathetic way; at least, he knew that ruth's delight in it would be enough for him. perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very serious things. his love for ruth was no secret to mrs. bolton, and he felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. mrs. bolton had been cautious in what she said, but philip inferred everything from her reply to his own questions, one day, "has thee ever spoken thy mind to ruth?" why shouldn't he speak his mind, and end his doubts? ruth had been more tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent, it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies. had ruth a premonition of philip's intention, in his manner? it may be, for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met philip and harry in the hall, ruth said, laughing, "the two tallest must walk together" and before philip knew how it happened ruth had taken harry's arm, and his evening was spoiled. he had too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner that he was hit. so he said to harry, "that's your disadvantage in being short." and he gave alice no reason to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice for the excursion. but he was none the less chagrined, and not a little angry at the turn the affair took. the hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. the concert was one of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas, which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar terms with the audience, and always sings the barber; the attitudinizing tenor, with his languishing "oh, summer night;" the soprano with her "batti batti," who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath, and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. it was this sort of concert, and philip was thinking that it was the most stupid one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of that touching ballad, "comin' thro' the rye" (the soprano always sings "comin' thro' the rye" on an encore)--the black swan used to make it irresistible, philip remembered, with her arch, "if a body kiss a body" there was a cry of "fire!" the hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress. instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door. men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass. a second's thought would have convinced every one that getting out was impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people to death. but a second's thought was not given. a few cried: "sit down, sit down," but the mass was turned towards the door. women were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the mass to the entrance. philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the new danger, and sprang to avert it. in a second more those infuriated men would be over the benches and crushing ruth and alice under their boots. he leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing it to flow on either side of him. but it was only for an instant; the pressure behind was too great, and, the next philip was dashed backwards over the seat. and yet that instant of arrest had probably saved the girls, for as philip fell, the orchestra struck up "yankee doodle" in the liveliest manner. the familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in wonder, and gave the conductor's voice a chance to be heard--"it's a false alarm!" the tumult was over in a minute, and the next, laughter was heard, and not a few said, "i knew it wasn't anything." "what fools people are at such a time." the concert was over, however. a good many people were hurt, some of them seriously, and among them philip sterling was found bent across the seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on his head. when he was carried into the air he revived, and said it was nothing. a surgeon was called, and it was thought best to drive at once to the bolton's, the surgeon supporting philip, who did not speak the whole way. his arm was set and his head dressed, and the surgeon said he would come round all right in his mind by morning; he was very weak. alice who was not much frightened while the panic lasted in the hall, was very much unnerved by seeing philip so pale and bloody. ruth assisted the surgeon with the utmost coolness and with skillful hands helped to dress philip's wounds. and there was a certain intentness and fierce energy in what she did that might have revealed something to philip if he had been in his senses. but he was not, or he would not have murmured "let alice do it, she is not too tall." it was ruth's first case. chapter, xxxii. washington's delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. he said that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that she was only commonplace before, compared to what she was now, so extraordinary was the improvement wrought by rich fashionable attire. "but your criticisms are too full of brotherly partiality to be depended on, washington. other people will judge differently." "indeed they won't. you'll see. there will never be a woman in washington that can compare with you. you'll be famous within a fortnight, laura. everybody will want to know you. you wait--you'll see." laura wished in her heart that the prophecy might come true; and privately she even believed it might--for she had brought all the women whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the result had not been unsatisfactory to her. during a week or two washington drove about the city every day with her and familiarized her with all of its salient features. she was beginning to feel very much at home with the town itself, and she was also fast acquiring ease with the distinguished people she met at the dilworthy table, and losing what little of country timidity she had brought with her from hawkeye. she noticed with secret pleasure the little start of admiration that always manifested itself in the faces of the guests when she entered the drawing-room arrayed in evening costume: she took comforting note of the fact that these guests directed a very liberal share of their conversation toward her; she observed with surprise, that famous statesmen and soldiers did not talk like gods, as a general thing, but said rather commonplace things for the most part; and she was filled with gratification to discover that she, on the contrary, was making a good many shrewd speeches and now and then a really brilliant one, and furthermore, that they were beginning to be repeated in social circles about the town. congress began its sittings, and every day or two washington escorted her to the galleries set apart for lady members of the households of senators and representatives. here was a larger field and a wider competition, but still she saw that many eyes were uplifted toward her face, and that first one person and then another called a neighbor's attention to her; she was not too dull to perceive that the speeches of some of the younger statesmen were delivered about as much and perhaps more at her than to the presiding officer; and she was not sorry to see that the dapper young senator from iowa came at once and stood in the open space before the president's desk to exhibit his feet as soon as she entered the gallery, whereas she had early learned from common report that his usual custom was to prop them on his desk and enjoy them himself with a selfish disregard of other people's longings. invitations began to flow in upon her and soon she was fairly "in society." "the season" was now in full bloom, and the first select reception was at hand that is to say, a reception confined to invited guests. senator dilworthy had become well convinced; by this time, that his judgment of the country-bred missouri girl had not deceived him--it was plain that she was going to be a peerless missionary in the field of labor he designed her for, and therefore it would be perfectly safe and likewise judicious to send her forth well panoplied for her work.--so he had added new and still richer costumes to her wardrobe, and assisted their attractions with costly jewelry-loans on the future land sale. this first select reception took place at a cabinet minister's--or rather a cabinet secretary's mansion. when laura and the senator arrived, about half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still receiving streams of guests.--the drawing-rooms were brilliant with gaslight, and as hot as ovens. the host and hostess stood just within the door of entrance; laura was presented, and then she passed on into the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies and white-kid-gloved and steel pen-coated gentlemen and wherever she moved she was followed by a buzz of admiration that was grateful to all her senses--so grateful, indeed, that her white face was tinged and its beauty heightened by a perceptible suffusion of color. she caught such remarks as, "who is she?" "superb woman!" "that is the new beauty from the west," etc., etc. whenever she halted, she was presently surrounded by ministers, generals, congressmen, and all manner of aristocratic, people. introductions followed, and then the usual original question, "how do you like washington, miss hawkins?" supplemented by that other usual original question, "is this your first visit?" these two exciting topics being exhausted, conversation generally drifted into calmer channels, only to be interrupted at frequent intervals by new introductions and new inquiries as to how laura liked the capital and whether it was her first visit or not. and thus for an hour or more the duchess moved through the crush in a rapture of happiness, for her doubts were dead and gone, now she knew she could conquer here. a familiar face appeared in the midst of the multitude and harry brierly fought his difficult way to her side, his eyes shouting their gratification, so to speak: "oh, this is a happiness! tell me, my dear miss hawkins--" "sh! i know what you are going to ask. i do like washington--i like it ever so much!" "no, but i was going to ask--" "yes, i am coming to it, coming to it as fast as i can. it is my first visit. i think you should know that yourself." and straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach. "now what can the girl mean? of course she likes washington--i'm not such a dummy as to have to ask her that. and as to its being her first visit, why bang it, she knows that i knew it was. does she think i have turned idiot? curious girl, anyway. but how they do swarm about her! she is the reigning belle of washington after this night. she'll know five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night's nonsense is over. and this isn't even the beginning. just as i used to say--she'll be a card in the matter of--yes sir! she shall turn the men's heads and i'll turn the women's! what a team that will be in politics here. i wouldn't take a quarter of a million for what i can do in this present session--no indeed i wouldn't. now, here--i don't altogether like this. that insignificant secretary of legation is--why, she's smiling on him as if he--and now on the admiral! now she's illuminating that, stuffy congressman from massachusetts--vulgar ungrammatcal shovel-maker--greasy knave of spades. i don't like this sort of thing. she doesn't appear to be much distressed about me--she hasn't looked this way once. all right, my bird of paradise, if it suits you, go on. but i think i know your sex. i'll go to smiling around a little, too, and see what effect that will have on you" and he did "smile around a little," and got as near to her as he could to watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure--he could not get her attention. she seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not flirt with any spirit; he could only talk disjointedly; he could not keep his eyes on the charmers he talked to; he grew irritable, jealous, and very, unhappy. he gave up his enterprise, leaned his shoulder against a fluted pilaster and pouted while he kept watch upon laura's every movement. his other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. he was too busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. an hour ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and show her "life" and enjoy her wonder and delight--and here she was, immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in it than he was himself. and now his angry comments ran on again: "now she's sweetening old brother balaam; and he--well he is inviting her to the congressional prayer-meeting, no doubt--better let old dilworthy alone to see that she doesn't overlook that. and now its splurge, of new york; and now its batters of new hampshire--and now the vice president! well i may as well adjourn. i've got enough." but he hadn't. he got as far as the door--and then struggled back to take one more look, hating himself all the while for his weakness. toward midnight, when supper was announced, the crowd thronged to the supper room where a long table was decked out with what seemed a rare repast, but which consisted of things better calculated to feast the eye than the appetite. the ladies were soon seated in files along the wall, and in groups here and there, and the colored waiters filled the plates and glasses and the, male guests moved hither and thither conveying them to the privileged sex. harry took an ice and stood up by the table with other gentlemen, and listened to the buzz of conversation while he ate. from these remarks he learned a good deal about laura that was news to him. for instance, that she was of a distinguished western family; that she was highly educated; that she was very rich and a great landed heiress; that she was not a professor of religion, and yet was a christian in the truest and best sense of the word, for her whole heart was devoted to the accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise--none other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of light and righteousness. harry observed that as soon as one listener had absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor and the latter individual straightway passed it on. and thus he saw it travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies. he could not trace it backward to its fountain head, and so he could not tell who it was that started it. one thing annoyed harry a great deal; and that was the reflection that he might have been in washington days and days ago and thrown his fascinations about laura with permanent effect while she was new and strange to the capital, instead of dawdling in philadelphia to no purpose. he feared he had "missed a trick," as he expressed it. he only found one little opportunity of speaking again with laura before the evening's festivities ended, and then, for the first time in years, his airy self-complacency failed him, his tongue's easy confidence forsook it in a great measure, and he was conscious of an unheroic timidity. he was glad to get away and find a place where he could despise himself in private and try to grow his clipped plumes again. when laura reached home she was tired but exultant, and senator dilworthy was pleased and satisfied. he called laura "my daughter," next morning, and gave her some "pin money," as he termed it, and she sent a hundred and fifty dollars of it to her mother and loaned a trifle to col. sellers. then the senator had a long private conference with laura, and unfolded certain plans of his for the good of the country, and religion, and the poor, and temperance, and showed her how she could assist him in developing these worthy and noble enterprises. chapter xxxiii. laura soon discovered that there were three distinct aristocracies in washington. one of these, (nick-named the antiques,) consisted of cultivated, high-bred old families who looked back with pride upon an ancestry that had been always great in the nation's councils and its wars from the birth of the republic downward. into this select circle it was difficult to gain admission. no. 2 was the aristocracy of the middle ground--of which, more anon. no. 3 lay beyond; of it we will say a word here. we will call it the aristocracy of the parvenus--as, indeed, the general public did. official position, no matter how obtained, entitled a man to a place in it, and carried his family with him, no matter whence they sprang. great wealth gave a man a still higher and nobler place in it than did official position. if this wealth had been acquired by conspicuous ingenuity, with just a pleasant little spice of illegality about it, all the better. this aristocracy was "fast," and not averse to ostentation. the aristocracy of the antiques ignored the aristocracy of the parvenus; the parvenus laughed at the antiques, (and secretly envied them.) there were certain important "society" customs which one in laura's position needed to understand. for instance, when a lady of any prominence comes to one of our cities and takes up her residence, all the ladies of her grade favor her in turn with an initial call, giving their cards to the servant at the door by way of introduction. they come singly, sometimes; sometimes in couples; and always in elaborate full dress. they talk two minutes and a quarter and then go. if the lady receiving the call desires a further acquaintance, she must return the visit within two weeks; to neglect it beyond that time means "let the matter drop." but if she does return the visit within two weeks, it then becomes the other party's privilege to continue the acquaintance or drop it. she signifies her willingness to continue it by calling again any time within twelve-months; after that, if the parties go on calling upon each other once a year, in our large cities, that is sufficient, and the acquaintanceship holds good. the thing goes along smoothly, now. the annual visits are made and returned with peaceful regularity and bland satisfaction, although it is not necessary that the two ladies shall actually see each other oftener than once every few years. their cards preserve the intimacy and keep the acquaintanceship intact. for instance, mrs. a. pays her annual visit, sits in her carriage and sends in her card with the lower right hand corner turned down, which signifies that she has "called in person;" mrs. b: sends down word that she is "engaged" or "wishes to be excused"--or if she is a parvenu and low-bred, she perhaps sends word that she is "not at home." very good; mrs. a. drives, on happy and content. if mrs. a.'s daughter marries, or a child is born to the family, mrs. b. calls, sends in her card with the upper left hand corner turned down, and then goes along about her affairs--for that inverted corner means "congratulations." if mrs. b.'s husband falls downstairs and breaks his neck, mrs. a. calls, leaves her card with the upper right hand corner turned down, and then takes her departure; this corner means "condolence." it is very necessary to get the corners right, else one may unintentionally condole with a friend on a wedding or congratulate her upon a funeral. if either lady is about to leave the city, she goes to the other's house and leaves her card with "p. p. c." engraved under the name--which signifies, "pay parting call." but enough of etiquette. laura was early instructed in the mysteries of society life by a competent mentor, and thus was preserved from troublesome mistakes. the first fashionable call she received from a member of the ancient nobility, otherwise the antiques, was of a pattern with all she received from that limb of the aristocracy afterward. this call was paid by mrs. major-general fulke-fulkerson and daughter. they drove up at one in the afternoon in a rather antiquated vehicle with a faded coat of arms on the panels, an aged white-wooled negro coachman on the box and a younger darkey beside him--the footman. both of these servants were dressed in dull brown livery that had seen considerable service. the ladies entered the drawing-room in full character; that is to say, with elizabethan stateliness on the part of the dowager, and an easy grace and dignity on the part of the young lady that had a nameless something about it that suggested conscious superiority. the dresses of both ladies were exceedingly rich, as to material, but as notably modest as to color and ornament. all parties having seated themselves, the dowager delivered herself of a remark that was not unusual in its form, and yet it came from her lips with the impressiveness of scripture: "the weather has been unpropitious of late, miss hawkins." "it has indeed," said laura. "the climate seems to be variable." "it is its nature of old, here," said the daughter--stating it apparently as a fact, only, and by her manner waving aside all personal responsibility on account of it. "is it not so, mamma?" "quite so, my child. do you like winter, miss hawkins?" she said "like" as if she had, an idea that its dictionary meaning was "approve of." "not as well as summer--though i think all seasons have their charms." "it is a very just remark. the general held similar views. he considered snow in winter proper; sultriness in summer legitimate; frosts in the autumn the same, and rains in spring not objectionable. he was not an exacting man. and i call to mind now that he always admired thunder. you remember, child, your father always admired thunder?" "he adored it." "no doubt it reminded him of battle," said laura. "yes, i think perhaps it did. he had a great respect for nature. he often said there was something striking about the ocean. you remember his saying that, daughter?" "yes, often, mother. i remember it very well." "and hurricanes... he took a great interest in hurricanes. and animals. dogs, especially--hunting dogs. also comets. i think we all have our predilections. i think it is this that gives variety to our tastes." laura coincided with this view. "do you find it hard and lonely to be so far from your home and friends, miss hawkins?" "i do find it depressing sometimes, but then there is so much about me here that is novel and interesting that my days are made up more of sunshine than shadow." "washington is not a dull city in the season," said the young lady. "we have some very good society indeed, and one need not be at a loss for means to pass the time pleasantly. are you fond of watering-places, miss hawkins?" "i have really had no experience of them, but i have always felt a strong desire to see something of fashionable watering-place life." "we of washington are unfortunately situated in that respect," said the dowager. "it is a tedious distance to newport. but there is no help for it." laura said to herself, "long branch and cape may are nearer than newport; doubtless these places are low; i'll feel my way a little and see." then she said aloud: "why i thought that long branch--" there was no need to "feel" any further--there was that in both faces before her which made that truth apparent. the dowager said: "nobody goes there, miss hawkins--at least only persons of no position in society. and the president." she added that with tranquility. "newport is damp, and cold, and windy and excessively disagreeable," said the daughter, "but it is very select. one cannot be fastidious about minor matters when one has no choice." the visit had spun out nearly three minutes, now. both ladies rose with grave dignity, conferred upon laura a formal invitation to call, aid then retired from the conference. laura remained in the drawing-room and left them to pilot themselves out of the house--an inhospitable thing, it seemed to her, but then she was following her instructions. she stood, steeped in reverie, a while, and then she said: "i think i could always enjoy icebergs--as scenery but not as company." still, she knew these two people by reputation, and was aware that they were not ice-bergs when they were in their own waters and amid their legitimate surroundings, but on the contrary were people to be respected for their stainless characters and esteemed for their social virtues and their benevolent impulses. she thought it a pity that they had to be such changed and dreary creatures on occasions of state. the first call laura received from the other extremity of the washington aristocracy followed close upon the heels of the one we have just been describing. the callers this time were the hon. mrs. oliver higgins, the hon. mrs. patrique oreille (pronounced o-relay,) miss bridget (pronounced breezhay) oreille, mrs. peter gashly, miss gashly, and miss emmeline gashly. the three carriages arrived at the same moment from different directions. they were new and wonderfully shiny, and the brasses on the harness were highly polished and bore complicated monograms. there were showy coats of arms, too, with latin mottoes. the coachmen and footmen were clad in bright new livery, of striking colors, and they had black rosettes with shaving-brushes projecting above them, on the sides of their stove-pipe hats. when the visitors swept into the drawing-room they filled the place with a suffocating sweetness procured at the perfumer's. their costumes, as to architecture, were the latest fashion intensified; they were rainbow-hued; they were hung with jewels--chiefly diamonds. it would have been plain to any eye that it had cost something to upholster these women. the hon. mrs. oliver higgins was the wife of a delegate from a distant territory--a gentleman who had kept the principal "saloon," and sold the best whiskey in the principal village in his wilderness, and so, of course, was recognized as the first man of his commonwealth and its fittest representative. he was a man of paramount influence at home, for he was public spirited, he was chief of the fire department, he had an admirable command of profane language, and had killed several "parties." his shirt fronts were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a pound; the gold in his finger ring was worth forty five dollars; he wore a diamond cluster-pin and he parted his hair behind. he had always been, regarded as the most elegant gentleman in his territory, and it was conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired governor himself. the hon. higgins had not come to serve his country in washington for nothing. the appropriation which he had engineered through congress for the maintenance, of the indians in his territory would have made all those savages rich if it had ever got to them. the hon. mrs. higgins was a picturesque woman, and a fluent talker, and she held a tolerably high station among the parvenus. her english was fair enough, as a general thing--though, being of new york origin, she had the fashion peculiar to many natives of that city of pronouncing saw and law as if they were spelt sawr and lawr. petroleum was the agent that had suddenly transformed the gashlys from modest hard-working country village folk into "loud" aristocrats and ornaments of the city. the hon. patrique oreille was a wealthy frenchman from cork. not that he was wealthy when he first came from cork, but just the reverse. when he first landed in new york with his wife, he had only halted at castle garden for a few minutes to receive and exhibit papers showing that he had resided in this country two years--and then he voted the democratic ticket and went up town to hunt a house. he found one and then went to work as assistant to an architect and builder, carrying a hod all day and studying politics evenings. industry and economy soon enabled him to start a low rum shop in a foul locality, and this gave him political influence. in our country it is always our first care to see that our people have the opportunity of voting for their choice of men to represent and govern them--we do not permit our great officials to appoint the little officials. we prefer to have so tremendous a power as that in our own hands. we hold it safest to elect our judges and everybody else. in our cities, the ward meetings elect delegates to the nominating conventions and instruct them whom to nominate. the publicans and their retainers rule the ward meetings (for every body else hates the worry of politics and stays at home); the delegates from the ward meetings organize as a nominating convention and make up a list of candidates--one convention offering a democratic and another a republican list of incorruptibles; and then the great meek public come forward at the proper time and make unhampered choice and bless heaven that they live in a free land where no form of despotism can ever intrude. patrick o'riley (as his name then stood) created friends and influence very, fast, for he was always on hand at the police courts to give straw bail for his customers or establish an alibi for them in case they had been beating anybody to death on his premises. consequently he presently became a political leader, and was elected to a petty office under the city government. out of a meager salary he soon saved money enough to open quite a stylish liquor saloon higher up town, with a faro bank attached and plenty of capital to conduct it with. this gave him fame and great respectability. the position of alderman was forced upon him, and it was just the same as presenting him a gold mine. he had fine horses and carriages, now, and closed up his whiskey mill. by and by he became a large contractor for city work, and was a bosom friend of the great and good wm. m. weed himself, who had stolen $20,600,000 from the city and was a man so envied, so honored,--so adored, indeed, that when the sheriff went to his office to arrest him as a felon, that sheriff blushed and apologized, and one of the illustrated papers made a picture of the scene and spoke of the matter in such a way as to show that the editor regretted that the offense of an arrest had been offered to so exalted a personage as mr. weed. mr. o'riley furnished shingle nails to, the new court house at three thousand dollars a keg, and eighteen gross of 60-cent thermometers at fifteen hundred dollars a dozen; the controller and the board of audit passed the bills, and a mayor, who was simply ignorant but not criminal, signed them. when they were paid, mr. o'riley's admirers gave him a solitaire diamond pin of the size of a filbert, in imitation of the liberality of mr. weed's friends, and then mr. o'riley retired from active service and amused himself with buying real estate at enormous figures and holding it in other people's names. by and by the newspapers came out with exposures and called weed and o'riley "thieves,"--whereupon the people rose as one man (voting repeatedly) and elected the two gentlemen to their proper theatre of action, the new york legislature. the newspapers clamored, and the courts proceeded to try the new legislators for their small irregularities. our admirable jury system enabled the persecuted ex-officials to secure a jury of nine gentlemen from a neighboring asylum and three graduates from sing-sing, and presently they walked forth with characters vindicated. the legislature was called upon to spew them forth--a thing which the legislature declined to do. it was like asking children to repudiate their own father. it was a legislature of the modern pattern. being now wealthy and distinguished, mr. o'riley, still bearing the legislative "hon." attached to his name (for titles never die in america, although we do take a republican pride in poking fun at such trifles), sailed for europe with his family. they traveled all about, turning their noses up at every thing, and not finding it a difficult thing to do, either, because nature had originally given those features a cast in that direction; and finally they established themselves in paris, that paradise of americans of their sort.--they staid there two years and learned to speak english with a foreign accent--not that it hadn't always had a foreign accent (which was indeed the case) but now the nature of it was changed. finally they returned home and became ultra fashionables. they landed here as the hon. patrique oreille and family, and so are known unto this day. laura provided seats for her visitors and they immediately launched forth into a breezy, sparkling conversation with that easy confidence which is to be found only among persons accustomed to high life. "i've been intending to call sooner, miss hawkins," said the hon. mrs. oreille, "but the weather's been so horrid. how do you like washington?" laura liked it very well indeed. mrs. gashly--"is it your first visit?" yea, it was her first. all--"indeed?" mrs. oreille--"i'm afraid you'll despise the weather, miss hawkins. it's perfectly awful. it always is. i tell mr. oreille i can't and i won't put up with any such a climate. if we were obliged to do it, i wouldn't mind it; but we are not obliged to, and so i don't see the use of it. sometimes its real pitiful the way the childern pine for parry --don't look so sad, bridget, 'ma chere'--poor child, she can't hear parry mentioned without getting the blues." mrs. gashly--"well i should think so, mrs. oreille. a body lives in paris, but a body, only stays here. i dote on paris; i'd druther scrimp along on ten thousand dollars a year there, than suffer and worry here on a real decent income." miss gashly--"well then, i wish you'd take us back, mother; i'm sure i hate this stoopid country enough, even if it is our dear native land." miss emmeline gashly--"what and leave poor johnny peterson behind?" [an airy genial laugh applauded this sally]. miss gashly--"sister, i should think you'd be ashamed of yourself!" miss emmeline--"oh, you needn't ruffle your feathers so: i was only joking. he don't mean anything by coming to, the house every evening --only comes to see mother. of course that's all!" [general laughter]. miss g. prettily confused--"emmeline, how can you!" mrs. g.--"let your sister alone, emmeline. i never saw such a tease!" mrs. oreille--"what lovely corals you have, miss hawkins! just look at them, bridget, dear. i've a great passion for corals--it's a pity they're getting a little common. i have some elegant ones--not as elegant as yours, though--but of course i don't wear them now." laura--"i suppose they are rather common, but still i have a great affection for these, because they were given to me by a dear old friend of our family named murphy. he was a very charming man, but very eccentric. we always supposed he was an irishman, but after be got rich he went abroad for a year or two, and when he came back you would have been amused to see how interested he was in a potato. he asked what it was! now you know that when providence shapes a mouth especially for the accommodation of a potato you can detect that fact at a glance when that mouth is in repose--foreign travel can never remove that sign. but he was a very delightful gentleman, and his little foible did not hurt him at all. we all have our shams--i suppose there is a sham somewhere about every individual, if we could manage to ferret it out. i would so like to go to france. i suppose our society here compares very favorably with french society does it not, mrs. oreille?" mrs. o.--"not by any means, miss hawkins! french society is much more elegant--much more so." laura--"i am sorry to hear that. i suppose ours has deteriorated of late." mrs. o.--"very much indeed. there are people in society here that have really no more money to live on than what some of us pay for servant hire. still i won't say but what some of them are very good people--and respectable, too." laura--"the old families seem to be holding themselves aloof, from what i hear. i suppose you seldom meet in society now, the people you used to be familiar with twelve or fifteen years ago?" mrs. o.--"oh, no-hardly ever." mr. o'riley kept his first rum-mill and protected his customers from the law in those days, and this turn of the conversation was rather uncomfortable to madame than otherwise. hon. mrs. higgins--"is francois' health good now, mrs. oreille?" mrs. o.--(thankful for the intervention)--"not very. a body couldn't expect it. he was always delicate--especially his lungs--and this odious climate tells on him strong, now, after parry, which is so mild." mrs. h:--"i should think so. husband says percy'll die if he don't have a change; and so i'm going to swap round a little and see what can be done. i saw a lady from florida last week, and she recommended key west. i told her percy couldn't abide winds, as he was threatened with a pulmonary affection, and then she said try st. augustine. it's an awful distance--ten or twelve hundred mile, they say but then in a case of this kind--a body can't stand back for trouble, you know." mrs. o.--"no, of course that's off. if francois don't get better soon we've got to look out for some other place, or else europe. we've thought some of the hot springs, but i don't know. it's a great responsibility and a body wants to go cautious. is hildebrand about again, mrs. gashly?" mrs. g.--"yes, but that's about all. it was indigestion, you know, and it looks as if it was chronic. and you know i do dread dyspepsia. we've all been worried a good deal about him. the doctor recommended baked apple and spoiled meat, and i think it done him good. it's about the only thing that will stay on his stomach now-a-days. we have dr. shovel now. who's your doctor, mrs. higgins?" mrs. h.--"well, we had dr. spooner a good while, but he runs so much to emetics, which i think are weakening, that we changed off and took dr. leathers. we like him very much. he has a fine european reputation, too. the first thing he suggested for percy was to have him taken out in the back yard for an airing, every afternoon, with nothing at all on." mrs. o. and mrs. g.--"what!" mrs. h.--"as true as i'm sitting here. and it actually helped him for two or three days; it did indeed. but after that the doctor said it seemed to be too severe and so he has fell back on hot foot-baths at night and cold showers in the morning. but i don't think there, can be any good sound help for him in such a climate as this. i believe we are going to lose him if we don't make a change." mrs. o. "i suppose you heard of the fright we had two weeks ago last saturday? no? why that is strange--but come to remember, you've all been away to richmond. francois tumbled from the sky light--in the second-story hall clean down to the first floor--" everybody--"mercy!" mrs. o.--"yes indeed--and broke two of his ribs--" everybody--"what!" mrs. o. "just as true as you live. first we thought he must be injured internally. it was fifteen minutes past 8 in the evening. of course we were all distracted in a moment--everybody was flying everywhere, and nobody doing anything worth anything. by and by i flung out next door and dragged in dr. sprague; president of the medical university no time to go for our own doctor of course--and the minute he saw francois he said, 'send for your own physician, madam;' said it as cross as a bear, too, and turned right on his heel, and cleared out without doing a thing!" everybody--"the mean, contemptible brute!" mrs. o--"well you may say it. i was nearly out of my wits by this time. but we hurried off the servants after our own doctor and telegraphed mother--she was in new york and rushed down on the first train; and when the doctor got there, lo and behold you he found francois had broke one of his legs, too!" everybody--"goodness!" mrs. o.--"yes. so he set his leg and bandaged it up, and fixed his ribs and gave him a dose of something to quiet down his excitement and put him to sleep--poor thing he was trembling and frightened to death and it was pitiful to see him. we had him in my bed--mr. oreille slept in the guest room and i laid down beside francois--but not to sleep bless you no. bridget and i set up all night, and the doctor staid till two in the morning, bless his old heart.--when mother got there she was so used up with anxiety, that she had to go to bed and have the doctor; but when she found that francois was not in immediate danger she rallied, and by night she was able to take a watch herself. well for three days and nights we three never left that bedside only to take an hour's nap at a time. and then the doctor said francois was out of danger and if ever there was a thankful set, in this world, it was us." laura's respect for these, women had augmented during this conversation, naturally enough; affection and devotion are qualities that are able to adorn and render beautiful a character that is otherwise unattractive, and even repulsive. mrs. gashly--"i do believe i would a died if i had been in your place, mrs. oreille. the time hildebrand was so low with the pneumonia emmeline and me were all, alone with him most of the time and we never took a minute's sleep for as much as two days, and nights. it was at newport and we wouldn't trust hired nurses. one afternoon he had a fit, and jumped up and run out on the portico of the hotel with nothing in the world on and the wind a blowing liken ice and we after him scared to death; and when the ladies and gentlemen saw that he had a fit, every lady scattered for her room and not a gentleman lifted his hand to help, the wretches! well after that his life hung by a thread for as much as ten days, and the minute he was out of danger emmeline and me just went to bed sick and worn out. i never want to pass through such a time again. poor dear francois--which leg did he break, mrs. oreille!" mrs. o.--"it was his right hand hind leg. jump down, francois dear, and show the ladies what a cruel limp you've got yet." francois demurred, but being coaxed and delivered gently upon the floor, he performed very satisfactorily, with his "right hand hind leg" in the air. all were affected--even laura--but hers was an affection of the stomach. the country-bred girl had not suspected that the little whining ten-ounce black and tan reptile, clad in a red embroidered pigmy blanket and reposing in mrs. oreille's lap all through the visit was the individual whose sufferings had been stirring the dormant generosities of her nature. she said: "poor little creature! you might have lost him!" mrs. o.--"o pray don't mention it, miss hawkins--it gives me such a turn!" laura--"and hildebrand and percy--are they--are they like this one?" mrs. g.--"no, hilly has considerable skye blood in him, i believe." mrs. h.--"percy's the same, only he is two months and ten days older and has his ears cropped. his father, martin farquhar tupper, was sickly, and died young, but he was the sweetest disposition.--his mother had heart disease but was very gentle and resigned, and a wonderful ratter." --[** as impossible and exasperating as this conversation may sound to a person who is not an idiot, it is scarcely in any respect an exaggeration of one which one of us actually listened to in an american drawing room --otherwise we could not venture to put such a chapter into a book which, professes to deal with social possibilities.--the authors.] so carried away had the visitors become by their interest attaching to this discussion of family matters, that their stay had been prolonged to a very improper and unfashionable length; but they suddenly recollected themselves now and took their departure. laura's scorn was boundless. the more she thought of these people and their extraordinary talk, the more offensive they seemed to her; and yet she confessed that if one must choose between the two extreme aristocracies it might be best, on the whole, looking at things from a strictly business point of view, to herd with the parvenus; she was in washington solely to compass a certain matter and to do it at any cost, and these people might be useful to her, while it was plain that her purposes and her schemes for pushing them would not find favor in the eyes of the antiques. if it came to choice--and it might come to that, sooner or later--she believed she could come to a decision without much difficulty or many pangs. but the best aristocracy of the three washington castes, and really the most powerful, by far, was that of the middle ground: it was made up of the families of public men from nearly every state in the union--men who held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at home and at the capital. these gentlemen and their households were unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well aware of the potency of their influence. they had no troublesome appearances to keep up, no rivalries which they cared to distress themselves about, no jealousies to fret over. they could afford to mind their own affairs and leave other combinations to do the same or do otherwise, just as they chose. they were people who were beyond reproach, and that was sufficient. senator dilworthy never came into collision with any of these factions. he labored for them all and with them all. he said that all men were brethren and all were entitled to the honest unselfish help and countenance of a christian laborer in the public vineyard. laura concluded, after reflection, to let circumstances determine the course it might be best for her to pursue as regarded the several aristocracies. now it might occur to the reader that perhaps laura had been somewhat rudely suggestive in her remarks to mrs. oreille when the subject of corals was under discussion, but it did not occur to laura herself. she was not a person of exaggerated refinement; indeed, the society and the influences that had formed her character had not been of a nature calculated to make her so; she thought that "give and take was fair play," and that to parry an offensive thrust with a sarcasm was a neat and legitimate thing to do. she some times talked to people in a way which some ladies would consider, actually shocking; but laura rather prided herself upon some of her exploits of that character. we are sorry we cannot make her a faultless heroine; but we cannot, for the reason that she was human. she considered herself a superior conversationist. long ago, when the possibility had first been brought before her mind that some day she might move in washington society, she had recognized the fact that practiced conversational powers would be a necessary weapon in that field; she had also recognized the fact that since her dealings there must be mainly with men, and men whom she supposed to be exceptionally cultivated and able, she would need heavier shot in her magazine than mere brilliant "society" nothings; whereupon she had at once entered upon a tireless and elaborate course of reading, and had never since ceased to devote every unoccupied moment to this sort of preparation. having now acquired a happy smattering of various information, she used it with good effect--she passed for a singularly well informed woman in washington. the quality of her literary tastes had necessarily undergone constant improvement under this regimen, and as necessarily, also; the duality of her language had improved, though it cannot be denied that now and then her former condition of life betrayed itself in just perceptible inelegancies of expression and lapses of grammar. chapter xxxiv. when laura had been in washington three months, she was still the same person, in one respect, that she was when she first arrived there--that is to say, she still bore the name of laura hawkins. otherwise she was perceptibly changed.-she had arrived in a state of grievous uncertainty as to what manner of woman she was, physically and intellectually, as compared with eastern women; she was well satisfied, now, that her beauty was confessed, her mind a grade above the average, and her powers of fascination rather extraordinary. so she, was at ease upon those points. when she arrived, she was possessed of habits of economy and not possessed of money; now she dressed elaborately, gave but little thought to the cost of things, and was very well fortified financially. she kept her mother and washington freely supplied with money, and did the same by col. sellers --who always insisted upon giving his note for loans--with interest; he was rigid upon that; she must take interest; and one of the colonel's greatest satisfactions was to go over his accounts and note what a handsome sum this accruing interest amounted to, and what a comfortable though modest support it would yield laura in case reverses should overtake her. in truth he could not help feeling that he was an efficient shield for her against poverty; and so, if her expensive ways ever troubled him for a brief moment, he presently dismissed the thought and said to himself, "let her go on--even if she loses everything she is still safe--this interest will always afford her a good easy income." laura was on excellent terms with a great many members of congress, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one of that detested class known as "lobbyists;" but what belle could escape slander in such a city? fairminded people declined to condemn her on mere suspicion, and so the injurious talk made no very damaging headway. she was very gay, now, and very celebrated, and she might well expect to be assailed by many kinds of gossip. she was growing used to celebrity, and could already sit calm and seemingly unconscious, under the fire of fifty lorgnettes in a theatre, or even overhear the low voice "that's she!" as she passed along the street without betraying annoyance. the whole air was full of a vague vast scheme which was to eventuate in filling laura's pockets with millions of money; some had one idea of the scheme, and some another, but nobody had any exact knowledge upon the subject. all that any one felt sure about, was that laura's landed estates were princely in value and extent, and that the government was anxious to get hold of them for public purposes, and that laura was willing to make the sale but not at all anxious about the matter and not at all in a hurry. it was whispered that senator dilworthy was a stumbling block in the way of an immediate sale, because he was resolved that the government should not have the lands except with the understanding that they should be devoted to the uplifting of the negro race; laura did not care what they were devoted to, it was said, (a world of very different gossip to the contrary notwithstanding,) but there were several other heirs and they would be guided entirely by the senator's wishes; and finally, many people averred that while it would be easy to sell the lands to the government for the benefit of the negro, by resorting to the usual methods of influencing votes, senator dilworthy was unwilling to have so noble a charity sullied by any taint of corruption--he was resolved that not a vote should be bought. nobody could get anything definite from laura about these matters, and so gossip had to feed itself chiefly upon guesses. but the effect of it all was, that laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more so in a little while. consequently she was much courted and as much envied: her wealth attracted many suitors. perhaps they came to worship her riches, but they remained to worship her. some of the noblest men of the time succumbed to her fascinations. she frowned upon no lover when he made his first advances, but by and by when she was hopelessly enthralled, he learned from her own lips that she had formed a resolution never to marry. then he would go away hating and cursing the whole sex, and she would calmly add his scalp to her string, while she mused upon the bitter day that col. selby trampled her love and her pride in the dust. in time it came to be said that her way was paved with broken hearts. poor washington gradually woke up to the fact that he too was an intellectual marvel as well as his gifted sister. he could not conceive how it had come about (it did not occur to him that the gossip about his family's great wealth had any thing to do with it). he could not account for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the fact and give up trying to solve the riddle. he found himself dragged into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a self-conferred title of nobility and marry some rich fool's absurd daughter. sometimes at a dinner party or a reception he would find himself the centre of interest, and feel unutterably uncomfortable in the discovery. being obliged to say something, he would mine his brain and put in a blast and when the smoke and flying debris had cleared away the result would be what seemed to him but a poor little intellectual clod of dirt or two, and then he would be astonished to see everybody as lost in admiration as if he had brought up a ton or two of virgin gold. every remark he made delighted his hearers and compelled their applause; he overheard people say he was exceedingly bright--they were chiefly mammas and marriageable young ladies. he found that some of his good things were being repeated about the town. whenever he heard of an instance of this kind, he would keep that particular remark in mind and analyze it at home in private. at first he could not see that the remark was anything better than a parrot might originate; but by and by he began to feel that perhaps he underrated his powers; and after that he used to analyze his good things with a deal of comfort, and find in them a brilliancy which would have been unapparent to him in earlier days--and then he would make a note, of that good thing and say it again the first time he found himself in a new company. presently he had saved up quite a repertoire of brilliancies; and after that he confined himself to repeating these and ceased to originate any more, lest he might injure his reputation by an unlucky effort. he was constantly having young ladies thrust upon his notice at receptions, or left upon his hands at parties, and in time he began to feel that he was being deliberately persecuted in this way; and after that he could not enjoy society because of his constant dread of these female ambushes and surprises. he was distressed to find that nearly every time he showed a young lady a polite attention he was straightway reported to be engaged to her; and as some of these reports got into the newspapers occasionally, he had to keep writing to louise that they were lies and she must believe in him and not mind them or allow them to grieve her. washington was as much in the dark as anybody with regard to the great wealth that was hovering in the air and seemingly on the point of tumbling into the family pocket. laura would give him no satisfaction. all she would say, was: "wait. be patient. you will see." "but will it be soon, laura?" "it will not be very long, i think." "but what makes you think so?" "i have reasons--and good ones. just wait, and be patient." "but is it going to be as much as people say it is?" "what do they say it is?" "oh, ever so much. millions!" "yes, it will be a great sum." "but how great, laura? will it be millions?" "yes, you may call it that. yes, it will be millions. there, now--does that satisfy you?" "splendid! i can wait. i can wait patiently--ever so patiently. once i was near selling the land for twenty thousand dollars; once for thirty thousand dollars; once after that for seven thousand dollars; and once for forty thousand dollars--but something always told me not to do it. what a fool i would have been to sell it for such a beggarly trifle! it is the land that's to bring the money, isn't it laura? you can tell me that much, can't you?" "yes, i don't mind saying that much. it is the land. "but mind--don't ever hint that you got it from me. don't mention me in the matter at all, washington." "all right--i won't. millions! isn't it splendid! i mean to look around for a building lot; a lot with fine ornamental shrubbery and all that sort of thing. i will do it to-day. and i might as well see an architect, too, and get him to go to work at a plan for a house. i don't intend to spare and expense; i mean to have the noblest house that money can build." then after a pause--he did not notice laura's smiles "laura, would you lay the main hall in encaustic tiles, or just in fancy patterns of hard wood?" laura laughed a good old-fashioned laugh that had more of her former natural self about it than any sound that had issued from her mouth in many weeks. she said: "you don't change, washington. you still begin to squander a fortune right and left the instant you hear of it in the distance; you never wait till the foremost dollar of it arrives within a hundred miles of you," --and she kissed her brother good bye and left him weltering in his dreams, so to speak. he got up and walked the floor feverishly during two hours; and when he sat down he had married louise, built a house, reared a family, married them off, spent upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars on mere luxuries, and died worth twelve millions. chapter xxxv. laura went down stairs, knocked at/the study door, and entered, scarcely waiting for the response. senator dilworthy was alone--with an open bible in his hand, upside down. laura smiled, and said, forgetting her acquired correctness of speech, "it is only me." "ah, come in, sit down," and the senator closed the book and laid it down. "i wanted to see you. time to report progress from the committee of the whole," and the senator beamed with his own congressional wit. "in the committee of the whole things are working very well. we have made ever so much progress in a week. i believe that you and i together could run this government beautifully, uncle." the senator beamed again. he liked to be called "uncle" by this beautiful woman. "did you see hopperson last night after the congressional prayer meeting?" "yes. he came. he's a kind of--" "eh? he is one of my friends, laura. he's a fine man, a very fine man. i don't know any man in congress i'd sooner go to for help in any christian work. what did he say?" "oh, he beat around a little. he said he should like to help the negro, his heart went out to the negro, and all that--plenty of them say that but he was a little afraid of the tennessee land bill; if senator dilworthy wasn't in it, he should suspect there was a fraud on the government." "he said that, did he?" "yes. and he said he felt he couldn't vote for it. he was shy." "not shy, child, cautious. he's a very cautious man. i have been with him a great deal on conference committees. he wants reasons, good ones. didn't you show him he was in error about the bill?" "i did. i went over the whole thing. i had to tell him some of the side arrangements, some of the--" "you didn't mention me?" "oh, no. i told him you were daft about the negro and the philanthropy part of it, as you are." "daft is a little strong, laura. but you know that i wouldn't touch this bill if it were not for the public good, and for the good of the colored race; much as i am interested in the heirs of this property, and would like to have them succeed." laura looked a little incredulous, and the senator proceeded. "don't misunderstand me, i don't deny that it is for the interest of all of us that this bill should go through, and it will. i have no concealments from you. but i have one principle in my public life, which i should like you to keep in mind; it has always been my guide. i never push a private interest if it is not justified and ennobled by some larger public good. i doubt christian would be justified in working for his own salvation if it was not to aid in the salvation of his fellow men." the senator spoke with feeling, and then added, "i hope you showed hopperson that our motives were pure?" "yes, and he seemed to have a new light on the measure: i think will vote for it." "i hope so; his name will give tone and strength to it. i knew you would only have to show him that it was just and pure, in order to secure his cordial support." "i think i convinced him. yes, i am perfectly sure he will vote right now." "that's good, that's good," said the senator; smiling, and rubbing his hands. "is there anything more?" "you'll find some changes in that i guess," handing the senator a printed list of names. "those checked off are all right." "ah--'m--'m," running his eye down the list. "that's encouraging. what is the 'c' before some of the names, and the 'b. b.'?" "those are my private marks. that 'c' stands for 'convinced,' with argument. the 'b. b.' is a general sign for a relative. you see it stands before three of the hon. committee. i expect to see the chairman of the committee to-day, mr. buckstone." "so, you must, he ought to be seen without any delay. buckstone is a worldly sort of a fellow, but he has charitable impulses. if we secure him we shall have a favorable report by the committee, and it will be a great thing to be able to state that fact quietly where it will do good." "oh, i saw senator balloon" "he will help us, i suppose? balloon is a whole-hearted fellow. i can't help loving that man, for all his drollery and waggishness. he puts on an air of levity sometimes, but there aint a man in the senate knows the scriptures as he does. he did not make any objections?" "not exactly, he said--shall i tell you what he said?" asked laura glancing furtively at him. "certainly." "he said he had no doubt it was a good thing; if senator dilworthy was in it, it would pay to look into it." the senator laughed, but rather feebly, and said, "balloon is always full of his jokes." "i explained it to him. he said it was all right, he only wanted a word with you,", continued laura. "he is a handsome old gentleman, and he is gallant for an old man." "my daughter," said the senator, with a grave look, "i trust there was nothing free in his manner?" "free?" repeated laura, with indignation in her face. "with me!" "there, there, child. i meant nothing, balloon talks a little freely sometimes, with men. but he is right at heart. his term expires next year and i fear we shall lose him." "he seemed to be packing the day i was there. his rooms were full of dry goods boxes, into which his servant was crowding all manner of old clothes and stuff: i suppose he will paint 'pub. docs' on them and frank them home. that's good economy, isn't it?" "yes, yes, but child, all congressmen do that. it may not be strictly honest, indeed it is not unless he had some public documents mixed in with the clothes." "it's a funny world. good-bye, uncle. i'm going to see that chairman." and humming a cheery opera air, she departed to her room to dress for going out. before she did that, however, she took out her note book and was soon deep in its contents; marking, dashing, erasing, figuring, and talking to herself. "free! i wonder what dilworthy does think of me anyway? one . . . two. . .eight . . . seventeen . . . twenty-one,. . 'm'm . . . it takes a heap for a majority. wouldn't dilworthy open his eyes if he knew some of the things balloon did say to me. there. . . . hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious old curmudgeon. son-in-law. . . . sinecure in the negro institution . . . .that about gauges him . . . the three committeemen . . . . sons-in-law. nothing like a son-in-law here in washington or a brotherin-law . . . and everybody has 'em . . . let's see: . . . sixtyone. . . . with places . . . twenty-five . . . persuaded--it is getting on; . . . . we'll have two-thirds of congress in time . . . dilworthy must surely know i understand him. uncle dilworthy . . . . uncle balloon!--tells very amusing stories . . . when ladies are not present . . . i should think so . . . .'m . . . 'm. eighty-five. there. i must find that chairman. queer. . . . buckstone acts . . seemed to be in love . . . . . i was sure of it. he promised to come here. . . and he hasn't. . . strange. very strange . . . . i must chance to meet him to-day." laura dressed and went out, thinking she was perhaps too early for mr. buckstone to come from the house, but as he lodged near the bookstore she would drop in there and keep a look out for him. while laura is on her errand to find mr. buckstone, it may not be out of the way to remark that she knew quite as much of washington life as senator dilworthy gave her credit for, and more than she thought proper to tell him. she was acquainted by this time with a good many of the young fellows of newspaper row; and exchanged gossip with them to their mutual advantage. they were always talking in the row, everlastingly gossiping, bantering and sarcastically praising things, and going on in a style which was a curious commingling of earnest and persiflage. col. sellers liked this talk amazingly, though he was sometimes a little at sea in it--and perhaps that didn't lessen the relish of the conversation to the correspondents. it seems that they had got hold of the dry-goods box packing story about balloon, one day, and were talking it over when the colonel came in. the colonel wanted to know all about it, and hicks told him. and then hicks went on, with a serious air, "colonel, if you register a letter, it means that it is of value, doesn't it? and if you pay fifteen cents for registering it, the government will have to take extra care of it and even pay you back its full value if it is lost. isn't that so?" "yes. i suppose it's so.". "well senator balloon put fifteen cents worth of stamps on each of those seven huge boxes of old clothes, and shipped that ton of second-hand rubbish, old boots and pantaloons and what not through the mails as registered matter! it was an ingenious thing and it had a genuine touch of humor about it, too. i think there is more real: talent among our public men of to-day than there was among those of old times--a far more fertile fancy, a much happier ingenuity. now, colonel, can you picture jefferson, or washington or john adams franking their wardrobes through the mails and adding the facetious idea of making the government responsible for the cargo for the sum of one dollar and five cents? statesmen were dull creatures in those days. i have a much greater admiration for senator balloon." "yes, balloon is a man of parts, there is no denying it" "i think so. he is spoken of for the post of minister to china, or austria, and i hope will be appointed. what we want abroad is good examples of the national character. "john jay and benjamin franklin were well enough in their day, but the nation has made progress since then. balloon is a man we know and can depend on to be true to himself." "yes, and balloon has had a good deal of public experience. he is an old friend of mine. he was governor of one of the territories a while, and was very satisfactory." "indeed he was. he was ex-officio indian agent, too. many a man would have taken the indian appropriation and devoted the money to feeding and clothing the helpless savages, whose land had been taken from them by the white man in the interests of civilization; but balloon knew their needs better. he built a government saw-mill on the reservation with the money, and the lumber sold for enormous prices--a relative of his did all the work free of charge--that is to say he charged nothing more than the lumber world bring." "but the poor injuns--not that i care much for injuns--what did he do for them?" "gave them the outside slabs to fence in the reservation with. governor balloon was nothing less than a father to the poor indians. but balloon is not alone, we have many truly noble statesmen in our country's service like balloon. the senate is full of them. don't you think so colonel?" "well, i dunno. i honor my country's public servants as much as any one can. i meet them, sir, every day, and the more i see of them the more i esteem them and the more grateful i am that our institutions give us the opportunity of securing their services. few lands are so blest." "that is true, colonel. to be sure you can buy now and then a senator or a representative but they do not know it is wrong, and so they are not ashamed of it. they are gentle, and confiding and childlike, and in my opinion these are qualities that ennoble them far more than any amount of sinful sagacity could. i quite agree with you, col. sellers." "well"--hesitated the, colonel--"i am afraid some of them do buy their seats--yes, i am afraid they do--but as senator dilworthy himself said to me, it is sinful,--it is very wrong--it is shameful; heaven protect me from such a charge. that is what dilworthy said. and yet when you come to look at it you cannot deny that we would have to go without the services of some of our ablest men, sir, if the country were opposed to --to--bribery. it is a harsh term. i do not like to use it." the colonel interrupted himself at this point to meet an engagement with the austrian minister, and took his leave with his usual courtly bow. chapter xxxvi. in due time laura alighted at the book store, and began to look at the titles of the handsome array of books on the counter. a dapper clerk of perhaps nineteen or twenty years, with hair accurately parted and surprisingly slick, came bustling up and leaned over with a pretty smile and an affable-"can i--was there any particular book you wished to see?" "have you taine's england?" "beg pardon?" "taine's notes on england." the young gentleman scratched the side of his nose with a cedar pencil which he took down from its bracket on the side of his head, and reflected a moment: "ah--i see," [with a bright smile]--"train, you mean--not taine. george francis train. no, ma'm we--" "i mean taine--if i may take the liberty." the clerk reflected again--then: "taine . . . . taine . . . . is it hymns?" "no, it isn't hymns. it is a volume that is making a deal of talk just now, and is very widely known--except among parties who sell it." the clerk glanced at her face to see if a sarcasm might not lurk somewhere in that obscure speech, but the gentle simplicity of the beautiful eyes that met his, banished that suspicion. he went away and conferred with the proprietor. both appeared to be non-plussed. they thought and talked, and talked and thought by turns. then both came forward and the proprietor said: "is it an american book, ma'm?" "no, it is an american reprint of an english translation." "oh! yes--yes--i remember, now. we are expecting it every day. it isn't out yet." "i think you must be mistaken, because you advertised it a week ago." "why no--can that be so?" "yes, i am sure of it. and besides, here is the book itself, on the counter." she bought it and the proprietor retired from the field. then she asked the clerk for the autocrat of the breakfast table--and was pained to see the admiration her beauty had inspired in him fade out of his face. he said with cold dignity, that cook books were somewhat out of their line, but he would order it if she desired it. she said, no, never mind. then she fell to conning the titles again, finding a delight in the inspection of the hawthornes, the longfellows, the tennysons, and other favorites of her idle hours. meantime the clerk's eyes were busy, and no doubt his admiration was returning again--or may be he was only gauging her probable literary tastes by some sagacious system of admeasurement only known to his guild. now he began to "assist" her in making a selection; but his efforts met with no success--indeed they only annoyed her and unpleasantly interrupted her meditations. presently, while she was holding a copy of "venetian life" in her hand and running over a familiar passage here and there, the clerk said, briskly, snatching up a paper-covered volume and striking the counter a smart blow with it to dislodge the dust: "now here is a work that we've sold a lot of. everybody that's read it likes it"--and he intruded it under her nose; "it's a book that i can recommend--'the pirate's doom, or the last of the buccaneers.' i think it's one of the best things that's come out this season." laura pushed it gently aside her hand and went on and went on filching from "venetian life." "i believe i do not want it," she said. the clerk hunted around awhile, glancing at one title and then another, but apparently not finding what he wanted. however, he succeeded at last. said he: "have you ever read this, ma'm? i am sure you'll like it. it's by the author of 'the hooligans of hackensack.' it is full of love troubles and mysteries and all sorts of such things. the heroine strangles her own mother. just glance at the title please,--'gonderil the vampire, or the dance of death.' and here is 'the jokist's own treasury, or, the phunny phellow's bosom phriend.' the funniest thing!--i've read it four times, ma'm, and i can laugh at the very sight of it yet. and 'gonderil,' --i assure you it is the most splendid book i ever read. i know you will like these books, ma'm, because i've read them myself and i know what they are." "oh, i was perplexed--but i see how it is, now. you must have thought i asked you to tell me what sort of books i wanted--for i am apt to say things which i don't really mean, when i am absent minded. i suppose i did ask you, didn't i?" "no ma'm,--but i--" "yes, i must have done it, else you would not have offered your services, for fear it might be rude. but don't be troubled--it was all my fault. i ought not to have been so heedless--i ought not to have asked you." "but you didn't ask me, ma'm. we always help customers all we can. you see our experience--living right among books all the time--that sort of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know." "now does it, indeed? it is part of your business, then?" "yes'm, we always help." "how good it is of you. some people would think it rather obtrusive, perhaps, but i don't--i think it is real kindness--even charity. some people jump to conclusions without any thought--you have noticed that?" "o yes," said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel comfortable or the reverse; "oh yes, indeed, i've often noticed that, ma'm." "yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. now some people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an older person would delight in them too--but i do not think it odd at all. i think it natural--perfectly natural in you. and kind, too. you look like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad to share that pleasure with others--and that, i think, is noble and admirable--very noble and admirable. i think we ought all--to share our pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do not you?" "oh, yes. oh, yes, indeed. yes, you are quite right, ma'm." but he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding laura's confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone. "yes, indeed. many people would think that what a bookseller--or perhaps his clerk--knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a person--that is, to an adult, of course--in the selection of food for the mind--except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something like that--but i never feel that way. i feel that whatever service you offer me, you offer with a good heart, and i am as grateful for it as if it were the greatest boon to me. and it is useful to me--it is bound to be so. it cannot be otherwise. if you show me a book which you have read--not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read--and you tell me that you enjoyed it and that you could read it three or four times, then i know what book i want--" "thank you!--th--" --"to avoid. yes indeed. i think that no information ever comes amiss in this world. once or twice i have traveled in the cars--and there you know, the peanut boy always measures you with his eye, and hands you out a book of murders if you are fond of theology; or tupper or a dictionary or t. s. arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of distressing jokes or a copy of the american miscellany if you particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the heart--just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman in any, bookstore. but here i am running on as if business men had nothing to do but listen to women talk. you must pardon me, for i was not thinking.--and you must let me thank you again for helping me. i read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every day and i would be sorry to have you think me a customer who talks too much and buys too little. might i ask you to give me the time? ah-two-twenty-two. thank you very much. i will set mine while i have the opportunity." but she could not get her watch open, apparently. she tried, and tried again. then the clerk, trembling at his own audacity, begged to be allowed to assist. she allowed him. he succeeded, and was radiant under the sweet influences of her pleased face and her seductively worded acknowledgements with gratification. then he gave her the exact time again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till they reached the precise spot without accident or loss of life, and then he looked as happy as a man who had helped a fellow being through a momentous undertaking, and was grateful to know that he had not lived in vain. laura thanked him once more. the words were music to his ear; but what were they compared to the ravishing smile with which she flooded his whole system? when she bowed her adieu and turned away, he was no longer suffering torture in the pillory where she had had him trussed up during so many distressing moments, but he belonged to the list of her conquests and was a flattered and happy thrall, with the dawn-light of love breaking over the eastern elevations of his heart. it was about the hour, now, for the chairman of the house committee on benevolent appropriations to make his appearance, and laura stepped to the door to reconnoiter. she glanced up the street, and sure enough-the gilded age a tale of today by mark twain and charles dudley warner 1873 part 1. preface. this book was not written for private circulation among friends; it was not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the author's; it was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to amuse an idle hour. it was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted without the usual apologies. it will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal state of society; and the chief embarrassment of the writers in this realm of the imagination has been the want of illustrative examples. in a state where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the patriotic, there are necessarily no materials for such a history as we have constructed out of an ideal commonwealth. no apology is needed for following the learned custom of placing attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our chapters. it has been truly observed by wagner that such headings, with their vague suggestions of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the reader's interest without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will hope that it may be found to be so in the present case. our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues; this is done for the reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate can read in any language but their own; whereas we do not write for a particular class or sect or nation, but to take in the whole world. we do not object to criticism; and we do not expect that the critic will read the book before writing a notice of it: we do not even expect the reviewer of the book will say that he has not read it. no, we have no anticipations of anything unusual in this age of criticism. but if the jupiter, who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse it in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope that he will not be the victim of a remorse bitter but too late. one word more. this is--what it pretends to be a joint production, in the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its literal composition. there is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the marks of the two writers of the book. s. l. c. c. d. w. [etext editor's note: the following chapters were written by mark twain: 1-11, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32-34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51-53, 57, 59-62; and portions of 35, 49, and 56. see twain's letter to dr. john brown feb. 28, 1874 d.w.] chapter i. june 18--. squire hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called the "stile," in front of his house, contemplating the morning. the locality was obedstown, east tennessee. you would not know that obedstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the landscape to indicate it--but it did: a mountain that stretched abroad over whole counties, and rose very gradually. the district was called the "knobs of east tennessee," and had a reputation like nazareth, as far as turning out any good thing was concerned. the squire's house was a double log cabin, in a state of decay; two or three gaunt hounds lay asleep about the threshold, and lifted their heads sadly whenever mrs. hawkins or the children stepped in and out over their bodies. rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard; a bench stood near the door with a tin wash basin on it and a pail of water and a gourd; a cat had begun to drink from the pail, but the exertion was overtaxing her energies, and she had stopped to rest. there was an ash-hopper by the fence, and an iron pot, for soft-soap-boiling, near it. this dwelling constituted one-fifteenth of obedstown; the other fourteen houses were scattered about among the tall pine trees and among the corn-fields in such a way that a man might stand in the midst of the city and not know but that he was in the country if he only depended on his eyes for information. "squire" hawkins got his title from being postmaster of obedstown--not that the title properly belonged to the office, but because in those regions the chief citizens always must have titles of some sort, and so the usual courtesy had been extended to hawkins. the mail was monthly, and sometimes amounted to as much as three or four letters at a single delivery. even a rush like this did not fill up the postmaster's whole month, though, and therefore he "kept store" in the intervals. the squire was contemplating the morning. it was balmy and tranquil, the vagrant breezes were laden with the odor of flowers, the murmur of bees was in the air, there was everywhere that suggestion of repose that summer woodlands bring to the senses, and the vague, pleasurable melancholy that such a time and such surroundings inspire. presently the united states mail arrived, on horseback. there was but one letter, and it was for the postmaster. the long-legged youth who carried the mail tarried an hour to talk, for there was no hurry; and in a little while the male population of the village had assembled to help. as a general thing, they were dressed in homespun "jeans," blue or yellow--here were no other varieties of it; all wore one suspender and sometimes two--yarn ones knitted at home,--some wore vests, but few wore coats. such coats and vests as did appear, however, were rather picturesque than otherwise, for they were made of tolerably fanciful patterns of calico--a fashion which prevails thereto this day among those of the community who have tastes above the common level and are able to afford style. every individual arrived with his hands in his pockets; a hand came out occasionally for a purpose, but it always went back again after service; and if it was the head that was served, just the cant that the dilapidated straw hat got by being uplifted and rooted under, was retained until the next call altered the inclination; many' hats were present, but none were erect and no two were canted just alike. we are speaking impartially of men, youths and boys. and we are also speaking of these three estates when we say that every individual was either chewing natural leaf tobacco prepared on his own premises, or smoking the same in a corn-cob pipe. few of the men wore whiskers; none wore moustaches; some had a thick jungle of hair under the chin and hiding the throat--the only pattern recognized there as being the correct thing in whiskers; but no part of any individual's face had seen a razor for a week. these neighbors stood a few moments looking at the mail carrier reflectively while he talked; but fatigue soon began to show itself, and one after another they climbed up and occupied the top rail of the fence, hump-shouldered and grave, like a company of buzzards assembled for supper and listening for the death-rattle. old damrell said: "tha hain't no news 'bout the jedge, hit ain't likely?" "cain't tell for sartin; some thinks he's gwyne to be 'long toreckly, and some thinks 'e hain't. russ mosely he tote ole hanks he mought git to obeds tomorrer or nex' day he reckoned." "well, i wisht i knowed. i got a 'prime sow and pigs in the, cote-house, and i hain't got no place for to put 'em. if the jedge is a gwyne to hold cote, i got to roust 'em out, i reckon. but tomorrer'll do, i 'spect." the speaker bunched his thick lips together like the stem-end of a tomato and shot a bumble-bee dead that had lit on a weed seven feet away. one after another the several chewers expressed a charge of tobacco juice and delivered it at the deceased with steady, aim and faultless accuracy. "what's a stirrin', down 'bout the forks?" continued old damrell. "well, i dunno, skasely. ole, drake higgins he's ben down to shelby las' week. tuck his crap down; couldn't git shet o' the most uv it; hit wasn't no time for to sell, he say, so he 'fotch it back agin, 'lowin' to wait tell fall. talks 'bout goin' to mozouri--lots uv 'ems talkin' that-away down thar, ole higgins say. cain't make a livin' here no mo', sich times as these. si higgins he's ben over to kaintuck n' married a high-toned gal thar, outen the fust families, an' he's come back to the forks with jist a hell's-mint o' whoop-jamboree notions, folks says. he's tuck an' fixed up the ole house like they does in kaintuck, he say, an' tha's ben folks come cler from turpentine for to see it. he's tuck an gawmed it all over on the inside with plarsterin'." "what's plasterin'?" "i dono. hit's what he calls it. 'ole mam higgins, she tole me. she say she wasn't gwyne to hang out in no sich a dern hole like a hog. says it's mud, or some sich kind o' nastiness that sticks on n' covers up everything. plarsterin', si calls it." this marvel was discussed at considerable length; and almost with animation. but presently there was a dog-fight over in the neighborhood of the blacksmith shop, and the visitors slid off their perch like so many turtles and strode to the battle-field with an interest bordering on eagerness. the squire remained, and read his letter. then he sighed, and sat long in meditation. at intervals he said: "missouri. missouri. well, well, well, everything is so uncertain." at last he said: "i believe i'll do it.--a man will just rot, here. my house my yard, everything around me, in fact, shows' that i am becoming one of these cattle--and i used to be thrifty in other times." he was not more than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him seem older. he left the stile, entered that part of his house which was the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went into the kitchen. his wife was there, constructing some dried apple pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the bottom of a frying-pan and trying hard not to sop over a finger-mark that divided the pan through the middle--for the other side belonged to the brother, whose musings made him forget his stomach for the moment; a negro woman was busy cooking, at a vast fire-place. shiftlessness and poverty reigned in the place. "nancy, i've made up my mind. the world is done with me, and perhaps i ought to be done with it. but no matter--i can wait. i am going to missouri. i won't stay in this dead country and decay with it. i've had it on my mind sometime. i'm going to sell out here for whatever i can get, and buy a wagon and team and put you and the children in it and start." "anywhere that suits you, suits me, si. and the children can't be any worse off in missouri than, they are here, i reckon." motioning his wife to a private conference in their own room, hawkins said: "no, they'll be better off. i've looked out for them, nancy," and his face lighted. "do you see these papers? well, they are evidence that i have taken up seventy-five thousand acres of land in this county --think what an enormous fortune it will be some day! why, nancy, enormous don't express it--the word's too tame! i tell your nancy----" "for goodness sake, si----" "wait, nancy, wait--let me finish--i've been secretly bailing and fuming with this grand inspiration for weeks, and i must talk or i'll burst! i haven't whispered to a soul--not a word--have had my countenance under lock and key, for fear it might drop something that would tell even these animals here how to discern the gold mine that's glaring under their noses. now all that is necessary to hold this land and keep it in the family is to pay the trifling taxes on it yearly--five or ten dollars --the whole tract would not sell for over a third of a cent an acre now, but some day people wild be glad to get it for twenty dollars, fifty dollars, a hundred dollars an acre! what should you say to" [here he dropped his voice to a whisper and looked anxiously around to see that there were no eavesdroppers,] "a thousand dollars an acre! "well you may open your eyes and stare! but it's so. you and i may not see the day, but they'll see it. mind i tell you; they'll see it. nancy, you've heard of steamboats, and maybe you believed in them--of course you did. you've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call them lies and humbugs,--but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they are now. they're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that will make men dizzy to contemplate. i've been watching--i've been watching while some people slept, and i know what's coming. "even you and i will see the day that steamboats will come up that little turkey river to within twenty miles of this land of ours--and in high water they'll come right to it! and this is not all, nancy--it isn't even half! there's a bigger wonder--the railroad! these worms here have never even heard of it--and when they do they'll not believe in it. but it's another fact. coaches that fly over the ground twenty miles an hour--heavens and earth, think of that, nancy! twenty miles an hour. it makes a main's brain whirl. some day, when you and i are in our graves, there'll be a railroad stretching hundreds of miles--all the way down from the cities of the northern states to new orleans--and its got to run within thirty miles of this land--may be even touch a corner of it. well; do you know, they've quit burning wood in some places in the eastern states? and what do you suppose they burn? coal!" [he bent over and whispered again:] "there's world--worlds of it on this land! you know that black stuff that crops out of the bank of the branch?--well, that's it. you've taken it for rocks; so has every body here; and they've built little dams and such things with it. one man was going to build a chimney out of it. nancy i expect i turned as white as a sheet! why, it might have caught fire and told everything. i showed him it was too crumbly. then he was going to build it of copper ore--splendid yellow forty-per-cent. ore! there's fortunes upon fortunes of copper ore on our land! it scared me to death, the idea of this fool starting a smelting furnace in his house without knowing it, and getting his dull eyes opened. and then he was going to build it of iron ore! there's mountains of iron ore here, nancy--whole mountains of it. i wouldn't take any chances. i just stuck by him--i haunted him--i never let him alone till he built it of mud and sticks like all the rest of the chimneys in this dismal country. pine forests, wheat land, corn land, iron, copper, coal-wait till the railroads come, and the steamboats! we'll never see the day, nancy--never in the world---never, never, never, child. we've got to drag along, drag along, and eat crusts in toil and poverty, all hopeless and forlorn--but they'll ride in coaches, nancy! they'll live like the princes of the earth; they'll be courted and worshiped; their names will be known from ocean to ocean! ah, well-a-day! will they ever come back here, on the railroad and the steamboat, and say, 'this one little spot shall not be touched--this hovel shall be sacred--for here our father and our mother suffered for us, thought for us, laid the foundations of our future as solid as the hills!'" "you are a great, good, noble soul, si hawkins, and i am an honored woman to be the wife of such a man"--and the tears stood in her eyes when she said it. "we will go to missouri. you are out of your place, here, among these groping dumb creatures. we will find a higher place, where you can walk with your own kind, and be understood when you speak--not stared at as if you were talking some foreign tongue. i would go anywhere, anywhere in the wide world with you i would rather my body would starve and die than your mind should hunger and wither away in this lonely land." "spoken like yourself, my child! but we'll not starve, nancy. far from it. i have a letter from beriah sellers--just came this day. a letter that--i'll read you a line from it!" he flew out of the room. a shadow blurred the sunlight in nancy's face --there was uneasiness in it, and disappointment. a procession of disturbing thoughts began to troop through her mind. saying nothing aloud, she sat with her hands in her lap; now and then she clasped them, then unclasped them, then tapped the ends of the fingers together; sighed, nodded, smiled--occasionally paused, shook her head. this pantomime was the elocutionary expression of an unspoken soliloquy which had something of this shape: "i was afraid of it--was afraid of it. trying to make our fortune in virginia, beriah sellers nearly ruined us and we had to settle in kentucky and start over again. trying to make our fortune in kentucky he crippled us again and we had to move here. trying to make our fortune here, he brought us clear down to the ground, nearly. he's an honest soul, and means the very best in the world, but i'm afraid, i'm afraid he's too flighty. he has splendid ideas, and he'll divide his chances with his friends with a free hand, the good generous soul, but something does seem to always interfere and spoil everything. i never did think he was right well balanced. but i don't blame my husband, for i do think that when that man gets his head full of a new notion, he can out-talk a machine. he'll make anybody believe in that notion that'll listen to him ten minutes--why i do believe he would make a deaf and dumb man believe in it and get beside himself, if you only set him where he could see his eyes tally and watch his hands explain. what a head he has got! when he got up that idea there in virginia of buying up whole loads of negroes in delaware and virginia and tennessee, very quiet, having papers drawn to have them delivered at a place in alabama and take them and pay for them, away yonder at a certain time, and then in the meantime get a law made stopping everybody from selling negroes to the south after a certain day --it was somehow that way--mercy how the man would have made money! negroes would have gone up to four prices. but after he'd spent money and worked hard, and traveled hard, and had heaps of negroes all contracted for, and everything going along just right, he couldn't get the laws passed and down the whole thing tumbled. and there in kentucky, when he raked up that old numskull that had been inventing away at a perpetual motion machine for twenty-two years, and beriah sellers saw at a glance where just one more little cog-wheel would settle the business, why i could see it as plain as day when he came in wild at midnight and hammered us out of bed and told the whole thing in a whisper with the doors bolted and the candle in an empty barrel. oceans of money in it --anybody could see that. but it did cost a deal to buy the old numskull out--and then when they put the new cog wheel in they'd overlooked something somewhere and it wasn't any use--the troublesome thing wouldn't go. that notion he got up here did look as handy as anything in the world; and how him and si did sit up nights working at it with the curtains down and me watching to see if any neighbors were about. the man did honestly believe there was a fortune in that black gummy oil that stews out of the bank si says is coal; and he refined it himself till it was like water, nearly, and it did burn, there's no two ways about that; and i reckon he'd have been all right in cincinnati with his lamp that he got made, that time he got a house full of rich speculators to see him exhibit only in the middle of his speech it let go and almost blew the heads off the whole crowd. i haven't got over grieving for the money that cost yet. i am sorry enough beriah sellers is in missouri, now, but i was glad when he went. i wonder what his letter says. but of course it's cheerful; he's never down-hearted--never had any trouble in his life--didn't know it if he had. it's always sunrise with that man, and fine and blazing, at that--never gets noon; though--leaves off and rises again. nobody can help liking the creature, he means so well--but i do dread to come across him again; he's bound to set us all crazy, of coarse. well, there goes old widow hopkins--it always takes her a week to buy a spool of thread and trade a hank of yarn. maybe si can come with the letter, now." and he did: "widow hopkins kept me--i haven't any patience with such tedious people. now listen, nancy--just listen at this: "'come right along to missouri! don't wait and worry about a good price but sell out for whatever you can get, and come along, or you might be too late. throw away your traps, if necessary, and come empty-handed. you'll never regret it. it's the grandest country --the loveliest land--the purest atmosphere--i can't describe it; no pen can do it justice. and it's filling up, every day--people coming from everywhere. i've got the biggest scheme on earth--and i'll take you in; i'll take in every friend i've got that's ever stood by me, for there's enough for all, and to spare. mum's the word--don't whisper--keep yourself to yourself. you'll see! come! --rush!--hurry!--don't wait for anything!' "it's the same old boy, nancy, jest the same old boy--ain't he?" "yes, i think there's a little of the old sound about his voice yet. i suppose you--you'll still go, si?" "go! well, i should think so, nancy. it's all a chance, of course, and, chances haven't been kind to us, i'll admit--but whatever comes, old wife, they're provided for. thank god for that!" "amen," came low and earnestly. and with an activity and a suddenness that bewildered obedstown and almost took its breath away, the hawkinses hurried through with their arrangements in four short months and flitted out into the great mysterious blank that lay beyond the knobs of tennessee. chapter ii. toward the close of the third day's journey the wayfarers were just beginning to think of camping, when they came upon a log cabin in the woods. hawkins drew rein and entered the yard. a boy about ten years old was sitting in the cabin door with his face bowed in his hands. hawkins approached, expecting his footfall to attract attention, but it did not. he halted a moment, and then said: "come, come, little chap, you mustn't be going to sleep before sundown" with a tired expression the small face came up out of the hands,--a face down which tears were flowing. "ah, i'm sorry i spoke so, my boy. tell me--is anything the matter?" the boy signified with a scarcely perceptible gesture that the trouble was in the, house, and made room for hawkins to pass. then he put his face in his hands again and rocked himself about as one suffering a grief that is too deep to find help in moan or groan or outcry. hawkins stepped within. it was a poverty stricken place. six or eight middle-aged country people of both sexes were grouped about an object in the middle of the room; they were noiselessly busy and they talked in whispers when they spoke. hawkins uncovered and approached. a coffin stood upon two backless chairs. these neighbors had just finished disposing the body of a woman in it--a woman with a careworn, gentle face that had more the look of sleep about it than of death. an old lady motioned, toward the door and said to hawkins in a whisper: "his mother, po' thing. died of the fever, last night. tha warn't no sich thing as saving of her. but it's better for her--better for her. husband and the other two children died in the spring, and she hain't ever hilt up her head sence. she jest went around broken-hearted like, and never took no intrust in anything but clay--that's the boy thar. she jest worshiped clay--and clay he worshiped her. they didn't 'pear to live at all, only when they was together, looking at each other, loving one another. she's ben sick three weeks; and if you believe me that child has worked, and kep' the run of the med'cin, and the times of giving it, and sot up nights and nussed her, and tried to keep up her sperits, the same as a grown-up person. and last night when she kep' a sinking and sinking, and turned away her head and didn't know him no mo', it was fitten to make a body's heart break to see him climb onto the bed and lay his cheek agin hern and call her so pitiful and she not answer. but bymeby she roused up, like, and looked around wild, and then she see him, and she made a great cry and snatched him to her breast and hilt him close and kissed him over and over agin; but it took the last po' strength she had, and so her eyelids begin to close down, and her arms sort o' drooped away and then we see she was gone, po' creetur. and clay, he--oh, the po' motherless thing--i cain't talk abort it--i cain't bear to talk about it." clay had disappeared from the door; but he came in, now, and the neighbors reverently fell apart and made way for him. he leaned upon the open coffin and let his tears course silently. then he put out his small hand and smoothed the hair and stroked the dead face lovingly. after a bit he brought his other hand up from behind him and laid three or four fresh wild flowers upon the breast, bent over and kissed the unresponsive lips time and time again, and then turned away and went out of the house without looking at any of the company. the old lady said to hawkins: "she always loved that kind o' flowers. he fetched 'em for her every morning, and she always kissed him. they was from away north somers--she kep' school when she fust come. goodness knows what's to become o' that po' boy. no father, no mother, no kin folks of no kind. nobody to go to, nobody that k'yers for him--and all of us is so put to it for to get along and families so large." hawkins understood. all, eyes were turned inquiringly upon him. he said: "friends, i am not very well provided for, myself, but still i would not turn my back on a homeless orphan. if he will go with me i will give him a home, and loving regard--i will do for him as i would have another do for a child of my own in misfortune." one after another the people stepped forward and wrung the stranger's hand with cordial good will, and their eyes looked all that their hands could not express or their lips speak. "said like a true man," said one. "you was a stranger to me a minute ago, but you ain't now," said another. "it's bread cast upon the waters--it'll return after many days," said the old lady whom we have heard speak before. "you got to camp in my house as long as you hang out here," said one. "if tha hain't room for you and yourn my tribe'll turn out and camp in the hay loft." a few minutes afterward, while the preparations for the funeral were being concluded, mr. hawkins arrived at his wagon leading his little waif by the hand, and told his wife all that had happened, and asked her if he had done right in giving to her and to himself this new care? she said: "if you've done wrong, si hawkins, it's a wrong that will shine brighter at the judgment day than the rights that many' a man has done before you. and there isn't any compliment you can pay me equal to doing a thing like this and finishing it up, just taking it for granted that i'll be willing to it. willing? come to me; you poor motherless boy, and let me take your grief and help you carry it." when the child awoke in the morning, it was as if from a troubled dream. but slowly the confusion in his mind took form, and he remembered his great loss; the beloved form in the coffin; his talk with a generous stranger who offered him a home; the funeral, where the stranger's wife held him by the hand at the grave, and cried with him and comforted him; and he remembered how this, new mother tucked him in his bed in the neighboring farm house, and coaxed him to talk about his troubles, and then heard him say his prayers and kissed him good night, and left him with the soreness in his heart almost healed and his bruised spirit at rest. and now the new mother came again, and helped him to dress, and combed his hair, and drew his mind away by degrees from the dismal yesterday, by telling him about the wonderful journey he was going to take and the strange things he was going to see. and after breakfast they two went alone to the grave, and his heart went out to his new friend and his untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried idol into her ears without let or hindrance. together they planted roses by the headboard and strewed wild flowers upon the grave; and then together they went away, hand in hand, and left the dead to the long sleep that heals all heart-aches and ends all sorrows. chapter iii. whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the kitchen fire. at the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near a shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry mississippi. the river astonished the children beyond measure. its mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, and the vague riband of trees on the further shore, the verge of a continent which surely none but they had ever seen before. "uncle dan'l"(colored,) aged 40; his wife, "aunt jinny," aged 30, "young miss" emily hawkins, "young mars" washington hawkins and "young mars" clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves on a log, after supper, and contemplated the marvelous river and discussed it. the moon rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a raving bank in the distance. the little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance,) and the remarks they made about the river were in keeping with the character; and so awed were they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before then, and by their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued to a low and reverent tone. suddenly uncle dan'l exclaimed: "chil'en, dah's sum fin a comin!" all crowded close together and every heart beat faster. uncle dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger. a deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape that jetted into the stream a mile distant. all in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out froth behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. the coughing grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder. a huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a torchlight procession. "what is it! oh, what is it, uncle dan'l!" with deep solemnity the answer came: "it's de almighty! git down on yo' knees!" it was not necessary to say it twice. they were all kneeling, in a moment. and then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice lifted up its supplications: "o lord', we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go to de bad place, but good lord, deah lord, we ain't ready yit, we ain't ready --let dese po' chilen hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. take de ole niggah if you's, got to hab somebody.--good lord, good deah lord, we don't know whah you's a gwyne to, we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin', we knows by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah dat some po' sinner's a gwyne to ketch it. but good lord, dose chilen don't b'long heah, dey's f'm obedstown whah dey don't know nuffin, an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. an' deah lord, good lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like yo' long-sufferin' lovin' kindness for to take dis kind o' 'vantage o' sick little chil'en as dose is when dey's so many ornery grown folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. oh, lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah. heah i is, lord, heah i is! de ole niggah's ready, lord, de ole----" the flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and not twenty steps away. the awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly uncle dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his heels. and then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted, (but rather feebly:) "heah i is, lord, heah i is!" there was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and the comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding. uncle dan'l headed a cautious reconnaissance in the direction of the log. sure enough "the lord" was just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked the lights winked out and the coughing diminished by degrees and presently ceased altogether. "h'wsh! well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah. dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah? dat's it. dat's it!" "uncle dan'l, do you reckon it was the prayer that saved us?" said clay. "does i reckon? don't i know it! whah was yo' eyes? warn't de lord jes' a cumin' chow! chow! chow! an' a goin' on turrible--an' do de lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him? an' warn't he a lookin' right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em? an' d'you spec' he gwyne to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it? no indeedy!" "do you reckon he saw, us, uncle dan'l? "de law sakes, chile, didn't i see him a lookin' at us?". "did you feel scared, uncle dan'l?" "no sah! when a man is 'gaged in prah, he ain't fraid o' nuffin--dey can't nuffin tetch him." "well what did you run for?" "well, i--i--mars clay, when a man is under de influence ob de sperit, he do-no, what he's 'bout--no sah; dat man do-no what he's 'bout. you mout take an' tah de head off'n dat man an' he wouldn't scasely fine it out. date's de hebrew chil'en dat went frough de fiah; dey was burnt considable--ob coase dey was; but dey didn't know nuffin 'bout it--heal right up agin; if dey'd ben gals dey'd missed dey long haah, (hair,) maybe, but dey wouldn't felt de burn." "i don't know but what they were girls. i think they were." "now mars clay, you knows bettern dat. sometimes a body can't tell whedder you's a sayin' what you means or whedder you's a sayin' what you don't mean, 'case you says 'em bofe de same way." "but how should i know whether they were boys or girls?" "goodness sakes, mars clay, don't de good book say? 'sides, don't it call 'em de he-brew chil'en? if dey was gals wouldn't dey be de she-brew chil'en? some people dat kin read don't 'pear to take no notice when dey do read." "well, uncle dan'l, i think that-----my! here comes another one up the river! there can't be two!" "we gone dis time--we done gone dis time, sho'! dey ain't two, mars clay--days de same one. de lord kin 'pear eberywhah in a second. goodness, how do fiah and de smoke do belch up! dat mean business, honey. he comin' now like he fo'got sumfin. come 'long, chil'en, time you's gwyne to roos'. go 'long wid you--ole uncle daniel gwyne out in de woods to rastle in prah--de ole nigger gwyne to do what he kin to sabe you agin" he did go to the woods and pray; but he went so far that he doubted, himself, if the lord heard him when he went by. chapter iv. --seventhly, before his voyage, he should make his peace with god, satisfie his creditors if he be in debt; pray earnestly to god to prosper him in his voyage, and to keep him from danger, and, if he be 'sui juris' he should make his last will, and wisely order all his affairs, since many that go far abroad, return not home. (this good and christian counsel is given by martinus zeilerus in his apodemical canons before his itinerary of spain and portugal.) early in the morning squire hawkins took passage in a small steamboat, with his family and his two slaves, and presently the bell rang, the stage-plank; was hauled in, and the vessel proceeded up the river. the children and the slaves were not much more at ease after finding out that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the night before when they thought it the lord of heaven and earth. they started, in fright, every time the gauge-cocks sent out an angry hiss, and they quaked from head to foot when the mud-valves thundered. the shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was sheer misery to them. but of course familiarity with these things soon took away their terrors, and then the voyage at once became a glorious adventure, a royal progress through the very heart and home of romance, a realization of their rosiest wonder-dreams. they sat by the hour in the shade of the pilot house on the hurricane deck and looked out over the curving expanses of the river sparkling in the sunlight. sometimes the boat fought the mid-stream current, with a verdant world on either hand, and remote from both; sometimes she closed in under a point, where the dead water and the helping eddies were, and shaved the bank so closely that the decks were swept by the jungle of over-hanging willows and littered with a spoil of leaves; departing from these "points" she regularly crossed the river every five miles, avoiding the "bight" of the great binds and thus escaping the strong current; sometimes she went out and skirted a high "bluff" sand-bar in the middle of the stream, and occasionally followed it up a little too far and touched upon the shoal water at its head--and then the intelligent craft refused to run herself aground, but "smelt" the bar, and straightway the foamy streak that streamed away from her bows vanished, a great foamless wave rolled forward and passed her under way, and in this instant she leaned far over on her side, shied from the bar and fled square away from the danger like a frightened thing--and the pilot was lucky if he managed to "straighten her up" before she drove her nose into the opposite bank; sometimes she approached a solid wall of tall trees as if she meant to break through it, but all of a sudden a little crack would open just enough to admit her, and away she would go plowing through the "chute" with just barely room enough between the island on one side and the main land on the other; in this sluggish water she seemed to go like a racehorse; now and then small log cabins appeared in little clearings, with the never-failing frowsy women and girls in soiled and faded linsey-woolsey leaning in the doors or against woodpiles and rail fences, gazing sleepily at the passing show; sometimes she found shoal water, going out at the head of those "chutes" or crossing the river, and then a deck-hand stood on the bow and hove the lead, while the boat slowed down and moved cautiously; sometimes she stopped a moment at a landing and took on some freight or a passenger while a crowd of slouchy white men and negroes stood on the bank and looked sleepily on with their hands in their pantaloons pockets,--of course--for they never took them out except to stretch, and when they did this they squirmed about and reached their fists up into the air and lifted themselves on tip-toe in an ecstasy of enjoyment. when the sun went down it turned all the broad river to a national banner laid in gleaming bars of gold and purple and crimson; and in time these glories faded out in the twilight and left the fairy archipelagoes reflecting their fringing foliage in the steely mirror of the stream. at night the boat forged on through the deep solitudes of the river, hardly ever discovering a light to testify to a human presence--mile after mile and league after league the vast bends were guarded by unbroken walls of forest that had never been disturbed by the voice or the foot-fall of man or felt the edge of his sacrilegious axe. an hour after supper the moon came up, and clay and washington ascended to the hurricane deck to revel again in their new realm of enchantment. they ran races up and down the deck; climbed about the bell; made friends with the passenger-dogs chained under the lifeboat; tried to make friends with a passenger-bear fastened to the verge-staff but were not encouraged; "skinned the cat" on the hog-chains; in a word, exhausted the amusement-possibilities of the deck. then they looked wistfully up at the pilot house, and finally, little by little, clay ventured up there, followed diffidently by washington. the pilot turned presently to "get his stern-marks," saw the lads and invited them in. now their happiness was complete. this cosy little house, built entirely of glass and commanding a marvelous prospect in every direction was a magician's throne to them and their enjoyment of the place was simply boundless. they sat them down on a high bench and looked miles ahead and saw the wooded capes fold back and reveal the bends beyond; and they looked miles to the rear and saw the silvery highway diminish its breadth by degrees and close itself together in the distance. presently the pilot said: "by george, yonder comes the amaranth!" a spark appeared, close to the water, several miles down the river. the pilot took his glass and looked at it steadily for a moment, and said, chiefly to himself: "it can't be the blue wing. she couldn't pick us up this way. it's the amaranth, sure!" he bent over a speaking tube and said: "who's on watch down there?" a hollow, unhuman voice rumbled up through the tube in answer: "i am. second engineer." "good! you want to stir your stumps, now, harry--the amaranth's just turned the point--and she's just a--humping herself, too!" the pilot took hold of a rope that stretched out forward, jerked it twice, and two mellow strokes of the big bell responded. a voice out on the deck shouted: "stand by, down there, with that labboard lead!" "no, i don't want the lead," said the pilot, "i want you. roust out the old man--tell him the amaranth's coming. and go and call jim--tell him." "aye-aye, sir!" the "old man" was the captain--he is always called so, on steamboats and ships; "jim" was the other pilot. within two minutes both of these men were flying up the pilothouse stairway, three steps at a jump. jim was in his shirt sleeves,--with his coat and vest on his arm. he said: "i was just turning in. where's the glass" he took it and looked: "don't appear to be any night-hawk on the jack-staff--it's the amaranth, dead sure!" the captain took a good long look, and only said: "damnation!" george davis, the pilot on watch, shouted to the night-watchman on deck: "how's she loaded?" "two inches by the head, sir." "'t ain't enough!" the captain shouted, now: "call the mate. tell him to call all hands and get a lot of that sugar forrard--put her ten inches by the head. lively, now!" "aye-aye, sir." a riot of shouting and trampling floated up from below, presently, and the uneasy steering of the boat soon showed that she was getting "down by the head." the three men in the pilot house began to talk in short, sharp sentences, low and earnestly. as their excitement rose, their voices went down. as fast as one of them put down the spy-glass another took it up--but always with a studied air of calmness. each time the verdict was: "she's a gaining!" the captain spoke through the tube: "what steam are you carrying?" "a hundred and forty-two, sir! but she's getting hotter and hotter all the time." the boat was straining and groaning and quivering like a monster in pain. both pilots were at work now, one on each side of the wheel, with their coats and vests off, their bosoms and collars wide open and the perspiration flowing down heir faces. they were holding the boat so close to the shore that the willows swept the guards almost from stem to stern. "stand by!" whispered george. "all ready!" said jim, under his breath. "let her come!" the boat sprang away, from the bank like a deer, and darted in a long diagonal toward the other shore. she closed in again and thrashed her fierce way along the willows as before. the captain put down the glass: "lord how she walks up on us! i do hate to be beat!" "jim," said george, looking straight ahead, watching the slightest yawing of the boat and promptly meeting it with the wheel, "how'll it do to try murderer's chute?" "well, it's--it's taking chances. how was the cottonwood stump on the false point below boardman's island this morning?" "water just touching the roots." "well it's pretty close work. that gives six feet scant in the head of murderer's chute. we can just barely rub through if we hit it exactly right. but it's worth trying. she don't dare tackle it!"--meaning the amaranth. in another instant the boreas plunged into what seemed a crooked creek, and the amaranth's approaching lights were shut out in a moment. not a whisper was uttered, now, but the three men stared ahead into the shadows and two of them spun the wheel back and forth with anxious watchfulness while the steamer tore along. the chute seemed to come to an end every fifty yards, but always opened out in time. now the head of it was at hand. george tapped the big bell three times, two leadsmen sprang to their posts, and in a moment their weird cries rose on the night air and were caught up and repeated by two men on the upper deck: "no-o bottom!" "de-e-p four!" "half three!" "quarter three!" "mark under wa-a-ter three!" "half twain!" "quarter twain!-----" davis pulled a couple of ropes--there was a jingling of small bells far below, the boat's speed slackened, and the pent steam began to whistle and the gauge-cocks to scream: "by the mark twain!" "quar--ter--her--er--less twain!" "eight and a half!" "eight feet!" "seven-ana-half!" another jingling of little bells and the wheels ceased turning altogether. the whistling of the steam was something frightful now--it almost drowned all other noises. "stand by to meet her!" george had the wheel hard down and was standing on a spoke. "all ready!" the, boat hesitated seemed to hold her breath, as did the captain and pilots--and then she began to fall away to starboard and every eye lighted: "now then!--meet her! meet her! snatch her!" the wheel flew to port so fast that the spokes blended into a spider-web --the swing of the boat subsided--she steadied herself---"seven feet!" "sev--six and a half!" "six feet! six f----" bang! she hit the bottom! george shouted through the tube: "spread her wide open! whale it at her!" pow-wow-chow! the escape-pipes belched snowy pillars of steam aloft, the boat ground and surged and trembled--and slid over into---"m-a-r-k twain!" "quarter-her----" "tap! tap! tap!" (to signify "lay in the leads") and away she went, flying up the willow shore, with the whole silver sea of the mississippi stretching abroad on every hand. no amaranth in sight! "ha-ha, boys, we took a couple of tricks that time!" said the captain. and just at that moment a red glare appeared in the head of the chute and the amaranth came springing after them! "well, i swear!" "jim, what is the meaning of that?" "i'll tell you what's the meaning of it. that hail we had at napoleon was wash hastings, wanting to come to cairo--and we didn't stop. he's in that pilot house, now, showing those mud turtles how to hunt for easy water." "that's it! i thought it wasn't any slouch that was running that middle bar in hog-eye bend. if it's wash hastings--well, what he don't know about the river ain't worth knowing--a regular gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond breastpin pilot wash hastings is. we won't take any tricks off of him, old man!" "i wish i'd a stopped for him, that's all." the amaranth was within three hundred yards of the boreas, and still gaining. the "old man" spoke through the tube: "what is she-carrying now?" "a hundred and sixty-five, sir!" "how's your wood?" "pine all out-cypress half gone-eating up cotton-wood like pie!" "break into that rosin on the main deck-pile it in, the boat can pay for it!" soon the boat was plunging and quivering and screaming more madly than ever. but the amaranth's head was almost abreast the boreas's stern: "how's your steam, now, harry?" "hundred and eighty-two, sir!" "break up the casks of bacon in the forrard hold! pile it in! levy on that turpentine in the fantail-drench every stick of wood with it!" the boat was a moving earthquake by this time: "how is she now?" "a hundred and ninety-six and still a-swelling!--water, below the middle gauge-cocks!--carrying every pound she can stand!--nigger roosting on the safety-valve!" "good! how's your draft?" "bully! every time a nigger heaves a stick of wood into the furnace he goes out the chimney, with it!" the amaranth drew steadily up till her jack-staff breasted the boreas's wheel-house--climbed along inch by inch till her chimneys breasted it --crept along, further and further, till the boats were wheel to wheel --and then they, closed up with a heavy jolt and locked together tight and fast in the middle of the big river under the flooding moonlight! a roar and a hurrah went up from the crowded decks of both steamers--all hands rushed to the guards to look and shout and gesticulate--the weight careened the vessels over toward each other--officers flew hither and thither cursing and storming, trying to drive the people amidships--both captains were leaning over their railings shaking their fists, swearing and threatening--black volumes of smoke rolled up and canopied the scene,--delivering a rain of sparks upon the vessels--two pistol shots rang out, and both captains dodged unhurt and the packed masses of passengers surged back and fell apart while the shrieks of women and children soared above the intolerable din---and then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away! instantly the fire-doors of the boreas were thrown open and the men began dashing buckets of water into the furnaces--for it would have been death and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on. as soon as possible the boreas dropped down to the floating wreck and took off the dead, the wounded and the unhurt--at least all that could be got at, for the whole forward half of the boat was a shapeless ruin, with the great chimneys lying crossed on top of it, and underneath were a dozen victims imprisoned alive and wailing for help. while men with axes worked with might and main to free these poor fellows, the boreas's boats went about, picking up stragglers from the river. and now a new horror presented itself. the wreck took fire from the dismantled furnaces! never did men work with a heartier will than did those stalwart braves with the axes. but it was of no use. the fire ate its way steadily, despising the bucket brigade that fought it. it scorched the clothes, it singed the hair of the axemen--it drove them back, foot by foot-inch by inch--they wavered, struck a final blow in the teeth of the enemy, and surrendered. and as they fell back they heard prisoned voices saying: "don't leave us! don't desert us! don't, don't do it!" and one poor fellow said: "i am henry worley, striker of the amaranth! my mother lives in st. louis. tell her a lie for a poor devil's sake, please. say i was killed in an instant and never knew what hurt me--though god knows i've neither scratch nor bruise this moment! it's hard to burn up in a coop like this with the whole wide world so near. good-bye boys--we've all got to come to it at last, anyway!" the boreas stood away out of danger, and the ruined steamer went drifting down the stream an island of wreathing and climbing flame that vomited clouds of smoke from time to time, and glared more fiercely and sent its luminous tongues higher and higher after each emission. a shriek at intervals told of a captive that had met his doom. the wreck lodged upon a sandbar, and when the boreas turned the next point on her upward journey it was still burning with scarcely abated fury. when the boys came down into the main saloon of the boreas, they saw a pitiful sight and heard a world of pitiful sounds. eleven poor creatures lay dead and forty more lay moaning, or pleading or screaming, while a score of good samaritans moved among them doing what they could to relieve their sufferings; bathing their chinless faces and bodies with linseed oil and lime water and covering the places with bulging masses of raw cotton that gave to every face and form a dreadful and unhuman aspect. a little wee french midshipman of fourteen lay fearfully injured, but never uttered a sound till a physician of memphis was about to dress his hurts. then he said: "can i get well? you need not be afraid to tell me." "no--i--i am afraid you can not." "then do not waste your time with me--help those that can get well." "but----" "help those that can get well! it is, not for me to be a girl. i carry the blood of eleven generations of soldiers in my veins!" the physician--himself a man who had seen service in the navy in his time--touched his hat to this little hero, and passed on. the head engineer of the amaranth, a grand specimen of physical manhood, struggled to his feet a ghastly spectacle and strode toward his brother, the second engineer, who was unhurt. he said: "you were on watch. you were boss. you would not listen to me when i begged you to reduce your steam. take that!--take it to my wife and tell her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer! take it--and take my curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years--and may you live so long!" and he tore a ring from his finger, stripping flesh and skin with it, threw it down and fell dead! but these things must not be dwelt upon. the boreas landed her dreadful cargo at the next large town and delivered it over to a multitude of eager hands and warm southern hearts--a cargo amounting by this time to 39 wounded persons and 22 dead bodies. and with these she delivered a list of 96 missing persons that had drowned or otherwise perished at the scene of the disaster. a jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable american verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives--"nobody to blame." **[the incidents of the explosion are not invented. they happened just as they are told.--the authors.] chapter v. il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc. when the boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the river, the hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it. and they were richer in another way also. in the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling through the throng in the boreas' saloon calling her mother and father, but no one answered. something in the face of mr. hawkins attracted her and she came and looked up at him; was satisfied, and took refuge with him. he petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her friends for her. then he put her in a state-room with his children and told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with the wounded) and straightway began his search. it was fruitless. but all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped against hope. all that they could learn was that the child and her parents came on board at new orleans, where they had just arrived in a vessel from cuba; that they looked like people from the atlantic states; that the family name was van brunt and the child's name laura. this was all. the parents had not been seen since the explosion. the child's manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and finer than any mrs. hawkins had ever seen before. as the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for her mother that it seemed to the hawkinses that the moanings and the wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate creature. they tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her arms about their necks and found-no solace but in their kind eyes and comforting words: there was a question in both their hearts--a question that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the hours wore on--but both hesitated to give it voice--both kept silence --and--waited. but a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no longer. the boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being conveyed to the shore. the tired child was asleep in the arms of mrs. hawkins. mr. hawkins came into their presence and stood without speaking. his eyes met his wife's; then both looked at the child--and as they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the question was asked and answered. when the boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a city--a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it. this was st. louis. the children of the hawkins family were playing about the hurricane deck, and the father and mother were sitting in the lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved that they were not succeeding. "they're worth all the trouble they are, nancy." "yes, and more, si." "i believe you! you wouldn't sell one of them at a good round figure?" "not for all the money in the bank, si." "my own sentiments every time. it is true we are not rich--but still you are not sorry---you haven't any misgivings about the additions?" "no. god will provide" "amen. and so you wouldn't even part with clay? or laura!" "not for anything in the world. i love them just the same as i love my own: they pet me and spoil me even more than the others do, i think. i reckon we'll get along, si." "oh yes, it will all come out right, old mother. i wouldn't be afraid to adopt a thousand children if i wanted to, for there's that tennessee land, you know--enough to make an army of them rich. a whole army, nancy! you and i will never see the day, but these little chaps will. indeed they will. one of these days it will be the rich miss emily hawkins--and the wealthy miss laura van brunt hawkins--and the hon. george washington hawkins, millionaire--and gov. henry clay hawkins, millionaire! that is the way the world will word it! don't let's ever fret about the children, nancy--never in the world. they're all right. nancy, there's oceans and oceans of money in that land--mark my words!" the children had stopped playing, for the moment, and drawn near to listen. hawkins said: "washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world?" "i don't know, father. sometimes i think i'll have a balloon and go up in the air; and sometimes i think i'll have ever so many books; and sometimes i think i'll have ever so many weathercocks and water-wheels; or have a machine like that one you and colonel sellers bought; and sometimes i think i'll have--well, somehow i don't know--somehow i ain't certain; maybe i'll get a steamboat first." "the same old chap!--always just a little bit divided about things.--and what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world, clay?" "i don't know, sir. my mother--my other mother that's gone away--she always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich, and then i wouldn't be disappointed if i didn't get rich. and so i reckon it's better for me to wait till i get rich, and then by that time maybe i'll know what i'll want--but i don't now, sir." "careful old head!--governor henry clay hawkins!--that's what you'll be, clay, one of these days. wise old head! weighty old head! go on, now, and play--all of you. it's a prime lot, nancy; as the obedstown folk say about their hogs." a smaller steamboat received the hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the mississippi, and landed them at a little tumble-down village on the missouri shore in the twilight of a mellow october day. the next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited forest solitudes. and when for the last time they pitched their tents, metaphorically speaking, it was at the goal of their hopes, their new home. by the muddy roadside stood a new log cabin, one story high--the store; clustered in the neighborhood were ten or twelve more cabins, some new, some old. in the sad light of the departing day the place looked homeless enough. two or three coatless young men sat in front of the store on a dry-goods box, and whittled it with their knives, kicked it with their vast boots, and shot tobacco-juice at various marks. several ragged negroes leaned comfortably against the posts of the awning and contemplated the arrival of the wayfarers with lazy curiosity. all these people presently managed to drag themselves to the vicinity of the hawkins' wagon, and there they took up permanent positions, hands in pockets and resting on one leg; and thus anchored they proceeded to look and enjoy. vagrant dogs came wagging around and making inquiries of hawkins's dog, which were not satisfactory and they made war on him in concert. this would have interested the citizens but it was too many on one to amount to anything as a fight, and so they commanded the peace and the foreign dog coiled his tail and took sanctuary under the wagon. slatternly negro girls and women slouched along with pails deftly balanced on their heads, and joined the group and stared. little half dressed white boys, and little negro boys with nothing whatever on but tow-linen shirts with a fine southern exposure, came from various directions and stood with their hands locked together behind them and aided in the inspection. the rest of the population were laying down their employments and getting ready to come, when a man burst through the assemblage and seized the new-comers by the hands in a frenzy of welcome, and exclaimed--indeed almost shouted: "well who could have believed it! now is it you sure enough--turn around! hold up your heads! i want to look at you good! well, well, well, it does seem most too good to be true, i declare! lord, i'm so glad to see you! does a body's whole soul good to look at you! shake hands again! keep on shaking hands! goodness gracious alive. what will my wife say?--oh yes indeed, it's so!--married only last week--lovely, perfectly lovely creature, the noblest woman that ever--you'll like her, nancy! like her? lord bless me you'll love her--you'll dote on her --you'll be twins! well, well, well, let me look at you again! same old --why bless my life it was only jest this very morning that my wife says, 'colonel'--she will call me colonel spite of everything i can do--she says 'colonel, something tells me somebody's coming!' and sure enough here you are, the last people on earth a body could have expected. why she'll think she's a prophetess--and hanged if i don't think so too --and you know there ain't any, country but what a prophet's an honor to, as the proverb says. lord bless me and here's the children, too! washington, emily, don't you know me? come, give us a kiss. won't i fix you, though!--ponies, cows, dogs, everything you can think of that'll delight a child's heart-and--why how's this? little strangers? well you won't be any strangers here, i can tell you. bless your souls we'll make you think you never was at home before--'deed and 'deed we will, i can tell you! come, now, bundle right along with me. you can't glorify any hearth stone but mine in this camp, you know--can't eat anybody's bread but mine--can't do anything but just make yourselves perfectly at home and comfortable, and spread yourselves out and rest! you hear me! here--jim, tom, pete, jake, fly around! take that team to my place--put the wagon in my lot--put the horses under the shed, and get out hay and oats and fill them up! ain't any hay and oats? well get some--have it charged to me--come, spin around, now! now, hawkins, the procession's ready; mark time, by the left flank, forward-march!" and the colonel took the lead, with laura astride his neck, and the newly-inspired and very grateful immigrants picked up their tired limbs with quite a spring in them and dropped into his wake. presently they were ranged about an old-time fire-place whose blazing logs sent out rather an unnecessary amount of heat, but that was no matter-supper was needed, and to have it, it had to be cooked. this apartment was the family bedroom, parlor, library and kitchen, all in one. the matronly little wife of the colonel moved hither and thither and in and out with her pots and pans in her hands', happiness in her heart and a world of admiration of her husband in her eyes. and when at last she had spread the cloth and loaded it with hot corn bread, fried chickens, bacon, buttermilk, coffee, and all manner of country luxuries, col. sellers modified his harangue and for a moment throttled it down to the orthodox pitch for a blessing, and then instantly burst forth again as from a parenthesis and clattered on with might and main till every stomach in the party was laden with all it could carry. and when the new-comers ascended the ladder to their comfortable feather beds on the second floor--to wit the garret--mrs. hawkins was obliged to say: "hang the fellow, i do believe he has gone wilder than ever, but still a body can't help liking him if they would--and what is more, they don't ever want to try when they see his eyes and hear him talk." within a week or two the hawkinses were comfortably domiciled in a new log house, and were beginning to feel at home. the children were put to school; at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath. hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded to reap the profits, which amounted to but little more than another song. the wonderful speculation hinted at by col. sellers in his letter turned out to be the raising of mules for the southern market; and really it promised very well. the young stock cost but a trifle, the rearing but another trifle, and so hawkins was easily persuaded to embark his slender means in the enterprise and turn over the keep and care of the animals to sellers and uncle dan'l. all went well: business prospered little by little. hawkins even built a new house, made it two full stories high and put a lightning rod on it. people came two or three miles to look at it. but they knew that the rod attracted the lightning, and so they gave the place a wide berth in a storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half oftener than once in a hundred and fifty times. hawkins fitted out his house with "store" furniture from st. louis, and the fame of its magnificence went abroad in the land. even the parlor carpet was from st. louis--though the other rooms were clothed in the "rag" carpeting of the country. hawkins put up the first "paling" fence that had ever adorned the village; and he did not stop there, but whitewashed it. his oil-cloth window-curtains had noble pictures on them of castles such as had never been seen anywhere in the world but on window-curtains. hawkins enjoyed the admiration these prodigies compelled, but he always smiled to think how poor and, cheap they were, compared to what the hawkins mansion would display in a future day after the tennessee land should have borne its minted fruit. even washington observed, once, that when the tennessee land was sold he would have a "store" carpet in his and clay's room like the one in the parlor. this pleased hawkins, but it troubled his wife. it did not seem wise, to her, to put one's entire earthly trust in the tennessee land and never think of doing any work. hawkins took a weekly philadelphia newspaper and a semi-weekly st. louis journal--almost the only papers that came to the village, though godey's lady's book found a good market there and was regarded as the perfection of polite literature by some of the ablest critics in the place. perhaps it is only fair to explain that we are writing of a by gone age--some twenty or thirty years ago. in the two newspapers referred to lay the secret of hawkins's growing prosperity. they kept him informed of the condition of the crops south and east, and thus he knew which articles were likely to be in demand and which articles were likely to be unsalable, weeks and even months in advance of the simple folk about him. as the months went by he came to be regarded as a wonderfully lucky man. it did not occur to the citizens that brains were at the bottom of his luck. his title of "squire" came into vogue again, but only for a season; for, as his wealth and popularity augmented, that title, by imperceptible stages, grew up into "judge;" indeed' it bade fair to swell into "general" bye and bye. all strangers of consequence who visited the village gravitated to the hawkins mansion and became guests of the "judge." hawkins had learned to like the people of his section very much. they were uncouth and not cultivated, and not particularly industrious; but they were honest and straightforward, and their virtuous ways commanded respect. their patriotism was strong, their pride in the flag was of the old fashioned pattern, their love of country amounted to idolatry. whoever dragged the national honor in the dirt won their deathless hatred. they still cursed benedict arnold as if he were a personal friend who had broken faith--but a week gone by. chapter vi. we skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record. judge hawkins and col. sellers have made and lost two or three moderate fortunes in the meantime and are now pinched by poverty. sellers has two pairs of twins and four extras. in hawkins's family are six children of his own and two adopted ones. from time to time, as fortune smiled, the elder children got the benefit of it, spending the lucky seasons at excellent schools in st. louis and the unlucky ones at home in the chafing discomfort of straightened circumstances. neither the hawkins children nor the world that knew them ever supposed that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: such difference as existed between laura and emily is not uncommon in a family. the girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time of the fearful accident on the mississippi to know that it was that which had thrown their lives together. and yet any one who had known the secret of laura's birth and had seen her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more winsome than her school companion. philosophers dispute whether it is the promise of what she will be in the careless school-girl, that makes her attractive, the undeveloped maidenhood, or the mere natural, careless sweetness of childhood. if laura at twelve was beginning to be a beauty, the thought of it had never entered her head. no, indeed. her mind wad filled with more important thoughts. to her simple school-girl dress she was beginning to add those mysterious little adornments of ribbon-knots and ear-rings, which were the subject of earnest consultations with her grown friends. when she tripped down the street on a summer's day with her dainty hands propped into the ribbon-broidered pockets of her apron, and elbows consequently more or less akimbo with her wide leghorn hat flapping down and hiding her face one moment and blowing straight up against her fore head the next and making its revealment of fresh young beauty; with all her pretty girlish airs and graces in full play, and that sweet ignorance of care and that atmosphere of innocence and purity all about her that belong to her gracious time of life, indeed she was a vision to warm the coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest. willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching, in short--was laura at this period. could she have remained there, this history would not need to be written. but laura had grown to be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now come--years which had seen judge hawkins pass through so many trials. when the judge's first bankruptcy came upon him, a homely human angel intruded upon him with an offer of $1,500 for the tennessee land. mrs. hawkins said take it. it was a grievous temptation, but the judge withstood it. he said the land was for the children--he could not rob them of their future millions for so paltry a sum. when the second blight fell upon him, another angel appeared and offered $3,000 for the land. he was in such deep distress that he allowed his wife to persuade him to let the papers be drawn; but when his children came into his presence in their poor apparel, he felt like a traitor and refused to sign. but now he was down again, and deeper in the mire than ever. he paced the floor all day, he scarcely slept at night. he blushed even to acknowledge it to himself, but treason was in his mind--he was meditating, at last, the sale of the land. mrs. hawkins stepped into the room. he had not spoken a word, but he felt as guilty as if she had caught him in some shameful act. she said: "si, i do not know what we are going to do. the children are not fit to be seen, their clothes are in such a state. but there's something more serious still.--there is scarcely a bite in the house to eat" "why, nancy, go to johnson----." "johnson indeed! you took that man's part when he hadn't a friend in the world, and you built him up and made him rich. and here's the result of it: he lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin. he has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn't come about his yard to play with his children,--which i can bear, and bear easy enough, for they're not a sort we want to associate with much--but what i can't bear with any quietness at all, is his telling franky our bill was running pretty high this morning when i sent him for some meal --and that was all he said, too--didn't give him the meal--turned off and went to talking with the hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to cheapen." "nancy, this is astounding!" "and so it is, i warrant you. i've kept still, si, as long as ever i could. things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, every single day; i don't go out of the house, i feel so down; but you had trouble enough, and i wouldn't say a word--and i wouldn't say a word now, only things have got so bad that i don't know what to do, nor where to turn." and she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried. "poor child, don't grieve so. i never thought that of johnson. i am clear at my wit's end. i don't know what in the world to do. now if somebody would come along and offer $3,000--uh, if somebody only would come along and offer $3,000 for that tennessee land." "you'd sell it, s!" said mrs. hawkins excitedly. "try me!" mrs. hawkins was out of the room in a moment. within a minute she was back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then she took her leave again. hawkins said to himself, "how can a man ever lose faith? when the blackest hour comes, providence always comes with it--ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; if this blessed man offers but a thousand i'll embrace him like a brother!" the stranger said: "i am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in east tennessee, and without sacrificing your time, i will come to the point at once. i am agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land." hawkins's heart bounded within him. his whole frame was racked and wrenched with fettered hurrahs. his first impulse was to shout "done! and god bless the iron company, too!" but a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered nothing. the enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man who is thinking took its place. presently, in a hesitating, undecided way, he said: "well, i--it don't seem quite enough. that--that is a very valuable property--very valuable. it's brim full of iron-ore, sir--brim full of it! and copper, coal,--everything--everything you can think of! now, i'll tell you what i'll, do. i'll reserve everything except the iron, and i'll sell them the iron property for $15,000 cash, i to go in with them and own an undivided interest of one-half the concern--or the stock, as you may say. i'm out of business, and i'd just as soon help run the thing as not. now how does that strike you?" "well, i am only an agent of these people, who are friends of mine, and i am not even paid for my services. to tell you the truth, i have tried to persuade them not to go into the thing; and i have come square out with their offer, without throwing out any feelers--and i did it in the hope that you would refuse. a man pretty much always refuses another man's first offer, no matter what it is. but i have performed my duty, and will take pleasure in telling them what you say." he was about to rise. hawkins said, "wait a bit." hawkins thought again. and the substance of his thought was: "this is a deep man; this is a very deep man; i don't like his candor; your ostentatiously candid business man's a deep fox--always a deep fox; this man's that iron company himself--that's what he is; he wants that property, too; i am not so blind but i can see that; he don't want the company to go into this thing--o, that's very good; yes, that's very good indeed--stuff! he'll be back here tomorrow, sure, and take my offer; take it? i'll risk anything he is suffering to take it now; here--i must mind what i'm about. what has started this sudden excitement about iron? i wonder what is in the wind? just as sure as i'm alive this moment, there's something tremendous stirring in iron speculation" [here hawkins got up and began to pace the floor with excited eyes and with gesturing hands]--"something enormous going on in iron, without the shadow of a doubt, and here i sit mousing in the dark and never knowing anything about it; great heaven, what an escape i've made! this underhanded mercenary creature might have taken me up--and ruined me! but i have escaped, and i warrant me i'll not put my foot into--" he stopped and turned toward the stranger; saying: "i have made you a proposition, you have not accepted it, and i desire that you will consider that i have made none. at the same time my conscience will not allow me to--. please alter the figures i named to thirty thousand dollars, if you will, and let the proposition go to the company--i will stick to it if it breaks my heart!" the stranger looked amused, and there was a pretty well defined touch of surprise in his expression, too, but hawkins never noticed it. indeed he scarcely noticed anything or knew what he was about. the man left; hawkins flung himself into a chair; thought a few moments, then glanced around, looked frightened, sprang to the door---"too late--too late! he's gone! fool that i am! always a fool! thirty thousand--ass that i am! oh, why didn't i say fifty thousand!" he plunged his hands into his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees, and fell to rocking himself back and forth in anguish. mrs. hawkins sprang in, beaming: "well, si?" "oh, con-found the con-founded--con-found it, nancy. i've gone and done it, now!" "done what si for mercy's sake!" "done everything! ruined everything!" "tell me, tell me, tell me! don't keep a body in such suspense. didn't he buy, after all? didn't he make an offer?" offer? he offered $10,000 for our land, and----" "thank the good providence from the very bottom of my heart of hearts! what sort of ruin do you call that, si!" "nancy, do you suppose i listened to such a preposterous proposition? no! thank fortune i'm not a simpleton! i saw through the pretty scheme in a second. it's a vast iron speculation!--millions upon millions in it! but fool as i am i told him he could have half the iron property for thirty thousand--and if i only had him back here he couldn't touch it for a cent less than a quarter of a million!" mrs. hawkins looked up white and despairing: "you threw away this chance, you let this man go, and we in this awful trouble? you don't mean it, you can't mean it!" "throw it away? catch me at it! why woman, do you suppose that man don't know what he is about? bless you, he'll be back fast enough to-morrow." "never, never, never. he never will comeback. i don't know what is to become of us. i don't know what in the world is to become of us." a shade of uneasiness came into hawkins's face. he said: "why, nancy, you--you can't believe what you are saying." "believe it, indeed? i know it, si. and i know that we haven't a cent in the world, and we've sent ten thousand dollars a-begging." "nancy, you frighten me. now could that man--is it possible that i --hanged if i don't believe i have missed a chance! don't grieve, nancy, don't grieve. i'll go right after him. i'll take--i'll take--what a fool i am!--i'll take anything he'll give!" the next instant he left the house on a run. but the man was no longer in the town. nobody knew where he belonged or whither he had gone. hawkins came slowly back, watching wistfully but hopelessly for the stranger, and lowering his price steadily with his sinking heart. and when his foot finally pressed his own threshold, the value he held the entire tennessee property at was five hundred dollars--two hundred down and the rest in three equal annual payments, without interest. there was a sad gathering at the hawkins fireside the next night. all the children were present but clay. mr. hawkins said: "washington, we seem to be hopelessly fallen, hopelessly involved. i am ready to give up. i do not know where to turn--i never have been down so low before, i never have seen things so dismal. there are many mouths to feed; clay is at work; we must lose you, also, for a little while, my boy. but it will not be long--the tennessee land----" he stopped, and was conscious of a blush. there was silence for a moment, and then washington--now a lank, dreamy-eyed stripling between twenty-two and twenty-three years of age--said: "if col. sellers would come for me, i would go and stay with him a while, till the tennessee land is sold. he has often wanted me to come, ever since he moved to hawkeye." "i'm afraid he can't well come for you, washington. from what i can hear--not from him of course, but from others--he is not far from as bad off as we are--and his family is as large, too. he might find something for you to do, maybe, but you'd better try to get to him yourself, washington--it's only thirty miles." "but how can i, father? there's no stage or anything." "and if there were, stages require money. a stage goes from swansea, five miles from here. but it would be cheaper to walk." "father, they must know you there, and no doubt they would credit you in a moment, for a little stage ride like that. couldn't you write and ask them?" "couldn't you, washington--seeing it's you that wants the ride? and what do you think you'll do, washington, when you get to hawkeye? finish your invention for making window-glass opaque?" "no, sir, i have given that up. i almost knew i could do it, but it was so tedious and troublesome i quit it." "i was afraid of it, my boy. then i suppose you'll finish your plan of coloring hen's eggs by feeding a peculiar diet to the hen?" "no, sir. i believe i have found out the stuff that will do it, but it kills the hen; so i have dropped that for the present, though i can take it up again some day when i learn how to manage the mixture better." "well, what have you got on hand--anything?" "yes, sir, three or four things. i think they are all good and can all be done, but they are tiresome, and besides they require money. but as soon as the land is sold----" "emily, were you about to say something?" said hawkins. yes, sir. if you are willing, i will go to st. louis. that will make another mouth less to feed. mrs. buckner has always wanted me to come." "but the money, child?" "why i think she would send it, if you would write her--and i know she would wait for her pay till----" "come, laura, let's hear from you, my girl." emily and laura were about the same age--between seventeen and eighteen. emily was fair and pretty, girlish and diffident--blue eyes and light hair. laura had a proud bearing, and a somewhat mature look; she had fine, clean-cut features, her complexion was pure white and contrasted vividly with her black hair and eyes; she was not what one calls pretty --she was beautiful. she said: "i will go to st. louis, too, sir. i will find a way to get there. i will make a way. and i will find a way to help myself along, and do what i can to help the rest, too." she spoke it like a princess. mrs. hawkins smiled proudly and kissed her, saying in a tone of fond reproof: "so one of my girls is going to turn out and work for her living! it's like your pluck and spirit, child, but we will hope that we haven't got quite down to that, yet." the girl's eyes beamed affection under her mother's caress. then she straightened up, folded her white hands in her lap and became a splendid ice-berg. clay's dog put up his brown nose for a little attention, and got it. he retired under the table with an apologetic yelp, which did not affect the iceberg. judge hawkins had written and asked clay to return home and consult with him upon family affairs. he arrived the evening after this conversation, and the whole household gave him a rapturous welcome. he brought sadly needed help with him, consisting of the savings of a year and a half of work--nearly two hundred dollars in money. it was a ray of sunshine which (to this easy household) was the earnest of a clearing sky. bright and early in the morning the family were astir, and all were busy preparing washington for his journey--at least all but washington himself, who sat apart, steeped in a reverie. when the time for his departure came, it was easy to see how fondly all loved him and how hard it was to let him go, notwithstanding they had often seen him go before, in his st. louis schooling days. in the most matter-of-course way they had borne the burden of getting him ready for his trip, never seeming to think of his helping in the matter; in the same matter-of-course way clay had hired a horse and cart; and now that the good-byes were ended he bundled washington's baggage in and drove away with the exile. at swansea clay paid his stage fare, stowed him away in the vehicle, and saw him off. then he returned home and reported progress, like a committee of the whole. clay remained at home several days. he held many consultations with his mother upon the financial condition of the family, and talked once with his father upon the same subject, but only once. he found a change in that quarter which was distressing; years of fluctuating fortune had done their work; each reverse had weakened the father's spirit and impaired his energies; his last misfortune seemed to have left hope and ambition dead within him; he had no projects, formed no plans--evidently he was a vanquished man. he looked worn and tired. he inquired into clay's affairs and prospects, and when he found that clay was doing pretty well and was likely to do still better, it was plain that he resigned himself with easy facility to look to the son for a support; and he said, "keep yourself informed of poor washington's condition and movements, and help him along all you can, clay." the younger children, also, seemed relieved of all fears and distresses, and very ready and willing to look to clay for a livelihood. within three days a general tranquility and satisfaction reigned in the household. clay's hundred and eighty or ninety, dollars had worked a wonder. the family were as contented, now, and as free from care as they could have been with a fortune. it was well that mrs. hawkins held the purse otherwise the treasure would have lasted but a very little while. it took but a trifle to pay hawkins's outstanding obligations, for he had always had a horror of debt. when clay bade his home good-bye and set out to return to the field of his labors, he was conscious that henceforth he was to have his father's family on his hands as pensioners; but he did not allow himself to chafe at the thought, for he reasoned that his father had dealt by him with a free hand and a loving one all his life, and now that hard fortune had broken his spirit it ought to be a pleasure, not a pain, to work for him. the younger children were born and educated dependents. they had never been taught to do anything for themselves, and it did not seem to occur to them to make an attempt now. the girls would not have been permitted to work for a living under any circumstances whatever. it was a southern family, and of good blood; and for any person except laura, either within or without the household to have suggested such an idea would have brought upon the suggester the suspicion of being a lunatic. chapter vii. via, pecunia! when she's run and gone and fled, and dead, then will i fetch her again with aqua vita, out of an old hogshead! while there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, i'll never want her! coin her out of cobwebs, dust, but i'll have her! raise wool upon egg-shells, sir, and make grass grow out of marrow-bones, to make her come! b. jonson. bearing washington hawkins and his fortunes, the stage-coach tore out of swansea at a fearful gait, with horn tooting gaily and half the town admiring from doors and windows. but it did not tear any more after it got to the outskirts; it dragged along stupidly enough, then--till it came in sight of the next hamlet; and then the bugle tooted gaily again and again the vehicle went tearing by the horses. this sort of conduct marked every entry to a station and every exit from it; and so in those days children grew up with the idea that stage-coaches always tore and always tooted; but they also grew up with the idea that pirates went into action in their sunday clothes, carrying the black flag in one hand and pistolling people with the other, merely because they were so represented in the pictures--but these illusions vanished when later years brought their disenchanting wisdom. they learned then that the stagecoach is but a poor, plodding, vulgar thing in the solitudes of the highway; and that the pirate is only a seedy, unfantastic "rough," when he is out of the pictures. toward evening, the stage-coach came thundering into hawkeye with a perfectly triumphant ostentation--which was natural and proper, for hawkey a was a pretty large town for interior missouri. washington, very stiff and tired and hungry, climbed out, and wondered how he was to proceed now. but his difficulty was quickly solved. col. sellers came down the street on a run and arrived panting for breath. he said: "lord bless you--i'm glad to see you, washington--perfectly delighted to see you, my boy! i got your message. been on the look-out for you. heard the stage horn, but had a party i couldn't shake off--man that's got an enormous thing on hand--wants me to put some capital into it--and i tell you, my boy, i could do worse, i could do a deal worse. no, now, let that luggage alone; i'll fix that. here, jerry, got anything to do? all right-shoulder this plunder and follow me. come along, washington. lord i'm glad to see you! wife and the children are just perishing to look at you. bless you, they won't know you, you've grown so. folks all well, i suppose? that's good--glad to hear that. we're always going to run down and see them, but i'm into so many operations, and they're not things a man feels like trusting to other people, and so somehow we keep putting it off. fortunes in them! good gracious, it's the country to pile up wealth in! here we are--here's where the sellers dynasty hangs out. hump it on the door-step, jerry--the blackest niggro in the state, washington, but got a good heart--mighty likely boy, is jerry. and now i suppose you've got to have ten cents, jerry. that's all right--when a man works for me--when a man--in the other pocket, i reckon--when a man --why, where the mischief as that portmonnaie!--when a--well now that's odd--oh, now i remember, must have left it at the bank; and b'george i've left my check-book, too--polly says i ought to have a nurse--well, no matter. let me have a dime, washington, if you've got--ah, thanks. now clear out, jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an hour ahead of time. pretty fair joke--pretty fair. here he is, polly! washington's come, children! come now, don't eat him up--finish him in the house. welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is proud to shelter the son of the best man that walks on the ground. si hawkins has been a good friend to me, and i believe i can say that whenever i've had a chance to put him into a good thing i've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully, too. i put him into that sugar speculation--what a grand thing that was, if we hadn't held on too long!" true enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both of them; and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so much money to lose before, for sellers's sale of their mule crop that year in new orleans had been a great financial success. if he had kept out of sugar and gone back home content to stick to mules it would have been a happy wisdom. as it was, he managed to kill two birds with one stone--that is to say, he killed the sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he had to sell at the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that laid the golden egg--which is but a figurative expression and will be so understood. sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-handed, and the mule business lapsed into other hands. the sale of the hawkins property by the sheriff had followed, and the hawkins hearts been torn to see uncle dan'l and his wife pass from the auction-block into the hands of a negro trader and depart for the remote south to be seen no more by the family. it had seemed like seeing their own flesh and blood sold into banishment. washington was greatly pleased with the sellers mansion. it was a two-story-and-a-half brick, and much more stylish than any of its neighbors. he was borne to the family sitting room in triumph by the swarm of little sellerses, the parents following with their arms about each other's waists. the whole family were poorly and cheaply dressed; and the clothing, although neat and clean, showed many evidences of having seen long service. the colonel's "stovepipe" hat was napless and shiny with much polishing, but nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about it of having been just purchased new. the rest of his clothing was napless and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely satisfied with itself and blandly sorry for other people's clothes. it was growing rather dark in the house, and the evening air was chilly, too. sellers said: "lay off your overcoat, washington, and draw up to the stove and make yourself at home--just consider yourself under your own shingles my boy --i'll have a fire going, in a jiffy. light the lamp, polly, dear, and let's have things cheerful just as glad to see you, washington, as if you'd been lost a century and we'd found you again!" by this time the colonel was conveying a lighted match into a poor little stove. then he propped the stove door to its place by leaning the poker against it, for the hinges had retired from business. this door framed a small square of isinglass, which now warmed up with a faint glow. mrs. sellers lit a cheap, showy lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the gloom, and then everybody gathered into the light and took the stove into close companionship. the children climbed all over sellers, fondled him, petted him, and were lavishly petted in return. out from this tugging, laughing, chattering disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the colonel's voice worked its way and his tireless tongue ran blithely on without interruption; and the purring little wife, diligent with her knitting, sat near at hand and looked happy and proud and grateful; and she listened as one who listens to oracles and, gospels and whose grateful soul is being refreshed with the bread of life. bye and bye the children quieted down to listen; clustered about their father, and resting their elbows on his legs, they hung upon his words as if he were uttering the music of the spheres. a dreary old hair-cloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged chairs; the small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stove--these things constituted the furniture of the room. there was no carpet on the floor; on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the house--but there were none now. there were no mantel ornaments, unless one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled in company the rest of the way home. "remarkable clock!" said sellers, and got up and wound it. "i've been offered--well, i wouldn't expect you to believe what i've been offered for that clock. old gov. hager never sees me but he says, 'come, now, colonel, name your price--i must have that clock!' but my goodness i'd as soon think of selling my wife. as i was saying to ---silence in the court, now, she's begun to strike! you can't talk against her--you have to just be patient and hold up till she's said her say. ah well, as i was saying, when--she's beginning again! nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twen----ah, that's all.--yes, as i was saying to old judge ----go it, old girl, don't mind me.--now how is that?----isn't that a good, spirited tone? she can wake the dead! sleep? why you might as well try to sleep in a thunder-factory. now just listen at that. she'll strike a hundred and fifty, now, without stopping,--you'll see. there ain't another clock like that in christendom." washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was distracting --though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the clock "buckled down to her work" as the colonel expressed it, and the more insupportable the clatter became, the more enchanted they all appeared to be. when there was silence, mrs sellers lifted upon washington a face that beamed with a childlike pride, and said: "it belonged to his grandmother." the look and the tone were a plain call for admiring surprise, and therefore washington said (it was the only thing that offered itself at the moment:) "indeed!" "yes, it did, didn't it father!" exclaimed one of the twins. "she was my great-grandmother--and george's too; wasn't she, father! you never saw her, but sis has seen her, when sis was a baby-didn't you, sis! sis has seen her most a hundred times. she was awful deef--she's dead, now. aint she, father!" all the children chimed in, now, with one general babel of information about deceased--nobody offering to read the riot act or seeming to discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way--but the head twin drowned all the turmoil and held his own against the field: "it's our clock, now--and it's got wheels inside of it, and a thing that flutters every time she strikes--don't it, father! great-grandmother died before hardly any of us was born--she was an old-school baptist and had warts all over her--you ask father if she didn't. she had an uncle once that was bald-headed and used to have fits; he wasn't our uncle, i don't know what he was to us--some kin or another i reckon--father's seen him a thousand times--hain't you, father! we used to have a calf that et apples and just chawed up dishrags like nothing, and if you stay here you'll see lots of funerals--won't he, sis! did you ever see a house afire? i have! once me and jim terry----" but sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased. he began to tell about an enormous speculation he was thinking of embarking some capital in--a speculation which some london bankers had been over to consult with him about--and soon he was building glittering pyramids of coin, and washington was presently growing opulent under the magic of his eloquence. but at the same time washington was not able to ignore the cold entirely. he was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, and yet he could not persuade himself, that he felt the slightest heat, notwithstanding the isinglass' door was still gently and serenely glowing. he tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the consequence was, he tripped the supporting poker and the stove-door tumbled to the floor. and then there was a revelation--there was nothing in the stove but a lighted tallow-candle! the poor youth blushed and felt as if he must die with shame. but the colonel was only disconcerted for a moment--he straightway found his voice again: "a little idea of my own, washington--one of the greatest things in the world! you must write and tell your father about it--don't forget that, now. i have been reading up some european scientific reports--friend of mine, count fugier, sent them to me--sends me all sorts of things from paris--he thinks the world of me, fugier does. well, i saw that the academy of france had been testing the properties of heat, and they came to the conclusion that it was a nonconductor or something like that, and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any tendency toward rheumatic affections. bless you i saw in a moment what was the matter with us, and says i, out goes your fires!--no more slow torture and certain death for me, sir. what you want is the appearance of heat, not the heat itself--that's the idea. well how to do it was the next thing. i just put my head, to work, pegged away, a couple of days, and here you are! rheumatism? why a man can't any more start a case of rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! stove with a candle in it and a transparent door--that's it--it has been the salvation of this family. don't you fail to write your father about it, washington. and tell him the idea is mine--i'm no more conceited than most people, i reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to want credit for a thing like that." washington said with his blue lips that he would, but he said in his secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. he tried to believe in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded tolerably well; but after all he could not feel that good health in a frozen, body was any real improvement on the rheumatism. chapter viii. --whan pe horde is thynne, as of seruyse, nought replenesshed with grete diuersite of mete & drinke, good chere may then suffise with honest talkyng--- the book of curtesye. mammon. come on, sir. now, you set your foot on shore in novo orbe; here's the rich peru: and there within, sir, are the golden mines, great solomon's ophir!--- b. jonson the supper at col. sellers's was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but it improved on acquaintance. that is to say, that what washington regarded at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became awe-inspiring agricultural productions that had been reared in some ducal garden beyond the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself, who had sent them to sellers; the bread was from corn which could be grown in only one favored locality in the earth and only a favored few could get it; the rio coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the taste, took to itself an improved flavor when washington was told to drink it slowly and not hurry what should be a lingering luxury in order to be fully appreciated--it was from the private stores of a brazilian nobleman with an unrememberable name. the colonel's tongue was a magician's wand that turned dried apples into figs and water into wine as easily as it could change a hovel into a palace and present poverty into imminent future riches. washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings--and then it disappeared and he recognized that the colonel's inspiring talk had been influencing his dreams. fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered the sitting room he noticed that the old hair-cloth sofa was absent; when he sat down to breakfast the colonel tossed six or seven dollars in bills on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and must call upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with the indifferent air of a man who is used to money. the breakfast was not an improvement upon the supper, but the colonel talked it up and transformed it into an oriental feast. bye and bye, he said: "i intend to look out for you, washington, my boy. i hunted up a place for you yesterday, but i am not referring to that,--now--that is a mere livelihood--mere bread and butter; but when i say i mean to look out for you i mean something very different. i mean to put things in your way than will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. i'll put you in a way to make more money than you'll ever know what to do with. you'll be right here where i can put my hand on you when anything turns up. i've got some prodigious operations on foot; but i'm keeping quiet; mum's the word; your old hand don't go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see his k'yards and find out his little game. but all in good time, washington, all in good time. you'll see. now there's an operation in corn that looks well. some new york men are trying to get me to go into it--buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they mature--ah i tell you it's a great thing. and it only costs a trifle; two millions or two and a half will do it. i haven't exactly promised yet--there's no hurry--the more indifferent i seem, you know, the more anxious those fellows will get. and then there is the hog speculation --that's bigger still. we've got quiet men at work," [he was very impressive here,] "mousing around, to get propositions out of all the farmers in the whole west and northwest for the hog crop, and other agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the manufactories--and don't you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the slaughter horses into our hands on the dead quiet--whew! it would take three ships to carry the money.--i've looked into the thing--calculated all the chances for and all the chances against, and though i shake my head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, i've got my mind made up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions, that's the horse to put up money on! why washington--but what's the use of talking about it--any man can see that there's whole atlantic oceans of cash in it, gulfs and bays thrown in. but there's a bigger thing than that, yes bigger----" "why colonel, you can't want anything bigger!" said washington, his eyes blazing. "oh, i wish i could go into either of those speculations--i only wish i had money--i wish i wasn't cramped and kept down and fettered with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! oh, it is a fearful thing to be poor. but don't throw away those things --they are so splendid and i can see how sure they are. don't throw them away for something still better and maybe fail in it! i wouldn't, colonel. i would stick to these. i wish father were here and were his old self again--oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. colonel; you can't improve on these--no man can improve on them!" a sweet, compassionate smile played about the colonel's features, and he leaned over the table with the air of a man who is "going to show you" and do it without the least trouble: "why washington, my boy, these things are nothing. they look large of course--they look large to a novice, but to a man who has been all his life accustomed to large operations--shaw! they're well enough to while away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for something to do, but--now just listen a moment--just let me give you an idea of what we old veterans of commerce call 'business.' here's the rothschild's proposition--this is between you and me, you understand----" washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes said, "yes, yes--hurry--i understand----" ----"for i wouldn't have it get out for a fortune. they want me to go in with them on the sly--agent was here two weeks ago about it--go in on the sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred and thirteen wild cat banks in ohio, indiana, kentucky, illinois and missouri--notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now--average discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent--buy them all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! whiz! the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a tremendous premium before you could turn a handspring--profit on the speculation not a dollar less than forty millions!" [an eloquent pause, while the marvelous vision settled into w.'s focus.] "where's your hogs now? why my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front door-steps and peddle banks like lucifer matches!" washington finally got his breath and said: "oh, it is perfectly wonderful! why couldn't these things have happened in father's day? and i--it's of no use--they simply lie before my face and mock me. there is nothing for me but to stand helpless and see other people reap the astonishing harvest." "never mind, washington, don't you worry. i'll fix you. there's plenty of chances. how much money have you got?" in the presence of so many millions, washington could not keep from blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the world. "well, all right--don't despair. other people have been obliged to begin with less. i have a small idea that may develop into something for us both, all in good time. keep your money close and add to it. i'll make it breed. i've been experimenting (to pass away the time), on a little preparation for curing sore eyes--a kind of decoction nine-tenths water and the other tenth drugs that don't cost more than a dollar a barrel; i'm still experimenting; there's one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the thing, and somehow i can't just manage to hit upon the thing that's necessary, and i don't dare talk with a chemist, of course. but i'm progressing, and before many weeks i wager the country will ring with the fame of beriah sellers' infallible imperial oriental optic liniment and salvation for sore eyes--the medical wonder of the age! small bottles fifty cents, large ones a dollar. average cost, five and seven cents for the two sizes. "the first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in missouri, seven thousand in iowa, three thousand in arkansas, four thousand in kentucky, six thousand in illinois, and say twenty-five thousand in the rest of the country. total, fifty five thousand bottles; profit clear of all expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. all the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand bottles --say a hundred and fifty dollars--then the money would begin to flow in. the second year, sales would reach 200,000 bottles--clear profit, say, $75,000--and in the meantime the great factory would be building in st. louis, to cost, say, $100,000. the third year we could, easily sell 1,000,000 bottles in the united states and----" "o, splendid!" said washington. "let's commence right away--let's----" "----1,000,000 bottles in the united states--profit at least $350,000 --and then it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the real idea of the business." "the real idea of it! ain't $350,000 a year a pretty real----" "stuff! why what an infant you are, washington--what a guileless, short-sighted, easily-contented innocent you, are, my poor little country-bred know-nothing! would i go to all that trouble and bother for the poor crumbs a body might pick up in this country? now do i look like a man who----does my history suggest that i am a man who deals in trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the common herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? now you know that that is not me--couldn't be me. you ought to know that if i throw my time and abilities into a patent medicine, it's a patent medicine whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that inhabit it! why what is the republic of america for an eye-water country? lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you've got to cross to get to the true eye-water market! why, washington, in the oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every square mile of ground upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling human creatures--and every separate and individual devil of them's got the ophthalmia! it's as natural to them as noses are--and sin. it's born with them, it stays with them, it's all that some of them have left when they die. three years of introductory trade in the orient and what will be the result? why, our headquarters would be in constantinople and our hindquarters in further india! factories and warehouses in cairo, ispahan, bagdad, damascus, jerusalem, yedo, peking, bangkok, delhi, bombay--and calcutta! annual income--well, god only knows how many millions and millions apiece!" washington was so dazed, so bewildered--his heart and his eyes had wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly down before him, that he was now as one who has been whirling round and round for a time, and, stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. however, little by little the sellers family cooled down and crystalized into shape, and the poor room lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. then the youth found his voice and begged sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; and he got his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the colonel--pleaded with him to take it--implored him to do it. but the colonel would not; said he would not need the capital (in his native magnificent way he called that eighteen dollars capital) till the eye-water was an accomplished fact. he made washington easy in his mind, though, by promising that he would call for it just as soon as the invention was finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but just they two should be admitted to a share in the speculation. when washington left the breakfast table he could have worshiped that man. washington was one of that kind of people whose hopes are in the very, clouds one day and in the gutter the next. he walked on air, now. the colonel was ready to take him around and introduce him to the employment he had found for him, but washington begged for a few moments in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day's new interest to death and put off yesterday's till another time, is nature itself. he ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to his mother about the hogs and the corn, the banks and the eye-water--and added a few inconsequential millions to each project. and he said that people little dreamed what a man col. sellers was, and that the world would open its eyes when it found out. and he closed his letter thus: "so make yourself perfectly easy, mother-in a little while you shall have everything you want, and more. i am not likely to stint you in anything, i fancy. this money will not be for me, alone, but for all of us. i want all to share alike; and there is going to be far more for each than one person can spend. break it to father cautiously--you understand the need of that--break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other. tell laura--tell all the children. and write to clay about it if he is not with you yet. you may tell clay that whatever i get he can freely share in-freely. he knows that that is true--there will be no need that i should swear to that to make him believe it. good-bye--and mind what i say: rest perfectly easy, one and all of you, for our troubles are nearly at an end." poor lad, he could not know that his mother would cry some loving, compassionate tears over his letter and put off the family with a synopsis of its contents which conveyed a deal of love to then but not much idea of his prospects or projects. and he never dreamed that such a joyful letter could sadden her and fill her night with sighs, and troubled thoughts, and bodings of the future, instead of filling it with peace and blessing it with restful sleep. when the letter was done, washington and the colonel sallied forth, and as they walked along washington learned what he was to be. he was to be a clerk in a real estate office. instantly the fickle youth's dreams forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the tennessee land. and the gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy his imagination to such a degree that he could scarcely manage to keep even enough of his attention upon the colonel's talk to retain the general run of what he was saying. he was glad it was a real estate office--he was a made man now, sure. the colonel said that general boswell was a rich man and had a good and growing business; and that washington's work world be light and he would get forty dollars a month and be boarded and lodged in the general's family--which was as good as ten dollars more; and even better, for he could not live as well even at the "city hotel" as he would there, and yet the hotel charged fifteen dollars a month where a man had a good room. general boswell was in his office; a comfortable looking place, with plenty of outline maps hanging about the walls and in the windows, and a spectacled man was marking out another one on a long table. the office was in the principal street. the general received washington with a kindly but reserved politeness. washington rather liked his looks. he was about fifty years old, dignified, well preserved and well dressed. after the colonel took his leave, the general talked a while with washington--his talk consisting chiefly of instructions about the clerical duties of the place. he seemed satisfied as to washington's ability to take care of the books, he was evidently a pretty fair theoretical bookkeeper, and experience would soon harden theory into practice. by and by dinner-time came, and the two walked to the general's house; and now washington noticed an instinct in himself that moved him to keep not in the general's rear, exactly, but yet not at his side--somehow the old gentleman's dignity and reserve did not inspire familiarity. chapter ix washington dreamed his way along the street, his fancy flitting from grain to hogs, from hogs to banks, from banks to eyewater, from eye-water to tennessee land, and lingering but a feverish moment upon each of these fascinations. he was conscious of but one outward thing, to wit, the general, and he was really not vividly conscious of him. arrived at the finest dwelling in the town, they entered it and were at home. washington was introduced to mrs. boswell, and his imagination was on the point of flitting into the vapory realms of speculation again, when a lovely girl of sixteen or seventeen came in. this vision swept washington's mind clear of its chaos of glittering rubbish in an instant. beauty had fascinated him before; many times he had been in love even for weeks at a time with the same object but his heart had never suffered so sudden and so fierce an assault as this, within his recollection. louise boswell occupied his mind and drifted among his multiplication tables all the afternoon. he was constantly catching himself in a reverie--reveries made up of recalling how she looked when she first burst upon him; how her voice thrilled him when she first spoke; how charmed the very air seemed by her presence. blissful as the afternoon was, delivered up to such a revel as this, it seemed an eternity, so impatient was he to see the girl again. other afternoons like it followed. washington plunged into this love affair as he plunged into everything else--upon impulse and without reflection. as the days went by it seemed plain that he was growing in favor with louise,--not sweepingly so, but yet perceptibly, he fancied. his attentions to her troubled her father and mother a little, and they warned louise, without stating particulars or making allusions to any special person, that a girl was sure to make a mistake who allowed herself to marry anybody but a man who could support her well. some instinct taught washington that his present lack of money would be an obstruction, though possibly not a bar, to his hopes, and straightway his poverty became a torture to him which cast all his former sufferings under that held into the shade. he longed for riches now as he had ever longed for them before. he had been once or twice to dine with col. sellers, and had been discouraged to note that the colonel's bill of fare was falling off both in quantity and quality--a sign, he feared, that the lacking ingredient in the eye-water still remained undiscovered--though sellers always explained that these changes in the family diet had been ordered by the doctor, or suggested by some new scientific work the colonel had stumbled upon. but it always turned out that the lacking ingredient was still lacking--though it always appeared, at the same time, that the colonel was right on its heels. every time the colonel came into the real estate office washington's heart bounded and his eyes lighted with hope, but it always turned out that the colonel was merely on the scent of some vast, undefined landed speculation--although he was customarily able to say that he was nearer to the all-necessary ingredient than ever, and could almost name the hour when success would dawn. and then washington's heart world sink again and a sigh would tell when it touched bottom. about this time a letter came, saying that judge hawkins had been ailing for a fortnight, and was now considered to be seriously ill. it was thought best that washington should come home. the news filled him with grief, for he loved and honored his father; the boswells were touched by the youth's sorrow, and even the general unbent and said encouraging things to him.--there was balm in this; but when louise bade him good-bye, and shook his hand and said, "don't be cast down--it will all come out right--i know it will all come out right," it seemed a blessed thing to be in misfortune, and the tears that welled up to his eyes were the messengers of an adoring and a grateful heart; and when the girl saw them and answering tears came into her own eyes, washington could hardly contain the excess of happiness that poured into the cavities of his breast that were so lately stored to the roof with grief. all the way home he nursed his woe and exalted it. he pictured himself as she must be picturing him: a noble, struggling young spirit persecuted by misfortune, but bravely and patiently waiting in the shadow of a dread calamity and preparing to meet the blow as became one who was all too used to hard fortune and the pitiless buffetings of fate. these thoughts made him weep, and weep more broken-heartedly than ever; and be wished that she could see his sufferings now. there was nothing significant in the fact that louise, dreamy and distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling "washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. but there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every time she wrote it; examined the erasure critically to see if anybody could guess at what the word had been; then buried it under a maze of obliterating lines; and finally, as if still unsatisfied, burned the paper. when washington reached home, he recognized at once how serious his father's case was. the darkened room, the labored breathing and occasional moanings of the patient, the tip-toeing of the attendants and their whispered consultations, were full of sad meaning. for three or four nights mrs. hawkins and laura had been watching by the bedside; clay had arrived, preceding washington by one day, and he was now added to the corps of watchers. mr. hawkins would have none but these three, though neighborly assistance was offered by old friends. from this time forth three-hour watches were instituted, and day and night the watchers kept their vigils. by degrees laura and her mother began to show wear, but neither of them would yield a minute of their tasks to clay. he ventured once to let the midnight hour pass without calling laura, but he ventured no more; there was that about her rebuke when he tried to explain, that taught him that to let her sleep when she might be ministering to her father's needs, was to rob her of moments that were priceless in her eyes; he perceived that she regarded it as a privilege to watch, not a burden. and, he had noticed, also, that when midnight struck, the patient turned his eyes toward the door, with an expectancy in them which presently grew into a longing but brightened into contentment as soon as the door opened and laura appeared. and he did not need laura's rebuke when he heard his father say: "clay is good, and you are tired, poor child; but i wanted you so." "clay is not good, father--he did not call me. i would not have treated him so. how could you do it, clay?" clay begged forgiveness and promised not to break faith again; and as he betook him to his bed, he said to himself: "it's a steadfast little soul; whoever thinks he is doing the duchess a kindness by intimating that she is not sufficient for any undertaking she puts her hand to, makes a mistake; and if i did not know it before, i know now that there are surer ways of pleasing her than by trying to lighten her labor when that labor consists in wearing herself out for the sake of a person she loves." a week drifted by, and all the while the patient sank lower and lower. the night drew on that was to end all suspense. it was a wintry one. the darkness gathered, the snow was falling, the wind wailed plaintively about the house or shook it with fitful gusts. the doctor had paid his last visit and gone away with that dismal remark to the nearest friend of the family that he "believed there was nothing more that he could do" --a remark which is always overheard by some one it is not meant for and strikes a lingering half-conscious hope dead with a withering shock; the medicine phials had been removed from the bedside and put out of sight, and all things made orderly and meet for the solemn event that was impending; the patient, with closed eyes, lay scarcely breathing; the watchers sat by and wiped the gathering damps from his forehead while the silent tears flowed down their faces; the deep hush was only interrupted by sobs from the children, grouped about the bed. after a time--it was toward midnight now--mr. hawkins roused out of a doze, looked about him and was evidently trying to speak. instantly laura lifted his head and in a failing voice he said, while something of the old light shone in his eyes: "wife--children--come nearer--nearer. the darkness grows. let me see you all, once more." the group closed together at the bedside, and their tears and sobs came now without restraint. "i am leaving you in cruel poverty. i have been--so foolish--so short-sighted. but courage! a better day is--is coming. never lose sight of the tennessee land! be wary. there is wealth stored up for you there --wealth that is boundless! the children shall hold up their heads with the best in the land, yet. where are the papers?--have you got the papers safe? show them--show them to me!" under his strong excitement his voice had gathered power and his last sentences were spoken with scarcely a perceptible halt or hindrance. with an effort he had raised himself almost without assistance to a sitting posture. but now the fire faded out of his eyes and be fell back exhausted. the papers were brought and held before him, and the answering smile that flitted across his face showed that he was satisfied. he closed his eyes, and the signs of approaching dissolution multiplied rapidly. he lay almost motionless for a little while, then suddenly partly raised his head and looked about him as one who peers into a dim uncertain light. he muttered: "gone? no--i see you--still. it is--it is-over. but you are--safe. safe. the ten-----" the voice died out in a whisper; the sentence was never finished. the emaciated fingers began to pick at the coverlet, a fatal sign. after a time there were no sounds but the cries of the mourners within and the gusty turmoil of the wind without. laura had bent down and kissed her father's lips as the spirit left the body; but she did not sob, or utter any ejaculation; her tears flowed silently. then she closed the dead eyes, and crossed the hands upon the breast; after a season, she kissed the forehead reverently, drew the sheet up over the face, and then walked apart and sat down with the look of one who is done with life and has no further interest in its joys and sorrows, its hopes or its ambitions. clay buried his face in the coverlet of the bed; when the other children and the mother realized that death was indeed come at last, they threw themselves into each others' arms and gave way to a frenzy of grief. transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. my adventures with your money by george graham rice richard g. badger the gorham press boston copyright, 1911, by the ridgway company copyright, 1913, by richard g. badger all rights reserved the gorham press, boston, mass., u.s.a. to the american damphool speculator, surnamed the american sucker, otherwise described herein as the thinker who thinks he knows but doesn't--_greetings_! this book is for you! read as you run, and may you run as you read. g. g. r. new york, march 15, 1913. contents page i the rise and fall of maxim & gay 11 _the birth of an idea to coin money._ _the higher mathematics of the operation._ _how "the one best bet" was coined._ _real inside turf information._ _the public asks to be mystified._ _prestige restored by a clerk's ruse._ _a boastful race player gives aid._ _fortune changes her mood and smiles again._ _the kentucky colonel falls in line._ _betting the public's money at great profit._ _$130,000 is lost and won in a day._ _a disastrous newspaper wind-up._ ii mining finance at goldfield 46 _a partnership of pure nerve._ _bucking the tiger on the desert._ _bidding $3,000,000 when broke._ _millions in the vista held no charms._ _"human interest" versus technical mining._ _beginning the advertising business._ _some advertising that paid._ _building gold mines with publicity._ _hair-raising stories for distant readers._ _the mercury of speculation._ _the birth of bullfrog._ _enter, charles m. schwab._ _why the bottom fell out._ _how about the public's chances?_ _jumping jack manhattan._ iii the brewing of a saturnalia of speculation 89 _trying it on the stray dog._ _advertising for thinkers._ _yes, "business is business."_ _fortunes that were missed._ _the tale of bullfrog rush._ _prize fights and mining promotion._ _the year of big figures._ _the story of goldfield consolidated._ _at the height of the frenzy._ iv the greenwater fiasco 133 _getting into the game._ _all the copper in the world._ _the collapse of greenwater._ _the shame and the blame._ v on the eve of the great goldfield smash 144 _the rise of wingfield and nipon._ _the winnings of a tenderfoot._ _i am landed high and dry._ _the beginning of the raid._ _some pertinent personalities._ _the time when money talks._ _clouds in the western sky._ _from credit to crash._ _down with the sullivan trust company._ _some hindsight that came too late._ vi nipissing and goldfield con 179 _an orgy in market manipulation._ _the guggenheims enter nipissing._ _nipissing on the toboggan._ _who got the $75,000,000?_ _the wonder mining-camp stampede._ _teague attacks senator nixon._ "_calling for a show-down._" _manipulating goldfield con._ _enter, nat. c. goodwin & co._ _the story of the goldfield labor "riots."_ _the death of governor sparks._ vii rawhide 219 _real gold at rawhide._ _the rawhide coalition mines company._ _a race of gamblers._ viii the press agent and the public's money 227 _publicity via elinor glyn._ _"al" miller's siege._ _the funeral oration for riley grannan._ _among the "big fellows."_ _the reverse english._ _the power of the public print._ _rawhide again._ ix the wall street game 264 _good big fish vs. bad little fish._ _righteous wall street and the "sucker" public._ _the marketing of mining stock._ _i buck the wall street game._ _the "double-crossing" of rawhide coalition._ _"inside" market support._ x enter, b. h. scheftels and company 288 _more truth on the "mining financial news."_ _the scheftels principles._ _the scheftels company against margin trading._ xi a fight to the death 308 _the firing of the first guns._ _the story of ely central._ _the assault on ely central._ _the clash of battle._ _a bombshell in the enemy's camp._ _a government raid is rumored._ _the raid on b. h. scheftels and co._ _a tool's confession._ _the guggenheims._ xii the lesson of it all 362 foreword you are a member of a race of gamblers. the instinct to speculate dominates you. you feel that you simply must take a chance. you can't win, yet you are going to speculate and to continue to speculate--and to lose. lotteries, faro, roulette, and horse-race betting being illegal, you play the stock game. in the stock game the cards (quotations or market fluctuations) are shuffled and riffled and stacked behind your back, after the dealer (the manipulator) knows on what side you have placed your bet, and you haven't got a chance. when you and your brother gamblers are long of stocks in thinly margined accounts with brokers, the market is manipulated down, and when you are short of them, the prices are manipulated up. you are on guard against the get-rich-quick man, and you flatter yourself that you can detect his wiles at a glance. you can--one kind of get-rich-quick operator. but not the dangerous kind. modern get-rich-quick finance is insidious and unfrenzied. it is practised by the highest, and you are probably one of its easy victims. one class of get-rich-quick operator uses crude methods, has little standing in the community, operates with comparatively small capital, and caters to those who do not think and have only small resources. he is not particularly dangerous. the other uses scientific methods--so scientific, indeed, that only men "on the inside" readily recognize them; occupies a pedestal in the community; is generally a man of excellent financial standing, a member of a stock exchange; employs large capital; appeals to thinkers or those who flatter themselves that they know the difference between a gold bar and a gold brick, and seeks to separate from their money all classes and conditions of men and women with accumulations large or small. the united states government during the past few years, at the behest of the big fellow, who seeks a monopoly of the game, has been raiding the little fellow--the crude operator whose power to injure is as nothing compared to the ravages that have been wrought by the activities of his really formidable prototype. i have a message to communicate to every investor and speculator, a story to tell of my experience through the great goldfield, bullfrog, manhattan and greenwater mining booms in nevada of 1905-1908, in which the public lost upwards of $200,000,000, and of a series of great mining-stock promotions in wall street and other american financial centers, in which the public sank $350,000,000 in 1910. the narration of the facts demonstrates that the government's get-rich-quick crusade has made it less easy for some of the small offenders to thrive, but that the transcendentally greater culprits are at this very moment plucking the public to a fare-you-well, and that the government has not lifted a finger against them. no man, except a common thief, ever started out to promote a mining company or any other company that he was convinced at the outset had no merit; and the work of common thieves is quickly recognized and the offenders are easily apprehended. the more dangerous malefactors are the men in high places who take a good property, overcapitalize it, appraise its value at many times what it is worth, use artful publicity and market methods to beguile the thinking public into believing the stock is worth par or more, and foist it on investors at a figure which robs them of great sums of money. there are more than a million victims of this practice in the united states. after years of experience behind the scenes, the conclusion is forced upon me that the instinct to speculate is so strong in american men and women that they choose to "take a chance" regardless of the fact that at the outset they already half-realize they eventually must lose. myself, in boyhood, a victim of the instinct to speculate, i, years afterward, at the age of 30, learned to cater to the insatiable desire in others. i spent fortunes for advertising and wrote my own advertisements. i constructed on big lines powerful dollar-making machinery that succeeded in getting the money for my enterprises, and i was generally my own manager. ten years of hard work in a field in which i labored day and night has disclosed to me that the instinct to gamble is all-conquering among women as well as men--the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the wise and the foolish, the successful and the unsuccessful. worse, if you have lost some of your hard-earned money in speculation, your case is undoubtedly incurable, because you have a fresh incentive, namely, to "get even." experience, therefore, will teach you nothing. the professional gambler's aphorism, "you can't kill a sucker," had its genesis in a recognition of this fact, and now stock promoters and manipulators of the multi-millionaire class subscribe to its truth and on it predicate their operations. nearly everybody speculates (gambles); few win. where does the money go that is lost? who gets it? are you aware that in catering to your instinct to "invest," methods to get you to part with your money are so artfully and deftly applied by the highest that they deceive you completely? could you imagine it to be a fact that in nearly all cases when you find you are ready to embark on a given speculation, ways and means that are almost scientific in their insidiousness have been used upon you? what are these impalpable yet cunningly devised tricks that are calculated to fool the wisest and which landed you? i narrate them herein. what are your chances of winning in any speculation where you play another man's game? have you any chance at all? in playing the horse races in years past you had only one chance if you persisted--you could lose. in margin-trading on the new york stock exchange, new york curb, boston stock exchange, boston curb, chicago board of trade, chicago stock exchange, new york cotton exchange and kindred institutions, experience among stock-brokers proves that if you stick to the game you have only one chance--you can lose. in railroad, industrial and mining-stock speculation, where you buy the shares outright and hold them for stock market profits, you have two chances; if you are of the average and your operations are for a period continuous--you can break even if you are very lucky, or lose if you are not; and in justice to myself i must be allowed to explain that i had a much better opinion of the public's chances ten years ago than i have now, and that experience on the inside has taught me this. the moral to the investor and speculator is "never again!" and yet you will speculate again. experience teaches that so long as the chance of speculative gain exists in any enterprise, so long will the american public continue in its efforts to appease its speculative appetite. g. g. r. my adventures with your money chapter i the rise and fall of maxim & gay the place was new york. the time, march, 1901. my age was thirty. my cash capital, tightly placed in my pocket, was $7.30, and i had no other external resources. i was a rover and out of a job. since august of the year before i had been loafing. my last position, seven months before, was that of a reporter for the new orleans _times-democrat_. my last newspaper assignment was the great galveston cyclonic hurricane in which 15,000 lives were lost and $100,000,000 in property was destroyed. i covered that catastrophe for the new york _herald_ and other journals as well as for the new orleans newspaper. it was a "beat" and i netted a big sum for a few days' hard work, but the money had all been spent for subsistence. at the corner of fortieth street and broadway i met an old-time racetrack friend, dave campbell. his face wore a hardy, healthful hue, but he bore unmistakable evidence of being down on his luck. "buy me a drink," he said. "i've got thirty cents in change and i must have a cigar," i answered, "and you know i like good ones." "well, i'll take a beer," he said, "and you can buy yourself a perfecto." no sooner said than done. the cigar and the drink were forthcoming. we sat down. it was a café with the regulation news-ticker near the lunch counter. "do you still bet on the horses?" asked campbell. "no, i haven't had a bet down in more than a year," i answered. "well, here's a letter i just received from frank mead at new orleans, and it ought to make you some money," he said. "there's a 'pig' down here named silver coin," the letter said, "that has been raced for work recently. i think he's fit and ready and that within the next few days they will place him in a race that he can win, and he will bring home the coonskins at odds of 10 to 1." i had seen letters like that before, but my interest was aroused. i picked up a copy of the new york _morning telegraph_ from the table. turning the pages, i noticed a number of tipsters' advertisements, all claiming they were continually giving the public winners on the races. the birth of an idea to coin money "do these people make money?" i asked campbell. "yes, they must," he answered, "because the ads have been running every day for months and months." "well, if poorly written ads like these can make money, what would well-written ads accomplish, and particularly from an information bureau which might give real information?" i queried. a moment later the ticker began its click, click, click. "here come the entries," said campbell. he went to the tape and ejaculated, "by jiminy! here's silver coin entered for to-morrow." the coincidence stirred me. "i've got an idea for an advertisement," i said. "get me a sheet of paper." it was supplied. i wrote: +---------------------------+ | bet your last dollar on | | silver coin | | to-day | | at new orleans | | he will win at 10 to 1 | +---------------------------+ and then i faltered. "i must have a name for the signature," i said. i picked up the newspaper again and turned to the page containing the entries for that day at the new orleans races. a sire's name was given as st. maxim. "maxim!" i said. "that's a good name. i'll use it. now for one that will make euphony." "gay!" said campbell. "how's that? it's sporty." thereupon i created the trade-mark of maxim & gay. in a postscript to this advertisement i stated that the usual terms for this information were $5 per day and $25 per week, and that the day after next maxim & gay would have another selection, which would not be given away free. "maxim & gay" were without an address. half a block away on broadway, at a real estate office, we were informed that upstairs they had some rooms to let. i engaged one of these for $15 a month--no pay for a week. two tin signs were ordered painted, bearing the inscription, "maxim & gay." one was placed at the entrance of the building and the other on the door upstairs. the sign-painter extended credit. before bidding me adieu, campbell exclaimed of a sudden: "by golly! i can't understand that scheme. how can you make any money giving out that silver coin tip for nothing?" "watch and see!" i said. around to the _morning telegraph_ office, then on forty-second street, i went. "insert this ad and give me $7 worth of space," i said, as i shelled out my last cent. when the advertisement appeared the next morning, its aspect was disappointing. the space occupied was only fifty-six agate lines, or four inches, single-column measure. it looked puny. would people notice it? that afternoon campbell and i took possession of the new office of maxim & gay. luckily, a former tenant had left a desk and a chair behind, in lieu of a settlement for rent. in walked a tall texan. "hey there!" he cried. "here's $5. it's yours. keep it. answer my question, and no matter what way you answer it, it don't make any difference. the $5 is yours." i looked up in amazement. "give me the source of your information on silver coin," he said. "i bet big money. if your dope is on the level, i'll bet a 'gob.' if it ain't, your confession will be cheap at $5, which will be all the money i'll lose." i showed him the letter from frank mead. "that's good enough for me," he said, turning on his heel. silver coin won easily at 10 to 1. the betting was so heavy in the new york pool-rooms that, at post time, when 10 to 1 was readily obtainable at the race-track, 6 to 1 was the best price that could be obtained in new york. it is history that the new york city pool-rooms at that time controlled by "jimmy" mahoney were literally "burned up" with winning wagers. pool-room habitués argued it thus: "if the tip is not 'a good thing,' what object in the world would these people have for publishing the ad? if the horse loses, the cost of the advertisement is certainly lost. the only way they can win is for the horse to win." it was good logic--as far as it went. the higher mathematics of the operation but it was really sophistry. if the horse lost, the inserter of the maxim & gay advertisement would be out exactly $7. if the $7 was used to bet on the horse, the most that maxim & gay could win would be $70. i was taking the same losing risk as the bettor, with a greater chance for gain. by investing $7 in the advertisement, it was possible for me to win much more money from the public by obtaining their patronage for the projected tipping bureau. i recall that the experimental features of the advertisement appealed to me strongly and struck me as being a splendid test of the possibilities of the business. if the horse won and there were few responses to the advertisement it would be convincing on the point that there was no money in the tipster branch of the horse-racing game. i argued that if the racing public would not believe that an information bureau was what it cracked itself up to be, in the face of a positive demonstration, how could it be expected to believe the lurid claims of the fakers whose advertisements crowded the sporting papers daily and in which they claimed _after_ the races were run that they named in advance the winners at all sorts of big odds? the next morning about ten o'clock, campbell called at my home and said that he had received another "good thing" by telegraph from mead and that the name of the horse was annie lauretta, with probable odds of 40 to 1. "jiminy!" he exclaimed. "if we only get a few customers to-day and this one wins, what will happen?" leisurely we walked to the office. "if we get ten subscribers to-day to start with, we'll make a fine beginning," i said. as we approached the hotel marlborough, which is opposite the building on broadway in which the maxim & gay company had its modest little office, our attention turned abruptly to a crowd of people who were being lined up by half a dozen policemen. "what theater has a sale of seats to-day?" campbell asked. "don't know," i answered. as we approached the office, we found that the line extended into our own office building. as we ambled up the rickety stairs, we passed the crowd in line, one by one, until we discovered, to our great astonishment, that the line ended at our door. we turned the key, walked in, locked the door, and stood aghast. holding up both hands, i gasped, "in heaven's name, what have we done?" i was appalled. "give 'em annie lauretta," cried campbell. "but suppose annie don't win," i expostulated. "smokes!" exclaimed campbell. "are you going to turn down all those $5 bills?" "let's see that telegram," i faltered. i perused it over and over again. "mead's judgment on silver coin is good enough reason to warrant advising people to put a wager on another one of his choices," campbell argued. i agreed. how to convey the information in merchantable form was the next question. a typist in the hotel marlborough, across the way, was sent for and asked to strike off the name "annie lauretta" 500 or 1,000 times on slips of paper. envelopes were bought and a typed slip was placed in each. the line increased until it was a block and a half long. when all was ready, the door was opened. campbell passed the envelopes out as each man handed me $5. i stuffed the money in the right-hand drawer of the desk, and when that became choked, i stuffed it in the left-hand drawer. finally, the money came so thick and fast that i picked up the waste-paper basket from the floor, lifted it to the top of the desk and asked the buyers to throw their money into the receptacle. when a man wanted change, i let him help himself. for two and a half hours, or until within fifteen minutes of the calling of the first race at new orleans, the crowd thronged in and out of our office. when the last man passed out we counted the money and found the day's proceeds to be $2,755. "what will we do next?" asked campbell. "what's my job, and what do i get?" "how much do you want?" i asked. "ten dollars a day," he said. thereupon he got possession of the $10 and he admitted it was more money than he had seen in a month. "what will we do next?" he repeated. "let us take a walk," i said. "lock the office until after the fourth race, when we see what annie lauretta does." we hied ourselves to a nearby resort and stood by the news ticker to see what would happen to annie. it was half an hour since the third race had been reported. "fourth race--tick--tick--tick," it came. "a--al----," "we've lost!" i cried. "a--al--alpena first." there was grim silence. "tick--tick----," "here she is!" yelled campbell. "a-n-n-i-e lauretta second--40--20--10" (meaning that the odds were 40 to 1, first, 20 to 1, second, and 10 to 1, third, and that those who had played "across the board" had won second and third money at great odds). i boarded a broadway car, rode down to the stewart building and rented one of the finest suites of offices in its sacred purlieus. i ordered a leading furniture dealer to furnish it sumptuously. at night i walked over to the _morning telegraph_ office, laid $250 on the counter, ordered inserted a flaring full-page ad. announcing that maxim & gay had given annie lauretta at 40, 20 and 10, second, and previously silver coin at 10 to 1, won, and were ready for more business. a telegram was sent to frank mead, instructing him to spend money in every direction with a view to getting the very best information that could be obtained from handicappers, clockers, trainers and every other source he could reach. mead continued to wire daily the name of one horse, which we promptly labeled and thereafter advertised daily as "the one best bet." soon "one best bet" became a term to conjure with. the success of this enterprise was phenomenal. in the course of two years it earned in excess of $1,500,000. there were some weeks when the business netted over $20,000 profits. at the height of its career, in the summer of 1902, at the saratoga race meeting, when the pool-rooms in new york were open, our net profits for the meeting of a little less than three weeks were in excess of $50,000. we established an office in saratoga and our average daily sales on race days were 300 envelopes at $5 each. in new york the average was just as large, and, in addition, we had a large clientele in distant cities to whom we sent the information by telegraph. the wire business, in fact, increased to such an extent that it became necessary to call upon the western union and postal telegraph companies to furnish our office in the stewart building with direct loops. i spent the money as fast as i made it. i believed in our own information and made the fatal error of plunging on it. my error, as i afterwards concluded, was in not risking the same amount on every selection. had i done this, i would not have suffered serious losses. the trouble was that every time a horse on which i wagered won, i was encouraged to bet several times as much on the next one, and by doubling and trebling my bets, i played an unequal game. the expense of gathering this information within a few weeks increased to upwards of $1,000 a week, and it was not only our boast, but an actuality, that the bureau did really give more than value received. undoubtedly, the evil of the venture was the gambling it incited; but the effort to secure reliable information was honest, and what young man of my age and of my experiences, having indulged in a lark of the silver coin variety, could withstand the temptation of seeing the thing through? among the leading patrons of the maxim & gay company were soon numbered important horse owners on the turf, leading bookmakers and many leaders of both sexes in the smart set. maxim & gay made it a rule to sell no information of any kind to minors and often excluded young men from the offices for this reason. how "the one best bet" was coined our methods of advertising were unique. we used full pages whenever possible, and it was a maxim in the establishment that small type was never intended for commercial uses. we used in our big display advertisements a nomenclature of the turf that had never before been heard except in the vicinity of the stables, and we coined words and phrases to suit almost every occasion. the word "clocker," meaning a man who holds a watch on horses in their exercise gallops, was original with us, and has since come into common use, as has the phrase, "the one best bet," which we also coined. it was our aim, in using the language of horsemen, to be technical rather than vulgar, the theory being that, if we could convince professional horsemen that we knew what we were talking about, the general public would quickly fall in line. one morning we were alarmed to see in the _morning telegraph_, on the page opposite our own daily effort, the advertisement of a new tipster who called himself "dan smith." dan went maxim & gay "one better" in the use of race-track terminology. he evidently employed a number of negro clockers, for the horse lingo which he used in his advertisements smelled of soiled hay and the manure pile. it was awful! but it made a hit with race-goers, and before a week had passed we recognized "smith" as a dangerous competitor. we were loth to believe that the use of this horsy language was entirely responsible for smith's success, for we knew that his tips were not so good as ours. we investigated. his trick was this: in the sheet that he sent out to his customers, he would name for every race at least five horses as having a chance to win. he advised his clients, in varying terms, to bet on every one of them, and if any one of them won, he would print next morning what he had said on the preceding day regarding the winner alone, leading the public to believe that the only horse he had fancied was the actual winner. i decided to organize another bureau to knock out dan smith. the intention was "to go" our competitor "a few better" in the use of vulgar horse-racing colloquialisms and exaggerated claims, and thus nauseate the betting public and "put the kibosh" on dan. we created a fictitious advertiser whom we named "two spot," and the next morning there appeared at our instigation in the _morning telegraph_ a large display advertisement, headed substantially as follows: +-----------------------------+ | two spot | | turf info. merchant | | terms, $2 daily; $10 weekly | +-----------------------------+ following the style which dan smith had adopted in his racing sheets, "two spot" mentioned in his first advertisement, as a sample of his line of "dope," four or five horses to win each race, each one in more grandiloquent terms than the other, but these were selected because they, in reality, appeared to be the most likely losers of all the entries. a woman was sent over to the newly-organized office of "two spot" to take charge of the salesroom. i was completely taken off my feet the next day when she informed me that the receipts, as a result of the first advertisement, were in excess of $300, and that the public not only did not read between the lines, but had actually fallen for the hoax. to cap the climax, on the second day one of the "outsiders" which "two spot" named derisively as the one best bet "walked in" at 40 to 1! next day "two spot" did a land-office business, and within a few days we figured that the "two spot" venture would net $1,000 a week if continued. "two spot" then went after the game hammer and tongs and endeavored to gage the full credulity of the public. the distinctive difference between "two spot" and maxim & gay was this: maxim & gay, except in one instance, which is chronicled herein, never pretended to have selected a winner when it had not, while "two spot" enjoying the same source of information as maxim & gay, worded his daily advices to clients so artfully as to be able to claim the next morning in his advertisements à la dan smith, the credit of having said something good about every winner. the profits of dan smith's venture, i was informed, exceeded a quarter of a million dollars the first year, and the profits of "two spot," whose career was cut short within a month by a realization on our part that we could not afford to be identified with such an enterprise, was divided among the employees of the "two spot" office. "two spot" had been brought into being for the purpose of killing opposition and not for profit-making. the scheme failed of its purpose. to give an idea of the character of some of the raw kind of advertising put out by "two spot," and for which the public fell, i recall this excerpt from one of his tipping sheets: i am my own clocker. i have slept under horse-blankets for thirty years. i understand the lingo of horses. last night, when i was taking my forty winks in the barn of commando, i heard him whinny to butterfly and tell her to keep out of his way to-day because he was going to "tin-can" it from start to finish, and if butterfly tried to beat him, he would "savage" her. that makes it a cinch for commando. bet the works on him to win. real inside turf information maxim & gay repeated the "silver coin" method of advertising only once during the entire career of the company. this happened in the spring of 1902, when john rogers, trainer for william c. whitney, sent to the post a mare named smoke. our information was that the mare would win, and our selections for the day named her to win--and she did. two days later, she was again entered, against an inferior class of horses, and the handicap was entirely in her favor. notwithstanding this, we inserted an advertisement which appeared in the newspapers on the morning of the race, reading substantially as follows: "_don't bet on smoke to-day. she will be favorite, but she will not win. rockstorm will beat her._" sure enough, smoke opened up favorite in the betting. the betting commissioners of mr. whitney placed large wagers on the horse with the bookmakers. the bulk of the public's money, however, went on rockstorm, and before post time thousands of dollars of the "wise" money followed suit. rockstorm won the race. smoke led into the stretch, when up went her tail and she "blew up." immediately i was cross-questioned by messengers from the judges' stand. they asked our reason why we were so positive that smoke would lose. mr. whitney, i was informed, was actually suspicious that his mare had been "pulled." the reason for the reversal of form, as i explained at the time, was this: william dozier, our chief clocker at the race-track, who had witnessed the preparation which smoke received for the races, was of the opinion that her training had been rushed too fast, and that her first race, instead of putting her on edge, had caused a setback. her first race, in fact, had "soured" her. being a veteran horseman, he was positive that smoke would lose. i afterwards learned that the training of smoke had been left to an understrapper, and that mr. rogers himself was not responsible for her condition. the public asks to be mystified the judges were apparently satisfied, but the public could not readily understand the truth, and we didn't point it out in our advertisements, because our policy was always to appear as mysterious as possible as to the source of our information. mystery played an important rôle in our organization, and it would have been better had we never succeeded in the smoke coup. up to this time my personal identity had not been revealed at the race-track, and even the bookmakers did not know who was the guiding spirit of maxim & gay. "jimmy" rowe, trainer for james r. keene; peter wimmer, trainer for captain s. s. brown of pittsburg, and john rogers, trainer for william c. whitney, were at this early period at various times the rumored sponsors for maxim & gay. the bookmakers and "talent" generally conceived the idea that nobody but a very competent trainer in the confidence of horse owners could possibly be responsible for so much exact information regarding the horses. of course, the track officials who made it their business to know everything knew of my connection with the organization. no sooner, however, did their messengers ask an interview with me than the fact became public property around the race-track and the mask was off. the effect for a while was very bad, for our business fell off considerably. "bismarck" korn, the well-known german bookmaker, put it to me this way on the day of the smoke incident: "you are the first horse tipster i effer saw dat vore eyeclasses, sported a cane, und vore tailor-made cloding. you look like a musicianer--not like a horseman. you're a vonder!" gottfried walbaum, another old-time bookmaker, chimed in: "dat vas obdaining money under false bredenses. i gafe your gompany dwendy-fife dollars a veek for two months alreaty. you gif me my money pack! you are a cheater!" riley grannan, the plunger, said, "got to hand it to you, kid! any time you can put one over on the weisenheimers that have been making a living on race-tracks for twenty years you are entitled to medals!" the attitude of "bismarck" and of walbaum was amusing, that of grannan flattering. but it was poor business, because most of these professional race-track people ceased for a while to subscribe for the maxim & gay service. for months i had purposely kept myself in the background, fearing a dénouement of this very description. i recalled that in the late 80's, in a town of northern vermont, when john l. sullivan was advertised to appear in a sparring exhibition, his manager met him at the train, and, although it didn't rain and the sun didn't shine, an umbrella was raised to cover john l. while walking from the train to a waiting landau. no sooner did sullivan enter the vehicle than the blinds were drawn. when the carriage reached the hotel, it stopped before a side door. the manager alighted before sullivan, again quickly raised the umbrella and whisked the heavy-weight champion past the crowds and up to his room without exposing him to the view of anybody whatsoever. throughout the day sullivan was screened from public gaze. his face was not seen by a single citizen of the town until he appeared on the stage that night. i asked the manager why he was so very careful to shield sullivan from the popular view prior to his appearance before the footlights. i recall that he said: "if the public thought john l. was just an ordinary human being with black mustaches and a florid celtic face, they wouldn't go to see him. the public demand that they be mystified, and to have shown people off the stage that mr. sullivan is just a plain, ordinary mortal would disillusion them and keep money out of the house." that piece of showman's wisdom was fresh in mind during the early career of maxim & gay; and so long as maxim & gay kept race-track men guessing as to who was directing its destinies, the organization was a howling success. its good periods were mixed with bad periods after the mystery of sponsorship was cleared up to the satisfaction of the professionals by the inquiry of the race-track judges into the smoke affair. a few weeks after the smoke coup, our chief clocker informed us that the entries for a big stake race which would be run on the following saturday had revealed to him a "soft spot for a sure winner," as he expressed himself, and he said we could advertise the happening in advance with small chance of going wrong. this we proceeded to do. money poured in by telegraph from distant cities for the "good thing" on saturday. our advertisement on the thursday previous to the race read like this: +---------------------------------+ | the hog-killing of the year | | will come off at sheepshead bay | | on saturday, at 4 o'clock. | | be sure to have a bet down. | | telegraph us $5 for the | | information | +---------------------------------+ one of our constant patrons resided in louisville. he was among the first to whom we telegraphed the information on saturday morning. the race was run and the horse _lost_. about 4:30 p.m. we received a dispatch from our louisville customer, reading as follows: "the hog-killing came off on schedule time--here in louisville. i was the hog." another message from a pool-room habitué reached us, reading: "good game. have sent for more money." we were often in receipt of messages of similar character on occasions when our selections failed to win and our customers lost their money; but these communications were generally in good spirit. on one occasion we had what we believed to be first-hand information regarding a horse which was being prepared for a big betting coup by dave gideon, one of the cleverest horsemen in the country. following our customary method of using vividly glowing advertisements, with the blackest and heaviest gothic type in the print shop, we announced: +----------------------------------------+ | a gigantic hog-killing | | we have inside information of a long | | shot that should win to-morrow at | | 10 to 1 and put half of the bookmakers | | out of business. | | be sure to have a bet down on | | this one. terms $5. | +----------------------------------------+ the _argument_ of the advertisement, which appeared beneath these display lines, was couched in the most glowing terms, and made it very plain that our information came from a secret source, and, further, that we had spent legitimately a snug sum of money to secure the information. we also pointed out that the owner was one of the shrewdest betting men on the turf and seldom went astray when he put down a "plunge" bet on one of his own entries. next day the race was run. the horse did not finish "in the money." the following day we received many letters, as we always did when one of our heavily advertised "good things" lost. one of the most unique of these epistles contained a remonstrance from a philadelphia subscriber. he wrote in this vein: dear sir:--you have been advertising for some days that you would have a gigantic hog-killing to-day. i was tempted by your advertising bait and fell--and fell heavily with my entire bank roll. my bucolic training should have warned me that "hog-killings" are not customary in the early spring, but i fell anyway. permit me to state, having recovered my composure, that armour or swift need have no fear of you as a competitor in the pork-sticking line, for far from making a "hog-killing," you did not even crack an egg. pardon me. thanks. good-by. yours truly, ------prestige restored by a clerk's ruse in the summer of the second year of maxim & gay's great money-gathering career, the information bureau was "out of luck" and the patronage of the bureau fell away to almost nothing. at this period i was seriously ill and confined to my home. a man in my office decided to take advantage of my absence from the scene to improve business a bit on his own hook. it was the habit of our track salesmen, dressed in khaki, to appear at the office at noon every day and receive a bundle of envelopes containing the tips on the races, and then immediately to proceed to the race-track, stand outside of the gates and vend them at $5 per envelope. one day these men, without their knowledge, were supplied with envelopes containing blank sheets of paper instead of the mimeographed list of tips. when a handful of town customers reached the office, they were informed that the selections would be late that day and would be on sale at the track only. at about half-past one o'clock the 'phone bell rang, and word came from the track messengers that apparently a mistake had been made, as their envelopes contained blanks. they were being compelled to refund money. they asked what to do. "wait," they were told. "we will send a messenger immediately with the tips." the messenger never reached the track. there were no tips issued. on that day may j. won at odds of 200 to 1. the next morning, the newspapers contained full-page advertisements announcing that maxim & gay had tipped may j. at 200 to 1 as the day's "one best bet." it could not have been done without a "come-back" if any tips had been issued. a boastful race player gives aid i was not present, but i learned as soon as i became convalescent that on the afternoon of the day the advertisement appeared claiming credit for may j. at 200 to 1, the office was thronged with new customers who enrolled for weekly subscriptions at a rate that put new life into the business. a few of the customers expressed some doubt as to whether maxim & gay gave out the 200 to 1 shot or not. that afternoon there appeared on the scene a race player who, laying $5 down on the desk, said, "give me your good things. i played may j. yesterday at 200 to 1 and i am rolling in money." "where did you buy your information?" "from your man at the entrance to the track," he answered. "at what time?" he was asked. "a quarter to two," he replied. "say, young man, there were a lot of people who came in here this morning who said they were not sure we gave out that selection at all. would you make an affidavit that you bought the information from us?" "you bet i will!" he said; and thereupon a notary public was called in and the caller swore that he had bought the maxim & gay tips at the entrance to the race-track and that they contained may j. at 200 to 1. that affidavit was posted in the office during the remainder of the day. when the clerk who performed this stunt was asked for more information as to how he came to secure such an affidavit, he gave absolute assurance that he did not offer the customer the smallest kind of bribe to make it, and that nothing but an innate desire to call himself "on top" had influenced the man to perjure himself. but i could not tolerate the misleading advertising that had been done as a result of misplaced energy, and the man responsible for it did not remain with the company. fortune changes her mood and smiles again peculiarly enough, the may j. advertisement was followed by a series of brilliant successes for maxim & gay in the selection of winners at big odds, and, within a month our net earnings again reached $20,000 per week. horse owners, horse trainers and society people who frequented the club-house at the race-track were our steadiest patrons. the women particularly were most loyal to our bureau. the wife of a young multi-millionaire of international prominence was one of our most ardent followers. she would never think of putting down a bet without first consulting maxim & gay's selections. on a notable occasion, this lady arrived at the gate of the morris park race-track with her husband, in their automobile, and took the long stroll to the club-house. they were a trifle late for the first race; the horses were already going to the post up the eclipse chute. suddenly the lady discovered she had forgotten to purchase maxim & gay's selections. hastily calling her husband, she gave him a sharp berating for not reminding her to buy the selections. they had a short but earnest interview, which was suddenly terminated by the young man doing a sprint of a quarter of a mile down the asphalt walk from the club-house to the main entrance where the tips were sold by the uniformed employees of maxim & gay. those who witnessed the sprint of the young financier attested to the fact that he never showed as much swiftness of foot in his early college days; but even his unusual speed failed to get him back on time to acquaint his wife with the name of the horse selected by maxim & gay for the first race, the race having been run and the maxim & gay selection having won. the gentleman thereupon got a curtain lecture from his better half that astonished and amused the society patrons on the club-house balcony. thereafter, he never forgot to get the maxim & gay selections. in fact, he made assurance doubly sure by engaging the colored attendant in charge of the field-glasses to deliver the selections to him daily immediately upon his arrival at the course. our popularity with racehorse proprietors was mixed. among the horse owners with whom we transacted business was colonel james e. pepper, the late noted distiller and owner of a big breeding farm and a stable of runners. he was an ardent lover of horses, and maintained that his native kentucky knowledge of thoroughbreds afforded him an opportunity to pick probable winners of horse-races better than any of "them ---faking tipsters." he had great confidence in his judgment for a while. the kentucky colonel falls in line after separating himself from much cash, while one of his very intimate friends was "cleaning up" plenty of money on our selections, he finally strolled into our office one morning and sheepishly stated that one of his "fool friends" had asked him to step in and get our "fool selections" for him. we explained that it was against our rule to give out our choices before 12:30 p.m., whereat he grew exceedingly wroth. he finally agreed to our conditions, paid his money and was given an order to get the selections at the track-entrance from one of our messengers. nearly all of our choices won that day. colonel pepper came in the following morning and paid for another subscription, this time for a week's service. we were "in our stride," the majority of our selections winning from day to day, and colonel pepper had cause for exultation. on one of these days we divulged, on our racing sheet, the name of a "sleeper" that we were confident would win at 10 to 1, a big betting coup having been planned by that napoleon of the turf, john madden. the horse won at big odds, and colonel pepper made a "killing" on the information. for the next day, our clockers had spotted another horse that had been got ready by the light of the moon, and we spread it pretty strong in our advertisements that the horse we would name could just fall down, get up again and then "roll home alone." the horse did not fall down; but he won; he "rolled home alone" by about ten lengths. he belonged to colonel pepper. it was anticipated that about 20 to 1 would be laid against this fellow, but on account of our strong tip, he opened at 10 to 1 and was played down to 3 to 1. the bookmakers were badly crimped. the next day, as soon as the office opened, colonel pepper, hotter under the collar than even his name might indicate, stamped into the outer room. slamming his cane down on the big mahogany table, he demanded in stentorian tones: "what in the ---does this ---business mean? here i come and subscribe my good money to your ---fool tips, and you-all are so low-down mean as to give my hoss for the good thing yesterday! what does it mean, suh; what does it mean?" the use of considerable diplomacy was necessary to calm down the irate colonel, who had no compunctions in winning a big bet on mr. madden's "sleeper," but "---it, suh, it is outrageous to treat _me_ so." the colonel never got over that incident, and while he won a big bet on his own horse, he always claimed that maxim & gay had ruined the betting odds for him and that but for the vigilance of our clockers his winnings would have been twice as large. this was true, and time and again we ruined the price for many another owner who thought he was going to get away with something on the sly. bookmakers as a rule are very much self-satisfied about their knowledge of the mathematics of the game. in order to show them that they didn't know all about it, the maxim & gay company inserted an advertisement one day reading substantially as follows: +---------------------------------------+ | you pay us $5 | | | | we refund $6 | | | | if the horse we name as | | | | the one best bet | | | | to-day does not win, we will not | | only refund our $5 fee, which is | | paid us for the information, but will | | pay each client an extra dollar | | by way of forfeit. | | | | pay us $5 to-day for our one best | | bet, and if the horse does not win | | we will pay you $6 to-morrow. | | | | maxim & gay co. | +---------------------------------------+ our receipts that day were approximately $5,000. the horse did not win. we refunded $6,000 next day, and netted a considerable sum of money on the operation. it happened to be a two-horse race. our horse was at odds of 1 to 6 in the betting, that is to say, the bookmakers laid only one dollar against every six bet by the public. the other horse ruled at odds of 5 to 1, meaning that here the bookmakers laid five dollars against the public's one. the maxim & gay company sent to the track $1,000 out of the $5,000 paid in by its customers and wagered the $1,000 on the contending horse at odds of 5 to 1, drawing down $4,000 in winnings. from this money it paid its clients the thousand-dollar forfeit, netting $4,000 on the operation, after of course returning to them their own $5,000. had the 1 to 6 shot won, the clients who had received the winning tip would have been happy, while the maxim & gay company would not have been compelled to refund any money and would have been ahead $4,000 on the operation, the $1,000 wagered and in that event lost in the betting ring on the other horse being subtracted from the $5,000 paid in by its customers. no matter which horse won our gain was sure to be $4,000 and we had here the ideal of a "sure thing." it was a case of "taking candy from a baby"; and yet many of the wise bookmakers could not at first figure it out. nearly all of them subscribed for the information. as for the public, they did not seem to catch on at all. betting the public's money at great profit the eastern racing season was about to close and it was decided to remove the entire force of clerks to new orleans for the winter and there to depart from the usual practice of selling tips only, and to bet the money of the american public on the horses at the race-track in whatever sums they wished to send. the company employed sol lichtenstein, then the most noted bookmaker on the american turf, to bet the money, and made him part of the organization, giving him an interest in the profits. the maxim & gay company at this time had made close to $1,000,000, and recklessly and improvidently i had let it slip through my fingers. it was "easy come and easy go." as i review that period in my career, i recall that the whole enterprise appeared to me in the light of an experiment--just trying out an idea, and having a lot of fun doing it. because of its dazzling success i became so confident of my ability to make money at any time that i didn't take serious heed whether i accumulated or not. besides, i had never loved money for money's sake. all the pleasure was in the accomplishing. the races at new orleans were advertised to start on thanksgiving day. on the 15th of october i ordered $20,000 worth of display advertising to run in thirty leading newspapers in the united states four days a week, until thanksgiving. credit was extended for the bill by one of the oldest advertising agencies in america. the advertisements told the public to send their money to maxim & gay, canal street, new orleans. on my arrival there, two days before thanksgiving, i called at the post-office, and asked if there was any mail for maxim & gay. the post-office clerk appeared to be startled. he gazed at me as if he were watching a burglar in the act. his demeanor was almost uncanny. he didn't talk. he didn't even move. he just looked. finally i asked, "what is the matter?" "wait a minute," he muttered. he left the window. he did not return. instead, what appeared to me to be a united states deputy marshal ambled up to my side and said, "see here; the postmaster wants to see you." i was escorted into a secluded chamber in the post-office building, and a few minutes later a post-office official, along with three or four assistants, came into the room. "what's the trouble?" i asked. "you bring us a recommendation as to who you are and what you are and all about yourself before we will answer any of your questions as to how much mail there is here for you," the official said. i smiled. the advertising, then, was a success. having been employed as a newspaper man in new orleans a few years before, i knew one of the leading lawyers of the city and several bank officials. within thirty minutes i had lawyer and bank men before the postmaster, vouching for my identity. thereupon i was informed that there were 1,650 pieces of registered mail, evidently containing currency, and, in addition, twelve sacks of first-class mail matter, which contained many money-orders, checks and inquiries. the official said that in the money-order department they had notices of nearly 2,000 money-orders issued on new orleans for the maxim & gay company. i sent a wagon for the mail, and notwithstanding the fact that a force of four men under me opened the letters and stayed with the job for two days, the task was not completed when the first race was called on thanksgiving day. on adding up the receipts, we found a little over $220,000. the meeting continued 100 days, and our total receipts for the whole period were $1,300,000. maxim & gay's system of money-making at new orleans was as follows: we charged each client $10 per week for the information. we charged 5 per cent. of the net winnings in addition, and we further contracted to settle with customers only at the closing odds for bets placed, retaining for ourselves the difference between the opening odds and the closing odds. the profit averaged approximately $7,000 a day for 100 days--to us. as a guarantee of good faith, the maxim & gay company agreed with its clients that each day it would deposit in the post-office and mail to them a letter bearing a postmark prior to the hour of the running of the race, naming the horse their money was to be wagered on; and this was always done. an honest effort, too, was always made to pick a horse that was likely to win, for even a child can see that if we did not intend to bet the money and wanted to pick losers, all we would have had to do was to make book in the betting ring at the race-track and not spend thousands of dollars in advertising for money to lay against ourselves. did we invariably bet the money of our clients on the horse we named? yes, always--except once! $130,000 is lost and won in a day that incident is not easily forgotten by several. on this day the entry which we selected was one of durnell & hertz's string. the horse was known to be partial to a dry track. the "dope" said he could not win in heavy going. it was a beautiful sunshiny morning when we selected this horse to win, and at noon the envelopes containing the name of the horse were mailed in the post-office, as usual. something happened. half an hour before the race was run it began to rain in torrents and the track became a sea of mud. durnell & hertz, realizing that they were tempting fate to expect their horse to win under such conditions, appeared in the judges' stand and asked permission to scratch their entry. the judges refused. i asked sol lichtenstein, who had the wagering of our client's money in charge, what he proposed to do about betting on the horse under the changed conditions. he exclaimed, "bet? do you want to burn up the money?" "well, if he wins," i replied, "we will have to pay, because if he wins and you don't bet and we say we changed the selection on account of the rainstorm, they will not believe us and we will have trouble." "very well," he said. "you bet my book all the money, and we will, for the first time, book against our own choice. it's fair, because we must pay if we lose, and there is no way out of it. but don't burn up that money." i agreed. the opening odds against the horse were 2 to 1. had it been a dry track, he would have opened a hot favorite at 4 to 5 or so. slowly the odds lengthened to 10 to 1, which was the ruling price at the close. durnell & hertz bet on another horse to win. standing before sol lichtenstein's book, i said: "thirteen thousand on our selection, sol." "one hundred and thirty thousand to $13,000," he answered. "here's your ticket." sol and i repaired to the press-stand to see the race. durnell & hertz's entry got off in the lead. at the quarter he was in front by two lengths. at the half the gap of daylight was five lengths. at the turn into the stretch the horse was leading by nearly a sixteenth of a mile. then i heard a noise behind me as if a miniature dynamite bomb had exploded. sol's heavy field-glasses had dropped to the floor. sol did not wait to see the finish. the horse won in a gallop. at the office of maxim & gay accounts were figured and checks signed for the full amount of our obligations, and they were immediately mailed to all subscribers. at midnight i met sol in the lobby of the st. charles hotel. he looked worn. "i guess that will hold us!" he moaned. "hold us?" i answered. "nothing better ever happened. it'll make us!" "you poor nut!" he exclaimed. "lose $130,000 in a day and it will make you! stop your noise!" "listen!" i rejoined. "at an expense of $3,000 for tolls i have telegraphed a full-page ad to fifty leading city newspapers, telling the public that we tipped this horse to-day at 10 to 1 and that we mailed checks to our customers to-night for $130,000. the gain we will reap in prestige and fresh business will repay our loss on the horse." the next day the western union telegraph company found it necessary to assign three cashiers to the work of issuing checks to the maxim & gay company for money telegraphed by new customers. some individual remittances were as high as $2,000. the money telegraphed us amounted to about $150,000, and within ten days eighty per cent. of our own dividend checks were returned to us by our customers, indorsed back to us with instructions to double their bets, and within two weeks we were able to figure that in the neighborhood of $375,000 was sent us as a result. a disastrous newspaper windup during the progress of the new orleans meeting, i purchased a controlling interest in the new york _daily america_--a newspaper patterned after the _morning telegraph_--from a group of members of the metropolitan turf association, who had sunk about $75,000 in the enterprise. the _morning telegraph_ was in the hands of a receiver. i calculated that, by transferring the maxim & gay advertisements from the _morning telegraph_ to the _daily america_, i could make the _daily america_ pay and force the _morning telegraph_ out of the field. later, the late william c. whitney, who was a shining light on the turf as well as in finance, was induced to purchase the _morning telegraph_. then trouble began to brew for me. one morning i was summoned to the offices of august belmont on nassau street. "for the good of the turf, you must omit your maxim & gay advertisements from the _daily america_ and other newspapers hereafter," declared mr. belmont on my entering his room. "why?" asked i. "they flagrantly call attention to betting on the races," he replied. "but you allow betting at the tracks." "yes," he replied, "but public sentiment is beginning to be aroused against betting, and an attack is bound to result." it occurred to me that at that very time mr. whitney was engaged in disposing of his stock in various traction enterprises in new york to mr. belmont and his syndicate, and that in all probability mr. whitney had sought the assistance of mr. belmont to put the _daily america_ out of business in this way. it was apparent that the _daily america_ would lose money fast without the maxim & gay advertising. maxim & gay, too, would practically be compelled to close up shop if it could not advertise. i promised to consider. returning to the _daily america_ office, i decided to pay no attention to mr. belmont's request, having become convinced that it was conceived in the interest of the _morning telegraph_. a few days later i was again summoned over the 'phone to mr. belmont's office. when i was ushered into mr. belmont's presence he said: "if you don't quit advertising the maxim & gay company in the _daily america_, i will see william travers jerome, and he will stop you." mr. jerome was then district attorney, and the idea of doing anything that mr. jerome considered illegal appalled me. "if mr. jerome sends word to me that the maxim & gay advertising is illegal, i will discontinue it," i said. i did not hear from mr. jerome, and so went on with the advertising. within a few weeks the washington race meeting opened at bennings. when the maxim & gay staff reached there, we were all informed that the post-office department was about to begin an investigation into our business affairs, and all of our staff voluntarily appeared before the inspectors and underwent an examination. our books were also submitted. this investigation, coming on the heels of mr. belmont's threat, convinced me that the influence of mr. belmont and mr. whitney reached all the way to washington, and i concluded that if i did not discontinue the maxim & gay advertising in the _daily america_, and then, of course, discontinue the _daily america_, they would make serious trouble. so i hung out the white flag. i announced my retirement from the maxim & gay company and offered to sell my newspaper to mr. whitney. my exchequer was low. nearly every dollar i had made in the maxim & gay enterprise had been lost by me in plunging on the races myself. during the following week mr. whitney received me at his palatial home on fifth avenue just after his breakfast hour. he interviewed me for about an hour, obtained my price on the paper, which was what i had put into it, namely $60,000, and promised to cable to colonel harvey, then, as now, the distinguished editor of the harper publications, who was in paris, asking his advice, saying that colonel harvey advised him in all newspaper matters. i did not hear from mr. whitney again; but i did discover that my business manager was in close communication with mr. whitney and that the state of my financial condition every evening was being religiously reported to him. a few weeks later i was compelled to put the paper in the hands of a receiver, and a representative of mr. whitney bought it for $6,500, or about 10 cents on the dollar, and put it to sleep, leaving the field to the _morning telegraph_. from that moment the _morning telegraph_, which for a short period had been refusing all tipster advertising, resumed the acceptance of such business and has continued that policy up to this day. a year after i retired from maxim & gay, attorney-general knox decided that racehorse tipping is an offense against the old lottery law, and those who now advertise tips instruct that no money be sent by mail. having lost the _daily america_ and having "blown" the maxim & gay company, i was again broke. but my credit was good, particularly among race-track bookmakers. that summer, 1904, i became a race-track plunger, first on borrowed money and then on my winnings. by june i had accumulated $100,000. in july i was nearly broke again. in august i was flush once more, having recouped to the extent of about $50,000. early in september i went overboard; that is to say, i quit the track losing all the cash i had and owing about $8,000 to a friendly bookmaker. disgusted with myself, i longed for a change of atmosphere. i stayed around new york a few days, when the yearning to cut away from my moorings and to rid myself of the fever to gamble became overpowering. i bought a railroad ticket for california and, with $200 in my clothes, traveled to a ranch within fifty miles of san francisco, where i hoed potatoes, and did other manual labor calculated to cure race-trackitis. in less than six weeks i felt myself a new man, and decided to stick to the simple life forevermore--away from race-tracks and other forms of gambling. but i didn't. chapter ii mining finance at goldfield i had never visited san francisco. being close to the city of the golden gate--within fifty miles--i decided to "take a look." so one evening, in the late fall of 1904, i packed my grip and within two hours was comfortably housed in the old palace hotel. the first man i met on entering the lobby was w. j. arkell, formerly one of the owners of _frank leslie's weekly_ and of _judge_. "hello, bill!" i exclaimed. "what are you doing here?" "same as you," he answered. "morse trimmed me in american ice, and i'm broke. i am in hock to the hotel. they think i am worth $2,000,000. i haven't 20 cents." during the evening we consoled each other over a series of silver gin fizzes, several of which arkell paid for with the stub of a pencil. my companion promulgated a scheme for the quick putting on their feet of two eastern rovers adrift in the big coast city, and that night there was formed the w. j. arkell advertising agency. then the horse-tipping firm of "jack hornaday" was established. i declared that i preferred to have little to do with it except to show "willie" how it had been done in new york by maxim & gay. "i will do it for you, bill," i said; "but no more for me--i've had enough." "jack hornaday" advertisements appeared daily in all the san francisco papers. capable clockers and handicappers were hired and some excellent information was obtained. race-goers got a run for their money. but something happened. the race-track trust, which enjoyed a big pull in the san francisco _examiner_ office, soon realized that somebody outside of the inner circle was getting the public's money, and every day that "jack hornaday" tipped a loser the _examiner_ carried on its sporting page a notice to the effect that "jack hornaday's" tip had resulted very disastrously to his clients. a partnership of pure nerve "jack hornaday" discontinued business. i began to like san francisco and the coast. being thrown among arkell's associates in the palace hotel lobby, from time to time i naturally heard a great deal of talk about the new nevada mining camp of tonopah. "rice," said arkell one evening, "come with me up to tonopah and be my press agent. we will get hold of a mining property up there, promote a company and make a barrel of money." "what do you know about mines?" i asked. "well, i've lost enough in 'em to know a great deal," he answered. "i don't know a mine from a hole in the ground, and i know nothing about the stock-brokerage business; so i don't see how i can be of any assistance," i said. "don't let that bother you," he replied. "i'll show you how. you come with me." "i will go on one condition," i said. "i am in for half on anything you do." we shook hands and it was a bargain. we went to the depot. i had a trifle less than $150 in my pocket. arkell had $75. "suppose we get stranded out there, what will happen?" i propounded. "oh, forget it!" he answered. "how can a couple of easterners like us, wide awake and with phosphorus brains, get stranded in a place where they dig silver and gold out of the ground?" we journeyed to tonopah--a thirty-six-hour ride. the altitude is 6,000 feet, and it was cold, nasty, penetrating winter weather. during the last hundred miles of our journey across the mountainous desert we looked out of the car window and saw trainload after trainload of what was said to be ore coming from the opposite direction, and we decided that tonopah was a sure-enough mining camp and that some of the sensational stories about bonanza mines that we had heard were really true. bucking the tiger on the desert arriving in tonopah after dusk, we sought hotel accommodations. the best we could get was a bed in a forbidding looking one-story annex, walled with undressed pine and roofed with tarpaulin. it was located 100 feet to the rear of the hotel, which was already crowded with miners and soldiers of fortune drawn from all quarters of the world by the mining excitement. its aspect was so inhospitable that arkell and i decided not to retire for a little while. we gravitated out toward the barroom, where the click of the roulette wheel caught our ears. we sat down to watch the game. soon we were buying stacks of checks and ourselves bucking the tiger excitedly. in an hour the remnants of my $150 passed to the ownership of the man behind the game, and arkell had put his last two-bit piece on the black and lost. i looked at him. he looked at me. "umph!" he grunted. "better hit the feathers!" meekly i followed him to the annex. when we got under the soiled gray woolen blankets, i remarked: "i've got a cane and an umbrella and three suits of clothes. do you think we can sell them in the morning for enough to provide breakfast money?" "oh, come off!" exclaimed my partner. "wait till i present my card around this burg in the morning; then we will get all the breakfast we want." we awoke hungry, as all men have a habit of doing when they are broke. "i am going over to the montana-tonopah mining company's office," said arkell. "a mining engineer by the name of malcolm macdonald makes his headquarters over there and he wants to sell some mining properties at goldfield and in other parts of the state for about three million dollars." "three millions!" i exclaimed. "yes," said arkell. "i'll get the facts and wire them to my friend joe hoadley in new york." "say, bill," i remonstrated, "they have a privately-owned jerkline telegraph in this town, and if you send any 'phony' telegrams over the wire, they'll be on to you. so don't do any of that kind of business." "nothing of the kind!" replied he promptly. "any message i send to hoadley he'll answer." "i guess you have it fixed on the other end," i remarked. he laughed. we strolled over to the state bank and trust company building, across the street, and there met malcolm macdonald, a mining engineer from butte, montana, and his friend, mr. dunlap, who was at the time secretary of the montana-tonopah mining company. the conversation was not more than five minutes old when arkell suggested that he would like to eat breakfast, but "didn't want any restaurants in his," intimating that he would like to have some good, old-fashioned home cooking. mr. dunlap remarked modestly that the camp was too young to boast of much home cooking, but that if we would be his guests he would guarantee to make arrangements for some special cooking at the palace restaurant. bidding $3,000,000 when broke after breakfast, which consisted of mountain trout, the flavor of which was more delicious than anything i had tasted in many years--probably because of the artificial hunger which an empty purse had created--we returned to the office of the bank. there arkell explained to mr. macdonald that he wanted "a big mining proposition or nothing." he said he represented big eastern capital and that he was prepared to pay from one to three millions for the right kind of property. mr. macdonald named some mines and prospects which he said he was willing to sacrifice for $3,000,000. one of them was the simmerone, of goldfield, which mr. macdonald offered for $1,000,000. we afterward learned that he had paid $32,000 for it. at that time there was a six-foot hole in the ground, and the whole property contained less than five acres. a stockade had been built around the workings on account of the extreme richness of the ore that had been opened at grass-roots. mr. macdonald also offered for sale a lead property at reveille and a lead-silver property at tybo, both situated about 70 to 100 miles from a railroad. (later these properties, along with some others, were promoted by charles minzesheimer & company, a new york stock exchange house, as the nevada smelters & mines company and passed on to the public at a valuation of $5,000,000. the market value of the entire capitalization of this company is now less than $10,000.) these "mines" were to be put into the deal at $1,000,000 each. millions in the vista held no charms arkell wrote a dispatch to the east in the presence of our newly-made friends, describing the offering. then he and i held a consultation, and he vouchsafed the information that we would certainly get a free automobile ride to goldfield and have a chance to see there the new boom mining camp. i got "cold feet." arkell's talk of visionary millions in that bleak environment of snow-clad desert and wind-swept mountain didn't enthuse me at all. i protested against the proposed trip to goldfield, and insisted that i should be allowed to telegraph to relatives for money with which to return to the coast. but arkell persisted. he declared that the expense of the trip to goldfield and back to tonopah would be borne by the vendors of the mines and that our return trip to san francisco would be delayed only one day. i left my grip, umbrella and cane in tonopah, intending to return the same evening, and boarded the automobile for goldfield. arrived in goldfield, we were escorted to the simmerone. arkell appeared to be very much impressed, although he remarked to me a few minutes later that he would not give $34 for the whole layout. and therein he was wise. the simmerone was later capitalized for 1,000,000 shares, each share of a par value of $1, ballooned on the san francisco and goldfield stock exchanges to $1.65 a share, and then allowed to recede to nothing bid, one cent per share asked. the rich ore "petered out." there was an indefinable something in the atmosphere of goldfield--a new, budding mining camp, at an altitude of 5,000 feet and on the frontier--that stirred me, and i decided to stay awhile. arkell determined that he would go back to tonopah and get an option on the control of a mining company known as the tonopah home, which mr. dunlap had mentioned to him in the automobile en route to goldfield. he said he would then go to san francisco to promote it. the reason why he decided to handle the tonopah home, i afterward discovered, was that it was already incorporated and stock certificates had been printed, thereby eliminating the delay and expense incident to preparing something for the immediate consumption of the san francisco public. "how am i going to subsist here for a few days until i can begin to make a living?" i asked arkell. "how am i going to get back to tonopah and from there to san francisco?" arkell asked me. at that moment we stood in front of the goldfield bank and trust company's building--a tin bank literally as well as figuratively. it was constructed of corrugated iron and tin. a few months later, when the bank went up the flume, the cash balance found in the safe aggregated 80 cents. "you take me into this bank and introduce me and i will cash a check," he said. "a check on what?" i asked. "on my bank in canajoharie, new york," he said. "i was born and brought up there, and they wouldn't let one of my checks go to protest. besides, i can get back to 'frisco and protect it by telegraph, if necessary, before it reaches canajoharie." we entered the bank. i introduced myself to the cashier as an eastern newspaper man, and then introduced w. j. arkell as the former publisher of _leslie's weekly_, _judge_, and so on. after a brief parley, arkell exchanged his paper for real money to the amount of $50. on leaving the bank, i said: "now, bill, come across! i'm flat broke, on the desert." he handed me $15. i was satisfied, because he needed all of the $35 to get back to civilization. "human interest" versus technical mining after arkell's departure for tonopah i went to the office of the goldfield _news_ and asked for a job. i got it, at $10 a day. my first assignment was to interview an old miner named tom jaggers. i wrote what i considered a first-class human-interest story, and handed it to the owner and editor, "jimmy" o'brien. he thought it was fair writing, but not the sort of matter the goldfield _news_ wanted. it wanted technical mining stuff. of course i didn't know a winze from a windlass, nor a shaft from a stope, and some of the weird yarns i handed in about mine developments certainly did make mr. o'brien jump sideways at times. within a week i was discharged for incompetency. i was not at all appalled at losing my job on the goldfield _news_. i had begun to like the life and was convinced there were some real gold mines in the camp. i was a tenderfoot and knew little or nothing about the mining business, but the visible aspect of shipment upon shipment of high-grade ore leaving the camp by mule-team was convincing. what probably impressed me most was the evident sincerity of the trail-blazers who had been on the ground since the day the camp was born. these men had suffered all kinds of hardships to hold their ground and make a go of the camp which, when discovered, was situated 100 miles from a railroad station and at least 25 miles from a known water-supply. tradition said that men had died of thirst on the very spot where goldfield was now adding daily to the world's wealth. my environment became an inspiration. there were a few penny-mining-stock brokerage firms doing business with the outside world, and the idea of starting an advertising agency appealed to me strongly. here was an opportunity for the great american speculating public to take "a flyer" on something much more tangible and lasting than a horse-race, i determined. failing to locate a furniture store i ordered a long, rough, pine board table made by a carpenter, rented desk-room from the goldfield bank and trust company right in front of the cashier's counter, and secured the services of an expert male stenographer from cripple creek. the goldfield-tonopah advertising agency was born. beginning the advertising business the idea of applying to the american newspaper publishers' association for recognition did not occur to me. i did not know that such was the practise of agents. i did believe, however, from my ad-writing experience with the maxim & gay company, in new york, that i could write money-getting advertising copy. further, my experience in making contracts with advertising agents for the publication of maxim & gay's advertising in the newspapers throughout the land had, it seemed, conveyed to me sufficient information regarding that end of the business to fortify me in my new field. next morning i entered the office of the mims-sutro company, a newly established brokerage firm, and urged advertising. "we are already spending about $100 a month," said the manager. "one hundred dollars a month!" i exclaimed. "why, you ought to be spending that much every hour!" at first they thought me a fanatic on the subject, but within a fortnight i succeeded in inducing them to spend $1,000 in a single day for advertising. it was not, however, until after i had shown them how to follow up their correspondence successfully that they began to believe in me. i wired to nearly all of the important city newspapers throughout the country for rates. after obtaining their replies i decided to spend $500 in the chicago sunday _american_, and $500 in the san francisco _examiner_ in one issue. i forwarded the copy with the money, and it appeared promptly. the results were good--so good, indeed, that within two months the mims-sutro company was spending at the rate of from $5,000 to $10,000 a week for advertising, and my commissions amounted to thousands. my contracts with the advertisers required them to pay me one-time rates, and my contracts with the publishers permitted me to send in copy at long-time rates, and the profit was about 45 per cent. and inasmuch as i always sent cash with the order, my copy was in great demand. indeed, my agency was fairly inundated day after day with blank contracts from newspapers all over the country, the managers of which were clamoring for the goldfield business. in addition to the mims-sutro account, i soon had many others; in fact, i had all the others. within six months after my arrival in goldfield my agency netted me $65,000. some advertising that paid my second best customer was january jones, the noted welsh miner, and later, when the corporation of patrick, elliott & camp swung into business as promoter, i placed its advertising. i held it, too, until the death of c. h. eliott, when the control of that firm fell into other hands and it ultimately went out of business. in the course of three years my advertising agency inserted in the neighborhood of $1,000,000 worth of advertising in the newspapers of the united states, chiefly those of the big cities, and all of the advertising made money. it simply had to make money, because the brokers who did the advertising had little or nothing to begin operations with except the mines, and the mines were not their property. the most remarkable feature of that advertising campaign to me was that i had never been a stock-broker, had never been a mine-promoter, and had never been in a mining camp before; but still, despite my utter lack of knowledge, to begin with, of the technical end of the business, my advertisements pulled in the dollars. i was an enthusiast. i believed in the merits of the camp, and my enthusiasm undoubtedly carried itself to the readers of my advertisements. but the quality of the advertising copy did not entirely explain my success in bringing the money into goldfield. the stock offerings undoubtedly _struck a popular chord_. tens of thousands of people who for years had been imbibing the daily financial chronicles of the newspapers, but whose incomes were not sufficient to permit them to indulge in stock-market speculation in rails and industrials, found in cheap mining stocks the thing they were looking for--an opportunity for those with limited capital to give full play to their gambling, or speculative, instinct. time and again promotions were almost completely subscribed by telegraph in advance of mail responses reaching goldfield; and it frequently needed but the publication of a half-page advertisement in 40 or 50 big city newspapers, of a sunday, to bring to goldfield by wire before monday night sufficient reservations to guarantee oversubscription in a few days. it was easy to give full play to my penchant for experimenting, in the evolution of mining-stock promotion in goldfield. the old system, and the one which recently has enjoyed much vogue among financial advertisers, was the endeavor first to get names of investors rather than immediate results from the advertisements, and to follow them up by correspondence. in spending the first $1,000 appropriated for advertising from goldfield, i split the money between two newspapers on one day. i constructed large display advertisements and appealed for direct, quick replies. this succeeded. building gold mines with publicity a little later i organized a news bureau as an adjunct of the advertising agency. it is acknowledged that this news bureau accomplished much for nevada. as a matter of fact, it is generally conceded by goldfield pioneers and by mining-stock brokers throughout the country that the news bureau was directly responsible for bringing into the state of nevada tens of millions of dollars for investment, and was indirectly responsible for the opening up of the mohawk and other great gold mines of the goldfield camp and of the state. the prospectors who located goldfield were without means. george wingfield, the man who is now president of the merged goldfield consolidated, came into the mining camps with only $150. no funds of consequence were available from home sources. the money that later made goldfield the "greatest gold camp on earth" came from the outside, and the news bureau secured it by focusing the attention of the american public on the great speculative possibilities of investments in the mining securities and leases of the camp. one of the leases, known as the hayes-monnette, operated with chicago money, afterward opened up the great mohawk ore deposit at a period when there was no money in the treasury of the mohawk mining company to do its own development work. and there are scores of other instances which bear me out. i was head of the news bureau, and the news bureau was nevada's publicity agent. i have always considered my work in this direction in the light of an achievement. no one contributed a dollar to the news bureau except myself. hair-raising stories for distant readers that news bureau, with its headquarters on the desert, at a time when water was commanding $4 a barrel in goldfield and coal could not be obtained in the camp for love or money, was operated with as much calculating judgment as it could have been were it subsidized by the most powerful interests in america. human-interest stories that were written around the camp, its mines and its men, were turned out every day by competent newspaper men. these were forwarded to the daily newspapers in the big cities of the east and west for publication in the news columns. most of the stories were accepted and published. whenever hesitancy was observed, publishers were tempted by the news bureau with large advertising copy to continue to give the camp publicity. of such great assistance in arousing public interest did i find this work that noted magazinists like james hopper were imported to camp and pressed into service by the news bureau to write readable stories. at times, when public interest appeared to lag, the wires were used by the camp's newspaper correspondents to obtain publicity for all kinds of sensational happenings that were common on the desert. reports of gold discoveries, high play at gambling-tables, shooting affrays, gamblers' feuds, stampedes, hold-ups, narrow escapes, murders, and so forth, were used to rouse the public's attention to the fact that a mining camp called goldfield was on the horizon. i felt confident that the speculating public was going to make a great big "killing" in goldfield. tonopah, twenty-six miles to the north, was making good in a wonderful way. it had already enriched philadelphia investors to the extent of millions. i could see no reason why goldfield should not at least duplicate the history of tonopah. never in my life had i lived in an environment that inspirited me as this one. the visages of those around me were, as a rule, roughly hewn; the features of many were marked with all the blemishes that had been put upon them by time, by sleepless nights, by anxiety and by contact with the elements; but courage, sincerity and honesty of purpose were written in every line of their faces. i became imbued with the idea that investors who put their money into goldfield stocks were not only going to get an honest run for their money, in that the mines were going to be developed and many would make good, but that the opportunity for money-making, if embraced by the public at that time, would earn a great reputation for the man who educated the public to a full understanding of the situation. the mercury of speculation mining-stock speculators and investors at a distance who responded to the red-hot publicity campaign which marked those early days of goldfield rolled up enormous profits, and i made no mistake. terrific losses came eighteen months later, as a result of a madness of mining-stock speculation which followed on the heels of the great mohawk boom and the merger of various goldfield producers into a $36,000,000 corporation. this was taken advantage of by "wild-catters" in every big city of the country, and the public was fleeced to a finish. but of this more and a plenty later. in those early days my agency advertised goldfield laguna at 15 cents per share in order to finance the company for mine operations. within a year thereafter goldfield laguna sold at $2 a share on the san francisco stock exchange, and was absorbed by the goldfield consolidated at that figure. and there were many others which duplicated or exceeded the performance of laguna. at the time of which i tell, when laguna was promoted at 15 cents, goldfield was about a year old. a population of about 1,500 had gathered there from all sections of the country. there were mining experts from salt lake, san francisco and colorado, and miners from every part of the western mining empire; saloon-keepers from alaska and mexico; real-estate brokers from practically every western state and a scattering of "tin-horns." it was about as motley a gathering as one could find anywhere in the world, but compositely they were a sturdy lot. the camp was enjoying its maiden boom. in sixty days real-estate values had jumped from $25 for a lot on main street to $5,500. roughly constructed business houses banked the main thoroughfare for two or three blocks. the heavy traffic incident to hauling in supplies from tonopah had ground the dirt of the street into an impalpable mass of dust to the depth of fifteen inches, and the unchecked winds of the desert, sweeping from the sierra nevadas to the high uplifts east of goldfield, whipped the dust into blinding clouds that daily made life almost unendurable. practically the entire population was housed in tents that dotted the foothills. at night-time these presented the appearance of an army encampment. provisions were scarce and barely met the requirements. the principal eating-place was the mocha café, which consisted of a 14 by 18 tent with an earthen floor and a roughly constructed lunch-counter. here men stood in line for hours, waiting to pay a dollar for a dirty cup of coffee, a small piece of salty ham and two eggs that had long survived the hens that laid them. the popular rendezvous was the northern saloon and gambling house, owned and managed by "tex" rickard and associates. here fully seventy-five per cent. of the camp's male population gathered nightly and played faro, roulette and stud-poker, talked mines and mining, sold properties, and shielded themselves from the blasts that came with piercing intensity from the snow-capped peaks of the sierras. the brokers of the camp gathered every night in the northern and held informal sessions, frequently trading to the extent of 30,000 or 40,000 shares of the more active stocks. the mining stocks which were advertised through my agency in those early goldfield days were generally of the 10, 20 and 30-cent per share variety. the incorporators of the companies were enthusiastic on the point of their "prospect" making good, but i argued to myself that if the chances of any mining prospect of this character proving to be a mine were only about one in 25 or one in 50, and my agency advertised 25 or 50 companies of the average quality, and one of them made good in a handsome way, he who purchased an equal number of shares in each would at least "break even" with the profits from the one winner. later this principle was "knocked into a cocked hat" for conservatism by mohawk of goldfield advancing from 10 cents to $20 a share, proving that if mohawk had been one among 50 companies, the shares of which were purchased by an investor at 10 cents, he would have gained handsomely. early purchasers of mohawk gathered 200 to 1 for their money, many times more than could usually be won on a long shot at the horse-races, and not so very much less than was formerly won by lucky prize-winners in the louisiana lottery. and mohawk was only one of a dozen of the early ones which advanced in price on the exchanges and curb markets more than 1,000 per cent. at this early stage in goldfield, "wild-catting" was not indulged in from the camp, unless this long-shot gambling in shares of "prospects" can by a grave stretch of imagination be termed such, the promoter-brokers being able to offer stocks of close-in properties. among the prizes were red top, which advanced within two years thereafter from 8 cents to $5.50 per share; daisy, which sky-rocketed from 10 cents to $6; goldfield mining, which soared from 10 cents to $2; jumbo, which improved from 50 cents to $5; jumbo extension, which rose from 15 cents to above $3; great bend, which jumped from 20 cents to around $2.50; silver pick, which moved up from 10 cents to $2.65; atlanta, which was promoted at 10 and 15 cents and sold up to $1.25; kewanas, which was lifted from 25 cents to $2.25, and others. "wild-catting" in a small way was prosecuted in goldfield's fair name even in those days, with denver as the headquarters of the swindlers. _eighteen months later, when the mohawk mine of goldfield was in the midst of its greatest half-year of production, at the rate of $1,000,000 a month, and the consolidation of the important mining companies of the camp was in progress, "wild-catting" became general from office buildings in the large cities. there were more than 2000 companies incorporated during this last period, not one of which made good, and the public lost from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 as the result of this operation alone. fully $150,000,000 more was lost by the ballooning to levels unwarranted by mine showings of listed goldfield stocks on the new york curb and the san francisco stock exchange, at the same time._ but i am ahead of my story. it was late in the spring of 1905. i had been at work in goldfield more than six months, and my campaign of publicity was beginning to gather momentum. the mines, however, were not at the moment keeping lively pace. the mohawk was yet undiscovered. the birth of bullfrog at this juncture the new mining camp of bullfrog, 65 miles south of goldfield, was born. my publicity facilities were sought by owners of properties in bullfrog "to put the camp on the map." c. h. elliott, a goldfield pioneer, put an automobile at the disposal of myself and my stenographer, and we departed for bullfrog. elliott and his associates had staked out a townsite which they called rhyolite. i was presented with seven corner lots on my arrival, to help along my enthusiasm. there, on the saloon floor of a gambling house, which was the chief place of resort in the camp, i met for the first time george wingfield, then the principal owner of the tonopah club at tonopah, a gambling house which had lifted him from the impecunious tin-horn gambler class to the millionaire division; united states senator george s. nixon,[1] his partner; t. l. oddie, later elected governor of nevada; sherwood aldrich, now one of the principal owners of the chino and ray consolidated mines, and worth millions, and others who have since accumulated great riches. [1] on the death of mr. nixon in washington, d.c., in june, 1912, mr. wingfield was appointed his successor as u.s. senator by governor oddie. mr. wingfield's goldfield newspaper felicitated its owner and pronounced the appointment to be logical and deserved. mr. wingfield, however, after hearing from washington as to the manner in which the news of his appointment was received by members of the senate, notified governor oddie three weeks later that he must decline the honor. he gave other reasons. they were on the ground and buying properties. mr. aldrich purchased the controlling interest in the tramps consolidated for about $150,000. it was incorporated for 2,000,000 shares of a par value of $1 each, a year later boomed to $3 a share on the new york curb, and is now selling at 3 cents, without ever having paid a dividend. mr. elliott had a large stock interest in the amethyst mine and the national bank mine, which were capitalized for 1,000,000 shares respectively, and he presented me with 10,000 shares of stock in each. he and his partner sold the control of the amethyst to malcolm macdonald of tonopah. later, when amethyst's neighbor, montgomery-shoshone, was selling at $20 per share, the market price of amethyst was pushed up to above $1 a share on the san francisco stock exchange, and i took my profit. the amethyst has since turned out to be a rank mining failure, as has practically every other property in the camp, not one ever having earned a dividend. the bullfrog national bank stock, representing another property that looked for a while as if it would make good, i disposed of on the san francisco stock exchange at 40 cents a share, and i sold the town lots at figures which netted me, in all, in excess of $20,000 for my one day's trip to bullfrog. during my stay in bullfrog i became very much impressed with the montgomery-shoshone mine. this property, in fact, was the powerful magnet which attracted everybody to the camp. i was escorted through a tunnel seventy feet long. on each side as i walked were walls of talc. i was told these assayed in places anywhere from $200 to $2,000 a ton. information was also forthcoming that the width of the ore-body was more than seventy feet. (it afterward turned out that the tunnel had been run along the ore-body and not across it, and that the ore-body was about 10 feet wide.) some specimen ore was given me to assay, and the returns were staggering, running all the way from $500 to $2,500 a ton. in my enthusiasm i wrote stories about the property for publication which must have induced the reader to believe that when all the riches of that great treasure-house were mined, gold would be demonetized. as a matter of fact, the stories from my news bureau, picturing the riches of that golconda, are said to have been indirectly responsible for the purchase of control of the property by charles m. schwab and his associates. the history of the montgomery-shoshone is mournful but highly instructive. for purposes of exposition of pitfalls in mining-stock speculation it possesses striking qualifications. here are the facts: malcolm macdonald, mining engineer, acquired a half interest in the mine from tom edwards, a tonopah merchant, for $100,000, on time payments. on the strength of the showing in the 70-foot tunnel an effort was made to sell the control to the tonopah mining company at a profit. it did not succeed. oscar adams turner, of new york and baltimore, the promoter of the highly successful tonopah mining company, which to date has paid back to the original stockholders $16 for every $1 invested, examined the montgomery-shoshone, and turned it down because the property did not show him any well-defined veins or other marks of permanency, and the ore-body appeared to him to be only a superficial deposit of no great extent. many a good "prospect" has been condemned by mining men of the highest standing, and has afterwards made good, particularly in nevada. mr. turner's turn-down did not daunt the owners. enter, charles m. schwab engineer macdonald incorporated a company for 1,250,000 shares of the par value of $1 each, to own and operate the mine. investors were permitted by him to subscribe for small blocks of treasury stock at $2 per share. shortly afterward mr. macdonald and the owner of the other half interest, bob montgomery, sold a controlling interest to mr. schwab and associates for a sum which has never been made public. mr. schwab at once reorganized the company, took in two adjoining properties that were undeveloped, and changed the capitalization to 500,000 shares of the par value of $5 each. he, in turn, permitted his friends and the public to subscribe for the new stock at $15 per share. later the shares advanced to $22 on the new york curb. undoubtedly mr. schwab thought well of the proposition, for he loaned the company $500,000 to build a reduction works on the ground. to date the mine has failed to pay for its equipment. work on the property has been abandoned and the mill has been advertised for sale. _the company still owes mr. schwab about $225,000, the net profits on the ore in six years being insufficient to repay his loan to the company. in fact, the enterprise has proved to be one of the sorriest failures in nevada. the mine in six years produced $2,000,000 gross, and although mine and mill were operated in an economical way, the net proceeds from the ores were insufficient to pay off the schwab debt. recently the shares have been nominally quoted at from 2 to 5 cents on the new york curb. the public's loss mounts into millions._ investigation proves to me that mr. schwab was merely a mining "come-on" and allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him, but the public suffered just as much as if mr. schwab had perpetrated a cold-blooded swindle. i have heard the question propounded by a stockholder, "what possible excuse could a man, with a good business head like that of mr. schwab, have for promoting the montgomery-shoshone at a valuation of $15 a share, or $7,500,000 for the property, afterward allowing the stock to be quoted up to $22 a share on the new york curb, or at a valuation of $11,000,000 for the property, when, as a result of six years of mine operations, the company is practically insolvent?" an excuse acceptable to mining men might be offered were the montgomery-shoshone property situated in a nest of other great mines, intrinsically worth many times the valuation placed on the montgomery-shoshone at the time of its promotion. "prospects" of this variety, according to approved mining experience, are sometimes entitled to appraisement of great prospective value when neighboring mines have demonstrated deep-seated enrichment. but there was no such excuse in this case, because the deepest hole in the ground in the entire camp was less than 200 feet at the time the montgomery-shoshone was promoted by mr. schwab, and there was not a proved mine in or near the camp. i was present in reno about three years ago when mr. schwab passed through the divorce city en route to california. at that time montgomery-shoshone had already cracked in price to around $3 a share, and stories were being published in nevada that mr. schwab had been snubbed by members of an exclusive pittsburg club for recommending montgomery-shoshone for investment. mr. schwab, in hurriedly discussing the matter at the railroad station, was quoted to the effect that the property had been grossly misrepresented to him. this statement was widely published in nevada. thereupon, don gillies, mr. schwab's engineer in nevada, who, with malcolm macdonald, was believed to be mr. schwab's mining adviser, telegraphed mr. schwab and asked point-blank whether he referred to him. mr. schwab answered that he did not. this denial was also given wide publicity. there was only one reasonable corollary, then, and that was that mr. schwab referred to mr. macdonald. in fine, it appears that mr. schwab may have actually purchased the montgomery-shoshone on the sole representations of the vendor, the interested party, and may have actually promoted the property on the strength of the unverified representations of the vendor. it might be that the vendor did not misrepresent at all; he may have been too enthusiastic only, and communicated his enthusiasm to mr. schwab. possibly mr. schwab relied on newspaper accounts, and promoted the property on the strength of them. a letter from mr. schwab, which appears farther on, lends some color to this idea. even before this time mr. schwab had been in the mining game at tonopah. his tonopah venture was the tonopah extension. the control of the tonopah extension mining company was bought by john mckane, later a member of the english house of commons, from thomas lockhart at 15 cents per share. the capitalization was 1,000,000 shares. john mckane interested robert c. hall, a member of the pittsburg stock exchange, in the proposition. he, in turn, made a deal with mr. schwab. the stock was then sky-rocketed to above $17 a share on the san francisco and pittsburg stock exchanges and the new york curb. afterward the price was allowed to recede to around 65 cents per share. during the past half-year it has maintained an average quotation of $2.00 per share. although the market price of the shares at the time mr. schwab was believed to own the control was allowed to be advanced to a valuation for the mine of $17,000,000, the company has since failed to pay as much as $1,000,000 in dividends, and a quite recent appraisement by henry krumb, a noted engineer, of the net value of the ore in sight in the mine did not place it at so much as $1,000,000. the accuracy of this report is disputed, on the ground that the ore-exposures at the time did not permit of fair sampling. this allows for a discrepancy, but hardly of $16,000,000. after tonopah extension declined from around $17 a share to below $1.00 a share, it was alleged by tonopah stockholders that mr. schwab and his associates had unloaded at the top. mr. schwab replied that he owned just as much stock after the market collapse as he did when he went into the enterprise. this was met with an allegation by some stockholders that while mr. schwab could probably prove that his interest was as large at the later period as it had been at the outset, it did not mean that mr. schwab and his _confrères_ had not unloaded at the top and bought back at the bottom. the following letter from mr. schwab to sam c. dunham, formerly u.s. census commissioner to alaska, afterward editor of the tonopah _miner_, and later mining editor of the _mining financial news_ of new york when i was managing editor, denies personal guilt, although it leaves the reader free to believe that if mr. schwab personally did not unload his stock at high prices, his associates might have done so. charles m. schwab 111 broadway new york november 1, 1907. mr. sam c. dunham, editor _the tonopah miner_, tonopah, nevada, my dear mr. dunham: my attention has been called to your issue of saturday, october 26, 1907. to such criticisms as that issue contained of me, i generally do not reply, as it is useless and only leads to further discussion. but your paper heretofore has been so uniformly kind to me, so fair in every respect, and as i have always regarded you as a friend, our relations having been so pleasant, it makes me feel that i would like to make a short reply to the criticisms mentioned, as showing the consistency of my position. the only thing i criticised about nevada was the inaccuracy of statements emanating from nevada. you seem to attack me because of this statement, and the strength of my position is fully confirmed by your article because little, if anything, stated therein is true or accurate. i will take up your statements one by one. you say i bought from john mckane $25,000 worth of stock of the tonopah extension mining company at 15 cents per share. this is absolutely untrue. you say i bought 100,000 shares of extension stock from robert c. hall at $6 per share, and paid for this stock with paper mill stock. no single part of that statement is correct. i never gave mr. hall any paper mill stock, nor did i buy 100,000 shares from him. the amount purchased from him was 60,000 shares. the price which you state i paid him for the stock is not correct, and, as i stated, i gave no paper mill stock in exchange. you say further that at the last annual meeting of tonopah extension stockholders, held in pittsburg last may, it developed that i had disposed of all the stock i purchased from mr. hall and over two-thirds of my original holdings of 166,000 shares. this is absolutely untrue. i am holding to-day exactly the amount i held after all purchases were made by me, and from the beginning, aggregating some 285,000 shares, and i think if you take the trouble to look up the records you will find my statement in this connection to be true. when i originally bought extension there was also some stock in my name belonging to others, which i subsequently transferred to them, leaving my own holdings of 285,000 shares where they now remain, intact, in my personal possession. going on down the article, you say that i purchased control of shoshone and polaris for less than $2 per share. this statement of yours is inaccurate. you say i sold a large block of shoshone stock at $20 per share. this is also without any truth whatever. the fact is that 3,000 shares were sold at this figure, $20, and these 3,000 shares came from the treasury of the company, all of which you will find a matter of record. it is true that i have loaned the company nearly $500,000 to build the new mill, and i shall be glad to have any other stockholder in the company assume his pro rata share of this amount. you wonder why i criticise statements from nevada. respectfully yours, (_signed_) c. m. schwab the general impression in nevada, as i have gathered it, is that mr. schwab's mining enterprises have been great disappointments to him, but that he did not lose any very large sum of money, and that the public did. his enemies go so far as to allege that he, his brother, and his brother-in-law, dr. m. r. ward, made millions out of the public. i have an opinion, and i may be allowed to express it. mr. schwab, at the time he became a promoter of nevada mines, was an expert steelmaker. he knew little or nothing about silver, gold and copper mines. the fact that friends in philadelphia, who knew as little about the game as he did, had made a fortune in tonopah (on the advice of a man who did know) should not have influenced him. because the mizpah mine at tonopah, promoted by oscar a. turner as the tonopah mining company, had made good in a phenomenal way, pennsylvania stockholders had rolled up fabulous profits in the venture. under this hypnotism mr. schwab "fell" for tonopah extension. later, when tonopah extension showed a market enhancement of more than $16,000,000, mr. schwab was in an ideal frame of mind to succumb to montgomery-shoshone. and when montgomery-shoshone in the bullfrog boom showed a market enhancement of $8,000,000, it did not take much argument to get him into greenwater, another "bloomer," which is described further on. market profits were evidently alluring to mr. schwab. he failed to realize that his own great name was in large measure responsible for the rise in price of his securities. sam c. dunham has informed me that mr. schwab told him he refunded to his personal friends in pittsburg, who subscribed for montgomery-shoshone stock on his recommendation, between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. this ought to be convincing that mr. schwab was guiltless of any intent to profit at the expense of others. mr. schwab's lack of caution, however, is instructive to the losing speculator. it furnishes a startling example of the danger in banking alone on an honored name for the success of an enterprise, and it also drives home the truth of the adage, "every shoemaker should stick to his last." incidentally, mr. schwab's mining career points another moral. it is this: don't think, mr. speculator, because a promoter represents the chances of profit-making in a mining enterprise to be enormous, and you later find his expectations are not realized, that the promoter is _ipso facto_ a crook. big financiers are apt to make mistakes and so are little ones. undoubtedly grave misrepresentations are made every day, and insidious methods are used to beguile you into forming a higher opinion regarding the merit of various securities than is warranted by the facts. but mine promoters are only human, and honest ones not infrequently are carried away by their own enthusiasm and themselves lose their all in the same venture in which they induce you to participate. why the bottom fell out when montgomery-shoshone was enjoying its market hey-day the bullfrog gold bar mining company was promoted at around 15 cents a share on the usual million-share capitalization. a year later the price jumped to $2.65 on the san francisco stock exchange, and the stock was widely distributed among investors. recently the company was in the sheriff's hands. the biggest losers in this venture were alabama people, who had great confidence in the promoters. other bullfrog derelicts in which the public lost vast sums of money were gibraltar, bullfrog steinway, shoshone national bank, bullfrog homestake, bullfrog extension, denver rush extension, mayflower, four aces, golden scepter, montgomery mountain, original bullfrog, etc., etc. mining-stock brokers of the cities went into ecstasies over bullfrog during the height of the boom in that camp. philadelphia mining-stock brokers fed tramps consolidated of bullfrog to their clients. pittsburg brokers recommended montgomery-shoshone. butte brokers placed large blocks of amethyst. gold bar was distributed by brokers of the south. new york brokers were behind gibraltar, four aces, denver rush, montgomery mountain, eclipse, golden scepter, national bank and a score of others. practically every dollar of the millions invested in bullfrog stocks has been lost. the cause of the failure of the bullfrog district to make good was not the absence of gold-bearing rock, for there is much of it in the district, but it has been found that the per ton values are too low to make the mines a commercial success. bullfrog is situated on the desert and has no timber and but very little water. promoters and investors did not realize this until mills were constructed. then it was too late. if the camp were situated on the timbered shores of the hudson river, the stocks of many of the mines of the district would probably be in great demand at above par. probably the most remarkable fact regarding bullfrog is that its securities were more strongly recommended by eastern brokers than the goldfield issues and became more fashionable at this early period in goldfield's history. eastern brokers then had little confidence in goldfield; and at the very time when the stocks of goldfield representing inside properties, which later made good in an extraordinary way, were being offered, they advised their customers not to buy. the general cry then was that it was a fly-by-night offshoot of the first great tonopah boom, and the idea prevailed in the east, because of the ascending influence of george wingfield, then principal owner of tonopah's leading gambling hell, that goldfield was a haven for gambler's and wildcatters. it was during the early days of the bullfrog boom that my friend w. j. arkell's career as a mining promoter came to a sudden end. it will be remembered that when he left goldfield to go to tonopah to make the tonopah home deal his cash capital was $35. he closed the transaction for the option on the million shares of tonopah home's capitalization at a price around five cents a share. then our "partnership," of three days' duration, came to an end. arkell journeyed back to san francisco and there declared me out. arkell was a prominent figure for a while as a san francisco mining-stock promoter. he listed tonopah home on the san francisco stock exchange. then he started in to sky rocket the price. the rise continued until the stock sold at 38 cents, an advance of about 700 per cent, in a few months. then the psychological moment for arkell arrived. it leaked out that he had been financing his stock-market campaign by buying reams of his own stock on one-third margin and at the same time selling it, in like quantity, for all cash through other brokers. this was equivalent to borrowing 66 2-3 per cent. of the market value. the brokers and banks did the carrying. when arkell's tactics were discovered, indiscriminate short-selling by market sharp-shooters ensued. arkell's own hypothecated stock was used to make deliveries. in order to hold his ground and to get the floating supply of the stock off the market, arkell engineered a consolidation. the tonopah home consolidated was incorporated, and holders of tonopah home stock were invited to exchange their original certificates for shares in the consolidated company. just then somebody threw a brick. the names of united states senator george s. nixon and hon. t. l. oddie, later governor of nevada, had been published as directors of the new company, and when these gentlemen saw the half-page display advertisements in which their names were used, and were informed that arkell appeared to be on the ragged edge, they telegraphed to the san francisco stock exchange denying connection. tonopah home broke wildly on the announcement in the exchange to something like 3 cents a share. then it dropped to nothing. arkell's methods were too "raw," and i knew the smash had to come, sooner or later. 'twas late in october, 1905. bullfrog was still in its hey-day. goldfield's initial boom seemed to be flickering. work was going on day and night in the mines, but for want of fresh discoveries the camp was being deserted by some of the late-comers. out-of-town newspaper correspondents came upon the scene, and stories and pictures of the camp, labeled "a busted mining-camp boom," etc., soon appeared in the los angeles and san francisco newspapers. goldfield mine-owners were accused of beguiling the public. promoters were gibbeted as common bunco men. peculiarly enough, bullfrog, younger sister of goldfield, which has since proved to be such a graveyard of mining hopes, was immune. there men of substance were in control, the writers said, while goldfield was portrayed as a stamping ground for gamblers and "wild-catters." the stories had their effect even in goldfield. leading men of the camp began looking about for new fields to conquer. the majority of goldfield mine-owners had not "fallen" for bullfrog, but the success of the bullfrog stock company promotions in the east inspirited them. the great mining-camp boom of manhattan, 80 miles north of goldfield, which followed, owes much of its success to these fortuitous circumstances. i was one of the first to get the manhattan fever. w. f. ("billy") bond, a goldfield broker-promoter whose ear was always glued to the ground, showed me a specimen of ore literally plastered with free gold. he said it came from manhattan and that manhattan was another cripple creek. it was only the night before that i had lost a good many thousand dollars "bucking the tiger." faro was the pastime of practically everybody in goldfield in those days, and i played for want of some other means of recreation and lost heavily. i was as broke as the day i entered the camp. i bought blankets, a suit of canvas clothes lined with sheep-skin, and a folding iron cot, all on credit. i packed the outfit off to tonopah. there i climbed aboard an old, rickety stage-coach of the regulation far-western type, and started for manhattan. we rode over a snow-clad desert, up mountains and down canyons--a perilous journey that i would not care to duplicate. the $10 i had in my pocket, after paying my fare, was borrowed money. when i arrived that night at manhattan, situated in a canyon at an altitude of 7,000 feet, i set up my cot on the snow, wrapped myself in my blankets and slept in the open. there were only three huts and less than a score of tents in the camp. the next morning i strayed through the diggings. sacks of ore in which gold was visible to the naked eye were piled high on every side. the stray dog, the jumping jack and the dexter were the three principal producers. they honeycombed one another. i questioned some of the prospectors as to the names of the single claims adjoining the stray dog, jumping jack and dexter. they informed me that there was one group of claims adjoining that could be bought for $5,000. with $10 in my pocket i proceeded to purchase it. i gave a check for $100, signed a contract to pay the balance of $5,000 in 30 days or forfeit the $100, and immediately started back to goldfield to induce the president of the bank to honor my check on presentation. he did. when i returned to goldfield i carried with me many specimens of high-grade ore. they were placed on display in a jewelry store. there was great excitement, and before night a stampede from goldfield to manhattan ensued which in magnitude surpassed the first goldfield rush. a few days later i returned to manhattan and sold my option for $20,000 cash. while i was there i met c. h. elliott. mr. eliott had "cleaned up" in bullfrog. he told me that he had formed a corporation partnership in goldfield with l. l. patrick, one of the owners of the great combination mine--which was later sold to the goldfield consolidated for $4,000,000--and sol. camp, a mining engineer from colorado. the name of the concern was patrick, elliott & camp, inc. it was organized to promote mining companies. mr. patrick is now president of the first national bank of goldfield. mr. elliott asked me to stay in camp for another day until he could pick up a good property. he made a deal with some cowboys for a large acreage embracing the april fool group of claims, scene of the original gold discovery. twenty leases on this property were in operation, and the surface showings were promising. if the ore "went down," the mine would prove to be a bonanza. mr. elliott incorporated a company known as the seyler-humphrey to own and operate the ground. we returned to goldfield. my publicity bureau telegraphed the news of the manhattan discoveries to a long chain of newspapers east and west. then i put out a big line of "display" advertisements in the big cities, offering for sale stock of the seyler-humphrey. the entire issue of 1,000,000 shares of seyler-humphrey was oversubscribed at 25 cents a share within two weeks. this was the result of $15,000 worth of advertising, and the profits of the firm were $100,000. in quick succession mr. elliott promoted the manhattan combination and the manhattan buffalo. within six weeks the firm's promotion profits amounted to approximately $250,000. how about the public's chances? i asked mr. elliott one evening, shortly after patrick, elliott & camp earned their first $250,000 from their three manhattan promotions, whether he did not think the public was entitled to subscribe for this stock at a lower price and at a smaller profit to his corporation. i recall that he said: "the article we sell is something that somebody wants and is willing to pay for. what we have sold them is worth what we have charged. the fact that we are on the ground and have endured hardships entitles us to a good profit, provided the gold showings on the surface of the properties are not exaggerated. the sale of the stocks has been accelerated by your gift of presentation through advertisements. big department stores and advertising specialists in the cities pay from $15,000 to $30,000 a year for that kind of talent, and we on the desert also have a right to avail ourselves of it." "but suppose the properties don't make good?" i queried. he answered: "it is not a case of excessive optimism for one to expect that manhattan properties will make into mines, in the presence of such wonderful surface showings; and so long as we are not knowingly guilty of deception, no harm is done. if the manhattan stocks we have promoted make good, $5 will be a reasonable price for them, and if they don't make good, one cent will be too high for them. so why question the ethics of charging 25 cents per share for seyler-humphrey when we might have sold it for 15 cents and still have made money; or of charging 15 cents for manhattan buffalo when we could have sold it at a profit for 10 cents? the public knows it is gambling. if people want to buy stocks where they won't lose all of their investment under any circumstances, they know they can buy union pacific, pennsylvania railroad or new york central. the profits there, however, are limited, just like the losses. in the case of mining stocks, representing prospects under actual development, the public can lose or gain tremendously." mr. elliott, who confessed to me that he often played the horse-races when in san francisco, then wrote out a list of stocks and prices, representing what he said was a "book" on stocks, comparable to a gambler's book on the horse-races, reading substantially as follows: stock price odds union pacific $165.00 6 to 5 reading 155.00 8 to 5 missouri pacific 56.00 2 to 1 erie 28.00 3 to 1 seyler-humphrey .25 20 to 1 manhattan buffalo .15 30 to 1 manhattan combination .10 50 to 1 "there," said mr. elliott, "you have the different prices on railroad and mining securities with their chances of winning for the speculator marked against them. when a man goes to a horse-race and plays the favorite, he does exactly what the man does who gives his broker an order to buy union pacific for him at current quotations. it is about 6 to 5 against the investment making a profit over current quotations on any given day, although the investor will hardly gain 6 for his 5 if the stock enjoys its highest probable advance. it is about 20 to 1 against the man buying seyler-humphrey making money, but he will gain 20 for his one if the mine proves to be a bonanza. however, the rail is an investment and the mining a speculation." "do you mean to say that the odds against a man making money on union pacific on any given day are only 6 to 5 when he buys the stock _on margin_?" "not on your life!" he said. "a margin trader on the new york stock exchange, unless he has sufficient capital behind him to hold out against 'inside' manipulation, which has for its purpose the 'shaking out' of the speculator, has not got _any_ chance! he is bound to lose his money in the end. i am talking about people who buy stocks, pay for them in full and get possession of their certificates and 'sit tight' with them." mr. elliott was a plunger and lost large sums in the gambling-houses of goldfield and tonopah. he lost $20,000 in a night's play in the tonopah club, then owned by george wingfield and associates. when asked to settle he tendered a check for $5,000 and a certificate for 100,000 shares of goldfield laguna mining company stock, then selling at 15 cents. this was accepted. within a year laguna sold freely at $2 a share. this incident illustrates how the foundations were laid for some of the big fortunes which were amassed in the goldfield mining boom. when george wingfield came to tonopah in 1901 he brought with him $150, borrowed from george s. nixon, then president of a national bank at winnemucca, nevada, and later united states senator. mr. wingfield's fortune is now conservatively estimated at between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000. success having been won by the patrick elliott & camp promotions, i was considering whether or not much of the money-making that was being done by the promoters around goldfield was not due to my own peculiar ability to reach the public, and i even meditated on my fitness to become a promoter on my own account. the best properties in manhattan, by common consent, were the stray dog, the jumping jack and the dexter. these were sure-enough producers of the yellow metal. they were shippers and were held in high esteem by mining men. i found it impossible to purchase the dexter because the company was already promoted and the stock widely distributed at around $1 a share. george wingfield was then and is still interested in the dexter. the jumping jack was unincorporated. the stock of the stray dog was practically intact in the hands of the owners. the price asked for the jumping jack was $85,000. stray dog was held at $500,000. jumping jack manhattan i was again in funds as the result of my profits in the manhattan boom, and it was again my wont, for want of any other pastime, to play faro at night. i found myself gossiped about with men like january jones, zeb kendall, c. h. elliott, al. myers and others who rolled in money one day and were broke the next. the second largest gambling-house in goldfield was owned by "larry" sullivan and peter grant, both from portland, oregon. sullivan claimed that he was attracted to goldfield by the stories which appeared in the sunday magazine section of a coast newspaper, the copy for which had been carefully and methodically written in the back room of our goldfield news bureau. sullivan and grant were making money, and plenty of it. i patronized the sullivan house, of occasion, and sullivan usually presided over the games when i was there. one evening i cashed in $2,500 of winnings. the money was piled on the table in $20 gold-pieces by the dealer. as i was about to place it in a sack to store away in the safe of the house until the morrow, sullivan began to josh me like this: "say, young feller, why don't you cut me in on some of your mining deals? i'm game!" "are you? well, stack up $2,500 against that money, and i'll see if you are." he went to the safe and lugged to the table a big canvas sack containing $20 gold-pieces. stacking the money on the table in piles of $400 each, he matched my stake. "well?" said he. "put that money in a sack," said i, "and go and get that big coonskin coat of yours, take a night ride by automobile to tonopah, and in the morning go by stage to manhattan. when you get there look up the owner of the jumping jack mine. i have met him. he is a member of the ancient order of hibernians. an irishman can buy that property from him much cheaper than anybody else. you go and buy it." "what will i pay?" asked larry. "he wants $85,000, but get it as cheap as you can," i replied. "what? with this $5,000?" "yes," said i. "pay him the $5,000 down and sign a contract to pay the balance in 60 or 90 days; but fetch him back to goldfield, and have him bring the deeds." a few days later sullivan returned to goldfield, aglow with excitement. climbing out of the stage-coach, he pulled me into his private office. "say," he said, "i've got that guy with me and he's got the deeds. i bought the jumping jack for $45,000. he'll do anything you want him to do." "good!" i said. the owner was introduced to me, and i turned him over to my lawyer, the late senator pyne. mr. pyne drew up a paper by which the transferred title of the property to the jumping jack manhattan mining company, capitalized for 1,000,000 shares, 300,000 shares of which were placed in the treasury for mining purposes, and 700,000, representing ownership stock, put in escrow, to be delivered to sullivan and myself on the payment of 6-1/2 cents a share. a board of directors was selected. at this juncture sullivan, who knew as much about the mining promotion and mining-brokerage business as an ostrich knows about ocean tides, inquired what my next move would be. sullivan seemed to be bewildered, yet full of faith. my situation was this: i had conceived a rip-snorting promotion campaign for the best property that had yet been offered the public from manhattan, but i had no cash to present it. turning to sullivan i said: "do you know the goldfield manager of the western union telegraph company?" "yes, i know him well." "call him up by 'phone or send word to him that you will guarantee payment of any telegrams i file here to-night or during the next three days; i want to send some wires," said i. "i'll do it," said sullivan, and within a few minutes i was advised that sullivan's credit was unquestioned. i returned to the news bureau and there drafted a 300-word telegram, setting forth the merits of the jumping jack manhattan property and offering short-time options on big blocks of the stock. the message was sent to practically all of the well-known brokerage houses in the country which handled mining stocks. the bill for telegraph tolls was $1,200. when sullivan learned of its size he nearly collapsed. "how far do you intend to go?" he gasped. "well," said i, "how can you lose? your friend, frank golden, president of the nye & ormsby county bank, has accepted the presidency of the company at our request, and the other officers we have secured are all representative citizens of this community, and, besides, the nye & ormsby county bank has agreed to receive subscriptions. can you beat that for a layout? never in my experience in this camp, with all the promotions i have advertised, has the public had a dish quite so palatable offered to it--a producing mine, in the first place; a high-class directorate headed by a bank president, in the second place; and a real bank as selling agent, in the third and last place. and it will go like wildfire!" i labored all that night in my advertising agency on some strongly-worded advertising copy recommending to the public the purchase of stock in jumping jack manhattan. in the morning i induced sullivan to advance $10,000 to pay the advertising bills. the copy was dispatched by first mail to the important daily newspapers of the country, with instructions to publish on the day following receipt of copy. within six days all of the advertising had appeared. the effect was magical. the display advertisements assisted the brokers in the various cities, who had asked for reservations of the stock, to dispose of their allotments in a few days. within ten days after the initial offering of the promotion by telegraph to the eastern brokers, sullivan showed me telegraphic orders for 1,280,000 shares of jumping jack manhattan stock at 25 cents a share, an oversubscription of 280,000 shares. before the stock certificate books were printed and delivered from the local printing office, we were, in fact, oversold. that week and the next, sullivan gave me _carte blanche_ to speculate in local mining stocks with partnership money, and within a fortnight we had made another small fortune from manhattan securities. these were advancing in price on the san francisco stock exchange by leaps and bounds. i recall one overnight winning that we made, amounting to about $12,000, which came so easy i felt almost ashamed to take the money. manhattan seyler-humphrey stock, promoted by patrick, elliott & camp at 25 cents per share, was now listed on the goldfield and san francisco stock exchanges. it was in fair demand at 30 cents. a dispatch reached goldfield from new york, purporting to be signed by john w. gates, reading as follows: "at what price will you give me an option good 48 hours on 200,000 shares of manhattan seyler-humphrey? answer to hotel willard, washington, to-night." this was to patrick, elliott & camp. within half an hour a half-dozen similar messages reached other goldfield brokers. i happened to be in the office of patrick, elliott & camp when the first telegram was received, and i lost no time in going out on the street and annexing all the goldfield offerings of the stock at current quotations. at first lou bleakmore, manager for patrick, elliott & camp, "smelled a rat," but when he learned that i was buying the stock he became convinced that i believed john w. gates really wanted some seyler-humphrey, and he shot buying orders for his own firm into san francisco. personally i considered the message a snare. somebody in the east, i guessed, had bitten off a block of seyler-humphrey at around 25 cents when it was promoted a few weeks prior and had made up his mind that he would turn a trick. the goldfield brokers having received telegrams, i assumed that the same message had been sent to brokers in san francisco, where the stock was also listed. it seemed to me that an advance would certainly be recorded on the following day. sure enough, the next morning the stock advanced to 38 cents a share, and the market boiled. at this figure, and a little higher, i unloaded in the neighborhood of 100,000 shares in goldfield and san francisco. a good deal of this stock had been picked up by me the night before. but i recall that one block of 10,000 shares had been allotted to me weeks before at the brokers' price of 20 cents, and another block of 10,000 shares had been given me as a bonus for my publicity measures. after turning over to the treasury of the jumping jack manhattan mining company the amount netted from the sale of treasury stock, and paying off the amount still due on the original purchase price, sullivan and i, within three weeks of my little dare, had cleaned up a net profit of $250,000. "do you want a cut?" i asked sullivan when our joint profits reached the quarter-million mark. "no, i'm game. stay with it," he returned. next day the l. m. sullivan trust company, destined to make and lose millions in the great goldfield boom that followed and to mold for me an exciting career as a promoter, was formed with a paid-up capital of $250,000. sullivan was made president and i vice-president and general manager. chapter iii the brewing of a saturnalia of speculation mr. sullivan's gambling-house affiliation was not considered a drawback to the trust company. george wingfield, vice-president and heaviest stockholder of the leading bank in goldfield, was a gambler and mr. wingfield also owned extensive interests in the mines. his mines were making good, too. owners of the gambling places now stood as much for financial solidity in goldfield as did savings-bank directors in the east. as for myself, i was unafraid. i vowed i would henceforth prove an exception to the mining-camp rule and quit all forms of gambling. my new position demanded this. and i found it easy to obey the self-imposed inhibition. soon the stock-market operations of the trust company gave my speculative instinct all the vent it could possibly have craved under any circumstances. a few days later the sobering sense which impelled me to resolve that i must absent myself from gaming tables evolved into a stern ambition to accomplish big things for the trust company. i went about my business like a man who sees dazzling before him a golden scepter and who is imbued with the idea that if he exerts the power he can grasp the prize. it had been agreed that the trust company would specialize in the promotion of mining companies, and i determined that the trust company should conduct its business as a trust company ought. john douglas campbell, known on the desert as plain "jack" campbell, was engaged by the trust company as its mining adviser and mine manager. we agreed to pay him a salary of $20,000 a year, with a bonus of stock in every new mining company we promoted, a stipend which was later found to be equivalent to $50,000 a year. mr. campbell had been identified with tonopah and goldfield mining interests for three years, and was favorably known. for eight years before coming to tonopah he was employed as a mining superintendent in colorado by sam newhouse, the multi-millionaire mine operator of utah. in colorado mr. campbell's reputation had been good. on coming to tonopah he was employed by john mckane, then associated with charles m. schwab. later he was placed in charge of the kernick and fuller-mcdonald leases on the jumbo mine of goldfield from which, during a year's time, $1,000,000 in gold was taken out. after that mr. campbell took hold of the quartzite lease at diamondfield, near goldfield, and he produced $200,000 in a few months from that holding. he followed this up by a record production from the famous reilly lease on the florence mine of goldfield, amounting to $650,000 in two months. it was within thirty days of the date of expiry of the reilly lease that mr. campbell was induced to take charge of the mining department of the trust company. mr. campbell's advent as our mine manager was immediately reflected in the stock market by the advance of jumping jack manhattan mining company shares, which were now regularly listed on the san francisco stock & exchange board, to 40 cents per share, up 15 points from the promotion price. the sharp rise wrought an undoubted sensation in stock-market circles. brokers in the cities who had sold jumping jack to their customers clamored for a new sullivan promotion. any new mining venture for which the trust company would stand sponsor was assured of heavy subscription and a broad public market. trying it on the stray dog the stray dog manhattan mine was furnishing daily sensations in the way of frequent strikes of fabulously rich ore. i urged that, no matter how small the profit, the sullivan trust company should begin its corporate career with the promotion of a property as good as the stray dog. the stray dog was for sale--at a price. one interest, of 350,000 shares, owned by vermilyea, edmonds & stanley, the law firm of highest standing in goldfield, could be acquired at 45 cents a share, and another interest, of 350,000 shares, owned by prospectors who had located the ground, could be had at 20 cents a share, all or none. the remainder of the stock was in the treasury of the company. the total demanded for 700,000 shares of ownership stock was $227,500, all cash. a likely property adjoining the stray dog, known as the indian camp, could be purchased for $50,000 in its entirety. we knew that as soon as it should become known that we had bought the stray dog, the value of indian camp ground would double, and we therefore decided to annex the indian camp at the same time we took over the stray dog. the proposed outlay amounted to more money than we had, and i looked about for assistance. henry peery, a salt lake mining man of substance, had been negotiating for the stray dog in the interest of utah bankers. we agreed that mr. peery should be allowed to participate on the basis of a one-third interest for him, and a two-thirds interest for the trust company. besides supplying his quota of the cash needed to swing the deal, mr. peery agreed to furnish a president for the company, who, he said, interested himself very frequently in mining enterprises. this was henry mccornick, the salt lake banker, son of the head of the firm of mccornick & company, reputed to be the richest private bankers west of the mississippi river. the deal was made. we immediately proceeded to promote the stray dog manhattan mining company at 45 cents per share, the average cost to us of the stock being 32-1/2 cents. it was impossible for any huge profit to accrue in stray dog on any such margin as 12-1/2 cents per share between our cost price and the selling price, because the expense of promotion appeared bound almost to equal this. we figured that any promotion profits must come out of the indian camp. the indian camp was capitalized for 1,000,000 shares, 650,000 of which were paid over to the trust company and to mr. peery for the property. the remaining 350,000 shares were placed in the treasury of the company to be sold for purposes of mine development. the average per share cost to the trust company of its ownership stock was a fraction less than 8 cents. we decided that as soon as the stray dog was promoted we would offer indian camp shares on a basis of 20 cents per share net to the brokers and 25 cents to the public, and looked forward, if successful, to gaining about $75,000 net on both ventures. immediately on taking over the control of stray dog and indian camp the trust company purchased treasury stock in each of these companies, and put a large force of men to work to open up the properties. within thirty days of the incorporation of the trust company gold hill in manhattan, on which were located the stray dog, jumping jack and indian camp, swarmed with miners. the orders given to engineer "jack" campbell were to put a man to work wherever he could employ one, and to be unsparing in expense so long as he could obtain results. towering gallows-frames and 25-horse-power gasoline engines were installed and other necessary mining equipment ordered shipped to the properties. blacksmith shops, bunk-houses and storehouses were erected on the ground. day and night shifts of miners were employed. in order to guarantee the constant presence on the properties of the engineer in charge, the sullivan trust company built for the engineer's use a $6,000 dwelling house on indian camp ground. having convinced the natives that we were in dead earnest about our mine-making intentions, we busied ourselves offering stray dog stock for subscription at 45 cents per share. it was well known around the camp that we had paid 45 cents per share for one block of 350,000 shares, and mining-camp followers were among the first to subscribe for the stock. then an effort was made to dispose of quantities of it to the eastern public by advertising and through mining-stock brokers. that advertising campaign was approached with considerable caution. in the first place, the subscription price of stray dog, 45 cents, was 80 per cent. higher than that of any other advertised promotion which had yet been made from either the goldfield or manhattan camps; and in the second place, the conduct of a mining-stock promotion campaign by a trust company appeared to me to justify more than ordinary care. there were other factors that entered for the first time in goldfield, too. the initial successes of the big display advertising campaigns directed from goldfield appeared to have been due to the fact that the american public had greeted mining-stock speculation as filling a long-felt want, namely, a channel for speculation in which they could indulge their gambling spirit with comparatively limited resources--resources that were insufficient to give them a "look-in" on the big exchanges where the high-priced rails and industrials are traded in. advertising for thinkers having "tried on the dog" my methods of advertising for nearly two years, that is to say, having conducted an advertising agency for mine promoters, and learned the business with their money, i had passed through the experimental stage and now marshalled a cardinal principal or two that i decided must guide me in the operations in which i had become more directly interested. i resolved never to allow an advertisement to go out of the office that was unconvincing to a thinker. if my argument convinces the man of affairs, i determined, it will certainly win over the man of no affairs. dogmatically expressed, the idea was this: never appeal to the intelligence of fools, no matter how easily they may part with their money. turn your batteries on the thinking ones and convince them, and the unthinking will to follow. that principle was applied to the _argument_ of the advertisement. the headlines were constructed on an entirely different principle, namely, to be positive to an extreme. the bible was my exemplar. it says, "it is" or "it was," "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not," and the bible rarely explains or tells why. the strength of a headline lies in its positiveness. the logic which directed that the flaring headline of my big display advertising copy embrace a very positive statement, and that the _argument_ which followed in small type be convincing to the thinker, was based on a recognition of the fact, that, while boldness of statement invariably attracts attention, analysis is the final resort of the thinker before becoming convinced. more circumspection was used also in the process of selecting media for the advertising. newspapers that did not publish in their news-columns mining-stock quotations of issues traded in on the new york curb, the boston stock exchange, the boston curb, the salt lake stock exchange or the san francisco stock exchange were taboo, on the theory that by this time trading in mining stocks had grown sufficiently popular to command a regular following, and that it was easier to appeal to those who had some experience in mining-stock speculations than to those who had never before ventured. subsequent advertising campaigns were always conducted from this viewpoint. i did not set the ocean on fire with my stray dog promotion, the advertising campaign of which was conducted on these lines, but this was due to circumstances which i explain further on. later, when the sullivan trust company grew and prospered, and afterward when i reached the east and learned more and more of the inside mechanism of the big wall street promotion game in rails and industrials as well as mining stocks, i found that my publicity principles were comparable to those accepted by the street generally. _the mighty powers of wall street recognize the fact that it is not in the nature of things that fools should have much money, and thinkers, not fools, are the quarry of the successful modern-day promoter, high or low, honest or dishonest._ _a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the man who thinks he knows it all because he has accumulated much money in his own pet business enterprise is a typical personage on whom the successful modern-day multi-millionaire wall street financier trains his batteries._ _the honest promoter aims at both the thinker who thinks he knows but doesn't, and the thinker who really does know. he is compelled to appeal to both classes because the membership of the first outnumbers that of the second in the proportion of about 1,000 to 1._ _in fine, for every dollar of "wise" money which is thrown into the vortex of speculation_, $1,000 is "unwise," or considered so. the initial stray dog and indian camp promotion campaign was only half successful at the outset. about 650,000 shares of stray dog and 350,000 shares of indian camp had been disposed of when the manhattan boom began to lose its intensity. promotions had been made a little too rapidly for public digestion. there were more miners at work than ever in the manhattan camp, but the demand for securities was not keeping pace with the supply. manhattan's initial boom appeared to be flattening out just as goldfield's first boom had. we met with a setback from another direction. henry mccornick's banking connections in salt lake objected to the use of his name as president of the stray dog. at the very height of our advertising campaign mr. mccornick resigned. we elected our engineer, "jack" campbell, president, but damage was done. yes, "business is business" the offices of the trust company were furnished on an elaborate scale, resembling the interior of a banking institution of a large city. the offices became the headquarters of eastern mining-stock brokers whenever they arrived in camp. one morning j. c. weir, a new york mining-stock broker, whose firm held an option from the trust company on 100,000 shares of stray dog stock, was ensconced in one of the two luxuriously furnished rooms used as executive offices. mr. weir's firm was one of our selling agents in new york. he was the dean of mining-stock brokers in new york city. in those early days the telephone service of goldfield was not yet perfected, and it was only necessary for a person, in order to overhear any talk over the telephone in our offices, to lift the receiver from the nearest hook and listen. it was reported to me that mr. weir had been availing himself of this method of learning things at first hand. "say, rice," said mr. sullivan one morning, "weir hears your messages every time you are called on the 'phone. he takes advantage of you. i wish you would let me fix him." "all right; what do you want to do?" i answered. "say," said mr. sullivan, "campbell, our engineer, is in manhattan. i'll call him up from the public station and tell him to 'phone you some red-hot news about mine developments on stray dog, and i'll see to it that weir is in his office at the time you get the message. if weir don't steal the news and grab a big block of stray dog on the strength of it, i'm a poor guesser." all of our options to brokers were to expire on the 15th of march and this was the 13th. at four o'clock in the afternoon i was in my room. mr. weir was at the desk in the room opposite. the 'phone bell rang. "hello," i said, "who is this?" "campbell, at manhattan," was the response. "what's the news, jack?" i asked. "we've just struck six feet of $2,000 ore! it's a whale! never saw a mine as big as this one in my life! don't sell any more stray dog under $5 a share!" shouted mr. campbell. "bully, jack," i said, "but keep that information to yourself. don't tell your mother, and don't let any more miners go down the shaft. close it up until i am able to buy back some of the stock i sold so cheap." fifteen minutes later mr. sullivan and i met mr. weir leaving the room. "weir," said i, "your option on stray dog expires on the 15th at noon. so far, your new york office has ordered only 85,000 shares of the 100,000 that were allotted to you. we have decided to close subscriptions on the moment and wish you would wire your new york office not to sell any more." "you are wrong," said mr. weir; "why, when i left new york we had oversold our entire allotment! if the office has not notified you of this, it has been a slip. we will, in fact, need at least 25,000 shares more." "you can't have them," said i. "not in a thousand years!" put in mr. sullivan. mr. weir sent a bunch of code messages to new york. all the next day mr. sullivan spent with mr. weir. he allowed mr. weir to cajole him into letting him have the entire block of stock. finally, it was agreed between mr. weir and mr. sullivan that mr. sullivan would give him the additional stock whether i consented or not. surreptitiously, according to mr. weir's idea, mr. sullivan was yielding to him, without my knowledge and against my wishes. next day the sullivan trust company shipped to mr. weir's firm in new york 25,000 shares of stray dog attached to draft at 45 cents a share. the draft was paid. the avenging angel kept hot on mr. weir's trail, for right on the heels of the new york broker's stray dog purchase came a calamity which almost obliterated the market values of nevada mining stocks and particularly those of the shares of manhattan mining companies. san francisco was destroyed by earthquake and fire. not less than half of the capital invested in manhattan stocks had come out of the city of san francisco. the earthquake was fatal to manhattan. the san francisco stock exchange, which was the principal market for manhattan mining shares, was compelled to discontinue business for over two months. brokers and transfer companies lost their records, and the coast's property and money loss was so appalling that no more money was forthcoming from that direction for mining enterprises. every bank in nevada closed down, just as every california bank did, the governors of both states declaring a series of legal holidays to enable the financial institutions to gain time. nevada banks, as a rule, had cleared through san francisco banks, and practically all of nevada's cash was tied up by the catastrophe. the sullivan trust company faced a crisis. i had decided it was good business to lend support to jumping jack in the stock market when the manhattan boom began to relax from its first tension, and had accumulated several hundred thousand shares at an average of 35 cents. the trust company had only $8,000 in gold in its vaults on the day of the 'quake. moneys deposited in bank were not available. of the $8,000 in gold coin, $6,500 was paid two days after the earthquake to the wells-fargo express company for an automobile which was in transit at the time, and for which wells-fargo demanded the coin. it was impossible to hypothecate mining securities of any description in nevada or san francisco. with the sullivan trust company's funds tied up in closed-up banks, and with an unsalable line of securities in its vaults, it was "up against it." for a period it looked as if we must go to the wall. for two months we eked out a bare subsistence by the direct sale of manhattan securities at reduced prices to the eastern brokers. this purchasing power came largely from brokers who were "short" of stocks to the public on commitments made at a much higher range of prices and needed the actual certificates for deliveries. it took the nevada banks and the san francisco stock exchange more than sixty days to rehabilitate themselves. no sooner did the san francisco stock exchange open for business than it became possible for the sullivan trust company to borrow some much needed cash on manhattan securities, of which it had a plethora. through members of the san francisco stock exchange, it obtained in this way in the neighborhood of $100,000. goldfield banks supplied another $100,000 a little later by the same process. then the clouds rolled by. fortunes that were missed soon the mohawk of goldfield began to give unerring indications of being the wonderful treasure-house it has since proved to be. hayes and monnette, who owned a lease on a small section of the property, had struck high-grade ore and were producing at the rate of $3,000 per day. a few weeks later it was reported that the output had increased to $5,000 a day. the mohawk being situated only a stone's throw from the combination mine, the idea that the mohawk might turn out to be another combination was common in goldfield. hayes and monnette were startled--almost frightened--at their success. yielding for the moment to the warning of friends, who urged upon them the possibility of the ore soon pinching out, hayes and monnette called at the offices of the trust company and offered to sell their lease, which had six months to run, for $200,000 cash and $400,000 to be taken out of the net proceeds of the ore. my gambling instinct was aroused. "i will take it," i said. i sent over to the state bank & trust company, and had a check certified for the $200,000. i was about to close the deal when mr. sullivan and "jack" campbell protested. "i ought to have fifteen days to examine the mine," urged mr. campbell. "it is too big a chance to take," declared mr. sullivan. when appealed to, hayes and monnette said that to allow a fifteen-day examination would mean practically to shut down the property for that period and would result in a positive loss to them because of the limited period of their lease. the extent of the loss, if the deal fell through, was too large to contemplate, and they refused. day by day, as mr. campbell and mr. sullivan dilly-dallied, the output of the lease increased, and when, a fortnight later, all three of us were unanimously in favor of the proposition, hayes and monnette flatly refused to sell. within half a year that lease on the mohawk produced in the neighborhood of $6,000,000 worth of ore gross, and netted the leasers about $4,500,000. the sullivan trust company certainly "overlooked a bet" there. during this period i spent an evening with henry peery and w. h. ("daddy") clark. mr. clark, like mr. peery, hailed from salt lake. mr. clark had successfully promoted the bullfrog gibraltar. seated around a table in the palm restaurant, the conversation turned to new camps. "rice," said mr. clark, "i expect to be able to put you in on a townsite deal in a couple of weeks that will make you some money if you undertake to give the camp some publicity." "good," said i. "i am having some assays run," he said, "of some samples which were brought into camp last night by a couple of prospectors, and if they turn out to be what the prospectors claim, or anything near it, we'll need your services to put a new camp on the map." that night mr. peery learned from the assayer that the lowest assay of 16 samples was $86, and the highest $475, per ton. next morning mr. peery informed me that he had remained all night with mr. clark to learn where the ore came from. mr. peery said that mr. clark had told him, in the wee sma' hours, that the place was fairview peak, fifty miles east of fallon. "rice," said mr. peery, "let's beat him to it. he's going to trek it across the desert by mule team with a camp outfit to-morrow, and it will take him a week to get there." "billy" taylor, who was interested with mr. peery in a bullfrog enterprise, joined the party, and we each gave mr. peery a check for $500, forming a pool of $1,500 to send a man to fairview to buy properties there. mr. peery wired the bank of the republic at salt lake to pay ben luce $1,500, and instructed mr. luce by wire to take the money, go to fairview and do business. it was nearly two weeks before we heard of either mr. clark or mr. luce. mr. clark returned to camp and said he had purchased from a group of itinerant prospectors the nevada hills property, scene of the big find, for $5,000, and that it was a "world-beater." "did you meet any outsiders there?" queried mr. peery. "yes," said mr. clark, "i met a man named luce who almost got ahead of me. in fact, he did buy the property before i got there, but he had no money, and they would not take his check for $500, which was the deposit required. i had the gold with me, and that settled it." a few days afterward, mr. luce came to goldfield. "i didn't get the big one," he said, "but i bought the eagle's nest, near by, for $7,000, of which $500 was demanded to be paid down, and there is ore in it and it looks good to me. i had no money with me when i arrived in fairview. they refused my check for the nevada hills, but the eagle's nest boys took it for their first payment of $500." mr. luce was not at home when mr. peery's despatch was delivered in salt lake. when it reached him the bank was closed. in order to catch the first train he was compelled to leave the money behind. he arrived in fairview minus the $1,500, and thereby lost the nevada hills for mr. peery, mr. taylor and the sullivan trust company. mr. clark and his partners incorporated the nevada hills for 1,000,000 shares of the par value of $5 each and accepted subscriptions at $1 per share. within a few months the nevada hills paid $375,000 in dividends out of ore, and soon thereafter, at the height of the goldfield boom, it was reported that the owners of the control refused an offer of $6,000,000 for the property. the mine has turned out to be a bonanza. the stock of the company sold recently on the new york curb and san francisco stock exchange at a valuation for the mine of $3,000,000, and it is believed by well-posted mining men to be worth that figure. george wingfield, president of the goldfield consolidated who followed the sullivan trust company into fairview and bought the fairview eagle, which is sandwiched in between the nevada hills and the eagle's nest, is now president of the nevada hills. treasury stock of the fairview eagle was sold in goldfield at 40 cents per share. recently the nevada hills and fairview eagle companies were merged. "jack" campbell reported favorably on the eagle's nest, and we decided to organize and promote a company to own and develop the property. the sullivan trust company bought mr. taylor's interest in the eagle's nest for $8,000, mr. luce's for $8,000 (he had been awarded a quarter interest for his work), and mr. peery's for $30,000. it made the property the basis for the promotion of the eagle's nest fairview mining company, capitalized for 1,000,000 shares of the par value of $5 each. governor john sparks accepted our invitation to become president of the company. the entire capitalization was sold to the public through eastern and western stock brokers within thirty days at a subscription price of 35 cents per share. after paying for the property, our net profits were in the neighborhood of $150,000. the eagle's nest deal enabled the trust company to repay most of the money it had borrowed after the san francisco earthquake and put the company on easy street again. the tale of bullfrog rush following the eagle's nest promotion, the sullivan trust company became sponsor for bullfrog rush. i had met dr. j. grant lyman, owner of the property, on the lawn of one of the cottages of the united states hotel in saratoga a few years before, where he raced a string of horses and mixed with good people, and i knew of nothing that was to his discredit. dr. lyman bought the bullfrog rush property for $150,000. i was present when he paid $100,000 of this money in cash at john s. cook & company's bank in goldfield. the bullfrog rush property was of large acreage, enjoyed splendid surface showings, and was situated contiguous to the tramps consolidated, which was then selling around $3 a share. it looked like a fine prospect. dr. lyman incorporated the company for 1,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each. the services of the sullivan trust company were employed to finance the enterprise for mine development. the trust company obtained an option on the treasury stock of the company at 35 cents per share, and proceeded to dispose of it through eastern brokers and direct to the public by advertising, at 45 cents per share to brokers and 50 cents per share to investors. we sold 200,000 shares, realizing $90,000 in less than thirty days, retained $20,000 for commission and expenses, and turned into the treasury of the bullfrog rush company $70,000, all of which was placed at the disposal of the company for mine development. half a dozen tunnels were run and several shafts were sunk. down to the 400-foot level the mine appeared to be of much promise. it was then learned that the shaft at the 400-foot point had encountered a bed of lime. it appeared that all the properties on bonanza mountain, where the bullfrog rush was situated, including the tramps consolidated, which was then selling in the market at a valuation of $3,000,000, were bound to turn out to be rank mining failures. the entire hill, according to our engineer, was a "slide," and below the 400-point ore could not possibly exist. we thereupon notified dr. lyman that we would discontinue the sale of the stock until such time as the property gave better indications of making a mine. a few weeks later dr. lyman entered my private office unannounced. at this period jumping jack, stray dog, indian camp, and eagle's nest were all selling on the san francisco stock exchange at an average of 35 per cent. above promotion prices. the l. m. sullivan trust company was "making good" to investors. bullfrog rush had not yet been listed, and we were afraid to give it a market quotation. "i have formed here in goldfield the union securities company," dr. lyman said, as he sat down close to my desk, "and i am going into the promotion business myself. i don't believe a word of the reports you have that the bullfrog rush is a failure. i am going on with the promotion." i protested. "we shall not permit it," i said. "governor sparks, who is the best friend the sullivan trust company has, accepted the presidency of the bullfrog rush on our assurance that the property was a good one. john s. cook, the leading banker of this town, accepted the treasurership on the same representations. mr. sullivan, president of this trust company, is vice-president of the rush. we are 'in bad' enough as the matter already stands. don't dare go on with the promotion at this time." dr. lyman left the office without uttering a word. two days later i received a dispatch from governor sparks saying that a full-page advertisement of the union securities company had appeared in the _nevada state journal_ at reno, offering bullfrog rush stock for subscription. the governor protested vigorously against the sale of the stock. we had previously informed him as to the new conditions which prevailed at the mine. i sent peter grant, one of mr. sullivan's partners in the palace, to dr. lyman to protest. the answer came back that the _nevada state journal_ advertisement was about to be reproduced in all the newspapers of big circulation throughout the east, and that the orders for the advertisements would not be canceled. half an hour later dr. lyman entered the office with mr. grant. mr. grant looked nettled. dr. lyman glowered. i bade dr. lyman take a chair. "if you move a finger to stop me," he said, as he sat himself down before me, "i'll expose every act of yours since you were born and show up who the boss of this trust company is!" dr. lyman was tall as a poplar and muscled like a samson. he was fresh from the east, red-cheeked and groomed like a chesterfield. i was cadaverous, desert-worn, office-fagged, and undersized by comparison. in a glove fight, dr. lyman could probably have finished me in half a round. but the disparity did not occur to me. the sense of injustice made me forget everything except dr. lyman's blackmailing threat. i jumped to my feet. dr. lyman backed up to the glass door. i aimed a blow at him. he backed away to dodge it. in a second he had collided with the big plate-glass pane, which fell with a crash. in another instant he recovered his feet, turned on his heel and ran. his face was covered with scratches, the result of his encounter with the broken plate glass. several clerks who followed him, thinking he had committed some violent act, reported that he didn't stop running until he reached the end of a street 600 feet away. "oh," he gasped, "i never want to see such a look in a man's eyes again. i thought i saw him reach for a gun." such an idea was farthest from my mind, although i was very angry. conscience had made a coward of the doctor. i was quick to decide upon a course of action. the position of the trust company was this: with the exception of bullfrog rush, we had a string of stock-market winners to our credit with the public. if we allowed dr. lyman to go ahead with his promotion of bullfrog rush, we should, unless we abandoned our rule to protect our stocks in the market, be compelled some day to buy back all of the stock he sold. the truth about the mine was bound to come out, and we stood before the public as its sponsors. i decided that the trust company should refund the money paid in by stockholders of bullfrog rush and prevent dr. lyman from selling more stock. to the brokers, through whom we had sold much of the stock to the public, we telegraphed that we would refund the exact amount paid us by the brokers on delivery back to us of the certificates. we also wired to governor sparks and asked his permission to insert an advertisement in the newspapers over his signature, announcing that the property had proved to be a mining failure and advising the public not to buy any more shares. this pleased the governor immensely, for he promptly wired back his o.k. with congratulations over the stand we took. that night a broadside warning to the public, bearing the signature of governor john sparks, and a separate advertisement of the sullivan trust company, offering to refund the money paid for bullfrog rush shares, were telegraphed to all the leading newspapers of the east. next day both of these announcements appeared side by side with the half-page and full-page advertisements of dr. lyman's union securities company of goldfield offering bullfrog rush for public subscription. the newspapers, peculiarly enough, performed this stunt without a quiver. the public didn't buy any more bullfrog shares. the bullfrog rush incident cost the sullivan trust company a little less than $90,000, which was refunded to stockholders, and the additional sum that was expended for advertising our denouncement of the enterprise. dr. lyman was stripped of his entire investment in the property. the newspapers lost many thousands of dollars, representing dr. lyman's unpaid advertising bills. a number of mining-stock brokers also forfeited some money; they were compelled to refund their commissions. j. c. weir, the new york mining-stock broker, who does business under the firm name of weir brothers & company, had sold in the neighborhood of 100,000 shares of bullfrog rush to his clients, and he took violent exception to our decision not to refund an amount in excess of the net price paid to us. he held that his firm ought not to be compelled to disgorge its profits. we stood pat and argued that he ought to be proud to share with us the glory of "making good" in such an unusual way to stockholders. it was the first time in the history of western mining promotions that a thing like this had ever been done, and we pointed out to mr. weir that it would gain reputation both for himself and the trust company. for a period mr. weir carried on an epistolary warfare with the trust company. for nearly two months he refused to yield. finally, we received a letter from mr. weir saying that since we refused to come to his terms he would accept ours, and that he had drawn on us for $4,500, with one lot of 10,000 shares of bullfrog rush stock attached. on receipt of the letter i gave instructions to the cashier promptly to honor the draft. an hour later the cashier reported that the draft had been presented and that an examination of the stock certificates showed that not a single one of them had been sold by the trust company through mr. weir's firm, and, in fact, had never been disposed of by the trust company to anybody. a hurried examination of the stock-certificate books of the bullfrog rush company, which were in the hands of the company's secretary in goldfield, a clerk of dr. lyman, revealed the fact that a large number of blank certificates had been torn out of the certificate books without any entry appearing on the stubs. the certificates returned to us by mr. weir bore dates of several months prior, and our immediate assumption was that dr. lyman, at the very moment when we were marketing the treasury stock under a binding contract which forbade him or any one else to dispose of any bullfrog rush stock under any circumstances, was clandestinely getting rid of these shares. mr. weir, it appeared, had neglected to segregate dr. lyman's certificates from those shipped him by the trust company. another hypothesis was that those certificates had never been sold at all, but had merely been received from dr. lyman to be reforwarded to us in order to claim a refund for what we had never been paid for. of course, we returned the draft unpaid. but that didn't end the incident. my partner, mr. sullivan, took it upon himself to wire his sentiments to weir brothers & company, as follows: "you are so crooked that if you swallowed a ten-penny nail and vomited, it would come out a corkscrew." that was "larry's" homely way of expressing his opinion. goldfield's year of wind and dust had brightened into the glow of summer. the still breath of august was diffused through the thin mild air of the high altitude. this thin air, which nearly two years before had prompted a camp wit to comment on the birth of my news bureau to the effect that "the high elevation was ideal for the concoction of the visionary stuff that dreams are made of," appeared unprophetic. there was plenty of concrete evidence of the yellow metal to be seen. production from the mines was increasing daily and money from speculators was pouring into the camp from every direction. a mining-stock boom of gigantic proportions was brewing. mohawk of goldfield, which was incorporated for 1,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each, and which in the early days went begging at 10 cents a share, was now selling around $2 a share on the san francisco stock exchange, the goldfield stock exchange and the new york curb. other goldfields had advanced in proportion. combination fraction was up from 25 cents to $1.15. silver pick, which was promoted at 15 cents a share, was selling at 50 cents. jumbo extension advanced from 15 to 60. red top, which was offered in large blocks at 8 cents per share two years before, was selling at $1. jumbo advanced from 25 cents to $1.25. atlanta moved up from 12 to 40. fifty others, representing prospects, enjoyed proportionate advances. the sullivan stocks were right in the swim. jumping jack was in hot demand on the san francisco stock exchange and new york curb at 45 cents, stray dog at 70 cents, indian camp at 80 cents, and eagle's nest at 50 cents. subscribers to indian camp could cash in at a profit of more than 200 per cent. the country gave indications of going "goldfield crazy." my goldfield publicity bureau was working overtime. james hopper, the noted fiction writer and magazinist, ably assisted by harry hedrick and other competent mining reporters, was "on the job" and doing yeoman service. the news-columns of the daily papers of the country teemed with stories of the goldfield excitement. people began to flock into the camp in droves. the town was a scene of bustle and life. motley groups assembled at every corner and discussed the great production being made from the mohawk and the terrific market advances being chronicled by mining stocks representing all sorts and descriptions of goldfield properties. whenever hayes and monnette, owners of the mohawk lease, appeared on the streets, they were followed by a mixed throng of the riffraff of the camp, who hailed them, open-mouthed, as wonders. the madness of speculation in mining shares in the camp itself was beginning to exceed in its intensity the exciting play at the gaming tables. there was a contagion of excitement even in the open spaces of the street. at each meeting of the goldfield stock exchange the boardroom was crowded. the sessions were tempestuous. every step and every hallway leading to the room was jammed with men and women over whose faces all lights and shades of expression flitted. the bidding for mining issues was frantic. profits mounted high. everybody seemed to be buying and no one appeared to be willing to sell except at a substantial rise over the last quotations. castle-building and fumes of fancy usurped reason. bank deposits were increasing by leaps and bounds. the camp was rapidly becoming drunk with the joy of fortune-making. manhattan now shone mostly in the reflected glory of goldfield, but manhattan stocks were booming. this enabled the sullivan trust company to dispose of nearly all of its manhattan securities which had been carried over after the san francisco catastrophe and to pile up a great reserve of cash. a big demand was developing for shares in fairview companies. nevada hills of fairview was selling on the stock exchanges and curbs at $3 per share, or a valuation of $3,000,000 for the mine. only a few months before it had fallen into goldfield and salt lake hands for $5,000. fairview eagle's nest, for which subscriptions had been accepted at 35 cents per share by the sullivan trust company, was selling at 70 cents on the san francisco stock exchange. the sullivan trust company announced the offering of 1,000,000 shares, embracing the entire capitalization of the fairview hailstone mining company, at 25 cents. the stock was purchased by us at 8 cents. we sold out in a week. san francisco and salt lake were the principal buyers, and it was unnecessary even to insert an advertisement offering the stock. the brokers fell over one another to underwrite the offering by telegraph. prize fights and mining promotion for a fortnight there was a lull in news of sensatorial gold discoveries, but the approaching gans-nelson fight, which was arranged to be held in goldfield on labor day, september 3, furnished sufficient exciting reading matter for the newspapers throughout the land to keep the goldfield news pot boiling. the sullivan trust company had guaranteed the promoters of the fight against loss to the extent of $10,000, and other camp interests put up $50,000 more. gans, the fighter, was without funds to put up his forfeit and make the match, and the sullivan trust company had also advanced the money for that purpose. mr. sullivan became gans' manager. when gans arrived in town mr. sullivan interviewed him to this effect: "gans, if you lose this fight they'll kill you here in goldfield; they'll think you laid down. i and my friends are going to bet a ton of money on you, and you must win." gans promised he would do his best. "tex" rickard and his friends wagered on nelson. the cashier of the sullivan trust company was instructed to cover all the money that any one wanted to bet at odds of 10 to 8 and 10 to 7 on gans, we taking the long end. a sign was hung in the window reading: "a large sum of money has been placed with us to wager on gans. nelson money promptly covered inside." mr. sullivan was in his glory. prize-fighting suited his tastes better than high finance, and he was as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the itch. an argument arose about who should referee the fight. "tex" rickard nominated george siler, of chicago, and battling nelson promptly o.k.'d the selection. mr. sullivan openly objected. he thought it good strategy. he sent for the newspaper men and gave out an interview in which he declared that mr. siler was prejudiced against gans because he was a negro, and he did not believe mr. siler would give gans a square deal. "rice," whispered sullivan after the newspaper men left the office, "i am four-flushing about that race-prejudice yarn, but it won't do any harm. siler needs the job. he's broke and i'll make him eat out of my hand before i'll agree to let him referee the fight. they've already invited siler to come here, and i won't be able to get another referee, but i'll beat them at their own game. when siler gets here i'll thrash matters out with him and agree to his selection, but first i want him to know who's boss." mr. siler arrived. an hour later he was closeted with mr. sullivan in one of the back rooms of the trust company offices. the dialogue which ensued was substantially as follows: _mr. siler._ you've got me dead wrong, sullivan. i want to referee this fight, and i want you to withdraw your objections. _mr. sullivan._ well, i've heard from sources which i can't tell you anything about that you don't like gans, and i can't stand for you. _mr. siler._ i need this fight, and i've come all the way from chicago in the expectation of refereeing it. i couldn't give gans the worst of it if i wanted to. he is a clean fighter and i would not have an excuse. _mr. sullivan._ gans is a clean fighter, but nelson isn't; he uses dirty tactics and he is a fouler for fair. _mr. siler._ if he does any fouling in this fight i'll make him quit or declare him out. _mr. sullivan._ what guarantee have i got that you won't give gans the worst of it? _mr. siler._ well, i'll tell you, sullivan, if you withdraw your objections i'll guarantee you that i'll be this fair. if nelson uses foul tactics, or if he don't, i'll show my fairness to gans by giving him the benefit of every doubt. now, will that satisfy you? _mr. sullivan._ yes, it'll satisfy me, but, remember, if you don't keep your word you'll have just as much chance of getting out of this town alive as gans will have if he lays down! you understand? _mr. siler._ yes. on the afternoon of the fight the sullivan trust company cast accounts and found that it had wagered $45,000 on gans against a total of $32,500 put up by the followers of nelson. mr. sullivan, after talking it over with me, had accepted the honorary position of announcer at the ringside. though not of aristocratic mien, "larry" was of fine physique, with a bold, bluff countenance, and i felt confident that his cordial manner would appeal to that far western assemblage. just before the prize-fighters entered the ring, "larry" jumped into the arena. standing above the mass of moving heads and holding up both hands, he hailed the great crowd thus: "gentlemen, we are assembled in this grand _areno_ to witness a square fight. this fight is held under the auspices of 'tex' rickard, a man of great _accumulations_----" "larry" did not get much farther. the audience laughed, and then jeered and hooted until it became hoarse. his words were drowned in the tempest of derision. i was informed by friends who were close to the ringside that he went on in the same rambling way for a few minutes more, but i can't testify to that fact from my own knowledge because "acclumuations" and "areno" overcame me and i stopped up my ears. the fight progressed for twenty rounds or more, when i began to doubt the ability of gans to win. mr. sullivan had a commissioner at the ringside, who, up to this time, had been betting anybody and everybody all the 10 to 6 that was wanted against nelson. i hailed mr. sullivan at the ringside. "this doesn't look like the cinch for gans you said it would be," i whispered. "wait a minute," mr. sullivan replied, "i'll go to gans' corner as soon as this round is over and find out what's doing with him." mr. sullivan went over to gans' corner and came back. "gans says he can't win this fight, but he won't lose. he's a good ring-general and he'll pull us out. don't bet any more money. i'm going to stay close to the ringside. watch close." it was apparent during the next ten rounds that gans was availing himself of every opportunity to impress upon the audience that nelson was inclined to use dirty fighting tactics, and soon nelson was being hooted for foul fighting. gans, on the other hand, appeared to be fighting fair and like a gentleman. soon it was evident that gans had won the sympathy and favor of the audience. the fight had continued through the fortieth round, when mr. sullivan again repaired to gans' corner and held another animated whispered conversation with him. in the forty-second round gans of a sudden went down, rolled over and, holding his hand under his belt, let out a yell of anguish that indicated to the excited multitude that nelson had fouled him frightfully. in another instant mr. sullivan had clambered into the ring. confusion reigned. the audience was on its feet. pushing his fist into the referee's face, mr. sullivan cried: "now, siler, you saw that foul, didn't you? it's a foul, isn't it? gans wins, doesn't he?" all of this happened quick as a flash. mr. siler, pale as a ghost, whispered something inaudibly. mr. sullivan, turning to the assemblage and raising both arms to the skies, yelled: "gentlemen, the referee declares gans the winner on a foul!" the audience acclaimed his decision with salvos of applause. there did not appear to be a man in the crowd who doubted a foul had been committed, although nelson at once protested his innocence. next day mr. sullivan told me that in or near the twenty-fourth round gans had broken his wrist and knew he could not win the fight by a knockout. he also said that gans went down in the forty-second round in order to save the day. "_i_ won that fight," said mr. sullivan. "i told gans while he was in his corner after the fortieth round that if he lost he would be laying down on his friends, that he had the audience with him, and that it was time to take advantage of nelson's foul tactics." this was my first experience in prize-fighting, and my last. my sympathies were, however, with the winner. gans' tactics throughout up to the last round were gentlemanly and those of nelson unfair. even the partisans of nelson who had wagered on him agreed after the fight that the battle put up by the negro up to the forty-second round was a white man's fight and he was entitled to win. nelson had been guilty of foul tactics in almost every round, but the probabilities are that gans was not disabled by a foul blow in the forty-second round and that he took advantage of the sentiment in his favor, which had been created by his manly battle up to that time, to go down at a psychological moment. i saw mr. siler after the contest, and he appeared pleased that his decision was so well received, but he assured me that if he was invited to referee another bout in any mining camp he would decline the job. the sullivan trust company, of course, won a big bet on the result, but it lost a bigger one as an outcome of the battle on the very next day. the impression created by announcer sullivan's attempt to reach lofty flights of eloquence in his speech to the fight-audience was bad for the trust company, and it required the use of over $100,000 on the day following to meet the flood of selling orders in sullivan stocks which poured into the san francisco stock exchange. the year of big figures i soon recouped these stock-market losses. at about four o'clock one afternoon, a few days afterward, a miner who had been at work during the day on the loftus-sweeney lease of the combination fraction, called at the office of the trust company and asked me to buy 1,000 shares of combination fraction stock for him. he divulged to me that just as he was coming off shift he had learned that a prodigious strike of high-grade ore had been made at depth. combination fraction had closed that afternoon on the san francisco stock exchange with sales at $1.15. i went out on the street and proceeded to buy all the combination fraction in sight. in half an hour i had corralled about 60,000 shares at an average of $1.30. an hour later the owners of the lease obtained the information on which i was working, and by eight o'clock that night, when the goldfield stock exchange began its evening session, the price had jumped to $1.85. within a week thereafter the price sky-rocketed to $3.75, and at this figure i took profits of nearly $150,000. had i held on a little longer i could have doubled that profit, for combination fraction a few weeks later sold at higher than $6. the combination fraction strike was followed by a number of others, and the boom gathered force. by october, goldfield silver pick had advanced to $1 per share, up 600 per cent. goldfield red top was selling at $2, jumbo at $2, and mohawk at $5, showing profits of from 2,000 to 5,000 per cent. others had gained proportionately. in fact, there were over twenty goldfield securities listed on the exchange that showed the public a stock-market profit of anywhere from 100 per cent. to 5,000 per cent. mining machinery of every description was being shipped into camp, and for half a mile around the combination mine the landscape of assembled gallows-frames resembled a great producing oil field. there were signs of mining activity everywhere. for four miles east of the combination mine and six miles south every inch of ground had been located. claims situated miles away from the productive area were changing hands hourly at high figures. the sullivan stocks kept pace in the markets with the other booming securities, and it was plain that the trust company was riding on a tidal wave of success. our profits exceeded $1,500,000 at this period, and we were just eight months old. in a single fortnight the sullivan trust company promoted the lou dillon goldfield mining company at 25 cents per share, a valuation of $250,000 for the property, which cost $50,000; and the silver pick extension, which cost $25,000, at the same figure, netting several hundred thousand dollars' profit on these two transactions. options to purchase the lou dillon and silver pick extension, which were situated within 500 feet of the combination mine, had been in possession of the sullivan trust company for months, and had increased in value to such an extent that on the day the subscriptions were opened in goldfield for lou dillon at 25 cents per share, a prospector named phoenix, who had received $50,000 from the sullivan trust company for the entire property, subscribed for 100,000 shares, or a tenth interest in the enterprise, paying $25,000 therefor. it was the rule of the sullivan trust company to open subscriptions in goldfield on the day its advertising copy left the camp by mail for the east. newspaper publishers were always instructed to publish the advertisements, which were generally of the full-page variety, on the day following receipt. in the case of lou dillon it became necessary to telegraph all newspapers east of chicago not to publish the advertisement because of oversubscription before the copy reached them, and in the case of silver pick extension the orders to publish the advertisements were canceled by telegraph before the mail carrying the copy reached kansas city. san francisco, los angeles and salt lake subscribed for 50 per cent. of the entire offering of lou dillon and silver pick extension, and goldfield for 25 per cent. as a matter of fact, had we desired, we could have sold the entire offerings in goldfield, tonopah and reno without inserting any advertisements, so great was the excitement in the state itself. at this period the combined monthly payrolls of the mining companies promoted by the sullivan trust company totaled in excess of $50,000, and excellent progress was being made in opening up the properties. it was early autumn in goldfield, warm, dry and dusty, and never a cloud in the sky. i was at my desk eighteen hours a day, and liked my job. things were coming our way. the sullivan trust company was in politics. mr. sullivan was popular with the miners, and governor sparks was a large asset of the trust company because he had been allowing the use of his name as president of all the mining companies promoted by it. nevertheless, when the state election approached, the governor had no money for campaign expenses. he telegraphed the trust company from carson: "i will not stand for renomination." we replied: "you are certain to be elected, and you will be renominated by acclamation if you accept." "i won't run unless you guarantee my election," he telegraphed. we answered: "we guarantee." the governor was renominated by the democrats. the republicans placed in nomination j. f. mitchell, a mining engineer and mine owner, who was very popular among mine operators. there were thousands of miners domiciled in goldfield. the western federation of miners dominated. "sullivan," i said, "isn't it a certainty that the miners will vote the democratic ticket because mitchell has been put forward by the mine owners? is it necessary to spend any money with the western federation?" "not a dollar!" replied mr. sullivan. "there's a meeting of the executive committee to-morrow. i'm going to be around when they meet. without spending a cent i'll bring home the bacon. watch me!" sullivan reported to me the next day that he had succeeded in his mission. "i didn't attend the meeting," he said, "but i did see the main 'squeeze.' he told me that a contribution to the miner's hospital would be gratefully accepted, but that even that was not necessary, and that sparks would win in a walk." the only campaign money advanced by the sullivan trust company was given to mr. sullivan to go to reno. he asked for $1,000, and he used it in conducting open house on the first floor of the golden hotel, meeting people and greeting them. reno appeared to be a republican stronghold, and mr. sullivan, by baiting the catholics against the protestants, succeeded in holding down the republican majority to an extent that was wofully insufficient to overcome the democratic majority rolled up in goldfield with the aid of the miners. governor sparks was reëlected by a handsome majority. had the occasion demanded it, we would have "tapped a barrel." but it was not necessary. the story of goldfield consolidated rumors were rife in goldfield of a merger of mammoth proportions which was said to be on the tapis. great as were the gold discoveries in camp, they did not justify the terrific advances being chronicled in the stock-market, and it was apparent that something extraordinary must be hatching to justify the market's action. george wingfield, who had enjoyed a meteoric career, rising within five years from a faro dealer in tonopah to the ownership of control in the mohawk and many other mining companies and to part ownership of the leading goldfield bank, john s. cook & company, which was then credited with having $7,000,000 on deposit, was said to be engineering the deal. the names of the properties were not given, nor the figures. it occurred to me that in any merger that was made the jumbo and red top, because of their central location, must be included. i sought out charles d. taylor, who with his brother, h. l. taylor, and capt. j. b. menardi, owned the control of these properties. he asked $2.50 per share for his stock and that of his partners--all or none. mr. taylor had walked into the camp as a prospector. most of his nights were spent at the gaming tables, and he was reported to be an easy mark for the professionals. his losses were constant and heavy. i put mr. sullivan on his trail. mr. sullivan reported to me that mr. wingfield was hobnobbing with mr. taylor. "get an option on these properties from taylor and be quick," i told mr. sullivan. next morning i met mr. sullivan. he held in his hands 20,000 shares of jumbo, selling at $1.75 per share on the goldfield stock exchange. "i won it in a poker game last night with taylor and wingfield," he said. "i have an oral option on the property good for three days at $2.50, but if you leave it to me, i'll win these properties from him playing cards." i did not see mr. sullivan again for a week. next i heard of him he had "fallen off the water-wagon" and was reported to be celebrating the event in tonopah. while mr. sullivan was "kidding" himself about his poker-playing ability, mr. wingfield had come to terms with mr. taylor and had bought the control of jumbo and red top at an average price of $2.10 per share. that explained mr. sullivan's lapse. however, i blamed myself. mr. sullivan was no match for mr. wingfield. in any game from stud-poker to marketing mining stock mr. wingfield can outwit, outmaneuver and outgeneral a hundred like "larry." both companies had been capitalized for 1,000,000 shares. the sale required that a fortune be paid over. mr. wingfield paid a small sum down, and mr. taylor placed the stock of both of these companies in escrow in the john s. cook & company bank, the balance to be paid a month later. the purchase of control of the jumbo and red top by the firm of wingfield and nixon signalized the beginning of a stock-market campaign for higher prices that stands unprecedented for audacity and intensity in the history of mining-stock speculation in this country since the great boom of the comstock lode in 1871-1872. the market for all listed goldfield stocks was made to boil and sizzle day in and day out until jumbo and red top had been ballooned from $2 to $5 per share, laguna from 40 cents to $2, goldfield mining from 50 cents to $2, and mohawk from $5 to $20. within three weeks the advance in market price of the issued capitalization of this quintet alone represented the difference between $8,000,000 and $26,500,000. a few days before top prices were reached, it was officially announced that the merger of mohawk, red top, jumbo, goldfield mining and laguna into the goldfield consolidated mines company had been made on the basis of $20 for each outstanding share of mohawk, $5 for red top, $5 for jumbo, $2 for goldfield mining, and $2 for laguna. it was also given out that the promoters, wingfield and nixon, had allotted themselves $2,500,000 in stock of the merged companies as a promoters' fee. right on top of this came an announcement that the combination mine had been turned into the merger for $4,000,000 in cash and stock, and it was learned that go-betweens had made a profit of $1,000,000 on the deal by securing an option on the property for $3,000,000. in short, a merger was put through of properties and stocks, the issued capitalization of which was selling in already inflated markets on the day the merger was conceived for $11,000,000, at a valuation of $33,000,000, and in addition the promoters received a $2,500,000 bonus. had the properties been merged on the basis of their selling prices three weeks prior, the equivalent value of the 3,500,000 shares of merger stock would have been a fraction above $3. as it stood, under the ballooning process, the market value was $10, which was the par. at the time of the merger these were the conditions that ruled at the mines: the mohawk, appraised at $20,000,000, had produced under lease in the neighborhood of $8,000,000, of which less than $2,000,000 had found its way into the treasury of the mohawk mining company, the balance going to the leasers. the leasers had "high-graded" the property to a fare-you-well, and less than $1,000,000 worth of high-grade remained in sight, although it was conceded on every side that the leasers had not attempted, nor were they able during the period of their leasehold, to block out systematically and put into sight all of the ore in the mine. large, but indefinite, prospective value therefore attached to mohawk in addition to the tonnage in sight. the laguna, for which $2,000,000 had been paid in stock, did not have a pound of ore in sight, and had cost wingfield and nixon less than $100,000. goldfield mining, scene of a sensational production during the early days of the camp, appraised at $2,000,000 more, had fizzled out as a producer. jumbo, taken in for $5,000,000, for a year previous had produced little or no ore, most of the time being exhausted by the management in sinking a deep shaft, and it had less than $500,000 in sight. red top, valued at another $5,000,000, had in excess of $2,000,000 worth of medium grade ore blocked out. wingfield and nixon were also heavily interested in columbia mountain, sandstorm, blue bull, crackerjack, red hills, oro, booth, milltown, kendall, may queen, and other goldfield stocks. no sooner did the five stocks forming the merger begin to show such startling market advances than the ballooning tendency manifested itself in wingfield and nixon's miscellaneous list, and all of them showed phenomenal gains. soon the entire list of goldfield, tonopah, manhattan, bullfrog, and other nevada mining securities listed on the san francisco stock exchange and traded in on the exchanges and curbs of the country, felt the force of the terrific rises, and sympathetically they skyrocketed to unheard-of levels. to convey an idea as to how far the prices of these stocks were moved up beyond their intrinsic worth, as a result of the ballooning process of the merger, i give some comparisons. columbia mountain sold during the boom at above $1.50; it is now selling at 5 cents. blue bull, crackerjack, oro, booth, red hills, milltown, kendall, conqueror, hibernia, ethel, kewanas, sandstorm and may queen sold at an average of 75 cents during the boom; they are now selling at an average of less than 5 cents. a hundred other goldfield securities, which were in eager demand at the zenith of the spectacular movement at prices ranging from 50 cents to $2.50 can now be purchased at from 1 to 5 cents per share, while many others that were hopefully bought by an over-wrought public at all sorts of figures are now not quoted at all. at the height of the frenzy the difference between the market price of listed nevada stocks on november 15, 1906, and that of to-day is in excess of $200,000,000. a fair estimate of the public's real-money loss in the listed division is $150,000,000. nor was this all of the damage that was done. when excitement in goldfield's listed stocks reached a frenzy, wild-catters operating from the cities got into harness, and within three months in the neighborhood of 2,000 companies, owning in most instances properties situated miles from the proved zone in goldfield, or in unproved camps near goldfield, were foisted on the public for $150,000,000 more. the fact that mohawk, which in the early days of goldfield could have been purchased at 10 cents, had advanced to $20 and had shown purchasers a profit of 20,000 per cent.; that laguna had advanced in less than two years from 15 cents to $2; that jumbo and red top, selling at $5, could have been purchased a year or two before at around 10 cents; that goldfield mining, which had in the early days been peddled around the camp at 15 cents, had moved up to $2, etc., gave the wild-catters an argument that was convincing to gulls in every town and hamlet in the union. and the harvest was immense. not one of the 2,000 wild-cats has made good, and every dollar so invested has been lost. it will be noted from the reckoning as given that about as much money was lost in the listed stocks of the camps as in the unlisted "cats and dogs." as a matter of fact, veteran mining-stock buyers, in camp and out of the camp, lost as much hard cash as did the unsophisticated. san francisco, which owes its opulence of years gone by to successful mining endeavor, was probably hit as hard as any other city in the union. san francisco thought it knew the game, and it confined its operations to the stocks listed on the exchange where the comstocks are traded in. but san francisco did not know the inside of the merger deal as it is now known to every schoolboy in nevada. the operation on the inside was this. wingfield and nixon owned the john s. cook & company bank in goldfield, and they owned the control of nearly a score of mining companies which were of little account as well as having acquired the control of the biggest mine in camp. during the height of the boom, which they engineered to swing the merger, they disposed of millions of shares of an indiscriminate lot of companies, and used the many millions of proceeds to take over jumbo, red top and their outstanding contracts in mohawk and other integrals of the merger. they likewise were able during the ballooning process to dispose of much mohawk at from $15 to $20, much jumbo at from $4 to $5, much red top at from $4 to $5, that cost them very considerably less than this, and in this way were enabled to finance their deal to a finish. i have just pointed out that in order to accomplish the merger it was necessary that the market in all goldfield securities, in which the promoters were interested, be stimulated in order to enable unloading by the insiders before some of the very large payments became due. this being accomplished, and the payments having been made, the promoters sought to establish a market for merger shares at or around par. in order to accomplish this the goldfield bank, in which the promoters were heavily interested, stimulated speculation and managed to spread a feeling of security by announcing its willingness to loan from 60 to 80 per cent. par on merger shares. all goldfield fell for this, and the camp went broke as a result. within eighteen months thereafter goldfield consolidated sold down to $3.50 in the markets, and margin-traders and borrowers who had put up the stock as collateral to purchase more were butchered. loans were foreclosed by the bank as rapidly as margins were exhausted. the carnage was awful. it must be evident that wingfield and nixon, both of whom became multimillionaires as the result of their mining-stock operations in goldfield, were directly and indirectly important factors in the loss by the public of $300,000,000, as set forth above. it is admitted that less than $7,000,000 worth of ore had been developed as a reserve at the time $35,000,000 worth of stock in the merger was issued and a market manufactured to dispose of the stock at this fictitious price-level. it is not of particular interest that goldfield consolidated, by reason of sensationally rich mine developments at depth, has since given promise of returning to stockholders an amount almost equal to par for their shares, and that it now appears that those who were able to weather the intervening declines may in the end be out only the interest on their money. _this fact stands out: although goldfield consolidated owned at the outset a bonanza gold mine, stockholders had just two chances. they could break even or lose--break even on their investment if the mine made good in a sensational way, which was a big gamble at the time, or lose if the mine didn't. they could not win._ mr. nixon was a united states senator from nevada. he was also president of the nixon national bank of reno, nevada. he held both of these positions at the time the merger was made, and it was largely because of mr. nixon's political and financial position that the daring ballooning market operations, which were staged as a curtain-raiser for the merger, proved so successful. in the _nevada mining news_ of may 25, 1907, circulation 28,000, an interview appeared with united states senator nixon of nevada, vouched for as follows: the manuscript of the interview was submitted to, and approved by, the senator. unchanged by one jot or tittle, it is printed just as it came from his hands. even now the senator holds a carbon of the original manuscript and may brand us with it if we have broken the faith we pledged. i quote from the senator's interview, as it appeared in that issue of the _nevada mining news_: "what do you estimate the ultimate earnings of goldfield consolidated will be?" was asked. "consolidated will be a bigger producer, i should say, three or four years from now than it will be one year from now," senator nixon replied, "and i believe i am conservative when i say that the property will be eventually earning $1,000,000 net monthly." "_then, as an investment, the stock is easily a $20 stock?_" "_that is a minimum estimate of its future value, i should say_," _was the response._ as to that interview: mr. nixon said that within three or four years (the time limit is up), $20 would be a minimum price for the shares. they touched $10 only once since then, or one-half of his estimate. shortly after the interview was given they sold down as low as $3.50. recently the market quotation was $4. he said, further, that the mines would ultimately earn at the rate of $1,000,000 a month. this statement also has fallen far short of fulfillment. soon after george s. nixon, as president of the goldfield consolidated company, gave out this interview for public consumption he, according to his own later admissions, disposed of all of his holdings, and at an average price, it is believed, of less than $8 a share. this is only a superficial rendering of the big event in goldfield's history, but it is sufficient to furnish an example of the effect of get-rich-quick influences that radiate from high places and separate the public from millions upon millions, without being called to account. the dear american public has been falling for this kind of insidious brand of get-rich-quick dope for years. it is being gulled into losing millions through its fetish worship of promoters with millions, who are really the get-rich-quicks of the day that are very dangerous. greenwater, a rich man's camp, in which the public sank $30,000,000 during three months that marked the zenith of the goldfield boom, is another case in point where a confiding investing public followed a deceiving light and was led to ruthless slaughter. chapter iv the greenwater fiasco when the excitement was at fever-heat in goldfield over the stupendous rises in market value of goldfield securities which were being chronicled hourly, news came to town of the successful flotation in new york of the greenwater & death valley mining company. the capitalization was 3,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each. the stock had been underwritten at $1 a share by new york and pittsburg stock exchange houses, had been listed on the new york curb, and had climbed to around $5.50, or a valuation for the property of $16,500,000. among the officers of this company were m. r. ward, brother-in-law of charles m. schwab; t. l. oddie, now governor of nevada, and malcolm macdonald, later president of the nevada first national bank of tonopah. greenwater is situated about 150 miles south of goldfield, across the state line in california. no one ever went to or fro without passing through goldfield. if there was a greenwater boom, how was it that we in goldfield, who were in touch with all nevada mining affairs, did not know about it? goldfield promoters soon began to give attention. shortly they caught the infection. a stampede from goldfield into greenwater ensued. in fact, people flocked to greenwater from every direction. a bunch of tonopah money-getters, headed by the indomitable malcolm macdonald, were grabbing the money on greenwaters in new york, and goldfield was not in the play. the reports that came from greenwater as a result of the first stampede from goldfield were of doubtful variety. greenwater & death valley was described as a raw prospect not worth over 10 cents per share. goldfield people shook their heads. there was no gainsaying the fact, however, that greenwater & death valley appeared to be a giant success in the eastern stock markets. charles m. schwab was reported to be behind the flotation of greenwater & death valley. montgomery-shoshone and tonopah extension, two other schwab enterprises, were selling at hundreds of per cent. profit in the stock markets. the fact that mr. schwab was interested in the camp was an argument that appealed with great force to nevada promoters, for the fraternity had learned to attach just as much significance to having a market as to having a mine before commencing promotion operations. the sullivan trust company not having had a failure of any kind on the market, i hesitated to commit the trust company to any issue in the new camp. not to be entirely out of it, however, i sent our engineer, "jack" campbell, into the district to report on all the properties. news came thick and fast from the new york market as to the success of the greenwaters in the east. furnace creek copper company, originally promoted by "patsy" clark of spokane at 25 cents per share, with a million-share capitalization, was reported to be getting the benefit of mr. clark's personal market handling on the new york curb, and the shares soon reached a high quotation of $5.50. john w. gates had been let in by "patsy" at around 50 cents and was reported to have unloaded 400,000 shares at all sorts of prices from $1 up to $5.50, and down again. on the heels of this advance came word of the successful promotion of the united greenwater company, with c. s. minzesheimer & company, members of the new york stock exchange, acting as fiscal agents for the company. the promoters were named as malcolm macdonald, donald b. gillies and charles m. schwab. j. c. weir, the new york mining-stock broker, who was conducting through the mails a nation-wide market-letter campaign in favor of greenwater, was reported to have sold 150,000 or 200,000 shares at the subscription price of $1. the offering was said to have been oversubscribed twice. the price then shot up to $2.50 on the new york curb. the market boiled. philadelphia was reported to be greenwater-mad. when united greenwater had reached $1.50 on its way up and greenwater & death valley had passed the $4 point, the schwab crowd announced the formation of the greenwater copper mines & smelters company to consolidate the greenwater & death valley and united greenwater companies. this new parent company was capitalized for $25,000,000, with 5,000,000 shares of the par value of $5 each, and the east was reported to be eating up the new stock "blood raw." the president of this company was charles r. miller, who was president of the tonopah & goldfield railroad company, and the vice-president was m. r. ward, the redoubtable brother-in-law of charles m. schwab. the directorate included mr. schwab; john w. brock, who represented philadelphia interests on the directorate of the very successful tonopah mining company; malcolm macdonald, the champion "lemon" peddler of nevada; frank keith, general manager of the tonopah mining company, and others. it was a "swell" directorate. it was learned that the stock of the new company had been underwritten by new york stock exchange houses, principally those with philadelphia and pittsburg branches where the schwab crowd was influential, at $1.80 per share, and that large blocks were being sold to the public at up to $3.25 on the new york curb, a valuation for the "properties" of more than $16,000,000. getting into the game the birth of the $25,000,000 merger, to take in two properties that had not yet matriculated even in the baby-mine class and were actually suspected at the outset by mining men in goldfield to be wildcats, was the signal for an outpouring in quick succession of greenwater promotions from all centers, of which the annals of the industry in this country chronicle no counterpart. at the height of the boom there was promoted out of los angeles and new york the furnace creek consolidated copper company, with a capitalization of $5,000,000. from butte, home of the copper-mining industry, the furnace creek extension copper mining company was promoted, with a capitalization of $5,000,000, and also the butte & greenwater, capitalized for $1,500,000. malcolm macdonald the "hero" of montgomery-shoshone at bullfrog, hailed from butte. he it was who interested the schwab crowd in greenwater, as he did in tonopah and bullfrog. "patsy" clark, the noted mine operator of spokane, having prospered marketwise with his furnace creek copper company, promptly headed a new one, the furnace valley copper company, with a capitalization of $6,250,000. these shares were listed on the spokane, butte and los angeles stock exchanges, but did not appear on the new york curb. a san francisco crowd of brokers and stock-market operators organized the greenwater bimetallic copper company. "they let her go gallagher" with a capitalization of $1,000,000. the c. m. sumner investment securities company of denver opened subscriptions for the greenwater-death valley copper company. (the title of this company was a play on the name of the greenwater & death valley copper company.) tonopah citizens, not to be outdone, sallied forth with the greenwater calumet incorporated for $1,500,000. hon. t. l. oddie, later governor of nevada, then of tonopah, and his brother, c. m. oddie, followed the lead and headed the greenwater arcturus copper mining company, with a capitalization of $3,000,000. the consolidated greenwater copper company was fed to the hungry public out of a pittsburg trough, with general offices in the keystone bank building, and with a high-class tonopah crowd on the directorate. eugene howell, cashier of the tonopah banking corporation, of which united states senator nixon was president, was treasurer. john a. kirby, of salt lake city, until recently associated with george wingfield in the ownership of nevada hills, was president. arthur kunze, who had sold the control of the greenwater & death valley copper company to malcolm macdonald, who in turn had interested the schwab coterie in the organization, put out a new one called the greenwater copper mining company, with a capitalization of $5,000,000. h. t. bragdon, formerly president of the goldfield mining company, which is one of the integrals of the goldfield consolidated, headed the greenwater black jack copper mining company, with a capitalization of $1,000,000. all the copper in the world united states senator george s. nixon of nevada lent his name, along with h. h. clark, william bayley and h. j. woollacott, as a director of the greenwater furnace creek copper company, with a capitalization of $1,500,000. the prospectus of this company announced that the ores were "melaconite, azurite, chalcocite, and occasionally chrysocolla, averaging 18 to 36 per cent. (copper) tenor." "taking the lowest percentage of ore reported by the company," says horace stevens in the _copper handbook_ of 1908, "and the company's own figures as to the size of its ore-bodies, the first 100 feet in depth on this wonderful property would carry upward of 20,000,000 tons of refined copper, worth, at 13 cents per pound, the comparatively trifling sum of five billion, two hundred million dollars." mr. stevens goes on: "the fact that a major is manager of this company, and a united states senator is vice-president, will prove a great consolation to the shareholders. it is indeed lamentable to note that this magnificent mine, which carries, according to the company's own statements, more copper than all the developed copper mines of the world, is idle, and present office address a mystery." donald mackenzie, of goldfield, promoter of the successful frances-mohawk mining & leasing company at goldfield, which netted over $1,500,000 from mohawk ores, and distributed all of 20 per cent. of this amount to stockholders in the shape of dividends, pushed out the greenwater red boy copper company and the greenwater saratoga copper company, with a capitalization of $1,000,000 each. thomas b. rickey, president of the state bank & trust company of goldfield, tonopah and carson city, was president of both of these companies, and j. l. ("god-bless-you") lindsey, cashier of the state bank & trust company, was treasurer. greenwater consolidated, greenwater copper, furnace creek oxide copper, greenwater black oxide copper, greenwater california copper, greenwater polaris copper, greenwater pay copper, pittsburg and greenwater copper, greenwater copper range, greenwater ely consolidated, greenwater sunset, new york & greenwater, greenwater etna, greenwater superior, greenwater victor, greenwater ibex, greenwater vindicator, greenwater prospectors', greenwater el captain, greenwater & death valley extension, greenwater copper queen, greenwater helmet, tonopah greenwater, furnace creek gold & copper, and greenwater willow creek were the names of a score of others with capitalizations ranging all the way from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 each. among these the greenwater willow creek copper company boasted of the fanciest directorate. george a. bartlett, nevada's lone congressman, was president, and richard sutro, then head of the world-known new york banking house of sutro bros. & co., was advertised as first vice-president. henry e. epstine, the popular tonopah broker, was second vice-president, and alonzo tripp, general manager of the tonopah & goldfield railroad, was a director. did i fall for greenwater? yes, and at the eleventh hour. on the half-hearted recommendation of the trust company's engineer, "jack" campbell, the l. m. sullivan trust company paid $125,000 for a property in greenwater that boasted of two ten-foot holes. on two sides it adjoined the property of the furnace creek copper company, the original location in the camp. our engineer reported that if "patsy" clark's furnace creek copper company, shares of which were selling in the market at a valuation of $5,500,000 for the property, had any ore, we certainly could not miss it. no matter which way the veins trended, our ground must be as good as "patsy's," because the identical vein formation passed through both properties. the sullivan trust company thereupon incorporated the furnace creek south extension copper company to operate the property. the capitalization was 1,250,000 shares of the par value of $1, of which 500,000 shares were placed in the treasury of the company to be sold for purposes of mine development. new york stock exchange houses having the call as purveyors of this particular line of goods, the sullivan trust company tendered the selling agency of furnace creek south extension treasury stock to e. a. manice & company, members of the new york stock exchange, whose officers are located in the same building in new york as j. p. morgan & company. we offered for public subscription 100,000 shares of treasury stock at par, $1, through e. a. manice & company, and this firm advertised the offering in new york newspapers over their own signature. the sullivan trust company paid the bills. the collapse of greenwater the offering turned out to be a "bloomer," the first the sullivan trust company had met with. e. a. manice & company did not dispose of as many as 30,000 shares. neither did the stock offered later by the sullivan trust company through brokers in other cities sell freely. just at the moment when we announced our offering of furnace creek south extension the greenwater boom began to crack. oscar adams turner, who promoted the tonopah mining company of nevada, which has paid $8,000,000 in dividends on a capitalization of $1,000,000, is responsible for the early bursting of the bubble. mr. turner had invested in the greenwater camp on the reports of an engineer. he organized the greenwater central copper company. then he decided that it was advisable for him to take a look at the property for himself. he visited greenwater. two hours after arriving in camp he sent a telegram to philadelphia reading substantially as follows: stop offering greenwater central. make no more payments on the property. do not use my name any further. there is nothing here. the tenor of the message leaked out. indiscriminate selling ensued by a noted bank crowd in philadelphia who were loaded up with greenwaters. others followed suit. the market became sick. at the first sign of a market setback inquiries began to pour into nevada from all over the east, and noted copper experts from montana, arizona, california and other points came piling into the greenwater camp to examine the properties. soon a chorus of adverse opinion found its way into every financial center. market values crumbled as rapidly as they had risen. paper fortunes evaporated in thin air. i make a conservative statement when i say that the american public sank fully $30,000,000 in greenwater in less than four months. not all of the greenwater promotions were over-subscribed--not half, not a quarter--and the american public may well congratulate itself that the boom "busted" when only approximately $30,000,000 had passed into the pockets of the promoters. what of the camp? it exists no more. all mine development work ceased long ago. there are green-stained carbonates on the surface, but there are no copper ore-bodies. the "mines" have been dismantled of their machinery and other equipment, and not even a lone watchman remains to point out to the desert-wayfarer the spot on which was reared _the monumental mining-stock swindle of the century_. every dollar invested by the public is lost. the dry, hot winds of the sand-swept desert now chant the requiem. fix the responsibility here if you can. the job is not easy. let me attempt it. the buccaneers who took greenwater & death valley down to new york and allowed the public to subscribe for it with the name of charles m. schwab as a lure, at a valuation for the property of more than $3,000,000, and then ballooned the price on the curb until the shares sold at a valuation of $16,500,000 for the property, without an assured mining success in sight in the entire camp--these men, in my opinion, were criminally responsible. they have never been called to account. members of the new york stock exchange who aided and abetted them by lending their names to the transaction, and charles m. schwab, who permitted the use of his name and that of his brother-in-law, are morally responsible. not for an instant do i entertain the thought that the stock exchange crowd and mr. schwab realized that the mines of the company were absolutely valueless, but i do maintain that men of their standing and prestige have opportunities which men of smaller caliber do not enjoy and that their conduct for this reason was reprehensible to an extreme. the shame and the blame i cite the instance of the sullivan trust company "falling" for greenwater, after hesitating about embarking on the enterprise for weeks, and i am convinced that others fell the same way. the sullivan trust company did not touch a greenwater property until its clients and its clientele among the brokers throughout the union had burned up the wires with requests for a greenwater promotion, and when it did finally "fall" it lost its own money, the only other sufferers being a handful of investors who at the tail-end of the boom subscribed for a comparatively small block of treasury stock. not all of the promoters "fell" innocently, however. there were half-baked promoters and mining-stock brokers in almost every city in the union who had witnessed the enhancement in values during the goldfield boom, and whose palms had itched for the "long green" that for so long came the way of men on the ground. these, at the first signal that the greenwater boom was on, with charles m. schwab in the saddle, lost no time in annexing ground in the district with the single view of incorporating companies and retailing the stock to the public at thousands of per cent. profit. the greenwater mining-boom fiasco stands in a class by itself as an example of mining-stock pitfalls. the only greenwater stock which at this time has a market quotation is greenwater mines & smelters, which reflects the true state of the public mind regarding all greenwaters by actually selling at a valuation of less than the amount of money in the company's treasury--6 cents per share on an outstanding issue of 3,000,000 shares--there being $189,000 in the treasury along with an i.o.u. of c. s. minzesheimer & company, the "busted" new york stock exchange house, for $71,000, of which the company will realize 27 cents on the dollar through the receiver. chapter v on the eve of the great goldfield smash it was early in november, 1906. indian summer held goldfield in its soft embrace. nature wore that golden livery which one always associates with the idea of abundance. the mines of the district were being gutted of their treasures at the rate of $1,000,000 a month. under the high pressure of the short-term leasing system new high records of production were being made. the population was 15,000. bank deposits totaled $15,000,000. real estate on main street commanded $1,000 a front foot. the streets were full of people. every one had money. in years gone by men had died of thirst on that very spot. three years before there were no mines and the population numbered only a corporal's guard. the transformation was complete. within three years the dreams of the lusty trail-blazers, who had braved the perils of the desert to locate the district, had become a towering reality. the camp, which two years before was dubbed by financial writers of the press as a "raw prospect" and a "haven for wildcatters and gamblers," had developed bonanza proportions. the early boast of goldfield's press bureau, that goldfield would prove to be the greatest gold camp in the united states, was an accomplished fact. listed goldfield mining issues showed an enhancement in the markets of nearly $150,000,000. stocks of neighboring camps had increased in market value $50,000,000 more. the camp rode complacently on the crest of the big boom, than which history chronicles no greater since the famous old days of mackay, fair, flood and o'brien on the comstock. there was no premonition that a climax must be reached in climbing values at some period, and that a collapse might be near. goldfield consolidated shares were selling on the exchanges at above par, $10, or at a market valuation of more than $36,000,000 for the issued capitalization of the company. you could have bought all of the properties of this company for less than $150,000 when the camp was first located. a score of leases were operating the consolidated's properties. the leases were soon to expire. much market capital was made of the fact that the company would presently "come into its own." more than 175 stocks of goldfield and near-by camps were listed on the exchanges and curbs. all of these were selling at sensational prices and enjoyed a swimming market. the successful merging by wingfield and nixon of the principal producing properties of goldfield at a $36,000,000 valuation, more than four times the value of the known ore-reserves, stimulated the whole list. columbia mountain, promoted by the mergerers of goldfield consolidated, but excluded from the merger because not contiguous to the other integrals and because it had no ore, had been ballooned to $1.35 per share on a million-share capitalization, and stood firm in the market regardless of the fact that it was still only an unpromising "prospect." the issued stock of a dozen other companies in control of the promoters of the merger was selling at an aggregate value of many millions more. the most despised "pup" in this particular group was milltown, of not even prospective value; yet it easily commanded a per-share price that gave the "property" a market valuation of $400,000. silver pick, capitalized for 1,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each, had scored an uninterrupted advance from 15 to $2.65 a share without a pound of ore being found on the property. the market price did not waver. kewanas, another million-share company, was in big demand at $2.25 per share, a valuation of $2,250,000 for the property and an advance of 2,250 per cent. over the promotion price. kewanas's gain was also made despite the fact that mine developments had failed to open up pay ore in commercial quantities. eight months earlier the entire acreage had been offered to me for $35,000 and i had refused to buy. goldfield daisy, promoted by frank horton, a faro dealer in george wingfield's tonopah gambling joint, had been ballooned from 15 cents to $6 a share on a capitalization of 1,500,000 shares. it had never earned a dollar for stockholders, but was actually selling in the open market at a valuation of $9,000,000. the price showed no sign of weakening. combination fraction, owning a few acres of ground, which was promoted at 20 cents a share on a capitalization of 1,000,000 shares, had risen rapidly, because of ore discoveries and contiguity to the mohawk, to $8.50 a share. stockholders gave no sign of a tendency to unload. great bend, situated in the diamondfield section of the goldfield district, four miles from the productive zone, had been carried up from 10 cents a share to $2.50 without a mine being opened up, establishing a market valuation for the property of $2,500,000. these are but a few of the more striking instances of price appreciations. all of these stocks, excepting goldfield consolidated, are now selling for a few pennies per share each, the average not being so much as ten cents. there were over a hundred other goldfield stocks that also enjoyed spectacular market careers, on which it is now impossible to get any quotation at all. the rise of wingfield and nixon any one in goldfield who was willing to admit that stocks were selling too high at the time was decried as a "knocker." you could borrow freely on all listed goldfield stocks at john s. cook & company's bank, owned by the promoters of the goldfield consolidated, and the men of the camp for that reason felt that there must be concrete value behind nearly all of them. brokers in eastern cities reported that few of their customers were willing to take profits even at the prices to which stocks had been skyrocketed. most mining-stock brokers of the cities had "knocked" the stocks of the camp in the early days before the advance. at this stage, when prices had reached undreamed-of levels, the brokers did not advise their customers that values had been worked up far beyond intrinsic worth. indeed, they actually waxed enthusiastic in their recommendations to buy. every one was a bull. sessions of the goldfield stock exchange reflected the extent of the craze. outside of the exchange the stridulous, whooping, screeching, detonating voices of the brokers that kept carrying the market up at each session could be heard half a block away. later, did you find your way into the crowded board-room, the half-crazed manner in which note-books, arms, fists, index fingers, hats and heads tossed and swayed approached in frenzy a scene of violence to which madness might at once be the consummation and the curse. george wingfield and his partner, george s. nixon, were the heroes of the hour. less than five years before, mr. wingfield had come into tonopah with a stake of $150, supplied by mr. nixon, whose home was in winnemucca, nevada. mr. wingfield had formerly been an impecunious cowboy gambler. born in the backwoods of arkansas, and later of oregon, he hailed from golconda, nevada. mr. nixon, at the time he staked mr. wingfield and until his election as a united states senator in 1904, was known as the "state agent" of the southern pacific company for nevada, having succeeded on the job the notorious "black" wallace, who for many years handled the "yellow-dog" fund for the huntington régime when franchises were hard to get and legislatures had to be bought. mr. nixon was also president of a bank in winnemucca, which was a way station on the southern pacific railroad. mr. wingfield had signalized his money-getting prowess by running mr. nixon's $150 into $1,000,000 as principal owner of the tonopah club, the biggest gambling house in tonopah, and later "parleying" the money for himself and partner into ownership of control of the merged $36,000,000 goldfield consolidated, which was their corporate creation. mr. wingfield was said to be behind the market. he was looked upon as boss of the mining partnership, and mr. nixon as a circumstance. mr. wingfield was a conspicuous figure at nearly all the sessions of the goldfield stock exchange, of which he was a member. in the early evenings, when informal sessions were held on the curb, he could also be seen in the thick of the tumult. he was on the job at all hours. at that time mr. wingfield was about thirty years old. of stinted, meager frame, his was the extreme pallor that denoted ill health, years of hardship, or vicious habits. his eyes were watery, his look vacillating. uncouth, cold of manner, and taciturn of disposition, he was the last man whom an observer would readily imagine to be the possessor of abilities of a superior order. in and around the camp he was noted for secretiveness. he was rated a cool, calculating, selfish, surething gambler-man-of-affairs--the kind who uses the backstairs, never trusts anybody, is willing to wait a long time to accomplish a set purpose, keeps his mouth closed, and does not allow trifling scruples to stand in the way of final encompassment. among stud-poker players who patronized gaming tables in tonopah, goldfield and bullfrog, he was famed for a half-cunning expression of countenance which deceived his opponents into believing he was bluffing when he wasn't. in card games he was usually a consistent winner. his partner, george s. nixon, looked the part of the dapper little winnemucca bank manager and confidential state agent of the southern pacific that he was before becoming senator. he was considerably below middle weight, and above middle girth at that part of his anatomy which a political enemy once described as seat of his thoughts and the tabernacle of his aspirations. his steel-gray eyes were absolutely without expression. newly-rich, his money and his southern pacific connections had gained him a toga, but he did not carry himself like a man upon whom the honors had been thrust. around goldfield he strutted with the pride and gravity of a spanish grandee. the pair were in control of the mine, bank and market situation. brokers, bank men and officers of mining companies waited upon them and did their bidding. at night, in the montezuma club, where leading citizens were wont to congregate, mr. wingfield would on occasion ostentatiously offer to wager that goldfield consolidated "would sell at $15 before $9," etc. men with money who had flocked to the camp from every direction listened in rapt attention. at a later hour they secretly wired the news to their friends in the east. next morning the market would reflect more public buying and still higher prices. goldfield itself was blindly following the lead of the twain. it was indeed easier for these men to mark prices up than to put them down. the winnings of a tenderfoot what about me? where did i stand and what was my position at this conjuncture? did i have foresight? did i realize that stocks were selling at much higher prices than were warranted by intrinsic worth and speculative value? was not the fact that the mergerers and waterers of goldfield consolidated were in command of the mine, market and bank situation sufficient to make me suspect that possibly the cards might be stacked and that maybe cards were being dealt from the bottom of the deck? was i, in fact, wise to the exact situation and did i realize a smash was bound to ensue? 'tis a pity hindsight were not foresight, for only in that event could i laurel-wreath myself. i had been on the ground for more than two years. in reality i was still a tenderfoot. my experiences had been unique--all on the constructive side. i had mastered the first rudiments of the game, but only the first. intrinsic value didn't figure as the only item in my conception of the worth of a goldfield mining issue. the millionaires of the camp were not miners by profession and their judgment of the value of any mining property would not have influenced a guggenheim, a ryan or a rothschild to extend so much as $4 on the development of any piece of likely mineral ground. goldfield was a poor man's camp. and it was making good despite the croakings of school-trained engineers who had turned the district down in the early days, as they did tonopah. at this period i was living frugally. i never touched a card. i worked at my desk on an average of sixteen hours a day, including sunday, and i never relaxed. although i had arrived in the camp broke, had i been offered $2,000,000 for my half interest in the l. m. sullivan trust company i think i should have refused it. i liked my job. the leaven of my environment appealed directly to my perceptions. i was saturated with the traditions of western "mining luck" and also with the optimism of my sturdy neighbors. these men had stood their ground in the early period of the camp's days of "trial and tribulation." they had triumphed like their forebears on the comstock, just as did the hardy pioneers of leadville and cripple creek and as their brethren of tonopah did. their influence over me was unbounded. i relished the work, anyhow. as a matter of fact, i had little use for money except for the purposes of business. _and never a suggestion came to me that it was time for a "clean up."_ the l. m. sullivan trust company, of which i was vice-president and general manager, was doing remarkably well. the stocks of the mining companies that were organized and promoted by the trust company were listed on the san francisco stock exchange and new york curb and showed a market appreciation of $3,000,000 above the promotion prices. indian camp, promoted at 25 cents, was selling freely at $1.30. jumping jack, for which subscriptions were originally accepted at 25 cents, was in hot demand at 62 cents. stray dog, sold to the public originally at 45 cents, was active around 85 cents. lou dillon, put out less than a month before at 25 cents, had worked its way up to 64 cents. silver pick extension, which was oversubscribed at 25 cents and commanded 35 cents two hours after we announced that subscriptions were closed, was selling on the exchanges and curbs of the country at 49 cents. eagle's nest fairview, which original subscribers got into at 35 cents, was very much wanted at 65 cents. fairview hailstone, floated at 25 cents, was in constant demand at 40 cents. governor john sparks was now president of all of these companies. you could have sold big blocks of the sullivan stocks at these profit-making prices on any of the mining exchanges and curb markets of the country without reducing the price a cent, so constant was the public demand and so broad was the market. with the exception of bullfrog rush, for which the sullivan trust company had refunded the money to subscribers when the mine under development proved to be a "lemon," every promotion of the trust company showed investors a handsome stock-market profit. in the aggregate the promotion price of the seven sullivan mining companies figured $2,000,000 for the entire capitalization. the market price of these was now $5,000,000, or an average gain of 150 per cent. it was a record to be proud of, and i _was_ proud of it, not alone because i was vice-president and general manager of the trust company, but also because a firm of expert accountants, recommended by the american national bank of san francisco to examine the books of the trust company, had reported that our assets were $3,000,000 in excess of liabilities, all of which had been gathered in about ten months' time. about $1,000,000 of this represented promotion profits. the remainder was earned by the appreciation in price of mining securities carried or accumulated through the boom. it was the common boast of the camp that george wingfield had "parleyed" or "pyramided" $1,000,000 which represented the profits of his gambling place in tonopah, into ownership of control along with his partner nixon, of the $36,000,000 goldfield consolidated. as heretofore related, i had experienced a lot of hard luck in missing by a hair's breadth, ownership of the hayes-monnette lease on the mohawk and the nevada hills mine, which would have increased our profits $8,000,000 more, but i felicitated myself that i had done very well by pyramiding $2,500 into a half interest in a flourishing $3,000,000 trust company. i was vain enough to believe that my achievement was as unique as that of mr. wingfield, because he had had the influence of a united states senator and the money deposited in a chain of newly established banks in goldfield, tonopah and other points to aid him in his operations. against this i had not only been compelled to rely on my own resources, but was actually required to combat the work of black-mailers who from time to time attempted to levy tribute. on my failure to "come through" (i never did) they rarely hesitated to take a malevolent smash in print at the sullivan trust company, because in years gone by its active head happened to have had a very youthful past, even though they knew that past was no longer his and he had passed it like milestones on the way. i am landed high and dry the nevada state election took place in november. the democratic ticket, headed by "honest" john sparks for governor and denver s. dickerson for lieutenant-governor, was victorious. the republican ticket, headed by j. f. mitchell, a mining promoter and engineer, backed by united states senator nixon, the republican political boss, suffered humiliating defeat. denver s. dickerson was the candidate of the labor unions. during a former labor war in cripple creek mr. dickerson had been confined in the "bull-pen" when the government intervened to quell the labor riots there. goldfield miners to a man very naturally voted for him. governor sparks had accepted the renomination at the urgent request of the l. m. sullivan trust company, and his victory, as well as the complexion of the ticket, was credited largely to the activities in politics of the trust company. the trust company, while not a banking institution in the sense that it accepted deposits of cash from citizens of the town, having confined its operations to the financing of mining enterprises, loomed large on the political and business horizon because of its increasing financial and political power. the trust company carried all of its moneys in banks that were not affiliated with the wingfield-nixon confederacy and worked at cross-purposes with it in this particular, too. the wingfield-nixon crowd had pyramided a gambling house in tonopah and a little one-horse bank in winnemucca into ownership of control of the $36,000,000 goldfield consolidated; into ownership of john s. cook & company's bank in goldfield, which was credited with deposits aggregating $8,000,000; into a new bank in tonopah, known as the tonopah banking corporation, and into a newly formed bank in reno, called the nixon national. in politics it had succeeded in seating mr. nixon in the united states senate, placing at his command the federal patronage which goes with that exalted office. the confederacy was reaching out. in goldfield it had overcome such strong banking opposition as the nye & ormsby county bank and the state bank & trust company, both of which were in business before john s. cook & company were dreamed of. it had accomplished this by loaning large sums of money to goldfield brokers and other citizens on mining stocks of the camp at a time when this class of securities was not so readily accepted by the other banks as good collateral. in tonopah the newly-established nixon bank, known as the tonopah banking corporation, was making gradual headway against both the nye & ormsby and the state bank & trust company, which still carried about 75 per cent. of the business of that camp. in reno the nixon national found it hard to compete with such old institutions as the bank of nevada, the washoe county bank and the farmers & merchants national, but rumors were already in the air that the nixon bank was soon to buy out and consolidate with the powerful bank of nevada. in goldfield the power of the confederacy was strongest in all lines except politics. there it already had its grasp on the throat of the mining and financial business of the camp, and through the out-of-town draft collection department of its bank held its finger on the pulse of the mining-share markets. its sore spot was politics. wingfield and nixon's market operations were clouded in mystery. no one knew exactly where they stood. brokers in goldfield and san francisco, who had compared notes, were convinced that the two had unloaded many millions of shares of the smaller companies not included in the merger, and had raked in not less than $10,000,000 during the boom as the result of this selling. the disposal of huge blocks of stock by wingfield and nixon, however, was not interpreted as meaning that stocks were selling too high. the general idea prevailed that the proceeds were used to enable the confederacy to finance its stock purchases in the integral companies that were turned over in the making of the merger and to finance its new chain of banks. about the middle of november the market for goldfield securities took a turn for the bad. prices gave indication of having reached a stopping place. goldfield promoters began to complain that they were compelled to lend strong support to the market because of selling from many quarters that could not be explained. there was much market pressure. in a few days the market became unsteady, then soft, then wobbly again. in camp wingfield and nixon were reported still bullish. the securities of the sullivan trust company were under attack in all markets. salt lake and san francisco were reported to be spilling stock. great blocks were being thrown over. i gave support in a jiffy. there was no surcease. _within ten days i was forced to throw all of a million dollars behind the market to hold it._ this didn't faze me. i was getting stock certificates for the money, and i believed they were worth the price. but i was puzzled to determine what it was all about. the beginning of the raid soon it was reported to me that senator nixon was advising people at all points who held sullivan stocks, or knew of anybody who held them, to unload. from san francisco came word that a clique of brokers was operating for the decline. on the following monday the market on the san francisco stock exchange opened strong and buoyant, and it looked for a moment as if the selling movement had collapsed. i felt relieved. my 'phone bell rang. a stock broker of tonopah called me on the long distance. "offer you 10,000 lou dillon at 48," he said. "do you want them?" lou dillon was a sullivan stock that had been promoted at 25; 48 was now a point under the market, however. "we'll take 'em," i said. "what's the matter?" "rumored up here that your books are under inspection by the post-office department. you have had five new men on your books for the past few weeks, and some one has spread a story here that nixon has sicked the government on to you." i denied it, of course. the five men in question were the experts who had been sent up from san francisco by the firm of accountants recommended to us by the american national bank, and they were there at our own behest. the story was a raw canard. throughout the day the sullivan trust company was called upon to stand behind the san francisco market and take in nearly all of the big blocks of sullivan stocks owned in the camps of tonopah and manhattan. before our denials could reach the sellers the damage had been done. and it took $250,000 a day for four days to hold the market against this fresh onslaught. color had been lent to the wild rumors about a postal investigation by the fact that an attack had been made on me in the columns of the _denver mining record_ a year before. rumor said the dose was going to be repeated. in the early days of the camp, when i was at the head of the goldfield-tonopah advertising agency, i had represented the _denver mining record_ in goldfield. as its agent i had secured advertising contracts for it which netted my agency in the neighborhood of $10,000 a year in commissions. the owners of the newspaper conceived the idea that i was making too much money on a commission basis and sent wing b. allen, formerly of salt lake, to the scene to take my place. mr. allen worked for smaller pay. he wanted me to divide my commission on standing business, and i refused. the publishers took mr. allen's part. as a result i withdrew all the advertising from the columns of the _denver mining record_ for which my agency had been responsible, and the _denver mining record_ was never able to regain the lost ground. a short time before the raid on our stocks began mr. allen had been arrested in goldfield on a warrant sworn out by l. m. sullivan, tried before judge bell on the charge of extortion and bound over to the grand jury. at the hearing before judge bell the sullivan trust company submitted evidence that mr. allen had threatened, if we did not give his paper a slice of the promotion advertising of the sullivan trust company, that the _denver mining record_ would commence to attack me personally in its columns, and, because of my early past, would do the trust company serious damage. at the hearing despatches were submitted which were filed at the goldfield office of the western union telegraph company by mr. allen, in which he had informed his paper that it had better proceed with the attack, because neither mr. sullivan nor myself gave indication of yielding. at the hearing, under oath and in a crowded courtroom, i openly denounced mr. allen and his newspaper as blackmailers of the very vilest type, and so did mr. sullivan. judge bell, on the submission by the western union of mr. allen's despatches to his paper, promptly held him for the grand jury. on the advice of former governor thomas, of colorado, to whom the sullivan trust company paid a retainer as counsel, and who later became chief counsel for the goldfield consolidated, i employed christopher c. clay of denver to commence suit against the owners of the _denver mining record_. as a result i secured from them a settlement by which they agreed not to mention my name again in their paper. i was harassed at the time, or i would not have compromised. the stuff printed by the _denver mining record_, which has been rehashed by every blackmailer who ever attempted to levy on me, was about two-tenths true and eight-tenths false. it was a literal copy of an anonymous publication put out by a set of blackmailers who had tried to circulate it years before in new york when i was head of the maxim & gay company. i had spent thousands of dollars to run down the authorship then, but without avail. the lawyers had succeeded in seizing thousands of copies of the publication, and had made an arrest, but they failed to prove authorship of the screed and ownership of the paper, and the culprits therefore were not punished. in denver when mr. clay applied for criminal warrants, he was asked first to furnish proof of authorship, which was impossible for us, the articles having been unsigned. some pertinent personalities the same stuff has recently appeared without signature in a goldfield paper which originally came into possession of george wingfield through foreclosure proceedings, and in a reno evening paper which is controlled by senator nixon, who owns a large slice of the paper's mortgage. it has also appeared in other papers "friendly" to wingfield and nixon. tens of thousands of copies of the goldfield publication containing the anonymous libel have been sent broadcast. other newspapers have reproduced the libelous stuff, some innocently and some for sordid reasons, but of this more later. my career is fraught with instances of recourse by enemies to blackmail and attempted blackmail. if i should undertake to tabulate the cases where men and interests, ranging from impecunious newspaper reporters to financial-newspaper publishers and mining-stock brokers and market operators who, from the background, publish market letters or furnish the capital for mining publications, have attempted to levy tribute or to club me into submission by the use of so vile a weapon, i should be compelled to write a big book on the subject. and right here i should like to place myself on record to the effect that seemingly the principal shortcoming that has marked my mining-financial career has been that i had a youthful past--a past which during the last decade has never been taken into serious consideration by men who have held close business relations with me, but which, of course, is a thorn in the sides of men and interests whose bidding i have failed to obey. i defy any man to cite a single instance where i was guilty of crookedness in a mining transaction or a business transaction of any kind in my entire career as a promoter. i have been fearless--too much so. i have been a rabid enthusiast. i have tried to build. i have given quarter, but have never taken any. i have been honest. were i really dishonest, i could have prevented every publication of an attack of consequence on me by lending myself in advance to the base purposes of my traducers, and i would have millions now for having compromised with them. it is heaven's own truth that in nine cases out of ten, when i have been attacked in print, the motive of the attacking party has been base and the facts have been so distorted or misrepresented that the fabric was a lie. nor has the cruelty of the operation stayed any one's hand. at the very moment in goldfield when i knew that the _denver mining record_ would not assault the sullivan trust company again because of the settlement of the libel suit by my lawyers out of court, fresh rumors were spread that the _denver mining record_ was getting ready for another attack and that tens of thousands of copies of that newspaper were to be circulated. but you can't stop a rumor by the declaration of the truth, and the sullivan trust company decided that it would be unwise to make a denial in print, for by so doing it would communicate to all stockholders the news that the sullivan stocks were actually under attack and thus cause more "frightened selling." sight drafts from brokers in new york, chicago, salt lake and san francisco, drawn on the sullivan trust company, with large bundles of sullivan stocks attached, were pouring into our office through the local banks for presentation. john s. cook & company made a specialty of this department of banking, and most of the drafts on us were cleared through the wingfield-nixon bank. it was reported to me that senator nixon was openly discussing the enormous volume of stocks coming in on us and was questioning our ability to stem the tide. as a strategic measure, the sullivan trust company decided to "cross" sales on the san francisco stock exchange so that it might ship out of the camp, through the banks, large blocks of stock with draft attached against san francisco brokers and thus convey to the minds of local bankers that we were selling large blocks of stock as well as buying them. the volume of the "cross" trades caused some talk in san francisco, and was magnified by brokers operating for the decline. the time when money talks some of our brokers in san francisco now demanded an independent bank guaranty that the drafts on us would be honored. we asked for a line of credit at the state bank & trust company. it was promptly given. as fast as the brokers asked for a guaranty, the state bank & trust company telegraphed them formally that it would honor our paper to the extent of $20,000 or $30,000 in every case. to protect the bank and in order to be able to borrow a large sum of money, should we need it in the event of another selling movement starting in, we deposited stocks of a market value of $1,500,000 with the state bank & trust company, which signed a paper that this collateral was to stand against loans for any amount which the state bank & trust company might make to us on open account. a few days later we borrowed from the bank $300,000 in cash, and it was agreed that should we need $300,000 more on the same collateral, it would be promptly placed at our disposal. we did not yet need the money, but i realized the desirability of assembling cash in an exigency such as that. nor was this an unusual proceeding. there was a time during the manhattan boom when the overdraft of the sullivan trust company in the nye & ormsby county bank was $695,000. the bank held against this overdraft sullivan stocks at the promotion price. nearly all of these stocks at that early period were as yet unlisted. the idea of withdrawing support and letting the market go to smash did not occur to me at all. as already stated, i believed the stocks were worth the money. but that was not the chief reason for my stubborn market position. i took great pride in the fact that every listed stock of the sullivan trust company showed a big profit to stockholders. i considered the greatest asset of the trust company to be, not its money, but its prestige, and i entertained big ideas as to a future i had mapped out for the corporation. i did not suspect that an organized campaign was on to destroy us and that the dominant interests of the camp were reaching out for everything in sight. nor did i have any use for money for hoarding purposes. the only thing that seriously nettled me was the fact that the sullivan trust company had been compelled to turn borrower. before the first selling movement started in, our assets were $3,000,000 more than our liabilities. but this $3,000,000 was not all cash. in fact, it was represented in part by stocks which we had purchased in the market with the idea that they were good stocks to own and would show the trust company a big profit, as they had. we could have cleaned up $3,000,000 in cash, but we had not done so. now, within a month, all of our available cash had been put into fresh lines of our own securities, we had been compelled to sell other lines out, and the corporation was a borrower. i was stubborn--too stubborn for a man who boasted of so little experience in such a big game. it was a pet belief of mine that obstacles create character. i was in the heat of a battle and fighting my way against tremendous odds. i rather liked the sensation. another dominant trait which, deep down, has in recent years been the keynote of my actions is the fact that my philosophy teaches me that you can't down the truth, that a lie can't live, and that _justice will be finally done_. had i always put the accent on the "finally" and mixed with my philosophy a little "dope" to the effect that while justice is always _finally_ triumphant, injustice is often victorious _for a while_, i might have fared better. in a previous chapter i stated that "wall street deals for suckers" and that "thinkers who think they know, but don't" are the suckers for which wall street casts its net. i also stated that wall street promoters realized that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and that this "little knowledge" leads astray this particular kind of sucker. in "falling" in goldfield for the philosophy that "justice is always triumphant in the end," by swallowing it whole, and in making no allowance for the fact that justice is sometimes tardy, even though it does prevail in the end, i here decorate myself with a medal as a top-notcher in the _sucker_ class--in the academic sense--which i have described, and which is the usual sense in which i use the term "sucker." again the selling ceased, and it looked as if the sullivan trust company would be compelled to wait only for a general turn in the market to relieve itself of money-pressure by disposing of some of the large blocks of stock it had accumulated during the periods of heavy liquidation. clouds in the western sky a new black cloud showed itself on the horizon. a labor war was threatened in goldfield. it was very apparent, from the conduct of george wingfield, that he was baiting the miners, and it appeared to be the general opinion of the people of goldfield that he was trying to precipitate trouble. the miners had asked for higher wages. the sullivan trust company, which was operating seven properties with a monthly pay-roll of $50,000, was the first to express a willingness to grant the terms. wingfield and nixon refused. the miners asked for arbitration. it was refused. the mines were then shut down for a few days and the terms of the leases were extended. heavy selling in all goldfield stocks took place during the shut-down. rumors could now be heard on every side that wingfield and nixon were dumping overboard big blocks of stock. could it be possible that they themselves were scuttling the ship that had given them such glorious passage? again the sullivan trust company was called upon to stand behind the market. soon a cry of distress was heard in the camp from investors and stock brokers who had overloaded themselves with securities and who were in debt to the banks to the extent of millions, with stock of the camp put up as collateral. inquiry revealed the fact that all goldfield and tonopah banks were overloaded. this condition had been brought about by the liberal terms which had been granted by the wingfield-nixon banks during the "ballooning" of goldfield consolidated, when the confederacy, according to common belief, was unloading millions of dollars' worth of stocks in the small companies and was using the proceeds to finance their purchase of the stock of several of the integrals that formed the big merger. i began to get next to myself and to "smell a rat." i had never had so much as an argument with either mr. wingfield or mr. nixon, had never been engaged in any business transactions with them, and the campaign against the trust company, which i felt sure had been conceived at the outset in the interests of the republican political machine, i now suspected was part of a general scheme to get hold of anything and everything that was valuable in the camp. by smashing the sullivan trust company they could hurt the democratic party of the state, with which we were affiliated, and for which it was currently believed we were supplying the sinews of war. by smashing us they might also cripple the bank with which we were doing business, and which in both goldfield and tonopah, particularly tonopah, was a formidable competitor of their banking interests. and thus they might also facilitate a decline in the market which would shake out of their holdings borrowers at their banks. i figured it out this way: wingfield and nixon knew that we had foolishly attempted to support the market for our stocks, that other promoters in goldfield had done likewise, and that investors and brokers in goldfield had borrowed heavily from all of the banks. john s. cook & company were calling for more collateral from their customers, and real estate was being added to the pledges of mining securities. what more easy, even though diabolical, than to "bear" the market, shake out the stockholders in various important mines of the camp, take their stocks away from them by foreclosure, and get possession again, at bankrupt-sale prices, of the millions of dollars' worth of securities which they had unloaded during the boom? if this was the scheme of wingfield and nixon, what transpired could not have been patterned more perfectly. mr. wingfield walked the streets day and night, armed to the teeth, and openly dared any of the miners to "get him." he threatened another shut-down, a reduction of wages, the installation of change-rooms at the mines and other dire things, all seemingly calculated to rouse the ire of the mine-workers. the miners fell for the bait, became belligerent and nasty and did things with which the community was not in sympathy. day by day the situation became more critical. during one of the shut-downs which ensued, senator nixon revealed his hand by convening a meeting of the executive committees of the two goldfield stock exchanges. he insisted that the exchanges close, arguing that the prices of stocks should be allowed to recede in sympathy with the labor troubles. no thought was his for the men of the camp who were committed to the long side of the market at boom prices and who had worked day and night to create the boom which had thrown into the laps of wingfield and nixon riches far beyond the dreams of avarice. the brokers refused to close the exchanges. goldfielders were slow to grasp the real import of what was transpiring. things were very much unsettled. optimism would rule to-day on apparently inspired rumors that the differences between the mine owners and the miners were about to be patched up. the next day gloom would pervade the camp because of the unfavorable action by the union on the peace plans. nightly conferences were held. it was impossible to get an accurate line on the situation. crowds gathered about miners' union hall, where the meetings were held, and everyone sought something tangible on which to base his market operations. the officers of the union were in and out of the market, taking advantage of their official positions to anticipate every favorable or unfavorable development. it was a critically sensitive market situation. the drift, however, was unmistakably downward. values began to melt like snow in a spring thaw. through it all the sullivan trust company stood valiantly behind its securities in all markets where they were traded in--to the limit. i was bull-headed. i had never before been through a mining-camp boom of such proportions, and i failed to recognize that a reaction must ensue, whether it was forced by wingfield and nixon or not. tens of thousands of shares of sullivan stocks were thrown at our brokers on the san francisco stock exchange and new york curb from day to day, and we took them all in, refusing to allow the market to yield to the pressure. from credit to crash to convey an idea as to the standing of the l. m. sullivan trust company during this crucial period, i cite an instance. logan & bryan, members of the new york stock exchange, chicago stock exchange, chicago board of trade, new orleans cotton exchange and all other important exchanges, who conduct a leased-wire system from coast to coast at a cost of $300,000 per annum, and who have over 100 correspondents in nearly as many cities, all of high standing as stock brokers, made a tentative offer to the sullivan trust company early in december to connect their wire system with our office in goldfield and to give us the exclusive wire connection for nevada at an annual rental of $100,000. this offer would not have been made if the credit of the sullivan trust company had not been maintained at high notch, or if i, personally, had not convinced men of substance that i was strictly on the level, "past" or no "past." ben bryan, the active member of this firm, was in goldfield at the time. he asked as to our finances. there was present cashier j. l. lindsey of the state bank & trust company. "how much would your bank loan the sullivan trust company on its unindorsed paper and at a moment's notice?" i asked mr. lindsey. "a quarter of a million or more," answered mr. lindsey. this apparently satisfied mr. bryan. our rating in bradstreet's and dun's was "aa1." a private statement issued by bradstreet was to the effect that while our rating was only $1,000,000 and we claimed a capital and surplus of only $1,000,000 at the time the rating was given, it was believed in goldfield that we were worth much more, and that we had actually understated our resources because we considered it bad policy to divulge the great profits in the promotion business. by december 15 the condition of the sullivan trust company had become about as follows: our $3,000,000 surplus had been reduced to $2,000,000 and all of this $2,000,000, plus the loss, was represented by our own bought-back stocks. we had no money, except about $50,000, remaining of the $300,000 borrowed from the state bank & trust company. we were committed in excess of this $50,000 to brokers for stocks in transit, but by the "crossing" process we were able to maintain a chain that kept intact our reduced cash balance. we figured that a fresh loan of $300,000, additional to the $300,000 already obtained from the state bank & trust company, would enable us to take up all of our paper and to discontinue the "cross" trades. we promptly arranged for the loan, which cashier lindsey of the state bank & trust company informed us would be immediately credited to our account whenever we required the money. interest charges were at the rate of 1 per cent. a month in the camp at that time, and for that reason i did not ask that we be at once credited with the amount. i sent over to the state bank & trust company another big batch of stocks, to be held as collateral against the promised loan, and got a receipt for it stating that it was accepted as collateral on our "open loan" account. the market in sullivan stocks had now steadied itself and it appeared that it would be impossible for any further selling of consequence to take place. we had bought back in the open market fully 50 per cent. of all the stocks promoted by the trust company. distribution of the stocks of our early promotions had originally taken place in such a broad way that it now appeared as if selling must necessarily become scattered. we felt somewhat crippled, but in no danger, and were "still in the ring." down with the sullivan trust company by this time i was "all in" physically. i had a cyst, of fifteen years' growth, on the back of my head. it had become infected. i was threatened with blood-poisoning. i suffered much pain. i had been on the desert for nearly three years, without leaving it for a day. my associates insisted that i go to los angeles immediately for treatment and a rest. believing that the trust company was secure, i made preparations to go. before leaving i busied myself with the preparation of a dozen full-page reading-matter advertisements on sullivan properties, which the salt lake _tribune_ and salt lake _herald_ had contracted to publish in their new year's day editions. these are an annual feature of those newspapers. i decided to "make" salt lake on my return trip from los angeles and be there on new year's day with our mailing-list, to superintend the mailing of the papers to all stockholders in sullivan properties. on account of the great value which we attached to the mailing-list, i would not trust anybody but myself with the job. i spent christmas in los angeles and arrived in salt lake on new year's day, ready for work. i was busy in the salt lake _herald_ office next day when affable peter grant, a partner of mr. sullivan, with whom mr. sullivan had at the outset divided his interest in the sullivan trust company, walked in. i asked mr. grant, who had remained at the helm with mr. sullivan while i was away from goldfield, about business. he assured me that the loan from the state bank & trust company would not only be forthcoming, as needed, but that cashier lindsey had informed him that we could have $500,000 instead of $300,000 additional, if we actually had to have it, and that the bank would back us to the extent of a million in all, if necessary. on calling next morning at the office of james a. pollock & company, our salt lake correspondents, i was astounded to learn that rumors had been telegraphed to them from san francisco that our paper was being held up in goldfield. "that's nonsense!" said mr. grant. "why, lindsey has given me his word, and there can't be a question about it." "maybe he has 'laid down' on us," i said, "and that would be ----!" "nonsense!" said mr. grant. "i'll telegraph him that in addition to honoring our goldfield paper with the money we have borrowed from him, he must wire $150,000 to our credit in san francisco, and you and i can jump on the train to-day and go to san francisco and support the market right on the ground. if those rumors have spread around san francisco a lot of short-selling will take place and the market will need support." i agreed. so confident were mr. grant, james a. pollock & company, and i that everything was right with us that we gave and they accepted a big supporting order to be used on the san francisco stock exchange during the succeeding day while mr. grant and i should be on the train to the coast city. we arrived in san francisco late at night. a number of brokers met us and conveyed the news that the state bank & trust company had "laid down" on us. in the meantime despatches to us from the cashier of the sullivan trust company had piled up at the hotel. he explained the situation, which was this: all the trains carrying drafts in the mail to goldfield had been stalled by snowstorms two days before new year's. the next day was sunday. monday was new year's day, a legal holiday. thus five days' mail had accumulated, and on tuesday the delayed drafts were presented, all in a bunch. l. m. sullivan, president of the trust company, who was supposed to be on deck at goldfield, was in tonopah, where he was reported to be in imminent danger of arrest on the charge that during a new year's brawl he had nearly brained a chauffeur with a butt-end of a revolver. the bank people became alarmed. in requisitioning the $300,000 we had stated that we would call for it piecemeal, as had been our custom in the past. the five days' mail had piled up drafts totaling nearly the entire amount. i was absent from goldfield. mr. grant was away, and so was mr. sullivan. employees were running the business. cashier lindsey concluded that we were "overboard." on top of it all, donald mackenzie, the heaviest depositor of the state bank & trust company, had that very morning drawn out a large sum, said to aggregate $400,000, and had it transferred to san francisco. our wires from goldfield stated he had been frightened by rumors that the sullivan trust company was in trouble and that the state bank & trust company would be involved. that settled it. the enterprise that i had built up from such a meager beginning into a $3,000,000 trust company crumbled in a heap and left us stranded on the financial shoals of an over-boomed mining camp. some hindsight that came too late i attribute the destruction of the sullivan trust company to six factors, namely, (1) politics; (2) blackmail; (3) lack of wide distribution of our later promotions, we having sold most of these stocks in large blocks during the exciting boom days through brokers to speculators instead of disposing of them in small lots direct to investors; (4) my lack of knowledge of markets and inexperience in market manipulation; (5) my own stubborn pride and optimism, and (6) the failure of the state bank & trust company to keep its pledge of assistance. it is conceded in nevada by all honest men that, without exception, all of the properties promoted by the l. m. sullivan trust company had merit, and that money was lavishly provided for mine development as long as the trust company was in existence. the properties were selected with great care. they were very much higher in quality than the average. those at manhattan are yielding treasure to this very day, and may make good yet in a handsome way from a mining standpoint. those at fairview bid fair to duplicate the performance. had i kept out of politics, been a good market general, and taken cognizance of the fact that the law of supply and demand is as inexorable in mining-stock markets as in every other line of human endeavor, i could have saved myself and associates from financial ruin. it would have been the better part of valor to have emulated bob acres--back up and "live to fight another day." instead, i attempted the impossible in my endeavor to stem the tide of liquidation, and exhausted our resources to the last dollar in buying back the sullivan stocks at advanced figures over the promotion prices. i didn't know then, as i know now, that the accepted practice of the successful market operators is to go with the crowd--to help along an advance when the public is buying, and, with equal facility, to further a decline when everybody wants to sell. it was my first experience, and, like so many beginners, i was overconfident, lacking in judgment, and fatally ignorant of the finer points of the game. the complete collapse of the financial structure i had labored so hard to construct came as an overwhelming blow to the camp and marked the beginning of the end of the great goldfield mining-stock craze. our enemies had overshot the mark. public confidence was irreparably shattered by the smash of the trust company, and it would have been better for goldfield and nevada had wingfield and nixon possessed sufficient foresight to go to our rescue instead of facilitating our destruction. money that had poured into the camp without cessation month after month for mine development started to flow the other way. less than a year later, when wall street's financial cataclysm put a quietus on market activities of every sort, the great fortunes of wingfield and nixon themselves hung in the balance, and had it not been for a quick transaction by which the united states mint at san francisco forwarded by express to reno and goldfield $500,000 in gold, the failure of wingfield and nixon and their chain of banks might have happened as a fitting climax to the scheme of aggrandizement which they had fostered. it was rumored at the time that this money had either been obtained from the government as a deposit for the nixon national bank in reno or was obtained at great sacrifice from wall street bankers, and that only by virtue of mr. nixon's position as chairman of the committee on national banks of the united states senate was he able to get the sub-treasury in new york to instruct the mint at san francisco to supply the gold at this crucial period when fiat money was current in the east. whether it was a government deposit or not, senator nixon got it--and he needed it. even to this day wingfield and nixon are engaged in an effort to shift the responsibility to me for the destruction of the great mining camp of goldfield, which to-day marks the graveyard of a million blighted hopes. on the eve of the wall street panic of 1907, every bank in goldfield and tonopah that had existed through the mining boom with the exception of those of wingfield and nixon, went to the wall, and every goldfield broker, with one or two exceptions, went broke. the business interests of the camp suffered the same experience. wingfield and nixon succeeded in annexing the remnants of the goldfield banking business, along with the control of nearly all of the goldfield properties for which they had been seemingly gunning. wingfield and nixon are, in fact, to-day in control of the political as well as the banking and precious-metal mining industry of the state. they have triumphed, but goldfield, except for the big mine and one or two others of little consequence which they do not own, has been throttled and is dying the death. had wingfield and nixon played a broad gauged game, the camp would undoubtedly still be on the map and, instead of having only two or three mines, might now boast of thirty. as quickly as possible i convened a meeting of the creditors of the sullivan trust company, all of whom happened to be either western brokers or banks. the market had gone to smash and our liabilities were $1,200,000. the assets, calculated at the low market price of the securities that was reached after the embarrassment was publicly announced, were still in excess of the liabilities. the creditors agreed in jig time that if we would turn over all of the securities they would accept 80 per cent. of the net proceeds as full payment of our obligation and return the other 20 per cent. to the trust company. thomas b. rickey, president of the state bank & trust company, was appointed manager of the pool, and was also elected president of the sullivan trust company, which exists in moribund state to this day. mr. rickey had even a higher opinion of the value of the securities than we had, and he refused to sell any of them at the prices which then prevailed. he held on. during the bankers' panic of 1907 the state bank & trust company failed for about $3,000,000. the sullivan mines were compelled to shut down. mr. rickey still held on. manhattan, the mining camp, struck the toboggan. the boom in goldfield securities collapsed at the same moment. the sullivan stocks shriveled, like the rest of the list, to almost nothing. as far as i can learn, neither the bank or broker-creditors nor any of the members of the sullivan trust company have ever received a dollar as a result of the settlement. had the securities been disposed of immediately after the embarrassment, the trust company would have paid dollar for dollar. those of the public who did not sell their holdings in the sullivan companies when we were supporting the market to the extent of more than $3,000,000, lost most of their investment. those who did sell--most of them--made money. the market value of these securities, at the height of the boom, was in excess of $5,000,000. the price paid for them by the public, as already stated, was in the neighborhood of $2,000,000. after settling with the creditors of the sullivan trust company on the basis just outlined, i departed from goldfield as broke as when i arrived there three years before. the only money i or my partners had drawn from the business during the life of the trust company was about $5,000, just sufficient to pay living expenses. my expenses to new york, where i went to have my head operated on--are you surprised?--were supplied by the proceeds of the sale of my seat on one of the goldfield stock exchanges, from which i netted $400. i landed back in the big city with $200 in my pocket, the exact sum with which i had left town three years before. my reward for three years of untiring work on the desert was a big fund of experience. believe me, i thought it would hold me for a while! but it didn't. chapter vi nipissing and goldfield con the embarrassment of the l. m. sullivan trust company, was disastrous to goldfield, the decline and fall of the camp dated from that very hour. the _goldfield news_, of nation-wide circulation in those days and up to then unshackled, sought to stem the tide. it published a double-leaded editorial, in full-face type, setting forth that the sullivan trust company had gone down with its flag nailed to the masthead of a declining market and had lost its last dollar supporting its own stocks. the camp took courage. soon it became evident that the initial smash in stock-market values was not sufficient to convince the natives that the death-knell of the market for its long line of mining securities had been sounded. the population of goldfield was 15,000. its life could not be snuffed out in a day. great was the depreciation in the market price of goldfield mining issues, but not to an extent as yet that indicated the almost complete annihilation of values which followed. final destruction for the general list, with some scattering exceptions, came only after a "starving-out" siege on the part of investors, who refused to commit themselves farther and gradually resorted to liquidation. listed goldfield securities, nearly 200 in number, and valued in the markets at above $150,000,000 during the boom, had within two months shown a falling off of $60,000,000 in market value, but the list on the average was still quoted higher than the promotion prices. on january 18, 1907, fifteen days after the newspapers throughout the land carried front-page stories of the failure of the sullivan trust company, the stocks promoted by the trust company were still in demand in all mining-share markets of the country at an average price not below that at which original subscriptions were accepted from the public. jumping jack, promoted at 25 cents, was quoted at 30 cents bid. stray dog manhattan, promoted at 45 cents, was in demand at 49 cents. lou dillon, promoted at 25 cents, was still wanted at 26. indian camp, sold originally to the public at 25, was quoted at 85 bid. silver pick extension, promoted at 25, was 21 bid, a loss of 4 cents from the promotion price. eagle's nest fairview was quoted at 25, off 10 cents from the promotion figure. these prices represented terrific losses from the "highs" that had been reached during the height of the goldfield boom, yet the average market price was still above the subscription price of the shares at which the public was first allowed to participate. a remarkable part of this demonstration was that for twenty days no inside support had been lent to these stocks. the sullivan trust company being in trouble, the markets had been left to the mercy of short-sellers and market sharp-shooters generally. having settled the trust company's liabilities of $1,200,000 by tying up in trust all of its securities and the other assets, of which the creditors agreed to accept in full quittance 80 per cent. of the proceeds and to turn back to the trust company 20 per cent., i returned to new york during the last week in january. i was again out of a job--and broke. i visited the officers of mining-stock brokers in wall street and broad street. wherever i went a hearty handclasp was extended. not one of the eastern stock brokers was involved to the extent of a single dollar in the sullivan trust company failure. the brokers were convinced that the embarrassment was honest. the trust company's credit had always been good. had the failure been meditated, i could have involved eastern brokers for at least $1,000,000. because i didn't, new york brokers were not slow to express their good feeling. a number of them offered to extend a helping hand did i wish to embark on a new enterprise. peculiarly enough--or shall i say, naturally--after tossing off the trust company's millions, of which half were mine, in a vain endeavor to support the market for its stocks, i was as full of spirit as the month of may. i had been broke before, and the sensation was not new to me. withal, i had profited. a new fund of experience was mine. even though i had not gathered shekels as a result of my hard work in goldfield, i had learned something--i had acquired the rudiments of a great business. goldfield had been the mining emporium--the security factory. new york was the recognized market center. market handling had been my weak spot. i now had a chance to witness the performance of some past-masters in the art of market manipulation, and i tried to make the best of the opportunity. i watched intently the daily sessions of the new york curb. i was in and out of brokerage offices hourly. nothing that transpired escaped me. within a month i heard enough and saw enough to convince me that, daring as were the operations of the mergerers and waterers of goldfield consolidated, in that they ballooned the price of their security at its inception some $29,000,000 (400 per cent.) above the accepted intrinsic worth and were able to get the public in at top prices, their activities were but amateurish when compared with the stock-market campaign in nipissing, which was now transpiring on the new york curb. in the nipissing campaign tens of millions of the public's money went glimmering, several great promoters' fortunes were reared as by magic, some big names and big reputations were tarnished, and dollars in $1,000,000 blocks were juggled like glass balls under the touch of sleight-of-hand performers. an orgy in market manipulation this market melodrama was well staged. it had a sensational start-off, and action was at high tension every minute. the performance had covered a period of seven months when i arrived in new york, and was reaching its climax. it was a wild orgy in market-manipulation and money-fleecing that had no parallel in history from the early comstock days up to and including greenwater. as a mining-stock boom it was a dizzy, bewildering success--full of red fire and explosions to the last curtain climax. w. b. thompson, montana mine promoter and money-getter; captain joseph r. delamar, famed as a daring adventurer on land and sea, and recently a highly successful financier, mine-owner, stock-market operator and art collector; john hays hammond, mining engineer, promoter, politician and ambitious society leader; a. chester beatty, millionaire mining engineer, and the seven guggenheim brothers, were in the all-star cast. mr. thompson, by reason of the fact that he was market manager, was most under the spotlight, although at times he was obscured by the others. mr. thompson was a product of butte, montana. early in the game he had learned the wall street lesson that "stocks are made to sell." born and reared in butte without the aid of a silver spoon, he had never been "in the money" before coming east. the great pay-streak in the east apparently looked better to him than the pay-streaks that some of his butte neighbors had missed in their deep-mine operations. he was an ideal man for the nipissing job, as subsequent events in his career thoroughly confirm. of a school that believes money in hand to be worth more than mining certificates in the box, mr. thompson's route from montana to broad street was via boston, where he made his first visible stake by marketing stock in the shannon group of mines. when the cobalt excitement was in its infancy mr. thompson took a run up to the camp. the nipissing mine was about the best thing in sight. it was producing real silver. the company was owned by a little club consisting of e. p. earle, specialist in rare metals, captain delamar, millionaire soldier of fortune, e. c. converse, banker and steel magnate, ambrose monnell, r. m. thompson, joseph wharton, since deceased, of philadelphia, and duncan coulson, a rich canadian lawyer. considerable silver was being produced. the veins, however, were exceedingly narrow, not more than a few inches wide. it was impossible to block out ore to an extent that would warrant any opinion as to the real measure of the mine's riches. the gentlemen owners were not averse to giving mr. thompson an option on 100,000 shares of treasury stock of the 1,200,000 five-dollar shares ($6,000,000), at $2 a share, when he made the proposition, and another 100,000 shares at $2.50. later, they sold him a call on 50,000 or 100,000 shares around $7. all of this happened in the summer of 1906, six months before i reached new york and at a time when the country was giving indication of going mining-stock crazy, nevada stocks having advanced on the new york curb in the goldfield boom hundreds per cent. after the goldfield boom had gained terrific headway, during the fall of 1906, when mohawk was climbing from 10 cents per share toward the $20 mark, which it reached during the climax, the cobalt mining-stock excitement spread like wildfire. a sudden demand sprang up for nipissing shares. mr. thompson, about this time, connected himself with the old established and conservative banking house of c. shumacher & company on wall street. the affiliation was calculated to give the promoter of nipissing stock much standing. the move served well its purpose. the public grabbed at the shares. the price jumped to $4.50 in a jiffy. mr. thompson began to let go of stock after the $4 point was reached. he was making a killing, but fed out his optional stock very cautiously at the rate of about 5,000 shares daily, each day at an advance. by the time the price reached $7 mr. thompson got suspicious. there was something about the play he could not understand. he had not found it necessary to do much "laundry" work on the curb market. every time he offered stock it was lapped up silently and completely. every time his brokers opened their mouths to sell the certificates they were gobbled. mr. thompson stopped putting out any more stock and streaked it up to cobalt to see what was going on. he had a hard time laying hold of the inside facts, but learned enough to satisfy himself that rich ore had been encountered at depth. he discovered on his return to new york that captain delamar had been buying that cheap stock through s. h. p. pell & company and was even then the heaviest individual holder, a position contested only once during the whole campaign, and that by a rank outsider operating through eugene meyer, jr., whose name has never been publicly mentioned as having anything to do with the gamble. this "unknown" was a quiet, mild-spoken, college-bred gentleman. he pulled down $1,500,000 in nipissing--and kept it. upon the return of mr. thompson from cobalt the promoters warmed up to their job. the manipulation which had been begun in a comparatively modest way now showed the spirit of the gambler who plays "the ceiling for the limit." new market-boosting accessories were called into use. they did their work. the game waxed hotter and hotter. the guggenheims enter nipissing boom! boom! boom! went nipissing. by the time the price crossed $20 the gamblers and speculators of two continents were on fire with excitement. presently it became noised about that the guggenheim family had taken an option on 400,000 shares of nipissing stock at $25 a share, making the investment $10,000,000, and putting a valuation of $32,000,000 on the property. furthermore, it was announced that the deal had been made on the report and advice of john hays hammond, the international mining engineer, crony of cecil rhodes and famed as the head of the profession. as a part and parcel of the remarkable story, it was authoritatively stated that the guggenheims had paid $2,500,000 cash for the option. w. b. thompson was said to have negotiated the transaction. confirmation of the deal set the gamblers crazy. there could be no risk in following such leadership as the guggenheims', endorsed by the eminent hammond. the market boiled up to $30 and then majestically boomed to $33.25. transactions in this single issue totaled hundreds of thousands of shares a day. waiters, bar-keepers, tailors, seamstresses and tenderloin beauties competed with bankers, merchants, professionals on the regular exchanges, and even ministers of the gospel, for the privilege of buying nipissing shares on a valuation of more than $40,000,000 for the mine. on the way up the original bunch of insiders floated out of their holdings. most of them had cashed in under $20. some of them stayed out; others went back, and, like the moth, got burned. w. b. thompson, it is said, parted with the bulk of his 250,000 to 300,000 shares at from $24.50 up, cleaning up for personal account between $4,500,000 and $5,000,000, according to the estimates of close friends then in his confidence. never was there a cleaner case of "finding" money for mr. thompson. the manipulative campaign, of which he was made manager, was a giant success. the only ability or skill needed, after the guggenheim deal was made--brilliant deal from a market standpoint!--was the sense to hold on to his optioned stock until his associates, the guggenheim following, and the public made a rich, ripe and juicy market for it. mr. thompson subsequently participated in cumberland-ely, el reyo, inspiration, la rose, utah copper, mason valley, and other mining promotions, and is now rated at $10,000,000 to $12,000,000. he is generally prominent at the nutritious or selling end when a good market exists and is now head of a new york stock exchange brokerage and mining promotion firm which publishes its own newspaper. but what happened to nipissing? plenty, and then some, happened. as noted, the stock mounted by flying leaps to $33.25, stayed well above $30 for quite a while, and began slowly to recede. complacent in the consciousness that they had the biggest silver mine in the world, the guggenheims allowed all of their friends to share in their good fortune. of a sudden, stock from mysterious sources began to press on the market. it came in great quantity and without let-up. suspicion was aroused in the guggenheim camp. they despatched a. chester beatty, one of their very best expert engineers, and a former protege of john hays hammond, to cobalt to smell out the trouble. the text of his report was never printed. it didn't have to be. the facts beat it in. much of the showy mineral, on which glowing reports as to the fabulous value of the property had been based, contained little or no silver. it was _smaltite_, an ore of the metal cobalt, closely resembling many of the silver ores. the story was given out that mr. beatty had reported adversely on account of the unfavorable showing made by mine developments carried out subsequent to mr. hammond's report. the miners had run into non-productive calcite a few hundred feet down, it was said. as a matter of fact, because of the limited amount of all underground development in the interim, there could have been no condition observable in the property as a whole when mr. beatty made his examination that was not equally apparent when mr. hammond made his report. the talent jumped to the conclusion that the mine was a "deader." many millions in silver bullion have been taken from the property since then, and it is still a great producer, but this is another and more prosaic story. this deals with the stock-gambling feature of the record. scenes of the wildest disorder were witnessed on the curb in those days of 1907 soon after my return from goldfield. the guggenheims "laid down" on their option, getting out as best they could. according to published reports, they charged to profit and loss the $2,500,000 originally put up, besides paying the $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 in losses of personal friends for whose misfortune they felt personally responsible. be that as it may, the guggenheims emerged from the campaign with damage to their market reputation and standing from which they have never fully recovered. previous to their acquaintance with the cobalt bonanza, they had a blindly idolatrous following that would have invested hundreds of millions on a tip from them. they have never regained the position in this respect they then held. nipissing on the toboggan the price of nipissing tobogganed from $33 to under $6 with terrific speed. w. b. thompson and his associates, who had unloaded their holdings on the way up, were reported to have taken advantage of the beatty report and to have sold the market short on the way down, making another "clean-up" of millions. the stock hit a few hard spots on the descent, but when the wreckage was cleared away and the dead and wounded assembled, there wasn't hospital or morgue space to accommodate half of them. the final carnage and mutilation was shocking beyond description. _the public had once more been landed with the goods. it had eaten up nipissing stock on a $43,000,000 valuation which broke to $7,000,000 or $8,000,000 within the space of a few days. this $35,000,000 slaughter represents only a fraction of the actual losses, for fabulous amounts were sacrificed in marginal accounts. the daily aggregate of open accounts in nipissing during the months of keenest excitement probably averaged not less than five times the total capitalization. actual losses were therefore far larger than would appear from a merely superficial calculation. the public contributed $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 to its nipissing experience fund._ there has always been more or less mystery as to just what john hays hammond said orally to the guggenheims to lead them into the crowning humiliation of their business career. it did not appear in his written and published report, for in that document is to be found a neat little hedge to the effect that "if" conditions as revealed to him were maintained, the values would be, etc., etc. that little "if" was the hammond saving clause, although it did not save that $1,000,000-a-year job of his, about which some of his admirers have liked to talk in joyous chorus, nor did it save the public from massacre. another nipissing mystery is the sustained professional and personal cordiality still existing between the eminent john hays hammond and the scarcely less eminent a. chester beatty. for a little while after mr. beatty had to turn down his chief their relations appeared to have been strained. but this was not for long. mr. beatty also severed connections with the guggenheim pay-roll, and the two great engineers were soon again, and are now, on the best of terms. on rainy days when the tickers drone along and there is no exciting news, evil-minded derelicts of the memorable nipissing campaign are prone to figure how much a man might have made in the market with a foreknowledge of the two adverse reports and to figure on the sporting chances for a "double cross" that such a situation would hold. scandal mongers, too, who have watched closely the friendship which exists between w. b. thompson and john hays hammond often ask unkindly what has cemented the bond between the two. recently, when the rocky mountain club needed a new club-house, messrs. hammond and thompson subscribed an equal amount--a goodly sum it was--to build it. they are seen much together in public and seem to have many tastes in common. mr. thompson, whose strangely fortunate campaign in nipissing on the new york curb was helped to a triumphant promotion climax by the hammond report to the guggenheims, bears mr. hammond no ill-will for that--and who would blame him for the kindly feeling? who got the $75,000,000? but what of the public? it played $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 into the game, and has never yet learned who got it. who did get it? some of the details of the grand separation scheme have been set forth in the foregoing, but nothing like enough to satisfy the curiosity of the public who footed the bill, paid the freight, contributed sucker-toll for the whole prodigious sum. did the author of the report on the strength of which tens of millions were plunged on nipissing by an army of deluded investors and speculators ever suffer in fortune by the mischance or misshot, or whatever name you may give the "come-on" document? not that you could notice. true, he gave up his alleged $1,000,000 job with the guggenheims. but is he not a heavy contributor to the republican national campaign fund, a close personal friend of the administration, and did he not represent this great government as special ambassador at the coronation of england's king? was he not talked of as running mate for mr. taft, and did he not organize the national league of republican clubs two years ago? he is tremendously rich and round-shouldered under a mountain-high burden of honors. every mother's son of the old nipissing crowd is at this very hour up and at it in regions where the public's money flows. many of them still have a grip on the property. it was a good old cow to milk. e. p. earle, who was president of nipissing in 1906, headed the company four years later. captain delamar slipped down and away (he's now in on the extravagantly touted porcupine dome mines company), and so did e. c. converse, whose time is all taken up managing the stock exchange banknote engraving monopoly and a couple of banks and trust companies. w. b. thompson, who came into the nipissing directory in 1907, still sticks in spite of the awful experience of 1906-07. has an outraged government ever raised hue and cry against these eminent captains of industry? not yet, nor soon. what difference is there between the respectable multi-millionaire bankers putting across a losing promotion and the little fellow? both may be equally honest or equally crooked, yet in equity both are entitled to the same treatment and the same consideration. their operations differ only in degree. the aim of each is to get the public's money. and the big fellow is more dangerous by a hundred thousand degrees. where does real tangible evidence of a conspiracy to defraud in nipissing exist? does _any_ exist? now i venture to say that you could put on the scent any young man who is a graduate of the public schools, and within thirty days he would obtain enough evidence to prove to any jury in the land that the manipulators of that stock used improper measures to get the public's money. a scrutiny of the files of the newspapers during the progress of the malodorous nipissing campaign reveals many strange happenings. it shows, among other things, most remarkable willingness on the part of financial writers for the press of that day to say every possible good word for the manipulators and to feed the public appetite for sensational gossip concerning the gamble. how this was done is easily understood by those familiar with wall street publicity. it was an open secret on the street at that time that many writers for the press were subjected to strongest temptations to lend their hand to the game of publicity. the columns of the daily newspapers carry in themselves evidence to show that the attempts were not always in vain. one little story will illustrate the methods employed. the business manager of a widely known and reputable daily financial publication was stopped one day by a man active in nipissing and told he had been put into 500 shares of the nipissing stock at the market price when the stock was still selling under $10 and at the time when it was being groomed for the terrific rise which followed and which did not culminate until $33 had been passed. the newspaper man was not above making a turn in the street, but he objected to taking it that way. he politely turned down the proposition, saying that he did not wish any part of it. the tempter then went to him on another tack, agreeing to carry the stock for him, so that he would have no risk whatever, at the same time remarking that, in turn for the favor, generous recognition in the news columns of the publication, in support of the curb campaign, would be expected. again the newspaper man declined, this time with unmistakable emphasis. he intimated cannily that while he might be taken on he might not be told when to get off, adding that he might be discharged if he fell for anything of that sort. when the market price toppled from $33 back to around $6 this man's newspaper did not carry any front-page story denouncing the outrage upon the public. i do not know that the manipulators of nipissing "got to" his employers, but i do know of some newspapers in new york which pose before the public as embodying the very highest type of newspaper morality and which have at their head, either as part owners or as editors, men who were taken in hand by wall street magnates at a period when they were dependent for their daily livelihood on their weekly wage, and were lifted into the millionaire division by being put into "good things." do you suppose newspapers presided over by those men are going to say a word against the enterprises of their benefactors? conversely, if their benefactors happen to be bothered by any man whose business purposes run contrary to theirs, how far, do you think, these gentlemen of the press would go in their own news columns to poison the public mind against the enterprise of their patron's enemy? when i witnessed the climax of w. b. thompson's marvelously successful campaign in nipissing on the new york curb, i was fresh from goldfield. my recollection is that my chief thought at that time, with the goldfield consolidated swindle fresh in my mind, was simply that the western multi-millionaire highbinder promoter didn't class with his eastern prototype. indeed, the two appeared to be of different species, as different as the humble but noisy coyote from the abyssinian man-eating tiger. the late spring of 1907 found me back in nevada. i selected reno as a central point for residence and decided to locate there. eastern stock markets appeared to be beyond my ken. it seemed quite apparent that the western game, as compared with the eastern, was one of marbles as against millions. in new york's financial mart i felt like a minnow in a sea of bass. without millions for capital, nevada appealed to me as a more likely field of usefulness. i believed in nevada's mineral resources. having seen goldfield evolve from a tented station on the desert with a hundred people into a city of 15,000 inhabitants; from a district with a few gold "prospects" into a series of mines producing the yellow metal at the rate of nearly $1,000,000 a month, i was enthused with the idea that there were other goldfields yet unexplored in the battle-born state and that opportunity was bound to come to me if i pitched my tent on the ground. the wonder mining-camp stampede i was back in nevada just a week when a stampede into a new mining camp called wonder took place. i was quick to join in the rush. the philadelphia crowd who owned control of the big tonopah mine had annexed a property there which they named the nevada wonder. it boasted of a big tonnage of low-grade silver-gold ore. on arrival at wonder, i found my former goldfield partner, l. m. sullivan, on the ground. he entreated me to allow him to cut in on any deal i made. a bargain was struck. he agreed to advance all the money and i was to receive half of the profits for my work. the corporation of sullivan & rice was formed. we purchased the rich gulch group of claims, a likely piece of ground with a well defined ledge, and incorporated the rich gulch wonder mining company. a company with the usual million-share capitalization was formed to operate the property. a high-class directorate was secured. t. f. dunnaway, vice-president and general manager of the nevada, california & oregon railroad, accepted the presidency. hon. john sparks, governor of nevada, became first vice-president. u. s. webb, attorney general of california, accepted the second vice-presidency. d. b. boyd, for twenty-five years successively treasurer of washoe county, nevada, was made treasurer. the first advertised offering of treasury stock of the rich gulch wonder carried the names of forty leading mining-stock brokers, situated in various cities stretching from new york to honolulu, who had signified over their signatures their willingness to undertake the sale of treasury stock at 25 cents per share on a basis of 20 per cent. commission. the first thousand shares of treasury stock at 25 cents was sold to superintendent mcdaniel of the nevada wonder mine. this convinced us that we had a good "prospect." i had my doubts about the successful promotion of any nevada mining company at this period, because of the terrific slump which was transpiring in goldfield issues and also because of the smack in the face that mining-stock investors had just received in nipissing. it was my idea that if the rich gulch wonder made any money for us the cashing would have to be delayed until mills were erected and the property became a producer. i was willing to go ahead on that basis. the sale of treasury stock was slow, but sufficient was disposed of to warrant the expense for mine development of at least $2,000 a month for six months, and that appeared far enough to provide for in advance. pending the making good of this proposition in a financial way, i determined i would help finance a newspaper publication at reno which would give to mining-stock speculators an unbiased statement of mining and market conditions as they existed. in the mining camps it was considered tantamount to financial suicide for the home publication to reflect on the merits of any locally owned property. strictures were looked upon as "knocks," and "knockers" are taboo in mining camps. moreover, mining-camp papers could hardly make both ends meet at the time without support from inside interests, and unprejudiced statements of fact that were detrimental to a local property could hardly be expected. merrill a. teague was made editor of the new publication, which was called the _nevada mining news_. mr. teague had just blown into reno from goldfield where he had been connected with the nevada mines news bureau, a daily market sheet. before coming to nevada he had served in an editorial capacity on the _baltimore american_ and the _philadelphia north american_. mr. teague is the possessor of a facile pen. at $50 a week, which was his stipend at the beginning, i was convinced that the _nevada mining news_ had a cheap editor. when news was scarce he could write more about nothing than any man i ever met before. incidentally, he could go further without finding a stopping place in a crusade than any man i had ever bumped up against. that was his drawback. however, compared with the work of other newspaper men then employed in nevada, his stuff was in a class by itself and was commercially very valuable. teague attacks senator nixon mr. teague was on the job just a week when he cut loose with an attack on united states senator george s. nixon of nevada in a front-page story headed "goldfield in the grasp of wall street sharks." the article declared that senator nixon, needing $1,000,000 to conclude the merger plans of the goldfield consolidated, had got it through b. m. (berney) baruch of the new york stock exchange, factotum of thomas f. ryan, at terrible cost. the loan was made at a time when goldfield consolidated was selling around $10 per share. in consideration for the loan, senator nixon, acting for the company, gave mr. baruch an option on 1,000,000 shares of treasury stock of the goldfield consolidated at $7.75 per share. at the time mr. teague commenced his onslaught goldfield consolidated shares had slumped from $10 to $7.50. mr. teague alleged that the market on the stock was being juggled and speculators were being milked. mr. baruch, he asserted, had sold the stock down to $7.50 per share on the strength of his option, and was now tempted to break the market, sell the stock short and cover all at much lower prices. within two weeks after the publication of mr. teague's exposé of the terms of the outstanding option to mr. baruch, goldfield consolidated shares dropped to under $6. the story evidently had its effect. the issue of the paper which chronicled the break to $6 contained an editorial headed "nixon in the rôle of brutus." it demanded of senator nixon that he stand behind the stock and support the market, and also called upon him to declare the payment of dividends which he had promised to stockholders in his annual report dated two months prior. people in nevada began asking, "who is teague?" mr. teague caused the publisher of the _nevada mining news_, who was hugh montgomery, formerly business manager of the _chicago tribune_, to explain over his signature that mr. teague had been the political editor of the _baltimore american_, later an editorial writer for the _philadelphia north american_, and that while on the _philadelphia north american_ he had crusaded against get-rich-quick swindlers who had headquarters in philadelphia, with the result that the storey cotton company, the provident investment bureau, the haight & freese company and other bucketshop concerns were put out of business. on evidence furnished by him, it was stated, mr. teague secured the conviction by the united states government of stanley frances and frank c. marrin as chief conspirators in the $400,000 storey cotton swindle. finally, the article said, mr. teague was engaged by a far-famed magazine to expose bucketshop iniquities in the united states. this series of articles had appeared in 1906. the biographical sketch seemed to satisfy readers that they were getting their "dope" straight on goldfield consolidated. my name at this time did not appear in connection with the publication except as part of the aggregation of sullivan & rice who advertised therein, but i was openly accused by messrs. nixon and wingfield of dictating the policy of the paper. this was a half-truth. my sympathies were with the stockholders of goldfield consolidated--that's all. the story is told in nevada that when senator nixon received the check for $1,000,000 from berney baruch, after having executed notes of the goldfield consolidated, signed by himself as president and endorsed by him as an individual, he took luncheon at the waldorf-astoria in new york. when the waiter presented the bill the senator ostentatiously tendered the $1,000,000 check in payment. the waiter put it all over the senator by politely stating that if he wished to pay his dinner check out of the proceeds, proprietor boldt would undoubtedly attend to the matter for him. the senator was forced to tell the waiter he was "only joking." the _nevada mining news_ appeared to be catching on and was now printing 28,000 copies weekly. sample copies were sent in every direction with the idea of acquainting investors with its existence. a day after the issue appeared containing the editorial in which senator nixon was accused of playing the rôle of brutus, i was stopped on the street by the editor of the _reno gazette_, a newspaper which is loyally attached to the senator and his friends. "the senator wants to see you, rice. better go over to the bank right away. if you know what's good for you, you'll do it," the _gazette_ man said. "i will, like ----!" i replied. "my office is up in the clay peters building, and if the senator has anything to say to me he can give me a call. i am not one of his sycophants, and i am not going." i didn't go. an hour afterward the editor of the _gazette_ met me again. "senator nixon wants to see you at his office right away," he said bluntly. "about what?" i inquired. "about articles which have appeared in the _nevada mining news_," he answered. "very well," i replied, "i'll send the editor over." turning to mr. teague, i said, "i have no business with senator nixon, and if he has anything to communicate regarding the newspaper you, the editor, are the man for him to say it to." mr. teague went over to the nixon national bank and entered the directors' room. my stenographer accompanied him as far as the door and took a seat outside, in the banking room. as mr. teague entered, senator nixon jumped to his feet. he looked black as thunder. he quivered with rage. "why don't rice come over here himself, eh? he daren't! i've got his record from boyhood jacketed in these drawers. while i have not read it, i know the story, and i am going to have it published in a bunch of newspapers so the world can know who is holding me up to public scorn!" the senator spluttered. in relating what transpired mr. teague later informed me that the senator's wrathful indignation appealed to him as so grotesquely comic he felt like laughing, but he thought it a poor newspaper stunt to incense him further at a moment when it looked as if, by appeasing him, he could tempt him into volubility. soon mr. teague had the senator at ease, pouring forth a long interview, full of acrimony and affectation, which mr. teague promised to publish in the _nevada mining news_. mr. teague reported to me that the senator construed his pacifying attitude as meaning that i would undoubtedly "listen to reason" and that his threat would most certainly accomplish its purpose. "calling for a show-down" when mr. teague finished narrating to me what had transpired i was beside myself. presently i gave him these instructions: "write out the interview with the senator. have two carbon copies made. when finished, take the three copies over to the senator and have him read them and put his o.k. on them. after you have done that, give the senator one copy, give the printer a copy, and put the other copy in the safe. as soon as the copy of the interview is in the printer's hands, sit down and write an editorial. head it 'a united states senator with a blackmailing mind.' publish my record in full. tell of everything of any consequence i ever did, good or bad. parallel my record with the senator's record. tell the people of nevada all the facts about the senator's threat. say to them nobody can blackmail me, and ask them to choose between us." on may 25, 1907, the editorial, headed "nixon a senator with a blackmailing mind," appeared. it was a passionate denouncement, calculated to stir the blood. also there appeared senator nixon's interview in full. in the interview the senator had made an effort to disentangle himself from a seemingly inextricable network in which he was enmeshed, and the paper contained still another editorial lambasting him in amplitude for trying to practise on the credulity of the newspaper's readers. the editor accused him of equivocation, artful dodging, false coloring, exaggeration, suppression of truth, cupidity and knavery. the arraignment wrought an undoubted sensation. the effect on the nevada public was unmistakable. it reminded me more of the motionless and breathless attitude of an audience at the third-act climax of a four-act drama, than anything else. the senator was not seen on the streets of reno for two months afterwards. for a fortnight afterward he didn't even call at the offices of the bank. when he did finally resume his visits to the bank he came in his automobile. he was whisked to the door of the building, immediately secreted himself in the directors' room and was not get-at-able. leading citizens, including the directors of a number of banks in reno, made clandestine calls at my office, shook my hand, felicitated me over the stand i took, and went away. even george wingfield, the senator's partner, it was reported (and i afterward corroborated this from the lips of george wingfield himself), backed me up in the stand i had taken. the general sentiment in the state appeared to be that the threat was a lowdown trick, and that of the two i had the less to be ashamed of. when the senator read the article headed "nixon a senator with a blackmailing mind" it is said he telegraphed to former governor thomas of colorado, his counsel, and asked him to come to reno. "if i don't say something in answer to this awful attack, i'll choke!" cried the senator as he nervously walked the floor. "did you sign that interview which they published?" asked governor thomas. "yes," said the senator. "well, then, if you say anything at all now, _they'll_ choke _you_," answered governor thomas. during the course of our attacks on senator nixon in the _nevada mining news_ which followed at various intervals, the newspaper accused him of making promises of early dividends to goldfield consolidated stockholders which he knew he could not keep; of having been the state agent in nevada of the southern pacific company at $150 per month during the huntington régime when legislatures were bought; of having bilked the investing public out of millions in goldfield; of having carved his fortune, that made possible the acquisition by him and his partner of control of the goldfield consolidated, out of a gambling house in tonopah; of having gathered his first mining property and mining-stock interests in goldfield from prospectors who lost money and surrendered their mining claims and stock certificates to the gambling house in lieu of the cash; and of being generally a financial and political freebooter of the most despicable sort. and the senator never sued for libel nor proceeded in the courts in any way whatsoever to obtain a retraction. manipulating goldfield con about a week after the publication of the editorial headed "nixon a senator with a blackmailing mind," when goldfield consolidated stock had slumped to around $7, the _nevada mining news_ in big bold-faced type urged its readers to place their buying orders for goldfield consolidated at $4 a share, saying that new york mining-stock brokers advised their clients that the stock would almost certainly go down to that figure because of the senator's mistakes in the financial management of the company. that edition contained another editorial on senator nixon, headed "branding a bilker." it accused him of saying in his annual report a few months previous that payments of dividends on a regular basis would commence within a short time, and contrasted this statement with the signed interview published in the _nevada mining news_, in which he said dividends would be paid "whenever the trustees thought it wise to do so _and not before_." within a day thereafter the stock "busted" wide open to $5-1/8 bid, $5-1/4 asked, and the whole goldfield list smashed farther in sympathy. by june 8th goldfield consolidated had crashed to $4.50. on the dip from $7.50 to $4.50 an opportunity had been offered to berney baruch and his associates to buy back in the open market all of the stock they might have sold on the way down from $10 to $7.75, which was the option price. then the stock was promptly manipulated back to $7. on the way back to $7, the outstanding short interest (of other traders who had accompanied the decline with their selling orders) was forced to cover. to help along the covering by outsiders up to the $7 point a report was circulated by lieutenants of senator nixon in reno that a dividend would be declared before the end of june, and almost simultaneously the general manager of the mining company in goldfield put forth a similar tip. as the market began to recover toward the $7 point, senator nixon went to san francisco and was seen often at the sessions on the floor of the san francisco stock and exchange board. on the day before the bulge to $7 he was quoted in a san francisco newspaper as saying that goldfield consolidated was such a good thing he would not take $20 per share for his stock. when the stock hit $7 and the shorts were being squeezed the hardest, senator nixon was quoted as saying in still another interview that a dividend was not far away. this interview was carried over the telegraph wires to all market centers by the associated press. at the same time a story was printed in the new york _times_ saying that it was reported on the street that j. pierpont morgan, acting for the baruch-ryan crowd, had taken over the control of the goldfield consolidated. the shorts were successfully driven to cover. then the price eased off again in a day from $7 to $6-1/8. a month later mr. teague became editor in chief of the _nevada state journal_ and severed his connection with the _nevada mining news_. i succeeded mr. teague as editor and my name appeared at the head of the editorial columns. at about the same time the sullivan & rice enterprise was abandoned. i discovered that most of the money mr. sullivan had put into the corporation had been borrowed by him from a member of my own family with whom he had hypothecated most of his stock in the company. a rumpus ensued which ended in the shutting up of the $1-3/4shop. by august goldfield consolidated had been manipulated back to $8.37-1/2 a share. mr. baruch's option could certainly prove of little value to him unless the stock sold higher at periods than $7.50. but he now evidently found it a hard job to hold the stock above $7.50. by september it had receded again to $7.40. at this period it was reported in reno that george wingfield, sick of his partner's bad bargain, was beginning to assert himself and demanded that the baruch option be cancelled at whatever cost. the erratic price movement of the stock was causing the loss of public confidence. the manipulation appeared to be raw. without any important transpiration except the news of the baruch option and the varying statements put out by senator nixon from time to time regarding the plans of the company, which was now awaiting the erection of a huge mill before going on a regular producing basis, the stock had dropped from $10 to $4.50, recovered to $7 and eased off to $6-1/8, rallied to above $8, and was again tumbling. the option to mr. baruch was conceded to be practically a flat failure from a company standpoint, only 20,000 shares of stock having been purchased by mr. baruch from the treasury of the company in nine months. the impression prevailed that mr. baruch was milking the market and held the option principally as a club to accomplish his market designs. moreover, nearly every broker, investor and speculator residing in goldfield by this time had gone broke because of the vagaries of this stock in the market, and the losses in bad loans and unsecured overdrafts incurred by john s. cook & company's bank, controlled by messrs. nixon and wingfield, was said to total nearly $2,000,000 as a result of the almost general smash in market values. the entire goldfield list, with the exception of goldfield consolidated, was now selling at 25 cents on the dollar compared with boom prices of less than a year before, and it was a rather ordinary "piker" sort of broker or speculator in goldfield who at this time could not boast of being in "soak" to john s. cook & company's bank anywhere from $15,000 to $100,000. on september 23 the goldfield consolidated directorate met at goldfield. after the meeting it was officially announced that the option held by mr. baruch on 1,000,000 shares at $7.75 had been canceled and that mr. baruch had been given sufficient of the optional stock to liquidate the $1,000,000 obligation of the company, leaving the company free of debt and with a cash reserve of nearly $2,000,000. it was stated that mr. baruch had originally been given the option for services in securing the loan of $1,000,000 from j. kennedy todd & company of new york for 13 months with interest at the rate of 6 per cent., and that the price of $7.75 was an "average" one, indicating that mr. baruch held an option on stock at varying figures on a scale up from a considerably lower price than $7.75, which he might have exercised in whole or in part. it was also disclosed that a large block of goldfield consolidated stock had been put up as collateral for the note. because the officials of the company declared by resolution that the "unused certificates shall be canceled" it was generally believed that the entire 1,000,000 shares under option to mr. baruch had been put up as security. the official statement of the company said that the option had been turned back to the company "on a satisfactory basis." no figures were given out. dispatches from san francisco to the _nevada mining news_, which i promptly published, alleged that mr. baruch was given 200,000 or more shares of goldfield consolidated in settlement of the loan to the corporation of $1,000,000 and for the surrender of his option on 1,000,000 shares at an average price of $7.75. _the 200,000 shares of stock was taken out of the collateral at the rate of $5 per share on a day when goldfield consolidated was selling around $7.50, after the stock had been manipulated to a fare-ye-well and against a market price of $10 for the stock on the day the option was given._ no denial was ever published. my opinion, based on private investigation and on analysis of the company's reports, is that mr. baruch fared even better than as outlined above. the giving of the option had made it dangerous for anybody except mr. baruch to attempt to hold the stock above $7.75 per share after the option had been given, and the company in addition was now mulcted for the difference between the low price per share at which settlement was made with mr. baruch and the price at which the stock could have been sold had it been quietly disposed of on the market during the period of nine months which had preceded the date of cancellation. as a matter of fact, there was no necessity at all for settling the loan with stock, the company having in its treasury more than sufficient to repay the loan, and the money was not due. the real purpose, apparently, was to shroud in darkness the exact amount given to mr. baruch to release the company from the option and to keep messrs. nixon and wingfield's goldfield bank, which was the depositary of the mining company, in funds. instead of quieting the stockholders the surrender of the option again thrust into the limelight the entire transaction and proved to be an exacerbation. the immediate effect was that goldfield consolidated began to slump again, and in a few days sold down to $6.50. from this point it kept on tobogganing during a period of weeks down to the $3.50 point--a depreciation in market price for the capitalization of the company, within a year of its promotion at $10 a share, of $23,400,000--before rallying once. enter, nat. c. goodwin & co. a mining partnership between nat. c. goodwin, the actor, and dan edwards had been formed at reno a little before this time. dan edwards was a hustling young mining man who had engaged in the business of "turning" properties to promoters. in august, when goldfield consolidated was selling around $7.50, mr. edwards had asked me to give him a good market tip. i told him to sell goldfield consolidated short. when it hit $6.50 around october 1st he saluted me thus, "got to hand it to you. i have been trying to make my new firm stick, but it don't seem to work. i guess i don't know how to handle the situation in times like this. how would you like to join us?" "how much capital have you got?" i asked. "five thousand of nat's money," he answered. "get another man with $5,000," i said, "and i'll talk to you." a young easterner engaged in mining, named warren a. miller, was stopping at the riverside hotel. within an hour mr. edwards had him lined up. a week later nat. c. goodwin & company was incorporated with nat. c. goodwin president, mr. miller vice-president and general manager, and dan edwards secretary. the new corporation engaged to give me a salary for showing it how and an interest for other substantial considerations. within a fortnight the corporation of nat. c. goodwin & company was making money, not as promoters, however, but as demoters. instead of at first promoting a mining company and earning its profits on the constructive side of the market, it turned the tables and made money on the destructive side--of goldfield consolidated. during the first half of 1907 i had felt the country's speculative pulse from day to day with the promotion literature of the sullivan & rice corporation. although its new mining company, the rich gulch wonder, had boasted of a very high-class directorate and the property was conceded to have merit, the public refused to enthuse. instead of subscribing for large blocks, scattering purchases had been made, and money in dribs and drabs had been grudgingly paid over. the wonder mining camp boom had "died abornin'." investors seemed to have had enough of mining-stock speculation for a while. prices of listed nevada issues were crumpling like seersuckers in the rain. by this time the awful mess that had been made of goldfield affairs through the mistakes of messrs. nixon and wingfield had resulted in a depreciation in market value of more than $100,000,000 in listed nevada issues. this in itself was sufficient to kill a world of buying sentiment. you have to be a rainbow-chaser by nature to be a successful promoter, but even i, despite my chronic optimism, began to feel the influence of what was transpiring. i made a flip-flop and turned bear on the whole market. on october 17th the heinze failure occurred in new york. five days later the embarrassment of the knickerbocker trust company was announced. i glued my ears to the ground. nat. c. goodwin & company "shorted" the mining-stock market so far as its limited capital would permit. on the day mr. heinze went overboard the company was already short 2,000 shares of goldfield consolidated at around $6. on hearing that the knickerbocker trust company was in trouble it promptly shorted 2,000 shares more at a lower figure. on the afternoon when the news reached reno of the knickerbocker trust company's embarrassment i received a private telegram from chicago stating that the paper of the state bank & trust company of goldfield, tonopah and carson city had gone to protest in san francisco. this set my blood tingling. i knew that meant a general nevada "bust." next morning nat. c. goodwin & company shorted 2,000 shares more of goldfield consolidated at about $5-1/8. later in the day the failure of the state bank & trust company was announced. a run followed on the nye & ormsby county bank and its branches in reno, carson city, tonopah, goldfield, and manhattan, and in two hours that institution, too, closed its doors. goldfield consolidated promptly broke to $4 a share. around this point nat. c. goodwin & company covered its short sales, at discretion. all of the nixon banks in nevada experienced runs as a result of the failure of the two nevada banking institutions. so did the other banks. governor sparks was appealed to by nevada bank officials between two suns to come to the rescue. without hesitation he declared a series of legal holidays to enable the banks of the state which were still standing on their feet to catch their breath. these banks finally threw open their doors, but when they did, those of reno met depositors' withdrawals with asset money instead of legal tender. the only bank in reno which had refused to take advantage of the enforced legal holidays was the scheeline banking & trust company. and when asset money was finally resorted to as a makeshift, m. scheeline, the president, was made custodian of the bonds which were put up by the associated reno banks to secure payment. this restored confidence. it was believed in nevada at the time of the failure of the mining-camp banks, the state bank & trust company and the nye & ormsby county, that the nixon institution in goldfield would have found it hard to weather the storm but for the fact that the goldfield bank was believed to have upward of $2,000,000 of the goldfield consolidated mines company's money on deposit. when the state bank & trust company went to the wall senator nixon, in an interview published in his reno newspaper, charged the failure of the state bank & trust company to me. he alleged that the state bank & trust company lost $375,000 by the failure of the sullivan trust company ten months before, and that i had broken the bank. the liabilities of the bank were $3,000,000, and its sullivan trust company loss was only "a drop in the bucket." the senator didn't fool anybody, not even himself. his effort was an ill-concealed attempt to prepossess the public against me, and was received by nevada people as such. senator nixon indulged in some more "interview" with a view to stemming the tide of liquidation in goldfield consolidated. notwithstanding the fact that the company had only recently resorted to the sale of treasury stock for money-raising purposes, he asserted that a quarterly dividend, payable january 25th, would probably be declared. beyond a question this statement was made for market purposes at a time when the senator was sweating money-blood. the stock promptly tobogganed farther on the strength of the dividend forecast. the senator's interviews had now become a standing joke in the community. speculators and brokers had learned the wisdom of "coppering" anything the senator said. the story of the goldfield labor "riots" a large force of miners was discharged from the goldfield consolidated properties. the action of the company in laying off its men at such a distressful period was denounced. it was alleged that senator nixon's goldfield bank could not afford to pay out the money on deposit to the credit of the company because it was required for bank purposes. the money was apparently being hoarded during the money stringency to help the bank out of a tight place. after-events appeared fully to confirm this theory. right in the teeth of the panic, during the depressed and troublous days of the latter part of november;--when current finance was deeply affected; when goldfield consolidated was selling below the $4 point and the entire nevada share list had suffered an average depreciation of about 85 per cent. from the "highs" reached during the goldfield boom of the year before; when the state of nevada was racked from end to end by the serious losses incurred by citizens through the failure of the nye & ormsby county's and the state bank & trust company's chain of banks, totaling nearly $6,000,000, and it appeared that the credit of the state had already been shattered almost beyond repair--a fresh blow was administered. government troops were reported to be en route to goldfield from san francisco "to preserve the law." it had been represented to the president of the united states that goldfield was in a state of anarchy. goldfield wasn't. as a matter of fact, the situation in goldfield with the miners, from the standpoint of law and order, was never good, but it was as good then as it had been in eighteen months. true, there had been some lawlessness, but no riot, and the sheriff of the county had made no call whatsoever on the governor for any aid. during the first days of the panic nixon and wingfield's goldfield bank, john s. cook & company, had tendered the miners the bank's unsecured scrip in lieu of money for the payment of wages. the miners refused acceptance. they were willing to take time-checks of two, three or four months, bearing the mining company's signature, but balked at the idea of becoming creditors of the bank. it has been stated to me by a number of goldfield brokers who were present in the camp at the time that the miners had even decided to concede this point, when an outsider secured by intrigue and money sufficient voting power at a meeting of the executive committee of the miners' union to pass a resolution objecting to the bank's scrip. the refusal to accept the bank's scrip was at once made an excuse by the goldfield mine owners' association, which was dominated by george wingfield, to determine upon a lockout and simultaneously to demand federal intervention. if messrs. nixon and wingfield's bank needed money, as the tender of unsecured scrip indicated all too plainly, the complete shutdown which left with the bank as available resources approximately $2,000,000 in the account of the goldfield consolidated mines company, was a perfect stop-gap; and the need of the presence of troops was a fine coincidental excuse for the shutdown. incidentally, it would rid goldfield of the miners' union, which voted to a man against senator nixon's republican candidates for office, and would permit the importation of foreign labor, an expedient which was afterward successfully resorted to. senator nixon brought pressure to bear at washington. he invoked the good offices of uncle sam and urged that federal troops be sent to the state. he was assisted by congressman bartlett in laying the matter before the departments. the wires between goldfield, reno, carson city and washington were kept hot with an interchange of views. president roosevelt finally informed the senator he could not send the soldiers unless the governor of nevada wired that a state of anarchy actually existed which the state itself was powerless to put down. governor sparks, honest as the day was long and unsuspecting of any trickery or jobbery, listened to a goldfield committee and permitted a dispatch to be sent to washington over his signature representing that such conditions existed. thereupon brigadier-general funston, at the head of two thousand troops, was ordered to goldfield. the state being without any militia and the representations made by governor sparks in his dispatches being strong on the point that a state of anarchy actually existed in goldfield, the president finally succumbed. the maneuver was as swift as it was unexpected. nevada people at first could not understand what it was all about. dispatches from goldfield to reno said the town was quiet. the nearest approach to an overt act of recent occurrence that had been chronicled was the alleged theft a few days before of a box or two of dynamite, about 300 feet of fuse and a quantity of caps that were said to have been clandestinely removed from the booth mine in goldfield. the theft, if theft there was, was charged to the miners, but proof was lacking. on the arrival of the troops in goldfield the goldfield consolidated announced a new wage scale, reducing the miners' wages from $5 to $4 and in some cases from $5 to $3.50. this was a new move, calculated to rouse the ire of the wage workers and to prolong the lockout. messrs. nixon and wingfield's bank in goldfield announced at the same time that it would thereafter discharge all of the pay-rolls of the company in gold. but there were no pay-rolls of any consequence then, the mines being shut down. general funston on his arrival in goldfield interviewed mine operators, union miners and citizens generally with a view to determining the necessity for maintaining government troops there. he discovered that the administration had been buncoed. the general wired the president his opinion. president roosevelt quickly dispatched a commission to goldfield to conduct a public inquiry. this commission consisted of charles b. neal, labor commissioner; herbert knox smith, commissioner of corporations, and lawrence o. murray, assistant secretary of the department of commerce and labor. they heard testimony day and night for a week. they reported to president roosevelt that there was no occasion for the presence of troops in goldfield and that the statements telegraphed to president roosevelt by governor sparks, indicating the existence of a state of anarchy, were without justification. the report was given to the associated press and received wide publicity. the president also issued a broadside backing up the findings, which was telegraphed far and wide. eastern editorial writers poured out torrents of abuse on governor sparks. senator nixon went unscathed. the death of governor sparks feeling under a weight of obligation to governor sparks, who had headed nearly all of the sullivan trust company promotions as president, i tried editorially in the _nevada mining news_ to justify the governor's action. but it was a wee voice drowned in an ocean of adverse opinion and was entirely without echo. it didn't even soothe the governor. the governor, honest, simple old man, broken in purse, in health and in spirit, grieved over the president's denouncement, took to bed, and died of a broken heart. at his imposing funeral pageant in reno, which was attended by thousands of mourners, who had come from all parts of the state to pay homage to the grand old man and who followed the hearse to the cemetery, senator nixon and his partner, george wingfield, were conspicuous by their absence. even at the moment when the grave closed over his remains the troops were leaving goldfield. "it's the 'dead march,'" said one of the bereaved. the bringing of federal troops to goldfield accomplished its purpose. the miners' union was destroyed and sufficient time was gained to enable the financial atmosphere to clarify. by the time the troops departed, goldfield consolidated had rallied to $5 per share. the panic was over. money was comparatively easy again. i ask the reader's indulgence for having devoted so much space to the facts bearing on the appearance in nevada of united states troops at a time when there was no valid occasion for their presence. i feel that it is an important chapter of my experiences and is fraught with interest to the general reader, because it illustrates how easy it is to direct the powerful machinery of our great government so as to carry out the machinations of evil-minded men. you might think, after this demonstration of the lengths to which senator nixon went to accomplish a set purpose, and after witnessing the success which attended his efforts, that a poverty-stricken individual like myself, who had had the hardihood to conduct a newspaper campaign in the senator's own home town against his financial and political activities, would judge it the better part of valor to emigrate from the state. well, i didn't. i stayed right on the spot. that i would hear from washington later i had no doubt, but i stuck, just the same, until my business interests called me away. i wasn't wrong in my deductions. within a few months thereafter there came a visit to my office in reno by a postal inspector, who was apparently "sicked on to the job," and but for the quick intercession by telegraph of united states senator francis b. newlands of nevada with the postmaster general at washington, i am certain that potent influences even at that early day would successfully have "started something." but of this more at another time, i am ahead of my story. chapter vii rawhide because rawhide, the new nevada gold camp, was born during the financial crisis of 1907, i couldn't see any future ahead of it from the promoter's coign of vantage--not "through a pair of field-glasses." it requires capital to develop likely-looking gold "prospects" into dividend-paying mines, and i could not imagine where the money was going to come from. eastern securities markets were in the doldrums. time money commanded a big premium. prices for all descriptions of mining stocks had flattened out to almost nothing. investors were at their wits' end to protect commitments already made. financiers everywhere were depressed. a revulsion of sentiment toward speculation had set in, seemingly for keeps. only a hair-brained enthusiast of the wild-eyed order could hope at such a time possibly to succeed in the marketing of new mining issues. a financial panic has no terrors, however, for gold-seekers. the lure of gold is irresistible. money stringency serves only to strengthen the natural incentive. by the first week in january, 1908, fully 2,000 people were reported to be in rawhide. at the end of january the population had grown to 3,000. the camp easily held the center of the mining stage in nevada. many of the rawhide pioneers hailed from tonopah and goldfield. without exception the opinion of these veterans appeared to be that the surface showings of the new district excelled those of either of the older camps. never before in the history of mining in the west had there been discovered a quartz deposit so seemingly rich in the yellow metal at or near the surface which at the same time embraced so large an area of auriferous mineralization. goldfield, at the same early age, had been a mere collection of prospectors' tents, while rawhide was a thriving, bustling, populous camp with more than a hundred leasing outfits conducting systematic mining operations. news was brought to reno of a phenomenal strike made on grutt hill in rawhide. specimen rock taken from a seam of ore assayed $300,000 to the ton. the kearns lease on balloon hill reported 15 feet of shipping ore on the 65-foot level which assayed from $300 to $500 to the ton. there was full verification of this. also regular shipments were being made to the goldfield reduction works. samples of rock were received in town that were studded with free gold. i was thrilled. statements made by camp "boosters" that a part of balloon hill was "gold with a little rock in it," were not exaggerations, judging from the specimens that were placed in my possession. my apathy began to melt away. against my earlier judgment, i now began to change my attitude. the camp looked like "the real thing," panic or no panic. why should not the american public, even in these tough financial times, enthuse about a gold camp with possibilities for money-making such as are offered here, i asked myself. don't drowning men grasp at straws? is it not the habit of horse-race players when they lose five races in succession to make a plunge bet on the sixth with a view to getting out even? this panic had impoverished hundreds of thousands. what more natural than that those who were hit hard should now fall over one another to get in on the good things of rawhide? if the camp makes good, i reasoned, in the same measure that goldfield did, early investors will roll up millions in profits. i visited the camp. what i saw electrified me. soon i was under the magic spell. real gold at rawhide half a day's tramp over the hills seemed sufficient to convince anybody that the best of the practical miners of nevada had put the stamp of their approval on the district. most of the hundred or more operating leases of rawhide were owned by these hard-rock miners. more than half a dozen surface openings on grutt hill showed the presence of masses of gold-studded quartz. at the intersection of rawhide's two principal thoroughfares a round of shots in a bold quartz outcrop revealed gold-silver ore that assayed $2,700 a ton. a gold beribboned dyke of quartz-rhyolite struck boldly through grutt hill's towering peak. i walked along its strike and knocked off, with an ordinary prospector's pick, samples worth $2 to $5 a pound. across stingaree gulch to the south balloon hill's rugged hog-back formed a connection link between grutt and consolidated hills. the kearns nos. 1 and 2 leases on balloon hill were scenes of strikes of such extraordinary richness that they alone would have started a stampede in alaska. the murray lease on consolidated hill was rated as a veritable bonanza. there i saw quartz that was fully one-third gold. along the southern slope of hooligan hill several sets of leasers were mining ore so rich that guards were maintained through the night to prevent loss from theft. at the alexander lease on hooligan hill the miners were crushing the richer quartz from their shaft and washing out gold to the value of $20 a pan. these were the three principal centers of activity, but they by no means embraced the productive area of the district. tall, skeleton-like gallows-frames dotted the landscape for miles in every direction. the soughing of gasoline engines suggested the breathing of some spectral titan in the throes of herculean effort. i was forcefully impressed, too, with the class of miners at work. it seemed to me there was no longer any room for cavil as to the fortune-making possibilities of investors who put their money into the camp. less than a half year old, rawhide loomed up as the most active mining region i had ever seen at anything like the same age. it required nearly three years for goldfield to make as good a showing, i reasoned. during my earlier efforts at press-agenting southern nevada's mining camps i had to conjure in my mind's eye what the reality would be if half the hopes of camp enthusiasts were fulfilled. here was apparently a fulfillment rather than a promise. at the threshold of the first stage of its development era rawhide could boast of more actual producers and nearly as many operating properties as goldfield could claim at the age of three years. i recalled that cripple creek had been panic-born but had lived through the acute period of 1893-96 to take rank with the greatest gold camps of the world. i was more than convinced. effervescent enthusiasm succeeded my earlier skepticism. history is about to repeat the record of cripple creek, i concluded. the rawhide coalition mines company grutt hill, hooligan hill, a part of balloon hill, and the intervening ground, forming a compact group of eight claims, 160 acres, were owned by a partnership of eight prospectors. the area formed the heart and backbone of the whole mining district. i soon "tied up" this property for nat. c. goodwin & company of reno, with whom i was identified. a company, with 3,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 a share, was incorporated to take title. it was styled the rawhide coalition mines company. of its entire capitalization, 750,000 shares were turned into the treasury of the rawhide coalition mines company. nat c. goodwin & company became agents for the sale of treasury stock, and were given an option by the company on 250,000 shares, to net the treasury $57,500 for purposes of administration and mine development. the goodwin company also purchased 1,850,000 shares of the 2,250,000 shares of ownership stock, amounting to $443,500 more, or at the rate of 23.3 cents per share plus a commission of $12,500 to be paid to a go-between. the ownership stock that was retained by the original owners, and the residue of treasury stock, amounting in all to 900,000 shares, were placed in pool. when i made this deal the cash in bank of nat. c. goodwin & company amounted to about $15,000. it was up to me to finance the undertaking. i did. the contract i made called for only $10,000 in cash and the balance on time payments. nat c. goodwin & company didn't borrow money from any bank or individual, nor did anybody identified with the concern tax his personal resources to the extent of a single dollar to go through with the deal. the money was raised, first for the coalition's treasury and later for the vendors, by appealing directly to the speculative instinct of the american investing public. the public, too, paid the expense that was incurred in reaching them. it did this by paying nat c. goodwin & company an advance in price on coalition stock purchases, over and above the cost price. nat. c. goodwin & company had agreed to net a fraction more than 23 cents per share to both the treasury and the vendors without any deductions whatsoever. all of the advertising expense and other outlays of promotion, it was stipulated, must be borne by nat. c. goodwin & company and none by the mining corporation. what was the system? how was it done? a race of gamblers prior to the birth of rawhide i had for seven years catered to the speculative (gambling) instinct of the american public, chiefly in building mining camps and financing mining enterprises. i now realized that in order to make a success of the undertaking before me, namely, to put the new camp of rawhide on the investment map, i must again appeal loudly to the country's gambling instinct. maybe you think, dear reader, that a man who caters to the gambling instinct of his fellow men, be his intentions honest or dishonest, is a highly immoral person. is he? do you know that the gambling instinct is responsible for the wonderful growth of the mining industry in the united states? would you believe that without the gambling instinct the development of the great natural resources of this country would be almost impossible? with rare exceptions every successful mining enterprise in the united states has been financed in the past by appealing directly to the gambling instinct. in the decade antedating this year considerably more than a billion dollars was raised and invested in this way. conservative investors who are satisfied with from three to six per cent. on their money do not buy mines or mining stocks. speculators (gamblers) who are willing to risk part of their fortune in the hope of gaining fivefold or more in a year or a few years--these are the kind who invest in mines and mining stocks. there are legions of these. not less than 500,000 men and women in the united states, according to the best statistical information obtainable, are stockholders of mining companies. in fact, the gambling instinct finds employment in the mining industry long before a property has reached the stage where it can be classed as even a prospect worthy of exploration. the prospector who follows his burro into the mountain fastnesses or across the desert wastes often gambles his very life against the success of his search; those who grub-stake him gamble their money. the gambling instinct seems bound to continue to play an important rôle in the mining industry for all time, or until either the fortune-hunting instincts of man are eradicated or all the treasures of the world shall have been mined. now, if the practice of catering to the gambling instinct is baneful, i'm a malefactor. so, too, would then be such lofty-pinnacled financiers as messrs. rothschild, rockefeller, morgan, the guggenheims and others. my own thought is that it is _custom_ and the times which are responsible for the maintenance of the great game, and not individuals. the truth is, we are a race of gamblers and _we allow the captains of industry to deal the game for us_. next to money and political power, publicity is recognized by all "doers" as the most powerful lever to accomplish big things. not infrequently publicity will accomplish what neither money nor political power can. generally, publicity can be secured and controlled by either money or political power. when rawhide was born i had neither money nor political power. the camp needed publicity. i had nothing to secure publicity with but my wit. i promptly requisitioned what wit i had, and used all of it. there is an important difference between owning a series of excellent gold-mine prospects, which have tremendous speculative possibilities, and the public recognizing them to be such. it is one thing for a manufacturer to be himself assured that his article is a better product for the money than that of his competitor. it is another thing for the consumer to be convinced. therein lies the value of organized publicity. to focus the attention of the great american investing public on the camp of rawhide was the proposition before me. how was this to be accomplished? display advertising in the newspapers is costly and requires large capital; the purchase of reading notices in publications which accept that class of business, even more so. one major fact stood out from my early experience as a publicity agent in goldfield. few news editors have the heart to consign good copy to the waste-paper basket, particularly if it contains nothing which might cause a come-back. i resolved to "press-agent" the camp. chapter viii the press agent and the public's money probably the most scientifically press-agented camp in nevada had been bullfrog. bullfrog was born two years after goldfield. the goldfield publicity bureau by this time had greatly improved its art and its efficiency. when the bullfrog boom was still young the late united states senator stewart, an octogenarian and out of a job, traveled from washington, at the expiration of his term, to the bullfrog camp. there he hung out his shingle as a practising lawyer. immediately the press bureau secured a cabinet photo of the venerable lawmaker and composed a story about his fresh start in life on the desert. the yarn appealed so strongly to sunday editors of the great city dailies throughout the country that bullfrog secured for nothing scores of pages of priceless advertising in the news columns. the senator built a home, the story said, on a spot where, less than a year before, desert wayfarers had died of thirst and coyotes roamed. the interior of the house on the desert was minutely described. olive-colored chintz curtains protected the bearded patriarch, while at work in his study, from the burning rays of the sun. old florentine cabinets, costly byzantine vases, and matchless specimens of sèvres, filled his living-rooms. silk persian rugs an inch thick decked the floors. venetian-framed miniature paintings of former presidents of the united states and champions of liberty of bygone days graced the walls. costly bronzes and marble statuettes were strewn about in profusion. visitors could not help deducing that the senator thought nothing too good for his desert habitat. _the name of bullfrog exuded from every paragraph of the story; also the name of a mine at the approach to which this desert mansion was reared and in the exploitation of which the press-agent had a selfish interest._ the remarkable part of this tale, which was printed with pictures of the senator in one metropolitan newspaper of great circulation and prestige to the extent of a full page on a sunday and was syndicated by it to a score of others, was that the only truth contained in it happened to be the fact that the senator had decided to make bullfrog his home with a view to working up a law practise. but it was a good story from the bullfrog press-agent's standpoint and from that of the sunday editor, and even the senator did not blink at it. he recognized it as camp "publicity" of the highest efficiency, as did other residents of bullfrog. during the manhattan boom, which followed that of bullfrog, the publicity bureau became more ambitious. it made a drive at the news columns of the metropolitan press on week days, and succeeded. at that time the sullivan trust company of goldfield was promoting the jumping jack-manhattan mining company. james hopper, the gifted magazinist, wrote a story in which the names "jumping jack" and "sullivan trust company" appeared in almost every other line. it was forwarded by mail to a great daily newspaper of new york and promptly published as news. the yarn told how the man in charge of the gasoline engine at the mouth of the jumping jack shaft had gone stark mad while at work and how but for the quick intervention of the president of the sullivan trust company, who happened to be on the ground, a tragedy might well have been the result. the miner, the story said, stepped into the bucket at the head of the shaft and asked the man in the engine-house to lower him to a depth of 300 feet. quick as a flash the bucket was let down. when the 200-foot point was reached there was a sudden stop. with a rattle and a roar the bucket was jerked back to within 50 feet of the surface. thereupon it was again lowered and quickly raised again, and the operation constantly repeated until the poor miner became unconscious and fell in a jangled mass to the bottom of the bucket. hearing the miner's early cries, mr. sullivan had gone to the rescue. he knocked senseless the man in the engine-house and pinioned him. then he brought up the bucket containing the almost inanimate form of the miner. turning to the demon in charge of the engine, who had now recovered consciousness, mr. sullivan cried, "how dare you do a thing like this?" the man responded, "his name is jack, ain't it?" "well, what of it?" roared mr. sullivan. "oh, i was just _jumping the jack_!" chuckled the "madman." this nursery tale was conspicuously printed in a high-class new york newspaper's columns as real news. undoubtedly the reason why the editors allowed it to pass was that it was believed to be true, but above all was cleverly written. i was too busy during the early part of the rawhide boom to do any writing of consequence or even to suggest particular subjects for stories. it seemed to me that the exciting events of every-day occurrence during the progress of the mad rush would furnish the correspondents with enough matter to keep the news-pot constantly boiling. i assembled around me the shining lights of the reno newspaper fraternity and put them on the pay-roll. for weeks an average of at least one column of exciting rawhide stampede news was published on the front pages of the big coast dailies. the publicity campaign went merrily on. i kept close watch on the character of the news that was being sent out and was pleased in contemplating the fact that very little false coloring, if any, was resorted to. a boisterous mining-camp stampede, second only in intensity to the klondike excitement of eleven years before, was in progress, and there was plenty of live news to chronicle almost every day. after returning from one of my trips to rawhide i became alarmed on reading on the front page of the leading san francisco newspapers a harrowing two-column story about the manner in which ed. hoffman, mine superintendent of the rawhide coalition, had been waylaid the day before on a dark desert road and robbed of $10,000 in gold which he was carrying to the mines for the purpose of discharging the pay-roll. i had just left mr. hoffman in rawhide and he had not been waylaid. i sent for the man who was responsible for the story. "say, jim," i said, "you're crazy. there is a come-back to that yarn that will cost you your job as correspondent for your san francisco paper. it is rough work. cut it out!" "gee whillikins!" he replied. "how can i? here's an order for a two-column follow-up and i have already filed it." "what did you say in your second story?" i inquired. "well, i told how a posse, armed to the teeth, were chasing the robbers and explained that they're within three miles of walker lake in hot pursuit." "you're a madman!" i protested. "kill those robbers and be quick; do it to-night so that you choke off the demand for more copy, or you're a goner!" next day the correspondent wired to his string of newspapers that the posse had chased the robbers into walker lake, where they were drowned. at the point in walker lake where the correspondent said the robbers had found a watery grave it was known to some reno people that for three miles in both directions the lake was shallow and that the deepest water in that vicinity was less than four feet. this caused some snickering in reno. still there was no come-back. the newspapers never learned of the deception. the correspondent had been canny enough in sending the story to keep the local correspondents of all other out-of-town newspapers thoroughly informed. they had sent out practically the same story, and therefore did not give the snap away. in the early days of the rawhide boom a rumor reached the camp that death valley "scotty," the illustrious personage who had been press-agented from one end of the land to the other as the owner of a secret golconda, was about to start a stampede into some new diggings. the news bureau decided to kill off opposition. newspapers of the land were queried as follows: "scotty's lair discovered in death valley. it is a cache containing a number of empty wells-fargo money-chests. scotty has apparently been looting the loot of old-time stage robbers. how many words?" the newspapers just ate this one up. column upon column was telegraphed from nevada. the source of scotty's wealth being cleared up to the satisfaction of readers of the "yellow," scotty's value as a mine promoter became seriously impaired. when i chided the reno correspondent for sending out the fake story regarding the robbery of rawhide coalition's mine manager, i recall that he argued he had made a blunder in one direction only. he said he should have seen to it that the mine manager was actually robbed! that, he said, would have eliminated the danger of a come-back. years ago in new york the public was startled by reading of an actress taking her bath in pure milk. a few weeks later newspaper readers were convulsed by stories of another star in the theatrical firmament performing her morning ablutions in a tub of champagne. "if you don't believe it," said the lady press-agent to a lady newspaper reporter who was sent to cover the story, "i will give you a chance to see the lady in the act." this was done and, of course, the newspapers were convinced that it was no idle press-agent's dream. of course, neither of these women had been in the habit of bathing in milk or in champagne. a tub of milk costs less than $10 and a tub of champagne less than $200, but you could not have bought this kind of publicity for these performers at anything like such absurdly low figures if you used the display advertising columns of the newspapers. nor would the advertising have been nearly so effective. the absurd milk story scored a "knockout" with newspaper readers and earned a great fortune for the actress. publicity via elinor glyn at this early stage in rawhide's history the reigning literary sensation of two continents was "three weeks." nothing, reasoned the correspondents, would attract more attention to the camp than having mrs. elinor glyn at rawhide, particularly if she would conduct herself while there in a manner that might challenge the criticism of church members. sam newhouse, the multimillionaire mining operator of utah, famous on two continents as a charming host, especially when celebrities are his guests, was stopping at the fairmont hotel in san francisco. mrs. glyn was in san francisco at the same time. mr. newhouse and ray baker, a reno beau brummel, clubman, chum of m. h. de young, owner and editor of the san francisco _chronicle_, and scion of a house that represents the aristocracy of nevada, were showing coast hospitality to the distinguished authoress. a message was sent to mr. baker reading substantially as follows: "please suggest to mr. newhouse and mrs. glyn the advisability of visiting rawhide. the lady can get much local color for a new book. if you bag the game, you will be a hero." ray was on to his job. within three days mrs. glyn, under escort of messrs. newhouse and baker, arrived in rawhide after a thirty-eight-hour journey by railroad and auto from san francisco. the party having arrived in camp at dusk, it was suggested that they go to a gambling-house and see a real game of stud poker as played on the desert. they entered a room. six players were seated around a table. the men were coatless and grimy. their unshaven mugs, rough as nutmeg-graters, were twisted into strange grimaces. all of them appeared the worse for liquor. before each man was piled a mound of ivory chips of various hues, and alongside rested a six-shooter. from the rear trousers' pocket of every player another gun protruded. each man wore a belt filled with cartridges. although an impromptu sort of game, it was well staged. a man with bloodshot eyes shuffled and riffled the cards. then he dealt a hand to each. "bet you $10,000," loudly declared the first player. "call that and go you $15,000 better," shouted the second as he pushed a stack of yellows toward the center. "raise you!" cried two others, almost in unison. before the jack-pot was played out $300,000 (in chips) had found its way to the center of the table and four men were standing up in their seats in a frenzy of bravado with the muzzles of their guns viciously pointed at one another. there was enough of the lurking devil in the eyes of the belligerents to give the onlookers a nervous shiver. when the gun-play started, mrs. glyn and messrs. newhouse and baker took to the "tall and uncut." as the door closed and the vanishing forms of the visitors could be seen disappearing around the opposite street corner, all of the men in the room pointed their guns heavenward and shot at the ceiling, which was of canvas. the sharp report of the revolver-shots rang through the air. this was followed by hollow groans, calculated to freeze the blood of the retreating party, and by a scraping and scuffling sound that conveyed to the imagination a violent struggle between several persons. fifteen minutes later two stretchers, carrying the "dead," were taken to the undertaker's shop. mrs. glyn and mr. newhouse, with drooped chins, stood by and witnessed the dismal spectacle. of course, the "murder" of these two gamblers, during the progress of a card-game for sensationally high stakes and in the presence of the authoress of "three weeks," made fine front-page newspaper copy. rawhide suggested itself in every paragraph of the stories as a mining-center that was large enough to attract the attention of a multimillionaire mine magnate of the caliber of sam newhouse and of an authoress of such world-wide repute as elinor glyn. the camp got yards of free publicity that was calculated to convince the public it was no flash in the pan, which was exactly what was wanted. the next night elinor glyn, having recovered from the shock of the exciting poker-game, was escorted through stingaree gulch. the lane was lined on both sides with dance-halls and brothels for a distance of two thousand feet. mrs. glyn "sight-saw" all of these. rawhide scribes saw a chance here for some fine writing: the wasted cheeks and wasted forms of frail humanity, as seen last night in the jaundiced light that was reflected by the crimson-shaded lamps and curtains of stingaree gulch, visibly affected the gifted english authoress. they carried to mrs. glyn an affirmative answer to the question, so often propounded recently, whether it is against public morality to make a heroine in "three weeks" of a pleasure-palled victim of the upper set. it was made plain to mrs. glyn that her heroine differed from the stingaree gulch kind only in that her cheeks were less faded than her character. that's the kind of laura jean libby comment on mrs. glyn's tour of stingaree gulch that one of the rawhide correspondents wired to a "yellow," with a view to pleasing the editor and to insuring positive acceptance of his copy. later in the night a fire-alarm was rung in. the local fire-department responded in wild-western fashion. the conflagration, which was started for mrs. glyn's sole benefit, advanced with the rapidity of a tidal wave. it brought to the scene a mixed throng of the riffraff of the camp. the tumult of voices rose loud and clear. the fire embraced all of the deserted shacks and waste lumber at the foothills of one of the mines. the liberal use of kerosene and a favoring wind caused a fierce blaze. it spouted showers of sparks into the darkness and gleamed like a beacon to desert wayfarers. the fierce yells of the firemen rang far and wide. of a sudden a wild-haired individual thrust himself out of the crowd and sprang through the door of a blazing shack. he disappeared within the flames. three feet past the door was a secret passage leading to shelter in the tunnel of an adjoining mine. mrs. glyn, of course, did not know this. she acclaimed the act as one of daring heroism. water in the camp was scarce, so there was a resort to barreled beer and dynamite. soon the flames of the devouring fire were extinguished. again the newspapers throughout the land contained stories, which were telegraphed from the spot, regarding the remarkable experiences of the much-discussed authoress of "three weeks" in the new, great, gold camp of rawhide. the press agent was in his glory. "al" miller's siege elinor glyn's experiences in rawhide were by no means the most interesting that newspaper readers of the united states were privileged to read during the course of the press-agenting of the camp. "al" miller was one of the first experienced mining operators to get into rawhide. he landed in camp in the early part of 1907. after a thorough inspection of the mine showings throughout the district, he hit upon the hooligan hill section of the rawhide coalition property as a likely-looking spot to develop pay ore. mr. miller had been mining for a great many years and had been identified with some important mining projects in colorado. when he applied for a lease on that section of the coalition property embracing a good part of hooligan hill it was granted to him without parley. mr. miller financed his project right in the camp of rawhide. he interested five other mining men. a syndicate was formed. each of these six took an equal interest. all agreed to subscribe to a treasury fund to meet the expense of development. a shaft was started on a very rich stringer of gold ore. when it had reached a depth of about 40 feet the miller lease was regarded as one of the big "comers" of the camp. in fact, a good grade of ore was exposed on all sides and in the bottom of a 4-1/2×7-1/2 foot shaft. specimens assayed as high as $2,000 a ton. at this stage of the enterprise an operating company was formed. those who had formed the original syndicate divided the ownership stock among themselves. mr. miller was given full charge and allowed a salary for his services. day after day you could see him on the job, sharpening steel, turning a windlass to hoist the muck from the bottom of the shaft after each round of shots had been fired, and making a full hand as mine-manager, blacksmith, mucker and shift-boss. one day i was sitting in my office at reno when i received a telephone message that there was a big fight on over the control of the miller lease. mr. miller and a big swede who was working for him had barricaded themselves at the mine. they threatened death to any one who approached. we had, for a day or two, been hungering and thirsting for some live news of the camp. my journalistic instinct got busy. i queried our rawhide correspondent. he advised that the situation really looked serious and that a genuine scrap threatened. mr. miller had installed a good-sized arsenal at the mine and laid in about three days' provisions. he declared that he was prepared to hold out for an indefinite period. i wired our correspondent at rawhide instructions to file a story up to 1,000 or 1,500 words. naturally excitement ran high in the camp. soon hundreds of people gathered at points of vantage along the crest of hooligan hill and surrounding uplifts. every one was expectantly awaiting interesting developments. to the casual onlooker it seemed as though possibly a score or more who stood ready to storm the mine might become involved. in fact, no one could tell how soon hostilities would break loose. using the telegrams i had received from camp, one of my men dictated a story containing the facts and sent it over to the reno correspondent of the associated press. it was put on the wire without a moment's hesitation. mr. miller had formed a rampart about the collar of the shaft. sacked ore was piled up to a height of about five feet. the gold-laden stuff surrounded the shaft on all sides but one, the exception being to the northwest. there hooligan hill slanted upward at an angle of less than twenty degrees from vertical. it was from this approach that mr. miller was forced to guard constantly against attack. he found it necessary, according to our dispatches, to keep a constant vigil in order to preclude the possibility of a surprise. he and his swede companion alternated in keeping the lookout. occasionally the fitful soughing of the gasoline engine exhausts from the mining plants on balloon hill and grutt hill were interspersed by the sharp report of a six-shooter as the besieged parties either actually or mythically observed a threatened approach of the enemy. although the principals cast in this little mimic war were limited to perhaps less than a score, every incident or detail was provided to make up a very threatening and keenly interesting situation, with several lives hanging in the balance. there is no doubt that mr. miller at least, and perhaps his swede companion, would have resisted any attempt to take "fort miller," as we styled it, even to sacrificing his life, for he was known as a man of action who had been in numerous critical situations without showing the slightest exercise of the primal instinct. the fact that rawhide was saved from an episode that might have measured up to the tragic importance of a pitched battle and caused the loss of a number of lives was undoubtedly due to the patient willingness of mr. miller's partners and their supporters to satisfy themselves with a siege and to starve out the two men in possession of the mine rather than undertake to rout them. the story went like wildfire and we were besieged for others and for a follow-up on the original story. for three days we kept the yarn alive and the wires burdened with details of the siege and unsuccessful storming of camp miller, hooligan hill, nevada. i venture to say that mr. hearst, with his well-known facility for serving up hot stuff to a sensation-loving following, never surpassed in this particular the stories that were scattered broadcast over the united states foundered upon this interesting episode in the mining development of rawhide. the story promised to be good for at least a week when we were somewhat surprised to hear that mr. miller had capitulated. it seems that in storing his fort with provender he had supplied only one gallon of whisky and when this ran low, on the second or third day, he attempted, single-handed, a foraging expedition in search of a further supply of john barleycorn. during his absence his swede companion hoisted a flag of truce, and when miller returned to the scene of action he found his mine in the possession of his enemies. charles g. gates, son of john w. gates, the noted stock-market plunger, visited rawhide twice. he spent his time by day inspecting the numerous mine workings, of which there were not less than seventy-five in full blast. at night he was a frequent winner at the gaming-tables. his advent in rawhide was telegraphed far and wide and contributed to excite the general interest. a young woman of dazzling beauty and fine presence was discovered in camp unchaperoned. she had been attracted to the scene by stories of fortunes made in a night. under a grilling process of questioning by a few leading citizens she divulged the fact that she had run away from her home in utah to seek single-handed her fortune on the desert. in roguish manner she expressed the opinion that if allowed to go her own way she would soon succeed in her mission. but she would not divulge the manner in which she proposed to operate. she confessed she had no money. there was a serene but settled expression of melancholy in her eyes that captivated everybody who saw her. many roving adventurers of the better class in the district who had listened to the call of the wild yet would have felt as much at home in the salon of a fifth avenue millionaire as in the boom-camp, pronounced her beauty to be in a class by itself. there was no law in the camp which would warrant the girl's deportation, yet action appeared warranted. within a few moments $500 was subscribed as a purse to furnish the girl a passage out of camp and for a fresh start in life. the late riley grannan, race-track plunger, nat. c. goodwin, the noted player, and three others subscribed $100 each. she refused to accept the present. next day she disappeared. there was a corking human interest story here. newspapers far and wide published the tale. two years later this girl's photograph was sent without her knowledge to the judges of a famous beauty contest in a far western state. the judges were on the point of voting her the prize without question when investigation of her antecedents revealed her rawhide escapade. the award was given to another. when the camp was four months old and water still commanded from $3 to $4 a barrel, the standard price for a bath being $5, a banquet costing $50 a plate was served to one hundred soldiers of fortune who had been drawn to the spot from nearly every clime. the banqueters to a man played a good knife and fork. the spirit of _camaraderie_ permeated the feast. there was much libation, much postprandial speechifying, much unbridled joyousness. _bon mots_ flew from lip to lip. song and jest were exchanged. the air rang with hilarity. nat. c. goodwin warmed up to a witty, odd, racy vein of across-the-table conversation. then he made a felicitous speech. others followed him in similar vein. luxuriant and unrestrained imagination and slashiness of wit marked most of the talks. the festivities ended in a revel. the correspondents burned up the wires on the subject of that banquet. in the memory of the most ancient prospector no scene like this had ever been enacted in a desert mining camp when it was so young and at a time when the country was just emerging from a panic that seemed for a while to warp its whole financial fabric. the funeral oration for riley grannan in april, 1908, riley grannan, the noted race-track plunger, died of pneumonia in rawhide, where he was conducting a gambling house. he was ill only a few days and his life went out like the snuff of a candle. when all the gold in rawhide's towering hills shall have been reduced to bullion and not even a post is left to guide the desert-wayfarer to the spot where was witnessed the greatest stampede in western mining history, posterity will remember rawhide for the funeral oration that was pronounced over the bier of mr. grannan by h. w. knickerbocker, wearer of the cloth and mine-promoter. the oration delivered by mr. knickerbocker on this occasion was a remarkable example of sustained eloquence. pouring out utterances of exquisite thought and brilliant language in utter disregard of the length of his sentences and without using so much as a pencil memorandum, mr. knickerbocker with a delicacy of expression pure as poetry urged upon his auditors that the deceased "dead game sport" had not lived his life in vain. soon the crowd, who listened with rapt attention, was in the melting mood. as mr. knickerbocker progressed with his discourse his periods were punctuated with convulsive bursts of sorrow. rawhide correspondents reorganized the full value of the occasion from the press-agent's standpoint. mr. grannan had been a world-famous plunger on the turf, and the correspondents burned the midnight oil in an effort to do their subject justice. some other lights and shadows of rawhide press-agenting are contained in the following dispatch, which appeared in a san francisco newspaper in the early period of the boom: goldfield, february 19.--w. h. scott of the goldfield brokerage house of scott & amann, who returned from rawhide this morning, expresses the opinion that within a year that camp will be the largest gold-producer in the state. "when a man is broke in rawhide," said mr. scott, "he can always eat. all he has to do is to go to some lease and pan out breakfast money. there is rich ore on every dump, and every man is made welcome." h. w. knickerbocker sent this one to a reno newspaper: gold, gold, gold! the wise men of old sought an alchemy whereby they could transmute the base metals into gold. it was a fruitless quest then; it is a needless quest now. rawhide has been discovered! no flowers bloom upon her rock-ribbed bosom. no dimpling streams kiss her soil into verdure, to flash in laminated silver 'neath the sunbeam's touch. no flowers nor food, no beauty nor utility on the surface; but from her desert-covered heart rawhide is pouring a stream of yellow gold out upon the world which is translatable, not simply into food and houses and comfort, but also into pictures and poetry and music and all those things that minister in an objective way to the development of a full-orbed manhood. joseph s. jordan, the well-known nevada mining editor, filed this dispatch to the newspapers of his string on the coast: right through what is now the main street of rawhide, in the days of '49, the makers of california passed on their way to the new eldorado. they had many hardships through which to pass before reaching the gold which was their lure, and thousands that went through the hills of rawhide never reached their goal. they were massacred by the indians, or fell victims to the thirst and heat of the desert, and for many years the way across the plains was marked by the whitening bones of the pathfinders. and here all the while lay the treasures of captain kidd, the ransoms of crowns. harry hedrick, the veteran journalist of far western mining camps, sent his newspaper this: to stand on twenty different claims in one day, as i have done; to take the virgin rock from the ledge, to reduce it to pulp and then to watch a string of the saint-seducing dross encircle the pan; to peer over the shoulder of the assayer while he takes the precious button from the crucible--these are the convincing things about this newest and greatest of gold camps. it is not a novelty to have assays run into the thousands. in fact, it is commonplace. to report strikes of a few hundred dollars to the ton seems like an anticlimax. there were scores of actual happenings in rawhide that make it possible for me to say in reviewing the vigorous publicity campaign which marked its first year's phenomenal growth, that ninety per cent. of the correspondence, including the special dispatches sent from the camp and from reno, which was published in newspapers of the united states, was not only based on fact but was literally true in so far as any newspaper reporter can be depended upon accurately to describe events. ask any high-class newspaper owner or editor to express his sentiments regarding the "faking" which formed about ten per cent. of the rawhide press work described herein and he will tell you that such work is a reproach to journalism. maybe it is, but we are living in times when such work on the part of press-agents is the rule and not the exception. the publicity-agent who can successfully perform this way is generally able to command an annual stipend as big as that of the president of the united states. there was nothing criminal about the performance in rawhide, because there was no intentional misrepresentation regarding the character or quality of any mine in the rawhide camp. correspondents were repeatedly warned to be extremely careful not to overstep the bounds in this regard. confessedly there are grades of "faking" which no press-agent would care to stoop to. somewhere in de quincey's "confessions of an opium eater" he describes one of his pipe-dreams as perfect moonshine, and, like the sculptured imagery of the pendulous lamp in "christabel," _all carved from the carver's brain_. rawhide and reno correspondents were guilty of very little work which de quincey's description would exactly fit. there was a basis for nearly everything they wrote about, even the alleged discovery of death valley scotty's secret storehouse of wealth, that story having been in circulation in nevada, although not theretofore published, for upward of eighteen months. unsubstantial, baseless, ungrounded fiction had been resorted to, it is true, during the manhattan boom, in a single story about the madman in charge of the hoist on the jumping jack, but this was an exception to the rule and the story was harmless. among the "big fellows" if you don't think the character of the press-agent's work during the rawhide boom was comparatively high class and harmless, dear reader, you really have another "think" coming. at a time when goldfield consolidated was wobbling in price on the new york curb and the market needed support, just prior to the smash in the market price of the stock from $7 to around $3.50, the new york _times_ printed in a conspicuous position on its financial page a news story to the effect that j. p. morgan & company were about to take over the control of that company. that's an example of a _harmful_ "fake," the coarse kind that wall street occasionally uses to catch suckers. here is another: thompson, towle & company, members of the new york stock exchange, issue a weekly newspaper called the _news letter_. much of its space is given over to a review of the copper situation, at the mines and in the share markets. w. b. thompson, head of the firm, he of nipissing market manipulation fame, is interested to the extent of millions in inspiration, utah copper, nevada consolidated, mason valley and other copper-mining companies. on january 25, 1911, when both the copper metal and copper share markets were sick, and both the price of the metal and the shares were on the eve of a decline, which temporarily ensued, the _news letter_, in an article headed "copper," said: every outcrop in the country has been examined and it is not known where one can look for new properties. the readers of the _news letter_ were asked to believe that no more copper mines would be discovered in this country and that, because of this and other conditions which it mentioned, the supply of the metal must soon be exhausted and the price of the metal and of copper securities must advance. the statement in the _news letter_ that every outcrop in the country has been examined and that it is not known where one can look for new properties--well, if the whole population of north america agreed in a body to accept the job of prospecting the rocky mountains and sierra nevada mountains alone they could hardly perform the job in a lifetime. the use of the automobile has undoubtedly been responsible in the past few years for an impetus to the discovery of mines which is calculated to double the mineral product of this country in the next two decades, and who shall say what the flying-machine will accomplish in this regard? further, new smelting processes and improved reduction facilities generally are daily reducing the cost of treatment of ores and are making commercially valuable low-grade ore-bodies heretofore passed up as worthless. the best opinion of mining men in this country is that our mineral resources have not yet been "skimmed" and that the mining ground of the western country has not yet been well "scratched." therefore, the statement made in a newspaper which is supposedly devoted to the interests of investors, that it need not be expected that more copper mines are going to be discovered, is a snare calculated to trap the unwary. the foregoing is an example of a very harmful but comparatively crude fake, employed by some promoters in wall street of the multimillionaire class when their stocks need market support. here is a specimen of the _insidious_ brand of get-rich-quick fake. on march 7, 1911, the new york _sun_ printed in the second column of its front page the following dispatch: tacoma, wash., march 6.--f. augustus heinze has struck it rich again; this time it's a fortune in the porcupine gold fields in canada. charles e. herron, a nome mining man, who has just returned from the new gold fields, is authority for the statement that heinze is "inside the big money." he has bought the foster group of claims, adjoining the celebrated dome mine, from which it is estimated that $25,000,000 will be gleaned this year and for the development of which a railroad is now under construction. the porcupine gold field, according to herron, is one of the wonders of the age. one prospector has stripped the vein for a distance of fifty feet and polished it in places, so that gold is visible all along. his trench is three feet deep and he asks $200,000 cash for it as it stands. a party of alaskans offered the owner of this claim $50,000 a shot for all the ore that could be blown out with two sticks of dynamite, but he refused. press-work like the foregoing is more than likely to separate the public wrongfully from its money. the item serves as an excellent example of one of "the impalpable and cunningly devised tricks that fool the wisest and which landed you" that i promised, at the beginning of "my adventures with your money," to lay bare. i said in my foreword: are you aware that in catering to your instinct to gamble, methods to get you to part with your money are so artfully and deftly applied by the highest powers that they deceive you completely? could you imagine it to be a fact that in nearly all cases where you find you are ready to embark on a given speculation, ways and means that are almost scientific in their insidiousness have been used upon you? the new york _sun_ article says it is estimated that $25,000,000 will be gleaned this year from the dome mine in porcupine. the truth is, no engineer has ever appraised the ore in sight in the entire mine, according to any statements yet issued, at anything like half of that amount gross, and the mine itself can not possibly produce so much as $100,000 this year. a mill of 240 tons per diem capacity has been ordered by the management and it is expected will be in operation by october first, but no sooner.[2] the ore, according to h. p. davis's _porcupine hand book_, an accepted authority, "has been stated to average from $10 to $12 a ton." the lowest estimated cost of mining and milling is $6. a fair estimate of profits would, therefore, be $5 per ton, not allowing for any expenses of mine-exploration in other directions on the property or other incidental outlay, which will undoubtedly amount to $1 per ton on the production. the production of 240 tons of ore per day at $4 per ton net profit would mean net returns of $28,800 per month. if the mill runs throughout october, november and december of this the company will "glean" $86,400 during 1911, and not $25,000,000, as the new york _sun_ article suggests.[3] [2] the fire of july will delay installation until a later date. [3] in arriving at these figures i am more than fair. recent estimates of the average value of the ores is $8, and i know of some estimates by very competent mining men that are as low as $4. some engineers say justification is lacking for even a $4 estimate. the dome is by no means a proved commercial success as yet from the mine standpoint, although the possessor of much ore, because of the uncertain average values. how great an exaggeration the new york _sun's_ $25,000,000 estimate is may be gathered from the statement that to glean $25,000,000 in one year from any mine where the ore assays $11 on an average, and the cost of mining, milling and new development is $7, the gross value of the tonnage in the mine that is milled during the one year must be at least $53,571,000. further, to reduce such a quantity of that quality of ore to bullion in a single year would require the erection of mills of 17,260 tons per day capacity. as mentioned, the actual per diem capacity of the mill now under construction is 240 tons.[4] [4] it has been destroyed by the july fire and must be replaced. undoubtedly the dome mining company flotation will soon be made and the public will be "allowed" to subscribe for the shares or buy them on the new york curb at a figure agreeable to the promoters. this seems certain, for otherwise why this raw press-work?[5] [5] the foregoing comment on the porcupine situation has been more than justified by developments after the date of this writing. the first battery of forty stamps in the first stamp mill was not in operation till april, 1912, more than a year from the date of the prediction that $25,000,000 would be gleaned in 1911. the article says that a number of alaskans offered money at the rate of $50,000 a shot for all the ore that could be blown out with two sticks of dynamite, but were refused. there never was a statement made by any wild-catter now behind prison bars in any literature i ever saw that could approach this one in flagrant misrepresentation of facts. all the ore that could be displaced in one shot with two sticks of dynamite would not exceed four tons. in order to repay the investor it would be necessary, therefore, that this ore average better than $12,500 per ton. the new york _sun's_ story says that notwithstanding this offer the owner was willing to sell the whole property for $200,000. imagine this: there are four tons of rock on the property worth $12,500 per ton, for a distance of 50 feet the gold shimmers on the surface, and there are hundreds of thousands of tons of rock in the same kind of formation on the same property, but still the owner is willing to dispose of all of it for $200,000! the statement is preposterous and outrageous. it is the kind described by de quincey as "all carved from the carver's brain." the reverse english now, about the "reverse english" in this line of press-work. similar ways and means, dear reader, that are just as scientific in their insidiousness have been used upon you to poison your mind _against_ the value of mining investments of competing promoters, when it has been found to the interest of powerful men to bring this about. when the offices of b. h. scheftels & company, with which i was identified, were raided in seven cities by special agent scarborough (since permitted to resign) of the department of justice of the united states government, in september, 1910, two of the men who had been active in bringing about the raid assembled in the parlor of the astor house the newspaper men assigned to cover the story by new york and brooklyn newspapers. there they gave out the information that ely central, which i had advised the purchase of at from 50 cents per share up to $4 and down again, was actually under option to me and my associates in large blocks at 5 cents. as a matter of fact, the average price paid over for this option stock in real hard money by my people was in excess of 90 cents per share, without adding a penny to the cost for expenses of mining engineers, publicity or anything else. my people had also partly paid for a block bought at private sale at the rate of $3 a share, besides buying tens of thousands of shares in the open market at $4 and higher. the new york _times_ and the new york _sun_, two newspapers which make capital of the rectitude of both their news and advertising columns, published this statement, along with forty others that were just as false, if not more so. so did the new york _american_ and the other hearst newspapers of the united states. the new york _times_ story related how i had personally cleaned up in fifteen months not less than $3,000,000 as the result of my market operations. as a matter of fact, i and my associates had impoverished ourselves trying to support the stock in the open market against the concerted attacks of rival promoters and other powerful interests on whose financial corns we had tread. every well-informed person in wall street knows this. the new york _times_ stated that every man connected with b. h. scheftels & company had tried to obtain membership on the new york curb and that all of the requests were turned down. no application was ever made for membership because, first, the rules of the curb forbade corporation memberships, and, second, the scheftels company already employed several members on regular salary and more than a dozen members on a commission basis. it was also stated that b. h. scheftels & company applied to the boston curb for membership and that their application was rejected. this was also a lie made out of whole cloth. in three months, the new york _times_ said, no less than 400,000 letters had been received in reply to circulars sent out by b. h. scheftels & company. this is an average of over 5,000 letters for each business day during the period of three months. the exaggeration here was about 5,000 per cent. all of the properties promoted by the scheftels company were stated in the new york _times_ article to be "practically worthless." this was utter rubbish and so misleading that had i been accused of pocketpicking the effect could not have been more harmful. rawhide coalition had produced upward of $400,000 in gold bullion, had probably been "high graded" to the extent of nearly as much more, according to the judgment of well-posted men on the ground, and not less than five miles of underground development work had been done on the property. development work and production had never ceased for a day. besides, when the rawhide camp was still in its swaddling-clothes, i had originally purchased the controlling interest for nat. c. goodwin & company at a valuation of $700,000 for the mine. the control of ely central had been taken over by b. h. scheftels & company and paid for at a valuation well in excess of a million dollars for the property, and upward of $200,000 had been spent in mine development during the fourteen months of the scheftels quasi-control. jumbo extension was a famous producer of goldfield. subsequent to the raid one-twentieth of its acreage was sold to the goldfield consolidated for $195,000. on july 15th of the current year the company disbursed to stockholders $95,000 in dividends, being 10 per cent. on the par of the issued capitalization. bovard consolidated, which was promoted at 10 cents a share as a speculation, had turned out to be a "lemon" after a period of active mine development, the values in the ore pinching out at depth, but b. h. scheftels & company had immediately informed stockholders to this effect. the new york _times_ stated that b. h. scheftels & company sold ely central stock to the amount of five or six millions in cash and made a profit of $3,000,000 on the transactions. the books of the scheftels company show that the company not only made no money on the sale of ely central but actually lost vast sums. the new york _times_ said that it had been advertised that a carload of ore had been shipped from the ely central mine as a sample, but that the government had not been able to find out to whom this carload of ore was consigned. the truth was that the consignment had been made to the best-known smelter company in the united states, that the ore averaged seven per cent. copper, and that it could not have been shipped out of camp except over a single railroad which has the monopoly--an easy transaction to trace. b. h. scheftels & company were accused by the new york _times_ of clearing up nearly $600,000 in three months on the promotion of the south quincy copper company. the facts were that, after receiving $30,000 in subscriptions and returning every subscription on demand because of the slump in metallic copper, the scheftels company abandoned the promotion and never even applied for listing of the stock in any market. a large sum was lost by the scheftels company here. even in stating the penalty for misuse of the mails, which was the crime charged by the government agent who afterwards resigned as a consequence of conduct objectionable to the government, the new york _times_ stated that the punishment was five years in prison, which was more hop-skip-and-go-merry mistaking. the crime is a misdemeanor and the maximum penalty for an offense is eighteen months. i have counted not less than five hundred unfounded and misleading statements of this kind regarding myself and associates that have been made in the past year by newspapers and press associations. the shadow has been taken for the substance. now, the scheftels raid, i shall prove in due time, was the culmination of as bitterly waged a campaign of misrepresentation and financial brigandage as has ever been recorded. chronologically an introduction of the subject is out of place here. the effect, however, of the press-agenting which formed a part of the campaign of destruction is pertinent to the topic under consideration. the immediate result was that thousands of stockholders in the various mining companies that had been sponsored by the scheftels company were robbed of an aggregate sum amounting into millions, which represented the ensuing decline in market value of the stocks. the newspaper campaign of misrepresentation and villification was essential to the plans and purposes of the men who sicked the government on to me. the final destruction of public confidence in the securities with which i was identified became necessary to justify the whole proceeding in the public mind. on the surface of the play it was made to appear that the government of the united states had reached out righteously for the suppression of a dangerous band of criminals. the story in the new york _times_ and other newspapers on the day after the raid was justification made to this end. the fact that tens of thousands of innocent stockholders might lose their all, as a result of the foul use of powerful maladroit publicity-machinery, did not stop the conspirators for a moment. i had a youthful past and, therefore, the newspapers took little chance in publishing anything without investigation and proof that might be offered. and they went the limit, particularly those newspapers that are in the habit of permitting the use of their news columns from time to time to help along the publicity measures of powerful interests. contrasted with the comparatively harmless "faking" that characterized rawhide's press-agenting, the raw work of the newspapers just described is as different as angel-cake from antimony. if you are not yet convinced, hearken to this: the power of the public print in the _saturday evening post_ of december 31, 1910, there appeared an article headed, "launching a corporation. how the pirates and merchantmen of commerce set sail. by edward hungerford," from which i quote, without the omission or change of so much as a comma. referring, in my opinion to ely central, promoted by myself and associates, mr. hungerford says: here is a typical case--a mining property recently exploited on the curb market, the shipyard of many of these pirate craft: a prospect located not far from one of the bonanza mines of the west was capitalized by a number of men who, after they had convinced themselves that it would not pay, dropped it and gave little thought to the company they had organized. one day they received through a lawyer an offer of four thousand dollars for the even million shares of stock they had prepared to issue at a face value of five dollars a share. they were told that a wealthy young man was willing to take a four-thousand-dollar flier on the property, on the outside chance that it might develop ore. the deal was made. soon after a well-known man was named as a part owner of the mine, which "promised" to enrich all those interested in it. that was not the first time that the marketable value of a name that is known had been used to exploit a corporation. any man of standing has many such offers. the shares of stock that had been purchased for four cents each were peddled on the curb at fifty cents. then they were advanced to sixty cents. soon a "market"--so called--was made and the stock found a ready sale. point by point it was advanced until it actually was eagerly sought by investors, who were not only willing but eager to pay four dollars a share for it. mr. hungerford states in the foregoing: "this mine was capitalized by a number of men who dropped out after they convinced themselves that it would not pay." the statement is false if it refers to ely central, as i believe it does. the chief owners and organizers attempted to promote it through a new york stock exchange house on the new york curb at above $7 per share, or at a valuation of more than $8,000,000 for the mine, but the bankers' panic of 1907-8 intervened, and for _that reason_ they quit. the stock sold in 1906 at above $7.50 a share on the new york curb, two years before i became identified with it. mr. hungerford says that one day these men _received through a lawyer an offer of $4,000 for a million shares of stock, and they sold_. how cruelly false this statement is nobody can feel more than myself. the average price paid by my associates in hard money for the controlling interest in the 1,600,000 shares of capitalization, as already mentioned, was above 90 cents, or considerably more than one million dollars in all. an additional $600,000 or more was used to protect the market for the stock, making our cost, without adding a cent for promotion expenses, about $1.50 per share instead of four cents--more than $2,000,000 for the property and not $5,000. line by line and word for word i could analyze the statement of mr. hungerford and show that 95 per cent. of it is false both in premise and deduction. but this would be only cumulative on the one point. my excuse for mentioning the item is to give a striking example of the startling force and power which attaches to insidious newspaper publicity of the kind quoted from the new york _times_. mr. hungerford "fell" for it, and innocently lent himself to the purposes of the men who sponsored the story by himself passing it on to the readers of the _saturday evening post_. the purpose here has been to show the imposition on the american public which is being practiced every day in the news columns of daily newspapers and other publications, but i have been able to convey to the reader only the barest kind of suggestion as to the depths to which this perception is practiced. limitations of space prohibit further encroachment, or i would fain extend my list of examples indefinitely. we hear much these days about the abuses of journalism. much of the criticism is leveled at publishers who lend the use of their columns for "boosting" that is calculated to help their advertisers. but little attention is paid to that other evil namely, the use of the news columns for the purpose of destroying business rivals, political rivals and enemies generally of men who wield sufficient influence to employ the method. this ramification of the subject appeals to me as of at least as much consequence to citizens as is the one of inspired puffery. i believe the public is going to hear much more of this feature of newspaper abuse in the future than it has in the past. the community is waking up and is manifesting a desire to learn more about the heinous practice. rawhide again to return to rawhide. as a result of the "scientific" press-agenting which the camp received, a frenzied stampede ensued. the rush was of such magnitude that it stands unparalleled in western mining history. not less than 60,000 people journeyed across the desolate, wind-swept reaches of nevada's mountainous desert during the excitement. not less than 12,000 of these remained on the ground for a period of several months. mining-camp records were broken. the maximum population of goldfield during the height of its boom was approximately 15,000, but it had taken more than three years and the discovery of the world's highest grade gold mine to attract this number of people. cripple creek for two years after its discovery was little more than a hamlet. leadville during its first year was hardly heard of. the scenes enacted in rawhide when the boom was at its height beggar description. real estate advanced in value in half a year in as great degree as goldfield's did in three years. corner lots on the main street sold as high as $17,000. ground rent for plots 25×100 feet commanded $300 a month. during the day as well as at night the gaming-tables of the pleasure-palaces were banked with players, and the adventuresome were compelled literally to fight their way through the serried ranks of onlookers to take a hand in the play. the miners were flush. many assay offices, accessories of "high-graders," were turning out bullion from extraordinarily rich ore easily hypothecated by a certain element among the men working underground. the opening of "tex" rickard's gambling-resort in rawhide was celebrated by an orgy that cut a new notch for functions of this kind in southern nevada. the bar receipts aggregated over $2,000. the games were reported to have won for mr. rickard $25,000 on the first day. champagne was the common beverage. day was merged into night and night into day. rouged courtesans of stingaree gulch provided the dash of ¯ on the densely crowded streets fashionably tailored easterners, digging-booted prospectors, grimy miners, hustling brokers, promoters, mine operators and mercantile men, with here and there a scattering of "tin horns," jostled one another and formed an ever shifting kaleidoscopic maelstrom of humanity. in the environing hills could be heard the creak of the windlass, the clank of the chain, and the buzz and chug of the gasoline hoist, punctuated at frequent intervals by sharp detonations of exploding dynamite. outgoing ore-laden freighters, hauled by ten-span mule teams, made almost impassable the roads connecting the camp with near-by points of ingress. coming from the opposite direction, heavily laden wagons carrying lumber and supplies, and automobiles crowded to the guards with human freight, blocked the roadways. rawhide's publicity campaign from a press-agent's standpoint was a howling success. from the standpoint of the promoter, however, results were mixed. nat. c. goodwin & company were enabled to make more than a financial stand-off of their promotion of the rawhide coalition mines company, but they did not profit to the extent they might have, had the times been propitious. i was not long in discovering that my first deductions, made at the inception of the rawhide boom, namely, that the country was in no financial mood to consider favorably the claims to recognition of a new mining camp, were right, and that it would have been better had the birth of rawhide been delayed for a period or until the country could catch its financial breath again. crowds came to rawhide, but few with money. flattering as was the extent of the inrush, it was easy to see that if the publicity campaign had been suppressed for a while, the result in harvest would have been immeasurably greater. had financial conditions been right, the effort to give the camp "scientific" publicity would undoubtedly have been crowded with results for "the inside" of a character that would have meant much larger sums of money in the bank. nat. c. goodwin & company recognized, too, that they had been working at a great disadvantage by attempting to finance a great mining enterprise at so great a distance from eastern financial centers as reno. we were hardly a match for the eastern promoter who, because of the handy location of his offices, was enabled to keep in close personal contact with his following. the usual happening in mining took place at rawhide. the extraordinary rich surface deposits opened up into vast bodies of medium and low-grade ore at depth. rawhide's one requirement appeared to be a railroad, and a milling plant of 500 or 600 tons a day capacity. it was decided that i should come east and attempt to finance the company for deep mine development, mill and railroad construction, and also to go through with the deal made with the vendors of the controlling interest. the time period for payments had been extended for nat. c. goodwin & company, and the option to purchase was now valued by the goodwin company at a fortune. in new york, over the signature of nat. c. goodwin the firm for a while, under my direction, conducted a display advertisement newspaper campaign in favor of the issue, which was now listed on the new york curb. hayden, stone & company, bankers, of boston and new york, who have since successfully financed the ray consolidated and chino copper companies, undertook to send their engineer to rawhide to make an examination of the property with a view to financing the company for railroad and milling equipment amounting to upward of a million dollars. under the impetus of this news and the nat. c. goodwin advertising campaign the market price of the shares shot up to $1.46, or a valuation in excess of four million dollars for the property. a few weeks later a sharp market break occurred. some one got the news before nat. c. goodwin & company did that the million-dollar financing proposition had been acted upon adversely by the engineer. the company had done no systematic underground development work. an enormous amount of work had been done, but it was accomplished under the leasing system. the leasers, who, because of lack of milling facilities, were unable to dispose of a profit of ore that assayed less than $40 per ton, had bent all of their efforts toward bringing to the surface high-grade shipping ore and had made no effort at all to block out and put into sight the known great tonnages of medium and low-grade. engineers take nothing for granted and this one reported that the proposition of spending a million dollars should be turned down because a commensurate tonnage had not been blocked out and put in sight. to this day the camp has struggled along without adequate milling facilities, but has been practically self-sustaining. from a physical standpoint the mines to-day are conceded to be of great promise. the company is honestly and efficiently managed. the president, from the day of incorporation to this hour, has been e. w. king, formerly president of the montana society of mining engineers, a director of a number of montana banks, and recognized as one of the ablest gold-mine managers of the west. m. scheeline, president of the scheeline banking & trust company of reno, who ranks as the oldest and most conservative banker in the state of nevada, has been treasurer from the outset. the history of rawhide is still in the making and its final chapter has not yet been written by any manner of means. nor is it within the pale of possibility that such latent productive potentialities as have been established at rawhide can long remain in great part dormant. in wall street nat. c. goodwin & company's deal with the venders of the control of rawhide coalition was later financed to a successful finish. it was done by appealing to the speculative instinct of that class of investors who habitually gamble in mining shares. the effort to finance the mining company itself, to a point where it might take rank with the great dividend-paying gold mines of the west, was not so successful. chapter ix the wall street game a man who thinks he knows what happened to me in wall street, and _why it happened_, suggests that the new york section of "my adventures with your money" be prefaced with the following: this is the story of an energetic, self-confident, aggressive, optimistic, enthusiastic, nervy, fearless, imprudent, uncompromising, presumptuous _fool_. maybe he was worthy of a following in that he would cast his own fortunes with those whom he asked to follow him, but withal he was a dangerous leader because he could not see the rents in his own armor and lacked caution, prudence and discretion. he could see a goal ahead and would lead the rush, but always failed to take into his reckoning one circumstance in his youth that left a blot on his escutcheon and placed in the hands of unfair opponents an envenomed weapon ready for use. he failed to see the necessity of making friends of his competitors and of placating his critics as he progressed. indeed, he reckoned these elements not at all. he made many enemies and few allies. he never compromised. naturally, he met with disastrous defeat for himself and the loyal ones who placed their faith in him. i disagree. i was not a fool. i refused to be a knave, and i am not sorry. i have in mind a man of parts who as a stockholder has been doing the dirty work of unscrupulous multimillionaire wall street mining promoters for years. dishonest in his expressed opinions and a sycophant in his every action, the interest of the wall street man of power is always his as against that of the unprotected investor. i look upon this man as a vile person. i could not do as he does if my very existence depended upon such conduct. i would rather be out of business and broke for the rest of my life than be he. for me to serve the base purposes of high-class crooks just because they have money and power, would be for me to barter away my soul and lose my peace of mind. i would not sell either for all the money in the world. honesty is the best policy. the type of man i have described can not thrive for long. he must evidently suffer total eclipse. the business of this world is founded and builded upon individual integrity. the business man who allows himself to be used to carry out the base purposes of men in high places forfeits the respect of those whom he serves, is forever afterwards mistrusted by them, and loses caste in the very set he tries to gain favor with. i charge that powerful, dishonest interests on wall street found it necessary for selfish reasons that i be put out of business. i declare that they bided their time until newspaper clamor against so-called get-rich-quick promoters had been fostered, aroused and stimulated to a point where citizens became imbued with the idea that all promoters who use the advertising columns of newspapers are crooks. and i aver that when the government used upon me and my associates its rare power of seizure, search and confiscation, it was with no evidence that any government statute had been violated. in this and the concluding chapter of "my adventures with your money" i state the facts which i believe prove these statements to the last syllable. good big fish vs. bad little fish ask the casual newspaper reader to define offhand the compound adjective get-rich-quick and he will tell you it is applied solely to professional promoters who employ flamboyant advertising methods, promise great speculative profits, use other devices which are calculated to separate the public from its money, and are in every instance dishonest. that is the idea which powerful "interests" have inculcated in the public mind by subtle, insistent press-agenting. time and again during the progress of "my adventures with your money" i have endeavored to show that the really dangerous get-rich-quick forces are the men in high places who, by the artful and insidious use of the news columns of "friendly" publications and others which copy from them, divorce the public from millions upon millions. i said in my foreword the following: the more dangerous malefactors are the men in high places who take a good property, overcapitalize it, appraise its value at many times what it is worth, use artful methods to beguile the thinking public into believing the stock is worth par or more, and foist it on investors at a figure which robs them of great sums of money. there are more than a million victims of this practice in the united states. no man has right to assume that a promoter who sells stock by means of display advertising in the newspapers is _per se_ a get-rich-quick operator. there are honest professional promoters of the display advertising variety and there are dishonest ones, just as there are honest promoters of the multimillionaire kind and dishonest ones. the _on-the-level_, trumpet-tongued mining promoter, who believes in newspaper advertising and successfully finances companies by appealing uproariously to the speculative investing public, performs an actual service and is entitled to a place among honorable men. indeed, he is the hero of the prospector and "poor" mine owner of the west. he alone stands between these men and grasping monopoly. mine men, stockholders, and financiers the country over understand this, although the eastern newspaper-reading public has been taught to believe that this type of promoter must be a get-rich-quick operator. a broker in wall street who speculates in the securities of the new york stock exchange for his own account is considered unsafe. e. h. gary, chairman of the executive board of the steel trust, stated under oath at washington in june that j. p. morgan never speculates. ask the average member of the new york stock exchange what chances the stock-gambler has. if he is frank, he will shrug his shoulders and reply something like this: "if the game could be beaten, do you think i would be a broker? wouldn't i be a player?" the aggregate market value of seats on the new york stock exchange is nearly $100,000,000. it costs more than a hundred million dollars more every year to gather and transact through offices and branch offices the speculative business which forms the bulk of the transactions of the members. the "kitty," or "rake-off," is enormous. who pays it? you hear of the stockbroker going to europe in his yacht every summer. how many of his trading customers travel that way? who pays the freight? can a game be beaten where so many multimillionaires are created among those who are on the "inside" and where so large a percentage of the speculator's money must come out every year to pay the enormous cost of maintaining a vast system of stock-brokerage offices, stock exchanges, telegraph and telephone wires, newspapers, publicity bureaus, yachts, fifth avenue palaces, huge contributions to national and state political campaigns, etc.? you hear a hue and a cry against bucketshops. there is no federal embargo against bucketshopping. yet somehow or other the machinery of the government's department of justice is used to crush out this sort of gambling institution. now, what is the difference in principle between gambling on margin on fluctuations of stocks in a bucketshop and doing the same through a new york stock exchange house? this is the unimportant difference: the bucketshop-keeper takes the other end of the play, pays you out of his pocket when the market goes your way and keeps your money when it goes against you. he never delivers any stocks. the new york stock exchange member is expected to buy your stocks for you and _carry_ them--some of them do and most of them don't, as is shown farther on--but in this case also no stocks are delivered to you. the transaction is the same in principle as the one in the bucketshop, so far as the gambling feature is concerned. the only real difference is that when you gamble on market fluctuations through the bucketshops no contribution is made to the new york stock exchange "kitty." righteous wall street and the "sucker" public the new york stock exchange member will tell you that the evil of bucketshopping is that the bucketshopper is tempted when the public is long on stocks to depress the market by heavy short sales. on the other hand, the bucketshopper urges upon you that his business is gambling against fluctuations which he has no hand in making and that the financial powers of wall street resort to the same trick that he is occasionally accused of. the "interests" know at every hour in the day approximately how many shares of stocks have been borrowed for delivery against "short" sales or are being carried on margin for the long account. they know what the public's short interest or long interest is, and they, too, have it in their power to shake out the public at any moment they choose. worse, it is common knowledge that this practice is continually resorted to. stocks are put up and held up on bad news and marked down and held down on good news or no news at all. news is withheld and is manufactured to suit occasions. for years the market has been thimble-rigged to a frazzle. margin-trading "suckers" have been milked to a finish. george e. crater, jr., writes: margin trading on the new york stock exchange is the most dangerous and destructive form of gambling known, because, being "legal" and therefore "respectable," it allures hundreds of thousands of people who would never think of risking their money at "faro," "rouge-et-noir," "roulette," or any of the other games of chance. statistics show that more people are ruined physically, morally and financially by stock gambling than by all the other forms of ordinary gambling combined. monte carlo is a christian philanthropy compared with "wall street." you have quite as good, if not a better chance to win a fortune at monte carlo than you have by putting up "margins" against stock exchange bulling and bearing, and if you ruin yourself at monte carlo the proprietor will at least refund enough of your money to pay your way home. the man who "goes broke" on "margins" finds no relief at his service on the stock exchange or among the brokers. there would not be so many millionaires in this country if there were not so many fools ready to throw their money away on margins. a howl of condemnation is raised against horse-racing. newspapers, periodicals, politicians, enthusiasts, crusaders, and charlatans in every walk of life, are encouraged to make a big noise. horse-racing, like bucketshopping, is an avenue for speculation--gambling--and it keeps much money out of wall street. fakirs, who are the tools of wall street, collect from wall street for their services and at the same time make moral or political capital of their zealousness in crusading against such wall street gambling competition. the small fry mining promoter, who is not a member of the stock exchange, pays no toll to the big game, is beyond the discipline and control of the governing body of the new york stock exchange and is not a part of the machinery, sets up a competitive business which caters to the gambling instinct in the way of fluctuating mining stocks. the speculating public gets action, likes it, and invests money that might have been used in margin-trading on the new york stock exchange or for "investment" in the constantly fluctuating low-priced industrials or higher-priced mining stocks that are sponsored by big interests with new york stock exchange affiliations. promptly the machinery of wall street is used to crush him. column upon column is printed in the magazines and newspapers about get-rich-quicks. a conviction for crime is obtained of a real get-rich-quick offender--a little fellow who is guilty, but no more so than his "licensed" brother higher up, who is doing infinitely greater damage. the _one_ that a coterie of high-class wall street thimbleriggers are really "after," because he thwarted them in their swindling operations by exposing them in his newspaper, but against whom they can not make a case, has a skeleton in his closet. they bring it forth, dangle it in the air, make the public think he, too, must be a scoundrel, and he is raided by a government agent during the uproar; and they "get away" with it. the "righteous" crusade against "get-rich-quicks" is press-agented to the limit. the public "falls" for the "dope." at last the government has acted to protect investors! wouldn't it wilt you? were p. t. barnum to be reincarnated and his hum-bugging mind by some miracle expanded a million times, it would still be impossible for him to conceive such a gigantic faking of the american public as it has been put to in the last few years. and the public isn't "on." shrewd schemers on wall street keep pulling the wool over the eyes of the "sucker-public," and not only see no reason why they should discontinue the practice but find it very lucrative to continue doing it. the marketing of mining stock as a rule, it takes much money to make a paying mine out of a promising prospect. later on in the mine's progress, through the constructive period, other very large sums are generally required to pay for the blocking out of an ore reserve and to supply milling facilities for the reduction of the ores. the peripatetic mining prospector of our western mining empire--the dauntless finder of mines who laughs at hardship and ridicules the thought of danger, who makes companions of gila monsters and the desert rattler, whose only relief from the everlasting silence of the untrodden reaches of arid wastes is the sex-call of the coyote--has the choice of just two markets for the sale of his "find." he may either accept a comparatively small sum from the agent of a powerful mining syndicate for his prospect or he may receive a fair speculative price from the professional promoter. the great mine financiers of this country rarely compete with one another for the purchase of any mining property. this is particularly true if one of the others happens to be operating in the district where the small mine owner's property lies. as a rule, the original owner, whose entire fortune is perhaps tied up in the property, then finds himself in the position where he must either accept the first offer, however small, which is made to him by one of these dominant interests, or find that market closed to him. his alternative, as mentioned, is a sale to the independent mine promoter of comparatively small means, who incorporates a company to own and develop the property and finances the operation from start to finish by selling stock in the enterprise to the general public. the method of this class of professional promoter--the hope of the small mine owner--in marketing stock, usually involves the liberal use of the advertising columns of newspapers. he lacks "pull" or power sufficient to get his stock and mine talked of favorably in financial literature of the day to a degree that will excite public interest, and so he must construct his own publicity forces. advertising costs money and the public foots the toll. but if the promoter is honest, this item of cost is not in itself an argument in favor of stock offerings of the multi-millionaire mine capitalist who does not patronize the display advertising columns of the newspapers. nor does it establish a case against the wares of the promoter who does. the promotion expenses incurred by the advertising promoter do not nearly approach in their totality the difference between cost price and the price at which the magnate promoter usually invites the public to participate in similar enterprises. for example: a few years ago a certain man bought a certain mine for $1,000,000 on time payments. he has been making a market for the stock of that mine on the new york curb at an average of above $8 per share, or more than $8,000,000 for the property. his firm, members of the new york stock exchange, have been advising people in their widely circulated market literature to buy the stock at this figure. and yet the property is without a reduction works, will need $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 in excess of money now in the company's treasury to erect one, which money must yet be raised somewhere and somehow, and the producing era of the company can not possibly begin for two years yet at the very earliest. i could cite many such instances. when nat. c. goodwin & company of reno purchased the control of rawhide coalition, during the exciting rawhide camp boom early in 1908, the valuation agreed upon for the property was $700,000. this was considerably more than the original owners could obtain for it at that time from any big interest. it, too, needed milling facilities. as a matter of fact, but for the success of mine promoters of the nat. c. goodwin & company and b. h. scheftels & company class, the great comstock lode, which produced over $600,000,000 in gold and silver bullion, would have likely remained undeveloped. the big public demand in the early 70's for comstock mining shares of all descriptions was created by a series of flamboyant flotations and aggressive stock-market campaigns. if the con. virginia mine had not opened up into a bonanza ore-body at a depth of 1,400 feet, the frenzy of speculation in comstock shares might have gone down in history as another south sea bubble. the "brass-band" promoter, be it understood, is therefore not without honor in the far west. deprive the mine prospector of the services of this style of enterprise projector, with his operating machinery, namely, facilities for appealing to the speculating-investing public, and you hit the small western mine man a solar-plexus blow. conversely, every obstacle placed in the way of the mine promoter of loud methods and moderate means is an added cause for rejoicing on the part of the wall street multi-millionaire mine capitalist. when b. h. scheftels & company, with whom i was identified, were raided by the united states government in september, 1910, a wail went up from the western mine operator to his representative in congress. the best sentiment of the far west, as i was able to gather it, favored the idea that the last hope of the small western mine owner had been shattered. during the short period of b. h. scheftels & company's activity in new york it raised directly nearly $2,000,000 for western mining properties and indirectly influenced in that direction at least $10,000,000 more. the raid was a body-blow to the small western mine owner who needs capital to develop his properties and has no affiliations with capitalists. since the raid i do not know of a mine owner of any of the great far western states who has successfully financed a mining proposition in the east except by delivering his property in its entirety into the hands of some big interest, which has taken it over for a sum insignificant by comparison with what the public may ultimately be expected to pay for it when the stock is finally marketed on the curbs and exchanges. i buck the wall street game after i had conducted the big camp publicity campaign of rawhide, which i had done with a view to centering the attention of the american investing public on the speculative possibilities of the stock of the rawhide coalition mines company, and in that way endeavored to finance the proposition--after i had failed by this method, in the teeth of the bankers' panic of 1907-8, to dispose of enough stock to finance the company for deep mine development, mill equipment and the payment to the original owners of the price for the control agreed upon, i came to new york, late in october, 1908, bent on trying to succeed in the encompassment of my original purpose both by direct appeal to the public through display advertisements in the newspapers and by making a deal for part of the enterprise with the "big" fellows. i found rawhide coalition stock listed on the curb, and the market quiescent. public interest in the east had been aroused to some degree, but the market was not absorbing stock. an effort to induce leading stock brokers to mention the issue favorably in their market letters failed. those who were willing to give the stock some publicity exacted either a "call" on stock at a low price or an out-and-out reduction below the market quotation for such stock as they disposed of. such concessions were not to be thought of. it was the intention of nat. c. goodwin & company to support a rising market for rawhide coalition. my goldfield experience with mining-stock brokers convinced me that few might be expected to protect the shareholders' interest in such an enterprise. commission mining-stock brokers of that period, who put their customers into a stock at, say, 30, were tempted to advise profit-taking when the price advanced to, say, 50, because by the operation they made another commission and often earned an additional, or third, commission by getting their customers out of the stock at a profit and into another one, levying a commission on each transaction. nat. c. goodwin & company decided to "try it on" direct with mining-stock speculators by appealing to them through the advertising columns of the newspapers, asking them to purchase the stock on the new york curb through their own brokers. also, hayden, stone & company, the boston and new york banking firm, were induced to agree to raise $1,000,000 for the company for railroad and mill purposes, if their engineer would report favorably. provided with money with which to buy advertising space and furnished with stock certificates to supply the market, nat. c. goodwin & company inaugurated an active campaign on the new york curb. what happened will be found instructive to the reader in several particulars; among them these: (1) the free-lance mining promoter does not always "get the money" when he succeeds in creating a buoyant market for his stock. (2) some stock brokers of seemingly high standing would just as soon "skin" a mining promoter of this order as they would an ordinary speculator. they play no favorites. (3) be a mine promoter ever so honest, without new york stock exchange affiliations his motives are bound to be misconstrued if he makes an error. the "big" fellows will sick on to him the newspapers or newspaper men whom they control or influence. dust will be thrown into the eyes of the public so they'll buy the big fellow's wares, principally for sale on the new york stock exchange, and may forever be prejudiced against the little fellow's. the campaign in rawhide coalition made good progress. it was early in november, 1908. for six weeks i had been supporting the market for the stock on the new york curb for nat. c. goodwin & company of reno. my office was an apartment in a fifth avenue hotel; our brokers were members of the new york stock exchange. for a month we had used, every day, display advertisements in the financial columns of new york city daily newspapers, signed by nat. c. goodwin, to boom the stock. about 600,000 shares of the stock were in the hands of the public. the market, which was on the new york curb, was "real." speculative buying had carried the price from 40 cents up to $1 a share. mine reports were rosy. wide distribution of the stock was taking place. the public evinced deep interest. the nat. c. goodwin advertisements set forth that $2 ought to look reasonable for the stock by christmas day. there were reasons. several very promising mines had been opened up. an engineer of high rank was examining the property. if his report should be favorable, a deal was practically assured that would involve the expenditure of $1,000,000 for deep mine development, a railroad, and adequate milling facilities. this, in turn, would mean early dividends for stockholders. experienced, conservative mining men had expressed the opinion that the property bore the unmistakable earmarks of a big producer. the stock became the feature of the curb market. it easily occupied the center of the stage. not less than 20 brokers could be counted in the crowd executing orders at almost any hour during the daily session. the fact that a new york stock exchange house was executing the supporting orders from the "inside" impressed the "talent." public buying through other new york stock exchange houses further convinced curb veterans that the stock was "the goods." up went the price under the impulse of public buying. curb brokers themselves caught the infection. by december 7th the price soared to $1.40 per share. this was an advance of 500 per cent. over the "low" for the stock of half a year prior. the "double-crossing" of rawhide coalition at the close of the day's business on december 7th, our brokers, a single firm, members of the new york stock exchange, reported the purchase of 17,100 shares in the open market at an average price of about $1.39, and the sale of 1,800 shares at a little above this average. for the first time in the campaign there appeared to be selling pressure. we had quit "long" 15,300 shares. the sum of $21,000 in cash was required to pay for the "long" stock. on december 8th, the day following, the same firm of brokers reported that they had purchased 17,800 shares at an average price of $1.37-1/2, and the sale of 12,800 shares at an average price of $1.40--"long" on the day 5,000 shares. on december 9th our purchases through this firm aggregated 16,800 shares at an average price of $1.40, while our sales totalled only 6,400 shares at a slight advance. nat. c. goodwin & company were now "long" on the three days' transactions 30,700 shares and had been called upon to throw $43,000 behind the market to hold it. this was a comparatively small load to carry and did not alarm us. we considered the stock worth the money. we were curious, however, to learn the reason for the selling. nat. c. goodwin & company had placed most of the outstanding stock direct from reno with the investing public at from 25 cents to $1 per share, and early buyers were reaping a harvest. but this did not appear to be the explanation for all of the selling. interest in the stock was now widespread. there was free public buying and for every actual profit-taker there appeared to be a new purchaser. apparently, somebody was selling the stock "short." late that night a member of our brokerage firm which had been executing our supporting orders, called on me at my apartment. i inquired of him what protective orders he thought the stock would need the next morning to guard against professional attack. he replied: "i think if you will give us a buying order for 5,000 shares at $1.35 there will be no difficulty." my understanding was that he wanted to handle the market for me the next morning and that he would, of course, give me quick notice if further supporting orders were needed. the order was given. it was a very ordinary precaution, for there is hardly a stock on the list that would not be raided by professionals if supporting orders were not known to be in the market. as saturday is only a short two hours' session, i really fell in with the idea. retiring late that night, i left a call for 11 a.m. next morning at about 10:45 i was awakened by my valet. he said nat. c. goodwin wanted me on the long distance. mr. goodwin was in cincinnati, where he was playing a week's engagement. "hello," said mr. goodwin. "did they get you? shall i wire the knickerbocker trust company to pay you $25,000 to support the market? reported here they have you in a hole." "what's up?" i inquired. "why, brokers here say the stock broke to 60 cents on the curb soon after the opening," he said. this was news to me. "i do not need more money," i answered. "i have been asleep. our brokers have been on the job. i will see what is doing and let you know in a little while. don't worry." and i rang off. i 'phoned our brokers and they reported that they had bought 5,000 shares of stock at $1.35 at the opening and had withdrawn support. "too much stock was pressing for sale," they said. "this is hell. you should not have permitted the market to break that way. support the stock!" i said. "buy 7,500 shares at the market!" in a few moments this firm of brokers reported that they had rallied the market to $1.16. the recovery was only temporary, however. another drive broke the stock to 60 cents. our brokers had bought 7,000 shares at from $1 to $1.16 and then stopped. the member of their firm who had been handling our orders throughout this campaign said the purchase of this fresh block of stock exhausted our cash balance on deposit with his firm. they had a number of drafts out for collection, attached to stocks sold to western brokers, that had not yet been credited to us. there was also a big block of coalition stock due us from them. this was the stock they had bought on our supporting orders. they refused, however, to consider either the drafts or the stocks as a credit. we had cash on deposit and credit with a number of other brokers. i promptly telephoned several of them to buy large blocks of the stock at a limit of 95 cents. this was 35 points above the quotation that was given me. not a single share was reported bought on these orders. i jumped into a taxi and rode to the office of the brokers who had been handling our orders. the situation was critical. i realized fully that a sharp break of this character in the market price of a stock that had been so widely exploited must prove shocking to investors. i feared that public confidence would be shattered completely. "this is an outrage!" i protested. "buy 5,000 shares at 95!" i tendered five $1,000-bills as payment in advance. it was five minutes to twelve when i gave the order. at noon they reported that they had purchased 2,000 shares, for which i gave them the money. the market closed 95 bid for a "wagon load." on the face of things it appeared that the market had rallied from 60 to 95 on the purchase of 2,000 shares. this was another convincer that there must somewhere be much that was rotten about the play. investigation satisfied me that i had been "double crossed." the one firm of brokers, members of the new york stock exchange, who had been handling our orders, had acted as our clearing-house, holding our stocks and our money. they had an advantage, which stock brokers understand well. having executed most of our supporting orders, their agents on the curb were also in a position accurately to judge the professional and lay speculation pulse. it was easy for somebody to "put one over" on us. shortly after noon i learned that hayden, stone & company's engineer had turned down the proposition of advancing $1,000,000 for railroad and mill construction. a sufficient tonnage of ore had not been blocked out in the mine. beyond a question this information was in the possession of brokers early in the day. while i slept damage had been done to the market that was irreparable. by the time the price hit $1 on the way down trading had reached huge proportions. one clique of curb brokers were reported to have been persistent sellers throughout. their identity made it very plain that the double-crossing process had been employed to a fare-you-well. i accused our broker of not protecting our interests--the interests of stockholders. i raised a howl. he telegraphed another member of his firm who was away on a hunting-trip, to come back to town. next night both of these men, nat. c. goodwin and myself met in my apartments behind closed doors. their firm agreed to charge to their own account 3,000 of the 5,000 shares reported purchased for us at $1.35. some other minor concessions were made. on the day after the "break" new york newspapers reeked with sensational flubdub about the causes of the smash in the price of the stock. in the preceding few months not less than a dozen other securities had "busted" wide open at various times on the new york curb and new york stock exchange, but stock exchange houses were sponsors for these and the newspaper kept mum. never on these occasions was there a hint in the newspapers that possibly somebody had separated the public from its money. nat. c. goodwin and i were wrongfully accused of willfully smashing the market to shake the public out. the new york _sun_ printed an account of the "break" on the front page, top of last column. it began in a strain that indicated to confiding readers that chorus girls had lost their savings through the recommendations of mr. goodwin. the _sun_ printed the list of officers of the rawhide coalition mines company and emphasized the fact that i "of sullivan trust company fame" was second vice-president. the _sun_ made no mention of the "double cross." nor did any of the other newspapers, with the exception of one. the new york _tribune_ said: a stock exchange house which has been putting out orders in the stock was charged with leading the attack on it yesterday, but members of the firm said that they had been acting merely as brokers for customers in the regular order of business. following the newspaper "roasts," which helped further to destroy public confidence, two brokers on logan & bryan's continental wire system resorted to tactics of a kind to force lower prices. this wire has over one hundred out-of-town broker connections. a report was sent over the wire that nat. c. goodwin & company had failed. another followed it that the rawhide coalition mines company was about to go into the hands of a receiver. the _nevada mining news_ accused nat. boas of san francisco and j. c. weir of new york of exchanging messages to this effect over the logan & bryan wire systems, so that all correspondents on the wire would have the false reports. both boas and weir were believed to be "short" of the stock. both were openly operating for a further decline. these and similar tactics resulted in a further easing off in price to 40 cents bid on december 24th, which was the "low" on the movement. two weeks after christmas the stock rallied to 58 bid, 59 asked, and the market was firm again. on january 14 the price bulged to 70. at this point the stock again became the center of attack. by january 20 the price had eased back to 50. thus far the net result of nat. c. goodwin & company's various campaigns on rawhide coalition was the distribution of some 600,000 shares of stock. the issue had been well exploited. it had a big following and a broad market. some excellent judges of mine values had become stockholders. the company, however, was still unfinanced for a long period of systematic mine development and mill construction. we realized very clearly that some arrangement would have to be perfected to avoid a repetition of the trouble which the new york stock exchange brokerage firm had made us. "inside" market support the removal to new york of b. h. scheftels & company, chicago stock brokers, representatives there of nat c. goodwin & company of reno, and a merging of brokerage and promotion interests of the two firms took place. there was precedent for the move. there are a thousand other corporation interests in this country that are closely affiliated with stock exchange and other brokerage houses, through one or more of their directors or owners being partners in the business. as a matter of fact, it would be difficult to lay your finger on a single big interest of this kind that has not such a representation. these houses, of course, make it a rule to recommend the purchase of stocks in which their principals are interested. affiliations of this kind are found essential to successful financing of enterprises. a number of new york stock exchange houses which are headed or controlled by men who are heavily interested in mining ventures that require financing are exponents of this method in the mining field. most of these have succeeded in promoting projects in which they or their associates are heavily interested, with the aid of the banking and brokerage facilities thus afforded. principally by the use of the market literature and accompanying market manipulation, these houses have placed with their customers the securities of their firm members and associates. they have encompassed this by maintaining a brokerage, banking and promotion business without parading before the public, although never denying, the mixed nature of their business. for the reader to comprehend the necessity for transacting the business this way, he should understand the underlying principle of financing an enterprise by the route of the listed stock market. there are two ways of financing any enterprise with other people's money. one is by the primitive method of appealing directly to the public for subscriptions in huckster fashion, taking the money and then refraining from listing the stock or establishing an open market for it. you can't finance an enterprise of consequence these days by any such procedure. it is practically impossible to borrow from banks or from loan-brokers on any security that has no fixed market value. a market must be established, for without a market on which to sell, intelligent investors won't buy. the method, therefore, in common use, and the only one which has been found effective by financiers, is to create a demand for the security, encourage speculation, establish an active market, and dispose of stock on the market as necessity demands whenever financing is required. this implies and necessitates that the inside interests must support the security in the open market. therefore, it becomes necessary for the successful marketing of the stock by the promoters, once a demand is created and public buying is under way, that stockholders shall be kept in full touch with the latest transpirations on the property and in the market--be furnished with news concerning their interests so that they may judge the value of their stockholdings. this process is particularly essential during the financing period of the company and the security-digesting period of the public. in fine, the ultimate purpose in this regard of all the promotion machinery of wall street--the machinery that has been putting out billions of dollars' worth of securities to investors--is to place stock where it will "stay put," that is, not come out on the open market again to embarrass the interests that are behind the enterprise, and who for a long period are compelled to support the market. on the question of the ethics of market support by "the inside," a whole tome could be written. i will not attempt to discuss the subject at length here. suffice it to say that in my opinion "inside" support of a listed security is not base when it is done with a view to creating a broad market, to stimulate public interest, and to increase the price to a point within the bounds of intrinsic plus reasonable speculative worth. support of the market to the point of stimulation is moral obliquity, however, when dishonestly performed for the sole benefit of the "inside" and to the hurt of the stockholder. this sort of market support is only a shade less reprehensible than manipulation that has for its purpose the reduction of the market price of a security to beneath its real value, which, in my opinion, is nearly always infamous. i might place myself on record right here to the effect that only once did i ever "bear" a stock from "the inside," and on that occasion it was a temporary affair, caused by a desire to secure at a reduced price a big block of stock that was pressing for sale from a quarter that i was under no obligation to. even in that instance i gave the investor much of the benefit my associates secured by letting him have stock at the same figure at which "the inside" secured it. nor have i ever tried to push the price of a stock to a higher level than that which i considered warranted by the reasonable speculative and demonstrated intrinsic value behind the security. chapter x enter, b. h. scheftels & company b. h. scheftels & company, incorporated, mining-stock brokers, successors to b. h. scheftels & company, for many years stock brokers in chicago, opened its doors on broad street, new york, on january 18, 1909. for a long period b. h. scheftels & company of chicago had been advertised as the eastern representatives of the corporation of nat. c. goodwin & company of reno, of which mr. goodwin had been president. it was now announced that nat. c. goodwin had become vice-president of the new corporation of b. h. scheftels & company. because mr. goodwin was by profession an actor and not a stock broker and because of the personal abuse he suffered in unfair newspaper criticism which followed the "break" in the market price of rawhide coalition a month before, he was quite willing to serve as vice-president instead of president. besides, he could not spare the time from his profession to attend closely to the business. the new corporation of b. h. scheftels & company made its bow to the public by at once featuring in its market literature advice to purchase stock of the rawhide coalition mines company. i became publicity manager for the scheftels corporation, manager of its promotion enterprises, and was placed in charge of the protection of the corporation's interests in all markets where its stocks were traded in. soon i was conducting a fresh campaign with investors that became so hot, so exciting and so big that for nineteen months i labored on an average sixteen hours a day, including sundays, without being able to complete in a single day a day's accumulated business. the business grew until b. h. scheftels & company were actually spending more than $1,000,000 annually for office and publicity expenses. in the nineteen months of its existence it bought, sold and delivered approximately 15,000,000 shares of mining stock. the scheftels corporation broke every record in this regard that was ever made by a mining-stock brokerage and promotion house in the history of wall street. throughout its career it was viciously attacked from many directions, but it held its own. through its hold on the mining-stock speculating public, who were getting fairer treatment than ever before, it survived the concerted onslaughts of a number of important interests which it had competed with and antagonized, until one day in september, 1910, on a warrant sworn to singly by one george scarborough, since permitted to resign, clothed with the office and power of a special agent of the department of justice, its offices were raided, its books and papers seized, its property confiscated, and its officers and employees arrested. the annual expense of b. h. scheftels & company was $1,000,000 or more. follows a tabulated statement of the expense item. the figures are approximated. the books of the corporation, which are now in the possession of the department of justice of the united states government, will probably show that the annual expense was larger. the books not being readily available, an attempt is made here to be ultra-conservative in setting down figures: annual expense of b. h. scheftels & company establishment of main office and six branch offices (furniture, fixtures, etc.) $ 40,000 office rentals 35,000 private wire system connecting branch offices in six cities with new york 25,000 telephones 5,000 telegraph tolls 100,000 salaries (all offices) 200,000 daily and weekly market letter (printing and postage) 100,000 general office expense, etc. 100,000 miscellaneous postage 25,000 miscellaneous printing and stationery 25,000 advertising, publicity, etc. 200,000 expert accountants 15,000 commissions and salaries to curb brokers 50,000 mining examinations, engineers' fees, legal fees, etc. 50,000 interest charges 30,000 ---------- total $1,000,000 before the scheftels corporation was in business a month it became plain that it was "filling a long-felt want." in almost every branch it was performing some function in a manner more satisfactory to mining-stock speculators and investors than were its competitors. its market letter news service, usually 16 pages, was the prime article. it soon gained a circulation of 34,000 among the highest class and best informed stockholders of mining companies in the country. it was also regularly sent to more than 2,500 stock brokers, including members of the new york stock exchange, new york cotton exchange, boston stock exchange, new york produce exchange, etc. before the scheftels corporation was five months old the work of its market letter was supplemented by the _mining financial news_, a weekly newspaper which had been published for a long period at reno as the _nevada mining news_, latterly as the _mining financial news_, and which removed to new york when the scheftels company found the mining-stock public was hungry for real live news and the truth regarding the mining propositions of other states as well as those of nevada. the _mining financial news_ and the scheftels market letter, which were published three days apart, were supplied with news from practically the same sources. the newspaper was mailed to all readers of the market letter. the ablest and most reliable mining correspondents obtainable for money in tonopah, goldfield, ely, rawhide, cobalt, butte, globe and other mining camps, and the most experienced market news-gatherers in the mining-stock-market centers of salt lake, san francisco, boston, philadelphia, toronto and new york, were placed on the pay-roll. brokers in these and other cities, including duluth, seattle and butte, supplied more news. wherever there was mining or market activity, representation of the very highest character was sought. news was always wired, no matter what the cost, whenever it was important to traders in mining shares. expense was never spared when the information was considered of value to the speculator or investor. in the new york offices of the scheftels corporation and the _mining financial news_, which adjoined each other, a staff of newspaper men with a mining financial experience of years was gathered. little that transpired in the mines or the markets ever got away from them. days before the mining newspapers of the west reached the east the scheftels market letter or the _mining financial news_ communicated the news regarding mine developments. they also contained a daily and weekly stock-market diagnosis and prognosis. these were based on the news, as gathered by trained forces and aided from time to time by secret information which filtered into the offices. this service soon obtained an accuracy theretofore unknown on the street. there is probably not one stock broker in five hundred that would know a mine underground if he saw one. on the pay-rolls of b. h. scheftels & company and the _mining financial news_ there were thirty men who had been literally brought up in the mines and who, when they put their pen to paper, knew what they were writing about. the scheftels company and the newspaper furnished mine and market information of quality to investors who had before been inundated with misinformation, guesses and twaddle. it sought to guide mining-stock speculators right. it was really a delicate job to handle the _mining financial news_ in a manner which would not lead stupid people to believe that it was an entirely independent paper. it was desirable that its independence be maintained to a degree, so that the full value of the _mining financial news_, as a property, might grow. the intention was some day, when the _mining financial news_ found itself on a paying basis, to sever the scheftels alliance. the _mining financial news_ had always been an entity. it had up to then been assisted financially at periods by mining promotion concerns with which i had been identified and was always a quasi house-organ for this reason. but it invariably preserved a certain independence in its news columns and at least such partial independence of ownership as enabled it to stand on its own bottom. more truth on the "mining financial news" when the _mining financial news_ removed to new york mr. scheftels used much persuasion to get the owners to transfer title to the scheftels company. admittedly, if the scheftels company could boast ownership of the newspaper at the head of its editorial page, it would be a great feather in the scheftels cap and might lead investors to think that an organization which could own and publish a first-class, metropolitan newspaper of the _mining financial news_ variety must for that reason alone be worthy of financial credit. thompson, towle & company, members of the new york stock exchange, print a small sized pattern of such a newspaper, called the _news letter_. hayden, stone & company, and paine, webber & company, of boston and new york, are said to have much influence with the _boston news bureau_, a newspaper which features news of mines and mining share markets. the _boston news bureau_ at times has printed no display advertisements and at other times has. it is considered by boston mining-stock brokers who handle the michigan and arizona copper securities as a necessary complement to their market literature. _walker's copper letter_ and the _boston commercial_ are other examples. _walker's copper letter_, which carries no advertising, for years has said the very nicest things about copper securities promoted and fathered by important boston and new york interests. needless to state, what _walker's copper letter_, the _boston commercial_ and the _boston news bureau_ say about the mining propositions of their friends is as a rule based on fact. the point is that promoters find it necessary that news happenings regarding the markets, the securities and the mines in which they are interested be given broad publicity. it was the idea of the owners of the _mining financial news_, of which b. h. scheftels, president and 25 per cent. owner of the capital stock of b. h. scheftels & company, was not one, that anybody who would supply the sinews while the paper was getting on its feet and was establishing itself, was entitled to all the publicity which the paper could consistently and honestly give it. with this understanding the scheftels company assumed to take all of the income of the _mining financial news_ and pay all of the running expenses until such period as the newspaper might become self-sustaining. in doing so it performed a stupendous service to the entire mining industry in that the space devoted to the scheftels enterprises therein did not average more than one-eighth of the whole, and it spent dollars to supply the news of all stocks where other mining financial publications in its field spent pennies. to make sure that the public understood the _mining financial news_ was the quasi house-organ of the scheftels company many precautions were taken. no application was made for admission to the mails as second-class matter, and the paper was mailed under one and two-cent postage. the name of harry hedrick was lifted to the top of the page as vice-president of the corporation owning the _mining financial news_, mr. hedrick being openly employed by the scheftels company as head of its correspondence department. my own name was later placed at the head of the editorial page as editor, the scheftels company making no bones about my position as absolute head of its publicity department, its promotion enterprises, and of all markets for the scheftels promotion stocks. the connection had before been established even closer than this. i had formerly been advertised as vice-president of nat. c. goodwin & company of reno and vice-president of the rawhide coalition mines company; and the scheftels company had advertised that nat. c. goodwin was its own vice-president. further, the scheftels company announced in its market literature that it had selfish interests in protecting the market for the stock because of the nat. c. goodwin affiliation. occasionally market articles under the signature of b. h. scheftels were published on the front page of the _mining financial news_. whenever anybody made a request for the scheftels market letter a copy of the _mining financial_ news was quite regularly mailed to him without cost. articles under the signature of other officers and employees, formerly of nat. c. goodwin & company of reno and later of b. h. scheftels & company of new york, were very frequently printed in the _mining financial news_. probably the most important reason why the scheftels company made this sort of arrangement with the _mining financial news_ was that it could do so with only a very small additional outlay. the scheftels company found it necessary to employ correspondents in all mining and market centers, and the same correspondents could work for both enterprises. another economic argument was that an enormous saving could be made in telegraph tolls, all dispatches addressed to the newspaper being sent at press rates. these dispatches were always available to the scheftels corporation and its clientele. it was the idea of the scheftels organization that the mining-stock investing public sorely needed right direction and that any brokerage house which led it right would soon be unable to transact all the business that would be offered to it. and that is just what happened. before the scheftels company was six months old the fifteen men in its accounting department were compelled to work day and night--time and again throughout the night until 6 a.m.--to catch up with their work. if the scheftels news service was as nearly perfect as money and brains could make it, its facilities for the execution of orders on the new york curb, the boston curb, san francisco stock exchange, salt lake stock exchange, toronto stock exchange, and other mining markets were unsurpassed. its new york and boston offices were connected with branch offices in philadelphia, chicago, detroit, milwaukee and providence by exclusive private wires, and the service to out-of-town offices was almost instantaneous. the new york offices were located right in front of the curb market on broad street on the ground floor of the big _wall street journal_ building, 50 feet by 200 feet deep--occupying about 10,000 square feet of floor space. the boston office, occupying two floors, was located within 100 feet of the curb market in that city. the public wires of the telegraph companies gave quick service between san francisco, salt lake and toronto, where business was transacted through members of the mining-stock exchanges of those cities. the private wires of the scheftels company were constantly flooded with rapid quotations and market, mine and company news during every trading hour. in new york the curb brokers in the scheftels employ, some on salary and some on commission, rarely numbered less than ten and at one period exceeded twenty. the correspondence department was presided over for a long period by two of the best posted mining-market men that could be employed for money. from this department were usually graduated the managers of out-of-town offices. in the cashier's cage six men were engaged at an average salary of above $100 a week, registering stocks, receiving stocks, paying money and drawing checks. the payroll of the mailing department, which was operated in conjunction with the _mining financial news_, was comparatively small. money-saving machinery for the handling of the large output of market letters and newspapers gave excellent and economic service. about ten stenographers were regularly employed in the correspondence department. occasionally, when a special effort was being made to interest the public in some security in which the corporation was particularly concerned, a force of forty additional typists was pressed into service for short periods. the scheftels principles when the corporation of b. h. scheftels & company opened its doors in new york it had no affiliations with any other wall street interests. it had no axes to grind except its own. it was practically a free-lance. it cracked up its own wares, careful always to keep within the facts, and never minced words about the quality of the goods of its contemporaries. the principle of both the scheftels corporation and the _mining financial news_ was to be always _right_ in their market forecasts. the general order to mine and market news-gatherers and market prognosticators was to give the facts. the law laid down was this: if the news is bad and is likely to injure the interests of our best friends, tell it in the interests of the investor. if it is good and the backers of the stock affected happen to be our worst enemies, tell it. no matter on what side of the market you think b. h. scheftels & company is committed in any of its own speculations, give the customer all the news. put the cause of the mining-stock trader in front of you as the one to further always. never exaggerate. eventually, this policy must redound to our credit and profit. _eventually, this policy resulted in our ruin. our truth-telling policy was directly responsible for the loss of millions to competing promoters, and they banded together to destroy us._ the publicity, promotion and brokerage activities of the corporation were of such magnitude, and withal so simple, that they at once challenged the attention of the street. before the scheftels corporation was half a year old veterans of the financial game began to opine that some big interest was behind the concern. its dashing market methods, its mighty publicity measures and its unbridled assurance attracted much notice. from every quarter expert views reached the scheftels company that its manner of doing things was convincing on the point that it knew the business. but the general opinion of the talent seemed to be that the new corporation was spending too much money and that it could not win out unless a big boom in mining shares ensued. the market tactics adopted by the scheftels company in its promotion enterprises were as old as the hills. on the new york stock exchange they had been employed in a thousand instances before. the method will probably survive all time. the corporation sought to distribute the stocks of which it became sponsor in turn--first rawhide coalition, then ely central, later bovard consolidated and finally jumbo extension--by the approved wall street system of establishing public interest and inquiry and causing an active market. the aim was to establish higher prices for the securities, always within the bounds of intrinsic and reasonable speculative value. all efforts were directed this way. plans like this are, however, sometimes thwarted. markets get sick. more stock presses for sale than the "inside" has money to pay for. stocks break in price. then the promoter can't make any money and might lose a lot of it. since money-making is his primary object, and stock distribution secondary, he has got to do some close figuring when markets are subject to the price-breaking habit. that's where b. h. scheftels & company, through its brokerage business, found, after a short period, that it held within its grasp the power to insure itself against declining markets. without promotion stocks on hand--obtained by wholesale at lower figures than values warranted--in which it could profit to the extent of hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rising market, the million-dollar annual expense of the scheftels company would not have been justified. once the market sought lower levels and no profit could be made on the promotions, it meant a discontinuance of the business on the large scale. the corporation's insurance was the open market in stocks on the general list and its brokerage business. from time to time it openly shorted tens of thousands of shares of stocks in which it had no promoter's interest whatever, by going out in the open market and selling them to all bidders against future delivery, by borrowing them from brokers and selling them for immediate delivery, and by short sales generally. speculators play the market and so did the scheftels company, but never against its own stocks. speculators, however, buy mining shares outright or on margin because they want to gamble. the scheftels company played the market for just the opposite reason. it didn't want to carry its eggs in one basket and wanted insurance against market declines to cover promotion losses that must ensue if a general market slump occurred. and the scheftels company did not inaugurate any fake bookkeeping system or otherwise hide behind any bushes in doing this. moreover, the corporation didn't take advantage of anybody. the cards were not marked. the deck was not stacked. there was no dealing from the bottom. market opinion for which the corporation was directly or indirectly responsible was genuine to the last utterance. no news was suppressed on any stock. the corporation divulged to its customers and to the general public every piece of important outside or inside information regarding any stock on the general list that was in its possession. at the very moment when it was going short of stocks in greatest volume its market prognostications were winning for it a reputation for accuracy never before recorded. if the stocks which the corporation went short of--stocks on the general list and amounting to probably 15 per cent., of the volume of its entire business, the remainder of the transactions being all in "house" stocks (these "house" stocks it could not be short of because of its promoter's options on hundreds of thousands of shares)--if the stocks on the general list thus "shorted" went up in price and the corporation was compelled to go into the market later and "cover" at a great loss, it was always in the corporation's heart to sing a pæan of thanksgiving, for it could well afford to pay the losses sustained by it in the general list out of the greater profits which would be made in the "house" stocks, which must, forsooth, share in the general upswing. collateral securities put up by customers as margin for the purchase of other stocks were credited to the customers' accounts and mixed with the company's own securities. in every case proper endorsement of certificates, put up for collateral margin, was required. every certificate of stock bears on the reverse side a power of attorney, in blank. the signature thereto of the person to whom the certificate was issued makes it negotiable by the broker. it was the rule of the house always to inform those who brought collateral to the offices for margin that the stocks would be used and that they would not receive the identical certificates back again. in a number of cases objection was made. acceptance of the stock as collateral margin was then promptly refused. if there were any scattering exceptions to this rule, it was contrary to instructions and due to neglect or ignorance. whenever a customer closed his account and demanded the return of his collateral, stocks of the same description and denomination were recalled and delivery made. the same rule applied to stocks pledged with the corporation for loans, it being specifically set forth in the promissory note which the borrower signed that the privilege of using the stock was granted to the lender. this practice is so common and the rule so generally understood by mining-stock traders that objection was rarely made by customers. to test the general custom, a friend at my suggestion not long ago sent certificates of stock to 17 stockbrokers now doing business on wall street. three of these were members of the new york stock exchange and 14 were members of the new york curb, boston curb, or of a mining exchange. a letter substantially as follows was sent to each of the 17: enclosed please find ...... shares of ...... stock to be used as collateral margin for the purchase of an additional block of ...... shares. please buy at the market and report promptly. the 17 orders were executed by the 17 individual houses. a month later when the stock ordered purchased had advanced in the market, the following letter was sent to each of the 17: please sell the ...... shares of ...... stock which you purchased for me a month ago at the market and return to me the certificate of stock which i sent you as collateral with check for my profits. it took nearly two months for all of the 17 to make delivery. when they did, not one of them returned the same certificate that had been put up as collateral. don't be shocked, dear reader, at this disclosure. it is the _custom_. and don't, please, think mining-stock brokers are alone given to the general practice. if you order the purchase of a block of stock on cash margin from any new york stock exchange house or send a certificate of stock as collateral in lieu of cash to one of them for the purchase of more stock, you will receive a confirmation slip of the trade which will generally read something like this: we reserve the right to mix this stock in our general loans, etc. that is, the right is reserved, and actually exercised, of immediately transferring ownership of the certificates to the broker. unless a certificate stands in a customer's name and is unendorsed by him, he has no control over it. according to law, a broker has a right to hypothecate or loan securities or commodities pledged with him, for the purpose of raising the moneys necessary to make up the purchase price, and such stocks have no earmarks. in other words, the customer is not entitled to specific shares of stock, so that stocks bought with one customer's money may be delivered to another customer. as for the scheftels company laying itself open to the charge of bucketshopping in "shorting" stocks, such a possibility was never dreamed of. the penal law of the state of new york, sections 390 to 394, inclusive, is the only criminal statute covering market operations commonly known as bucketing and bucketshops. in each section and subdivision it is provided that where both parties intend that there shall be no actual purchase or sale, but that settlement shall be made on quotations, a crime has been committed, the language of the statute being, "wherein _both parties_ thereto intend, etc.," or "where _both parties_ do not intend, etc." the scheftels company was never a party to any such arrangement. and it always made it a practice to make delivery of stocks ordered purchased within a reasonable period after the customer had paid the amount due in full. now, neither myself nor the scheftels corporation is responsible for brokerage conditions as they exist, nor for the laws as written. custom and practice are responsible. the purpose here is to communicate the exact nature of the business methods of the street as i found them and to lay particular stress on those that are open to criticism. the scheftels company against margin trading the scheftels company did not encourage margin trading by its customers. in fact, it railed against the practice. time and again the _mining financial news_, editorially, denounced the business of margin trading. the weekly market letter of the corporation sounded the same note. on several occasions, in large display advertisements published in the newspapers, the scheftels company decried the practice and urged the public to discontinue trading of this character. there were selfish reasons for this. in the marketing of its promotions the scheftels company found that not more than 20 per cent. of the public's orders for these stocks given to other brokers were being executed, or, if executed, that the stocks were at once sold back on the market, the brokers or their allies "standing" on the trade. had the scheftels company been able to destroy the practice by its campaign of publicity, it would undoubtedly have been able, during the nineteen months of its existence, successfully to promote three or four times as many mining companies as it did, and its profits would have been fourfold. it, however, appealed to the public in vain. loud, frequent calls to margin traders to pay up their debit balances and demand delivery of their certificates, which would compel every broker to go out in the market and buy the stocks he was short to customers, failed miserably. the lesson of this experience was that the speculating public did not "give a rap" whether their brokers were short of stocks to them or not. all they wanted, apparently, was to be assured that when they were ready to close their accounts, their stocks, their profits or their credit balances would be forthcoming. what is the evil of short selling of the kind described herein? the only evil that i could ever discover was that the market is denied the support which the actual carrying of the stock is calculated to afford. this hardship weighs heaviest on the promoter. there appears to be no cure. even if a broker does buy the stock and does not himself sell it out again, there is no law that denies him the right to borrow on it or loan it to somebody else. and it is to the interest of the broker, because he gets the use of the money, to loan the stock always. stocks are rarely borrowed by anybody except to make deliveries on short sales. what about the broker who doesn't execute his order at all but "stands" on the trade from the beginning and sells the stock "short" to his own customer, delaying actual purchase until delivery is demanded? this practice is even less damaging to the customer than the one of actually executing the buying order for the customer at the time the order is given and then selling the stock right back on the market again for the account of the broker or his pal--the usual practice when the object of going short is sought. when a broker buys stocks in the market he must bid for them, and actual purchase generally means a higher cost price to the customer than that at standing quotations. the rule of the street is to charge the customer interest on all debit balances. when a broker lends to a "short" seller a stock which he is carrying for his customer, he is paid the full market value, as security for its return. in that case the broker ceases to incur interest charges for the customer, and is actually able, in addition, to lend out at interest the cash marginal deposit put up by the customer. maybe you think, dear reader, that a broker who charges his customer interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum on money which he has ceased to advance is crooked. very well. if that be so, then all members of the new york stock exchange must be labelled "crooks." here is how it works, even among the highest class and most conservative members of that great securities emporium: john jones orders the purchase by his broker of 1,000 shares of steel on margin. he pays down 10 per cent. of the purchase price. mr. jones receives a statement at the end of the month charging him with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum, or more if the call-money market is higher, on the 90 per cent. of the purchase price advanced by the house. on the same day that the order of john jones is received, william smith orders the same house to sell short 1,000 shares of steel at the market. this order is also promptly filled. thereupon the broker uses the 1,000 shares of steel, which he bought for the account of john jones to make delivery through the clearing house for the account of william smith. sometimes a fictitious william smith is created, known as "account no. 1," "a. & s. account," "e. account," etc. this is usually done when a broker wants to hide from his bookkeepers that he or an associate is taking the other end of the customer's trade. the broker is out no money, yet he charges mr. jones the regular rate of interest on his debit balance. as a matter of fact, too, the stock bought for mr. jones is never even delivered to his broker. the clearing house, because of the "short" sale, steps in and delivers it to the broker to whom it is due "on balance." custom and practice cover a multitude of remarkable transactions--don't they? you have the framework of the scheftels structure and of its wall street environment outlined in this chapter. some of the narrative is undoubtedly "dry-as-dust," but its recital has appeared to be necessary to enable the lay reader properly to interpret the chronology of stirring events which forms the concluding installment. in the foregoing i have endeavored to lay bare many practices that are common to wall street. wherever i have laid them at the door of b. h. scheftels & company, i have given that corporation much the worst of it, because in the recital i have omitted to mention a multitude of happenings that were creditable to an extreme to the scheftels company. most of these had to do with the experiences of the scheftels company as publicity agents and promoters. its wide-open publicity and promotion policy called forth the ire of influential wall street pirates and caused the "pressure" at washington which resulted in the federal raid of the scheftels offices. i have reserved this dramatic series of events for my last chapter. chapter xi a fight to the death in professional quarters the scheftels corporation was regarded as an interloper from the day it set foot in the financial district. its first offense was to reduce its commission rates. this move set the whole curb against the enterprise. but as the play progressed it proved to have been unimportant in comparison to the unspeakable crime of telling the truth about other people's mining propositions that were candidates for public money. the scheftels corporation had laid it down as a set rule that an established reputation for accuracy of statement was a great asset for any promoter or broker to have. to gain such prestige the principle was followed in the nation-wide publicity which emanated from the house that, no matter whom the truth hurt or favored, it must be told always, when publishing information regarding the value of any listed or unlisted security. space in the scheftels market letter or the news columns of the _mining financial news_ was unpurchasable. the enforcement of this rule was a wide departure from prevailing methods. but that didn't make us hesitate. having felt the speculative pulse for years, i knew its throb. the public, after losing billions of dollars, were becoming "educated." the rank and file of mining promoters--high and low--in wall street still believed that "one is born every minute and none dies." but i and my associates didn't. an uneducated public had been unmercifully "trimmed" in scores of enterprises backed by great and respected names. speculators were ravenous for the truth. we decided to give it to them. we gave it to them straight. this publicity system brought about the ruin of the scheftels corporation through the powerful enemies it made. the policy was right all the same. persisted in, nothing was or is better calculated to strengthen the demand for all descriptions of meritorious securities. the scheftels corporation was the pioneer in the exploitation of this principle as a fundamental and underlying basis of brokerage and promotion. in pioneering this policy, however, the scheftels company was sacrificed to the prejudices and wrath of the old school of promoters. the firing of the first guns before the scheftels corporation was on the street three months it almost came a cropper. on the strength of excellent mine news it purchased nearly 300,000 shares of rawhide coalition in the open market, up to 71 cents per share. a determined drive was made against the stock by mining-stock brokerage firms which had sold it short. bales of borrowed stock were thrown on the market by the crowd operating for the decline. the scheftels company took it all in. letters and telegrams were sent broadcast by market enemies urging stockholders to sell. a powerful clique had been losing big sums on the rise. the scheftels company published advertisements calling upon margin traders to demand delivery of their certificates. this expedient proved of small utility. the brokers continued to hold off deliveries to customers and sold and delivered to us all the stocks that they could borrow or lay hands on. the continued selling finally made inroads on the scheftels corporation's cash-reserve to a point that forced it one day to stand aside and leave the market to the sharpshooters. that day, in a few hours, approximately half a million shares of rawhide coalition changed hands out of a capitalization of 3,000,000 shares. the corporation's loans were called. this forced it to throw large blocks of stock on the market. a sharp break ensued. that was just what was wanted by the interests which were gunning for us. they covered their short sales at great profit. in the midst of the mêlée the scheftels company tendered a stock exchange house of great prominence, which had loaned it for the account of a salt lake firm of brokers $12,500 on 50,000 shares of rawhide coalition, the money to take up the loan. a representative of the stock exchange house sheepishly stated that his firm had loaned part of the pledged stock to out-of-town brokers. he asked for time. under threat of dire consequences the stock exchange firm bought stock back from us in the open market that afternoon to supply the deficiency, and then made delivery of this stock back to us in lieu of that which they had parted with. it had been specifically stipulated by the scheftels company when the loan was made that the certificates must be held intact and that the stock must not be loaned out or sold while the money loan was in force. this experience was repeated frequently during the scheftels career on the curb. it cost b. h. scheftels & company more than one million dollars, during the nineteen months of its existence, in giving loyal market support, in times of "professional" attack, to the stocks it had fathered or promoted and felt moral responsibility for. time and again the scheftels company found among stocks delivered to it, against purchases made in the open market, the identical certificates it had pledged with loan-brokers as collateral for loans, and which had been hypothecated by it with the specific proviso that the certificates were not to be used. it opened our eyes to one of the most commonplace practices, not only on the curb, but also on the stock exchange. hardly a failure occurs on any of the exchanges or on the curb that does not reveal customers' certificates, which were originally pledged with the understanding that they were not to be "used," in the strong-boxes of others. the first grievous offense of the publicity forces of the scheftels corporation against wall street's "oh-let-us-alone" promotion combine was a wallop in april and may, 1909, through the scheftels market literature, at nevada-utah. the combination which owned control took with bad grace the strictures on the property. we heard an awful underground roar. at that time the price of nevada-utah stock was around $3. the scheftels market letter said that there was probably not 30 cents of share value behind the property. the price immediately began to crumble. it has been tobogganing ever since. the stock at the beginning of september of this year was quoted at 37-1/2 to 50 cents. such a thing as printing facts which would enlighten stockholders and the public as to the actual value and condition had not before been heard of when such enlightenment ran contrary to the plans of strongly entrenched promoters on the street. the campaign against nevada-utah, therefore, directed widespread attention to b. h. scheftels & company and the _mining financial news_. following the nevada-utah disclosure, the daily market letter and the weekly market letter of the scheftels corporation and the _mining financial news_ took a good, strong, husky "fall" out of the la rose mines company, capitalized for $7,500,000. the la rose owns one of the greatest producing mines in the cobalt silver camp. a market scheme was in progress, with la rose as the medium, and w. b. thompson, of nipissing fame, as a chief manipulator. we called a halt to the game when the price reached a "high" of $8.50, and saved the public a huge sum of money. under our campaigning the stock declined to $4, a decrease of $6,750,000 in the market value of the capitalization. this made w. b. thompson and his associates the implacable enemies of the scheftels company and myself. we didn't worry much. we were catering to the public. indeed, we were pleased with our work. following this incident, the scheftels market letter and the _mining financial news_ took a smash at a mining-stock deal in which w. b. thompson and the guggenheims were jointly interested. it was the now notorious cumberland-ely-nevada consolidated merger. later the merger was enlarged and took in the utah copper company, or rather the utah copper company took in the others, and the scheftels propaganda found another opportunity to do a great service for the stockholders of nevada consolidated. our attack hurt the guggenheim reputation among investors all over the country and contributed to reduce their influence over the large stockholding body--more than 6,000 men and women--of nevada consolidated. though finally successful, the guggenheims were sore from the lashing and exposures to which they had been subjected. as for the scheftels company and the _mining financial news_, they had still further established the honesty and value of their publicity service. a market scheme to balloon the price of ray central copper company shares to several times their value was a precious enterprise against which we trained our publicity guns and fired several effective broadsides. the effort of the promoters to connect with the public purse here would not have been half so sensational if men of lesser prominence were identified with the operation. in our "bear" publicity on this one we minced no words. in doing so we again hit another powerful interest--the lewisohns. later the exposure by the _mining financial news_ and the scheftels market letter of market manipulations of the lewisohn-controlled kerr lake still further "endeared" the members of these two organizations to that powerful faction, and more closely cemented the ties of fellowship between the ruling powers. keystone copper, another lewisohn "baby," was put through its courses on the curb while kerr lake was being played in a stellar rôle. the deal in keystone was an unobtrusive little thing, but awful good as far as it went from the one-sided point of view. i turned the searchlight of publicity on keystone. the scheftels market letter and _mining financial news_ disclosures in the interests of speculators and investors regarding nevada-utah, la rose, cumberland-ely, nevada consolidated, utah copper, ray central, and kerr lake were sensational enough, but they by no means included all of the work in this line. during 1909 this publicity literature took in practically every important mining company whose shares were traded in on the new york curb. the unpleasant truths these forces were obliged to tell from time to time touched the delicate sensibilities of many leading lights on the street. these had grown accustomed to an unvarying diet of sweets. it would seem that their appetite for saccharine provender would have become cloyed and that a change would be a grateful relief. it was not. the truth was distasteful. it interfered with the noble industry of mining the public and it cut down the profits of that end of the game. in keeping up the record of day-by-day market and mine developments these publicity agents punctured many a rainbow-tinted balloon. very frequently they gave to the public its first definite and intelligent idea of real value behind promotions and in properties. where market prices represented an overplus of hopes and expectations the truth was told. the aim was to take mining speculation out of the clouds and plant its feet firmly on earth. in this laudable effort we ran counter to the plans of the mighty. we also violated the vulgar unwritten rule of some of the wall street fraternity--"never educate a sucker." our publicity work caused a readjustment of judgment and market values, besides those already mentioned, on such stocks as first national, butte & new york, trinity copper, micmac, ohio copper, united copper, davis-daly, montgomery-shoshone, goldfield consolidated, combination fraction, british columbia, granby, cobalt central, chicago subway, and sixty to eighty others. the live wires of our publicity service blistered the flesh of the guggenheims, the thompsons and the lewisohns, and perturbed their widely diffused affiliations, connections and allies, including john hays hammond, j. parke channing, and e. p. earle; also charles m. schwab, e. c. converse, b. m. baruch, united states senator george s. nixon, george wingfield, hooley, learned & company, many other new york stock exchange houses, a group of powerful corporation law firms, a noted crowd of influential politicians, curb stockbrokers who had grown fat executing manipulative orders for the "inside," bankers who carried on deposit the cash balances of the mining companies, and even j. p. morgan & company, who were partners of the guggenheims in their alaska ventures and were for a time said to be meditating a merger of the copper companies of the country with those controlled by the guggenheims as a nucleus. the story of ely central by keeping speculators out of stocks that were selling at inflated prices, the scheftels corporation and the _mining financial news_ became endeared to a great popular moneyed element. the public was saved huge sums of money. this, however, only carried out the negative end of a grand idea. the affirmative demanded that the scheftels corporation must put its followers into a stock or stocks where they could actually make money. the scheftels corporation was on the eager lookout for a genuinely high-classed copper-mining proposition. it found what it was looking for in ely central, a property that is sandwiched in between the very best ground of the nevada consolidated, is bordered by the giroux and occupies a strategic position in the great nevada copper camp of ely, birthplace of what is probably the greatest lowest-cost porphyry copper mine of america. by invading the ely territory as promoter and annexing ely central, the scheftels corporation committed what was probably, to the interests among whom our publicity work had wrought greatest havoc, an unpardonable crime. we butted into the very heart of the game, and became a disturbing factor in their mining operations. the ely central property consists of more than 490 acres. years before, in the early days of the camp, it had been passed over by the geologists and promoters who selected the ground for the nevada consolidated, giroux and cumberland-ely, because it was covered by a non-mineralized formation called rhyolite. as development work progressed and the enormous value of the surrounding mines was disclosed, it dawned on their owners that they might have made a mistake and that it would be just as well to obtain possession of the ely central property. the ground was especially valuable to the nevada consolidated, if for no other reason, as mere acreage to connect up and make compact the properties owned by them. the second demonstration of their bad judgment was the fact that, having planned to mine the copper flat ore-body by the steam-shovel method, they overlooked the value of the ely central property as affording them the only practical means of access to the lower levels of that pit for operation by the steam shovels. investigation had disclosed to me that the evidence which had been adduced by mine developments on neighboring properties was all in favor of copper ore underlying the ely central area. the rhyolite, which covered ely central, was a "flow," covering the ore, and not a "dyke," coming up from below and cutting it off. why was the property idle? inquiry revealed that the ely central copper company was $89,000 in debt, and that a pre-panic effort to finance the corporation for deep mine development had failed. the panic of 1907-8 had crimped the promoters and they could not go ahead. the scheftels corporation entered into negotiations with the pheby brothers and o. a. turner, who held the control, for all the stock of the ely central company that was owned by them. during the progress of negotiations, early in july, 1909, i heard that the guggenheims and w. b. thompson were very much put out to learn that the scheftels company was about to finance the company. they had belittled the value of the property, as would-be buyers are prone to do the world over. before i entered upon the scene the pheby brothers had found themselves objects of persistent and mysterious attacks. their credit was assailed in every quarter and they found themselves ambushed and bushwhacked in every move they made. they were forced into a position where it was believed they would accept anything that might be offered them for their interest in ely central. as fate would have it, the scheftels company entered the race at this psychological moment. summed up, the scheftels company actually contracted for 1,280,571 shares out of 1,600,000, which represented the increased capitalization for a total sum of $1,158,916, or at an average price of 90-1/2 cents per share. the time allowed for the payment of all the money was nine months, stipulated payments being agreed upon at regular intervals in between. the immediate effect of the arrangement was this: a dormant property, in debt and lying fallow, was metamorphosed into a going concern with good prospects of soon becoming a proved great copper mine, with an assured income to defray the expenses of deep mine development on a large scale, and a market career ahead of it that might be expected to match any that had preceded it in the ely district from the standpoint of public interest. during the progress of the negotiations the stock sold up to $1 per share. the selling for philadelphia account of a large block of stock in the open market dropped the price back, of a sudden, to 50 cents. the scheftels company bought stock on this break and urged its customers to do likewise. on the day the deal was concluded the market had rallied to 75 cents. fully six weeks before the deal was arranged the scheftels market letter and the _mining financial news_ had begun to urge the purchase of the stock. the scheftels organization was not hoggish. the establishment was willing that the public should get in on the cellar floor. there were nearly 300,000 shares outstanding, which the scheftels corporation had not corralled in its contract. readers of the market letter and the _mining financial news_ fell over one another to get in on the good thing. therein they were wise. by early september the price had advanced in the market to $1. the scheftels publicity was strong in favor of the stock. but it had not yet put on full steam. it was waiting for an engineer's report to make doubly sure it was right. col. wm. a. farish, a mining engineer of many years' experience and a man with a high reputation throughout the whole of the western mining country, had been sent by the scheftels company to make a report on the ely central. years before colonel farish had reported on the nevada consolidated properties and outlined the very methods now being used for recovering its ores. but colonel farish had been ahead of his time, and the capitalists in whose interest he was acting were not prepared for such a radical step in advance of the then-existing methods, nor to believe that copper ores of such low grade could be mined at a profit, especially 140 miles from the nearest railroad. times and conditions changed, and the 140 miles were spanned by a well-equipped rail connection. colonel farish's opinion verified our fondest expectations. the report set forth that the mine possibilities of ely central were nearly as great as those of the nevada consolidated itself. on the basis of this report, which was made in september, the project acquired a new significance. development operations were undertaken to prove up the ground in an endeavor to demonstrate the existence of the 33,000,000 tons of commercial porphyry ore which colonel farish indicated in his report would likely be found within the boundaries of the southern part of the ely central property. the prospect fairly took the scheftels organization off its feet. we were dazzled. we saw ourselves at the head of a mine worth $25,000,000 to $40,000,000. no time was lost in organizing a campaign to finance the whole deal. having no syndicated multi-millionaires to back it up, the scheftels corporation went to the public for the money, the same as hundreds of other notable and successful promoters had done. the ensuing publicity campaign to raise capital has been described in hundreds of columns of newspaper space as one of the most spectacular ever attempted in wall street. i had absolute faith in the great merits of ely central, a faith that has not been dimmed in the slightest degree by the vicissitudes through which the company, the scheftels corporation, and myself personally have passed. within thirteen months the scheftels corporation caused to be spent for mine development more than $150,000, and on mine and company administration an additional $75,000. when the scheftels company was raided by the government on september 29, 1910, and a stop put to further work the expenses at the mine had averaged for the nine months of that year above $15,000 a month. work was going on night and day. every possible effort was being made to prove-up the property in short order. core-drills sent down from the surface had already revealed the presence of ore at depth, and i am sublimely certain that another month or two would have put the underground air-drills into contact with a vast ore-body identical in quality and value with that lying on either side in nevada consolidated acreage. ely central was the new york curb sensation in 1909-1910. i used the publicity forces which had been so successful in protecting the public against the rapacity of multi-millionaire mining-wolves to educate them up to the speculative possibilities of ely central. up went the price. between the first of september and the middle of october the market advanced to $2 3-8. on october 13th advices reached us that 30 per cent. copper ore had been struck in the monarch shaft. the monarch is an independent working, far removed from the area that is sandwiched in between the main ore-bodies of the nevada consolidated. we were highly elated. the prospect looked exceedingly bright to us, and there was no longer any hesitation in strongly advising our following to take advantage of an unusually attractive speculative opening. the market boomed along in a most satisfactory way. by october 26th the price reached $3; on november 3d it was $4 a share, and three days thereafter $4-1/4 was paid. the expenses of the scheftels company on publicity work at this time amounted to about $1,000 a day. money for mine development on ely central was being spent as fast as it could be employed. we were trying to sell enough stock at a profit over the option price to defray the publicity expenses, keep the mine financed, and meet our payments on the option, but no more. we were not making any effort to liquidate on a large scale, a fact which was reflected in the advancing quotations. when the price of ely central hit $4 in the market, the scheftels company rated itself as worth from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. i had visions of leading the guggenheims and lewisohns and thompsons up the great white way with rings in their noses. nat. c. goodwin, who had a 25 per cent. interest in the scheftels enterprise, enjoyed similar visions, only his fancy ran to building new theaters for all-star casts. while ely central stock was going skyward and all the speculating world was making money in it, our publicity forces were busily driving the bald facts home regarding la rose, cumberland-ely, nevada-utah and other pets of the mighty. our batteries never let up for a moment. these various attacked interests were getting ready to strike back. if their movements had been directed by an individual general they could not have worked with more community of interest. one day the sky fell in on us. the plans had been beautifully laid for our complete ruin. that we escaped utter annihilation was almost a miracle. on wednesday, november 3d, the result of our market operations on the new york curb was that we quit long on the day nearly 8,000 shares of ely central at an average price of $4. on the same day our customers ordered the purchase of nearly twice as much stock as they ordered sold. this indicated to us that the curb selling was professional. there was nothing very remarkable about this performance because brokers doing business on the curb very frequently play the market for a fall. on thursday, the day following, the scheftels company was again compelled to purchase stock on the curb in excess of sales to the extent of 7,600 shares, while on the same day the buy orders of house customers exceeded their orders to sell at least three to one. the professional selling was now accompanied by rumors on the curb which spread like the smell of fire that trouble of some dire sort was pending for the scheftels company. most of this emanated from an embittered brokerage quarter and we paid little attention to it. on the succeeding day, friday, november 5th, the professional selling was quieted to a point that compelled the scheftels company to go long of only 6,600 shares on the day in its curb market operations. the purchase of so small a block of stock excited no suspicion in the scheftels camp, although it should have, because scheftels' customers on this day purchased more than four times as much stock as they ordered sold, pointing conclusively to a great public demand and much shorting by professionals. then came the _coup de main_. the assault on ely central the 6th day of november fell on a saturday. the new york _sun_ of that morning published under a scare head a vicious attack on the ely central promotion. the attack was based on an article which was credited in advance to the _engineering & mining journal_ and appeared in the _sun_ ahead of its publication in that weekly. the _sun_ had been furnished with advance proofs. the ely central project was stamped as a rank swindle. everybody identified with it was raked over and i, particularly, was pictured as an unprincipled and dangerous character, entirely unworthy of confidence and at the moment engaged in plucking the public of hundreds of thousands. it was stated that the ely central property had been explored in the early days of the ely camp and found of no value whatsoever from a mining standpoint. the scheftels corporation was accused of setting out in a cold-blooded way to swindle investors on a bunco proposition. i was in my apartment at the hotel marie antoinette at 9 a.m. when i read the _sun's_ story. the scheftels company had thrown $85,000 behind the market during the three preceding market days to hold it against the attack of professionals. i called the scheftels office on the 'phone and gave instructions that a certified check for $40,000 be sent to wasserman brothers, members of the new york stock exchange, with orders to purchase 10,000 shares of ely central at $4-1/8, which was the quotation at the close on the afternoon before. orders to buy 15,000 shares more at the same figure were distributed among other brokers. the single order was given to wasserman brothers because i thought it good strategy. they are a house of undoubted great responsibility and it seemed to me that their presence in the market on the buying side would have an excellent tonic effect. during the two hours' session i held the 'phone, receiving five minute reports from the scene of action. mr. goodwin was at my side. at ten minutes to twelve the brokers had reported the purchase, on balance, of 24,225 shares. had they purchased 675 shares more they would have completed the orders that were outstanding and it would have been up to me to decide whether to lend further support or not. by that time my figures showed that the scheftels corporation had thrown behind the market $200,000 in four days to hold it and i was beginning to have "that funny feeling." during the last few minutes of the saturday curb session the selling ceased and it seemed that possibly my fears were unfounded. on sunday, the 7th, my hopes went a-glimmering. all the new york papers featured scathing articles, using as authority the _engineering & mining journal's_ attack, which had appeared on the previous afternoon. dispatches indicated, too, that the papers of boston, chicago, los angeles and san francisco had played it up on the front page as the most shocking mining-stock scandal of the century. by monday, the whole country had been plastered with the sensation. of course my early past, all of which was a family affair and had transpired fourteen years prior, long before i essayed to enter the mining promotion field, was dragged out of the skeleton-closet. it lent verisimilitude to the stories. after reading the sunday newspapers, i grasped the meaning of the move and marshalled our forces. it was plain that we had been marked for the sacrifice. it looked as though we hadn't a chance in a million of weathering the onslaught if we lent the market further support. there were about 500,000 shares of ely central in the public's hands, and, without close to $2,000,000 in ready cash to throw behind the market, we could not be certain of staying the tide. we didn't have anything like that sum. personally i did not give up the fight, but the outlook was mighty blue. all day sunday trusted clerks of the scheftels company worked on the books, making a statement of the "stop-loss" orders and "good-till-cancelled" orders of customers. on monday morning the newspapers contained aftermath stories of the _engineering & mining journal's_ arraignment. the air was surcharged with the impending calamity. the clash of battle with a line of defense carefully outlined, i approached the fray. first, the scheftels corporation placed with reliable brokers written orders to sell at the opening the stocks that were specified in the stop-loss and good-till-cancelled orders of customers. not an order to sell a share of inside stock was given. it was also decided not to place any supporting orders until after the market opened and it could be determined with some degree of accuracy what the volume of stock amounted to that was pressing for sale. just before the market opened i could see from my office window a dense crowd of brokers assembled around the ely central specialists. although ominously silent, they were struggling for position and were tensely nervous. it was plain that the over-sunday anti-scheftels newspaper publicity had racked ely central stockholders and created a panicky movement to liquidate, which was about to find vent in violent explosion. it was evident that the scheftels corporation would have to conserve every resource if the day was to be saved. the market opened. instantly there was terrific action. hundreds of hands were waving wildly in the air. everybody wanted to sell and nobody wanted to buy. the chorus was deafening. screams rent the air. the tumult was heard blocks away. every newspaper had a man on the spot. brokers from the new york stock exchange left their posts and came to see the big show; the stock exchange was half emptied. the spectacle had been advertised widely and everybody was keenly awake and wrought up to a high pitch of excitement over what had been scheduled to occur. had the scheftels brokers been supplied with orders to buy one-quarter of a million shares of stock at the closing market price of the saturday before, $4 1-8, it was very apparent that they would have been unable to hold the market. the opening sale was at $4. downward to the $3 point the stock traveled, breaking from 25 to 50 cents between sales. through $3 and on down to the $2 point the price crashed. blocks of 10,000 shares were madly thrown into the vortex of trading. the curb was a struggling, screaming, maddened throng of brokers. every trader appeared to be determined to crush the market structure. at $2 a share there was a temporary check in the decline, but the bears renewed their onslaught, gaining confidence by the outpour of selling orders. within less than an hour after the opening the stock hit $1 1-2 a share. at this juncture the scheftels broker in ely central reported that he had executed all the stop-loss and good-till-cancelled orders entrusted to him with the exception of 19,000 shares. "the scheftels company will take the lot at $1 1-2," i said. in lending succor at $1 1-2 per share i was really stretching a point, although at this figure the net market shrinkage of the ely central capitalization was in excess of $3,000,000. this melting of market value was awful to contemplate. on the other hand the newspaper agitation was unmitigated in its violence, stockholders were convulsed, a break of serious proportions was certain, and it was up to me to conserve every dollar. the moment the scheftels bid of $1.50 a share made its appearance on the curb and the selling from the same source for the account of customers was discontinued, it was seen that the force of the drive had spent itself, at least for the time being. support now came from the "shorts." they started to cash their profits on their short sales of the days previous. crazed selling was transformed to frantic buying. the scene at this juncture was dramatic. it was the momentary culmination of a cumulative, convulsive cataclysm. in refraining from selling for its own account the scheftels corporation violated one of the sacred rules and privileges not only of the new york curb but of the new york stock exchange. in both of these markets it is the custom, where brokers have advance information of an impending calamity, to beat the public to the market and get out their own lines first, leaving customers to take care of themselves. by deftly feeding stock to bargain hunters and to the "shorts" at intervals and buying stock when it pressed for sale from frightened holders at other periods the scheftels company was able to support the market that afternoon to a close with sales recorded at $2 a share. the cash loss of the scheftels company on its curb transaction in ely central that day was $60,000. this fresh sacrifice was needed to steady the market. tuesday, the following day, the daily newspapers belched forth further tirades of abuse and calumny. the market crash in ely central was held up to the public as proof positive that the project was a daring swindle. the raid on the stock in the market was renewed. a johnstown flood of liquidation ensued. fluctuations were violent. opening at $2, the price was forced down to $1. it afterward rebounded to $2, but the waters would not subside, the stock was hammered again and it closed at $1 per share. to meet the oncoming emergencies the scheftels corporation was obliged to fortify its cash reserve in the only one way that offered. it was compelled to convert a large part of its reserves of securities into cash and it had to sell on a declining market. many accounts were withdrawn by timid customers, and the scheftels company was further called upon to give stability to rawhide coalition and bovard consolidated, other stocks which it had been sponsoring in the markets. loans were called by brokers with whom the scheftels company was carrying stocks, deliveries were frantically tendered to the scheftels company of stocks it had purchased at previous high levels, and a financial onslaught made generally that would undoubtedly have sunk the scheftels' ship but for the fact that we had backed-up in the nick of time, had measured our distance, had gone just so far and not too far, and had kept on the firing-line. an exceedingly gratifying feature of the sensational day was the way in which our friends stood by us. the venom and selfishness of the overwhelming assaults that had been made upon us convinced many of the public that we were being made the victims of a special attack, and with the natural impulse that governs honorable men they gave testimony to their confidence in us. on wednesday the campaign terminated. ely central weakened an eighth from the $1 point, the closing of the day before, recovered to sales at $1-3/4 and closed at $1-1/2 bid; $1-5/8 asked. all day long our offices were thronged with newspaper reporters and with pale-faced and agitated customers. our clients felt their helplessness in such a tumult of warring forces. the only thing they could do was to stand by and watch developments as the battle waged. it was a proud moment for me when, at the end of the day's market, i mounted the platform in the scheftels customers' trading-room, gave voice to a shrill cheer of triumph and wrote on the blackboard the following: "we have not closed out a single margin account! we are carrying everybody!" the scene which followed warmed the cockles of my heart. i was literally mobbed, but it was a friendly mob. we all joined in a season of noisy rejoicing. that we should have been able to survive the three-days' siege with minimum losses to customers and without sacrificing a single margin account was a signal achievement. i doubt if there are many cases like it in the history of wall street. scores of telegrams were received from out-of-town customers to whom the margin respite was wired. one of these read: you may look for a tidal wave of business. your princely action warrants 21 guns for the house of scheftels. another one was to this effect: the whole situation was greased for your descent. it was a shoot-the-chutes and a bump-the-bumps proposition. congratulations on your survival. hundreds of letters of a similar tenor poured in upon us. many of these came from the camp of ely itself, where large blocks of the stock were held by mining men on the ground. thursday the stock closed at $l-3/4; friday it advanced to sales at $1-7/8 and hung there. the scheftels organization now drew its first long breath. friends and enemies alike marveled how the corporation had managed to survive. we had held the fort, but at murderous cost. i got busy with the publicity forces at my command. through the scheftels market letter and the _mining financial news_ the story was told of the whole dastardly campaign. the weekly market letter of the scheftels company on november 13, 1909, devoted 24 columns to the story of the raid. that the guggenheim-managed nevada consolidated was well pleased with the publication of the _engineering & mining journal's_ attack seemed clear to me. the reason was this: in its attack the _engineering & mining journal_ stated that two drillholes put down by the nevada consolidated in the immediate vicinity of ely central had failed to show better than nine-tenths of one per cent. copper ore which, the article said, was below commercial grade. (at this late date, october, 1911, they are mining ore in the steam-shovel pit of the nevada consolidated that will not average more than eight-tenths of one per cent. copper transporting it to the concentrator, more than twenty miles away, and treating it at a profit. but this is not the point.) an engineer of international prominence telegraphed the scheftels company from ely as follows: two drill holes mentioned in _engineering & mining journal_ article were completed only last week. results must have been telegraphed to new york. these holes gave great trouble on account of caving ground. i heard drill runners say they were stopped on that account and were in ore in bottom. in any case, it is not conclusive of unpayable ore in vicinity. this condition often occurs. i could write a book in reply to the _engineering & mining journal's_ tirade, showing the utter flimsiness of the statements it made. limited space forbids anything more than an outline. charles s. herzig was employed to report confidentially on the property. mr. herzig's report was later checked up by dr. walter harvey weed, a great copper geologist of known high standing who was formerly one of the principal experts of the united states geological survey and was himself a frequent contributor to the _engineering & mining journal_. dr. walter harvey weed wired to the c. l. constant company, the metallurgists and mining engineers, from ely, as follows: after making a most thorough examination my opinion is southern part ely central property is covered by rhyolite capping. geological evidence demonstrates that the porphyry extends eastward (through ely central) from steam-shovel pit and with excellent chance of containing commercial ore beneath a leached zone. a well defined strong fault separates steam-shovel ore from rhyolite area and this fault plane may carry copper glance (very rich copper ore) of recent origin, due to descending solutions. the iron-stained jasperoid croppings in the limestone areas give promise of making ore in depth on ely central property as they do in giroux. the _engineering & mining journal_ said in its article that the northern portion of ely central showed the arcturus limestone of the district. it stated that in this limestone at various places there is a little mineralization but never during the history of the district were any profitable results obtained. as against this, engineers farish, herzig and weed reported that the limestone areas on ely central would likely show the presence of mines. as a matter of fact, giroux, neighbor of ely central, had sunk through this limestone and opened one of the richest bodies of copper ore ever disclosed. the _engineering & mining journal_ said that in representing that pay ore is likely to exist in the area of ely central sandwiched in between the two big mines of nevada consolidated, the scheftels company was practicing deception. not only did messrs. farish, herzig and weed report in favor of the likelihood, but it is now a commonly accepted fact that, unless all known geological indications are deceptive, ely central has the ore in this stretch of territory. a report made as late as september, 1911, by engineer richard t. pierce, for the reorganization committee of ely central, expresses the opinion that an area 1,300 feet by 1,900 feet at the south-east end of the eureka workings "will be found to contain mineralized porphyry, with reasonable assurance that commercial ore will be had in it." mr. herzig's first telegram from ely after examining the ely central property was to this effect: there is no question that the rhyolite was deposited in ely central after the enrichment of the porphyry. the fault that limits the rhyolite in the nevada consolidated pit is indicated by several feet thickness of crushed mineralized porphyry-rhyolite ore, which is a positive evidence that the porphyry was enriched before the faulting. the limestone and contact areas owned by the company, in my opinion, have great potential value. the indications are in every way similar to bisbee. rich carbonate ore has been encountered on the clipper and monarch claims of ely central and i look forward to seeing big ore bodies opened up at these places. reports of both these engineers, many thousand words in length, made later, confirm these messages. what probably convinced me more than anything else of the inaccuracy of the statement regarding the ely central property by the _engineering & mining journal_ was the attitude of charles s. herzig. he is my brother. up to within thirty days of the appearance of the attack in the _engineering & mining journal_ i had not set eyes on him in fifteen years. a graduate of the columbia school of mines, he had in the interim examined mining properties in south africa, egypt, australia, the east indies, siberia, every european country, canada, mexico, central america, south america and the united states in the interests of some of the world's greatest financiers. these expert examinations had covered deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, coal and other minerals. in the engineering profession he is known as an expert who has his first failure yet to record. his standing is unquestioned as an engineer and a mine-valuer. i had heard some criticism of the farish report, made by engineers of the modern school, in which it was pointed out that colonel farish had failed to give scientific reasons for all of his deductions. i asked captain w. murdoch wiley, then a member of the c. l. constant company, assayers, metallurgists and mining engineers, whether he could induce my brother to make an examination. i did not approach charles myself, because we had been estranged. so it was that when he returned from europe after an absence of many years, he had not even looked me up. captain wiley arranged for a meeting at the engineers' club. i went there, and was formally introduced by captain wiley to my brother across a table. "what will you take to make a report on ely central?" i asked in the same matter-of-fact way i would have addressed a stranger. "what's the purpose of the report?" "the scheftels company wants confidential, expert information such as you are qualified to give as to the value and prospects of the property," i answered. "i'll take $5,000," he said, "but only on one condition. i am going to the ely and ray districts to report for english capitalists, and i can take your property in at the same time. my report is not to be published and i reserve the right to make a verbal instead of a written one. if you really want to know what i think of the property, i am quite willing to give it a careful examination and let you know. because of the stock-market campaign you are making, i would not accept your offer if, did i report favorably, your idea would be to make use of the report in the market." the bargain was struck. a few days later mr. herzig received $2,500 from the scheftels company, on account, and a check for traveling expenses. he left for ely. on the saturday morning when the new york _sun_ article appeared containing the excerpts from the _engineering & mining journal's_ onslaught, i wired my brother substantially as follows: savage attack in _engineering & mining journal_ on ely central. if your report on property is favorable, i beg you to let us have it by wire and allow the use of it to counteract. an hour later i followed it up with another message telling him not to wire any report. i set forth that because he was my brother, it might prove of little avail, now that the publication had been made, and that it might only tend to do him personal damage in the profession because of the unqualified manner in which the _engineering & mining journal_ had taken a stand against the property. in reply he wired captain w. murdoch wiley the short but decisive report already quoted herein, regarding the geological reasons why ely central should have the ore, which afterward was fully verified by dr. walter harvey weed in the message also reproduced in the foregoing. in a letter from ely to captain wiley confirming the message, the original of which is in my possession, mr. herzig said: i have formed a very favorable opinion of the property. i feel that it has the making of a big mine, and under the circumstances i am willing to stand a little racket for a time. the same day he wired captain wiley to buy for his account 2,500 shares of ely central at the market price, which order was executed through the scheftels company. editor ingalls of the _engineering & mining journal_ and my brother had been friends for years. my brother had been employed early in his career by the lewisohns, guggenheims and the anaconda copper company, and later in europe, australia and india by mine operators of even higher class. up to the time when the _engineering & mining journal's_ attack appeared he had not committed himself on ely central. when he did commit himself it was with the foreknowledge that in doing the unselfish and courageous thing his name would be besmirched if under development ely central turned out to be what the _engineering & mining journal_ had declared probable. in that event his relationship with me would be held up as positive proof of duplicity and it would look bad for him. the fact that under all these circumstances he jumped into the breach satisfied me that the attack of the _engineering & mining journal_ was unjustified. a bombshell in the enemy's camp as soon as the scheftels corporation was able to obtain a copy of the corroborative report of dr. walter harvey weed, which the great copper geologist made to the c. l. constant company, it filed a libel suit against the _engineering & mining journal_ for $750,000 damages. simultaneously mr. scheftels filed another suit for an additional $100,000 in his own behalf. the filing of the scheftels libel suits against the _engineering & mining journal_ was a bombshell. it was formal notice to the forces arrayed against us that we did not propose to be made victims of an unholy hostility and that we were determined to proceed along old lines and not abate in the slightest our wide-open publicity measures. it was also noticed that we proposed to go through with the ely central deal. after it became evident that we intended to keep on fighting, the scheftels offices were openly visited and inspected in detail one day by the late police inspector mccafferty. in a bullying manner this police official let it be known that we were in official disfavor with him. his manner could hardly have been more offensive if he had been invading a den of counterfeiters. mr. mccafferty did not specify just what he was after or just what he expected to find, but he made it plain to us that we were marked and that he had it in for us. he stalked scowlingly through the entire establishment and made vague threats of what was in store for us. late that night i learned that the inspector had invaded the living-rooms of my associate, nat. c. goodwin, where he delivered himself somewhat as follows: "what are you fellows trying to do, anyway? what are you trying to put across on us? do you think we are going to stand for any such newspaper notoriety as you are getting and watch it with our arms folded? do you think we are fools or crazy, or what? i want you to understand that you fellows have got your nerve with you. get busy or the police will be on your backs to-morrow!" i told mr. goodwin that our enemies had evidently sicked the inspector on to us, but that i didn't think any action would be taken. we were victims and not culprits, and unless, indeed, the united states was russia, nothing untoward could happen. i promised mr. goodwin, however, that i would attend to the matter without delay. i laid all of the facts regarding the newspaper attack before a prominent citizen who promised forthwith to convey the information in person to the inspector or one of his superiors. he did so. that was the last we heard of the matter. the _engineering & mining journal's_ lawyers addressed themselves to customers of the scheftels company, who had lost money in the market break in ely central from $4 to $1.50. by letter they urged them to send on a full statement of facts and suggested that they might be of service, and without charge. letters of this character were sent to large numbers of our customers, many of whom simply sent them to us. in some cases, however, customers who had read the attack in the _engineering & mining journal_ or quotations from it in widely circulated daily newspapers, needed but the letter from the lawyers to induce them to come forward with a complaint. on the whole, this fishing expedition must have been something of a water-haul and a disappointment, for the attorneys of the _engineering & mining journal_. the post-office department at new york, in january and february, sent letters broadcast to readers of the scheftels weekly market letter, asking whether the business carried on was satisfactory--the usual form that is used where a firm is under investigation. scores of these letters were forwarded to us by customers with remarks to the effect that evidently "somebody was after us." an inquiry of this sort is calculated to do terrible damage to the reputation and standing of any house that does a quasi-banking business. our attorneys complained to inspector mayer of the new york division of the post-office that an injustice was being done. no more letters of the character described were sent out, because the early replies that were received by the inspector to his circular letter brought forth no serious complaints. however, it was afterward disclosed that the investigation did not cease here and that the post-office department continued to conduct a searching inquiry only finally to abandon its enterprise. enters upon the scene an associate of the _engineering & mining journal's_ lawyers defending that publication against our suit for libel. he called at the scheftels offices and demanded from mr. scheftels information with regard to the account of c. h. slack of chicago. he got it. it showed that mr. slack had purchased 50,000 shares of bovard consolidated at 10 cents per share, for which he had paid cash, and that mr. slack had purchased an additional 100,000 shares at 14-1/4 and 14-3/4 cents per share; and that mr. slack had refused, after the market declined to below the purchase price, to pay the balance due, because of delayed delivery. the delay in delivery was accidental. the scheftels company actually had in its possession two million shares of the stock or more, and the delivery would have been tendered earlier but for the fact that the raid on ely central had piled up so much work for the clerical force that everything was set back. we knew of no legitimate excuse for mr. slack, because he could have ordered the stock sold at any time, delivery or no delivery. the slack transaction receives amplification here, because later, when the scheftels corporation was raided by a special agent of the department of justice, it figured as one of the cases cited by the agent in the warrant sworn to by him against b. h. scheftels & company as proving the commission of crime. another case about which mr. scheftels was asked to give full information was that of d. j. szymanski, a corn doctor at 25 broad street. mr. scheftels had urged the doctor to buy ely central when it was selling at 75 cents before the rise. later, when the advance was well under way, above the $3 point, the doctor bought some stock through the scheftels corporation. when the price hit $4 he was urged to take profits. he refused to do so. when the attack began and the price broke badly the doctor saw a big loss ahead. he called at the scheftels' office and begged for the return of the money he had lost in his ely central speculation. the investigation was heralded among the brokers and caused much market pressure on the stocks fathered by the scheftels company. we were not dismayed. to strengthen our position and to give added token of our good faith we increased our development operations at the mines. our expenses in that quarter were swelled to the limit of working capacity on our underground explorations, as i realized that our salvation might depend on making good in quick order with ely central from a mining standpoint. we knew the ore was there and that it was up to us to get it before our enemies got us. a government raid is rumored out of a blue sky late in the month of june came news to the scheftels office that a newspaper reporter on the new york _american_ had stated that he had seen a memorandum in the city editor's assignment-book to watch out for a scheftels raid by the united states government. the information was reliable and it gave us a shock. yet the thought that the powers of a great government like the united states could be used to crush us without giving us a hearing seemed unbelievable. to be on the safe side mr. scheftels, accompanied by an attorney of high standing, visited washington. they went direct to the department of justice, where attorney-general wickersham's private secretary, after a friendly conversation, referred them to the chief clerk. he reported, after a search of twenty-five minutes' duration, that there was no charge against b. h. scheftels & company. he even volunteered the information that he did not know that such a firm was in existence. it afterward developed that at the very time mr. scheftels and the attorney were at the department of justice a special rubber-shoe investigation was on under the dual direction of a young washington lawyer on attorney-general wickersham's personal staff, and a special agent of the department of justice. the latter had been given extraordinary powers as a special agent of the department of justice, ostensibly to "clean out wall street." satisfied they were in the wrong place, mr. scheftels and the counsellor departed from the attorney-general's office for the post-office department. they were referred to chief inspector sharp. the lawyer requested that the scheftels corporation be given a hearing before any action was taken on any complaints that might reach the department. mr. sharp agreed to this on condition that the attorney would agree for the scheftels company that an inspection of the books of the corporation would be permitted on demand at any time. there was a ready assent. a memorandum to this effect was left with inspector sharp. mr. scheftels left the department with positive assurance that no snap judgment would be taken. edmund r. dodge of nevada, personal counsel of b. h. scheftels & company, then addressed a letter to u.s. senator newlands with the request that he take the matter up direct with the postmaster-general. senator newlands, under date of july 2, wrote mr. dodge that he had addressed a letter to the postmaster-general with the request that notice be given to mr. dodge in case any complaint or information was lodged against the scheftels corporation. a few days later senator newlands sent mr. dodge a letter from theodore ingalls, acting chief inspector of the post-office department, in which mr. ingalls said it was the practice of the department in case of alleged use of the mails for fraudulent purposes to give individuals against whom complaint has been made full opportunity to be heard either through person or counsel, should adverse action be contemplated as a result of the investigation of such allegation. feeling that our house had been securely safeguarded against surprise parties, i at this junction took a trip to nevada, where urgent business matters required my attention. while i was in the west telegrams were sent me that the premier mail-order mining-stock bucket-shop firm on broad street was flooding the mail and burdening the telegraph wires with urgent appeals to stockholders of rawhide coalition, one of our specialties, to sell out their holdings, as a severe break in the price of the shares was impending. forewarned of this attack, i telegraphed instructions from reno to meet the onslaught with a notice in the _mining financial news_ addressed to investors, telling them to be on their guard. my trip to the west made a pocketful of money for investors by my purchase of the control in the jumbo extension company on a monthly payment plan. the price of the stock tripled in the market. my re-entrance into the goldfield camp was especially distasteful to the nixon-wingfield interests. before i left goldfield i was actually warned that the vengeance wreaked on the sullivan trust company would be visited on the scheftels company for daring to reinvade the goldfield district. late in august the scheftels company endured what was probably the most severe strain it had been put to since its incorporation. we had been making heroic efforts to rally the price of our specialties on the new york curb market. we were meeting with unusual resistance from professional sources. at the period of which i narrate, ely central had registered a low quotation of 62-1/2 cents and we had successfully strengthened it to around $1. all the way up we met with heavy sales. one day deliveries crowded in so fast that three cashiers working in the "cage" were unable to keep up with the transactions. the business of the corporation had been heavy in the general list as well as in the house specialties. there was more than sufficient money on hand to finance all the transactions that day, but not, however, unless deposits were made in bank as rapidly as our own deliveries were made and collected for by our messengers. about 2 o'clock in the afternoon a report reached the curb that the bank checks of b. h. scheftels & company were not being promptly certified. as this rumor gained currency the excitement on the curb increased. the curb concluded that we were at last "busted." motley throngs began to assemble in front of the offices. the fierce yells of brokers could be heard bidding for and offering scheftels checks below their face value. a throng of the riffraff of the street swarmed in front of the building. one or two individuals, implacable enemies who had repeatedly led the market onslaught against the scheftels stocks, offered scheftels checks for small sums at as low as 50 cents on the dollar. these were licked up by our friends who had been assured that we were financially all right and that some mistake must have been made at the bank. investigation showed that dilatory message service was responsible for the bank's delay in certifying. our deposits did not reach the bank as promptly as they should have. as a special favor to us that afternoon, while the tumult in front of our doors was greatest, the bank continued to certify checks until 3:30 o'clock, extending the closing time 30 minutes. then they reported that a comfortable cash balance was still on hand. the next morning the newspapers started a jamboree. first-page, last-column, double-leaded, scare-head stories greeted every new yorker for breakfast, telling him about the panic among curb brokers to sell the scheftels checks the afternoon before. needless to say it was the kind of notoriety that was likely to do greatest injury to the house of scheftels. if anything half as bad had been printed about the strongest bank in new york, that bank would have been forced to close its doors before the day was half over. nor did i for a moment underrate the danger of our position. between two suns i managed to assemble $50,000 in addition to our cash reserves, with promises of as much more as was needed. we easily held the fort. at the end of the day's business i created a diversion by appearing in the scheftels board-room, flourishing a handful of $1,000 bills before the newspaper men. the scribes found the scheftels corporation meeting all demands, and, at the end of the session, with a small bale of undeposited money in its possession. the strain, however, was great. confidence was again impaired. many accounts were withdrawn by customers. we were compelled to ease our load by selling accumulated stocks at a loss. the price of ely central and other scheftels promotions dropped. the decline was assisted by general weakness in other curb stocks. peculiarly enough, at the time when the market for ely central shares was lowest, during the latter part of september, fourteen months after the scheftels company had taken hold of the proposition, mine reports were most favorable. underground development work and churn drilling had set at rest for all time the question of whether or not mineralized porphyry underlies the rhyolite cap or flow extending eastward through ely central ground from the steam-shovel pit of the nevada consolidated. upward of $240,000 had been paid out for administration, mine equipment and for miners' wages to make this demonstration. the scheftels company was now informed that the nevada consolidated was actually meditating a trespass on the juniper claim of the ely central company, in order to secure an outlet from the lower levels of its giant steam-shovel pit. warning in writing had already been served on the nevada consolidated officials against such a course. on september 25th attorneys of the ely central copper company secured from a nevada court an order restraining the nevada consolidated from proceeding with this trespass and citing it to show cause why it should not cease to trespass on other ely central ground. the attorney telegraphed to new york that a bond was required before the injunction could be made operative. on september 27th and 28th telegrams were exchanged between the ely central offices in new york and the nevada attorneys of the company at reno as to providing sureties for the bond. the sureties never qualified. a catastrophe befell us and brought to an earthquake finish the house of b. h. scheftels & company and all its ambitious plans. the constant turmoil in which the house of scheftels had found itself, from the day the _engineering & mining journal's_ attack appeared, had made it impossible for the scheftels company to hold the markets for ely central and rawhide coalition. impairment of credit, money stringency and a general declining market were partly responsible. but there was another important factor. because of the time-limit of its options, the scheftels company was forced, from time to time, to throw stock on the market at prices which showed an actual loss. it had one market winner which showed customers and the corporation itself a large profit, namely, jumbo extension. i held an option on approximately 450,000 shares of this stock at an average price of 35 cents, which i had turned over to the corporation. the market advanced to 70. following the tactics employed in ely central at the outset of that deal, the scheftels corporation had urged all its customers to buy jumbo extension at the very moment when i was negotiating for the option in goldfield, with the result that purchases were made in the open market by readers of our market literature at from 25 cents up, with accompanying profit-making. as the price soared, a short interest of 150,000 shares of jumbo extension had developed among brokers in san francisco and new york, and it was very apparent from the demands of stock for borrowing purposes that it would be impossible for the short interests to cover excepting upon our terms. the scheftels company was making ready for a "squeeze" of the shorts such as had not been administered before in the history of the curb. at the very moment of victory, however, when we were making ready to execute a magnificent market coup in jumbo extension in the markets of san francisco and new york, we were plunged without warning to complete ruin. the raid on b. h. scheftels & co. the destruction of the scheftels structure was consummated on the 29th day of september, 1910. i was standing on the front stoop of the scheftels offices, watching the markets for the scheftels specialties. a broker with san francisco connections made me a bid of 68 cents for 10,000 shares of jumbo extension. i promptly refused. at that very moment my attention was called to the violent slamming of a door behind me. turning to a scheftels employee who was standing by my side, i learned that a number of strangers had filed into the customers' room without attracting any particular attention. i tried to get in. the door was locked. undoubtedly something serious was transpiring. i walked a full block through the hallway to the new street entrance of the building where the offices of the _mining financial news_ adjoined those of the scheftels corporation. i tried the door there with similar result. it was locked against me. that settled it. i concluded that the ax had fallen. the shock of realization that our offices were being raided by the government did not for a moment throw me off my balance or put fear in my heart, nor did the sense of the outrage affect me at the moment. there was but one sickening thought--the ruin of the edifice i and my associates had labored day and night for so many months to build and the fate of our customers who had invested their money in the companies we had promoted. in three seconds i was on my way to the place where i thought succor could be found--the offices of the scheftels attorneys. i walked across the street to the new street entrance of a building that extends from broadway to new street, ambled across to the broadway side, jumped on a surface car, rode three blocks to broadway and cedar street, jumped into an elevator, and in a few minutes entered the offices of house, grossman & vorhaus. "go over to the scheftels offices," i said, "and be quick! i think we are being raided." in a moment two members of the law firm were on their way. within ten minutes after the raiders had entered the offices the lawyers were on the spot. they were denied admittance and had to content themselves with waiting outside the door until the prisoners were taken out. the moment the lawyers left their offices i began to use the 'phones to provide for the release on bail of the men arrested. i found it necessary to go in person and so i left the lawyers' offices and walked down broadway. my attention was attracted by the clanging of the bell of the police-patrol wagon. as it wheeled past me on the run i could see my associates huddled together in the black maria on their way to the bastile. for the moment, i lost full sense of the gravity of what was transpiring and was overcome by a feeling of joy that i had been spared that ignominy. that self-felicitating slant of an intensely serious situation passed. my associates were in trouble and it was up to me to help them. i was at large and i knew that i could do more for my friends and myself by not immediately surrendering. i returned to the lawyer's office, where i remained. all this time the thought never entered my mind that we were in any sense guilty of any intent to defraud anybody, or that we had committed any offense against law or the rules of fair conduct. the one consuming and controlling idea in my mind was that somebody had put one over on us and that it was up to me to organize for defense against the abominable outrage. what transpired behind the closed doors while the scheftels lawyers were attempting to gain an entrance for the instruction of the corporation, its officers and employees as to their rights, beggars description. gentle reader, you would not conceive the reality to be possible. armed with a warrant which conferred upon him the right to arrest, seize, search and confiscate, the special agent of the department of justice had secured from the local police headquarters a detail of fifteen heavily armed plain-clothes men. once inside the scheftels establishment, the doors were locked and egress barred. the main body of invaders then took possession of the front offices, while others searched through the back rooms and boisterously commanded everybody to remain where they were until given permission to depart. the establishment was under seizure, every foot of it, and every person found within its doors was held prisoner. the special agent took pains to impress upon everybody within hearing that he was in supreme command. leaving police guards in the front room, he stalked into the telegraph-cage where two or three operators were sitting at tables. pressing the muzzle of a revolver into the face of chief operator walter campbell--a quiet and inoffensive man--the special agent commanded: "cut off that connection!" mr. campbell didn't at first see the gun because it was pointed at his blind eye. when he got his first peep he concluded that a maniac had invaded his sanctum and he almost expired with apoplexy on the spot. returning to the front office, the agent entered the cashier's cage and took possession of the company's pouch containing its securities. he gave no receipt to any responsible employee of the scheftels company for anything. when mr. stone, one of the cashiers, suggested to him that he was there to safeguard the securities, he thundered, "come out of there!" "what authority have you for this?" demanded mr. stone. the agent thereupon showed his badge. a moment later one of the deputies pried open the cash-drawer. the special agent was at his elbow. "oh, look what's here!" cried the deputy. thereupon the agent of the department of justice impounded the contents of the cash-drawer, without counting the cash, checks, money-orders, etc., or giving any member of our firm a receipt for them. turning to the scheftels officers and employees who had been placed under arrest, he ordered them removed from the room. it was about as raw a performance as was ever witnessed in a peaceful brokerage firm's banking-room. bookkeepers were ordered to close up books. united states mail in the office was impounded, including mail that had been received in the office for delivery to others. the scheftels employees were commanded to stand in their places with arms folded. the desperadoes among them--those for whom a warrant had been issued and who had been jerked out and huddled together in the outer room--were then searched for deadly weapons. one penknife and the stub of a lead-pencil were found on their persons. the deadly knife was hardly sharp enough to serve the purpose of nail-manicuring. not one of the men under arrest would have known how to use a revolver if it had been placed in his hands. the men taken into custody were: mr. scheftels, aged 54, quiet and inoffensive, rounding out an honorable business career without a blemish of any kind on his character or standing; charles f. belser, one of the cashiers of the corporation and a 32d degree mason, who never before in his life had been so much as charged with the violation of the spirit of a minor ordinance; charles b. stone, aged 60, another cashier whose sons and sons-in-law had served their country in the army and who, himself, was as peaceful as a class leader in a sunday-school; john delaney, clarence mccormick, william t. seagraves and george sullivan, clerks of the establishment, who were as likely to offer resistance that would require gun-play to combat as were a quartette of psalm-singing children. mr. scheftels protested in a dignified and self-respecting way against the brutal demonstration. he asked to see the authority for the raid. this was refused until after he and the other desperate characters were collected in another room. his demand to see the officers' warrant was met by a vulgar exclamation from the special agent, to the effect that, "if you don't shut up, we will put the irons on you! if you are looking for any trouble, you ------stiff, you will get what you are looking for!" the absurdity of the armed invasion appealed to everybody but the ringleader of the raiders. it was a ludicrous situation from a service viewpoint. there had been no time up to the moment of the raid when a single man armed with proper authority could not have accomplished with decency and in good order everything and more than was done by the "rough house" and brutal invasion of the armed band. private papers were grabbed and bundles of certificates of stock, packages of money, checks, receipts and everything that came in sight were carried away. no complete record was made at the time of the raid of the documents and other valuables seized. the temporary receiver for b. h. scheftels & company, before his discharge later on, was able to gather together and take an accounting of part of the seized assets of the corporation, but i have no doubt that many thousands of dollars worth of securities and money were hopelessly lost. when the wreck was complete the prisoners were driven like malefactors out of the front entrance, down the steps and loaded into the black maria. five thousand people witnessed the act. the prisoners pleaded in vain to be allowed to pay for taxicabs to convey them before the united states commissioner. they urged that as yet they had had no hearing and were innocent in the eyes of the law, and until convicted of some offense they were entitled to decent treatment. this request was refused. the delay in the start to the federal building was just long enough to give the dense crowd that had filled the block time to insult the victims of the atrocity to the fullest extent. friends of the arrested men boiled over with indignation and several fights occurred. men were knocked down, trampled upon and the clothing torn from their backs in the desperate mêlée. the scene was disgraceful. an army of newspaper reporters, attended by a camera brigade, were on the spot and snapshotted the prisoners as they entered the black maria. with bells clanging and whips lashing, a start was made up broad street to wall. then the vehicle turned up broadway and ding-donged on to the federal building. there the men were arraigned. bail aggregating $55,000 was demanded. later several of the men taken into custody in this brutal manner were not even indicted. called upon to identify the prisoners, the special agent of the department of justice was unable to point out any of them except mr. scheftels. a stenographer in the employ of the corporation was forced to single them out. the warrant proved to have been sworn to by the special agent and had been granted on his affidavit that the corporation had committed crimes against some few of its customers. two of them have already been mentioned in this article as slack and szymanski, whose statements had been furnished to the attorneys of the _engineer & mining journal_. from the court house to the tombs, the scheftels desperadoes, in shackles, were escorted up broadway. later in the day when bail was ready and the prisoners were sent for, they were handcuffed again and marched in parade up streets and down avenues of the densest section of new york city. i had worked all afternoon in the lawyers' offices with one object in view, namely, the securing of bail for the imprisoned men. i succeeded. i now got busy with my own bail, the court having fixed it in advance at $15,000. in the morning i walked from my lawyers' offices to the post-office building and surrendered myself, being immediately released on surety which was waiting in the office of the united states commissioner. as i left the building i recognized scores of scheftels customers. several grasped my hand. my indignation grew as the circumstances came up under review and i had time to connect and collate the facts. gradually the whole truth revealed itself. i can relate only part of it. the full, detailed story would extend itself into a volume, and the space here at my command is limited. i learned that from the moment the special agent had been put on the scent with permission to put us out of business he had never slackened his effort to turn the trick. his efforts attracted the attention of sundry newspaper editors with wall street affiliations and also enemies generally who hastened to coöperate with him. his office as a special agent of the department of justice gave to his statements weight which would not have been given to them had he as an individual sponsored the charges. his official position imparted exaggerated importance to his statements in the eyes of newspaper men, and, after the raid, to the public. a person whom we shall characterize as the tool now appears on the scene with alleged information which he placed at the service of the special agent to back him up before the assistant united states attorneys in new york with testimony since recanted over the signature of the false witness. in the preceding chapter i called attention to some of the atrociously false statements that were published on the day following the raid. i gave only an inkling. the newspapers declared that ely central had cost the scheftels company 5 cents per share, that the capital stock was over-issued, and that the property was worthless. jumbo extension, which has since distributed $95,000 in dividends to its stockholders, has still a treasury reserve of $100,000 and is selling to-day in the markets at a share valuation of about one-quarter of a million dollars for the property, was also described as a "fake stock." rawhide coalition, which has produced upward of $400,000 in bullion, and which is to-day recognized as one of the substantial gold mines of the far west, was labeled plain junk. bovard, which represented an investment of nearly $100,000 for property account and mine development and which had been promoted at 10 cents per share on representations that it was a "prospect," was stated to be a raw steal. the scheftels corporation was said to have got away with millions of dollars by selling "fake mining stocks." it was also stated that i had profited to the extent of millions for my personal account. the scheftels mailing-list was described as a regulation "sucker list," notwithstanding the fact that the principal names that were on it were stockholders in guggenheim companies. the ringleaders were pictured as myself--"a man with an awful past"--and the "notorious character," "red letter" sullivan. mr. sullivan was styled as the facile letter-writer who had addressed the "suckers" and hypnotized them, principally widows and orphans, to withdraw their money from the savings-banks and send it to the scheftels sharks. "red letter" sullivan was also referred to as a man with a "past." the true facts regarding mr. sullivan's connection with the scheftels company were these: a few months before, he had applied for a position. he was then employed as manager of a boston stock-brokerage office. he was awarded the job of time-clerk in the stenographers' department. his job, while employed with the scheftels company, was to see that the stenographers reported on time, did their work properly and were not paid for any services they did not render. he had little or nothing whatever to do with the correspondence department. he never dictated any answers to letters received by the scheftels company. never was he employed in an executive capacity by the scheftels company. we knew little or nothing of the "red letter" title with which he had been decorated. the first we learned of it was in the newspapers after the raid. investigation revealed that ten years before, while a broker in chicago, he had issued a weekly market letter which was printed on red paper. i have thus far not given space to one of the greatest wrongs connected with this disgraceful proceeding--the wrong and damage inflicted upon a multitude of helpless stockholders. while the special agent of the department of justice and his armed followers were wrecking the scheftels offices and terrorizing the place, the scheftels group of mining stocks was being savagely raided on the curb and enormous losses were inflicted on the public. thousands of margin accounts were wiped out in less time than it takes to tell of the massacre. declines in ely central, jumbo extension, rawhide coalition and bovard consolidated exceeded $2,000,000. this loss was distributed among approximately fourteen thousand shareholders of record and as many more not of record. this large army of innocent shareholders was helpless. from such species of confiscation the law affords no relief or recourse, except actual acquittal of the arrested persons, in whom lies the confiding investor's only chance for the market rehabilitation of his securities. a tool's confession the signed confession of the tool of the special agent, who appeared before assistant attorneys dorr and smith at the united states attorney's office in new york, which says he gave false testimony, and the voluntary statement of john j. roach, a stock broker who was employed by the now defunct firm of frederick simmonds, regarding the relations between the special agent and that firm, while special agent of the government, reveal the weak foundations of the government's charges. the tool, prior to the raid, had been in the scheftels employ. for a few months he had been a traveling business-getter for the firm. then he was discharged. he associated himself with frederick simmonds, a member of the consolidated stock exchange. mr. simmonds was badly in debt. the tool had no money. the agent, when he was trying to get the united states attorney's office in new york to agree that the information collected was sufficient to warrant a raid, prevailed upon the tool to appear before the assistant attorneys and give testimony. in this story the chief value of the tool himself is that he has no value. he made his statements against us to mr. dorr, assistant u.s. district attorney. then he gave me a statement, signed in the presence of witnesses, recanting the statements made to mr. dorr. to this he later added a written postscript enforcing his recantation. then he re-recanted and said that a large part of his first recantation, signed by him and initialed by him on each page with his initials was false. the reader is left to judge just which one of the tool's three positions is the one in which he tells the truth. it is obvious that he must be lying in the two others, and it is not impossible that he may be lying in all three--except that some of the stuff in his first recantation, which he later denies in his second, has been verified from other sources. here is the main point to bear in mind concerning the tool,--the sovereign power of seizure, search and confiscation brought into play by our great government without due process of law, was based in part on the flimsy testimony of such a person. thousands of investors suffered from the blow, as well as myself and associates. it would appear from the roach statement that he was largely instrumental in bringing about the crisis that resulted in the suspension of the simmonds firm and in the disclosures of the special agent's relations therewith. these facts have become, in most instances, matters of public record. they came out during the hearings before the receiver for the bankrupt concern. it was found that the liabilities of the "busted" firm were $85,000 and the assets 100 shares of cheap mining stock and between $1,500 and $2,000 in cash. it was at this conjunction that the special agent was allowed to resign from the department of justice. the tool he had foolishly used had proved to be a two-edged one. the agent had been "hoist by his own petard." the guggenheims probably the most surprised branch of the government at the time of the scheftels raid was the post-office department. the crime charged was misuse of the mails. why, if the scheftels aggregation were guilty, didn't the post-office department do the raiding? why didn't it issue a fraud order? the scheftels company has since been declared solvent by the courts and the temporary receiver discharged. to this day no fraud order has been issued. only a short period before the raid, a presentation on the part of the post-office department of all of the evidence in the case had been met with a decision that there was no ground for action. that the guggenheim interests did not fail to take advantage of the plight of the house of scheftels immediately after the raid finds conclusive proof in the transpirations in the ely mining camp. soon after the special agent descended on the scheftels offices, an application in ely was made for a receiver to take charge of the assets of the ely central copper company. the attorneys making the application were chandler & quale, attorneys for the nevada consolidated copper company, a guggenheim enterprise. when the court appointed a receiver he named this firm as attorneys for the receiver. attorney j. m. lockhart for the ely central made a protest that these lawyers, because of their connection with the nevada consolidated were not the proper persons to protect the interests of the now defenseless ely central stockholders. then the court appointed another attorney, named boreman. shortly after the receiver was appointed, he applied to the courts for permission to sell to the nevada consolidated for $30,000, which represented the entire cash indebtedness so far as the receiver knew, the surface rights to a large acreage of ely central and the rights through juniper canyon. this, if accomplished, would have given to the nevada consolidated a railroad right of way that would have solved the problem confronting it of the transportation of the ores from the lower levels of the steam-shovel pit. without such an outlet these ores could not have been handled without great expense and much difficulty. the benefits that would have accrued to nevada consolidated were almost incalculable. at the same time, such action would effectually cut the ely central property into two parts. according to the petition it was stipulated that in selling the surface rights the ely central should cede to the nevada consolidated practical ownership, because it was specified that ely central could not interfere in its mining operations with any rights granted. attorney lockhart of ely central fought the receiver and his attorneys and won a victory. the ely central property was saved intact for the stock-holders. later, an application was made to the court to sell the entire property of the ely central for $150,000. this was believed to be in the interests of the nevada consolidated. in answer, a petition was filed to discharge the receiver on the ground that the court originally appointing him had no jurisdiction. the court finally decided that it was without jurisdiction, because neither fraud nor incompetency had been proved, and the property had not been abandoned. the receiver was discharged. what has been the attitude of the department of justice since the raid was made? since the raid the government has spent several hundred thousand dollars to disclose sufficient evidence from the books to make a case of any kind. one stand after another has been taken only to be abandoned after exhaustive research for evidence to sustain the original excessive pretenses. grand jury after grand jury has thrashed over masses of evidence presented them. armies of accountants have worked day and night for weeks and months in an effort to substantiate the action of the authorities who were led into the commission of a grave wrong. the charge that the scheftels corporation sold fake mining stocks has fallen to the ground. government examinations of the properties have revealed them to be all that they were cracked up to be. careful and industrious reading of the mass of market literature sent through the mails by the scheftels corporation has failed to disclose deliberate misrepresentation regarding the potentialities of any of the mining properties. the scheftels corporation transacted considerable margin business with its customers in the stocks which it sponsored--ely central, jumbo extension, rawhide coalition and bovard consolidated. if the scheftels corporation was run by rascals wouldn't they have been tempted frequently to throw their weight on top of the market and endeavor to break the price of stocks to wipe out the margin traders? did the government find any evidence of this in the books? no. it found evidence--overwhelming and cumulative--that on nearly all occasions the scheftels corporation actually exhausted its every resource to support the market in its stocks and hold up the price in the interests of stockholders. evidence was also found in quantity that the scheftels company discouraged the practice of margin-trading. the superseding indictment handed down by the grand jury late in august, 1911, eleven months after the raid, eliminated the charge of mine misrepresentation regarding the scheftels promotions and reduced it practically to one of charging commissions and interest without earning them. not less than 85 per cent. of the total brokerage transactions of the scheftels corporation were in their own stocks, and at nearly all times in the scheftels history it had on hand, put up on loans or in banks under option, anywhere from three million to seven million shares of these securities. it actually bought, sold and _delivered_ in this period over fifteen million shares of stock! as already stated, the scheftels corporation made it a practice to sell stocks on the general list as an insurance against declines in the market which might carry down the price of its own securities, and this, in the finality, was what the government, after the expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars and the employment of the wisest of counsel, was compelled to tie to in order to justify in the eyes of the great american public the use of the rare power of seizure, search and arrest and of its denial of a prayer for a hearing to the victims which was made before the arbitrary power was used. chapter xii the lesson of it all what is the lesson of my experience--the big broad lesson for the american citizen? this is it: don't speculate in wall street. you haven't got a chance. the cards are stacked by the "big fellows" and you can win only when they allow you to. the information that is permitted to reach you as to market probabilities through the financial columns of the daily newspapers is, as a rule, poisoned at its fountain. it has for its major purpose your financial undoing. few financial writers dare to tell the whole truth--even on the rare occasions when they are able to learn it. most of them are, indeed, subsidized to suppress the truth and to accelerate public opinion in the channels that mean money in the pockets of the securities sellers. as for the literature of stock brokers it is generally even more misleading. few brokers ever dare to tell the whole truth for fear of embittering the interests and being hounded into bankruptcy and worse. as for myself, what excuse have i had for catering to the gambling instinct? this is it: i thought the promoter and the public could both win. i now know that this happens only rarely. as the game is now generally played by the big fellows, the public hasn't got a chance. i have not got a dollar. who profited? the answer is: if anybody, the aggregate. the world has been the gainer. it is richer for the gold, the silver, the copper, and other indestructible metals that have been brought to the surface, as a result of this endeavor, and added to the wealth of the nation. but for the gambling instinct and the promoter who caters to it, the treasure-stores of nature might remain undisturbed and fallow and the world's development forces lie limp and impotent. the end +------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. for a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ [illustration: thomas w. lawson after twelve months of "frenzied finance"] frenzied finance by thomas w. lawson of boston volume i the crime of amalgamated new york the ridgway-thayer company 1905 _copyright, 1905, by_ the ridgway-thayer company _these articles are reprinted from "everybody's magazine"_ copyright, 1904, by the ridgway-thayer company copyright, 1905, by the ridgway-thayer company _all rights reserved_ trow directory printing and bookbinding company new york to penitence and punishment this book is dedicated to penitence: that those whose deviltry is exposed within its pages may see in a true light the wrongs they have wrought--and repent. to punishment: that the unpenalized crimes of which it is the chronicle may appear in such hideousness to the world as forever to disgrace their perpetrators. to penitence: that the transgressors, learning the error of their ways, may reform. to punishment: that the sins of the century crying to heaven for vengeance may on earth be visited with condemnation stern enough to halt greed at the kill. to punishment: that public indignation may be so aroused against the practices of high finance that it shall come to be as culpable to graft and cozen within the law as it is lawless to-day to counterfeit and steal. to penitence: that in the minds of all who read this eventful history there may grow up a knowledge and a conviction that the gaining of vast wealth is not worth the sacrifice of manhood, and that poverty and abstinence with honor are better worth having than millions and luxury at the cost of candor and rectitude. to my audience saints, sinners, and in-betweens before you enter the confines of "frenzied finance," here spread out--for your inspection, at least; enlightenment, perhaps--halt one brief moment. if the men and things to be encountered within are real--did live or live now--you must deal with them one way. if these embodiments are but figments of my mind and pen, you must regard them from a different view-point. therefore, before turning the page, it behooves you to find for yourself an answer to the grave question: is it the truth that is dealt with here? in weighing the evidence remember: my profession is business. my writing is an incident. "frenzied finance" was set down during the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth hours of busy days. i pass it up as the history of affairs of which i was a part. the men who move within the book's pages are still on the turf. a period of twelve years is covered. so far, eighteen instalments, in all some 400,000 words, have been published. the spigot is still running. i have written from memory, necessarily. while it is true that fiction is expressed in the same forms and phrases as truth, no man ever lived who could shape 400,000 words into the kinds of pictures i have painted and pass them off for aught but what they were. the character of my palette made it mechanically impossible to shade or temper the pigments, for the story was written in instalments, and circumstances were such that often one month's issue was out to the public before the next instalment was on paper. considering all this, the consistency of the chronicle as it stands is the best evidence of its truth. in submitting it to my readers i desire to reiterate: it _is_ truth--of the kind that carries its own bell and candle. within the narrative itself are the reagents required to test and prove its genuineness. were man endowed with the propensity of a münchhausen, the cunning of a machiavelli, the imagination of scheherezade, the ability of a shakespeare, and the hellishness of his satanic majesty, he could not play upon 400,000 words, or one-quarter that number, and make the play peal truth for a single hour to the audience who will read this book, or to one-thousandth part the audience that has already read it in _everybody's magazine_. such as the story is, it is before you. if in its perusal you fathom my intentions, my hopes, my desires, i shall have been repaid for the pain its writing has brought me. at least you will find the history of a colossal business affair involving millions of dollars and manned by the financial leaders of the moment. it is a fair representation of financial methods and commercial morals as they exist in america at the beginning of the twentieth century. as a contemporary document the narrative should have value; as history it is not, i believe, without interest. as a message it has had its influence. indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that no man in his own generation has seen such a crop come forth from seed of his own sowing since the long bygone days when the wandering king planted dragons' teeth on the phoenician plain and raised up an army of warriors. yours very truly thomas w. lawson foreword there will be set down in this book, in as simple and direct a fashion as i can write it, the story of amalgamated copper and of the "system" of which it is the most flagrant example. this "system" is a process or a device for the incubation of wealth from the people's savings in the banks, trust, and insurance companies, and the public funds. through its workings during the last twenty years there has grown up in this country a set of colossal corporations in which unmeasured success and continued immunity from punishment have bred an insolent disregard of law, of common morality, and of public and private right, together with a grim determination to hold on to, at all hazards, the great possessions they have gulped or captured. it is the same "system" which has taken from the millions of our people billions of dollars, and given them over to a score or two of men with power to use and enjoy them as absolutely as though these billions had been earned dollar by dollar by the labor of their bodies and minds. yet in telling the story of amalgamated, the most brazen and voracious maw of this "system," i desire it understood that i take no issue with men; it is with a principle i am concerned. with the men i have had close and intimate intercourse, and from my knowledge of the means they have used, and the manner in which they have used them, and the causes and effects of their performances, i have no hesitation in stating that the good they have done, the evils they have created, and the indelible imprints they have made on mankind are the products of a condition and not of their individualities, and that if not one of them had ever been born the same good and evil would to-day exist. others would have done what they did, and would have to answer for what has been done, as they must. so i say the men are merely individuals; the "system" is the thing at fault, and it is the "system" that must be rectified. better far for me not to tell the story i am going to tell; better far for the victims of amalgamated not to know who plundered them and how, than to have them know it only to wreak vengeance on individuals and overlook the "system," which, if allowed to continue, surely will in time, a short time, destroy the nation by precipitating fratricidal war. the enormous losses, millions upon millions--to my personal knowledge over a hundred millions of dollars--which were made because of amalgamated; the large number of suicides--to my personal knowledge over thirty--which were directly caused by amalgamated; the large number of previously reputable citizens who were made prison convicts--to my personal knowledge over twenty--directly because of amalgamated, were caused by acts of this "system" of which henry h. rogers and his immediate associates were the direct administrators; and yet mr. rogers and his immediate associates, while these great wrongs were occurring, led social lives which, measured by the most rigid yardstick of mental or moral rectitude, were as near perfect as it is possible for human lives to be. as husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, friends, they were ideal, cleanly of body and of mind, with heads filled with sentiment and hearts filled with sympathies; their personal lives were like their homes and their gardens--revealing only the brightest things of this world, the singing, humming, sweet-smelling things which so strongly speak to us of the other world we are yet to know. as workers in the world's vineyards, they labored six days and rested upon the sabbath, and gave thanks to him from whom all blessings flow that he allowed them, his humble creatures, to have their earthly being. and yet these men, to whose eyes i have seen come the tears for others' sufferings, and whose voices i have heard grow husky in recounting the woes of their less fortunate brothers--these men under the spell of the brutal code of modern dollar-making are converted into beasts of prey, and put to shame the denizens of the deep which devour their kind that they may live. in the harness of the "system" these men knew no sabbath, no him; they had no time to offer thanks, no care for earthly or celestial being; from their eyes no human power could squeeze a tear, no suffering wring a pang from their hearts. they were immune to every feeling known to god or man. they knew only dollars. their relatives of a moment since, their friends of yesterday and long, long ago, they regarded only as lumps of matter with which to feed the whirring, grinding, gnashing mill which poured forth into their bins--dollars. in telling the story of amalgamated i hope to have profited by my long and intimate study of this cruel, tigerishly cruel "system," so as to be able to deaden myself to all those human sympathies which i have heard its votaries so many times subordinate to "it's business." i shall try only to keep before me how the indians of the forest, as our forefathers drove them farther and farther into the unknown west, got bitter consolation out of the oft-chanted precept of their white brethren of civilization, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," reminding myself that whatever of misery or unhappiness my story may bring to the few, it will be as nothing to that which they have brought to the many. in asking for the serious, earnest consideration of the public, i shall be honest in giving to it my qualifications, my motives, and my desires for writing this narrative. for thirty-four years i have been actively connected with matters financial. as banker, broker, and corporation man, i have, from the vantage-point of one who actually handled the things he studied, studied the causes which created the conditions which made possible the "system" which produced the amalgamated affair. in my thirty-four years of business experience i have seen the great fortunes, which are the motive power of the "system" referred to, come out of the far west as specks upon the financial horizon and grow and grow as they travelled eastward, until in their length, breadth, and thickness they obscured the rising sun. at short range i have seen the giant money machine put together; i have touched elbows with the men who made it, as they fitted this wheel and adjusted that gear, while at the same time i broke bread and slept with the every-day people who, with the industry of the ant and the patience of the spider, toiled to pile in the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have kept the "system's" hopper full. at my first meeting with the creators of amalgamated it was clearly and distinctly understood that under no circumstances would i enlist in that "system's" interests other than for such special services as, after due thought and investigation, i should decide to be such as i could in fairness to myself and my clients work for; and when i give the details of this first meeting in my narrative it will be evident to its readers that in telling the story of amalgamated i am violating no confidence, nor in any way encroaching upon the niceties of that business code which is, and should be, the foundation of all legitimate financial dealings, nor in any way misusing knowledge which, if acquired under other circumstances, might be sacred. amalgamated was one service the "system" asked of me. it was created because of my work. it was largely because of my efforts that its foundation was successfully laid. it was very largely because of what i stood for and because of the public's confidence in the fulfilment of the promises i made that the public invested its savings to an extent of over $200,000,000; and it was almost wholly because of the broken promises and trickery of the creators of the "system" that the public lost the enormous sums it did. my motives for writing the story of amalgamated are manifold: i have unwittingly been made the instrument by which thousands upon thousands of investors in america and europe have been plundered. i wish them to know my position as to the past that they may acquit me of intentional wrong-doing; as to the present that they may know that i am using all my powers to right the wrongs that have been committed, and as to the future that they may see how i propose to compel restitution. my desire in writing the story of amalgamated, while tinged perhaps with hatred for and revenge against the "system" as a whole and some of its votaries, is more truly pervaded with a strong conviction that the most effective way to educate the public to realize the evils of which such affairs as the amalgamated are the direct result, is to expose before it the brutal facts as to the conception, birth, and nursery-breeding of this the foremost of all the unsavory offspring of the "system." thus it may learn that it is within its power to destroy the brood already in existence and render impossible similar creations. in the course of my task i shall describe such parts of the general financial structure as will place my readers, especially those unfamiliar with its more complicated conditions, in a mental state to comprehend the methods by which the savings they think are safely guarded in the banks, trust and insurance companies, are so manipulated by the votaries of frenzied finance as to be in constant jeopardy. i shall show them that while the press, the books, the stump, and our halls of statesmanship are full to overflowing with the whys, wherefores, and what-nots of "tariff," "currency," "silver," "gold," and "labor"; while our market systems are perfected educational machines for disseminating accurate statistics about the necessaries and luxuries of life, the water and land carriers, real estate, and other material things which the people have been taught to believe are the only things that vitally affect their savings; that while they imagine they understand the system by which speculation and investments are controlled and worked, and that the causes and effects of this system are at all times get-at-able by them through their bankers and their brokers; there is a tangible, complicated, yet simple trick of financial legerdemain, operated twenty-four hours in each day in the year, and which the press, the books, the politicians, and the statesmen never touch upon--a trick by means of which the savings of the people and the public funds of the government, whether in the national banks, savings-banks, trust or insurance companies, are always at the absolute service and mercy of the votaries of frenzied finance. therefore, in the course of my story of amalgamated will come a few kindergarten pictures of how the necessaries and luxuries of the people are "incorporated"; of how the evidences of corporation ownership are manufactured; of the individuals who "manufacture" them; of the individuals who control and make or unmake their values; of the meeting-place of these individuals, within and without the stock-exchanges; of some of the corporations and of some of the signs and tokens of corporation ownership; of some of their histories; of some of their doings, and of some of their contemplated doings. these kindergarten pictures i will endeavor to paint, not in that "over-the-head" verbosity or "under-the-feet" profundity and intricacy of the political economy pedant, which are as the canvases of the whistler school to the masses; but rather will i use the brush of the artisan who in giving us our white fences, our gray cottages, and our green blinds sets off those things which make up the pictures the people really understand and dearly prize. in the last few years the public has heard many stories of this juggernaut "system," which has grown to be the greatest private power in our land--greater almost than the power which governs the nation, because it is not only great within itself but by its peculiar workings is really a part of the power which governs the people. particularly has it been told the story of standard oil by mr. henry d. lloyd in his able work, "wealth against commonwealth," and by miss ida m. tarbell in her recent historical sketches; but however thorough these writers may have been in gathering the facts, statistics, and evidences, however relentless their pens and vivid their pictures, they dealt but with things that are dead; things that to the present generation are but skeletons whose dry and whitened bones cannot possibly bring to the hearts, minds, and souls of the men and women of to-day that all-consuming passion for revenge, that burning desire for justice, without which no movement to benefit the people can be made successful. in telling my story i shall, for i must, tell it fairly, and to make sure of this i pledge myself to keep to the exact facts as they occurred, not allowing myself to be overawed by their greatness into contracting them, nor to be tempted by their littleness into expanding them. in doing this i know, because of the peculiarity of the subject and my intimate relation to it, no other way than to do it in the first person. as i have already stated, i would prefer to deal with my subject through the principles involved rather than with the men concerned; but as i shall be compelled to call spades spades, i must, of necessity, use the names of men and of institutions fearlessly and without favor. in the beginning it will be necessary, for that clear understanding of the whole subject which is one of my principal objects, to treat at sufficient length the bay state gas intricacies and trickeries, in which in a certain sense amalgamated had its being. this will compel me to devote a chapter to one of the most picturesquely notorious characters of the age, john edward o'sullivan addicks, of delaware, everywhere, and nowhere. the main part of my narrative must of necessity deal with the two real heads of standard oil and amalgamated, mr. henry h. rogers and mr. william rockefeller; and with the biggest financial institution of america, if not of the world, the national city bank of new york, and its head and dominating spirit, mr. james stillman. an important chapter should be that devoted to the conception and formation of the united metals selling company, which was specially organized to control the copper industry of the world without coming within the restrictions of the laws for the prevention or regulation of monopolies. i shall also deal at length with a notorious character, who, like the spot upon the sun, looms up in all american copper affairs whenever they appear in the full vision of the public eye--mr. f. augustus heinze, of montana. there will be a chapter of more or less length devoted to one of the most important episodes in amalgamated affairs, wherein i shall describe one of wall street's most picturesque, able, and intensely interesting men, mr. james r. keene. i shall touch on a bit of the nation's history in which within a few days of the national election of 1896 a hurry-up call for additional funds to the extent of $5,000,000 was so promptly met as to overturn the people in five states and thereby preserve the destinies of the republican party, of which i am and have always been a member. i shall draw a picture of two dress-suit cases of money being slipped across the table at the foot of a judge's bench in the court-room, from its custodian to its new owners, upon the rendering of a court decision; and i shall show how the new owners frustrated a plot having for its object their waylaying and the recovery of the bags of money. i shall devote some space to pointing out the evils and dangers of the latter-day methods of corrupting law-makers, and show how one entire massachusetts legislature, with the exception of a few members, was dealt with as openly as the fishmongers procure their stock-in-trade upon the wharves; how upon the last day of the legislature, because their deferred cash payments were not promptly forthcoming, its members turned, and made necessary the hurried departure for foreign shores of a great lawyer and his secretary, with bags of quickly gathered gold, and all evidences of the crimes committed and attempted; how after the ship arrived at an island in foreign seas the great lawyer's dead body received hurried burial, and his secretary's was later dropped, with weights about its feet, to the ocean's depths; and how ever since the natives whisper among themselves their gruesome suspicions. i shall devote a chapter to the doings of certain financial reputation sandbaggers and blackmailers; show how through their agencies they hold up corporations and their managers for large sums, which upon being paid start into motion a perfected system for the false moulding of public opinion for the purpose of making more easy the plundering of the people. i shall photograph the men and draw accurate diagrams of the machinery through which their nefarious trade is carried on. my story will carry me down wall street, into the stock exchange, through its hundred and one or million and one open and hidden passages, and into state street, that ever-hung hammock of financial somnolence, and into the courts of justice of new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, delaware, massachusetts, and montana, and into many other interesting abodes of justice and injustice, of trickery, fraud, and simple, honest trustfulness. when my story is ended and the great american people, whose simple but proud boast is that they cannot be fooled in the same place by the same methods and the same instruments twice, know as much as i now know of amalgamated and its relation to the "system" which has for years as boldly, as coarsely, and as cruelly robbed them as the coolie slaves are robbed by their masters--it will be for them to decide whether my story has been, because of the facts which entered into it, so well told that they will not be satisfied with the restitution of the vast sums which the amalgamated took from them, which united states steel took from them, and which other financial enterprises took in lesser amounts but by equally flagrant methods; but will demand the overthrow of the "system" itself. it will be for them to decide; and if their decision should be for a conclusive revolt, i shall be amply repaid for the pains and the miseries which must necessarily follow in the wake of a task such as the one i undertook when i decided to tell the story of amalgamated. contents page foreword vii part i chapter i. the tortuous course of amalgamated 1 ii. the "system's" method of finance and management 5 iii. the men in power behind the "system" 13 iv. my own responsibility 23 v. the power of dollars 33 vi. construction of "standard oil's" "dollar-making" mill 41 vii. juggling with millions of the people's money 52 viii. "standard oil" invests "made dollars" in gas 56 ix. a votary of the "system" 60 x. addicks comes to boston 67 xi. how addicks captured boston gas 71 xii. stock-brokers not all bad 79 xiii. the "system" versus westinghouse 88 xiv. the alliance with addicks 93 xv. the great bay state gas fight 103 xvi. peace negotiations with rogers 110 xvii. a memorable conference 113 xviii. the duplicity of addicks 125 xix. enter h. m. whitney 133 xx. an awkward attack of appendicitis 142 xxi. bribing a legislature 149 xxii. plundered of the plunder 162 xxiii. two gentlemen of frenzied finance 170 xxiv. buying a bunch of states 176 xxv. athletics of finance 182 xxvi. the circling of the vultures 187 xxvii. court corruption and coin 191 xxviii. peace at last 195 part ii i. the magic world of finance 197 ii. the "system" and the louisiana lottery compared 202 iii. the fundamentals of finance 208 iv. the magic "jimmy" 213 v. how the "system" does business 217 vi. how wall street's manipulations affect the country 223 vii. economics of copper 226 viii. my plan for "coppers" 233 ix. birth of "coppers" 237 x. rogers grasps "coppers" 245 xi. the copper campaign opens 253 xii. the buncoing of the stockholders of utah 261 xiii. the trap in finance 266 xiv. lawyer untermyer discovers the "nigger" 274 xv. degrees in crime 281 xvi. mr. rogers unmasks 283 xvii. "extract every dollar" 289 xviii. the biters bit 301 xix. the despoiling of leonard lewisohn 307 xx. the christening of amalgamated 311 xxi. fixing the responsibility 320 xxii. the responsibility fastened 332 xxiii. the first crime of amalgamated 340 xxiv. the subscription opens 346 xxv. dollar hydrophobia 351 xxvi. deviltry afoot 359 xxvii. the black flag hoisted 364 xxviii. the bogus subscription 370 xxix. the aftermath 376 xxx. the morning after 385 xxxi. i walk the plank 389 xxxii. perfecting the double cross 397 xxxiii. a retrospect and a moral 405 lawson and his critics i. the insurance controversy 413 ii. the enemies i have made 487 iii. explanations 539 frenzied finance the story of amalgamated _part i_ chapter i the tortuous course of amalgamated amalgamated copper was begotten in 1898, born in 1899, and in the first five years of its existence plundered the public to the extent of over one hundred millions of dollars. it was a creature of that incubator of trust and corporation frauds, the state of new jersey, and was organized ostensibly to mine, manufacture, buy, sell, and deal in copper, one of the staples, the necessities, of civilization. it is a corporation with $155,000,000 capital, 1,550,000 shares of the par value of $100 each. its entire stock was sold to the public at an average of $115 per share ($100 to $130), and in 1903 the price had declined to $33 per share. from its inception it was known as a "standard oil" creature, because its birthplace was the national city bank of new york (the "standard oil" bank), and its parents the leading "standard oil" lights, henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and james stillman. it has from its birth to present writing been responsible for more hell than any other trust or financial thing since the world began. because of it the people have sustained incalculable losses and have suffered untold miseries. but for the existence of the national city bank of new york, the tremendous losses and necessarily corresponding profits could not have been made. i laid out the plans upon which amalgamated was constructed, and, had they been followed, there would have been reared a great financial edifice, immensely profitable, permanently prosperous, one of the world's big institutions. the conditions of which amalgamated was the consequence had their birth in bay state gas. to explain them i must go back a few years. in 1894 j. edward addicks, of delaware, everywhere, and nowhere, the boston gas king, invaded the gas preserves of the "standard oil" in brooklyn, n. y., and the "standard oil," to compel him to withdraw, moved on his pre-empted gas domains in boston, mass. late in 1894 a fierce battle was raging in boston between gas king addicks and gas king rogers; the very air was filled with denunciation and defiance--bribery and municipal corruption; and king addicks was defeated all along the line and in full retreat, with his ammunition down to the last few rounds. early in 1895 i took command of the addicks forces against "standard oil." by the middle of 1895 the addicks troopers had the "standard oil" invaders "on the run." in august, 1895, henry h. rogers and myself came together for the first time, at his house in new york, and we practically settled the boston gas war. early in 1896 we actually settled the gas war, and "standard oil" transferred all its boston gas properties ($6,000,000) to the addicks crowd. in october, 1896, the whole bay state gas outfit passed from the control of addicks and his cohorts into the hands of a receiver, and as a result of this receivership, with its accumulated complications, "standard oil," in november, 1896, regained all its old boston companies, and in addition all the addicks companies, with the exception of the bay state gas company of delaware. in 1896 i perfected and formulated the plans for "coppers," a broad and comprehensive project, having for its basis the buying and consolidating of all the best-producing copper properties in europe and america, and the educating of the world up to their great merits as safe and profitable investments. in 1897 i laid these plans before "standard oil." in 1898 "standard oil" was so far educated up to my plans on "coppers" as to accept them. in 1899 amalgamated, intended to be the second or third section of "coppers," was suddenly shifted by "standard oil" into the first section, and with a full head of steam ran out of the "city bank" station, carrying the largest and best train-load of passengers ever sent to destruction on any financial trunk-line. in 1899, after the allotment of the amalgamated public subscription, the public for the first time, in a dazed and benumbed way, realized it had been "taken in" on this subscription, and a shiver went down america's financial spinal column. in 1900, after the price of amalgamated had slumped to 75 instead of advancing to 150, to 200, as had been promised, the "standard oil"-amalgamated-city bank fraternity called wall street's king of manipulators, james r. keene, to the rescue, and under his adroit handling of the stock in the market amalgamated was sent soaring over its flotation price of 100. in 1901 boston & montana and butte & boston, after long delay, drew out of the "standard oil" station as the second section of amalgamated, carrying an immense load of investors and speculators to what was at that time confidently believed would be dollar utopia; and the price of the enlarged amalgamated fairly flew to 130. these were the stocks which i had originally advertised would be part of the first section of the consolidated "coppers," and which, after amalgamated had been run in ahead of them, i advertised would follow in due course. in the latter part of 1901 president mckinley was assassinated, and the great panic which might have ensued was averted by the marvellous power of j. pierpont morgan. then the amalgamated dividend, without warning and in open defiance of the absolute pledges of its creators, was cut, and the public, including even james r. keene, found itself on that wild toboggan whirl which landed it battered and sore, at the foot of a financial precipice. this, briefly, is the tortuous course of amalgamated, and it is along this twisting, winding, up-alley-and-down-lane way i must ask my readers to travel if they would know the story as it is. chapter ii the "system's" method of finance and management at the lower end of the greatest thoroughfare in the greatest city of the new world is a huge structure of plain gray-stone. solid as a prison, towering as a steeple, its cold and forbidding façade seems to rebuke the heedless levity of the passing crowd, and frown on the frivolity of the stray sunbeams which in the late afternoon play around its impassive cornices. men point to its stern portals, glance quickly up at the rows of unwinking windows, nudge each other, and hurry onward, as the spaniards used to do when going by the offices of the inquisition. the building is no. 26 broadway. 26 broadway, new york city, is the home of the standard oil. its countless miles of railroads may zigzag in and out of every state and city in america, and its never-ending twistings of snaky pipe-lines burrow into all parts of the north american continent which are lubricated by nature; its mines may be in the west, its manufactories in the east, its colleges in the south, and its churches in the north; its head-quarters may be in the centre of the universe and its branches on every shore washed by the ocean; its untold millions may levy tribute wherever the voice of man is heard, but its home is the tall stone building in old new york, which under the name "26 broadway" has become almost as well known wherever dollars are juggled as is "standard oil." wall street and the financial world know that there are two "standard oils," but to the public there is no clear distinction between standard oil, the corporation which deals in oil and things which pertain to the manufacture and transportation of oil, and "standard oil," the giant, indefinite system which sometimes embraces all the "standard oil" group of individuals and corporations, and sometimes only certain of the individuals. this giant creature, "standard oil," can best be described so that the average man may understand it as a group of money-owners--some individuals and some corporations--who have a right to use the name "standard oil" in any business undertakings they engage in. the right to use the name is of priceless value, for it carries with it "assured success." standard oil, the seller of oil to the people, transacts its business as does any other corporation. it plays no part in my story and i shall not hereafter touch upon its affairs, but confine my meaning, wherever i use the name "standard oil," to the larger and many times more important "system." there are only three men who can lend the name "standard oil," even in the most remote way to any project, for there is no more heinous crime against the "standard oil" decalogue than using the name "standard oil" unauthorizedly. the three men are henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller. sometimes john d. rockefeller uses the name alone in projects in which henry h. rogers and william rockefeller have no interests. henry h. rogers or william rockefeller seldom, if ever, uses the name in projects with which neither of the other two is associated. sometimes, but not often, john d. and william rockefeller use the name in connection with projects of their own in which henry h. rogers has no interest. henry h. rogers and john d. rockefeller, i believe, never are associated in projects in which william rockefeller has no interest. henry h. rogers and william rockefeller frequently bring to bear the influence of the magic-working syllables in connection with joint affairs in which john d. rockefeller has no interest--in fact, during the past ten years the name "standard oil" has been used more in their combined undertakings than in all others put together. there are eight distinct groups of individuals and corporations which go to make up the big "standard oil": 1st. the standard oil, seller of oil to the people, which is made up of many sub-corporations either by actual ownership or by ownership of their stock or bonds. probably no person other than henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller knows exactly what the assets of the standard oil corporation are, although john d. rockefeller, jr., son of john d. rockefeller, and william g. rockefeller, that able and excellent business man, son of william rockefeller and the probable future head of "standard oil," are being rapidly educated in this great secret. in this first institution all "standard oil" individuals and estates are direct owners. 2d. henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller, active heads, and included with them their sons. 3d. a large group of active captains and first lieutenants, men who conduct the affairs of the different corporations or sections of corporations in which some or all of the "standard oil" are interested. many of these are the sons or the second generation of men who held like positions in standard oil's earlier days. of these daniel o'day and charles pratt are fair examples. 4th. a large group of captains retired from active service in the standard oil army, who participate only in a general way in the management of its affairs, and whose principal business is looking after their own investments. these men are each worth from $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 to $50,000,000 or $75,000,000. the paynes and the flaglers are fair illustrations of this group. 5th. the estates of deceased members of this wonderful "standard oil" family, which are still largely controlled by some or all of the prominent "standard oil" men. 6th. "standard oil" banks and banking institutions, and the system of national banks, trust companies, and insurance companies, of which "standard oil" has, by ownership and otherwise, practically absolute control. the head of this group is james stillman, and it is when these institutions are called into play in connection with "standard oil" business that he is one of the "standard oil" leaders, second to neither of the rockefellers nor to mr. rogers. 7th. the "standard oil" army of followers, capitalists, and workers in all parts of the world, men who require nothing more than the order, "go ahead," "pull off," "buy," "sell," or "stand pat," to render as absolute obedience and enthusiastic cooperation as though they knew, to the smallest detail, the purposes which lay behind the giving of the order. 8th. the countless hordes of politicians, statesmen, law-makers and enforcers, who, at home or as representatives of the nation abroad, go to make up our political structure, and judges and lawyers. to the world at large, which looks on and sees this giant institution move through the ranks of business without noise or dissension and with the ease and smoothness of a creature one-millionth its size, it would seem that there must be some wonderful and complicated code of rules to guide and control the thousands of lieutenants and privates who conduct its affairs. this is partially true, partially false. "standard oil's" governing rules are as rigid as the laws of the medes and persians, yet so simple as to be easily understood by any one. first, there is a fundamental law, from which no one--neither the great nor the small--is exempt. in substance it is: "every 'standard oil' man must wear the 'standard oil' collar." this collar is riveted on to each one as he is taken into "the band," and can only be removed with the head of the wearer. here is the code. the penalty for infringing the following rules is instant "removal." 1. keep your mouth closed, as silence is gold, and gold is what we exist for. 2. collect our debts to-day. pay the other fellow's debts to-morrow. to-day is always here, to-morrow may never come. 3. conduct all our business so that the buyer and the seller must come to us. keep the seller waiting; the longer he waits the less he'll take. hurry the buyer, as his money brings us interest. 4. make all profitable bargains in the name of "standard oil," chancy ones in the names of dummies. "standard oil" never goes back on a bargain. 5. never put "standard oil" trades in writing, as your memory and the other fellow's forgetfulness will always be re-enforced with our organization. never forget our legal department is paid by the year, and our land is full of courts and judges. 6. as competition is the life of trade--our trade, and monopoly the death of trade--our competitor's trade, employ both judiciously. 7. never enter into a "butting" contest with the government. our government is by the people and for the people, and we are the people, and those people who are not us can be hired by us. 8. always do "right." right makes might, might makes dollars, dollars make right, and we have the dollars. all business of the gigantic "standard oil" system is dealt with through two great departments. mr. rogers is head of the executive, and william rockefeller the head of the financial department. all new schemes, whether suggested by outsiders or initiated within the institution, go to mr. rogers. regardless of their nature or character, he first takes them under advisement. if a scheme prove good enough to run the gantlet of mr. rogers' tremendously high standard, the promoter, after he has set forth his plans and estimates, hears with astonishment these words: "wait while i go upstairs. i'll say yes or no upon my return." and upon his return it is almost always "yes." if the project, however, does not come up to his exacting requirements, it is turned down without further ado or consultation with any of his associates. those intimate with affairs at 26 broadway have grown curiously familiar with this expression, "i am going upstairs." "upstairs" means two distinct and separate things. when a matter in mr. rogers' department is awaiting his return from "upstairs," it means he has gone to place the scheme before william rockefeller, on the thirteenth floor, and laying a thing before william rockefeller by mr. rogers consists of a brief, vigorous statement of mr. rogers' own conclusions and a request for his associate's judgment of it. william rockefeller's strong quality is his ability to estimate quickly the practical value of a given scheme. his approval means he will finance it, and william rockefeller's "say-so" is as absolute in the financing of things as is mr. rogers' in passing upon their feasibility. it does not matter whether it is an undertaking calling for the employment of $50,000 capital or $50,000,000 or $500,000,000, mr. rockefeller's "yes" or "no" is all there is to it. he having passed on it, mr. rogers supervises its execution. the other "upstairs" is one that is heard every week-day of the year except summer saturdays. at 26 broadway, just before eleven o'clock each morning, there is a flutter in the offices of all the leading heads of departments from henry h. rogers down, for going "upstairs" to the eleven o'clock meeting is in the mind of each "standard oil" man the one all-important event of every working day. in the big room, on the fifteenth floor, at 26 broadway, there gather each day, between the hour of eleven and twelve o'clock, all the active men whose efforts make "standard oil" what "standard oil" is; here also come to meet and mingle with the active heads the retired captains when "they are in town." around a large table they sit. reports are presented, views exchanged, policies talked over, republics and empires made and unmade. if the recorders in the next world have kept complete minutes of what has happened "upstairs" at 26 broadway they must have tremendously large fire-proof safes. it is at the meeting "upstairs" that the "melons are cut," and if one of the retired captains were asked why he was in such a rush to be on hand each day when in town, and if he were in a talkative mood--which he would not be--he would answer: "they may be cutting a new melon, and there's nothing like being on hand when the juice runs out." if a new melon has been cut--an amalgamated copper, for instance--it is at one of these meetings that the different "standard oil" men are informed for the first time that the scheme, about which they may have read or heard much outside, is far enough along for them to participate in it. each is told what sized slice he may have if he cares for any. it is a very exceptional thing for any one to ask for more than he has been apportioned, and an unheard-of thing for any one to refuse to take his slice, although there is absolutely no compulsion in the connection. and here, perhaps, may not come amiss an incident which illustrates what may happen in a few minutes "upstairs." before amalgamated was launched, in bringing together the different properties of which it was composed i negotiated for the acquisition of the parrott mine, the majority of whose stock was held by certain old and wealthy brass manufacturers in connecticut. they had never seen any of the rockefellers nor henry h. rogers, but we were several months getting the deal into shape before it was finally arranged, and they became familiar with the great "standard oil" institution. so much so that the chief of the owners--to whom was delegated the duty of turning over the securities to my principals--looked forward with much eagerness to the time when he must necessarily meet the mysterious and important personages who guided 26 broadway's destinies. finally the day came, and at precisely a quarter of eleven i let him into one of the numerous private offices which are a part of mr. rogers' suite. he had under his arm a bundle of papers representing the stocks which he was to exchange for the purchase money, amounting to $4,086,000, and i think he fully expected that in their examination, in the receipting for so large an amount of money, and in the general talkings over, which he thought must of course be a necessary part of the delivery, the greater part of the day would be taken up. it took me some six or seven minutes to get him located, and it was close on to five minutes of eleven when mr. rogers stepped into the room. i was well into the introduction, when out came mr. rogers' watch, and with what must have appeared to the visitor as astonished consternation. "i do hope you will excuse me," he exclaimed in the middle of a handshake, "but, my gracious, i am overdue upstairs," and he bolted. his place was taken fifty seconds after by mr. rogers' secretary, who in less than five minutes had exchanged a check of $4,086,000, made out to herself and indorsed in blank, for the bundle of stocks, and in another minute i was ushering the old gentleman into the elevator. when he came to on the sidewalk he got his breath sufficiently to say: "phew! i thought my trade was a big one, but that friend of yours, rogers, must have had some other fellow upstairs who was going to turn in $40,000,000 of stuff, because he did appear dreadfully excited!" the success of "standard oil" is largely due to two things--to the loyalty of its members to each other and to "standard oil," and to the punishment of its enemies. each member before initiation knows its religion to be reward for friends and extermination for foes. once within the magic circle, a man realizes he is getting all that any one else on earth can afford to pay him for like services, and still more thrown in for full measure. moreover, while a "standard oil" man's reward is always ample and satisfactory, he is constantly reminded in a thousand and one ways that punishment for disloyalty is sure and terrible, and that in no corner of the earth can he escape it, nor can any power on earth protect him from it. "standard oil" is never loud in its rewards nor its punishments. it does not care for the public's praise nor for its condemnation, but endeavors to avoid both by keeping its "business" to itself. as an instance, in connection with certain gas settlements i made with "standard oil," it voluntarily paid one of its agents for a few days' work $250,000. he had expected at the outside $25,000. when i published the fact, as i had a right to, "standard oil" was mad as hornets--as upset, indeed, as though it had been detected in cheating the man out of two-thirds of his just due, instead of having paid him ten times what was coming to him. chapter iii the men in power behind the "system" in the great thing known to the world as "standard oil," the most perfect embodiment of a "system" which i will endeavor to get before my readers in later chapters, there are three heads, henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller. all the other members are distinctively lieutenants, or subordinate workers, unless possibly i except james stillman, who, from his peculiar connection with "standard oil" and his individually independent position, should perhaps be placed in the category of heads. some one has said: "if you would know who is the head of a family, slip into the home." the world, the big, arbitrary, hit-or-miss, too-much-in-a-hurry-to-correct-its-mistakes world, has decided that the master of "standard oil" is john d. rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller it is to all but those who have a pass-key to the "standard oil" home. to those the head of "standard oil"--the "standard oil" the world knows as it knows st. paul, shakespeare, or jack the giant-killer, or any of the things it knows well but not at all--is henry h. rogers. john d. rockefeller may have more money, more actual dollars, than henry h. rogers, or all other members of the "standard oil" family, and in the early days of "standard oil" may have been looked up to as the big gun by his partners, and allowed to take the hugest hunks of the profits, and may have so handled and judiciously invested these as to be at the beginning of the twentieth century the richest man on earth, but none of these things alters the fact that the big brain, the big body, the head of "standard oil," is henry h. rogers. take station at the entrance of 26 broadway and watch the different members of the "standard oil" family as they enter the building: you will exclaim once and only once: "there goes the master!" and the man who calls forth the cry will be henry h. rogers. the big, jovial detective who stands all day long with one foot resting on the sidewalk and one on the first stone step of the home of "standard oil" will make oath he shows no different sign to henry h. rogers than to a rockefeller, a payne, a flagler, a pratt, or an o'day; yet watch him when mr. rogers passes up the steps--an unconscious deference marks his salutation--the tribute of the soldier to the commanding general. follow through the door bearing the sign, "henry h. rogers, president of the national transit co.," on the eleventh floor, and pass from the outer office into the beautiful, spacious mahogany apartment beyond, with its decorations of bronze bulls and bears and yacht-models, its walls covered with neatly framed autograph letters from lincoln, grant, "tom" reed, mark twain, and other real, big men, and it will come over you like a flash that here, unmistakably, is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the mightiest business institution of modern times. if a single doubt lingers, read what the men in the frames have said to henry h. rogers, and you will have proof positive that these judges of human nature knew this man, not only as the master of "standard oil," but also as a sturdy and resolute friend whose jovial humanity they had recognized and enjoyed. did my readers ever hear of the national transit company? very few have--yet the presidency of it is the modest title of henry h. rogers. when the world is ladling out honors to the "standard oil" kings, and spouting of their wondrous riches, how often is henry h. rogers mentioned? not often, for he is never where the public can get a glimpse of him--he is too busy pulling the wires and playing the buttons in the shadows just behind the throne. had it not been that that divinity which disposes of men's purposes compelled this man, as he neared the end of his remarkable career, to come into the open on amalgamated, he might never have been known as the real master of "standard oil." but if he is missing when the public is hurrahing, he is sufficiently in evidence when clouds lower or when the danger-signal is run to the masthead at 26 broadway. he who reads "standard oil" history will note that, from its first deal until this day, whenever bricks, cabbages, or aged eggs were being presented to "standard oil," always were henry h. rogers' towering form and defiant eye to be seen in the foreground where the missiles flew thickest. during the past twenty years, whenever the great political parties have lined-up for their regular once-in-four-years' tussle, there would be found henry h. rogers, calm as a race-track gambler, "sizing-up" the entries, their weights and handicaps. every twist and turn in the pedigrees and records of republicans and democrats are as familiar to him as the "dope-sheets" are to the gambler, for is he not at the receiving end of the greatest information bureau in the world? a standard oil agent is in every hamlet in the country, and who better than these trained and intelligent observers to interpret the varying trends of feelings in their communities? tabulated and analyzed, these reports enable rogers, the sagacious politician, to diagnose the drift of the country far ahead of the most astute of campaign managers. he is never in doubt about who will win the election. before the contest is under way he has picked his winner and is beside him with generous offers of war expenses. when labor would howl its anathemas at standard oil, and the rockefellers and other stout-hearted generals and captains of this band of merry money-makers would fall to discussing conciliation and retreat, it was always henry h. rogers who fired at his associates his now famous panacea for all standard oil opposition: "we'll see standard oil in hell before we will allow any body of men on earth to dictate how we shall conduct our business!" and the fact that "standard oil" still does its business in the elysian fields of success, where is neither sulphur nor the fumes of sulphur, is additional evidence of whose will it is that sways its destinies. an impression of the despotic character of the man and of his manner of despatching the infinite details of the multitudinous business he must deal with daily may be gained by a glimpse of henry h. rogers at one of the meetings of the long list of giant corporations which number him among their directors. surrounded though he be by the élite of all financialdom, the very flower of the business brains of america, you will surely hear his sharp, incisive, steel-clicking: "gentlemen, are we ready for the vote, for i regret to say, i have another important and unavoidable meeting at ----?" you look at your watch. the time he mentions is twelve, or, at the most, fifteen minutes away. there is no chance for further discussion. cut-and-dried resolutions are promptly put to the vote, and off goes the master to his other engagement which will be disposed of in the same peremptory fashion. at a meeting of the directors of "financed" steel, during the brief reign of its late "vacuumized" president, charlie schwab, an episode occurred which exhibited the danger of interfering with mr. rogers' iron-bound plans. the fact that the steel throne was many sizes too large for schwab had, about this time, become publicly notorious, but carnegie and morgan on the surface, and "standard oil" beneath, were so busy preparing their alibis against the crash which even then was overdue that they had neither time nor desire to adjust themselves on the seat. in advance mr. rogers made his invariable plea for quick action on a matter before the board when schwab, with a tact generated by the wabbling of a misfit wall street crown chafing a generous pair of ears, blurted out: "mr. rogers will vote on this question after we have talked on it." in a voice that those who heard it say sounded like a rattlesnake's hiss in a refrigerator, rogers replied: "all meetings where i sit as director vote first and talk after i am gone." it is said, and from my knowledge of these and after-events i believe with truth, that this occurrence was the spark that started the terrific explosion in united states steel, for not long afterward some unknown and mysterious power began that formidable attack on steel stock which left wall street full of the unattached ears, eyes, noses, breastbones, and scalps of hordes of financial potentates and their flambeau carriers. whether or not mr. rogers was the instigator of this movement no man, of course, can positively state, but i can vouch for the fact that about this time he displayed, when talking "steel" affairs with intimates, a most contemptuous bitterness against "king charlie" and certain of his associates. at sixty-five henry h. rogers is probably one of the most distinguished-looking men of the time; tall and straight, and as well-proportioned and supple as one of the beautiful american elms which line the streets of his native town. he was born in fairhaven, a fishing village just over the bridge from the great whaling port, new bedford. he comes of stalwart new england stock; his father was a sea-captain, and his lot, like that of most of the sons of old new england seaport towns, was cast along those hard, brain-and-body-developing lines which, beginning in the red village school-house, the white meeting-house, and the yellowish-grayish country store, end in unexpected places, often, as in this instance, upon the golden throne of business royalty. mr. rogers' part in the very early days of standard oil was that of clerk and bookkeeper. he makes no secret that when he had risen to the height of $8 a week wages he felt as proud and confident as ever in after-life when for the same number of days' labor it was no uncommon occurrence to find himself credited with a hundred thousand times that amount. all able men have some of god's indelible imprints of greatness. this man's every feature bespeaks strength and distinction. when he walks, the active swing of his figure expresses power--realized, confident power. when at rest or in action his square jaw tells of fighting power, bull-dog, hold-on, never-let-go fighting power, and his high, full forehead of intellectual, mightily intellectual power; and they are re-enforced with cheek-bones and nose which suggest that this fighting power has in it something of the grim ruthlessness of the north american indian. the eyes, however, are the crowning characteristic of the man's physical make-up. one must see mr. rogers' eyes in action and in repose to half appreciate their wonders. i can only say they are red, blue, and black, brown, gray, and green; nor do i want my readers to think i put in colors that are not there, for there must be many others than those i have mentioned. i have seen them when they were so restfully blue that i would think they never could be anything but a part of those skies that come with the august and september afternoons when the bees' hum and the locusts' drone blend with the smell of the new-mown hay to help spell the word "rest." i have seen them so green that within their depths i was almost sure the fish were lazily resting in the shadows of those sea-plants which grow only on the ocean's bottom; and i have seen them as black as that thunder-cloud which makes us wonder: "is he angry?" and then again i have watched them when they were of that fiery red and that glinting yellow which one sees only when at night the doors of a great, roaring furnace are opened. there is such a kindly good-will in these eyes when they are at rest that the man does not live who would not consider himself favored to be allowed to turn over to henry h. rogers his pocket-book without receiving a receipt. they are the eyes of the man you would name in your will to care for your wife's and children's welfare. when their animation is friendly one would rather watch their merry twinkle as they keep time to their owner's inimitable stories and non-duplicatable anecdotes, trying to interpret the rapid and incessant telegraphy of their glances, than sit in a theatre or read an interesting book; but it is when they are active in war that the one privileged to observe them gets his real treat, always provided he can dodge the rain of blazing sparks and the withering hail of wrath that pours out on the offender. to watch them then requires real nerve, for it is only a nimble, stout-hearted, mail-covered individual that can sustain the encounter. i have seen many forms of human wrath, many men transformed to terrible things by anger, but i have never seen any that were other than jumping-jack imitations of a jungle tiger compared with henry h. rogers when he "lets 'er go"--when the instant comes that he realizes some one is balking the accomplishment of his will. above all things henry h. rogers is a great actor. had his lot been cast upon the stage, he might easily have eclipsed the fame of booth or salvini. he knows the human animal from the soles of his feet to the part in his hair and from his shoulder-blade to his breastbone, and like all great actors is not above getting down to every part he plays. he is likely also so to lose himself in a rôle that he gives it his own force and identity, and then things happen quite at variance with the lines. the original booth would come upon the stage the cool, calculating, polished actor, but when well into his part was so lost in it that it was often with difficulty he could be brought back to himself when the curtain fell. once while playing richard iii. at the old boston museum, richmond, by whom he was to be slain, made, at the ordained moment, the thrust which should have laid him low, but instead, booth in high frenzy parried it, and with the fiendishness of the original richard, step by step drove richmond off the stage and through the wings, and it was not until the police seized the great tragedian, two blocks away, that the terrified duke, who had dropped his sword and was running for dear life, was sure he would ever act again. when in the midst of his important plays, it is doubtful whether henry h. rogers realizes until the guardians of the peace appear where the acting begins and the reality should end. his intimate associates can recall many times when his determination to make a hit in his part has caused other actors cast with him to throw aside their dummy swords and run for their lives. the entire history of "standard oil" is strewn with court-scenes, civil and criminal, and in all the important ones henry h. rogers, the actor, will be found doing marvellous "stunts." standard oil historians are fond of dwelling on the extraordinary testifying abilities of john d. rockefeller and other members of the band, but the acrobatic feats of ground and lofty tumbling in the way of truth which they have given when before the blinking footlights of the temples of justice are as punch-and-judy shows to a barnum three-ring circus compared to henry h. rogers' exhibitions. his "i will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me god," sounds absolutely sincere and honest, but as it rings out in the tone of the third solemnest bell in the chime, this is how it is taken down in the unerring short-hand notes of the recording angel and sent by special wireless to the typewriter for his majesty of the sulphur trust: "what i tell _shall_ be the truth and the whole truth, and there _shall be_ no truth but that i tell, and god help the man or woman who tells truth different from my truth." the recording angel never missed catching henry h. rogers' court-oaths in this way, and never missed sending them along to the typewriter at sulphurville, with this postscript: "keep your wire open, for there'll be things doing now!" at the recent but now famous sensational boston "gas trial," henry h. rogers in the rôle of defendant was the principal witness. i was in court five hours and a half each sitting as day after day he testified. i watched, as the brightest lawyers in the land laid their traps for him in direct and cross-examination, to detect a single sign of fiction replacing truth, or going joint-account with her, or where truth parted company with fiction; and i was compelled, when he stepped from the witness-stand, to admit i had not found what i had watched for. this, too, when i was equipped with actual knowledge and black-and-white proofs of the facts. weeks before the trial began attorney sherman l. whipple, one of the great cross-examiners of the time, had made his boast that he would break through the "standard oil" magnate's heretofore impenetrable bulwarks, and when h. h. rogers entered the court-room for the first time and let his eagle eye sweep the lawyers, the laymen, and the judge until it finally rested on whipple, the glance was as absolute a challenge and a defiance as ever knights of old exchanged. i followed mr. rogers on the witness-stand and was compelled to give testimony directly opposite to that which he had given, and at one time, as i glanced at the row of lawyers who were in "standard oil's" hire, i felt a cold perspiration start at every pore at the thought of what would happen if i even in a slight detail got mixed in my facts. then i fully realized the magnificence of mr. rogers' acting, for not once in all the hours i had sat and watched him had i detected a single evidence of cold, hot, or lukewarm perspiration coming from his pores. yet away from the intoxicating spell of dollar-making this remarkable man is one of the most charming and lovable beings i have ever encountered, a man whom any man or woman would be proud to have for a brother; a man whom any mother or father would give thanks for as a son; a man whom any woman would be happy to know as her husband, and a man whom any boy or girl would rejoice to call father. once he passes under the baleful influence of "the machine," however, he becomes a relentless, ravenous creature, pitiless as a shark, knowing no law of god or man in the execution of his purpose. between him and coveted dollars may come no kindly, humane influences--all are thrust aside, their claims disregarded, in ministering to this strange, cannibalistic money-hunger, which, in truth, grows by what it feeds on. in describing one head of "standard oil," i have necessarily used many words because nature cast him in a most uncommon and chameleon-like mould. the other two require less of my space, for neither is unusual nor remarkable. john d. rockefeller, however great his ability or worldly success, can be fully described as a man made in the image of an ideal money-maker and an ideal money-maker made in the image of a man. a foot-note should call attention to the fact that an ideal money-maker is a machine the details of which are diagrammed in the asbestos blue-prints which paper the walls of hell. with william rockefeller it is different. when i read in my bible that god made man in his own image and likeness, i find myself picturing a certain type of individual--a solid, substantial, sturdy gentleman with the broad shoulders and strong frame of an englishman, and a cautious, kindly expression of face. and that is the most fitting description i can give of william rockefeller. a man of few, very few words and most excellent judgment--rather brotherly than friendly, clean of mind and body; and if i have not given you the impression of a good, wholesome man made in the image of his god, i have done william rockefeller a greater wrong than an honest man can afford to do another. chapter iv my own responsibility as to my personal responsibility for the crime of amalgamated, right here, before proceeding further, i shall briefly explain the transaction, state my share in the deal, and point out how completely i was hoodwinked by the "system." the great anaconda mine and affiliated properties, previous to the creation of the amalgamated, were owned by j. b. haggin, lloyd tevis, and marcus daly. the control of the properties and their operations were absolutely vested in marcus daly, and he alone knew where the lean veins ended and the fat ones began. for many years he had kept a close guard over the very fat ones, never letting his right eye know what the left one saw when he was examining them. for deep down in his mind marcus daly cherished a dream--a dream of immense riches, and it was to be realized in a simple enough way. he would get together the millions to buy out his partners on the basis of a valuation of the "ore in sight," then in supreme ownership himself reap untold profits out of the milling of the plethoric veins he had been so careful to leave unworked. the immense natural endowments of the anaconda rendered this easy enough, for even the lean veins "in sight" contained a vast store of copper and gold and silver. just about the time the world awaited the first section of "coppers" which i had advertised should consist of the rich boston & montana, and butte & boston properties, it "happened" that mr. rogers "met" marcus daly. the result of the conjunction of the two personalities--the whole-souled, trusting miner and the fascinating and persuasive master of standard oil--was decisive; the miner confided his dreams and his aspirations to the magnate, who at once magnificently undertook to realize them. the trade was almost instantly made. mr. rogers would buy the properties of daly, haggin, and tevis, at "in-sight" prices, and daly would be his partner, but the partnership must remain secret until the purchase was consummated. the ownership of the anaconda company at the time consisted of 1,200,000 shares, and the purchase of a few shares over the majority at the "in-sight" lean-vein valuation of $24,000,000 would carry the turnover of the management and the control. it took but a very brief time to get together the other properties which were finally included in the first section of amalgamated. they consisted of the colorado, washoe, and parrott mining companies and timber, coal, and other lands, and mercantile and like properties situated in the state of montana, for which mr. rogers paid in round figures $15,000,000, _a total of $39,000,000 for what within a few days after purchase was capitalized at $75,000,000 in the amalgamated company_. no one but henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, myself, and one lawyer knew the actual figures of the cost, although a number of the members of the different groups, including marcus daly, the silent partner, were sure they were in the secret. as soon as the properties were secured, they were capitalized for $75,000,000 as the amalgamated copper company and were immediately offered for sale to the public. it will thus be seen that the profit on this section alone was $36,000,000, probably the largest actual profit ever made by one body of men in a single corporation deal, yet so nicely does "standard oil" discriminate in dispensing its generosity that in this case those who received the $36,000,000 profit refused to deduct from it $77,000 of expenses connected with the formation of the company, thereby compelling it to start $77,000 in debt. this was something marcus daly never forgave and to the day of his death he repeatedly referred to the act as the personification of corporation meanness. in the organization of the amalgamated corporation certain individuals and institutions, for various considerations, were entitled to some share in the profits of the deal. first there was marcus daly who knew what the major portion of the property had cost and was a silent partner in the winnings as he knew them. the amalgamated company was organized in and floated on the public from the national city bank, and so james stillman, its president and head, who is also one of the inner circle of "standard oil" chiefs, should participate. something was due also to j. pierpont morgan & co., and to frederick olcott, president of the central trust company of new york, who were on the board of directors. on the board of directors, too, was governor flower, of the banking and brokerage house of flower & co., who had acted as fiscal agents for the corporation at its formation. nor must i forget the lewisohn brothers, who had been compelled to turn in all their copper business at a fraction of its worth--or at just the aggregate of its cost and raw material--to be incorporated in the united metals selling company, a part of the amalgamated scheme, but not included in the corporation. every one of these men had elaborate assurances that he was in on the cellar floor. this is what actually occurred. before mr. rogers and william rockefeller let any one at all in, they built a superbly designed water-, air-, and light-proof structure (particularly light-proof), consisting of five floors, each one being the exact duplicate of the $39,000,000 one upon which they, and they only, stood. marcus daly alone was ushered in on the first floor, elevated just a few million dollars above their own. james stillman and leonard lewisohn, of lewisohn brothers, were admitted to the next one, the $50,000,000 floor. in other words, mr. stillman and mr. lewisohn were given an unnamed percentage, the percentage to be arranged later by mr. rogers, in all profits above actual cost, and such actual cost was called $50,000,000 and was arrived at by adding the $11,000,000 of secret profits to the actual $39,000,000 cost. then j. p. morgan & co., frederick olcott, governor flower, and one or two of the dearest friends and closest associates, were let in on the $60,000,000 floor--were given an unnamed percentage, the percentage to be arranged by mr. rogers, in all profits above actual cost, and such actual cost was called $60,000,000, and was arrived at by adding $21,000,000 of secret profits to the actual $39,000,000 cost. then selected ones from the eight different groups of "standard oil" were allowed to move in to the fifth, or underwriters' floor, which was affirmed to be $70,000,000 cost; and then, as a solid phalanx, all the different floor-dwellers marched upon the dear public to the tune of $75,000,000, in the front ranks of which were those of the eight groups of the standard oil army who had not already been admitted to any of the secret floors. right here the crime of amalgamated was born, not so much the legal crime but the great moral crime. in the ethics of wall street the heinousness of the transaction lies not in the fact that the public was compelled to pay $36,000,000 profit to a few men who had invested but $39,000,000--and, as i shall show when i approach this part of my story, the $39,000,000 did not even belong to them--but in the fact that mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller had given to their associates what, in the vernacular of "the street," is termed "the double cross." the every-day people, the millions who do not know wall street, realm of the royal american dollar; wall street, its sidewalks inlaid with gold coin and paved from curb to curb with solid gold bricks; wall street, lined with huge money-mills where hearts and souls are ground into gold-dust, whose gutters run full to overflowing with strangled, mangled, sand-bagged wrecks of human hopes, to be poured, in a never-ending stream, into the brimming waters of the river at its foot, for deposit at the poor-houses, insane asylums, states' prisons, and suicides' graves, washed daily by that grim flood's ebb and flow--the every-day people, i am sure, will not take in the blackness of this transaction at this stage of my story, but before it is ended i will lay this and many more of an equally hellish nature before them in such a b c simplicity that all can read the portent as clearly as the prophet daniel read the writing on the wall in the banquet-hall of belshazzar. when i consented to allow property which had cost only $39,000,000 to be sold to the public for $75,000,000, it was under a pressure which it was practically impossible for me to withstand. i do not think i use too strong a word when i say "pressure." for three years i had been advertising to the world the great merits of "coppers," and for over a year i had announced that when the public was given an opportunity to participate in the consolidated "coppers" it would be upon a basis most carefully worked out: that the properties included in the first section would surely be worth more than the price at which they would be offered to the public, and that all the power, capital, and ability of "standard oil" were behind the promises i made. i did this advertising openly and in the frankest possible way, and in all of my announcements, whether printed, oral, or otherwise, used the names of henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, james stillman, the national city bank of new york, and "standard oil" as freely as i did my own, and in many ways led the public to believe that the very rich boston & montana and butte & boston companies were to be included in this section of "coppers." at that time my alliance with "standard oil" was close. a business connection had developed into a strong personal relation between mr. rogers and myself. we were engaged, together with william rockefeller, on a great financial deal which was based on certain conclusions i had worked out in regard to the copper industry. these men were to me the embodiment of success, success won in the fiercest commercial conflict of the age. their position at the helm of the greatest financial institution in the world gave weight and importance to their judgment and opinions. nor had aught occurred between us to suggest they would dare perpetrate the crimes they did. besides all this, indeed an integral part of it, my personal resources were completely involved in the transaction, for the most part pledged with mr. rogers and william rockefeller in stocks of the butte & boston and boston & montana corporations. this was, then, the nature of our connection when mr. rogers, suddenly and without previous intimation of his schemes, notified me of his purchase of the daly-haggin-tevis properties, and practically ordered me to put them upon the tray which i was preparing and take them to the eagerly waiting public, who by this time were fairly howling for the good things we had been promising them. in support of this extraordinary change of plan mr. rogers urged the secret wealth of the anaconda and the great value of the other properties which i myself had helped purchase, but i bitterly opposed the new proposition until there was nothing before me but these alternatives--to accept the change mr. rogers insisted on or break with "standard oil." the latter would mean that i must announce to the public that it was in danger of being tricked, and it was by no means certain that my warning would carry weight against the denials and assurances of "standard oil." however much influence i had obtained through my long years of dealings with the public, independent of "standard oil," i realized that "standard oil's" influence and prestige were much greater, for it must be remembered that at this time the public had not had the evidence since acquired of the "system's" cold-blooded trickery. if i took this course it would mean not only my own ruin financially, for mr. rogers and william rockefeller could call my loans and wipe me out completely, but also the ruin of my friends and allies, who, under my direction, had invested their own millions in the properties concerned. on the other hand, i had the most earnest assurances from mr. rogers and william rockefeller that the new properties were worth much more than the $75,000,000 at which it was proposed to capitalize them. they took me to task for my distrust of them, and went far to demonstrate to me the accuracy of their estimates. they not only gave me marcus daly's minute estimates of the values and legitimate possibilities of anaconda, but consented to have these verified by outside experts in whom i had implicit confidence, and whose personal examination more than bore out daly's appraisal. i have never yet had reason to doubt the correctness of the figures then shown me, although since i began this story "standard oil," in an endeavor to get me to abandon my efforts to secure justice for the thousands i assisted in duping, have stated for the first time that marcus daly deceived them and really, to use the words of their chief counsel, sold them a "gold brick." after this examination i felt convinced that the properties "standard oil" insisted on substituting for those originally intended for the first section of amalgamated were such that the public, if honestly dealt with, could not possibly meet with loss in purchasing. but even then i only consented to go ahead with the flotation under a definite agreement which seemed to me completely to guard against all contingencies of jugglery or deception. this agreement stipulated that all the profits from the transaction should be taken by those to whom they were due in the stock of the amalgamated company, and no part of them in cash--that the public should be sold, at the flotation, only $5,000,000 of the $75,000,000, and that "standard oil" and all associated with "standard oil" in the profits should retain the remaining $70,000,000 until such time as it had been absolutely demonstrated to the public that the property behind the $75,000,000 of stock was worth more than the amount it had been capitalized for. furthermore, i was also promised that the $5,000,000 cash to be taken from the public should be kept intact, and in my handling of the market it should always be available for the repurchase from the investors of what had been sold to them, at the price which they had paid for it. this was the basis on which i went on with amalgamated. i would not have my readers understand me as asserting it would have been possible for me to have stopped the flotation had i attempted it. but, on the other hand, i would not have them think that i desire to be absolved from the disastrous results of the great mistake i made at this time in not at any cost doing that which after-happenings have shown would have been the most honest course for me to have pursued. nor would i have them think i desire to be absolved from the consequences of many other mistakes which this one led me into--mistakes in temporizing with the situation and postponing action which i should have boldly and fearlessly forced, regardless of all consequences to the public, my friends, and myself. the subsequent proceedings, the manner in which amalgamated was actually sold to the public, the flagrant disregard of the conditions of my agreement with mr. rogers and william rockefeller, will, when fully told in their proper place in my story, show that the "system," by whose methods the public is as ruthlessly plundered as though the fruits of its labors were taken away from it by highwaymen, admits also of its own votaries being tricked and despoiled by their associates. the men who participated in the transaction i have just described are among the most astute financiers in the country and presumably possessed of invincible capacity to protect their own interests. but with all their knowledge of the "system's" tricks they were, in this instance, as shrewdly duped as the veriest tyro in the wall street game. my own experience with the "system" in this deal was different in degree but not in principle from that of these others, and it must be remembered that i was better equipped to protect my interests than any of them. i knew that the actual cost of the properties comprising the first amalgamated was $39,000,000, and that when sold to the public at $75,000,000 there must be a profit of $36,000,000. i had every right to think i knew all the other details connected with the transaction, for as organizer and executant of the deal my share in the profits was to be equal to that of henry h. rogers and william rockefeller respectively. we were each to have twenty-five per cent., the remaining twenty-five per cent. going to others. this was no gentleman's "leave-it-to-me-and-i'll-see-you-get-what's-coming-to-you" arrangement either, but a hard, cold, mutually satisfactory and settled-in-advance agreement. but when it came to the final accounting, the "system" had so regulated things that the participants on the various floors, except, of course, mr. rogers and william rockefeller, must each accept without question the share finally handed over to him. having no means of knowing how large the other interests were, or what the "extraordinary expenses" had been, they were in no position to question the payments made them, which represented sums below what they would have had if the business had been conducted as they thought it had been. when my final account was presented to me i was startled. notwithstanding the "cleverness" of the "system," the deception was so obvious, so audacious, that the instant mr. rogers submitted it to me i exploded and denounced the transaction with such vehemence and conviction that within a few minutes there was forthcoming a second statement, revising the account, by which i was given just double the amount first tendered, and the figures in both accounts ran into millions; yet the amount in the second account upon which i settled was only one-half the share received by my equal partners, henry h. rogers and william rockefeller, as i afterward learned.[1] this is a fair statement of my own share in the first amalgamated transaction. i have no desire to evade the issues suggested and raised by these revelations. my frankness should be absolute proof of that. as i promised, i shall hew to the exact line of fact, letting the chips of responsibility, legal and moral, fall where they may, though many of them stick to my own clothes. my own burden of error i am ready and willing to shoulder, but i decline any longer to take and carry responsibilities which belong absolutely to others. there should be a time-limit on martyrdom, and mine anyhow is up. footnotes: [1] i know no better spot in my story than right here to set the public right on two vital points concerning amalgamated, upon which they are and always have been greatly at sea: john d. rockefeller did not have before the amalgamated company was organized and floated, nor at its organization and flotation, directly or indirectly, a dollar's interest in its stock nor its affairs, and i have what i consider excellent reasons for believing he has not had any interest up to the time of this writing. the disasters which have come to the amalgamated stockholders did not occur, as has been so industriously and ingeniously advertised throughout the world, because of the inability of the "standard oil"-amalgamated-city bank fraternity to prevent the collapse of the price of copper, the metal, from the high price of seventeen cents to the low one of eleven cents per pound. "cornering" the metal market, forcing the price to an abnormally high figure and maintaining it there had, notwithstanding the many emphatic statements to the contrary, absolutely no part in any of our original plans, and the success or failure of our project was in no way dependent upon any price for copper, the metal, other than the fair and legitimate price caused by legitimate supply and demand. in fact, as i shall demonstrate before my story is ended, forcing the price to extremely high points and the resulting collapse were all a part of the trickery by which the public was plundered. chapter v the power of dollars at no time in the history of the united states has the power of dollars been as great as now. freedom and equity are controlled by dollars. the laws which should preserve and enforce all rights are made and enforced by dollars. it is possible to-day, with dollars, to "steer" the selection of the candidates of both the great parties for the highest office in our republic, that of president of the united states. it is possible to repeat the operation in the selection of candidates for the executive and legislative conduct and control of every state and municipality in the united states, and with a sufficient number of dollars to "steer" the doings of the law-makers and law-enforcers of the national, state, and municipal governments of the people, and to "steer" a sufficient proportion of the court decisions to make absolute any power created by such direction. it is all, broadly speaking, a matter of dollars practically to accomplish these things. i must not be misunderstood as even insinuating that there are not absolutely honest law-makers and law-enforcers, nor that there are not as many of them in proportion to the whole body as there were at the creation of our republic. i believe there is at the present time as large a percentage of honesty among americans as ever there has been, but it is plainly evident to any student of the times that at no other period in the history of the united states has honesty been so completely "steered" by dishonesty as at this, the beginning of the twentieth century. _i shall go further and say that there to-day exists uncontrolled in the hands of a set of men a power to make dollars from nothing._ that function of dollar-making which the people believe is vested in their government alone and only exercised under the law for their benefit, is actually being secretly exercised on an enormous scale by a few private individuals for their own personal benefit. this, i am well aware, is a startling statement, but not more so than the facts which support it. throughout the country we have all grown accustomed to the spectacle of men who, poor yesterday, to-day display more dollars than the kings and queens of olden times controlled. in flaunting this money these men proudly boast: "we made all this yesternight, and are going to multiply it five-or fifty-fold to-morrow night." the fact that there must be in this country some secret method of gaining vast fortunes gradually dawned on the minds of the people. this method, they argued, must be outside the laws of the land which they themselves had made, and they were confronted with the fact that the possessors of these fabulous fortunes were creating a power not recognized by their government and which practically placed the government in the hands of the fortune-owners. they realized that in some way the magic of this fortune-making was connected with, or seemed to be compounded in, institutions called corporations and trusts, and that among these the head and centre was a great affair called "standard oil." wherever this "standard oil" was, all knew that strange wonders were worked. within the sphere of its influence dirt changed to gold, liquids to solids, and what was, was not, and what was not, was. whoever became a part of this mysterious "standard oil," at the same time was rendered "powerful"; as though touched by a fairy's wand, he changed from pauper to millionaire. but what was "standard oil"? the people knew that at the beginning it was only an aggregation of men, private individuals, who had accumulated much money by securing a monopoly of selling oil, and that these men were "rockefellers," and that standard oil and "rockefellers" had been cute and cunning in the conduct of their oil-selling to a degree greater than had been rival sellers of oil or of other necessities. and as time wore on much more was heard of the cleverness of standard oil and "rockefellers," as the victims of the cuteness and the cunning "hollered" in public places, and the newspapers and writers of books exclaimed against their practices and exactions. but many other things were happening simultaneously, and to the great bulk of the people it was interesting rather than portentous that there existed in the country a giant oil-thing whose owners were reputed the richest men in the world. it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the monster "standard oil" loomed up before the people as the giant of all corporate things and that its ominous shadow seemed to dwarf all other institutions, public or private. in multitudinous forms it was before the people. in awed whispers men talked of its mysterious doings and canvassed its extraordinary powers as though "standard oil" were a living, breathing entity rather than a mere business institution created by men and existing only by virtue of the laws of the land. about the time that the world had begun mistily to take in the tremendous forces which radiated from "standard oil," there occurred a financial crash, and the people saw their savings, invested in what they supposed were the legal and absolute titles of ownership in the material things of their country, suddenly decline in value and contract to prices representing a loss to them of billions of dollars. throughout the misery and suffering this terrible collapse occasioned, "standard oil" remained undisturbed as before and amid all the confusion kept sternly on its dollar-"making" way. indeed, it seemed to gain in bulk as other institutions diminished or disappeared. then it was that the people first began to demand, what they are still to-day fiercely demanding, "what is this 'standard oil'?" "what is its secret?" "whence came it?" and, "can our republic endure if it, too, endures?" to-day "standard oil," the "private thing," is the greatest power in the land--more powerful than the people individually or as a whole, and its secret is the knowledge of the trick of finance by which dollars are "made" from nothing in unlimited quantities subject to no laws of man nor nature. the dollars that "standard oil" _makes_ are of the same value as the dollars of the people as made by the government, which dollars we know can be coined and put into circulation only in accordance with law and for the benefit of all the people. for the better understanding of those readers not versed in the technical phrases of finance and economics i shall in my narrative make use of certain terms of my own which will convey meanings readily grasped when the sense in which they are used is once comprehended. in speaking of "standard oil," for instance, i will speak of it as a "private thing." by that term i desire to typify the active, private identity of a corporation which comprehends, but exists independently of, its legalized functions. some corporations have a real personality in addition to that which their name and the corporation laws prescribe for them, an inherent power, or individuality, which exists above and apart from their physical functions as sellers of oil, of coal, or of ice. this may be an incarnation of the power developed in the transaction of their legalized occupations, but the "private thing" is uncontrolled by any of the restrictions by which the law defines and curbs the corporation whose name it bears. already i have distinguished between "standard oil" which wields all the powers of its subsidiary companies, and standard oil, the seller of oil. in the same way we have "american sugar refineries" and "united states steel," the "private things" which are not one whit better than nor different from "standard oil," the "private thing." though this narrative will deal only with the "private things," bay state gas and amalgamated copper, i have no hesitancy in saying that the methods employed and the results, good or bad, which accrued in the case of any of the other "private things" with which the public have had to do, differ only in details from those with which i shall deal in my story. in speaking of dollars brought into existence by the trick of finance i have referred to i shall call them henceforth "made dollars," to distinguish them from dollars coined by the government and legitimately acquired by the individual or corporation. these "made dollars," it must be remembered, are really "made" for all purposes of use as surely as if they had the government's stamp, yet they are not made in the sense of the known volume of the people's money being added to. so, however many of these "made dollars" are brought into existence by this trick of finance, only the men who "made" them can know and profit by their existence. the people are no wiser nor can they adjust themselves to the change of conditions brought about by the creation of all this new money; yet if "unmade" or lost, the entire volume of the nation's wealth would be contracted. i can set before my readers better by an illustration than by any process of definition, the trick of finance by which "made dollars" are brought into existence. let us suppose that the united states government at washington, the only power legally entitled to issue money for circulation among the people, puts forth a particular $10,000. all the conditions prescribed by law have been followed, and all the people in the country are benefited by the issue and circulation of this particular $10,000, each in the proportion the laws prescribe. "b," a western farmer, tills his soil and receives, by the sale of his wheat, the particular $10,000, which he then deposits in _the bank_. _the bank_, being a part of the government machinery, only receives, holds, and uses the $10,000 under safeguards provided for by the laws of the land, so hereafter "b's" material life is conducted on the basis that he is the full and actual possessor of $10,000. he knows, further, that his $10,000 cannot be expanded nor contracted, nor its relation to any of the other money of the people which is in circulation altered without his knowledge, because he knows such changes cannot come about except through the government. i say he knows this--he has every right to believe he knows it--but, in fact, it is not so, because of the working of the secret financial device of the private thing. at this stage enters "c," the private thing. "c" purchases with $3,300 ("b's" money) which he borrows from _the bank_, a copper-mine, depositing the title which he receives from the seller with _the bank_ as collateral for the $3,300. after purchasing he arbitrarily calls the copper-mine worth $10,000--arbitrarily because his act is not controlled nor regulated by any of the laws of the land--arbitrarily because the actual cost, $3,300, is his secret and his alone. then, arbitrarily, "c" organizes his $3,300 of copper property into the arbitrary copper company, and issues to himself a piece of paper, which he arbitrarily stamps "10,000 stock dollars." this he takes to _the bank_, and by loan or other device exchanges it for the remaining $6,700 belonging to "b," and thereafter "c" conducts his affairs on the basis that he is the possessor of $6,700, his "made dollars" in the transaction. at this stage there is actually in use among the people $16,700 where "b," the legitimate factor, and his kind, the people, suppose there is but $10,000--$10,000 which is recorded, known and legal, being used by the legitimate factors, "b" and _the bank_, and $6,700 which is unrecorded and unknown to any but "c" and _the bank_, being used by the illegitimate private thing "c." right here is the secret device, the financial trick, by which the greatest power in the land has been created, and by which the people can be absolutely plundered of their savings for the benefit of the few. at this stage the two-thirds of "b's" $10,000, of which he later is to be plundered, has not been actually taken away, so he cannot possibly have any evidence yet of the process of pillage which has been begun, or that the volume of money which he supposes is all that exists has been tremendously expanded. the next step is where "c" sells his $3,300, stamped "10,000 stock dollars" (which, as already shown, he has exchanged with _the bank_ for the $10,000 deposited by "b"), to "b" for $10,000, which $10,000 "b" withdraws from _the bank_ by simply making out a check in favor of "c." ("b's" inducement to exchange his dollars for the stock dollars of "c" is the high rate of interest that they will return in the form of dividends, which rate is much larger than _the bank_ can afford to pay.) "c" deposits "b's" check with _the bank_ and hereby liquidates his $10,000 indebtedness to _the bank_. at this stage "b" is still the possessor of $10,000, but it is "10,000 stock dollars." "c" is the possessor of $6,700, and "d," from whom the copper-mine was purchased, is the possessor of $3,300; but the two latter amounts make up the 10,000 real dollars, and _the bank_ remains where it was at the beginning of the transaction. the people, however, are no wiser; but they know, because they have been most carefully educated to such knowledge by "c's" agents, wall street, and the press, that their country is tremendously prosperous--that its great prosperity is evidenced by the $6,700 added wealth in the form of 6,700 new stock dollars. at the next stage the financial trick accomplished by the secret device is complete. "b," the farmer, who has contracted for new machinery and other necessities and luxuries to be paid for "next season," attempts next season to turn his 10,000 stock dollars into real dollars, and "c," the private thing, knowing their real value to be but $3,300, refuses to make the exchange, but instead, by proclaiming their real value, compels "b," who must have real dollars to meet his debts, to sell them for what "c," the private thing, is willing to pay. "c," the private thing, is willing to pay their worth, which he alone knows is $3,300; he repurchases them at that price from "b," that he may repeat the operation at the return of the next "wave of the country's prosperity." by this operation "b," the farmer, has lost, as absolutely as though they had been taken away from him by a government decree, $6,700 of his own making, and "c," the private thing, has "made," as absolutely as though the government had allowed him to coin them for his own benefit, 6,700 real dollars, and _the bank_, created, regulated, and controlled by law, and existing because of the people's deposits of money, has been the instrument by which "c," the private thing, has deprived "b," the farmer, of his savings, because "c," the private thing, is at one and the same time during the operation i have outlined, himself and _the bank_. a careful study of this illustration, by even laymen unacquainted with financial or corporation affairs, will clearly show that the foundation of this transaction was _the bank's_ putting in jeopardy $3,300 of "b's" deposited $10,000, and that if the $3,300, after being put in jeopardy, had been lost, "b" would have been the loser,[2] which, in turn, means that the compensation for the jeopardy in which the $3,300 was placed was the possibility of $6,700 profit; and that, therefore, the $6,700 profit when made should have gone to the owner of the $3,300, "b," instead of to "c," the user of it. it is therefore in this sense that i shall use the term "made dollars"--wherever they are "made" or "unmade" through one set of men using the dollars of another set of men without that other set knowing that their dollars are being so used; and wherever the result of such use is that when dollars are "made," they are "made" by the ones who use others' money, and where dollars are "unmade," they are lost by the ones who own the dollars which they don't know are being used. footnotes: [2] i say "b" would have been the loser because all money lost by a bank must eventually be lost by the depositors, the people, or the surplus or capital of the bank which belongs to the people, through their ownership of the stock in the bank. of course the loss of individual amounts such as $3,300 would not come directly on the people. but when the aggregate of the money put in jeopardy by the four classes of institutions i name--national banks, savings-banks, trusts, and insurance companies--runs into billions and is lost, the loss _must_ fall on the people, because the only other ones involved are the managers and controllers of these institutions, who always see to it that when the losses which would wreck the bank are actually made, they, the managers and controllers, have no deposits and none of the stock. chapter vi construction of "standard oil's" "dollar-making" mill i believe "standard oil" was the first to utilize this secret device for circumventing the safeguards which the law has erected to protect the savings of the people. it was the first practically to apprehend that, a large proportion of all the moneys in circulation, which belong to the people or the government, being in the custody of the national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies, it would only be necessary for a set of men to obtain control of sufficient of the principal national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies to control practically unlimited amounts of such funds. once in control of these funds dollars could be absolutely "made" at will by the three following steps: 1st. using the money in these institutions to acquire properties. 2d. consolidating such properties on an inflated basis, and selling them to the people (who, in fact, already owned them; because they owned the funds with which they had been purchased); and, 3d, by stock-market trickery scaring their owners into re-selling them at an enormous shrinkage from the price they had paid. to understand a situation with "standard oil" is to act, and twenty years ago it began to weave a net to secure control of the four classes of institutions i have named. its first move was to establish a great corporation, the standard oil company, and make its stock, 1,000,000 shares, sell at from $650 to $800 per share, or $650,000,000 to $800,000,000. it kept its affairs mysteriously secret, it paid enormous dividends, and from time to time it caused to be published broadcast throughout the world the statement that it was held in such value by its creators, the rockefellers, rogers, etc, that they continued to own all but a few shares of the entire capital. to prove that there could be no doubt of such continued ownership, the public's attention was repeatedly called to the fact that the standard oil company was the only great corporation which did not allow its shares to be traded in upon any of the stock-exchanges. as a matter of fact, though they are not traded in on the regular stock-exchanges, they are actively bought and sold daily on the new york "curb." at the height of the recent financial storm word went round that the crafts of three over-night-made multimillionaires, men foremost in the seventh group of "standard oil" votaries, were in the trough of the financial sea and headed for the breakers, which were already strewn with the wrecks of the people's savings. following closely on the heels of these stories came the astounding one that each of these enormously rich men had, in his endeavors to raise large amounts of cash, disclosed among his assets blocks of "standard oil" stock ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 shares each. hardly had the public heard this before all financialdom knew that the storm-tossed crafts had received succor, and that the crisis had passed. for one brief day the financial press of the country printed the item: "standard oil came to the rescue by buying for cash large blocks of standard oil stock which had long been held by this or that interest for investment," and no more was thought of the incident. even the most alert financiers never suspected that the most important stock secret of the age had been on the verge of becoming public property. planted deep in the minds of the public that watches the comings and goings of the street is the conviction that standard oil is the holy of holies among stocks. the world has been taught to believe that the owners of standard oil regard the shares of the great oil corporation as their most precious, most sacred possessions. yet while "standard oil" has been so scientifically spreading abroad the impression that the public would never be permitted to own standard oil stock, secretly it has been engaged in exchanging that stock for the securities of the people in the form of banks and trust companies, railroads, and other assets of definite value. so completely has "standard oil" pulled the wool over the eyes of the votaries of finance that there cannot be found in or out of wall street a single great financier who would not laugh to scorn the suggestion that "standard oil" is engaged in a campaign for the distribution of its standard oil stock to the public. yet pin your great financier down to the facts, and he'll admit that he himself has quite a block of the stock, and that institutions of which he is a director include among their assets in one form or another good-sized parcels of the inestimable security. but so completely are these very wise men held by the spells woven over them when for this or that special reason they were allowed as a favor to acquire their holdings, and so impressively have they been shown that their ownership in standard oil stock must be kept secret, that no suspicion has ever entered their minds that they were playing the part of lambs in its purchase. nor was the episode i have described above allowed to disturb their serenity. it soon became known to the innermost circle of wall street that the stock the three men had resold to "standard oil" represented the share of each in some of the gigantic deals to which he had been a party during the last ten years, and that with its acquirement had gone a pledge that it would always be kept in the purchaser's "tin box," and whenever inspected by "standard oil" would be free from "pinholes." and so, adroitly, dangerous deductions were prevented. for the uninstructed i may say that a capitalist's "tin box" is the receptacle for the stocks and bonds that largely represent his fortune, and pinholes in a stock certificate are in wall street conclusive evidence that such certificate has, at some period, temporarily passed into other's hands as collateral for loans, for there has been pinned to it a memorandum or note stating the details of the transaction in which its owner parted with it. pinholed securities are looked upon by the upper crust of big financiers with much the same horror as that with which members of the american social upper crust look upon their no. 10 boots and gloves--reminders of their peasant ancestry. but to return to "standard oil's" financial weavings: their next move was to use standard oil stock as the basis for loans, that is, as collateral for money borrowed from the banks, trust and insurance companies, and treasuries of other great corporations and estates. the money thus acquired was paid out to purchase the control of banks and trust and insurance companies in all parts of the united states, the standard oil ownership being represented by dummy directors and officers. the next move represents another of the dazzling devices of finance in which "standard oil" is adept, and brings the process of artificial expansion still further along. control of a certain number of these savings and national banks and trust and insurance companies having been acquired, the funds of each were so manipulated by depositing those of one institution with another, and the latter's in turn with the first, as to swell the deposits of all and create in all of them an apparently legitimate basis for increases of capitalization. at the same time there was shown an apparently legitimate necessity for the establishment of additional banking and trust companies, which were duly organized and their assets juggled around by the same process. the result of all this manipulation defies description. throughout the series of correlated institutions loans and deposits are multiplied in such an intricacy of duplication that only a few able experts, employed by the "system" because of their mathematical genius, are able to unravel the tangle to the extent of approximating the proportion the legitimate funds bear to those which have been created by the financial jugglery i have indicated. when "standard oil" had gathered into its net sufficient of the important private institutions of finance there still remained the federal government, the largest handler of money in the country. it was not hard for "standard oil" to introduce its expert votaries into the united states treasury and thus to steer the millions of the nation into the banks subject to the "system's" control. this accomplished, the structure was complete and the process of "making" dollars proceeded on a magnificent scale. that there may be no possible doubt in the minds of those of my readers who are unacquainted with such matters that i am citing every-day, actual happenings, i will tell just how the daly-haggin-tevis-anaconda-amalgamated transaction was worked out, showing that but for the existence of the national city bank of new york, or a like institution of the people, it could not have been brought about. when mr. rogers and william rockefeller "traded" with messrs. daly, haggin, and tevis for the anaconda stock, and with others for like stock or other properties which i have already named, the price agreed upon was $24,000,000 to daly, haggin, and tevis, and $15,000,000 to the others, or $39,000,000 in all. this was to be paid by "standard oil" and received by daly, haggin, and tevis, and the others, but one of the stipulations in the "trade" was that instead of the money's being paid to daly, haggin, and tevis, and others direct, it was to be credited to them on the books of the national city bank of new york and was to be, by agreement, not withdrawn from the bank before a given time, the bank agreeing that the new owners of this money should receive interest at a low rate upon it while it so remained deposited. at the same time the bank agreed to loan mr. rogers and william rockefeller the $39,000,000 at the same rate of interest upon the collateral which the $39,000,000 was used in purchasing. therefore the first part of the transaction was as follows: the bank, having $39,000,000 on hand belonging to the public in the form of savings deposited, or having a fictitious $39,000,000 in the form of book-keeping accounts made possible by the deposits of the public and the manipulation of the funds in other banks and trust and insurance companies belonging to the public or the government, caused an entry to be made in its books showing that this $39,000,000 had been loaned to mr. rogers and william rockefeller, and that they, having transferred it to daly, haggin, tevis, and others, were, upon the books of the bank, the real owners. the second part was the summoning into the city bank of certain "standard oil" lawyers, office-boys, and clerks, and the organization by them of the amalgamated copper company. the lawyers drew up the papers and the office-boys and clerks signed them. first, the papers certified that "whereas we (the office-boys and clerks) are desirous of taking advantage of the corporation laws of the state of new jersey, we (the said office-boys and clerks) do so take advantage of the said laws and form ourselves into the amalgamated copper company, which will have a capital of $75,000,000, and which will be allowed by said laws to own copper-mines and other things, to mine copper and other things, to manufacture, buy, sell, and trade in copper and other things, and to do numerous and variegated other things; and that whereas we (the said office-boys and clerks) have now become the amalgamated copper company, one of our number will purchase the entire capital stock of the said amalgamated copper company for $75,000,000 cash, which $75,000,000 cash we herewith certify to have been paid in the form of a check for $75,000,000, herewith delivered to the treasurer, one of our number, by the clerk who drew it; and the treasurer, herewith certifying that he has received the $75,000,000, herewith delivers unto said clerk the $75,000,000 capital stock of the amalgamated copper company, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) herewith certify that there is within the treasury of the amalgamated copper company $75,000,000, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) vote that it, the said $75,000,000, shall be used in the purchase of certain stocks and properties, and said certain stocks and properties shall be the same stocks and properties previously purchased by mr. rogers and william rockefeller, and now owned by them, and we (the said office-boys and clerks) herewith certify that we have paid from the treasury $75,000,000, that said $75,000,000 is in the form of a check, and said check is the one previously received, or its equivalent, by our treasurer, from one of our number, to wit, the clerk referred to earlier in these papers, and said $75,000,000 has been paid to henry h. rogers for his and william rockefeller's use." henry h. rogers, now having $75,000,000, where formerly he had stocks and properties which had cost him $39,000,000, and being desirous of investing it, purchased from the clerk the $75,000,000 of amalgamated stock which he, the clerk, had previously purchased from the treasury of the amalgamated company, mr. rogers promptly paying for said purchase with the $75,000,000 check or its equivalent, which has already done such yeoman service. the organization of the amalgamated copper company of new jersey now being complete, and the company being in possession of all the property which had formerly belonged to mr. rogers and william rockefeller, and which had cost them $39,000,000, and the clerk having again come into possession of his $75,000,000 check, and mr. rogers and william rockefeller being the sole owners of the $75,000,000 of amalgamated stock, the second part of this transaction was completed. the third began by the office-boys and clerks resigning from their positions as directors and officers of the amalgamated copper company of new jersey in favor of the more responsible and better known "standard oil" votaries. mr. rogers and william rockefeller then had the national city bank of new york offer for sale to the public the $75,000,000 of stock in such a way that, although it was then the private property of mr. rogers and william rockefeller, the public were led to believe it was the property of the amalgamated copper company. simultaneously, the national city bank of new york offered to loan the public its deposits at the rate of ninety cents on the dollar, on any amount of the amalgamated stock it, the public, purchased; whereupon the public, taking advantage of this offer, agreed to purchase from the national city bank of new york the $75,000,000 of stock for $75,000,000, thereby enabling it to certify upon its books that the $39,000,000 it had loaned to messrs. rogers and rockefeller had been repaid, and enabling mr. rogers and william rockefeller, after paying said debts to the national city bank of new york, to become the absolute owners of $36,000,000 of money, none of which they had owned before, and which they had "made" as absolutely as though they had coined it by permit from the government of the people who had parted with it.[3] the fourth part of the transaction began when months afterward the public, who had borrowed their money from the national city bank of new york and other banks and trust and insurance companies to buy amalgamated stock at 100 cents on the dollar, were compelled to repay it, and to do so were obliged to sell the amalgamated stock which they had purchased at $100 per share for the best price they could get, which was $33 per share; and if we suppose for a moment that the "standard oil," after repurchasing it at $33 per share, at a later day repeated the operation of selling it for $100 per share, it will be seen that "standard oil," the "private thing," would thereby "make" an additional $50,000,000, as absolutely as though they had been allowed by the government to coin it.[4] this explanation is not the creation of an extravagant fancy. it is not romance, but reality. the thing described was a supreme manifestation of the "system," of the perfect working of that tremendous financial machine which reaps, grinds, and harvests for its own benefit, the earned savings of the american people. in showing how these thirty-six millions were made in the brief space of this creature's (amalgamated copper's) life, i deal with reality and not romance; but let my readers for a moment give their imaginations play and picture to themselves one scene in this stupendous drama. a great room in the greatest banking house in america, if not in the world--silent, solemn--an atmosphere of impregnable rectitude--the solid furniture, the heavy carpets, the chill high walls, the massive desks, the impressive chairs, the great majestic table portentously suggestive of power. presto! the dim calm is broken; the air vibrates as when an ancient church is invaded by a swarm of vampire-bats. into the great room enter a group of men and a flock of youths, who settle in the impressive chairs round the majestic table. you wonder what is the motive of the assemblage. these grave lawyers, whose names are weighty in the nation's councils, and these gray-haired, dignified financiers might well be gathered to arbitrate a dispute involving empires; but why these office-boys and clerks, with their restless, surprised eyes and uneasy gestures? the flourishing of papers, the murmuring of voices in a confusion of "seventy-five million," "we buy," "we sell," "we are," "we will"--words, nothing but words; then silence as one reads from a stiff parchment certain resolutions which the suave gentleman with incisive steel-clicking manners, at the head of the table, puts to a vote. then these youths, whose souls are afire with the hope of a director's $5 gold fee, timidly sign the record, trembling the while lest a blot call down on them a scolding; a head clerk, whose fondest dream is a raise of salary as the result of coming under the master's eye in a seventy-five-million-dollar deal, affixes a seal, and there is an exchanging of thin slips of paper--checks--dollars--magically "made dollars." exit office-boys and lawyers. the door closes--silence again. then the air vibrates with the sound of a hearty hand-slap and the genial, whole-souled greeting of the "master" to his partner. "william, i feel as though i had done an honest day's labor! thirty-six million dollars 'made' and no hitch, no delay!" then follows the partner's mild answer: "yes, harry, but don't forget james' and the others' shares will shrink it up quite a bit." thirty-six million dollars for _one honest day's labor_! thirty-six million dollars--and alaska cost us but seven millions and spain relinquished to us her claims on the philippines for only twenty millions. thirty-six million dollars!--more than a hundred times as much as george washington, thomas jefferson, and "abe" lincoln together secured for the patriotic labors of their lifetimes. and this vast sum was taken from the people to enrich men whose coffers were already, as the results of similar operations, so full of dollars that neither they nor their children, nor their children's children could count them--as the people count their savings, a dollar at a time--as thoughtlessly taken as are the apples that the school-boy steals after he has eaten so many that he can eat no more. a thousand times have i tried to figure out in my mind what worlds of misery such a sum of millions might allay if issued by a government and intelligently distributed among a people--and do my readers know that never in the world's recorded history has any nation felt itself rich enough to devote thirty-six millions to the cause of charity--even in the midst of the most awful calamities of fire, flood, war, or pestilence? on the other hand, i have had to know about the horrors, the misfortunes, the earthly hell, which were the awful consequences of the appropriation of this vast amount. i have had to know about the convicts, the suicides, the broken hearts, the starvation and wretchedness, the ruined bodies and lost souls which strewed the fields of the "system's" harvest. pondering all these things, i have ceased to wonder at the deep murmurs of discontent that are rising, rising to my ears from all parts of the continent. can it be that a just god suffers the sons and daughters of some of us to eke out a bare existence as the best reward of earnest effort and sterling worth, and at the same time rewards these other men with $36,000,000 for one day's labor? is this the freedom which our fathers and our sons died on many a bloody, hard-fought field to preserve? i am conscious of a haunting fear that these men and women may not always be patient, may not always be put off with skilled evasion or slippery subterfuge, and for one brief moment i see visions of a marching people, bearing aloft grisly heads on gory poles, and hear above the low, bestial murmur of the mob the cry for bread and for revenge. and then i remember that this is _america_, not france; that our laws are strong--if but the people are aroused to see them obeyed; that our prisons are ample, even though they be for the present filled with petty rascals who can do but little harm though turned loose to make room for the real scoundrels who are undermining the foundations of our republic. footnotes: [3] it must be remembered that the amalgamated company never owned all the capital stock of the anaconda, but, on the contrary, only a few shares over 600,000, which represented the ownership of the haggin-tevis-daly people, and which they had turned in for a lump sum before the market price had advanced. the control of the parrott, owned by the amalgamated company, was purchased for a lump amount from franklin farrell and his associates for the sum of $4,000,000-odd, not $12,190,000. the colorado smelting and mining company was also purchased in a lumped batch of senator wolcott, not at $7,000,000, but for $2,000,000-odd, while the tremendous advance in the price of anaconda in the market from 30 to 70 was due to the operations of messrs. rogers and rockefeller for their private account, out of which they made a large additional profit. there can be no possibility of mistake or successful misrepresentation of these figures: first, because the anaconda figures are known not only to mr. rogers, william rockefeller, and myself, but to j. b. haggin, and to the estates of tevis and marcus daly; the colorado figures, to associates of senator wolcott and to his estate; and the parrott figures, to mr. farrell who received the money, and to a large number of those to whom he had to account; and, further, these figures will all be demonstrated in open court in suits outside of any with which i have to do, which are now being brought or are pending. [4] as a matter of fact, the people lost even more than thirty-six millions of dollars on this part of the amalgamated transaction, because "standard oil" did not sell all the 750,000 shares at $100 per share ($75,000,000) at that time. they retained two-thirds of them, which at a later date they fed out to the public at $115 per share, and at a still later date they took them back at $33 per share. chapter vii juggling with millions of the people's money for the purposes of the transaction i have just described the machinery of a great bank or trust company was essential. the vast profit gained here was absolutely "made" through the instrumentality of the national city bank of new york, but some other tractable institution would have been equally efficient. in order that my readers may focus such great financial concerns as this national city bank, i give right here brief résumés of its career and resources and of those of two of its affiliated institutions: national city bank new york city james stillman, _president_. the "city bank" was chartered by the new york legislature in 1812, and reorganized as a national bank july 17, 1865. the capital paid in was $1,000,000. moses taylor held the office of president for thirty-four years, and died in 1892, when percy r. pyne, son-in-law of moses taylor, was elected president and held office until the election of james stillman, of woodward & stillman, cotton merchants, when the capital stock of the bank was increased to $10,000,000, and again increased to $25,000,000. the sworn report of the officers and directors filed with the controller of the currency shows that the condition of the bank, january, 1904, was: resources loans and discounts $114,507,919.20 overdrafts secured and unsecured 162.90 united states bonds to secure circulation 3,220,000.00 united states bonds to secure united states deposits 12,937,000.00 united states bonds on hand 60,120.00 united states bond account 4,450,000.00 premiums on united states bonds 1,354,013.00 stocks, securities, etc. 16,709,241.62 banking-house furniture and fixtures 200,000.00 due from national banks (not reserve agents) 4,727,461.12 due from state banks and bankers 644,288.80 exchange for clearing-house 31,000,935.34 checks and other cash items 798,843.22 notes of other national banks 209,015.00 fractional paper currency, nickels, and cents 684.63 lawful money reserve in bank, viz.: specie $36,928,350.00 legal tender notes 7,100,000.00 44,028,350.00 redemption fund with u. s. treasurer (5% of circulation) 161,000.00 due from u. s. treasurer other than 5% redemption fund 204,105.95 total $235,213,140.78 liabilities capital stock paid in $25,000,000.00 surplus fund 8,900,000.00 undivided profits, less expenses and taxes paid 8,503,038.26 _national bank notes outstanding_ 3,180,000.00 _due to other national banks_ $36,469,683.95 _due to state banks and bankers_ 5,903,473.87 _due to trust companies and savings-banks_ 29,210,461.00 provident reserve fund 30,000.00 dividends unpaid 519.00 _individual deposits subject to check_ 82,576,884.06 demand certificates of deposit 43,790.00 _certified checks_ 10,752,671.01 _cashier's checks outstanding_ 7,631,619.78 _united states deposits_ 12,937,000.00-185,556,102.67 united states bonds 4,155,000.00 total $235,213,140.78 the new york life insurance company the company was incorporated by special act of the new york legislature in 1841. it is the third largest insurance company in the united states. the assets of the company january 1, 1892, were $125,947,290, and income $31,854,194. in 1904 the assets were $352,652,048; income, $88,269,531. the national shawmut bank, of boston this institution was incorporated in 1898 with a paid-in capital of $3,000,000. in 1904 its total resources, also liabilities, were $63,471,639, of the same general character as those of the national city bank of new york. a calm examination of these figures, illuminated by the explanation of the "system's" methods i have previously given, will awaken the american people to a comprehension of what use "high finance" makes of the savings of the public intrusted to it for legitimate investment. nor must it be supposed for one minute that the insurance company and the boston bank which i have used for illustrations differ in any way from scores and scores of their kind which are as absolutely "steered" in their operations by the national city bank of new york as the national city bank of new york is absolutely "steered" by its president, james stillman, or as james stillman is absolutely "steered" by "standard oil," the private thing, or as "standard oil," the private thing, is absolutely "steered" by its supreme heads, henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and john d. rockefeller. and if any doubt remains in the minds of my readers of the absolute power of "standard oil," the private thing, to "make" dollars at will, or of the dead-sure working of their "heads-i-win-and-tails-you-lose" gambling game, i ask them carefully to analyze the above statements in connection with the facts in the amalgamated transaction which just precede them. fourteen years ago the national city bank passed out of the legitimate management of old-fashioned business men of the moses taylor stamp and into the hands of the "system," the private thing. then its capital was $1,000,000; it is to-day $25,000,000, and after having paid out millions in dividends and other profits it has, in addition, a surplus of $16,000,000, and it has the absolute power to juggle with a total of $235,000,000, $36,000,000 of which belong to other national banks, $6,000,000 to state banks and bankers, $29,000,000 to trust companies and savings-banks, $82,000,000 to individual depositors, $10,000,000 to the holders of certified checks, $7,000,000 to the holders of cashiers' checks, $13,000,000 to the government directly, and $4,000,000 in government bonds, to say nothing of scores of hundreds of millions more through its affiliated institutions. and all this juggling is done in such a fearless manner that we find it in the amalgamated deal loaning in one transaction an amount so great that if it had been lost, the bank's entire capital would have been more than completely wiped out. that my readers may not base their conclusions upon this one transaction of this mighty engine of the "system," vicious as it shows on the surface and destructive as it really was to the thousands who were parties to it, _i will later in this story show the national city bank in another section of the amalgamated deal, doing things which in intention and in result were so much bolder and grosser that this transaction will by comparison appear pure and legitimate_. during the past thirty years the american people have become so used to enormous figures in connection with corporations and trusts that they have not stopped to discriminate between different classes of fortunes nor to figure out that fortunes of certain kinds are absolute self-evidence that they were acquired by illegal methods, and that if allowed to multiply the people will surely be enslaved and the republic destroyed. for instance, there are in new york city alone dozens of national and savings-banks and insurance and trust companies which control money enough to make them practically omnipotent in whatever direction their controllers exert their power. i will name but seven, showing what enormous amounts their managers control; and let it be borne in mind that all such institutions are linked together by the "system" as firmly and surely as any human things can be linked. the equitable, mutual, and new york life insurance companies have a combined capital of $1,200,000,000 of assets, a yearly income of $230,000,000, and $4,500,000,000 of insurance in force; the national city bank, united states trust, mercantile trust, and union trust companies $30,000,000 capital, and $45,000,000 surplus, and they have the vast sum of $450,000,000 of the people's money to juggle with. chapter viii "standard oil" invests "made dollars" in gas and now i shall have to go back a bit in my story. after "standard oil" had firmly established, through the agency of the curb,[5] the value of the 1,000,000 shares of standard oil, the corporation seller of oil, at between $600,000,000 and $800,000,000, and had used it as collateral in securing control of the four classes of money institutions i have named--the national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies--it proceeded to use the funds thus controlled to manipulate the stocks of great public corporations for its own profit, forming them into trusts with capitals far beyond their values, represented by new stocks and bonds, which it sold to the public at prices aggregating a hundred to five hundred per cent. over the old capitalization. it then engaged in a wonderfully clever campaign to work off on the people--directly, the very rich people, but indirectly, the people as a whole--through institutions which exist because of the people's savings--the $600,000,000 to $800,000,000 of standard oil stock which had at this stage served the principal use for which it had been created. it must be borne in mind that while "standard oil" is grinding out "made dollars," its owners never for an instant lose sight of that dim, distant day of reckoning when the people will awaken to their losses. the "rogerses" and the "rockefellers" know well that the public cannot always be kept in ignorance of the methods of the "system" by which it has been plundered, and that once it is in possession of the secret of how the savings of the many have become the property of the few, there may be reprisals of such a nature as will compel the "system" to yield up its gains. they know that when that day comes it will not be best for them to have their enormous fortunes in such get-at-able property as real estate, in which so many of the legitimately acquired american fortunes are invested. in a quiet way, therefore, they have put the bulk of their "made dollars" into unrecorded forms, such as government bonds; bonds and preferred stocks of what they consider non-duplicatable franchise corporations such as railroads, which require rights of way; into municipal public service enterprises, such as gas companies, the existence of which depends upon rights of way for pipes; and into the stocks of banks and trust and insurance companies, which they believe the people will never dare attack because their savings are largely deposited in them. i would not have my readers think that the principal motive actuating "standard oil" in parting with its standard oil stock is doubt of its present intrinsic worth, for such is not the case. the masters of "standard oil" are very able, far-seeing men, and they know that so thoroughly have the american people been educated to the crimes which created standard oil, the crimes by which it has existed and does exist, that no passage of time or "pious-ing" of latter-day methods, will ever blind them to its iniquities, and that when reprisal day comes, as come it surely will, the first thing the people in their frenzy will look for will be standard oil. this is the reason which, more than any other, influences them in selling to others an enterprise which has up to the present time not only enjoyed tremendous prosperity, but which has as yet met with no obstacle or hindrance. of all forms of tangible investment "standard oil" has looked most favorably upon gas stocks, and its secret devices have been worked overtime in consolidating gas companies throughout the united states. in a general way, as manufacturers of illuminating oil, "standard oil" had early become familiar with the problems of supplying large communities--cities--with gas light; and with the advent of water-gas, as sellers of petroleum they controlled an important factor in the production of that volatile commodity. all the talent of the "system," trained in "handling" municipal authorities, came into play in this big new business of lighting cities--a business which perforce became a monopoly as soon as the powerful tentacles grasping it were recognized as "standard oil." at the time my story opens (1894) "standard oil" had already captured the gas-lighting corporations of certain of the great cities of the united states, including the immensely rich ones of new york (directly), philadelphia and chicago (indirectly); and for two years previously had been besieging the several independent brooklyn companies for the purpose of consolidating them into a single gigantic corporation. this project it has since accomplished. its intention is to weld this corporation with the great one that already holds the monopoly of manhattan. the task of diagramming a territory for invasion is one after henry h. rogers' own heart. his campaigns are planned with napoleonic power and foresight. when the capture of brooklyn was decided on, the several corporations to be subdued were "sized up" as to their revenues and liabilities; the resources of their stockholders were studied out, and a plan of action organized to separate each one from his shares at "hard-pan" prices. in the "standard oil" armory there are many instruments of "persuasion," and he is indeed a hardy fellow who can resist the various "trying-out" processes to which mutineers are subjected. this obstinate capitalist will be summarily knocked on the head; that other inveigled into a dark corner by a strong-arm man; another group owe money to one of the "system's" banks and a brief spell on the financial rack will weaken their grip. sooner or later all succumb. while such details as these were being attended to, lines were being strung here and there to bring about the passage by the city of brooklyn and the legislature of new york state of ordinances and laws which should allow this and compel that to be done, and so rivet the various links of the great venture. while in the midst of this campaign, to which henry h. rogers' genius, matured in many a hard-fought business battle, foresaw an early and easy triumphal termination, there came athwart his victorious path a financial guerilla, "balloony," mysterious, yet as sticky as a jelly-fish, who was destined to exert a most maleficent influence on his after-life. fate hangs no red lights at the cross-roads of a man's career. no "pricking of his thumbs," no strange portents warned the master of "standard oil" that the impudent philadelphia swashbuckler who dared interfere with the execution of his plan to fetter the "system's" yoke to the necks of the citizens of brooklyn was the factor that destiny had chosen to shape the ends that he had rough-hewn. the financial guerilla was j. edward o'sullivan addicks, votary of rotten finance, perpetual candidate for the united states senate, wholesale debaucher of american citizenship and all-round corrupter of men--j. edward o'sullivan addicks, a corporation political trickster, who has done more to hold up american laws, american elective franchises, and american corporations to the scorn of the civilized world than any other man of this or any previous age. footnotes: [5] the new york "curb" is the latest invention in finance, coming closely upon the heels of the invention of trusts, and it holds the same relation to the new york stock exchange that private things hold to corporations. before a stock can be bought and sold on the new york stock exchange, there must be submitted to the governors a description of what the stock is, which must be of such tangibility that any one who cares to investigate may find there every detail and particular of the property represented, set forth with the utmost exactitude. but on the "curb" stocks can be traded in without responsible sponsors or descriptions that mean anything. in other words, a stock may be bought and sold there, which is so vague and indefinite as to be little more than a name, and it is through the "curb" that the value of "standard oil" stock is established, for it is daily bought and sold there at the steadily held prices of 650 to 800, and the press of the world makes daily record of these prices. chapter ix a votary of the "system" the "system" has all sorts of votaries. about j. edward o'sullivan addicks there is nothing that remotely suggests coworkers of the types of mr. rogers and william rockefeller. a description that left him in any part a duplicate of either would do him and them a grievous wrong. henry h. rogers and william rockefeller have two sides, their social side and their business side. socially, they are good men; in business they work evil. j. edward o'sullivan addicks is a bad man, socially, in business, in every way. the term "bad man" is used advisedly. my idea of a "bad man" is that like a bad dollar he is a counterfeit. a counterfeit has all the appearances of reality, and is yet devoid of its properties and virtues. so with addicks. it is easy to find men who will declare by all that is sacred that henry h. rogers is one of the best fellows in the world, though as many more will as earnestly proclaim him the fiend incarnate. about addicks, among those who know the man, there is but one opinion. i have yet to meet the man, woman, or child who would say aught of addicks, after a month's acquaintance, other than, "don't mention him! he is the limit." and it will be said with the calm of dispassionate conviction, as one might speak of a stuffed tiger in a dime-museum jungle. here we have a man without a heart, without a soul, and, i believe, absolutely without conscience--the type of man who even his associates feel is likely to bring in after their deaths queer bills against their estates as an offset for what he owes them; the type of man whose promise is just as good as his bond, and whose bond is so near his promise as to make it absolutely immaterial to him which you take. exhibited in the side show of one of the great circuses some years ago was a strange creature which, for lack of a better name, its owner and the public dubbed, "a what is it?" this freak had the semblance of humanity, and yet was not human. all its functions and feelings reversed the normal. tickle it and it would cry bitterly; pinch or torture it and it would grin rapturously; when starved it repelled food, and when overfed it was ravenous for more. it had heart-beats but no heart. the public gave it up. the public would long ago have given up j. edward o'sullivan addicks if he would have let them. illustration is better than explanation, and perhaps i can more graphically set j. edward o'sullivan addicks before my readers by a few incidents which show his contradictory characteristics in action than by verbal diagrams, however laborious. once upon a time addicks, entering delmonico's for dinner, stumbled on a couple of newsboys at the entrance. one, broken-hearted, was being consoled by the other. addicks, observing the deep sobs, asked: "what's the matter with you, bub?" the consoler explained that his chum had lost $2, his day's earnings and capital, and "his mudder--his fadder's dead--an' de baby'll git trun outter de tenement." addicks, without more ado, slipped the suffering young news-merchant a bill which his friends supposed was $2 to replace the lost funds. as they were taking off their coats in the hall, however, the little newsboy pushed his way in with: "say, boss, did yer mean ter guv me de twenty?" addicks nodded a good-natured assent, and his friends registered silently a white mark to his score, and felt that, after all, somewhere beneath the surface he was more of the right sort than they had given him credit for being. after dinner, as they left, the newsboy again approached. "'scuse me, boss, but me chum 'd like ter t'ank yer too. i'm goin' ter give him a v outter it." addicks looked at the boy in his mildly cold way and said: "let me have that bill. i will change it for you." the boy gave it up, and addicks, after methodically placing it in his purse, handed him back a $2 bill with: "that's what you lost, isn't it? and you" (to the second little fellow, who by this time had mapped out visions of new duds for the kids and a warm seat in the gallery of a bowery theatre), "you didn't lose anything, did you? well, both of you run along now!" his friends looked at each other, and from their slates wiped away the white mark and replaced it with a deep, broad, black one. and yet addicks had made good the loss--done a good deed, but in an--addicks way. i should perhaps remark that j. edward o'sullivan addicks has never smoked, nor used a swear-word, nor taken liquor in any form. during the addicks gas campaign in boston one of his lieutenants demanded as his share of the deal a large amount of money, which he claimed addicks was withholding from him. addicks refused to pay. friends and associates urged him to settle. while yet refusing, he agreed to meet this man at one of the leading hotels in the presence of counsel and lieutenants. the interview was a hot one. addicks surprised all by his absolute fearlessness in the face of a savage attack, which culminated in the production of a document signed by certain massachusetts legislators, wherein they receipted for the bribe money addicks had paid for their votes. the man who claimed he was being cheated threatened this would be laid before the grand jury the following day. all the witnesses were dumfounded at the situation and in concert begged addicks to hush the matter up by paying what was claimed. "gentlemen," said this great financier, "my honor, my business and my personal honor, has been assailed, and rather than submit to this outrage i would die! i now ask you all to bear witness that under no circumstances will i pay to this man a single dollar!" and he indignantly left the meeting. while his counsel and associates were appalled at what might be the outcome, they admired addicks' manly pluck, and asked themselves if they had not, after all, been mistaken in their estimates of his courage and principle. in the middle of the same night, the man with the document was surprised by a telegram reading: "meet me in jersey city to-morrow sure with paper; keep absolutely secret." next day in jersey they met, and addicks simply said: "there is the full amount. give me the paper. you don't suppose i would compound a felony in the state in which it was committed, and before witnesses, do you?" in the national election of 1896 j. edward o'sullivan addicks was a candidate for the united states senate in delaware, and for a variety of reasons was anxious to secure a republican victory. within the state, however, the real contest was not over national issues, but to obtain control of the legislature which in the following january had to elect a united states senator. there were three factions, the democrats and two wings of the republicans, the addicks and anti-addicks parties, the latter calling themselves "regulars." on election day addicks used an even $100,000 buying votes, and that evening delaware was safe for mckinley--both the "regulars" and the men whom addicks' money bought having voted for a republican president. but it was early bruited around that if the vote of sussex county (there are three counties in delaware--newcastle, kent, and sussex) were allowed to stand as received, all addicks' efforts to control the legislature would have been fruitless and his "made dollars" expended for nothing. the ex-flour dealer of philadelphia was not satisfied to accept the people's sacred verdict. he quickly called his lieutenants together, mapped out a campaign of almost reckless audacity and daring, and assigned his best men to its execution. the ballot-boxes with their contents were in the sheriff's charge and stored under lock and key in the court-house. the sheriff was an addicks tool. at midnight he turned over his charge to one of the would-be statesman's trustiest lieutenants, who, with the aid of a lantern and a slip of paper containing the directions, sorted over the legal ballots, threw some out, and put in new ones. when another sun arose the dastardly outrage upon the american elective franchise had been completed, and addicks was busily scheming to carry out the remainder of the plot. on the declaration which he or one of his associates would make, that there had been fraud in sussex county, the government at washington must send on an investigating committee to whom it would be asserted that the voting lists had been doctored by the democrats. to prove it the boxes would be opened, the ballots counted, and lo! the villany of the democrats would be, beyond contradiction, demonstrated. but the scheme was an addicks scheme. had it been the plot of any other man with the brains, the nerve, and the lack of principle to concoct it and set it in motion, inevitably it would have been carried through to the designed conclusion. as it was, this is what happened: the lieutenant who had charge of the actual commission of the crime thoughtlessly chuckled over the details of it with another, and this other "in the presence of witnesses" laughingly congratulated addicks on his plan's success. what was the astonishment of the group to hear the candidate for the senate say: "gentlemen, i could not countenance such a transaction. this is the first i have heard of it, and it is so outrageously criminal that i refuse to allow it to proceed further. there will be no investigation, and if it is a fact that those ballots have been changed in the box, the ones who changed them shall receive no benefit from their nefarious work. i have spoken." mind you, every member of the group was a party to the scheme and had been carefully rehearsed in the part assigned him by addicks himself, but alone, that is, without witnesses; nevertheless so earnest and apparently honest was the man in his protest that for an instant they doubted their senses--until they remembered it was addicks. the investigation was never held, and to this day addicks' lieutenants, especially he who did the midnight work and who still lives in the peaceful state of delaware, turn with disgust when addicks' daring is mentioned. it should be explained here that, whenever addicks plans an illegal transaction--one for which he might be made civilly or criminally liable--he invariably coaches each of his accomplices alone, "without witnesses." and when it becomes necessary in developing the plot to have a confab, at which the several parties to the proceeding must meet, addicks is most careful to preserve a legal semblance of ignorance of incriminating details. at intervals, when a danger-place in the discussion is approaching, he will get up from his seat and, moving to the door, will say: "gentlemen, halt right there, until i step out of the room; tap at the door when you are over that bad spot, and i will return." addicks' "wait until i step out of the room" is as familiar among his coworkers as the "i am going upstairs" is among the "standard oil" family. try to conjure before your mind's eye a picture of the anomalous character these instances suggest. i'll warrant your mental image as little resembles the original addicks as mr. hyde did dr. jekyll in the story. he does not look the part assigned him here, nor any other part for that matter. i saw him coming toward me on state street one summer day some years ago, a tall, wiry man, in a white-flannel suit, perfect in fit and spotless as snow, wearing a fine panama hat. this was in the period before panamas were commonly worn. he was to the life the elegant and luxurious southern planter of ante-bellum days. six months afterward in about the same place i saw approaching me a splendid person in rich sable outer garments who looked for all the world like an exiled russian grand duke. it was addicks in winter. you will not surprise his secret from that pleasant, rather ambiguous, but square-jawed face, nor from the mouth hidden under a long, drooping, gray, military mustache. his is a good-sized, well-shaped head, you might say, and the gray, shallow eyes that look out at you are almost merry in their glances. but they are inscrutable eyes which seem to have a challenge in their gaze, a sort of "look-me-over-as-long-as-you-like-and-you'll-never-guess-what's-under-the-surface" expression that is baffling and provocative. yet this sybarite, this daring coward, this stingy prodigal, this sincere hypocrite, this extraordinary blending of contradictory qualities, is the man who from 1887 to 1892 made boston look like the proverbial country gawk at circus-time. power the man certainly has, and of a distinct quality, yet his intimates cannot explain the reason of their obedience to him. after a brief acquaintance he is revealed as the very soul of insincerity--he "works" his friends, he pays toll to his enemies, he frankly shows himself without the sense of moral obligation. i believe his talent resides in his capacity to select the proper type of man to "make rich" in the illicit schemes his abnormal mind conceives. these coworkers of his are of different grades; some have a super-abundance of cash; others a desire to get it--in common are their lack of principle and dearth of brains. addicks cannot do business long with men of real ability, nor does he understand them, whereas he can read the minds of his ordained victims as if they were an open book. the big men who have encountered or been associated with addicks are prone to characterize him as a mountebank, a joker, or a chump. chapter x addicks comes to boston j. edward o'sullivan addicks was born in philadelphia in 1841, and was in the eighties plodding along the ordinary, uneventful path of a seller of flour to the people of that city which since the death of william penn holds the record for the highest and densest percentage of sleep per capita of any english-speaking community. in the eighties two things happened that changed the whole course of j. edward o'sullivan addicks' life. some one invented water-gas and "let in" addicks on the invention; and the philadelphia branch of the "standard oil," represented by widener, elkins, and dolan, "trustified" the gas companies of the city of chicago, which enabled addicks to "hold up" the "trustification" until dolan and dolan's associates paid him the sum of $300,000 for the instrument with which he had done the holding up, $10,000 worth of the stock of one of the necessary chicago companies. the law of compensation, which gets in its deadly work on all the prettiest plans of man, but decreed that what goes up must come down when it ceases going up. it has a shrewd trick of grafting sorrows on our joys, and of handicapping success with discomfiting conditions. the favorite of fortune whose feet have fallen in pleasant places sooner or later stubs his toe. addicks' first "made dollars" certainly came easy--so easy, indeed, that those who watched his early career marvelled at his success; but nowhere on god's footstool is there to-day a more terrible illustration of the inevitable workings of the law of compensation than the present standing of j. edward o'sullivan addicks affords. the thief whose first excursion into a wayfarer's pocket is rewarded with the equivalent of days and nights of honest labor will surely be convinced thereafter of the superiority of theft over toil as a means of money-getting. invariably the manufacturer of "made dollars," after his first coup, forsakes forever after the cold arithmetic of commerce for the rule of guess, dream, hope, and "i will," which constitutes the mathematics of high finance. addicks' first "made dollars" came with such magical ease that there awoke in his slumbering substitute for a soul a disgust for those prosaic pursuits at which one could never, try how one might, make more than four by the addition of two and two. he probably argued to himself: "why should i work in the flour business when i know a way of getting overnight more than i can make out of flour in a lifetime? if people are so simple in guarding their savings that i can by a trick take away from them enormous wealth without the slightest danger to my own safety or my profit, even if detected, why should i not devote my life to such healthful and profitable occupation?" the logic of the proposition was convincing. accepting its conclusions, j. edward o'sullivan addicks, of philadelphia, embarked on his career. soon afterward he discovered gas in boston. this was in 1887. equipped with his "made dollars" for capital, his impressive name, sublime effrontery, and a pedigree free from anything suggestive of his new purpose in life, the ex-flour merchant "lit" into our everything-figured-out-ahead-and-every-promise-made-taken-at-par town of boston. to appreciate the lights and shadows of this event, one should know boston and, at the same time, addicks. every country boy will remember tom hood's poem beginning: i remember, i remember the house where i was born, with the little lattice window where the sun came peeping in at morn, and can recall milking-time in july or august when, sitting on the rail-fence surrounding the barn-yard, he watched the pigeons snipping up grain, the old hen scratching up worms for the chicks, the ducks and the drakes and the geese and the ganders proudly waddling back and forth, among and around the fluffy ducklings and goslings, and the bull-pup sound asleep by the side of the tortoise-shell cat. probably he will think of some particular milking-time when the calm, contented serenity of the barn-yard was suddenly disturbed by the unexpected descent in its midst of a neighboring peacock, who, apparently unconscious of the consternation produced by his entry, proceeded proudly to spread his dazzling plumage to convince every one, from uncle cy, on the milking-stool, and mild-eyed bess, down to the white fan-tailed dove, that he was--it. conjure up the picture--the peacock at milking-time in the farm-yard; thus addicks came to boston--though it is far from my intention to identify the bucolic background i have drawn with the hub of the universe. boston, up to this time, had been singularly free from the mushroom variety of millionaire which had sprung up overnight in such numbers in new york and philadelphia. proudly defiant of a product so alien to all her traditions, her citizens would have sworn that no votary of modern high finance could exist over one curfew-toll within her gates. for boston had her own financial eminence, of a character in keeping with the chill conditions of conservatism and rectitude appropriate to the metropolis of the new england conscience. she had her stock exchange, her numerous great corporations, her scores of single and multimillionaires, and it was her boast that her capital had played the greatest legitimate part in the country's growth. she had furnished a large percentage of the money which had created our vast western railway system; she had found and made the superb copper-mines of michigan and montana, and in all parts of the land branches of her sturdy institutions were vitally assisting the miracle of america's development. notwithstanding what these wide-flung enterprises imply of commercial push and audacity, boston, at the time addicks discovered gas there, was one of the most trusting wealth-investing communities in the world. she had her simple rules of business conduct which years of usage had consecrated into all-powerful precedent, but her brokers and capitalists, however fearful of all things quick or tricky, had never previously figured as candidates for what in western parlance are described as "come-ons." chapter xi how addicks captured boston gas at the time addicks "lit" in boston that city numbered among her proudest possessions several extremely rich gas companies, and they were owned by her "best people." to do business with boston's "best people" is no easy task, and up to the advent of addicks, to do business with her "best people" without doing it through others of her "best people" who could absolutely vouch for you was an unheard-of thing. the manner in which the ex-flour merchant of philadelphia managed to slip by the barriers and into the heart of our blue-blooded citadel affords the most unparalleled example of audacity of which i know. in many ways boston is unlike other great american cities. some of her institutions through antiquity or association have acquired a positive sanctity. pedigree is important. the average inhabitant spends much of his time watching the grandson of his neighbor's father, to see the old man's characteristics crop out in him. the boy's failures will be remembered against his own offspring fifty years hence. it is a city of long memories and of traditions. in 1887 boston, as now, consisted largely of her traditions, her blue-glass window-panes and her somerset club. now the distinction, sanctity, and antiquity of the somerset club are quite beyond peradventure. since boston has been boston she has had her somerset club, a club distinctively of grandfathers, fathers, and sons. the right to membership in the somerset club is as much the inheritance of a somerset man's son as his name or as the proud title which always will be found affixed to his signature when he reaches man's estate, "of boston." for a man to get into the somerset without long years of waiting and intense scrutiny, not only of his own record but of his parents' before him, is a rare event. yet the name of j. edward o'sullivan addicks was up for full membership, with boston's picked best for his sponsors, a few days after he "lit." how addicks got upon the somerset list boston will never tell, and the mention of the fact nowadays within the club-house will empty its sideboard instanter. the campaign of arrangement for the advent of addicks in boston was more elaborate, more astute and expensive than was ever organized for exploitation of prima donna or great pianist. for months an advance agent had been preparing the way for his chief's arrival in a blaze of glory. there was talk in the papers and among the financiers about the wonderful water-gas process which enormously enhanced the profits of gas-making, and such rumor was always linked with the name of the brilliant philadelphia gas king, for so the press had already dubbed him. a wonder and magic immensely provocative of curiosity were woven about the identity of this j. edward o'sullivan addicks, who it was said might be persuaded to visit boston to work marvels with the stocks that had been "in the family" long before the present generation could remember. when it was sure that the great man was really coming the agent sought the advice of boston's best in selecting quarters for him. in the tudor, a beautiful family hotel adjoining the somerset club on beacon hill, a magnificent suite of apartments was taken, and though the great man could remain in boston but a brief space, the furniture, the hangings, and even the carpets were all changed for him. eminent financial tricksters have various ways of handling their victims. some believe that the most skilful mode of attack is the slow, confident, dignified approach which allays the subject's fears by its solemn display of deliberation. others (and addicks is of this creed) are persuaded of the superior efficacy of the "rush-in-and-drag-out" method. the subject, they say, "gives up" more and quicker when the hurry call is sounded. it was a winter's day when addicks "lit" in boston, and circumstances had arisen, the suave advance agent told various boston's best, with whom he was in consultation, that would make his chief's stay much briefer than either had anticipated. so when the great man arrived at the club just before dinner, quite an array of important people were congregated there. addicks ran the gantlet of the critical glances of as critical a group as you'll find on earth, and the word went round--no one could remember afterward who started it--"typical southern gentleman! breeding sticking out everywhere!" so well had the astute advance agent done his work that a little dinner was arranged on the spot, and addicks made such rapid progress with these reserved and conservative bostonians that, by the time coffee was served, conversation had reached the stage where it was natural for him to send the waiter to the coat-room for his bunch of gas papers. the emissary returned bringing the fur overcoat with which addicks always envelops himself in chilly weather. addicks searched the pockets, and, apparently to his surprise, discovered that they did not contain the required documents, but where they should have been he found a small bale of 1,000-dollar government bonds, containing, one of the party said afterward, at least one hundred certificates. "how careless of my secretary!" said addicks, nonchalantly replacing the packet in the pocket and motioning the waiter to take the overcoat away again. it was, of course, due to the admirable work of his advance agent that these monte cristo effects impressed the cultured little set who would have laughed to scorn such a display on the part of one of their own kind. in addicks it was the dazzling eccentricity of the wonder-worker, and so excusable; and the free, flash, careless exhibit of wealth made the man's conversation and subsequent demands seem natural. next morning, in discussing the work of the previous evening with his lieutenant, addicks delivered himself of the wise remark: "finance, my boy, like theatricals, is dependent for success on the staging, more even than on the actor. my experience has shown me that men the world over are alike--if you properly surround them, they will hiss at hissing time and clap at applauding time; yes, upon the way you stage your finance plays depends their success." the fact is that by no other method could this scenic artist of finance have set his plans moving so rapidly. the man had calculated to a nicety on the romantic cupidity he aroused. after dinner, addicks at once "got down to business": "gentlemen, my project is as simple as it is feasible and conservative, for i will touch nothing but conservative enterprises. gentlemen, you have three great gas companies supplying this great city with light, the boston, roxbury, and south boston. they are worth at the present time about five million dollars. i am going to buy them and spend three or four millions more on a new company; then i shall consolidate the four and turn them from coal into water-gas companies, which will sell gas to your people at less than they now pay, and at the same time make a lot of money for you and for myself. what do you say?" this was certainly quick action. boston's best was breathless for a minute. then some one suggested that in so weighty a matter it would be necessary for solicitors to investigate, for the families owning the stock to be consulted and agree before a proper basis could be arrived at on which to dispose of their holdings. addicks' genius was equal to the occasion. "i regret, gentlemen, any seeming haste, but this is the situation: i am going to invest fifteen or twenty millions, or perhaps thirty or forty, in city gas properties, and as the project will require quite a bit of financiering, i have got to round it up at once, in time to slip over to london to lay it before my associates, ----, ----, and ----" (naming some of the great english lords of finance), "with whom you, gentlemen, are probably well acquainted. i think you will, after you have given the matter a little thought, agree with me that it would be a mistake to postpone the conversion of these magnificent boston plants to the water-gas system until after other cities i have in mind are reconstructed. you see we can turn over but one city at a time, the system being new and competent engineers and builders few." the painful thought took shape in the minds of the distinguished little gathering that if they were not careful, monte cristo might actually slip out of their town without working any of the promised golden marvels. "just what is your idea, mr. addicks, of how this gigantic piece of business could be done?" one asked. "simple, simple"--the great colonel sellers of eye-water fame never looked more cool and unconcerned when calling attention to the facts, "100,000,000 of people, two eyes each, a bottle of my patent eye-wash for each at a dollar a bottle, and eye-wash made at a net cost of a dime a barrel"--"simple, simple; you name your price, i pay it, and the thing is done." some one pointed out that the gas properties were valued very high. that in the boston, for instance, the par value of each share was $500--and that it was improbable mr. addicks could buy it for less than--than eight hundred. "of course, of course; i am not buying gas companies that are not well thought of by their present owners," returned addicks. "i think you underestimate the value of the boston company's stock when you say $800. naturally, as a conservative business man i wish to buy as reasonably as possible, but as i know what the future of your company will be under the water-gas change, i consider $1,000 a share cheap; and if you say so, will take it now--majority, minority and all--at that price." this was strong talk. in spite of their proverbial frigidness under all conditions, boston's best began to get fidgety. "indeed," went on the monte cristo from philadelphia, "i'll do better than that. on second thought i will give you $1,200 a share. think it over and we'll have another sit-down to-morrow." it took addicks but a few days to trade, for at each sitting the staging was more enticing and the call from his associates in london more insistent. minor difficulties were magnificently waved away. a number of scions of boston's best families had good paying positions in the different companies; what would mr. addicks do with them? "simple, simple," he replied; "double the time of contract and the salary; no favor to them or you; good men are very hard to get, you know." one episode that occurred about this time was allowed to get into print when the stocks and bonds were being floated, by way of showing what a tremendous fellow addicks was. in a hired hack he had driven up to the club from state street. a snow-storm was raging. after addicks had been in the club a few moments word was brought in to him that the driver had found his sable overcoat inside the carriage. addicks stepped into the vestibule to speak to the driver, and next day it was all over the club-house and through the "street" that the prodigal philadelphian, overcome at the thought of the unfortunate driver in his scanty clothing exposed to the cruel storm, had said: "my good man, take that coat as a present from me." for the truth of the story i do not vouch, nor for that other which explains that the door-boy who spread this tale of generosity said afterward, when discharged, that addicks himself had told him what he had done, and at the same time had given him a five-dollar bill. he would have sworn the moment before that he heard addicks tell the driver to take the coat to his apartments. addicks got what he came to boston for--the boston, roxbury, and south boston gas companies. he did what he said he would, built a new one, the bay state of massachusetts, and turned them all into the bay state of delaware, and the bay state of delaware turned them out on the public in exchange for their savings to the extent of $19,000,000 in the form of bonds and stock. addicks, to use his own language, "cleaned up around $7,000,000," and turned to new fields, fields suited to his peculiar genius. as he looked over the united states he found but one great city which had not already been captured by "standard oil" or some of its disciples--brooklyn, n. y. to the present day rogers swears addicks' only reason for coming to brooklyn was to hold up the "standard oil" "trustification." addicks retorts with: "i saw it first." whatever the facts, in 1892 rogers in the midst of tagging the different companies was surprised and angered to find that addicks had slipped in ahead and had secured one of those necessary to the success of his plan. he quickly served notice on the man from delaware to "git," and addicks, flushed with an unbroken chain of victories, as promptly returned the notice with, scrawled across its face, a variation of rogers' pet phrase--for it must be remembered addicks never "cusses"--"i'll see you in heaven first." if there is any one time when henry h. rogers is quicker of action than any other, it is when his notice to "git" in a stock deal has been returned with "sass." the ink was hardly dry on addicks' answer before the master of "standard oil" and his hosts were upon him, but not where the philadelphian looked for them. while he awaited their attack in brooklyn, n. y., he received a series of hurry-up calls from his lieutenants in boston. rogers had bought the insignificant brookline gas company, which supplied gas to one of the suburbs of boston. it was only a $300,000 affair, but it possessed charter rights to come into any and all of the streets of boston. this was a characteristic "standard oil" attack. it came out of a clear sky, and before the public had even a warning of it they were witnessing a war which looked as though it had been years in maturing. rogers let it become public knowledge that the entire "standard oil" forces were to be brought to bear to crush addicks and that untold millions would, if necessary, be spent in the effort. in reality he had most carefully mapped out a cyclonic campaign which he believed would not call for an expenditure of over $500,000, and which he was sure would in a few months drive addicks out of brooklyn, n. y., and bring him to his knees in boston. his fight began in earnest in 1894. gas in boston was $1.25 per thousand cubic feet, and the rate yielded a good profit to the addicks companies. rogers served notice that he would parallel with the brookline company every pipe of the different boston companies and would reduce the price of gas to $1. simultaneously he attacked the addicks stocks and bonds in the market, his charters in the legislature, and took away from him the contracts to supply the municipality of boston with gas. for a time addicks struck back savagely. then, as the fight became hotter, he gave it up in brooklyn, and concentrated all his resources on repelling the savage inroads rogers was making in boston. by this time the contest had grown to such proportions and so much bad blood had been engendered that rogers declined to be mollified by addicks' surrender in brooklyn and refused to retire from boston unless addicks repaid "standard oil's" entire outlay and got down on his knees in public--a demand that called forth one of addicks' sardonic smiles. addicks had at this time additional difficulties to face. he had spread out his financial commitments, and now he found his stocks and bonds all declining. it was obvious to state and wall streets that rogers was in a fair way to drive the buccaneer from philadelphia to the wall. it is at this stage that i come into the story. chapter xii stock-brokers not all bad right here, before plunging deeper into the current of events which led to the organization of amalgamated--for what has gone before is only that which i deem necessary setting for the story, necessary in order that my readers may clearly take in its meaning--it is only fair to them and to myself for me to say that my life has been spent in the stock-market for the purpose of gain. i have never in my stock operations set myself up for a philanthropist nor in any way posed as a reformer, nor pretended to be a bit better than the business i had chosen for a livelihood. from the first day until now i have endeavored to keep strictly to the principle that i would never knowingly deceive any man, woman, or child who, out of confidence in me, risked their money in speculation or investment. at the same time it should be remembered that the stock-brokerage business often makes queer bedfellows. moreover, the true stock-operator is sometimes tempted to buckle on his armor and get into an exciting fight solely for the combat's sake, and then he may not be over-concerned about the rights and wrongs of the contention, if upon both sides are lined up professional captains of finance. the minister, the college professor, the dry-goods merchant, may exclaim against this, but they have never known the delicious tingle which, since the abolition of the tournaments of old, can be felt only on the great financial battlefields. if the critics of the stock-gambler could be put through a single minute of a thousand i have known they would be less brash in their denunciations. and let it be remembered that in these terrific dollar-wars there is as much opportunity for heroism, for generosity, for kindly deeds, as ever physical fighting affords. i read here in the papers of the noble act of a captain in the navy who has taken his life in his hands; in another place of a rich man who has given a million to create a charity. on the same page that these men are eulogized i will find references to "jim keene, the stock-gambler," etc., "heartless, soulless stock-sharp," etc. "jim keene, stock-gambler," keeps no press agent to flaunt his kindly acts, but from the noble things i know he has done, and the things others with whom i am personally acquainted know he has done--men, women, and children saved from misery, pain, and death, at the risk of ruin to himself--i'll warrant the celestial scroll shows to his record as many deeds of mercy and noble daring as are credited to any soldier or philanthropist who has achieved worldly fame in recent years. the desire for sudden wealth is strong in all parts of our american community. men want money, and women too, for a score of reasons--some good, some bad--and the stock-market is the magical place where miracles occur and dollars multiply themselves overnight. the agent for all the cupidity of the world is the stock-broker, and he sees life from a strange angle. hundreds of letters come to me daily from all kinds of people, who have no other call upon me than their belief that, having at some previous time profitably followed my advice or advice credited to me, they have a right, when "the papers say" i am doing or going to do this, that, or the other thing in stocks, to come to me with their troubles. in 1899 there reached me from a woman a picture of her husband, herself, her three children, and the aged father and mother of her husband. i wish i might print it, but i dare not through fear that they would be recognized. the letter accompanying it was one of the most touchingly pathetic i have ever read. i investigated the case. the statements made were absolutely true. the woman's husband was the cashier of one of the small national banks in one of the old towns in a new england state. his father's brother had been cashier before him. the family's past was thickly strewn with all those simple honors and good things which are so often the heritage of families of the old, self-respecting, god-fearing, middle-class communities of new england and like long-settled sections of the country. on his death-bed the uncle confessed that for years he had carried upon the books of the bank a shortage which had arisen from mistakes. her husband, to keep the family's name from stain, had continued to keep this buried, which was an easy thing to do, as when he was moved up from teller to cashier at his uncle's death the two positions were combined into one. the wife explained that her husband had let her into the fearful secret, and together they had carried it until it had eaten its way into their hearts. at last the man could no longer stand the strain. he had followed my printed sayings about the market, and now had made the fatal plunge. he had bought upon margin 2,000 shares of sugar stock to see if it were not possible to make up quickly a shortage of over $20,000, because i had said sugar was going right up; and then horror of worse than death had seized the wife and she had given me the awful secret, and a description, a word picture of what would happen if i had made a mistake. she could go no further. she did not need to. i read the letter. i saw the picture, and even i, who believed myself from long years of experience with such affairs immune--i, too, became horror-stricken. it was no affair of mine. i had not said sugar was going up; as is often the case, some newspaper had printed what another operator had said and credited it to me. i was not even operating in sugar, nor at the time particularly interested in it. i could not return the letter nor have any communication with these persons without in a way becoming their accomplice. the woman had said that with the purchase her husband had given orders to sell the stocks at twelve points' rise. try as i might to look at the matter in a cold-blooded business way the picture haunted me--the old gentleman proud of his family's long record of sturdy honesty, the old mother's faith in her boy, the wife seeing on each of her children the brand of a felon father, and the husband watching each day's market prices to see whether they had brought him a verdict which meant state's prison or permanent relief from the haunting fear which had become his never-absent shadow; and i read and reread the closing lines of the faithful wife: "mr. lawson, you will put sugar up?--you surely will, just this once--and we will teach the children to pray for you and yours, and god answers this kind of prayers, you know he does." the picture haunted me; i saw it in the market prices; i heard the story in each tick of the ticker and each rustle of the tape; and every time my eye caught "sug," the stock-exchange abbreviation for sugar, i winced, as one does at the dentist's probe--well, i could not stand it. i determined to put up sugar--that is, i determined to try. little the woman knew what she asked when she wrote: "you will put up sugar?" she had read that a stock operator works magic, but it had never entered her head that his wand was a stick of dynamite a thousand times concentrated--a stick of dynamite that the law of stock-market averages shows goes off in his hand nine out of every ten times it is handled, and that when it goes off there is nothing more for the handler but the minister, the flowers, and the head-stone; indeed, often the explosion leaves nothing with which to buy even a head-stone! little she thought that it might strain the wealth of the bank of england to move sugar up twelve points. i moved it up, and it went so easy--oh, so easy! that--well, i will let the first description i pick from my scrap-book from among a hundred from the daily press tell the story: [from the _boston journal_, march 17, 1899] lawson's lump his coffee sweetened with quarter of a million--made it in sugar thursday in two hours' trading a quarter of a million in a day! that was thomas w. lawson's record for march 16, 1899. the celebrated "unthroned king of state street" was on top of the sugar market; that is the reason of it all. sugar was the big card of stock speculation yesterday. indeed, the stock had one of the wildest days in its history, and its high price--$170--reached amid great excitement--is the highest on record. the speculation was something tremendous, and it has been through the speculation that the people who have been under the impression that the markets were drifting into a dull and uninteresting condition have had a sudden awakening. from the opening it quickly advanced to 149, receded a point or more, and shortly after noon started sharply upward. the demand for it came so rapidly that the tape could not keep up with it, and the excitement grew as the demand increased. the scenes on the floors of both the new york and local boards were most exciting. blocks of 500 and 1,000 shares changed hands frequently, and at one time the quotation in the boston market was fully four points behind that of the new york list. the small army of shorts scrambled to get covered up, and everybody was in a fever of wild excitement over the marvellous movement. before it had culminated the price reached 170, or a gain of twenty-nine points over the opening--the most remarkable display of strength in so short a period of time that this remarkable stock has ever shown. broker lawson did the buying, and while the excitement was running high he bought freely. he had taken 20,000 shares all told before the advance had fairly gotten under way at from 143-1/2 to 144. at 170 he gave an order to sell 20,000 shares at a limit of 155, and obtained an average of over 160, thereby netting an estimated snug profit of $250,000 or more within two hours. asked as to whether the strength in sugar meant a settlement of the sugar war, mr. lawson smiled and said: "there has never been any sugar war." the conservative people on the street are disposed to regard the whole movement as a piece of clever manipulation. * * * * * [from the _boston herald_, march 16, 1899] mr. thomas w. lawson was the mover in the deal, and his orders for 20,000 shares early in the day excited other buying, which encompassed the astonishing rise. what point mr. lawson had to trade upon is his own asset, if he had any point, and it would not matter so far as the event was concerned whether he had a point. the market was in a position to respond to orders of these dimensions, and it did respond. * * * * * [from the _new york journal_, march 17, 1899] the frenzied brokers fought like madmen around the sugar post. the wildest sort of excitement prevailed throughout the day. the rest of the floor was practically abandoned, and brokers crowded, pushed, elbowed, and yelled frantically in their efforts to fill orders. there was no warning. the sudden jump of the stock almost threw the brokers into a panic. men became ferocious in their efforts to fill orders. those on the outside made wild rushes to get into the whirlpool. men who are generally calm fell over each other in their excitement. scores of arms whipped the air, and men yelled themselves hoarse. so great was the din and so compact the yelling crowd that those on one side of the post did not know the bidding on the other. at one point sugar was going at 159, and five feet away it was bringing 164. while almost at arm's-length farther away it was going at 160, and farther around the post at 162. the excitement became general among the offices of stock-brokers as the news flew on the ticker. members of firms who were not on the floor gathered about the tickers in excited groups and watched the pyrotechnic fluctuations of sugar to the exclusion of all other stocks. the quotations came out at two and three points apart. one minute the stock was away up, and the next it seemed to fall hopelessly. then it would as suddenly soar upward again. it reached 170, and in five minutes it was down to 152. * * * * * [from the _boston post_, march 22, 1899] late in the afternoon mr. lawson was induced to give the following explanation of his movements in sugar: "you know it is not conducive to the health of an active operator to talk on what he is doing, for if he expects to retain his hirsute adornment he must either keep jumping so lively that none of the expert scalpers who haunt the jungles of wall street can find him long enough in one spot to cut the floor from under him, or he must envelop himself in mystery so dense that all seeking for him will grow color-blind; but on this particular commodity--sugar--i can depart from the standard formula. "i have been twenty-nine years dodging the scalping-knives of wall street comanches, and, although i am still here, i have many places on my head where the hair refuses to grow, and, strange to tell, almost all the bare spots are labelled 'sugar.' i suppose that i have, during the past ten years, contributed money enough to sugar to endow a fair-sized asylum for tailless bears. it has never seemed to matter whether i bought or sold, went long or short, the dollars which i secured by the employment of pick and shovel, brawn, muscle or gray matter, all seemed to follow one another into the relentless maw of that modern saccharine titanotherium. "way back in 1890 i invested the profits of my lamson deal--$700,000--in 10,000 sugar at 84, and in a few days, amid brilliant fireworks, i bade it adieu, when it gracefully dropped below 50. again, four years ago, i decided i could make no better long-time investment of $700,000 or $800,000 electric profits than to short sugar from 61 to 70. in eleven days it took $1,500 more than my profits to even up my accounts. "thinking these things over of late, i determined to make a final demand on astute and relentless wall street for my accumulated deposits--a kind of please-give-me-back-my-losses demand. i carefully loaded up two weeks ago to the extent of 20,000 sugar in the thirties, and feeling the atmosphere was redolent of opportunities, last friday i bought 20,000 more, the last 5,000 of which in a rather open and frank way that seemed but fair to my scalping new york friends. well, you know the rest. it took fire. i cleaned up something over $700,000, and put out a short line of 30,000 shares, the last of which i have covered to-day at something over $350,000 profit. strange as it may seem, i was quit. i have struck a balance with sugar, and it gets no more of my money. "i am one of the few bostonians who are contented to live in the knowledge that wall street is too big and bright and cute a metropolitan centre for country boys to monkey with, and you can say i am so tickled to get back my bait that i will never again, never, wander away from home. there is one moral that may be drawn by wall and state streets from the last few days in sugar. it is this: it is not necessary to-day, any more than it was in old days, to work deals with false stories or fakes. in doing what i did in sugar i depended on no fakes nor stories. i simply followed charley osborne's old admonition: 'if you want to bull stocks, buy 'em. if you want to bear 'em, sell 'em.' i bought 'em and i sold 'em. these are sugar facts as far as my movements have affected them!" for years after, even up to to-day, this yarn turned up in the press in different parts of the world, and every time i read it i chuckled to myself, for i see a big manly fellow, president of a bank now and asking no odds of any, for he can buy 2,000 shares of sugar at any time and draw his check to pay for it against a bank account honestly earned since the day his wife wrote that letter. and i see a grateful mother teaching three youths to say a certain prayer, and then i forget the critics' scathing sermons against stock gamblers. it does not pain me when my own children ask, "why do they say such awful things about the stock operator?" i answer: "oh, they mean no harm; they don't know the stock gambler they write about." one of the system's shadows that my readers may not drop this chapter with a false idea of the results of the stock-broker's efforts to "live and let live," i will give them an illustration of one of the counterbalances of the law of compensations. in the same year with the sugar transaction, in an evil moment my mail brought me the following letter: _dear sir_: i have read with interest your proclamations about "coppers." i am not a rich man, but i have about $20,000 lying idle which i should like to add to, and will put it into anything you advise. the writer received the following answer from my secretary: mr. lawson instructs me to say he received your letter of ---and he knows no better investment than the stock of the amalgamated copper company, which will be offered for public subscription next week. in the advertising which will accompany the offer you will note that it is to pay 8 per cent., is now earning 16, and should sell at $150 or $200 per share. it will be offered at par. not only does mr. lawson personally believe in every word in the advertisements, but they are vouched for by such men and institutions as the national city bank of new york, henry h. rogers, william rockefeller and others, whose names are synonymous with success in business affairs. mr. lawson does not hesitate to advise you to invest your $20,000 in this stock, provided you are not looking for an investment that is absolutely safe, that is, one that should not, in these times, pay you over 3-3/4 or 4 per cent.; but if you are looking for a semi-speculative investment, that is, one that will pay you over 6 per cent., and where the chances are good for large profits, he recommends this stock. later i received the following: upon your advice i purchased 200 shares of the amalgamated stock at $100 per share. when the stock dropped to 80, remembering your strong advice i purchased 300 shares more, and after it had advanced to 120, thinking it was surely going to the 150 or 200 you mentioned, i bought 1,000, putting up my 500 shares as margin. it has now dropped back to 100, and the many stories i read in the papers are causing me much anxiety. do you still believe as you first wrote me? to which he received the following answer: mr. lawson instructs me to say he received yours of ----. his faith in the amalgamated property, the men who control and manage it, and the stock is the same as it always has been. he, like yourself, added to his holdings at 120, and as high as 129, and knowing what he does about the property, and what the men who control and manage it, and with whom he is intimately associated, say to him, he cannot believe the yarns which are appearing in the press are other than the vaporings of those stock-market critics who must write their opinions of prominent stocks even though they have no means of actually knowing anything about them. while mr. lawson regrets that you have spread yourself out, as you say in your letter, he can only answer your question by the above, to wit, his faith in amalgamated is the same as from the beginning. later i received the following from one of the penal institutions of the country: you will observe by the postmark on this letter my present place of residence. you probably knew that before, as the press has had much to say about me of late. i trust you and your associates are satisfied with yourselves when you observe the hell you have caused others. when i first wrote you about the amalgamated stock i was an honest, prosperous man. i had never committed a crime nor done any great wrong to my fellow-beings. relying upon what you said publicly and the well-known record of the rockefellers and their partners, i committed acts which i now know to my everlasting sorrow i should not have committed. i had no intention of doing wrong, but when i saw ruin staring me in the face i used, as i supposed only temporarily, funds intrusted to me to protect my stocks from being slaughtered at declining prices by the sharks of brokers whom i dealt with. the rest is the old story. my wife and children are disgraced and oppressed with poverty, and i am serving a five years' sentence in this institution, buoyed up only with the hope that i may live to face you and your kind, that you may have the pleasure of seeing the wreck you have wrought--in the hope that i may satisfy a desire which night and day gnaws at my very soul, a desire to say to you, face to face: "look upon a man who, although a branded criminal, is as much better than you and your associates as it is possible for one to be," and to ask you how your wife and your children enjoy the luxuries they have when they know at what price they were secured, for i shall surely, if i live, insist upon your wife and children hearing from my lips what agonies a wife and children, who are as dear to me as yours are to you, have suffered because of your baseness. chapter xiii the "system" versus westinghouse in 1894 i had just wound up one of the most strenuous and successful financial campaigns i ever engaged in. this was the westinghouse deal, of which the papers were full at the time. george westinghouse, to whom the world owes the air-brake and countless improvements in electrical machinery, having surmounted the difficulties that clog the early steps of the inventor who would be his own master, had taken rank, some years before, among the prominent public figures of the day. the various corporations in america bearing his name had prospered amazingly; his ingenious appliances had displaced home products in the european market; and titles and decorations had been conferred on the inventor, though these last, like the sturdy american he is, westinghouse had put aside. this great success was wholly the fruit of george westinghouse's personal endeavor. it owed nothing to extraneous influences. it had been accomplished along those manly, independent, yankee lines which have made that name synonymous with hustle and success in every part of the civilized world. above all, the man had organized and developed his companies without the aid of the "system" or without truckling to its votaries. in consequence he had incurred the deadly hatred of some of its lords paramount. in the business world westinghouse's great rival was the general electric company. to mention "westinghouse" and "general electric" in the same breath was to speak of a thing and its antithesis. everything george westinghouse was or had been the general electric was not and had never been. the general electric had been and was by leave of the "system"; in fact, was one of the very foremost examples of its methods. its high-priest was j. pierpont morgan; its home, wall street; its owners, the principal votaries of the "system." it had grown because of their favor and by means of the rankest exhibitions of knock-down-and-drag-out methods of consolidation of all competitors but--westinghouse. just previous to 1894 westinghouse had rejected a dazzling scheme of uniting the two institutions on an immense capitalization which would have absorbed millions and millions of the people's savings and earned millions in commissions for its projectors. wall street's indignation at his hardihood knew no bounds, and at the time of which i write the yegg-men of the "system" were laying for him with dark-lantern and sand-bag. to appreciate the story of what the "system" tried to do to george westinghouse and what he withstood, one must know the man. he embodies in many ways the conception of what the ideal american should be. his remarkable six feet and odd of physique and his fertile, powerful brain are the admiration of all true men with whom he comes in contact. in spite of his unparalleled success and the accumulation of a great fortune, he retains the same simplicity of manner and conduct that characterized him when working at the bench for weekly wages, and with all his shrewdness and force of character he has preserved a simple, honest, childlike belief in humanity. single-handed he conducted all his great enterprises on a plain, patriarchal basis, using their revenues for extensions, and depending on his faithful and well-satisfied stockholders for such further accessions of capital as the business might in his judgment need. about the time general electric was most anxious to bolster up its jerry-built structure with the solid westinghouse concern, the latter institution had begun the erection of some big new plants which required immediately several millions additional capital. westinghouse prepared to apply to his stockholders for the required funds, and the announcement was to be made at the annual election soon due. suddenly the financial sky became overcast. the stock-market grew panicky and money as scare in wall street as rain in arizona in may. it was just such a situation as the "system" might have brought about to accomplish its fell designs had it possessed the power to work miracles. and the "system" took care of its advantage. at a tense moment in that soul and nerve trying period, with wall and state streets full of talk about general electric's probable absorption of westinghouse, general electric being then at its highest price, $119 per share, the westinghouse companies held their annual meetings and the big inventor, confidently facing his stockholders, quite regardless of conditions which he thought could have no possible bearing on his concern's splendid prospects, came forward with his demand for the millions required to complete the projects already under way. this was the signal. from all the stock-market sub-cellars and rat-holes of state, broad, and wall streets crept those wriggling, slimy snakes of bastard rumors which, seemingly fatherless and motherless, have in reality multi-parents who beget them with a deviltry of intention: "george westinghouse had mismanaged his companies"; "george westinghouse, because of gross extravagance, had spread himself and his companies until they were involved beyond extrication unless by consolidation with general electric"; these and many more seeped through the financial haunts of boston, philadelphia, and new york, and kept hot the wires into every financial centre in america and europe, where aid must be sought to relieve the crisis. there came a crash in westinghouse stocks, and their price melted. from amidst the thunder and lowering clouds emerged the "system." "notwithstanding the black eye the name of everything westinghouse had received, it would stand by and consolidate and save the day!" but the "system" and its everything-gauged-by-machinery votaries had reckoned without their host. george westinghouse was too strong a man to be thus easily shaken down. he threw back his mighty shoulders, shook his big head, and flung his great private fortune into the market to stay the falling prices of his securities. the movement was too strong against him at the moment, and his millions were but a temporary help. he got on the firing-line himself and did a thousand and one things that only a brave, honest, and democratic yankee would or could do--everything but accept the cunning aid offered him by the "system" or its votaries. he knew too well that the friendly mask concealed a foe and that the kid-gloved hand extended him had a dagger up its sleeve. these were the conditions when i, as an expert in stock-market affairs, was called in for assistance. here was this sound, sturdy institution standing for everything that was best and self-supporting in american finance adrift on the wall street shoals, and it seemed almost a hopeless task to attempt its rescue. but it was a task eminently worth while, and i undertook it with all the energy i could command. the problem was to restore the westinghouse stocks to their former high price, and, confidence being re-established, to sell the new treasury stock at such a figure as would pay for the plants and other projects the company had under way. the completion of these meant greatly increased earnings and such an advance in facilities and economy of manufacture as would surely seal the fate of general electric if it competed with westinghouse under the new conditions. small wonder "standard oil's" whole strength was bent to force the alliance. my fight had hardly begun when i saw it was to be opposed by all the forces of general electric and the "system," and i concluded defeat was sure unless by a counter movement on their stock i could keep them so busy that they would have no time to interfere with westinghouse. thereupon i laid out that attack on everything connected with general electric which created so much consternation at the time. to this day, if my enemies are asked to name the act which most conclusively justifies their hatred of me, they will point to my terrible general electric raid. they will tell you i broke the stock from 118 to 56 in a day, and thereby caused one of our most disastrous panics; that i continued to hammer it to 20, that i compelled reorganization, and then did not let up. they will show you that the misery and ruin i wrought were beyond calculation. i will only say that, of any of the things i am proud of having done, i am proudest of what i did in general electric, and, willingly, i would give over five years of my life to go through the experience again. it was a most arduous campaign, and our fate trembled many times in the balance. by dint of hard, overtime work, and what my enemies were pleased to call rank manipulation, we drove westinghouse stock back to its former price, after which a strong syndicate was formed to take the new stock, and the righted institution at once magnificently swept on its international career which to-day is at its height. though i had taken up the westinghouse cause as a business venture and its successful termination was most profitable to me, i had entered into the campaign with the ardor of a lawyer defending a client unjustly accused of a heinous crime. but there was this difference--if in spite of his efforts the lawyer fails to convince the jury of his client's innocence it means no detriment to his fortune or his reputation, whereas all i had and was were involved in this stock-exchange struggle. the great rewards that are the guerdon of success in financial fights are balanced by the terrific consequences of defeat. the broker general engaged in surrounding his enemy requires every dollar he and his principals can pledge or beg, and where great forces are in conflict millions are burnt up to seize any vantage, as kuroki sacrifices a regiment to gain a hill. i had won for myself as well as for westinghouse, but if the fortunes of the war had been on the other side, i must certainly have been wiped out. chapter xiv the alliance with addicks it was part of my method of conducting my stock-brokerage business to expose through the medium of the press or through market letters the stocks of corporations i thought rotten. it was also my way to work up bull campaigns in stocks that seemed to be selling for less than they were worth. with addicks or the "standard oil" i had no connection. i had watched the philadelphian's operations and had my eye marketwise on his bonds and stock, particularly on his stock, which was 100,000 shares of the bay state gas company of delaware, of a par value of fifty dollars each, and which became very active in the market shortly after it was created, at just under par. i thought i saw in the scheme the ordinary, cold-blooded, stock-jobbing, unloading-on-the-public affair. i had heard recounted the man's wonderful doings, particularly his recklessness in the purchase of the boston companies; i "sized up" his mighty effort to be the tremendously rich good fellow as inspired by the idea and the purpose of giving his "stuff" in the stock-market a good send-off; and from the start i had put his property on my "to-be-watched memoranda" as one i might at the proper time let daylight into. i was tearing large strips from its values when addicks' bankers, who happened to be business friends of mine, sought to enlist me on their side of the gas war. i remember expressing frankly my opinion about the contestants and their contest at the time, stating that so far as morality, fairness, or justice went i could see little to choose between addicks and "standard oil." i continued to "bear" the stock until one day my banker friends brought me an earnest request from the delaware financier that i go to new york and talk things over with him. on reaching new york--the two bankers and myself--we went directly to addicks' apartments at the imperial hotel. although the fortunes of war were rapidly crumbling this worthy's brilliant financial structure, there were as yet no outward signs of disintegration. his beautiful estate at claymont, del., his stock farm in the same state, his town-house in philadelphia, his $30,000 apartments in the knickerbocker on fifth avenue in new york, and the superbly furnished suite in the imperial, close by, all seemed to testify to the man's boundless prosperity. memorable though this meeting was destined to be to both of us, my chief sensation in approaching it was a certain curiosity as to the personality of addicks, whom i had seen, but had never spoken to. i knew him to a "t" in my mind, but here was my opportunity to compare my mental "sizing-up" with the real man. the apartment into which we were ushered was of the low-burning-red-light, turkish pattern. addicks rose from a great divan disturbing a pose which his white cricket-cloth suit and the scarlet shadows made so stagy that i guessed it was for my benefit. i looked him over, and he returned the inspection. after the introduction he at once unlimbered his business gun. "let's get right down to business, lawson," he began. "i wanted to meet you to see if we could get together on any satisfactory basis." i told him that that was my understanding of our meeting. then he wanted assurances that i had no connections with "standard oil" and that i was free, sentimentally and commercially, to enlist in his fight. i replied that i was a stock-broker and operator, and was looking for opportunities; no one had strings on me, and provided he made satisfactory terms i was free to join him; further, that when it came to enlisting in a fight between two such financiers as addicks and rogers, sentiment seemed to me out of place. "that's right," he said. "that's what i like to hear. now, lawson, will you take this fight of mine against 'standard oil'?" "if you meet my terms, yes." addicks looked at me. "what do you want?" he asked. "perhaps, though, you'd first like to have me tell you how my affairs stand." "i know sufficiently where you stand," i replied, "to name my terms right now. if they are acceptable, i'll hear you tell where you stand afterward. i'll take your fight for a cash commission of $250,000 and a cash capital of $1,000,000, to be used in the market on joint account, we to divide the profits of all operations." addicks smiled. "you are too high," he said. "i'll pay you $50,000 commission and give you $250,000 capital, and after i show you in what good shape my fight now is and how near i am to victory, you'll agree that the terms i offer are good pay and fair." "mr. addicks," said i, "i have just time to get dinner, look in at the theatre, and catch the midnight back to boston. it is my business to keep posted on such scrimmages as you are engaged in. if you and your affairs are where i believe they are, the terms i offer are exceptionally low. if your affairs are as you would have me believe, you need no one to captain your fight." addicks asked where i thought his affairs stood, and i answered: "i don't think--i know, or, at least, i feel quite sure i do. you are at the end of your rope and are practically bankrupt." at once addicks grew indignant. "you are absolutely wrong," he asserted. "i'll admit i have had a hard fight, and that it has cost me, so far, considerable money; but i give you my word i'm worth between six and seven millions clear and clean right now." i bade him good-night and left. our interview had consumed not over twenty to twenty-five minutes. i said to his bankers: "addicks is the addicks i have sized him up to be, only worse." we got back to boston next morning, and at the opening of the stock exchange i sailed into the bay state stock in earnest, for i felt surer than before that addicks was nearing his finish. a few minutes after the exchange opened, addicks' banker rushed into my office and said the delaware financier begged that i would return to new york at once, and whispered to me that in a conversation just held on the telephone addicks had stated that he would accept my terms. i informed the banker i was not anxious for the job, but as he urged his own interest, i jumped on the noon train and in the evening was again in new york. it was a warm day and i was pleased to get a wire on the train from addicks asking me to meet him at the pier, as we should hold our conference on his yacht, the _now-then_, at that time one of the fastest steam-yachts afloat. it was a night of memorable beauty. in the golden light of a dazzling sunset we flew up the majestic hudson. from under the awning i watched the serried edges of the palisades as we slipped swiftly by them to the broad reaches of tinted waters above yonkers. every natural influence conspired to make acute to me the warning whisper of my soul, which flashed the caution as i crossed the gang-plank, "watch out!" but, as i said before, fate hangs no red lights at the cross-roads of a man's career, and i plunged recklessly into the toils my mephistophelian companion so artfully wove around me. the _now-then_ was hardly in mid-stream before addicks had got down to business. his demeanor had changed since the previous evening. all his bravado had disappeared; he was simple, frank, direct, and, in the manner of one who has made a mistake and regrets it, he commenced without any delay: "i didn't think last night i'd pay your price, lawson. it staggered me a bit, but i gave it considerable thought after you left, and when this morning's prices showed me you were again on the war-path, i saw my error." "mr. addicks," said i, "let's have no fooling about this matter. if we do business together, it will only be after there is some plain--brutally plain talk between us. it will do no good to trick, because some one will get slaughtered when the trickery is discovered, as it surely would be, after we hitched up together." then, straight from the shoulder, free from all attempt to gloss over the raw truth, i detailed to him the things i knew he had done to his former associates, and it was a tale of unbroken duplicity and double-dealing on his part, loss and misery for his lieutenants, and profits and curses for him. i ended by saying: "if we get together, addicks, it will be upon my terms, and i'll see to it that you never put me in the position in which you have put all the others you've been connected with. i don't trust you and i'll watch you all the time." when i had finished addicks looked at me sadly with a wounded, "how-this-man-has misjudged-me" expression in his eyes. "lawson," he said, "you were never more mistaken in your life, but it's a matter i don't want to argue about. you'll tell me you were all wrong after you know me better. i'll do business with you--yes, and i'll allow you to make your own terms. i'll agree to them whatever they are, and i'll live up to the very letter of them, however hard." i may mention that it is a peculiar characteristic of addicks that one may talk to him as though he were a pick-pocket, and he will not resent it, if it is "business." where h. h. rogers would flash into a vesuvius of wrath, the delaware statesman only smiles. addicks by no means convinced me of his sincerity. i decided i would test him pretty thoroughly before i went further. so i said: "this seems the proper time for a clean statement from you as to just where you and your companies stand." i did not believe this man could make an absolutely truthful statement on any subject of importance, but i knew enough of his real position to protect me from being fooled. what was my surprise, therefore, when in the most open way possible he calmly spread before me a condition of affairs far worse than the worst i knew. he was, indeed, bankrupt and his corporation was in little better shape. as soon as i could catch my breath i said: "no wonder you refused my proposition last night. if your bankers had dreamed of this state of affairs, they would have had a receiver to-day. you cannot meet my terms. you cannot even carry out the ones you yourself offered." addicks leaned back on the cushions of his chair in the easiest, most _insouciant_ way imaginable. he grinned. "that's true," he replied, "but i never give up a ship till i feel her bump the bottom, and i am sure that, bad as things are, you and i can pull them out and whip rogers to a standstill." it was a remarkable situation. here was one of the most ruthless financial schemers of the age cornered for slaughter, and he had put himself absolutely at the mercy of the man who had bitterly fought him and whom he knew hated his kind. yet he was as cool and collected as a bunch of orange blossoms at a winter's wedding. the man's supreme nerve astounded me, yet i could not help admiring him. i saw through his game, yet his assurance fascinated me. i thought a minute. i said to him: "addicks, i'm really sorry for you, and i'll promise you here now to keep what you've told me sacred. what's more, i'll stop fighting you. i'll cover my shares and without doing any one any harm i'll help make prices a bit better for your securities." he smiled, said "thank you!" and continued looking at me as though he awaited something further, a quizzical, expectant smile on his face. there was an interval of silence. finally i said to him--and there were neither red lights nor warning intuitions to signal my peril: "just what do you expect me to do, mr. addicks?" "whatever you think best," he replied in a mild tone. then, rousing himself a bit, he went on: "they say in the market that you like a fight and the harder it is the better. well, i certainly have an uphill fight. do as you would have the other fellow do to you." after that i had no further doubts of addicks' slickness. i said to him: "you are certainly the shrewd man they describe you as. now continue to be frank long enough to answer this one question: did you figure this out as the last card to throw at me, knowing that the very desperation of the case might warm me up and tempt me to tackle it for the sake of the fight there's in it?" instantly addicks knew his game was won. he straightened up and was the able, shrewd, and cunning financier who had tricked conservative boston. his facts chased his figures in marvellously rapid succession, and he showed a knowledge of conditions, relations, and corporation tricks that dazzled me. for an hour he rushed on, and when at last he came to a stop i said to him: "it's unnecessary to say any more. i see the situation as you would have me see it, and it comes to this: if i refuse to link up with you it means another 'standard oil' victory and another wreck for boston. rogers' success means that new england speculators and investors will again, for the three hundred and thirty-third time, be robbed of their savings. if i get in, we may either avert all this or i may be ground up at the same time you are. however, it's too good a fight to miss, and so here goes. i'll link up." at some particularly hazardous halting-place in after-years addicks and myself have often laughed as we have talked over that august evening on the _now-then_. i was easy, he asserts, and i must admit that he is right--i was easy. yet no one knew addicks better than i did then. looking back along his extraordinary career, one is obliged to allow a certain magic as a factor in his men-and-dollar tussles. we had absolutely nothing in common, addicks and i. we thought and felt differently about every relationship of life. a dozen other ventures, sure, easy, and promising infinitely greater profits, were ready at my hand--but he appealed to my sense of adventure, he promised me abundant and glorious fighting, and i forgot everything else and went with him. when the _now-then_ touched her pier and i stepped ashore, it was as captain of addicks' corporation and stock-market forces, with absolute power to wage war, make peace, and use in whatever way i thought best such resources of his as i could lay hands on. i lost no time. within forty-eight hours of my return to boston i had mapped out my campaign, reconstructed addicks' broken lines, and gayly set forth on about as forlorn a hope as ever operator or fighter tackled. nothing more desperate could be imagined than the condition of the delaware financier's affairs when i assumed control. all the resources of his companies were pledged for loans, and the constantly falling prices of his securities, coupled with the discrediting stories rogers' agents kept in circulation, made it difficult to keep these going. to pay would mean ruin, for addicks had no further thing of value to pledge. at the same time, rogers' company, which had now paralleled many of the bay state company's pipes, had secured a large slice of that corporation's business, and had a corps of up-to-date solicitors working overtime to secure the balance. boston, in the meantime, having decided that addicts' star was of the shooting variety, and on its return trip, was throwing up its hat in the wake of the "standard oil" band-wagon. the city government and the massachusetts legislature had awakened to the enormity of addicksism and were boiling over with that brand of virtue which the "system" and "standard oil" know so well how to rouse in american breasts by way of american pockets. by this time rogers' investment in boston had grown from the half-million he had in the beginning estimated as sufficient to annihilate addicks to three and a half millions, a million and a half of which represented real property, and the balance, all kinds of expenditures made in the fight to crush the delaware financier, a large part of it being invested in the votes and favor of state and municipal authorities. chief among the enemies of addicks at this period was the young and brilliant boss of boston, its reform mayor, the hon. nathan matthews, and thereby hangs a swinging tale. when the addicks-rogers gas-fight broke out in boston this nathan matthews was at the zenith of his political career, and was rather a greater man than even reform mayors generally fancy themselves. he was at that state of development in the lives of aspiring persons which compels the average spectator to debate whether the swelling of the cranium should be met by a larger hat-band or by a sweeping haircut. _en passant_, addicks' panama had had its fifth enlargement to accommodate the successive bulges of his brow. now, the city of boston's contract with the bay state company for gas at a dollar and twenty-five cents, which had run a long term of years, was just expiring. one bright june morning the mayor's secretary telephoned the secretary of the mogul from delaware that his honor of boston, desired converse with the gas king. if those who overheard the dialogue can be credited, the parley was of this character: "this is the mayor of boston, the hon. nathan matthews." "this is j. edward o'sullivan addicks, gas king and united states senator-to-be. what would you with me?" "i would hold converse with you in regard to a contract of much moment which will expire in a few days." "well and good. my office is in west street. give your card to my first, second, or third secretary and i will not keep you waiting long." "the office of the mayor of boston is at the city hall and my first or under-secretary will make things agreeable while you wait. when will you call?" "i would have you understand, mr. mayor, that any one to talk gas with j. edward o'sullivan addicks, gas king and united state senator-to-be, comes to his office." "good-day to you, mr. gas king and united states senator-to-be." "good-day to you, mr. mayor." i do not, of course, guarantee that the conversation took exactly the form here given it, but no injustice has been done its substance, nor would it be possible to estimate in miles the breach it created. from that telephonic encounter date the earnest efforts of matthews and addicks to do up each other, in which both were successful to a degree that filled their hearts with indian pleasure. a few days later public announcement was made that the brookline gas company, rogers' corporation, had been awarded the contract for lighting boston, and that henceforth the legal price of gas to the consumer was to be $1 per thousand feet. this was due notice to all concerned that "standard oil" had captured city hall, and addicks realized his error. he sought the mayor's office, but the mayor had no time to see him. his companies met the new rate. there was nothing else for them to do. chapter xv the great bay state gas fight it was to this condition that i had to adapt my campaigning plans. i determined first to raise the market price of addicks' securities; to turn the tide against the "standard oil" by that most potent of stock-market weapons, publicity; and then to attack rogers from the rear through the city hall. for addicks to attempt to match pocket-books with rogers and "standard oil" in corrupting city or state officials i knew would be useless; and besides a fundamental stipulation in the agreement with the delaware financier on the _now-then_ had been that under no circumstances should bribery or corruption be allowed to enter into any of our plans while i was connected with the enterprise. i had always held, do now, and always shall hold, that the meanest crime in the calendar of vice is bribery of the servants of the people. i felt pretty sure, moreover, that i could play a card that would more than offset the dollars of "standard oil." nathan matthews was on the high-road to the governor's chair, but i happened to know that, however ambitious he might be for political preferment, his temperament rendered him more avid for distinction in business. addicks had within his gift the richest plum in all the boston commercial world. as controller of the affairs of the bay state company of delaware, which controlled the nomination and consequent election of the officers of the old boston gas companies, he could award to any one he pleased the presidency of these corporations, together with the large salary that went with the office.[6] my plans in shape, i rushed to the firing-line. i began with a statement to the investors of new england and the gas consumers of boston brimming over with facts and figures. then i fired a volley of candid details as to the manner in which city and state officials had recently betrayed the public's interests. lastly, i discharged at "standard oil" a broadside which my attorneys and friends assured me meant jail on a libel charge. i put my banking-house and my personal guarantee behind the old and new loans, and proceeded to roll up my sleeves in the stock-market. i got results at once. a change became apparent in public sentiment--the rottenness of addicksism was overcome by the stench of "standard oil." the prices of bay state stocks and bonds shot up; loan funds were offered freely and at lower rates of interest. there were, however, reprisals. rogers met my onslaught by a manoeuvre new in "standard oil" tactics. he came into the open, issuing a proclamation over his own signature which gave me the lie, at the same time tearing off a yard or two of my skin and throwing on a bucket of brine to remind me i had lost it. this attack was just off the press when i was out with a rejoinder which he, in after-years, referred to as quite the hottest thing of its kind he had ever read. in it i calmly, but in that "chunk english" which those who really wish to convey the truth naked can always find handy, told him plainly who he was, explicitly what "standard oil" was, and exactly who and what i was. i opine that about either assault there was nothing dignified, generous, or refined, but in stock-exchange battles one has not time to scent shrapnel. the immediate result of this interchange of deckle-edged[7] insults was to daze the public. "standard oil" attacked and actually replying; rogers assaulting lawson and lawson sending back worse than he got--almost anything might happen next. it was right here i got to rogers' _solar plexus_. i came out with another plain public talk, and gave him the choice of haling me into court--in which event i pledged him my word i would send him and his associates to jail for bribery and other crimes--or of acknowledging to the world he was licked and on the run. he was silent and i loudly claimed victory. the price of addicks stocks quickly emphasized our success by a further advance. thus far the campaign appeared to be working smoothly, and i turned my attention next to my rear attack. i began negotiations with mayor matthews for the withdrawal of his support from rogers. it was a difficult task, but after much manoeuvring i landed my big fish. i promised him the presidency of the boston, south boston, roxbury, and bay state gas companies for the term of three years, at a salary of $25,000 per annum, with the explicit understanding that he was to allow me, as his vice-president, to see that the bargain between us was lived up to. when the trade was made it was understood that the fact of matthews' change of base should be kept secret, and that he should not assume the office until the end of his term as mayor of boston. with that agreement the deal was clinched, signed, sealed, and delivered. in order that my readers may comprehend the events that follow, it is necessary that they understand something of the complications in which addicks' manipulations had involved that corporation. when addicks purchased the several boston gas properties he organized a company, the bay state of delaware, in which this ownership was vested. in order to facilitate the financing of the new corporation and for other manipulative purposes of his own, addicks created an inner corporation, the bay state of new jersey, owned by the treasury of the bay state of delaware, to which he turned over the stocks of the boston gas companies. these the bay state of new jersey transferred to the mercantile trust company of new york as collateral for the twelve million boston gas bonds which had been sold to the investing public. while to all intents and purposes the bay state of delaware was owner of the subsidiary properties, the contract with the mercantile trust company was made with the bay state of new jersey, and it was to the president of the latter corporation (addicks) that the trust company was bound to deliver the proxies for the gas stocks in its possession, three days before an annual election. knowledge of this subcutaneous corporation was confined to addicks and his immediate associates, and the delaware financier alone quite grasped its potentialities. hitherto addicks had used the proxies to elect himself president of each of the subordinate corporations, drawing the several salaries which went with the offices. to prevail on him to give up these places and their emoluments to a man he hated as bitterly as he did matthews was a difficult task, but his situation was desperate. finally, he agreed. i did not know till long afterward that this reluctant compliance was yielded only after addicks had had a secret session with his bay state directors, at which they voted him, by way of salve for his resignation, a sum equal to three years' salary, $75,000. the mayor, who was a lawyer, prided himself on his shrewdness, and was fully alive to the serpent strategy of addicks. he determined that the prize he had secured should not slip through his fingers for lack of precaution. we had many legal pow-wows in which the most astute lawyers at the boston bar were called in, and finally the directors of the bay state made an iron-clad contract with nathan matthews, agreeing to deliver over to him whatever proxies it, the bay state gas of delaware, received from the mercantile trust company of new york, on a given day before the annual election, with which he, of course, could elect himself president. this contract was signed by addicks and his directors and by all the officers of the bay state of delaware corporation, and was passed on and approved by the eminent law sharps both sides had retained. a few days after the document that made nathan matthews supreme boss of boston gas was conveyed to him, there came an explosion. like the premature bursting of a bombshell at a fourth of july celebration, the transaction "leaked," and the press announced in sable head-lines that mayor matthews had sold out, that addicks was on top, and that rogers and "standard oil" would surely be found beneath the _débris_. matthews has always claimed that this "leakage" was a piece of addicks' double dealing; addicks declares it was a part of matthews' and rogers' deep-laid plan to give him the double cross. anyway, as a hurrier-up of coming events the news was most successful, although its effect was somewhat of the nature of that produced by the throwing in of an overdose of soda at a candy pull--the pot boiled over, and the air for a time was permeated with the odor of burned sweets. in spite of all public and private criticism matthews budged not a jot, and confirmed the reports. i made the most of our triumph over "standard oil," and for a few days the public took to it, too. then came one of those return waves of sentiment which may always be counted on in any contest in which "standard oil" is engaged. from mysterious places and in untraceable ways the report became current that victory was really with rogers instead of with our side; that the deal was a smooth piece of machiavelian work; that matthews when he took the helm was to steer our ship alongside one of rogers' forts and perhaps drop anchor under a row of his concealed guns. this rumor alarmed me. i lost no time in running it to earth, and discovered to my consternation that matthews had spent the night before he made the agreement to come over to us in new york, at the home of h. h. rogers. exactly what had occurred there, or what their programme was, i don't know. long after this episode had slipped into gas history, at the time when rogers and myself were doing business together, i asked him to enlighten me on this one point, and he did to the extent of saying, "matthews only did what i approved of." this certainly redeemed matthews in my eyes from the reproach of having sold out his friends. there is nothing more despicable than a man who, after having consented to be "put" will not "stay put"--even though the first "put" be of a questionable character. this new complication demanded immediate action. i called on matthews to make public announcement that i was to be his vice-president, and thus set at rest the reports that were fast destroying the beneficial effects of our coup. i argued that such an announcement would convince the public that victory was with us and not with rogers. my surprise may be grasped when the mayor placed this icicle in my hot palm: "mr. lawson, it has long been my ambition to show the public of boston and gas consumers what i could do with this situation, and now that i am absolutely assured of gas supremacy, i would have you and all others distinctly understand i will run it as i deem best, regardless of the wishes of any one." nathan matthews was destined later to learn that in an addicks edifice there are secret trap-doors and concealed passageways available for quick escape in emergency, and that the term "absolutely assured" is of relative value when used in high finance, with addicks to interpret the relativeness. a few days after the mayor had shown his colors the annual election was "pulled off" in an unexpected manner. the mercantile trust company delivered its proxies to the president of the bay state _of new jersey_, who promptly re-elected himself and his friends to their old offices. next morning the public, the press, and the ex-mayor were alike surprised to learn that j. edward o'sullivan addicks was still president of all the boston gas companies; that general sam thomas, of new york, and thomas w. lawson, of boston, were vice-presidents; and that the expected and widely heralded matthews turnover to matthews had been indefinitely postponed. there was a tremendous "towse" for a few days during which time i tried my hand at public-opinion moulding, and so successfully that all interested saw that the tide had really turned, and was running swiftly against the heretofore invincible "standard oil." rogers tried to stem it by causing it to be known that matthews was to carry the new complication to the courts, but we quickly disposed of this possibility by reaching a settlement with our man. this was brought about by the payment to matthews of a number of thousands of dollars, which addicks afterward informed me he had entered in the gas-books as "balm salary." from this event until august, 1895, it was one continuous running fire with rogers and his crowd, with a constant gain to our side in public opinion, though final victory was still far off because of the unlimited money resources of "standard oil." in fact, it gradually became evident that, though we might hold out, it was impossible to whip "standard oil" to an open acknowledgment of defeat. the phase of the problem that gave me keenest cause for uneasiness was the possibility i recognized of treachery in my own camp. i had become painfully aware that addicks was getting impatient and was ready at any favorable moment to make one of his quick judas turns, which would land him safe with rogers as the price of the slaughter of the rest of us. true, i had taken all possible precautions to safeguard my own and my friends' interests against his craft by securing from him and from the subsidiary companies iron-clad power to act for them without consultation. to get this i had had to use great pressure, for he had balked long and hard against giving it. this was the condition of affairs when i decided to stake everything on one move. * certain of my critics have seized upon the transaction with mayor matthews, narrated in this chapter, to say: "he bribed the mayor and is no better than other bribers." the fact is, that the only thing the mayor of boston could do in the gas war--take sides with rogers, grant a permit to the brookline company to open the streets and come in competition with our companies, thus compelling, in the interests of the people, a reduction in the selling price of gas from $1.25 to $1.00--the mayor had already done. there was nothing more in his power, and the only object we had in securing his services was to put him between our companies and rogers, in the belief that rogers, owing to his former relations, would not dare fire through him. i never, directly or indirectly, bribed mayor matthews; but, on the contrary, only induced him to do what he had a moral right to do and i a moral right to ask him to do. footnotes: [6] see page 109. [7] mr. lawson's proclamations and market communications are invariably printed on the finest grade of deckle-edged paper.--the publisher. chapter xvi peace negotiations with rogers having made up my mind that the time had come for a final engagement, i decided myself to try legitimately to settle with mr. rogers, and prepared two letters which, if he were willing for us to get together, would pave the way for a meeting. these letters i sent by my secretary, mr. vinal, to mr. rogers at fairhaven. my readers, in weighing this odd correspondence, must bear in mind what the relations between mr. rogers and myself had been. we had vilified each other in every imaginable way, and i knew, or at least i thought i did, that the "standard oil" magnate would not hesitate to use any written communication of mine that he could lay hold of to bring about a split between addicks and myself. i had good evidence that he believed that in such a rupture lay his only chance of bringing home the quieting blow he had been trying to inflict on us. letter i. read as follows: henry h. rogers, fairhaven, mass. _dear sir_: my secretary, mr. vinal, will hand you this letter. if after reading it you are desirous of further communication with me, he has instructions, after you have returned this one to him, sealed in the enclosed envelope, to hand you another, which if after reading you return to him in another enclosed envelope, he will bring to me with whatever verbal answer you may care to send. my secretary knows nothing more of his errand or the contents of either letter. he can, therefore, give you no further information. if you do not call for the second letter, i will consider you do not care to pursue the subject further, which will lead me to notify you that the boston gas war will end in a most sensational way next wednesday. believe me, sir, yours respectfully, (signed) thomas w. lawson. upon his return from fairhaven mr. vinal informed me that mr. rogers, after reading this letter twice, folded and placed it in the envelope i had sent and handed it without comment to him, whereupon my secretary delivered to him letter ii., which was a type-written communication on a plain bit of paper, addressed to no one, signed by no one, and bearing no marks to identify the sender: there is a gas war now existing. upon one side is the "standard oil." upon the other the addicks bay state companies. after a fight has been begun there are but four things possible: "standard oil" can sell out to the bay state. the bay state can sell out to the "standard oil." they can come together by consolidation; or they can continue fighting until one or the other has been annihilated. nothing else is possible. therefore, one of these four things is to be the outcome of the present war. if you can be shown now that if one of the first three is not settled upon before next wednesday the fourth will be impossible beyond that date, and that it is absolutely in the power of one man, without consultation with any one, to bring about the accomplishment of any one of the first three, you will meet that man before next wednesday and make your selection. i can absolutely prove to you that this war will not continue after next wednesday, and that it is absolutely in my power, without consulting any one, to do any one of the three things you signify you desire done. mr. vinal reported that mr. rogers also read this letter a second time, but slowly and carefully, as though he were weighing each word, and then, sealing it in the envelope, passed it back to him with: "say to your employer i return to new york to-morrow, sunday night, and shall be at my office, 26 broadway, from 9.30 on monday morning till five in the afternoon; that i shall dine at my house, 26 east 57th street; that i shall be through dinner at eight o'clock, and that i go to bed at 10.30. tell him that any man who has an important communication to make to me affecting a matter in which i have large interests will be welcome to call on me between the hours i have named, provided he notifies me a little while in advance." when my secretary, whose practice it was to give me the minutest details of such affairs as this errand, had reported all that had happened, i at once sent a message to 26 broadway stating that i would be at rogers' house at eight o'clock on monday night, and on the stroke i pushed his electric latchstring. his man had hardly taken my hat when mr. rogers himself came down the hall with outstretched hand. chapter xvii a memorable conference if the years of my life are protracted beyond the psalmist's threescore and ten, even though the events that chance in the comparatively long future seethe and struggle as strenuously as those that befell in the eager, vivid procession of yesterdays which makes up my past, my memory's picture of this meeting will always hang where the lights cast their kindest reflections. i had left boston on the noon train, and got down to my hotel, the brunswick, on fifth avenue, by six o'clock. in those kind days of good memory when new yorkers really lived instead of looping-the-loop through life, the brunswick was head-quarters for southerners and bostonians of the old school. to-day its bricks and mortar and the picturesque iron balconies, from which two generations of america's celebrities reviewed the marching armies of peace and war, are heaps of refuse; for the old brunswick has had to give place to yet one more of the twenty-storied, emblazoned hostelries, whose alabaster halls, frescoed walls, mosaic floors, and onyx and silver bathtubs are designed to minister to the comfort of our great and free people when they needs must wander from the luxury of their homes. when i had dressed i crossed over to the old delmonico's opposite, and, in a secluded corner beside an open window which gave full view of the passing show on gotham's great boulevard, i sat and listened to old "philip," who, time out of mind, had been high-priest of the famous frenchman's temple of appetite, as he posted me on the latest doings of the town where no one remembers further back than yesterday, and to-morrow doesn't count. ordinarily i should have lingered for hours with "philip" and his tidbits, but that night my mind was a mad steeplechase of memories and hopes, all starting and finishing at 26 east 57th street, and i fear he must have thought he had failed in the plump little duck which i left unpicked, and in the bottle of chianti which i hardly sipped. at 7.30 i lit my cigar and started for what i felt was to be the tomb or the forcing-house of all the air-castles i had cherished from boyhood. at last i was to meet the real champion; i was to tussle hand-to-hand with the head of the financial clan, the man of all men best fitted to test to the utmost the skill and quickness which i had picked up in the rough and tumble of a hundred fights on state and wall streets--rogers, wary, intrepid, implacable, the survivor of bloody battles in comparison with which mine were but pink skirmishes. i had carefully put aside that half-hour between dinner and the moment for my appointment to run up and down my mental keyboard under what to me are the most favorable conditions possible--an evening walk through the streets of a great city. some men can invite their souls only in sylvan solitudes, but the flare of light, the clash of traffic, the kaleidoscopic procession of humanity, with its challenging contrasts shifting and seething on great metropolitan highways, breed in my mind a sense of calm, cool remoteness in which all the glitter and excitement of the spectacle suggests only its appalling transiency. from the gay carnival of broadway i cut across through the brownstone gloom of 27th street into sixth avenue, where the tired men and women of the toiling millions sat in their doorways or at their windows over the shops resting after the heat and travail of the day. some watched the sidewalk antics of their children--perhaps speculating on the possibility that this or the other among that merry throng of urchins might rise to be an alderman or even a city boss--perhaps president of the greatest republic on earth--or--transcendent bliss--a rogers or a rockefeller. from 42d street i turned up fifth avenue, lifting my hat and exchanging a word with mr. and mrs. russell sage, and for an instant, as i left them, my wandering thoughts took a new twist, for mrs. sage had informed me that "father and i are on the way to prayer-meeting"--early evening prayer-meeting in new york! for an instant i was in one of those tiny new hampshire villages, a forgotten haven of rest and simplicity, innocent as yet of steam, machinery, or trolleys, for the sweet lady and the angular man with the pained gait which spoke in loud tones of the unbroken store-shoe could belong in no other than a rural place. but the image of the new hampshire village only flitted across my mind's film, for my truant senses seized on a message over memory's telephone: "russell sage has $100,000,000." one hundred millions, and i was back on earth again, but as i walked the thought was buzzing in my brain: "is it possible that that countryman has made _one hundred million dollars_, when the expert carpenter who started at the birth of christ to trudge the world until from his honest labors he had accumulated $1,000,000 by laying aside each day all the wage he was entitled to, one dollar, had at the end of 1,900 years only a little more than half that sum?" at last i turned the corner of 57th street, and when i looked down mr. rogers' home-like hall and grasped his outstretched hand and heard his "lawson, i'm glad to see you!" i would have sworn it was hours and hours since i left the little table in the corner of delmonico's. * * * * * the chief impression i recall of my experience that night is gratitude for henry h. rogers' unexpected kindness, and admiration for his manliness, ability, and firmness. when this memory rises in my mind i regret "frenzied finance" and all the consequences with which it is fraught for him and his connections. when the american people are aroused, as they surely will be, to demand restitution and are in the act of brushing, with a mighty sweep of indignation, back into the laps of the plundered the billions of which they have been robbed, and "standard oil" and the "system" break and fall like trees before the gale, i doubt, even if henry h. rogers be brought face to face with ruin, that he will feel half the pain i shall, for i know that the picture of that memorable night will surely come back to me with all the vividness of reality. but as my mind harks back, there clashes with this another, a hellish picture, which the same henry h. rogers painted with the brush of amalgamated, and a procession of convicts and suicides trail slowly toward me out of the canvas. then i realize that my pen is but the instrument of a righteous retribution and that no personal feelings, however tender, must be allowed to interfere. "come this way," said my host, striding ahead of me along the hall. "in here we can have our talk and our smoke undisturbed." he led me into the big, empty dining-room and closed the door. "mr. rogers," i began, "it is kind of you to be so friendly after the mean things we have said of each other. am i to understand you don't lay any of all that has passed up against me?" "lay it up against you, my boy? drop that all out of your mind. you probably know i talk to the point and mean what i say. if you had hit below the belt as that--addicks has, i _would_ lay it up against you and a hundred years would not make me forget it. i know what you've done and why you've done it, and it was as much your right to do it as mine to do what i have done. i have nothing against you, and if events place me in a position where i can do anything to make your job easier without hurting my own interests--mind that, without hurting my own interests--i will do it. you have my word for it." we sat within a few feet of each other, and i looked squarely into his eyes as he said, "you have my word for it," and they were honest eyes--honest as the ten-year-old boy's who with legs apart and hands in pockets throws his head back and says: "wait until i am a man, and i will do it if i die for it!" i looked into them and i knew "my word for it" was all gold and a hundred cents to the dollar. for a minute we gazed steadily into--through each other, and i knew he was reading away into the back of my head. inwardly i said: "if i do business with this man for a day or for a lifetime, i will never face him and give him my word for one thing and mean another," and in the years after when we did millions upon millions of business, with only each other's word for a bond of fair treatment, not once did i depart from the letter of my resolution. up to the recent famous "gas trial," where our roads suddenly shot off at right angles, owing to a foul act of perjury, henry h. rogers never tired of meeting all his associates' attacks upon me with: "lawson's word is gospel truth for me." when we dropped our eyes, both evidently satisfied, he said: "now, what have you to say to me?" i spoke my piece rapidly and without interruption: "there are four things possible, as i wrote you--only four. i will take up the fourth first. i have absolute power to speak for all our local companies. if we, you and i, come to no settlement by to-morrow night, i will, without warning to any one, confess a default to the notes of our different companies and have a receiver appointed. as our stocks and bonds are held by our best investors all over new england, and as no such move is suspected, there will be a terrific rumpus. in the crash i shall go down with addicks and the rest, for we have all put our personal resources behind the enterprise. i will see that the howl following the crash shall be such as all must hear, and i will call attention to the illegal acts of every one--your companies, addicks' companies, and the city and state officials that have made such conditions possible. i don't think you will be able to stand against the cyclone this crash will raise; but even if you do, the receiver, having no interest to pay on bonds, will be in a position to smash the price of gas to seventy or seventy-five cents, and make it impossible for you to get possession of our companies for so long a time that the consumers will never allow you to get the price back to a profitable one. have i made it clear that you cannot, as you were counting on doing, continue this fight till you have us tired out and crushed?" his answer came as clear, quick, and sharp as the click of a revolver: "perfectly, provided you can do the thing you say." "i will prove to you i can." "it is not necessary," he clicked back. "do you give me your word that you can?" "absolutely." "i am satisfied. go on." "that leaves only three possibilities," i continued. "you buy us; we buy you; or, we consolidate. i will take the third first. under any circumstances or conditions will you join forces and do business with us?" "under no circumstances nor conditions will i do any business with addicks. he has played me false, broken his word, and lied to me when there was no necessity for doing so, and no man who has done this once can ever do business with me a second time." i once stood by a mechanism through which passed a strip of metal. click! 'twas cut. whir! 'twas a cylinder. click! whir! click! a corner, an edge, an end, and b-r-r-rr! it was dropped, a metallic cartridge, to do its part in peace or war. even more fascinating was it to see this human machine eject the product of its whirring brain. "then we have but two possibilities. will you buy us out at the price we must have?" "what is the price?" "sufficient to make good the promises that i have made to addicks, my friends, and the public since i have been in command," i replied. "pass that by as an impossibility." "then, mr. rogers, we are down to this: you must sell and we must buy you out." "right. now, how do you propose to buy?" for months the ablest financiers and business men of wall street and boston had striven to start up negotiations with mr. rogers with a view to settlement, and all had dropped them without even getting in an opening wedge, and here was i at the end of fifteen minutes of my first meeting, with my task half accomplished. i went on: "there is something more you must do, mr. rogers. you must assist us in buying, which means you must sell at the terms you and i agree are the only ones we can meet. therefore i will run over our situation. you have certain property, consisting of the brookline company and miscellaneous investments in connection with it. what cost does it stand you?" frankly, he went over what his boston gas-war equipment consisted of and what it had cost, which, boiled down, amounted to $3,500,000. he then said: "let us figure what it will be worth to you when, it being known you have won out, you will have additional prestige and no competition." we agreed upon $2,000,000 as representing the probable appreciation in what we were to acquire from him over and above any increase to our own securities. "i'll take cost, $3,500,000, if it is cash or the equivalent, or i will take $4,500,000 if it is to be credit of a nature that assures me my money eventually, and i will divide my profit of a million equally with you. this sum will of course be in addition to anything you may be paid by addicks." instantly, as if we had agreed upon it in advance, our eyes met--his cold, clear, and steely business--mine, i hoped, the same. for a second neither of us said a word. then i said: "thank you for the offer of the $500,000 profit, but we will cut all such offers out. my pay comes from my side. i never yet have known the man who could take pay from both sides and do his work properly." i slowly drew out the word "_properly_," and he in the same tone of voice said: "'properly' is better than 'honestly.' you know, lawson, there is much cant in these times of which 'honesty' is the refrain." "you and i will make no headway discussing moral ethics, mr. rogers, although we may in discussing business practices," i said, and i chalked up on my mental black-board: "test one." then i went on: "i agree that $4,500,000, in anything we can pay in, is as fair a price as $3,500,000 cash, provided we find a credit guarantee satisfactory to you; unless indeed you are willing to allow us the $500,000 you just offered me." "what i offered you was part of my profit. i will not allow any of it. my price is the same whether i pay you anything or not." "very well, mr. rogers, then the situation is this: in any trade that is made it will first be necessary for you to turn your property over to us to manage in conjunction with our own. when the public see it in our hands, our securities will advance and we can, by issuing additional bay state stock, sell it and secure whatever sum it will be necessary for us to have beyond what we can borrow on your securities. do you agree with me?" he saw it as i did. "i imagine you will never consent to turn your property over to us on our say-so that we will later pay you for it?" "you are right there. i would not take j. edward addicks' guarantee in any form he could possibly put it. once he got his hands on my company, for even thirty days, he would so far misuse it that he would deliberately default for the purpose of returning it to me in a damaged condition, and, in addition, would play some of those tricks which are second nature to him." "it will be necessary for us then," i went on, "to give you some forfeit bond so large that, even if we misuse your property while it is in our hands, you will be repaid for the damage done, and it must be at the same time something of such value to us that even addicks will be compelled to play fair." "well, what can you put up?" mr. rogers asked. "addicks has a right, through the bay state company of delaware, to issue, through the bay state company of new jersey, a million and a half new bonds for the purpose of acquiring new property. he and i have discussed the scheme as a last resort should any settlement seem possible." "do you mean to tell me there is anything addicks can get his hands on which he has not yet used for his companies nor stolen for himself?" replied mr. rogers incredulously. "yes, he has time and again assured me of this, and he would not dare to lie to me under existing conditions." he arose from his chair and stood directly in front of me and straightened up for what i could see was to be an unusual effort. then with the force and the fire which in all his supreme moments make henry h. rogers wellnigh irresistible he said: "lawson, i have listened to you. now listen to me. i have taken you at your word, and have talked frankly and shown you my hand as i have seldom shown it to a stranger. to do the business i want to do, i see i must talk even more frankly than i already have, and i want you to weigh carefully what i shall say to you, for it may have a great bearing on your after-life. how old are you?" "thirty-seven," i replied. "i thought you were about thirty-seven," he said. "well, i am fifty-six and in experience am old enough to be your grandfather, so you can afford to give weight to what i am about to say, especially as i give you my word that i speak for your benefit first and my own afterward. i watched you before you hitched up with addicks, and always thought that if the opportunity arose, we might do business together. we, or as you and others like to call us, 'standard oil,' have money enough to carry through whatever business we embark on and we know where there is all the business to be had that we care to engage in. we have everything, in fact, but men. we are always short of men to carry out our projects--young men, who are honest, therefore loyal; men to whom work is a pleasure; above all, men who have no price but our price. to such men we can afford to give the only things they have not got, or, if they have already got them, to give them in greater quantities--i mean power and money. you made a great mistake when you joined forces with addicks, because no man can afford to be associated with the kind of a rascal addicks is, the lowest i have yet come across. he is the type of man who cuts his best friend's throat with as much ease and satisfaction as he does his worst enemy's, if not with more. i fully expected that by this time he would have sold you out. if he had, where would you have been? now, here you are from sheer desperation driven to me to avoid utter failure. suppose you can do all you hope to--get the bonds, put them up and secure my property--do you not suppose that by that time addicks will have some mine dug under you which will blow you to destruction? but grant even that he plays fair, and you bring the boston situation up to a paying place, what good will it do you? you surely have more sense than to believe a man of addicks' make-up can be permanently successful?" mr. rogers halted. i had risen, and we stood facing each other. i felt that i was right here playing for that greatest of all stakes, my self-respect, the loss of which to any man, i had long before discovered, means ebon failure. "what do you want me to do?" i asked. "say you'll come with us, and we'll fix up the boston situation in some way that will forever eliminate addicks from our affairs--your and my affairs. i would not insult you by asking you to sell addicks out. it is unnecessary. he has no real rights in boston. you and i can figure out a scheme that will take care of every other interest, and we'll give addicks a lot more money than he can secure in any other way and show him the door. as for you and me, we'll make a lot of money and make it fairly and above board. but i am not thinking so much of the immediate situation as i am of the possibility of you joining us and working on some of the deals we have on hand. i shall put you in a position to make more money and secure more real power than you could possibly obtain in a like time under any other conditions. you know corporations and the stock-market, and you can readily see what the combination of our money and prestige and your knowledge of the market and investors will mean." heaven knows i could see what it all meant. i had even at that time in a chrysalis state those plans for destroying the "system" which now in a rounded out and matured form i intend to be the superstructure of my story of "frenzied finance." i had, a year before in paris, outlined those plans to some of the brightest financial minds of europe, and while they had marvelled at their radicalness, they had pronounced them sound, and had offered to furnish the hundred million of dollars required for their execution. then i realized that to take this money from bankers would hamper me in the execution of my plans, and i postponed putting the project in force until i could furnish the necessary money through my own connections. again, i had big ideas as to the copper situation--ideas that only awaited unlimited capital to be brought before the people, and which, if carried out, would do for them what had as yet never been done--give them tremendous profits upon their savings. and here were the unlimited capital and unlimited business prestige right at hand, but---"mr. rogers," i said, "don't! please don't! i appreciate your proposition, and i thank you, but i can't accept. i agree with you about addicks, the position i am in, and the mistake or foolish recklessness i was guilty of when i linked up with this boston mess, but that doesn't alter the case an iota. i am enlisted with this man. i knew what he was when i consented to take charge of his affairs, and i should hate myself if i sold him out, even though i knew he would without hesitation sell me out. i must be true to myself." mr. rogers remained silent. i went on: "this, if i accepted your proposal, i could no longer be, even were addicks and boston gas out of it. the man who is 'standard oil' wears a collar, and if i did what you ask i should expect to wear a collar and--and--i can't do it." i stopped; i was not excited; it was impossible to be so with that calm figure, apparently cut from crystal ice, so near me, but i was very much in earnest. i wondered what would come next. mr. rogers raised his hand and held it out to me, mine grasped it, and without a word thus we stood long enough to put that seal on our friendship which none of the many financial hells we jointly passed through in the after-nine years was hot enough to melt. but that friendship is ended now. henry h. rogers' evidence in the boston "gas trial" was the spark that kindled the dead leaves of the past into the conflagration which, now spread beyond the control of man, has brought to light the hidden skeletons of forgotten misdeeds and exposed them for all the world to see. he at last broke the spell. "lawson, you're a queer chap; but we are all queer, for that matter, and we must work along those lines we each think best. i once stood, just as you do now, in front of a man whom i looked up to as all that was wisest and best. he made an earnest effort to induce me to choose the ministry for my life-work, but i chose dollars instead, and i sometimes wonder if i chose wisely; but, as i said, we all must select our pack and, as we are the ones who must carry it, i suppose no one else should complain." after a moment's pause i shot ahead into business again as though we had never left it. it took me but a short time to arrange the details of our trade. the bay state of delaware was to buy all of mr. rogers' boston investments and to pay for the same $4,500,000--$1,500,000 in six months, $1,000,000 in a year, the balance in a year and a half, with interest at five per cent.; the bay state was to put up, as a pledge of good faith, $1,500,000 new boston bonds; and as soon as such deposit was made, mr. rogers was to transfer his securities and corporation to us. i was to go to philadelphia that night and arrange all details with addicks and report the following day. it was 10.30 o'clock when i left 26 east 57th street. i hurried down to the brunswick, where i had time only to shift my clothes and catch the "midnight" for philadelphia. after breakfast next morning i tackled addicks. it goes without saying that i was a cyclone of enthusiasm as i minutely ran through what i had done, beginning with my letter to rogers and finishing up with my visit of the night before. i omitted not the slightest detail, and when i wound up with my request that addicks get the lawyers together and prepare the necessary documents for the turnover of the bonds and acceptance of rogers' properties, i felt that my share in the boston gas war was almost ended. chapter xviii the duplicity of addicks addicks looked at me in a cool, aggravating way, as though my enthusiasm was a joke. "lawson, you have done a big thing, a big thing, but you put up too many bonds, altogether too many. it looks to me as though that old trickster had got the best of us at last." by this time i had learned all the moods of this man and knew that when he assumed that air of cold, saturnine jocularity it was safe to look for the uncovering of some vaporized trickery. my enthusiasm oozed. i hastened to ask: "what do you mean by 'too many bonds,' addicks? i gave him all we had. sorry it was not more. we are to pay him four and a half million dollars, and the sooner we do it the better. now out with what you've got in your mind; i won't stand any trifling." addicks continued to look at me with the same insolent, critical air. he said slowly: "the reason i say you've given too many bonds is that we haven't a million and a half to put up. where in the world did you get the idea we had?" in an instant i realized that this sharper had tricked me into apparently tricking rogers. i was boiling with rage. "you have told me over and over again that you retained the right to issue a million and a half bonds, that you had never parted with it, and relying on your assurances, i have done business with rogers. let's have the truth now at once." addicks is a master in the management of just such tangles as had developed here. i had expected him to give way before my indignation. he looked me square in the eye and turned the tables on me. he got mad first. "you have taken too much on yourself," he began vehemently. "you had no right to go ahead without consulting me. because i've given you full swing you think you are the whole thing, but you're not. and as for your rushing in on me without warning and expecting me to let you turn all the assets of this corporation over to your new 'standard oil' friend, i won't stand for it. you can't do this corporation's business that way." he poured on for five minutes without giving me a chance to interpose a word. he seemed to be consumed with anger and paced up and down the office. then suddenly he stopped: "we cannot afford to have any trouble, you and i, lawson. i'm sure you did only what you thought best, but the fact is, i pledged some of those bonds for our war supplies a few months ago, and though i'm not going to dispute it with you, i'd swear i told you at the time." as addicks talked i had been mentally reviewing the situation in which i found myself. i saw myself dropped out of rogers' consideration as the same kind of a financial trickster that addicks was. for the moment, i had no fight left; i was knocked out. "don't feel bad, lawson. you got as far with rogers as it is possible to get, and you are dead right when you say that once we get hold of his corporation so that every one knows we've licked him, we can easily sell stock enough to pay him in a few weeks." as he talked he was again the master financial trickster, full of device and strategy. finally i answered: "don't say any more, addicks. words won't help us. i've got to face rogers as soon as a train can take me back to new york, and after that--then i'll have something to say to you." i started to go. "what are you going to say to him?" he asked. "say to him? what can i say to him? at my solicitation he gave me a hearing--at his own home--treated me best in the world. i told him certain things, and pledged my word they were truths, and i've got to go back and tell----" "tell what?" "that i'm either as big a liar as he says you are or a fool--a doddering fool." "you are going to do nothing of the kind," addicks declared peremptorily. "you're going to tell him that you were not posted up to date, and that i, being pressed for money, had pledged some of the million and a half i had told you we had. that's all. he'll see it all right, and he'll trade for--for--what we have left." i suddenly remembered that he had not told me how many bonds he had on hand. just a ray of hope in the fog. "how many free bonds have we to offer, addicks, suppose he is willing to overlook this ugly piece of trickery?" i asked anxiously. "i'm not quite sure," he answered, "but i can find out from the books." he rang for miller, his right-hand man, the dummy treasurer of the bay state company, and said to him: "harry, mr. lawson has got mixed up about the bonds. he thought we had a million and a half. you remember we've pledged some in the loans. just how many have we now on hand?" "harry" looked it up and said: "just $904,000 worth." "there you are, lawson," cried addicks. "there's plenty to assure rogers we'll do what we agree to." fool that i was, i did not see his game. no one ever does see addicks' game till it is too late, for no one but a moral idiot would play the game addicks plays, and, thank heaven, moral idiots are so rare in life that it is not worth while figuring out the formula from which they work. by one o'clock i was at mr. rogers' office at 26 broadway. he greeted me warmly. "well, lawson, did you get things finished up all right?" "mr. rogers, i have a most humiliating admission to----" "hold up right there. cut out all explanations and excuses. have you brought those bonds as you agreed to, or not?" his eyes were snapping and shifting from one color to another. "no, i have not got them." "why not?" had i been a woman i should have clapped my hands to my ears and screamed, so sudden and bomb-like came those two words. "he had used some of them and has only $904,000 on hand." "only $904,000!" it is impossible to convey the concentrated scorn and sarcasm mr. rogers infused into these words, and he continued to glare at me for fully a minute, his eyes as searching as _x_-rays. when that glare shifted i had a presentiment it would leave me forever a stranger to him, and i made up my mind to turn on my heel and leave his office without a word. i felt that he was in the right, and that if i were in his place i'd glare, too. suddenly the expression changed. he said peremptorily: "lawson, get on the first train for philadelphia and bring back those agreements executed and the $904,000 instead of the $1,500,000." "mr. rogers," i began, but he stopped me with an imperative gesture. "don't say a word, but do as i tell you. i warned you you were dealing with a dog, but you wouldn't have it. now i'm going to put this trade through even if i make a fool of myself thereby. you've done your work and that whelp shall not keep you out of its results. i'm in this now, and we will see if addicks can outplay me as well as you. not another word. i understand the whole thing." i returned to philadelphia deciding once and for all certain things in regard to mr. rogers and others affecting the future of j. edward o'sullivan addicks; and that night addicks and i "had it out." i shall not attempt to reproduce our talk. suffice it to state that when i called for the bonds addicks began to hem and haw, and then i realized that he had a second time lied to me. we were in his philadelphia office, and it was night and we were alone. i demanded the truth, and finally he told me he had no $904,000 of bonds. as a fact he had not a single bond. he had used them to the last one and had deceived me for months. in regard to this interview addicks has always maintained that i laid hands upon him, and that he was on the verge of doing some awful thing, but this is false. what i did was to turn the key in the door and then, without undue regard to his sensibilities, draw a word-picture of the position he had placed me in. also i said what i thought of him. that is all. the vast profits which the stock operator makes apparently overnight are often subjects for the world's wonder and envy. but if the gains are great, the road is muddy. if those who covet the golden rewards will participate in a deal or two, wallow in the filthy double-dealing which is an inevitable part of the cost price of success, they will quickly realize the dark side of the glittering game, and that the sacrifices are in proportion to the winnings. if i had been asked that night what price would recompense me for the hell addicks' shabby deceit had stirred up in me, i should have said--that night--that no number of millions would pay for the bitterness of the experience. it was after midnight when i left addicks' office, and as i walked to my hotel i was steeped in gloom and bitterness. before me was the most humiliating ordeal with which fate had ever saddled me. i had to confess failure a second time, and under such circumstances that rogers would be justified in believing me either a swindler or a dupe unworthy of respect or consideration. i was at 26 broadway by ten o'clock the same morning. mr. rogers was in his main private office. his secretary was with him. he was full of business, and, i thought, preoccupied. as i entered, and before a word of greeting passed, he gave me one of his keen, appraising glances. "well?" was all he said. "your estimate of addicks was correct. he has no bonds," i said, giving him the worst of it at once. i was desperate and certainly in no mood for apology. rogers looked at me. i thought he gasped. he rushed--whether he pushed or pulled me, or we both slid, or how we got there i don't know--but in an instant after i had said "he has no bonds" we were in one of the number of 8 x 12 glass-sided pens he calls waiting-rooms, but which the clerks have dubbed "visitors' sweatboxes." he put both hands on my shoulders and he yelled--fairly _yelled_: "say that again! i did not get it." in after-years i became on rather playful terms with the extraordinary bursts of wrath to which henry h. rogers occasionally gives way, and which sweep through the "system's" shrine like a tornado; but this was my first experience, and it was a shock and a revelation. just what was going to happen next i could not imagine. i remembered afterward that the most definite of the impressions that chased each other through my mind was that henry h. rogers would surely have a stroke of apoplexy. then that he would "bust." however, i pulled myself together and began: "mr. rogers, what's the use of getting excited?" i got no further. he jumped backward. the next second i was in the storm-centre. the room was small. suddenly it became full of arms and legs and hands waving and gesticulating, and fists banging and brandishing; gnashing teeth and a convulsed face in which the eyes actually burned and rained fire; and the language--such a torrent of vilification and denunciation i have never heard, mingled with oaths so intense, so picturesque, so varied that the assortment would have driven an old-time east indiaman skipper green with jealousy. i was horrified for an instant, then surprised, and after that, if it had not been for my position as the cause of it all, i should have been interested in the exhibition as a performance. i could hear a stirring and a movement outside. the clerks were evidently aware of the scene. forms passed rapidly across the ground-glass walls. after a time rogers controlled himself. then he said to me in a voice still vibrant with passion: "lawson, tell me--put it in short, plain language--do you mean to say that after coming to me of your own accord and agreeing to do certain things, and then returning here to this very office, admitting that you had tricked me; after my overlooking that breach of faith and agreeing to take half the collateral simply because it was all you could raise, and because i desired to assist _you_--do you mean to say you have the audacity to tell me to my face that the whole thing is a lie and you have imposed on me?" "i mean, mr. rogers, to tell you that mr. addicks has just proved to me that he has no bonds; that he is a liar and worse." "oh, he is, is he? but does that justify you in coming?--oh!----" again he was off. when he stopped for breath i raised my voice and made it loud and emphatic enough to convince even a man temporarily insane that my part as audience and victim had ended. i said: "mr. rogers, i can't say more than that i apologize for the part i've been made to play in this transaction, and i'll leave your office prepared to take any kind of medicine, however harsh it may be, that you will deal out on account of all this. not only will i take it, but i'll think you are right in administering it." rogers once more got himself under control. i stepped toward the door. "one minute, lawson--one minute. what are you going to do? go back to your associate, that gentlemanly, square-dealing fellow in philadelphia?" "mr. rogers," i replied, "i ask no mercy at your hands, but there's a limit to the things a man will stand under the mess i'm laboring with. i'm going to do the best i can. what it will be i don't know. there's a deal of money at stake--my friends', the public's, my own--i'm responsible for it. i've made a terrible blunder. i am paying for it, but nothing that has happened has altered my idea of the duty i owe myself and others." he was about to say something sarcastic. then he choked back the words. his manlier nature rose to the surface. "lawson," he said, "i'm sorry for you. upon my soul i am." "you needn't be, mr. rogers. it's all right; it's part of the game, but i'm awfully sorry i came near you." i opened the door. "one second more, lawson," he said, stopping me and putting out his hand. "i'm not only sorry, but i give you my word i have not a doubt--no, not a suspicion of your good faith throughout this business--and if at any time you see your way to open up negotiations, you're welcome. do you understand? you're welcome to come in here or to my house at any time you think you see your way out." i said "good-by" and bolted before my feelings overcame me. chapter xix enter h. m. whitney it is not surprising that there should now have ensued an interval of silence and peace in the boston gas war. disheartened, disgusted, disappointed, i had to take stock of our position. however enraged i might be at the new revelation of addicks' extraordinary veniality, the other elements in the situation remained as before. i could see nothing for me to do but to resume the tactics i had employed previous to the meeting with rogers. my friends' interests had to be protected, and to do that war must be waged until a vulnerable spot in rogers' armor had been found. but it was some days before i could screw my enthusiasm back to fighting-pitch. in the mean time rogers did nothing. he, too, was waiting for new developments. to this extent the situation had altered, however: i knew just where i stood with rogers, and he realized the consequences of pressing us into a corner. i knew he would sell his company and retire from the field if i could find a way to pay him for so doing. he knew that if he turned the screws too hard i would as a last resort turn the tables by throwing bay state gas into bankruptcy. i tried many times and in many ways to find means to bring about a termination of the struggle, but to no purpose. our extremity was such that it was impossible to do more than protect our companies from a receivership. to raise new capital to deposit as collateral with rogers was out of the question, for the public, looking on at what was evidently most disastrous warfare, was in no temper to buy new stock. the lull in our hostilities was only a pause between battles. it suddenly came to an end january, 1896, when a new enemy appeared in the field. henry m. whitney, who had built up boston's electric street-railway system, and who, from his frequent dealings with the massachusetts legislature in obtaining franchises, had the reputation of carrying that body in his waistcoat-pocket, came before this legislature with a proposition for a charter for a new and independent gas company. up to this time whitney had had no relation with the gas public. he based his new departure on the claim that he had come into possession of a patented device through which it became possible to turn the low-grade sulphuric coal of nova scotia into coke without sacrificing either the valuable by-products, such as ammonia, tar, etc., or illuminating gas. this was a very remarkable pretension, for we had long ago eliminated these low-grade coals from consideration as material for gas-making; but if whitney's device actually was what he claimed, undoubtedly he would be a dangerous competitor. whitney's petition set forth further, that because of the exceedingly low price of this province coal and its richness in by-products he could afford to sell gas to consumers at 50 cents per thousand feet (the legal charge was then $1 per thousand feet), a price which would enable the great manufacturing institutions and all the steam and heating plants to use gas economically for fuel purposes. the thing was sprung one day and was all over town before night. there were interviews and pamphlets floridly setting forth mr. whitney's good intentions toward gas consumers. mr. whitney was, and is, one of boston's most important citizens, at the present time president of the chamber of commerce, and a brother of the "system's" most machiavelian votary, the late william c. whitney. the application, backed by his prestige, and the roseate dreams of cheap gas it conveyed, created a sensation in boston. evidently he intended to have it seem that the people were in favor of the new charter, for simultaneously there appeared notices in the press calling for three distinct citizens' meetings. there seemed to be general rejoicing that at last the odious standard-oil addicks-bay state gas outfit with all its corruption and unwholesome wrangling was to be deposited outside the city walls. the experience of any man who has had to do with political and financial affairs invariably shows him that nothing ever happens of itself. thunderbolts do descend from clear skies, but an enemy and not nature has hurled them. a clever tactician will always look for his antagonist's hand behind any isolated or detached fluctuation of public feeling which bears in the slightest degree upon his problem. in going over the circumstances, looking for the correct interpretation of the appearance in our field of this second richmond, i took into consideration the fact that h. m. whitney was deep in a speculative venture, dominion coal, which owned vast tracts of these low-grade coal lands in nova scotia, and it was known he had been trying vainly to utilize their products in the locomotives of the boston & maine railroad and several other ventures in which he was a controlling factor. in one way it seemed reasonable that if whitney really had found a way to get something out of his coal, he was justified in making the best possible use of it. on the other hand, i could not but see how the new project brought about the very situation at which rogers had so long been aiming. selling gas at 75 or 50 cents, the new company would absolutely command the business; the old companies must go bankrupt, pass into a receiver's hands, and in due course would be absorbed by the whitney corporation. that would leave but one gas company in complete control of the boston field, and it would not be bound to continue the low prices when competition had disappeared, but would be legally free to go back to the old rates of $1 and $1.25. in a combination which so completely went rogers' way, surely his fine slim italian hand might be perceived at the throttle. once i had made up my mind by what we were confronted, i lost no time. inquiries revealed that whitney's alleged control of the legislature was not exaggerated. in fact, it seemed eager to do his bidding in any direction. there was no space for negotiation or deliberation, so i returned his bomb with another, which, exploding in his breastworks, created as much of a sensation as his own had done. i did not believe whitney could do with nova scotia coal the things he claimed, but, whether or not, if he got his charter, rogers' object would be accomplished. if he were absolutely bound, however, under heavy bonds to do exactly as he had promised, his proposition would be so loaded that it might go off in his own hands and blow him to pieces. the next day i went personally before the legislature and agreed to pay the state of massachusetts $1,000,000 for the charter whitney had applied for, and offered to give bonds to do all the things whitney would give bonds to do on receipt of it. this proceeding caused a halt. it startled the public and set the whitney forces agape. my proposition was decidedly novel, and on its face absurd--the state could not under the law accept a million dollars or any other sum for its charter--but, on the other hand, it was the quickest-acting horse-sense producer that could possibly have been brought to bear. it was discussed everywhere. men said: "why not? if the state has a valuable thing to give away, why should it not go to the one who will pay the people the most money for it?" i had outflanked the enemy, and if he gave battle it would have to be on my conditions. whitney was furious, and his privately owned legislature cursed me for interfering with its plans; but he and they recognized my advantage, and that night i had a call from mr. whitney and his attorney, george towle. "what are you trying to do, lawson?" whitney asked. "only trying to protect from destruction the boston gas companies of which i am vice-president and general manager," i replied. "but my proposition is a perfectly legitimate one," whitney objected. "i have got hold of this invention, which enables me to utilize my dominion coal in such a way that we can make coke out of it, and at the same time get all the gas. this coal is cheap to produce and costs little per ton to bring in. so i can sell gas cheaper than you can make it." "and we have a plant for the manufacture and distribution of gas which has cost us seventy years and millions of dollars to get together, and we have also the customers to whom you must sell your cheap gas," i returned. "if you can really do what you claim, why not go ahead, make your gas, and sell it to us? we will distribute it to the people and we will divide the profit, and you will make as much as though you did it all, for you will not have a fight on hand nor be obliged to build up a duplicate plant. that's all you can do now; you cannot get a charter to duplicate our plant, because whatever price you offer the legislature for it we will go you a few hundred thousand better." we argued for hours. i showed him that if he finally prevailed and got what he was after, his charter would bind him to the absolute fulfilment of his promise under bonds that would make it unprofitable and dangerous. he finally made up his mind that such a victory was not worth winning, and he said to me: "what kind of a hitch-up can i make with you and your companies?" "any fair one," i replied. "this is the situation as i see it, and i'm going to be frank: you say you have a good scheme, but you certainly have a legislature, and you have evidently entered into a compact with rogers whereby he is to utilize what you have, to knock us on the head. now we have fairly checkmated you, and rogers is out. seems to me you owe it to us and yourself to give us the same chance you offered him. let us utilize your plans to save ourselves and to knock rogers on the head. but first, are you free to go on with us without explaining things to 'standard oil'?" whitney assured me that his arrangement with rogers was tentative, depending on whether he could get the charter and could carry out his other plans. after some further manoeuvring we agreed that we should withdraw our offer from the legislature, that whitney should secure the new charter, and that it should be so worded as expressly to allow his company to lay pipes, manufacture, buy or sell gas, and to consolidate any or all of the existing or new gas companies in the state of massachusetts; and that when the charter was granted it should belong equally to the addicks boston gas companies and to whitney. upon their part the boston gas companies would buy of the new company all the gas it produced at something less than it was costing them to manufacture it under the old process. that bound us to nothing dangerous, and we were not forced to take whitney's gas unless he actually got the results he promised. at this time i knew nothing whatever of the workings or the wire-pullings of state legislatures. my business life had been engaged at the stock end of corporate transactions, and i had not troubled myself about franchises, or how they were obtained, being content to play my part with the manufactured product with which we dealt on the market. in a general way i knew political corruption existed. that rogers had obtained favors for his brookline company through bribing officials i had good grounds to believe; i had read of strange doings in connection with h. m. whitney's west end railway franchise obtained from the massachusetts legislature amid an accompaniment of much public scandal; but being quite without personal experience i had no clear conception of how things were done and, innocently enough, i asked whitney before we parted: "how is it possible for you to get this valuable charter from the legislature, particularly with such a strong and honest man as roger wolcott in the governor's chair, when addicks has been trying continuously for four or five years, regardless of expense, to secure an ordinary one under which he can combine our gas companies?" george towle answered for whitney: "lawson, that part of the transaction is no affair of yours. mr. whitney will absolutely guarantee to deliver all those goods, and should it prove necessary to override the governor in getting them, he will guarantee to do that too. you can call all that done the minute we sign papers." there was no doubt the new combination was a winner for both of us. if whitney got the charter, he would be in a position to make a lot of money out of his dominion coal stock, which would surely go up with a bound in company with bay state gas stock when it became known that our companies were in the new deal. besides, all the talk he would make over the value of the charter would help create a market for new stock which we would issue for the purpose of obtaining funds to buy rogers out. later, if whitney's invention was what he imagined, his own profit would run into millions and our properties, having the sole right to distribution, would be stronger than ever. that meant resuscitation of bay state gas, and that all the stocks and bonds held by my friends and the public would return splendid profits. i tested the scheme in all its aspects and found only one weak spot in it. we, the boston companies, were to "go snags" with whitney in the results of a legislative game in which he was to bear the expense of getting a charter, and as whitney and towle said it was to cost them $250,000 to $300,000 to get it, it looked as if there would be some nasty business done at the state house. i do not set up for a saint, nor to possessing exclusive virtues which distinguish me from the ordinary american citizen who does business for gain. in reiterating that the bribery end of our "hitch-up" with whitney did not appeal to me, i am neither pluming nor crowning myself; i am merely stating a fact. this was an emergency, however, i could not regard as a mere personal concern. it was my duty to care for the interests of a great property which must not be endangered by my scruples, and i was willing to be advised by my business friends in the matter. i went round among my most conservative banking, business, and newspaper connections and put hypothetical questions to them bearing on my difficulty. in nearly all instances the replies were the same, and the subject seemed to be regarded as a joke--what were legislatures for, anyway, but to be "fixed"? all who did business with legislatures "fixed" them, and whitney was certainly the star "fixer." i frankly stated that i considered bribing a legislator as a low-down crime and that i did not believe it was done in our strait-laced old commonwealth as freely as they all seemed to imagine. thereupon i was sarcastically referred to my bell telephone, new haven, and boston & maine railroad friends, to the organizers of trust companies, and to many other representative pillars of social and business society who had had occasion to deal with the state. i started at once a round of investigation among men who would talk frankly to me, and discovered that a most iniquitous condition existed. massachusetts senators and representatives were not only bought and sold as sausages or fish are in the markets, but there existed a regular quotation schedule for their votes. many of the prominent lawyers of the state were traffickers in legislation, and earned large fees engineering the repeal of old laws and the passage of new ones. agents of corporations nominated candidates for office, and paid the expenses of their election in return for votes for a favorite measure and promises to "do business." the legislature was organized on the same basis; its executive officers were chosen because of their subservience to certain corporation leaders; committees were rigged to do given things and prevent other things from being done. above all, i learned that the chance of a citizen of massachusetts obtaining a charter from the legislature of his state, unless he had money to put up for it, was about as good as a hobo's of securing a diamond and ruby studded crown at tiffany's by explaining that he wanted it. in fact, the citizen's request would be regarded by senators and representatives very much as tiffany's would regard the hobo's--as a joke first, then as an impertinence. right here i desire to say to my readers and especially to all those hypocritical and ignorant people who, imagining any strong statement must express a strong prejudice and not a fact, will cry, "he overstates! he exaggerates!" that in years after when i had full opportunity to study at close range the massachusetts legislature, its workings and those who worked it, all the impressions i had received at this time were absolutely confirmed. i do not hesitate to state, then, that: _the massachusetts legislature is bought and sold as are sausages and fish at the markets and wharves. that the largest, wealthiest, and most prominent corporations in new england, whose affairs are conducted by our most representative citizens, habitually corrupt the massachusetts legislature, and the man of wealth connected with such corporations who would enter protest against the iniquity would be looked on as a "class anarchist." i will go further and state that if in new england a man of the type of folk, of missouri, can be found who, after giving over six months to turning up the legislative and boston municipal sod of the past ten years, does not expose to the world a condition of rottenness more rotten than was ever before exhibited in any community in the civilized world, it will be because he has been suffocated by the stench of what he exhumes._ to return to my story, after my investigations i again saw whitney and towle, and they, not relishing my remarks on the subject of bribery, told me frankly to attend to my own part of the affair and leave their part to them. at this stage i called in addicks, our corporation counsel, and some of the largest holders of bay state bonds and stock, and put before them the bargain i had arranged with whitney. they all agreed it was an excellent combination, and ratified the terms i had proposed to whitney. it was further agreed that whitney should make over to us one-half ownership in the new company, which we were to transfer to the bay state company after the charter had been granted. there was every reason at this stage in the deal to regard victory as assured, for it did look as though the flapping sails on our much-buffeted and battered craft were at last to be filled with a lusty breeze strong enough to carry us to the harbor we had so long been trying to make. besides what we ourselves could do and had already done, we now had whitney for an ally in the deal, and certainly he was a stock-selling power throughout new england. he had agreed to go before the legislature and the public, and pledge his word that his scheme would do all the wonderful things he had promised for it.[8] and when amid acclamation the charter was awarded and it became known that we were its beneficiaries, i could see our stock soaring. footnotes: [8] as a matter of fact, he did, later, in the peroration of an eloquent address before a public legislative hearing, electrify the law-makers with: "i here and now pledge my word, my fortune, and my sacred honor to the fulfilment of these promises." chapter xx an awkward attack of appendicitis in no walk of life is that head-light axiom, "man proposes, god disposes," so often flashed plump in the eyes of enthusiastic travellers for their bewilderment or befuddlement as in finance. at this very moment of success i was, without knowing it, on the brink of ruin, owing to causes and conditions which were beyond human power to calculate or foresee. here is what happened: all the details of our bargain having at last been agreed upon verbally, it was proper the principals should get together and formally execute the documents which should bind the trade. we arranged to meet on a given saturday at the beautiful stock-farm of parker c. chandler, esq., the bay state's general counsel, and as secrecy was important, a special train was to take the party the twenty-five miles out of boston. by an unavoidable accident i missed the train, and in driving over the road in a bleak rain-storm, caught a violent cold. i was about three hours late, but when i arrived we went to work with a will and by seven o'clock, shortly before dinner, our contracts had been dictated to the stenographers and would be typed, ready to sign, by the time we came to our coffee. that dinner was a thing to be remembered. no one in new england understands more admirably the art of dining than does parker chandler, and he gave us a feast worthy to celebrate the brilliant new combination which was to end all our troubles and lead us out of darkness into the light. as the cheese was being served i was seized suddenly with a terrible pain, which was followed by convulsions. they carried me to a bedroom; lawyers and capitalists went scurrying after doctors, and in the confusion the documents which were all ready awaiting execution were put aside. it was obvious that at that moment i could not o.k. them. at last specialists from boston arrived and it was diagnosed that i was suffering from an aggravated attack of appendicitis. at two o'clock in the morning, after a prolonged consultation, the consensus of opinion was that my next field of operations would be in another world. it must have been some time a little later that i, awaking to a brief interval of consciousness, witnessed a tableau, the memory of which invariably rises to my mind's eye whenever i try to mitigate or subdue my feelings of hatred and disgust for addicks. the room was dimly lit; the two doctors were at the foot of the bed; addicks, standing beside them, was looking fixedly at me. i caught his eye; doped as i was with opiates i saw the cold, calculating expression of his face, which told me as plainly as words that he felt it was all up with me, that my usefulness to him was at an end, and that without a thought for my interests or a scintilla of regret, he was calculating how to turn my death to his advantage. an amused conviction of the man's heartlessness crept over me, and then i passed out into the land of dreams. from that night until one bright morning ten days later, i was visiting other worlds than those of finance and gas; but on the tenth day they told me i had eluded the grim ferryman and, barring accident, might get out into the world again in five weeks. a suspicion which owed its origin to that glimpse of addicks on the first night of my illness awakened in my mind, and the following day i sent for my principal attorney and demanded an exact statement of what had happened in the interval of my illness. he had kept close track of all that had occurred, and the facts he revealed, calloused as i was to the thought of addicks' baseness, horrified me by their cold-blooded villany. my associates had gone ahead with a vengeance, without waiting a minute to see whether i should live or die. my offer to the legislature had been withdrawn; addicks had substituted his name for mine in all the documents, and then he had traded with rogers. it had been arranged between them that whitney should go on and get the charter, which was to allow the company to sell gas at any price, for it was not to be under the supervision of the gas commissioners, who had pledged the public that the price of gas in boston should not ever be more than $1 per one thousand feet. this obtained, a new corporation was to be organized, into which rogers would merge his companies, and addicks our boston properties, in such a way as to leave bay state stock and bondholders high and dry, while addicks, whitney, and rogers reaped tremendous profits. these amiable plans were being hammered into shape at top speed, and unless i could get into harness at once, my friends and i would most certainly be ground up. head-quarters had been opened at the algonquin club, and there addicks, whitney, towle, and the lawyers and lobbyists were holding day and night sessions. there was but one thing for me to do, and i lost not a moment. i sent for my doctors and said: "i will devote to-day, to-morrow, and next day to getting well; but on the fourth day i will be moved in a special car to boston and then to the algonquin club." i explained the situation and showed them that regardless of all consequences this must be done. i shall never forget the expression on the faces of these loyal associates of mine--addicks, whitney, and the others--when i dropped in upon their deliberations saturday morning, four days later. my doctor, a nurse, and my lawyer accompanied me, and i was swathed in flannels and shawls. i got to a chair, dismissed my attendants, and launched in. what little i had to say would be brief, i told them, but "edgy." it was all that. i insisted that we should go right back to our old bargain exactly at the place we had left it the night i was taken ill. if they did not comply, i would make application for a receiver for the bay state companies and give to the afternoon papers the inside facts of the affair from beginning to end. no one doubted either my ability or my determination to carry out my threat. we sent for the documents that had been prepared at parker chandler's, and inside of three hours these had been substituted and the several agreements entered into with rogers formally renounced. i retired to bed that night with a chuckle of self-satisfaction, and a convincing appreciation of the truth of the axiom i have referred to. the low-down treachery and double-dealing characterizing this transaction, the utter callousness to sacred obligations it exhibits in men of presumed high standing and personal honor, may surprise my readers. i assure them that several such episodes will be told in the forthcoming pages of this history. indeed, among a certain school of eminent financiers, loyalty is no more than devotion to the opportunity of making the highest profit. if circumstances shift this from the side of their enlistment to that of an adversary, their arms and hearts go where their pockets lead. it must be remembered that the hessian who "down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. the type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his veracity after five any evening and all day sunday, but who considers himself free to engage in any dirty juggle or misrepresentation from 9 a.m. to 4.45 p.m. in office hours you run no risk in calling him a liar, for then he'll laugh at the joke and tell you business is business. however, the foregoing episode was an experience that left an indelible impression on my mind, and the hatred and disgust it engendered precipitated events out of which in the course of years came the offences and injuries that are responsible for the story of "frenzied finance." the immediate results of my reappearance were not startling. rogers raved at addicks and especially at whitney, but he was too old a student of men, and the monkeys dame fortune makes of them, to sulk over the facts he could not remedy. he soon resumed his former attitude of waiting for something to turn up, which indeed he had maintained ever since my unsuccessful effort to make terms with him. fate had not yet tired, however, of playing shuttlecock with our hopes. the world learned one morning of a new gas called acetylene, clear, brilliant, cheap, and simply made from calcium carbide. it would surely revolutionize gas-making the world over, and the company which could secure the right to it would have those who could not at its mercy. addicks moved like a flash to gather in the advantage, and the announcement that the new gas had been proved a success was coupled in the press with the news that the bay state gas had captured the invention for new england, and was to pay millions for it. this did give a boost to our securities, and for a time it looked as though we had clinched our success with another rivet. what addicks had done was this: he had bought the right, subject to the test of a big public demonstration. for this demonstration a fine flare-up was arranged. eminent mayors, counsellors, and gas magnates were to attend in multitude, and if the invention met its engagements, there would be such a blaze of publicity and congratulations that we felt sure our new stock would go off like hot cakes. the demonstration proved in a most sensational way that acetylene was a failure--a tremendous explosion occurred; three men were killed, many others injured, and next day back went our stock to its old figures. all this time i had sought most diligently for the real solution of our troubles--a method of purchasing rogers' companies. a substantial guarantee there must be, not only for the performance of our financial engagements but to insure to rogers the integrity of his properties while under the domination of addicks. the difficulty was, in the weakened condition of the company, to put together any satisfactory guarantee. others in our group had wrestled with the problem as strenuously as i had. suddenly, a few days before may, 1896, the light came to me. all the time the solution had been in our hands, and, beset as we were, it had never occurred to any of us. we absolutely controlled the old boston gas companies. they were intrinsically among the richest corporations in massachusetts, and although their stocks were pledged for the $12,000,000 of bonds held by the public, they did not owe a dollar. though the terms of the agreement between the bay state company and the mercantile trust, which held their shares, precluded them from contracting any debts, they were empowered, through us, their officials, to buy or sell gas, and all their great wealth was behind such contracts. if, then, we agreed on their behalf to buy gas of the brookline company for a term of years at such a price and in sufficient quantities to give the latter concern a profit equal to ten per cent. dividends on its stock, surely we had complied with the very letter of rogers' exaction. testing the idea in one way and another, i found it sound as a bell. the problem after that was to get into shape for the substantial issue of new stock we must make to pay for our purchase. the banks and trust companies were loaded up with our securities pledged for loans, and before there could be any conviction behind our prosperity it behooved us to get all our valuables out of pawn. i went to mr. rogers and frankly told him i had solved our problem and his by a financial invention of my own. i entered into the details of our plan, explaining it would not even be necessary for us to buy any gas of him, because we would turn over a sufficient number of our own customers to the brookline company to secure to it the required profit. he saw in an instant the scheme with all its far-reaching possibilities, and assented. then i broached the rest of my plan--we would pay him four and a half millions in six months. to do this we must sell stocks and bonds. before we could do that it was necessary that he help us still further--he must buy of us all the bonds now in pledge and the stock of the dorchester gas company, another bay state asset up for security, all for the sum of a million and a half dollars. for this amount these securities would at once be released and turned over to him. then he should resell them to us together with the brookline gas company for six millions of dollars. there would be a formal turning over of the management of his properties so the public should be convinced that we really were the victors in the strife. mr. rogers saw my point, quickly ran over the details in his comprehensive way, and closed the trade without further bargaining. that time, thank heaven, it was not within addicks' power to thwart me. on may 1st we made our settlement in compliance with the terms i had arranged. the six millions of dollars were to be paid november 1st. as the necessary options and sales could not legally run to our company, they were made to henry m. whitney, and he simultaneously transferred them to us, and we elected him a director of our different corporations. rogers publicly resigned and turned over to us the control of the brookline company, and we elected our own management. to all intents and purposes we had won. the settlement was the sensation of the day in financial circles, and i was the recipient of many generous congratulations. i had neither time nor inclination to take care of bouquets at that moment, however. i was too keenly aware of the difficulty of raising six millions of dollars in the limited period at our disposal. times have changed since 1896. then six millions was quite a large sum, larger than sixty millions now. that was before the halcyon period of "frenzied finance." chapter xxi bribing a legislature that six months between may 1st and november 1st was the most crowded period in all my experience up to that time. events of consequence tumbled over one another in startling succession. we actually lived on sensations. in exercising the historian's right to choose the order of setting down incidents i am puzzled as to which to give precedence. shall i begin with the sensational bribery of the massachusetts legislature which occurred within this period, or with the episode that was the exciting climax of that interval of trial? about this time, too, occurred the laying of the foundation of "coppers" and amalgamated, but that certainly requires a chapter to itself. however, as all are starry examples of what made "frenzied finance" possible, and as any one fits into my story as well ahead as behind the other two, i'll take them in the succession above set down. the whitney machine for the manufacture and moulding of legislation was complex but efficient. it achieved its wonders in broad daylight. considering all it did and how that all was accomplished, the astonishing fact is that no outcry to speak of was ever raised at its performances. it was vastly bolder than tammany and made fewer excuses for its grabbings. it must be remembered, however, that its chief engineer was a leading citizen, and his assistants all gentlemen of great respectability and admirable antecedents, and, in boston, social and civic distinctions are shields behind which much may be concealed. corrupting a legislature is not something a man may do with a fillip of his finger and thumb. however bold the operations, the convenances must be observed. when really large designs are entertained, the manipulator sets to before the preceding election and has his "lawyers" at work throughout the country interviewing candidates and ascertaining their feelings. thus a certain percentage of votes are signed and sealed in advance, ready for delivery at the proper time. but there is always a crowd of new men who must be taken care of on the spot, and these must be approached with tact. some amateurs have fanatical notions of honor which interfere with both their own and the interests of franchise-grabbers. to deal with all contingencies, to take care of captured votes and to shape legislative proceedings along safe lines, requires the services of almost an army of men. at the head of whitney's forces was his lawyer, george h. towle, big of brain, ponderous of frame, and with the strength of an ox. a man of terrific temper, he knew not the meaning of the word fear. nothing aroused him to such frenzy as to have to do with a legislator who unnecessarily haggled over the price of his vote or influence. on occasions when a lieutenant reported that senator this or representative that would not come into camp, towle, with an oath, would say: "take me to him, and i'll have his vote in ten minutes or there'll be occasion for a new election in his district to-morrow!" second in command was mr. patch, towle's secretary and factotum, his exact opposite in every way. where towle was brutally straight to the point, mr. patch was as smooth an intriguer as ever connected himself with secrets by way of keyholes and transoms. it is a beacon hill tradition that for years towle on final-payment day would have the members of the massachusetts legislature march through his private offices one at a time, and, handing each of them their loot, would proclaim: "well, you're settled with in full, aren't you? that represents your vote on ---and on ----." then he would loudly identify the bill and the particulars of the service, while behind a partition with a stenographer would be mr. patch, who after the notes had been written out would witness the accuracy of the stenographer's report. when the legislature assembled again, old members, the same story goes, would be requested to call on towle to renew acquaintanceship. then he would allow them to look over his memoranda "just to keep them from being too honest," as he gently phrased it. subordinate to towle and patch was a long line of eminently respectable lawyers known over the commonwealth as "whitney's attorneys." these men assisted at nominations, orated at elections, and took care of the finer preliminary details. the first line of attack was composed of practical politicians of various grades--ex-senators or representatives, and local bosses, who were known as "whitney's right-hand men." below these were the ordinary lobbyists, the detectives, and runners, who kept "tabs" on every move and deed, day and night, of the members of the legislature. this was the whitney machine, and it worked together with that fine solidity and evenness which can be attained only by constant practice and much success. in comparison with this competent organization, an average "tammany gang," a "chicago combine," or a "st. louis syndicate" would look like a hay-covered snow-plough in august. it is seldom the public is given an opportunity of seeing a picture, drawn to life, of the legislature of one of the greatest states in the union in the act of being bribed to grant the votaries of "frenzied finance," for nothing, those things which should and do belong to the people, and for which the "system's" votaries would willingly pay millions of dollars if they were compelled to. i shall dwell on the performance that ensued at this juncture of my story long enough to present an outline of such a proceeding. head-quarters for whitney's massachusetts pipe line were opened at young's hotel--parlors 9, 10, and 11, rooms 6, 7, 8, second story front. parlors 9 and 10 were the general reception-room, while 11 was reserved for the commander himself and for important and "touchy" interviews. the rooms 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 were used for educational purposes. in the morning the place was deserted, but at noon the parlors began to fill up with the different officers of the "machine" and their friends, trustworthy members of the legislature. a little later an elaborate luncheon would be served, the supernumeraries eating in one room, towle and his chiefs and the legislators in the other. at table the gossip of the morning session at the state house was exchanged and the work laid out for the afternoon legislative and committee sessions. another interval of silence and peace until at 5.30 the real business of the day began. mr. patch was generally on the ground first, carrying the books in which the bribery records were kept, for be it remembered that the efficiency of the whitney machine was largely due to the thoroughly systematic manner in which its operations were conducted. nothing was left to chance or to any one's memory. in turn, the subordinates presented careful reports of the day's transactions. at 6.30 mr. towle would go over these documents, "sizing up" the actual results for submission later to the chief himself. between 7.30 and 8.30 the "machine" dined; the remains of the feast having been removed, the doors were locked and the books brought out. if an outsider could possibly have obtained the entry to the head-quarters of the whitney massachusetts pipe line, say at nine o'clock any evening during the session, he might easily have imagined himself at the madison square garden or at tattersall's on the evening of the first day of an international horse-sale. this is what he would have seen: in parlor 10, seated at a long table a dozen of mr. towle's chiefs, all in their shirt-sleeves, smoking voluminously; before each a sheet of paper on which is printed a list of the members of the legislature; against every name a blank space for memoranda; at the head of the table towle himself, frowning severely over a similar sheet having broader memoranda-spaces. one after another the chiefs call off the names of the legislators, reporting as they go along. the outsider would have heard droned monotonously: "..... from ..... not my man; ..... from ..... my man and .....'s man; seen to-day, stood same as yesterday; ..... from ....., raised price $20, making it $150; agreed; $10 paid on account, total of $90 due; raised because ..... told him that he had got $20 more from ....." as each man reports the other chiefs and towle discuss the details, and when a decision on disputed points is arrived at, towle makes a memorandum on his blank, and the chief concerned records the order in the little note-book which each carries. all reports at last in, towle retires to room 11 and speedily returns with the "stuff," consisting of cash, stocks, puts, calls, or transportation tickets, which he deals out to the chiefs to make good their promises for the day. it would have been obvious to the outsider, as soon as he had learned what was being dealt in, that a large proportion of the members of the great and general court of massachusetts had bargained with the different members of "the machine" to sell their votes not only in committee but in full session of the legislature, and that the price was to be paid when the votes were cast, though something was invariably exacted on account, to tie the bargain. payment was made in cash, calls on bay state gas or dominion coal, or transportation on any of the railroads in the united states or canada. the latter appears to be a class of remuneration towle favored, probably because it cost nothing. the conference seldom closed for the day without towle admonishing his subordinates: "the old man's getting dead sore at the way his leg is being pulled, and if you fellows don't get those countrymen to play a more liberal game, they'll just drive the boss out of the business, and then there'll be a slump in prices that'll make them prefer to stay home and farm." you may ask here, could such things happen without attracting public attention? or are the citizens of boston so habituated to the corruption of their legislature that they could witness unmoved this wholesale bribing campaign conducted in full daylight from young's hotel? thank heaven, this is not so. there are in every american community honest, sturdy souls who can be depended on to come forward in emergencies and cry out aloud against a threatened political crime. above the brute hubbub of a city's roar their voices are heard like the voice of conscience, and the hurrying throng pauses a second in its mad rush after dollars to listen to their tale of the commonwealth's wrong. but what's in the air is not on earth. the practical politicians, whose affair it is to heed and counteract these honorable protests, laugh contemptuously at the vanity of any contest between theories and the "stuff." they know the overpowering logic of gold. there were public meetings in boston; good-government clubs throughout the state met and "resoluted"; citizens' organizations howled robbery and malfeasance. for a few weeks all massachusetts seemed wrought up. from the space the papers gave the protestants one might have imagined that there was a chance for virtue, but the results of the clamor were more apparent than real. day by day, night by night, the "machine" ground away at young's, and as its product fell into the hopper whitney and towle only smiled at the clamor and awaited the moment when, as towle coarsely put it, "the reformers would have yawped themselves to a standstill." that day came at last. one by one, all in a perfectly orderly and methodical manner, the giving-bonds-to-compel-promises clauses, restrictive amendments and other people's safeguards had been voted down and the "are you ready for the main question?" having been put in both houses, the massachusetts pipe line charter was duly passed and sent on to the governor. it required his signature to make the bill a hard-and-fast law, and that once appended, all towle's "promises to pay" became due. as the campaign neared a finish whitney had, a number of times, informed his chiefs, and they the members of the legislature, that the governor had given personal assurance that if the bill passed both houses, he would sign it. on this score all interested had been relieved of doubt, and immediately upon the senate's favorable action bay state and dominion coal shares advanced in price. during the period the governor had the bill under consideration there was an active and rising market and a great volume of transactions on the stock exchange. apparently the day of our peace and prosperity had dawned at last. but we were not yet out of a gnarled fate's clutches. in the midst of a strenuous forenoon of trading, suddenly, without the slightest warning, both stocks began to sink in price like pigs of lead from a capsized boat. at once i was on the defensive. to prevent a wild market panic during the few minutes consumed in getting telephone connection with the state house, i had to purchase thousands of shares. i knew that something disastrous had happened, but was not prepared for the startling information that came over the wire: "the governor has vetoed the whitney bill with a savage message." my informant told me that towle and his men were making for head-quarters on a run. as i hung up the receiver, the bell rang again. in a second my telephone with whitney's office was in the middle of a spasm. "have you got the news, lawson?" "have i got it? the tape is screaming it.[9] bay state and your stock are racing for the bottom," i replied. "what shall we do? this is a thunderbolt." "do?" i replied. "it's for you to say what to do. that's your end, not mine, but from now until three o'clock one thing you must do, or there'll be no further thinking on the subject--protect dominion coal--have your brokers on the floor every second and tell them to buy all that's offered. beat a slow retreat if you must, but prevent a wild break. things at the exchange are bad now. i'll take care of bay state. look out for dominion at once, and when you are through i must see you--where?" "at young's in ten minutes." "i'll be there." ten minutes later i was in whitney's head-quarters. there pandemonium reigned; all the cocksureness and bluster of the "machine" had vanished, and it was a horde of clamorous and excited men i found struggling round towle and whitney, who vainly sought to stay the panic. it was not disappointment at the governor's message that had so stirred these hardened practitioners of politics, but the terror of impending loss. the majority of the whitney band, lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers had bought one stock or both on margin, and had assured their friends it was safe to plunge to the limit. on earth there is no more pitiable sight than the panic of a herd of novice stock-speculators suddenly awakened to a realization of their ruin. the ticker clicks a sort of death-watch as the merciless tape, without hitch or let up, reels off destruction. to such desperate beings the stock operator--the market-maker--is the straw to save them from drowning, and to him they turn as the one possible source of aid and hope. i only knew these men at sight's end, but they knew me and were sure in their abject plight that i could help them--by what wizardry they never stopped to think. they were terribly certain that unless the market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down their friends' stock, and so on, like a row of falling bricks. from their comfortable viewpoint of out-of-temptation virtue, my readers may regard these lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers of whitney as bad men, deserving of no sympathy, meeting here a righteous punishment; but, my word for it--and i know the world and the human ants and spiders who inhabit it--while they bore no marks of immorality, they were the average men one meets in one's journey over the bridge between the two unknowns. my talk with whitney and towle was brief and pointed. it was no time for pow-wow. it was the moment for action. men who do things in stock-markets never waste time over milk that is in the gutter. how to get new milk to replace that spilt is their care. "what are you going to do, mr. whitney?" i asked. george towle started to explain. i stopped him. "the market is bad," i said, talking quickly. "if time is dribbled, it will be worse, and--and boston will be a warm place for you, towle. it would not surprise me if it got warm even for mr. whitney, when the desperate men who are filling the brokerage shops and the corridors outside demand a reason why they were egged on to buy stocks on mr. whitney's word that the governor would sign. no excuses now; i want to know from mr. whitney just what he proposes to do. you both told me the legislative end was none of my business, and, thank heaven, it was not. you said it was your business. now, how about it?" henry m. whitney is a great general. he also can light his cigar, when the battle's on, with the friction of a passing cannon-ball. "i'm going to pass it over the governor's veto," he instantly answered. "can you do it?" i asked. "i can, for i must." he meant it. it needed but one look into his and towle's eyes to see they both had read the message on the back of to-morrow's visiting-card. "all right," i said. "let your people have the word, and it must have no doubtful ring; tell your brokers to buy dominion coal, and don't let them stand on the order of their buying. dominion coal must be put back, regardless of how much it costs or how little you want what you must buy. i will turn bay state before three if it is necessary to trade in the whole capital stock to do it." as i came out of parlor 11 to rush back to my office i said to the despairing men who crowded the corridor outside the head-quarters, and who had in their desperation thrown all caution or thought of concealment to the winds: "coal and gas look to me like good buys." the sudden revulsion of feeling was pathetic. in a minute the news had spread by way of them to their brokers and their suffering friends: "it's all right; whitney and lawson are buying stock." it got to the exchange almost as soon as i did. we turned the market. that night whitney and towle's plans were mapped out to the army and their orders despatched with a vicious snap that plainly said: "whoever attempts to put the whitney machine in a hole will be shown no mercy." the morning papers announced that whitney had picked up the gantlet governor wolcott had thrown at his feet, and--all roads led up beacon hill. it was a quick, sharp set-to. every man was lined up with a jerk, and when the line was tallied up and tallied down and towle had consented to the last raise in price of votes and given away to the final squeeze, the word went up and down the ranks that the whitney bill would, on the approaching last day of the session, go flying through both houses over the governor's veto with a vote or two to spare. again the prices of the two stocks shot upward. then, sharp and quick as a bolt of lightning, fate, who apparently had been camped on the trail of bay state gas and addicks from the first, let fly another of her quiver's contents. on the morning of the closing day of the session (the one selected for the whitney coup), there slipped in and out amongst the whitney legislative ranks a man with a story. as each legislator listened, his brow knitted and he nodded assent. the story was a simple one: in one of whitney's former campaigns, desperate like this one, on payment-day towle had gone back on his promises and forced the acceptance of a fifty-cents-on-the-dollar settlement; and, so the story now went, he, towle, had put the saved fifty cents, a matter altogether of some $75,000, in his own pocket. probably he was now going to repeat the operation on an even larger scale. in an hour there came to young's hotel a trusty messenger who delivered to towle himself the ultimatum of the great and general court of the dear old commonwealth: "money in advance or no bill!" consternation reigned. the army was quickly recalled to head-quarters, and despatched back to the state house to put through every manoeuvre known to the two veterans--but to no purpose. the great and general court stood its ground, openly defied the army and hurled back into towle's teeth all his frantic threats. it was the last day, and the great and general court was intrenched inside the protecting walls of the state house, and it knew that before it could be compelled to come forth to face towle he must come to a decision. a terrible dilemma, surely, for the amounts promised had run up to such an enormous aggregate that it was impossible to pay all in so short a time, even if such had been whitney and towle's intention. yet to pay one or a few of the dangerous malcontents meant to pay every one; the gang had firmly banded themselves together. this was the real moment of panic. even whitney and towle were at their wits' end. finally, in desperation, and as a last resort, whitney rushed to the governor, threw up his hands, and asked for mercy. "what would the governor sign?" massachusetts' able and fearless governor wolcott, who seemed to have been expecting some such outcome of the battle, gave his answer clear as an anvil-blow: "you have told the people your company would give them cheap gas. bind yourself to do it by amending the charter so that the highest price your gas can be sold at will be sixty cents. then i will sign." there was nothing else to do.[10] at the last minute the amendment was inserted. the governor's representative gave the word that it was satisfactory, and it passed. i was in my office taking care of the market. of the stampede i knew nothing. suddenly came the word: "the whitney bill has passed on the governor's recommendation." both stocks started to jump; then a halt, then--i didn't try to stop the decline, for i saw something terrible had happened. in a few minutes the news was on the street: "the charter was not worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed." the biter had been fatally bitten. the market closed with the tape and ticker fiercely, exultingly shouting "ruin!" with each tick and slip: and that night whitney's head-quarters was little better than a mob. frantic men demanded money, money due to them for votes, money they had promised for margins to the brokers before the stock exchange opened the next day, and swearing desperate consequences to whitney and towle regardless of the effect upon themselves. early next morning there came to my office two wild-eyed, desperate creatures, towle and mr. patch. i had spent the night going over my accounts and those of which i had charge, and in addition to a quick, real loss of over a million dollars, i realized that the immediate future was so hung with dark clouds that i dared not anticipate what the coming day might mean to me and mine; but when i looked upon the big, powerful man, who had always seemed in any light in which i had heretofore beheld him to fear neither man nor god--when i looked and saw his plight i pitied him deeply, sincerely. he carried a large travelling-bag, and mr. patch two others. "lawson, for god's sake, don't do what they are all doing--don't upbraid me! i've got to get out into the world and be dead to all i know--family, friends, every one. if i stay, it's state's prison or worse, and whitney says i must go. i've got all the papers together and whitney has given me what cash he had on hand, and this check of $10,000. do me one last favor, get me gold for it. i know i have no right to ask any favors of you, but think if you were in my place. i have a wife and children, and--" and the great, strong man wept like a child.[11] i called my secretary, and in a short time george towle with the $10,000 in gold and the bags of "evidence" faded out of my life and into the gray mist of eternity. a few days after, a vessel dropped anchor off the island of jamaica; george towle's body was carried ashore and buried, and mr. patch was escorted back to the ship. a few days later, with weights of lead to carry it to its last resting-place at the ocean's bottom, the latter's dead body was dropped over the vessel's side. and somewhere floating the high seas are a venturesome sailor-captain and a crew, who when in their cups tell, 'tis said, strange tales of bags of gold and mysterious documents. as for the members of the great and good court of the old commonwealth of massachusetts for the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, they received, none of them could tell from where, their promised vote-money in the form of a yarn that the "stuff" belonging to them had been delivered to george towle, but that towle had decamped with it to foreign shores, where he was living in luxury with mr. patch. 'tis writ that some crimes are so black and foul that they will not down, and when i read over what is written here, i wonder if there will not some day be another chapter of "frenzied finance" written by another pen than mine. i sent two police officials to the island of jamaica, and had the contents of the coffin marked "george h. towle" photographed. i could not photograph the contents of the ocean's depths. footnotes: [9] a stock operator's one reliable source of information is his ticker and tape. for the benefit of those of my readers who are unacquainted with the paraphernalia by which stock-markets and financial operations are conducted, i would say that the ticker is a small printing machine through which passes an endless paper tape. the machine is run by telegraph wires, and it prints upon the tape letters and figures which are abbreviations of the names and prices of all the stocks and commodities dealt in on the stock-exchanges and boards of trade throughout the world. the instant anything of moment happens anywhere, it is reflected by a rise or fall in the price of securities or commodities such as wheat, corn, pork, cotton, etc., that are dealt in in the different stock-exchanges or boards of trade. as soon as a share of stock or bushel of wheat is sold by one operator to another on the floors of the different exchanges, its price is within a second printed on the tapes in the different offices. therefore what the ticker "ticks" out onto the tape is instantly read by operators throughout the world, and as "the tape never lies," operators turn to it for their real information. when the ticker begins to increase its clatter and the tape to travel fast, an operator will tell you its activity means something unusual is happening. the ticker begins to talk at ten o'clock each week-day morning and finishes at 3 p.m., with the exception of saturday, when the hour is 12 noon. these are the hours that the stock-exchanges are in session. [10] the charter as originally passed had gone through by a fair majority, but to pass it over the governor's veto was another matter. that required a two-thirds majority of both houses, and in the brief time at the disposal of the conspirators the securing of the additional votes was wellnigh impossible. from the necessities of the case such votes must cost much more than those of the original supporters of the bill, for it may be taken for granted that most of the members of the minority had already withstood such temptations as the whitney faction had cared to offer. it was therefore a case of bringing into camp the most honorable and the most expensive members of the legislature, and without opportunity for strategy or manipulation. the sole recourse was rank, flat bribery, and that in full view of a mutinous following ready at the suggestion of the slightest favoritism to the new men to become actively hostile. the task was altogether too fraught with peril, to be undertaken. when they realized how threatening the situation really was, whitney and towle decided to make terms with the governor. the charter once obtained, they calculated that the obnoxious clause might be amended out of it at a subsequent session (as a matter of fact this charter, with its 60-cent clause, was afterward made the nucleus of the present massachusetts gas companies which has just been floated on a basis of $53,000,000 capital). besides, the state of feeling of the legislators and conditions in the stock-market had both to be taken into consideration. it was not the fault of the legislators who had voted for the charter that the governor had vetoed it, for they had been given to understand by mr. whitney that he would not oppose it. they had delivered their goods, and now, if the governor's sanction could be had under any sort of a compromise, they would certainly hold towle and whitney responsible for failure to make whatever arrangements were necessary. [11] towle told me, as he waited impatiently in my office for the gold, that in addition to the great losses the drop in price of the two stocks had inflicted on himself and his associates, there were losses on stocks held by legislators, who had plunged on assurances that the charter would go through, and that the amounts he would be called on to pay, if he remained, were far greater than could possibly be met. chapter xxii plundered of the plunder so extraordinary a happening as the disappearance of george h. towle and mr. patch, you think, should have furnished a national sensation. and this is the first you have ever heard of it. bear in mind that here for the first time the facts of this case are set forth in their proper relation to one another, and without the fear or favor that has hitherto prevented them from being understood. in boston after the adjournment of the legislature, however bitter the feeling of the men who had sold themselves, and those others who had lost their all in the crash of stock values that had followed whitney's defeat, their own complicity enforced silence and prevented outcry. it was given out that george h. towle and mr. patch, tired by their labors, had gone to the country for a brief sojourn. on their return there would be a settlement. and with these assurances, both legislators and lieutenants had, perforce, to be satisfied. gradually, betrayers and betrayed drifted back to their own homes and their erstwhile avocations, and when the strange story of the disappearance and death of the chief actors in the whitney drama came from over the seas, it fell on the heedless ears of men who had written off a loss and desired to forget the experience. a conspiracy of silence is easily organized among accomplices. i myself was the greatest sufferer by the disaster. banking on whitney's assurance of success i had loaded up heavily with bay state on my own account; and my customers pinning their faith to my predictions of a rise, had also bought heavily both of the gas stock and dominion coal. in my attempt to support the market when the first decline occurred, i had further increased my holdings, and, at the final break, thousands of shares purchased for my clients were left on my hands. so my loss was very large, many times larger than whitney's. like the others, i said nothing, crediting the expense to education, while whitney silently tucked his emasculated charter into a crypt already furnished with other corporation derelicts, to await some fair opportunity of legislative or other resuscitation; for the instrument, shorn though it had been of its immediate availability, was by no means without real value. probably in view of prospective contingencies, perhaps with a sense of what his error had cost me, he said to me: "lawson, the pipe line charter is worthless now, but if at any time in the future it becomes valuable, you or your company shall have half of it." if henry m. whitney had kept that promise, what a world of disaster and bitterness might have been averted. generated in corruption, perhaps it is not strange that this charter has since been so fertile a breeder of dissension and ruin among all who have attempted to handle it. it may be accepted as an axiom of finance that double-dealing is as dangerous to the dealer as to his victim. the fierce conflicts that at intervals burst out in the financial world and like a cyclone spread dishonor and destruction broadcast, invariably are caused by some one man's treachery. to return to my story. to all appearances, the gas war was over. we bore the palm of victory, but looming up before us was the task of getting together the six millions which rogers must have by november 1st. that paid, the companies became permanently ours. it was a period of unremitting effort, but the prospects of success were excellent. addicks had got ready a new lot of bay state stock, and i had prepared the public to take it. with the proceeds of this stock and the securities which rogers would turn over to us, we should have money enough to meet our engagement, always provided no slip-up occurred. since the may 1st settlement our relations with rogers had been satisfactory--i should say, _my_ relations--for he persistently kept addicks and his crowd at a distance, refusing to have anything to do with them. but it's hard to keep a big pot boiling in the open without some intruder smelling the savor of your soup and sneaking up for a mouthful. though secrecy had been solicitously preserved regarding the details of our bargain with the "standard oil" magnates, certain of the camp-followers of "frenzied finance" had nosed out the facts, and at the very moment when our position and prospects seemed most secure a plot was being laid, which, as after-events will show, came close to bringing about the destruction we had thus far managed to escape. as the time of settlement drew near, it became necessary for me to have frequent conferences with addicks and his directors, and we opened head-quarters at the hoffman house in new york. it was my habit to come over for a short time every week, when we got together, reported progress, and discussed future moves. it was at one of these gatherings, on friday, october 16th, that we had intimation of our peril. i had come down on the midnight train from boston and was brimming over with pleasant news and agreeable anticipations. the day and all other things seemed good to me. the air was crisp and the morning sun gleamed brightly on the red and yellow autumn tints of the trees in madison square. for a moment i stood on the corner beside the naval monument watching the down-townward procession of cabs and coupés in which the spider aristocracy of finance makes its way to its webs in wall street and lower broadway. in the parlor of addicks' suite at the hoffman the directors were gathered when i entered, and with them was parker chandler, the bay state's general counsel. we got down to business at once. i told them how well our affairs were moving in boston and listened to their tidings of progress elsewhere. we were all in the merry mood of success. the past was nothing but a bad dream; our thoughts were on the rich moments beyond november 1st when we should handle and know the real currency of our victory. the telephone bell rang. some one wanted addicks quick. addicks stepped to the instrument. we all heard him say: "hello." then--"is that you, fred?" (fred keller was his personal secretary.) then--"yes, i hear you plainly. repeat it." then--a minute's wait while we listened. then--"when will they get up there?" then--"send every one home, lock up and go over to the house, and call me on my wire." all this in his ordinary, well-attuned, even voice, without the emphasis of a word to show that the subject was a hair more important than any of the hundred and one ordinary messages which went to make up a large part of his daily life. the talk was so commonplace that we were none of us interested enough to even stop our chatter. addicks stepped from the telephone and in a "bring-me-a-finger-bowl" tone of voice said: "tom, come into the other room for a minute; i want a word with you." he passed ahead of me through a small parlor into his bedroom. i followed. he went straight to the bureau, took something from a drawer, slipped it into his pocket, turned and dropped upon a lounge. but a minute had elapsed since he had gone to the telephone. could this gray ghost be the same man who a short time ago had been smiling so contentedly at parker chandler's last story? his face was the color of a mouldy lead pipe and seared with strange lines and seams. the eyes that met mine were dim and glazed, lustreless and dead as the eyes of a fish dragged from watery depths. courage is not character; it is temperamental. there is an impression that the man truly brave is he who can face sudden, unexpected misfortune or calamity without a tremor or a flicker to suggest his hurt. that is but a single phase and indicative of physical rather than moral qualities; or, perhaps, merely the callousness born of long exposure to danger. one of the bravest men i've ever known stood watching the ticker one day during a downward run. suddenly i heard "my god, i'm ruined!" and he fell in a faint on the floor. and a certain bank officer, whom i knew to be an arrant coward when arrested for stealing a million, smiled at the policeman who had tapped his shoulder and asked him for a light for his cigarette. addicks had not turned a hair as he hung up the telephone receiver, and here he was cowering in a mortal funk, abjectly hopeless. "lawson, the game's up," he said in a trembling voice. "that was fred. he says dwight braman has had himself appointed receiver of bay state; that he raided the wilmington office immediately after he was appointed, broke open desks, and took all the papers he could find, and that in an hour or so he will be in philadelphia and in possession of all my books and papers. he has a court order for the bank accounts and the right to take charge of our funds." "this is a startler," i said; "what are we going to do?" "the trap is perfect, and i'm in it. they've caught me with every bar down. before, when they attempted to get a receivership, things were ready for them--books and papers packed for europe and cash in charge of an unserved officer prepared at the first word to start for canada. but now, a few days before election, when if i don't throw a lot of money into delaware for my followers, they'll turn on me like wolves--they've caught me napping. it's a plot, sure--a receiver in possession, particularly braman, and appointed in a way that shows deliberate calculation, proves it was done by some one who knows our situation to a 't.' it means ruin for me and the company. you know i won't have a friend left on earth, and enemies now will rise up like snakes before a prairie fire." it was indeed a stiff, tough turn, yet i was watching the man rather out of curiosity to note how he could take a reverse than out of sympathy. i don't believe there was another man on earth who, similarly placed, would not have aroused my pity; but addicks--no man or woman has pity for addicks. "well," i repeated, "what are we going to do?" he did not reply for a moment. i continued to look at him. the eyes haunted me. i noted that the lines round the lids had deepened into furrows. he half raised himself from the lounge. "i've said they would never get me, and they won't." instinctively his hand sought the pocket into which he had dropped what he had taken from the dresser's drawer. then i knew. the yellow streak showed plain at last. i had guessed from the start it was there. the stock manipulator in common with the successful general must have the capacity to deal with the unexpected. the faculty to see a situation whole must be his, to focus instantly the lay of the land, the enemy's plans and strength, his own resources, the strategic possibilities of his position; and instantly, if necessity demands it, he must be ready with a new plan of campaign fitted to the first emergency. the more rapidly his mind works the safer are the interests he is guarding. but if he has not this capacity, he can never be a market manipulator. for a moment i could not but pause to admire the devilish ingenuity of the trap that had been sprung on us. the state of affairs that addicks revealed was about the worst imaginable. i had been on this particular war-path so long that my mind instantly grasped the possibilities of destruction that lay in this new attack. i saw november 1st--no money to pay rogers; everything forfeited; addicks in a nauseating scandal; and all those friends of mine who had put their funds into bay state because of their confidence in my ability to win out slaughtered. no, it should not be if i could prevent it. other storms we had met and weathered, why not this? even if it were a tornado, we would "ride her out." perhaps we should not be afloat when the rollers subsided, but at least we should be at rest--on the bottom. i turned to addicks, who, heaped up on his lounge, was staring into vacancy. "brace up, addicks," i said. "we are not knocked out yet. at least let us find out what has struck us." i was some moments in arousing him from his condition of despair, but finally he pulled himself together, and piece by piece we went over the situation. i had to agree with him that he was in an end-to-end-center-pull trap. the cunning machinery he had set up to meet just such an emergency, now that it was in hostile hands, was rather a source of danger than of safety. there was but one way out of the complication--we must undo this receivership and release our properties and funds before november 1st. addicks, when he got his thinking loom running, declared the receivership was all a "standard oil" plot to ruin him. i felt sure it was an independent operation, but there was no time for controversy. the telephone bell rang again. it was fred keller, talking from addicks' house. we soon had all the details of the raid. this is what had happened. dwight braman, a former boston broker, now a new york capitalist and promoter, had suddenly appeared in wilmington, del., accompanied by roger foster, a new york attorney representing wm. buchanan, one of the original holders of bay state gas income bonds. he held $100,000. they had gone before judge wales, and pleading that the interest on the bonds was in default and that addicks was dissipating the assets of the company, had succeeded in inducing the judge to appoint braman receiver. the whole performance was put through with such marvellous rapidity that not one of addicks' innumerable henchmen had had a hint of it, and so no warning could be given in any direction. braman, an adept in corporation try-outs, lost not a moment, for the instant his receivership appointment was signed he pounced down on the delaware offices of the bay state and seized everything they contained. he was waiting there for the first train to philadelphia for the purpose of capturing the head offices of our corporation, which were located there, adjoining addicks' private offices. it was the moment for rapid action. we had an hour before braman and foster could reach philadelphia, and in finance in that time continents' have been submerged and oceans pumped dry. addicks instructed fred keller to rush the books of the company into a trunk, together with all the private papers in addicks' safe, and to come at once to new york, where he would be beyond the jurisdiction of the delaware court. we returned to the large parlor and hastily explained to the waiting directors what had occurred. addicks instructed the bay state secretary, who was present, to connect with the trunk upon its arrival and disappear. in the meantime the company's counsel advised that addicks and the other directors barricade themselves in their rooms at the hoffman to frustrate any attempt to get legal service on them, for we well knew that braman and foster, as soon as they realized they were balked in philadelphia, would go to the new york courts for additional powers--which afterward they did. this line of defence having been fully organized i hurried down town to 26 broadway. i felt certain that mr. rogers had nothing to do with the braman-foster affair, but to satisfy addicks and make assurance doubly sure i determined to see him. after being with him for five minutes i knew i had not been deceived. rogers agreed with me that the situation looked as though it had been made for his interest, for it threatened to leave us absolutely at his mercy with nothing to prevent his checkmating addicks at his own game. as i pointed out to him, however, there were disadvantages in the position which he must take into consideration. his acceptance of the opportunity would work such losses to the public and to my friends that though the responsibility might be laid to braman and foster, i would fight so viciously that no one would be spared. besides, between the addicks scandal and that other which we agreed must unquestionably lurk in the hasty appointment of the receiver, the whole affair must eventually be ventilated in court. it is always hard for mr. rogers to forego an advantage, but by this time he was tired of the wrangle and wanted peace, and, moreover, he did not relish the thought of court proceedings, so he admitted that my reasoning was good, and promised to do anything in his power to assist us. chapter xxiii two gentlemen of frenzied finance the enemy did not leave us long in suspense. next day braman and foster arrived in new york, bursting with a noble wrath at the failure of their coup in philadelphia. an outrage had been worked upon them, upon the public, upon the majesty of the law. to hear their ravings one might have supposed them the evangelists of justice righteously denouncing a desecration of the sacred altar; or, that we had deprived them of an inalienable right they had possessed to our property. it would have been humorous if the conditions had been less tragic. no defender of property right is so vociferous as the financier who, having appropriated his neighbor's goods, argues that possession constitutes legal ownership. on a country road i once almost rode over two hoboes, who were so busy wrangling with one another that they had not heard my approach. i gathered that one of them, having filched a collection of laundry from a farmer's backyard, had placed it in charge of his mate while he went off for a second helping, and had returned just in time to stop the latter from decamping with the swag. the talk the original purloiner was giving his ungrateful assistant was one of the best expositions of virtue and honesty i've ever listened to. we met the following monday and in reply to my request that we talk things over, foster delivered himself of an exalted exposition of the rights of deluded stockholders, the majesty of the law, and the stern duties of mr. braman, who, for the time being, had departed his private self and, until further notice, existed only as a rigid arm of the court. just as i had arrived at the conclusion that i had got into the wrong shop, braman took up the lecture by informing me of things i already had made myself familiar with, to wit, how he had at different times occupied similar rôles in other corporations' affairs and how relentlessly he had exposed mismanagement and peculation. i suggested to him that in most such cases the receiverships seemed to have been dismissed in favor of the former managers. he waved his hands and replied that in this particular case there was absolutely no chance of control being returned to addicks, who had outrageously abused his trust; "although, of course (this as a sort of second thought) you know, mr. lawson, if mr. foster on behalf of his client should receive the amount of his claim and the proper fee, from whatever source, i should be powerless to prevent the dismissal of the receiver." braman and foster were a delightful combination. as the talented chimmie fadden would say: "dey knew dere biz from de bar to de till an' from de till by de way of de cash register to de wine-cellar, so's dey could do de circuit wid dere lamps blinked and dere hands tied." with their corporation mix-up records i was familiar, and after a few minutes' talk realized that it would be impossible to do anything with them until they had kicked up against one or two of the bricks addicks was now with renewed energy preparing to cast into their pathway. i left with an agreement to see them the following day, and a parting reminder that all natural history showed that unpicked ripe plums were in great danger of being blown from the tree with every passing breeze. i hurried back to addicks. "it's the old game," said i; "they are on the box and have the lines, and know just how badly we need our coach, and it's only a case of how much 'inducement' we can stand." i left him and went down to 26 broadway. i had not wasted time, but they had been there ahead of me. "lawson," said mr. rogers, "this time addicks is up against a real condition, and phenomenal work will have to be done or his race is run. braman and foster have been here and made a strong bid for a partnership with me, but i did as agreed and sent them away with a cold 'i'm in no way interested.'" foster and braman secured an order from the new york courts to take possession of all property, money, papers, and books claimed by the company, and formally laid siege to addicks' quarters in the hoffman. there was considerable excitement for the guests and the newspapers. doors were battered down, but the astute and slippery addicks led them a merry chase until they finally caught him hiding in a freight elevator which he was using for a private staircase, only to find he had no books, papers, or money. the week that ensued was full of trouble and incident for all concerned. addicks led an expedition to wilmington in an effort to get the court to call off the receivership, but had his labor and the expense of his lawyers for his pains. braman and foster dragged us through a weary round of special hearings and demands of various kinds in the different courts, but by tuesday night of the second week their ardor had cooled considerably and they were as puzzled how to let go of the bull they had captured as we were to find a way to make them do so. bright and early wednesday morning braman called on me, and when he threw his coat and hat into a chair he must have dropped his receivership cloak too, for after he had carefully closed the door and made sure we were without witness he said: "if there's any business to be done in this matter it must be done quick." i admitted no one could possibly appreciate this more than i--but what could be done? after bluffing for an hour and exchanging honest views for fifteen minutes we agreed that the situation stood thus: if nothing were done before the coming sunday, the 1st, the receivership would be permanent; the stock, which had fallen to $3 per share, would remain at that figure or go lower; my friends, the public, and myself would be tremendous losers; all the past of bay state, the doings of addicks and rogers, and the appointment of the receiver would come in for thorough investigation; an awful scandal would be aired in public; every one would be covered more or less with mud; and no one could possibly be the gainer but "standard oil," for braman agreed with me that the deal we had made with rogers would probably stand in the courts. on the other hand, if an arrangement could be arrived at by which we could have the receivership discharged, the company returned to its officers, or our equities preserved, all would be gainers by the move, for it would be proof positive that whatever the obstacles, we could overcome them, and the stock would go flying upward again. after we had set out all the advantages, disadvantages, and possibilities of the situation, i bluntly plumped braman with that inevitable question of all such "sit-downs": "what's the price?" and braman as plumply and bluntly answered: "buchanan, foster's client, must have the face of his bonds and interest, $150,000, and we must have at least $150,000 for our trouble and expense." my long experience in corporation affairs, and my intimate knowledge of the practices which the "system" with its votaries has made habitual was such that i was proof against shock from anything that could possibly turn up in even extraordinary financial deals, but i was just a bit staggered by the business-like way braman demanded for himself and foster $150,000 and the coolness with which he further explained that they must divide their share with certain influential persons without whose hearty cooperation the tangling-up which had been so cleverly accomplished would have been impossible. he made no bones of showing me that once "we gave up" it would only be a matter of the number of minutes required to get details fixed before everything would be as it was before he had interfered. i dwelt upon the possibilities of the judge not following orders to the letter and the minute, but he only smiled and answered: "leave all that to us; if we don't make good as agreed, we get no pay." he was fully alive to the dangers of the game, and he impressed upon me he would take nobody's word for anything. with him and foster nothing but money talked, and it must not be of the marked-bill kind either, meaning he would not take anything which could be tied up by injunctions and lawsuits after the receiver had been dismissed. however, he would play fair. he would not ask us to pay on anything but the actual delivery of the goods. he also frankly told me that he had named the very low figure, $150,000, because he expected to invest what he received in bay state gas stock at $3 and, upon its jumping to $10 or $20, to make half a million. but this is outrageous, you say. you call the performance i have described by hard names! surely our courts are not also the creatures of "frenzied finance"? you ask. i warn my readers that this narrative is no more than a record of events occurring within my own knowledge, and that dark and vicious as the pictures seem they are photographs of actual happenings. nor should the public conclude that the dishonor and dishonesty revealed in connection with bay state gas are exceptional. on the contrary, such doings are the rule in the affairs of great financial corporations. into the rigging and launching of almost every big financial operation in the united states during the last twenty years, double-dealing, sharp practice, and jobbery have entered; and, what is more, the men interested have participated in and profited thereby. to correct a popular fallacy i want to say that i am not referring here simply to moral derelictions but to actual legal crimes. if the details of the great reorganization and trustification deals put through since 1885 could be laid bare, eight out of ten of our most successful stock-jobbing financiers would be in a fair way to get into state or federal prisons. they do such things better in england. during the past ten years three "frenzied financiers" have practised their legerdemain in london--ernest hooley, barney barnato, and whitaker wright. the first is bankrupt and discredited; barney barnato jumped into the ocean at the height of his career, and whitaker wright, after numerous attempts to escape, was hauled up before an english judge and jury, promptly convicted and sentenced, and committed suicide by poison before leaving the court-room. i will agree at any time to set down from memory the names of a score of eminent american financiers, at this writing in full enjoyment of the envy and respect of their countrymen and the luxury purchased by their many millions, whose crimes, moral and legal, committed in the accumulation of these millions, would, if fully exposed, make the performances of wright and barnato seem like petty larceny in comparison.[12] but freedom and equality, as guaranteed us by the declaration of independence, have recently been capitalized, and "freedom" now means immunity from legal interference for financiers, while the latest acceptance of "equality" is that all victims of special privilege are treated alike by those who control and exercise such privilege. if the judges and the public prosecutors of these united states were equal to the sworn duties of their sacred offices, this "freedom" would have been confined long ago, and throughout this broad land there would be jails full of "frenzied financiers" who had imagined themselves licensed to rob the public. but to return to bay state gas: "braman," i said, "we see the situation through the same glasses, but before deciding as to prices let us see where the coin required is to come from. until the receivership is dismissed not a cent can come from the bay state treasury, so that eliminates addicks. i, personally, am in such shape because of this same receivership that i can do nothing. so, as usual, it comes down to the man with unlimited money--rogers. the question is, how to get rogers to advance so large a sum in such a ticklish business? he does not want to get mixed up in a matter in which any one man's treachery might mean state's prison." "somebody's word ought to be good," he commented. "only two men's words would be of any avail," i interrupted--"yours and addicks', and you have just made it clear that in this case neither would be worth the breath expended in pledging it." footnotes: [12] since the above was published the american people have become aroused, and as this book is going to press, scores of the greatest financiers in america are having under oath confessions squeezed from them in a life-insurance investigation conducted by the state of new york--confessions which reveal such a condition of perjury, bribery, and habitual sequestration of funds, as to make my statement seem mild. chapter xxiv buying a bunch of states i left braman and went down to mr. rogers. after a careful canvas of the situation it was settled that the only way out was for rogers to furnish the money to release the receivership, in consideration of which accommodation addicks should forfeit the old boston companies to him through bay state's failure to comply with the terms of the may contract which matured the following monday. rogers would administer these companies in trust, applying their earnings to the liquidation of the bonds, and after these latter had been paid off, would turn them back to the bay state company for the benefit of its stock; or he would release the companies to us whenever we could raise the money to redeem them. thus rogers would make sure of the amount of his original investment, the million dollars profit the may 1st deal permitted him, while i should have secured for my friends and the public the amount of their investment in the property and a good profit for the stockholders to boot. to secure addicks' consent to this arrangement would be the difficulty; but there was one consideration that would probably induce him to give way--his terrible plight in case the receivership became permanent. having reached this point, the next problem was how to get the money. rogers refused absolutely to be a party to any payment that could be traced back to him. he pointed out the sources of hazard; first, through treachery on the part of foster, braman, or addicks, he might be accused of bribing a court officer, the receiver; addicks might blackmail him by charging him with conspiracy, or a conspiracy charge might be brought by bay state stockholders, and he be held for tremendous damages. he refused to put himself into any such trap. i put forward a dozen ways to meet the emergency, but he would have none of them. finally he suggested a method which was certainly perfect of its kind. he began by letting me into the secret that the chances of a mckinley victory in the election the following week looked pretty bad, and that the latest canvass of the state showed that unless something radical were done, bryan would surely win. hanna had called into consultation half a dozen of the biggest financiers in wall street, and it was decided to turn at least five of the doubtful states. for this purpose a fund of $5,000,000 had been raised under rogers' direction,[13] to be turned over to mark hanna and mckinley's cousin, osborne, through john moore, the wall street broker, who was acting as rogers' representative in collecting the money. it would be legitimate for the national committee to pay out money to carry delaware, and he, rogers, would arrange it that the coin to satisfy braman and foster should come through this channel. thus he would be completely protected. "lawson," said mr. rogers, looking at me with intense and deadly seriousness, his voice charged with conviction, "if bryan's elected, there will be such a panic in this country as the world has never seen, and with his money ideas and the crazy-headed radicals he will call to washington to administer the nation's affairs, business will surely be destroyed and the working people will suffer untold misery. you know we all hate to do what uncle mark says is necessary, but it's a case of some of us sacrificing something for the country's good. bryan's election would set our country back a century, and i believe it's the sacred duty of every honest american to do what he can to save his land from such a calamity."[14] the "system's" conscience has its own quaint logic--the logic of self-interest--and this is how it reasoned: "the election of bryan would disturb our control of american institutions, therefore american institutions would be destroyed by bryan's election. on us, the 'system,' devolves the sacred if expensive duty of saving the nation, and, however abhorrent to our fine moral sense, patriotism compels us to spend millions in bribing and corrupting the electorate so that virtue, 'standard oil,' and j. p. morgan may continue the good work of caring for the public's interests as their own." as i listened to rogers' exordium on the duties of a citizen in an emergency, i remembered the "standard oil" code--"everything for god (our god); god (our god) in everything." it was so essentially "standard oil," this willingness to commit even that greatest wrong, subverting the will of the people in the exercise of their highest function--the election of a president--but only that good (their good) might come of it. it was no more than selfish greed tricked out in the noble trappings of morality, an infamous crime disguised as patriotism. doubtless, the excellent, god-fearing, law-abiding citizens of the doubtful states who read this and learn how the "system" defeated their will at the polls will cry, "monstrous! can such things be in america?" and then will resume their interrupted occupation of "letting well enough alone." however, this is aside from my story. having clearly set forth the political situation through which we should be saved, mr. rogers proceeded to map out my own programme. first, i must perfect an alibi for him by going to foster and braman, and impressing upon them the fact that he was absolutely out of the affair, and must under no circumstances be brought into it; next, i must convince addicks to the same effect, and in addition tell him that mr. rogers had angrily refused to get into the mix-up; i should then hold myself in readiness to meet john moore and hanna or osborne as soon as an appointment could be arranged. that afternoon i got the word and went to 26 broadway, and from there mr. rogers and i went over to john moore's office, slipping in the private door from the rear street. "john," said mr. rogers, "i am going to turn this matter over to you and lawson, and i am to have nothing further to do with it. what you two agree to will be satisfactory to me, and remember, both of you, every dollar that is paid is paid by the national committee, but after it's all settled, and if there is no slip-up, i will look to lawson for whatever is expended. is it understood?" we agreed that it was, and mr. rogers left us. john moore deserves more than a mere passing mention here, for he was at this time a distinguished wall street character and one of the ablest practitioners of finance in the country. during the last fifteen years of his life, john moore was party to more confidential financial jobs and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he handled them with great skill and high art. big, jolly, generous, a royal eater and drinker, an associate of the rich, the friend of the poor, a many-times millionaire, who a few years before had been logging it on the rivers of maine, his native state, john moore well deserved his "street" name, "prince john." his firm, moore & schley, transacted an immense brokerage business, and numbered among its clients great capitalists and bankers all over the country. especially were moore & schley famed for their discretion, and the highest proof of confidence reposed in the firm was the fact that it did the bulk of the stock speculating for what is known as "the washington contingent." this is, perhaps, the most peculiar and delicate business that comes to "the street." a big wall street house opens a washington office and organizes an elaborate system of special wires, wires from which there can be no possibility of leakage. it is then ready for the patronage of members of congress, united states senators and national officials, whose honorable positions make them the custodians of national secrets of great commercial value. if, for instance, a new law is to be passed which must favorably affect a given stock, legislators who are on "the inside" often buy thousands of shares in order to reap the profit of the rise in value incidental to its passage. or perhaps there is in prospect a law which will interfere with the special privilege of some other stock and reduce its price. those in possession of advance information "go short" of that stock (sell for future delivery) to profit by the drop. there are many other opportunities the washington "insider" of speculative turn may use to advantage. for instance, if a high official of the government were about to issue a proclamation against a foreign nation, and should desire secretly to make a million or so out of the panic he knew must follow the announcement, he would cast about him for a broker who would preserve this sacred confidence. it would invariably be through the moore firm that his secretary or confidential man would do the short selling. there are also the operations of lobbyists who, to affect important legislation for this great interest or the other, buy or sell stock for the benefit of legislators whose votes they desire to influence. extreme caution is demanded in the execution of such orders, or all hands might by some slip-up find themselves wearing striped suits.[15] such a catastrophe seemed imminent some years ago when the sugar trust was before the united states senate for some legislation necessary to bolster up its monopoly. its agents had either been less cautious than usual in disguising the raw bribery they were perpetrating, or this particular senate was too brazen to take the usual precautions to hide its greed from the world. in any case, so great an outcry was made in the press of the country that some sacrifice to the people's wrath was called for--one of those familiar sacrifices which, at intervals of ten or fifteen years in this republic, our rulers make to the great god integrity. an investigation was organized, and a senatorial inquisition had before it eminent sugar capitalists and many other distinguished gentlemen who could by no possibility shed light on the transactions, and then, realizing that a show of earnestness, at least, was demanded, it was agreed that some member of moore & schley's firm must go on the witness-stand, and, on refusing to tell which senators had speculated in sugar, must be sent to jail. this grandstand play, it was calculated, and rightly, would so hold the attention of the american people that when the committee concluded its investigation with the usual loud acclaim of duty well done, its draconian punishment of the unsubmissive broker would act as another ten years' stay against outcry. when this stratagem was decided on, john moore announced that he as head of the firm should be the sacrifice. but the representatives of the "system" and the senate firmly refused to assign him that rôle, and instead, to his grief and anger, nominated for jail the associate member who had charge of moore & schley's washington business, whom they declared the logical victim. during the thirty days that his friend and partner spent behind the bars john moore's hair whitened more than in all the years before, and from that time until his death he refused firmly to take part in his old line of work, or was ever again his old jovial self. footnotes: [13] over a year after the publication of this statement startled the country, john a. mccall, president of the new york life insurance company, and george w. perkins, vice-president of the same company and partner of j. pierpont morgan, were compelled to confess that they had contributed from their policy-holders' deposits, large amounts of money to a fund to defeat bryan in 1896 and to the republican campaign funds of the two following presidential elections, and that they gloried in it. at the same time jacob schiff, director of the equitable life and a partner in the great international banking-house of kuhn, loeb & co., admitted that funds belonging to the policy-holders of the "big three," the new york, the mutual, and the equitable, were used in a joint fund to influence the legislature of every state in the union. [14] president mccall used almost the same language in september, 1905, in justifying his payment. [15] the president was notified some few months ago that the cotton report was being juggled by employees of the united states department of agriculture in the interest of certain wall street speculators who were gambling in cotton. investigation proved that it was the practice to falsify the report; and certain government officials and brokers are now under indictment. chapter xxv athletics of finance entirely apart from his relationship with mr. rogers it was a great help in this bay state emergency to have the aid of a man of john moore's wealth of vim and wide knowledge of men and affairs. freely and frankly i explained our situation to him with its innumerable complications until he had mastered its intricacies. a tough job he pronounced our proposition, and he was the authority on the subject. after our talk was ended he called in osborne, who had evidently already been talked to. he said to osborne: "i've been over addicks' affairs with lawson, and there is no question in my mind and that of other friends of the party that he should have what is necessary to carry delaware. you had better have the committee ready to put in between $350,000 and $400,000 if we call for it. i will see that it is kept down as low as possible." osborne then spoke his piece and replied that the committee would do whatever was decided best, and asked me to send addicks around next day to explain just how he was pushing things in delaware. all this was play-acting for the benefit of rogers' alibi. the next thing on my programme was to persuade addicks to relinquish his hold on the old boston gas companies, and this was likely to prove my most difficult task. i left john moore, who agreed to hold himself in readiness at any hour to consult on and approve such settlement as i could arrange, and energetically started in on the delaware financier. it was a trying ordeal. as soon as addicks saw i had something to work on he began to demur and object. if he could not have things his way, he would do nothing. he knew that i had joined a conspiracy to ruin him; that i was in league with rogers, who was in league with braman and foster, and that all were banded together to take all he had away from him. in the course of that two hours' wrestle i was tempted several times to throw up the whole affair, and there were some bitter and savage word-passages that left both of us heated. i could do nothing with him; he must hear from rogers personally. finally i got the "standard oil" wire, and rogers talked so plainly and coldly as partially to sober him, but ended by agreeing to have his counsel talk things over with addicks, which was a distinct concession. a little later mr. rogers' representative was at the hoffman and he and addicks had it hot and heavy. after about fifteen minutes of conference they had wellnigh come to blows. however, the hot exchanges had begun to tell. addicks grew saner, but he insisted on seeing foster and braman. i warned him that he was fast getting our affairs into such shape that no one could patch them up, but to no avail. he must meet his enemies face to face if only to ram into their teeth that they were scoundrels. finally, i got braman on the telephone and explained that i was doing my best to quiet a crazy man, who would consent to nothing until after he had seen him and foster and told them what thieves they were. i heard braman chuckle. he said: "bring him along to foster's house at 10.30," and added: "it wouldn't be a bad idea to have an ambulance along, too." this suggested further complications, for braman has the reputation on "the street" of being more eager to face a wild man on a rampage than a sick one in a plaster cast, while foster, although a little bit of a fellow, was never known to side-step or duck trouble. i slipped word down to moore at the waldorf to follow along to foster's place in a cab. there are several "spite houses" in new york. foster's house was one of them. it is a narrow strip of a brownstone dwelling at 79 west 54th street, built to express the enmity of one property owner for his neighbor who refused to pay an extortionate price for the land. it is about the width of a front door, and inside there is just about room to move around. it afforded a queer background for the scene enacted there that night. promptly at 10.30 addicks and i were at the door, and by 10.32 the tunnel-like walls of the "spite house" resounded with as illuminating a verbal interchange of billingsgate biographies as i have ever listened to. at 10.35 i covered addicks in a hasty but quite successful retreat which he beat to our cab. thence to the hoffman house, where i summoned parker chandler to aid in the calming of our raving associate. the next two hours were of the pulse-jumping, vein-tearing kind incidental to "frenzied finance," but they were not without avail, for addicks finally agreed that he might consent to "something" provided the bay state equities in the boston companies were so preserved that he could eventually get them back into his hands by repayment to rogers or by the redemption of bonds. having got thus far, i again went after braman and foster, who were at the hotel cambridge. we repaired for further conference to the university club, which was then in the old a. t. stewart marble palace on the corner of thirty-fourth street and fifth avenue. i shall never forget that session. it was past midnight, but the three of us battled with our smoky problem, now good-naturedly, now bitterly. at times it looked hopeless because of this obstinate demand or that steadfast refusal. it must have been three o'clock in the morning when i left them and stepped into the waldorf for a moment to relieve moore's vigil. then back again to the hoffman, where addicks, chandler, and some bay state directors were nodding. by this time i was in no mood to say more than that i would be over in the morning, and that addicks should go early to the national committee's head-quarters and explain the desperation of conditions in delaware to hanna, osborne, and their associates. at last i was free to return to the brunswick for a few hours' rest. in the country, cock-crow is the signal to be up and doing. in the city, the signal to be up and to do is a hoarse, metallic roar that would drown a million country cock-crows if each particular cock were as big as the mythical rooster of antiquity and could crow in proportion to his size. my readers who dwell on the hills and in dales and wheat-fields, and who are unfamiliar with the wild, weird early morning din of the city, may not know that the metropolitan cock-crow is made up of the jingle and jangle of a million tin milk cans jolted over a million blocks of stone to the tune of thousands of steel-shod feet, the shrill cries of an army of butcher and baker boys and the groans and the moans of countless troubled and tortured human souls. cock-crow in the country means "awake to another day of life." cock-crow in the city is a signal for the slaves of mammon to arise to another interval of flight and pursuit. the great city cock was just getting ready to send forth his hoarse cry as i went to bed, and he was still on his roost a few hours later, when i awoke. i looked from my window of the brunswick across the square, now flooded with the pure sunlight of early morning, and all the kinks and quirks and hobgoblins which the rush and irritation of yesterday had generated seemed to have vanished, and i could not suppress a smile at the thought of the night before, when this battle--this puny, insignificant battle for a few dirty dollars--had almost raised feelings i now knew too well should only be aroused by real battles, battles in which noble principles were involved, and i felt better able to fight what i had thought, the night before, was going to be a hard battle. "pshaw!" said i, as i looked away and beyond the park to the grand battlefields of my better imagination, "what will it matter a hundred years hence what name appears against victor or vanquished in the archives of fame or the records of infamy when the student reads, 'a.d. 1896, bay state gas-"standard oil" war,'" for i saw that among the countless real deeds there would be no room for any record to mark the existence of any gas or dollar war. with these thoughts still in mind i sat down to breakfast with parker chandler, and as i listened to his cheerful gossip of yesterday, i inwardly resolved that whatever the result of the day's effort, i would take it with a smile. thursday was another period of strenuous struggle and unceasing effort. i began early, and every moment was taken up with arguments, wrangles, pleadings! chandler had agreed to see that addicks kept his appointment with the national committee and that a quorum of bay state directors should be on hand in the hoffman so that we could get quick action on any proposition that came up. this arranged i hurried over to see john moore, then down for a last word with mr. rogers. addicks came next for a spell; from him to braman and foster; back to john moore; more interviews with lawyers and round the circle again. it seemed as though it were impossible to arrive at any agreement that some one of the principals interested would not kick over. at four o'clock friday morning john moore and myself ceased our labors for the day, both of us wellnigh exhausted. with all our efforts many of the vital points to our agreement were still in the air. a few hours' sleep and we were back at our task, and by six o'clock on friday night the last obstacle had been overcome and the deal was completed. there remained now the tremendous business of putting all the arrangements concluded into execution. a multitude of legal documents had to be drawn up and executed, first by rogers and then by the bay state board of directors and officers. it was a pile of work, but not a second was lost, and by 11.20 that night we were ready for the third act, which was to be performed simultaneously by different sets of actors in boston and wilmington. for this our officers were split. with the directors of the boston corporations, chandler, and mr. rogers' attorney to supervise the legal end of next day's transaction, i left on a special car attached to the midnight train for boston; while addicks and the bay state directors set forth on another midnight train for wilmington, del., to be followed in the early morning by my new york partner, john moore's partner, braman, foster, and more counsel representing mr. rogers. this contingent was to carry the money. chapter xxvi the circling of the vultures i don't believe there ever was before or since a financial operation in which so many things, each of vital importance, had to be done at one and the same time. before i took the train for boston, just after the last deed had been signed, braman, foster, and i had come to a complete understanding in regard to the manner in which the court proceedings the following morning should be conducted. it was understood that no one should take another's word for anything, and consequently that no money should pass until specific performance of all the required conditions. immediately on the release of the receivership, foster and braman were to be paid their "fee," and they asked that the $175,000 cash coming to them should be arranged in separate piles of bills. the two packages containing foster's and part of buchanan's, and braman's $50,000 were to be in the joint custody of john moore's representative and my partner, who, with rogers' counsel and addicks, had been assigned to represent bay state in the court. what would happen after the transfer of these several amounts was outside my jurisdiction. addicks did not confide to me his own scheme of revenge, but of braman and foster's purposes i had a clear idea. as braman had explained, the great winning of his adventure should be made in the stock plunge he and foster contemplated in bay state gas stock, then selling at 3-1/2 to 4; but lest there be some slip-up in court, "buy" orders to their brokers were contingent on the word "go!" from wilmington. to get this off at the right moment a clerk was taken along, whose only part in the play was to telephone this word "go!" they expected in this way to make at least half a million.[16] addicks' intentions, as i afterward learned, were less exalted but much more direct. he had conceived a plan whereby without danger to himself he could punish braman and foster for the wrong they had done bay state, and at the same time meet his election expenses at no cost to his own pocket. in the course of his electioneering campaign in delaware, conducted as all the world knows how, addicks had gathered to his cause as tough and rascally a set of "heelers" as ever waylaid aged woman or lame man on the highway. a lieutenant who had been despatched to delaware early friday afternoon, when it had become evident that we should get things settled up, gathered the sturdiest members of this precious troop together and solemnly told them that a serious hitch had occurred in addicks' game and that it looked as though, owing to the receivership, there would be no "stuff" to put in circulation this year. the men responsible for this outrage were to be in wilmington on the following day and from the appearance of things would get the money addicks had destined for his followers. he understood they were to receive it in cash, too--$175,000--cash that really belonged to addicks, who had intended it for his good friends in delaware. the thugs, properly indignant at the wrong that had been done "the boss," dispersed rapidly to discuss the information among themselves. that night a group of leaders got together and figured out a little plan of campaign to frustrate the robbery of their beloved master. court proceedings to release the receivership could not take long, and they calculated that the train schedule would detain braman and foster at least two hours in wilmington after the adjournment. what more easy than the organizing of a little scuffle on the station platform or on the street and in the rush--well, many things happen in a rush. this simple procedure commended itself to all concerned, and that night there was much rejoicing among the addicks camp-followers at the pleasant things that should be pulled "off" at the flim-flamming bee next day. all these things were in the air when court opened in wilmington on saturday morning. a special telephone line had been run and arrangements made for a clear wire right into the directors' office in the head-quarters of the gas light company in boston. at the telephone in wilmington sat my partner ready to communicate to me the exact course of the proceedings, so that i might simultaneously make the agreed transfers of our companies to rogers. i knew my partner's voice; he knew mine. we, too, were taking no chances. * new york, february 21, 1905. _dear mr. lawson_: in your article in _everybody's magazine_ for january, among other misstatements upon which i shall not now comment--since you have committed yourself too far to make it likely that you will withdraw them--you accuse me of having speculated in bay state gas stock with mr. buchanan's money; and of having subsequently been sued by him. i hold mr. buchanan's receipt for the money collected for him, which i paid him the night that i returned from delaware. he has never sued me. please inform me whether you are willing and agree to strike out these statements from your article when published in book form, and also whether you will agree to withdraw the same in your magazine. i tried to call on you and discuss the case when in boston, january 21st; and i also tried to meet you on the day after last thanksgiving; but apparently you were unwilling to see me. i remain, very truly yours, roger foster. thomas w. lawson, esq., boston, mass. february 23, 1905. _my dear mr. foster_: i received your letter of the 21st inst., and in reply will say, if i have done you any wrong in my story, "frenzied finance," or otherwise, it has been unintentional, and i regret it, and i seek this, the first opportunity, to give my regrets the same wide circulation as my original statements. as i wrote you previous to the publication of the magazine containing the parts you refer to, i try to exercise the greatest care in allowing nothing to appear in my story but facts--facts i know to be facts, and in addition only such facts as are absolutely necessary to my work, which is the portrayal of those events of the past essential to a proper understanding by the people of the evils that have been done them, and how they have been done, that they may do what is necessary to undo them and to prevent their repetition in the future, and, in addition, such facts as it is fair for me to use. i repeat what i said to you then: i have absolutely no feeling in regard to you other than an intense desire to do you exact justice. i dealt with you in the entire bay state receivership affair in connection with mr. braman and i thought that i had every reason to believe that his bay state gas purchases were for your joint account; but now that you assure me they were not, i hasten to have such assurances chase my original story with the hope that they may speedily overtake it. my information that you had been sued by mr. buchanan came to me in a way that left no doubt in my mind of its correctness--no doubt until i received your letter. papers were sent to me some time ago by reputable attorneys in a suit of buchanan against braman and, i understood, yourself, along the lines outlined in my story, with the request that i allow my deposition to be taken, so that buchanan could get at the facts in his attempt to recover the moneys claimed. your assurances to the contrary in regard to this matter i also hasten to start on the road you point out, and i will see that both statements are expunged from my book. you are in error in thinking that i did not wish to see you when you were in boston. i did not know in either case of your desires until it was too late to see you. i certainly would have had a "sit-down" with you if it had been possible. again assuring you not only that it is a pleasure to set forth the facts you have called to my attention, but that i am your debtor inasmuch as you have given me an opportunity to perform that duty which i owe to every individual my story treats of--to state facts and only facts with which they have been connected--believe me, yours truly, thomas w. lawson. footnotes: [16] see foot-note on pages 189 and 190. chapter xxvii court corruption and coin the closing scene of this most significant drama was enacted on saturday morning in the wilmington circuit court-room. there was nothing in the cold formality of the proceedings to indicate that here was the _dénouement_ of a serio-comedy in which greed and ambition had clashed in a battle for millions; nor in the amiable indifference of the men who got within the enclosed space below the judge's desk to suggest the murderous passions and fierce hatreds raging beneath the surface of the prevailing calm. the _dramatis personæ_ were gathered in little groups representing the separate interests--addicks and some of his lieutenants; my partner at the telephone; john moore's partner and rogers' counsel with their heads together; braman and foster nearer the judge, their eyes wandering toward two dress-suit cases piled before john moore's partner, which, it was understood, contained the money. at a glance it was impossible to tell the one containing buchanan's share from the other laden with the receivership loot, but each was tagged, and it was evident that possibilities of a mix-up had been carefully guarded against. behind braman was his clerk, and in the rear of the court-room sat as many of addicks' thugs as could squeeze into the narrow space reserved for spectators. they, too, eyed the dress-suit cases avidly, for the information had been passed around that these innocent receptacles contained the "stuff," of which the "boss" was about to be robbed. court came to order. foster rose, announced that the claims of his client had been satisfied, and made a formal motion to dismiss the receivership. the court formally consented, and as the clerk was entering the dismissal in his minute-book my partner telephoned the facts to me. i sent back the word that my directors were resigning--had resigned--that rogers' directors were being elected--had been elected--that the boston gas companies were now transferred to rogers. my partner whispered my words to john moore's partner and rogers' counsel. at once the two dress-suit cases, each loaded with currency, were slipped to braman and foster. at the same time the messenger who was to telephone to their broker rose and quickly left the court-room. a brief period was consumed in signing receipts, certificates, and other legal papers, and then the performance was over. addicks rose and went out among his henchmen in the rear, who eagerly surrounded him. in the bustle braman and foster, each with his own booty, fled. let us see what was happening at the boston end of the wire while all this dumb show was being enacted in the wilmington court-house. my directors and officials were lined up against the walls of the directors' room in the boston gas light company's office like so many members of young john d. rockefeller's sunday-school class, inasmuch as they were prepared to listen, sing, or shout "amen!" at any time they received the nod of the class-leader. in an adjoining room rogers' counsel had a similar line-up, with the difference that my men were about to shed the crowns which the others were waiting to receive, and which would transform them from humble business men into royal gas kings. through the open wire i was in such close touch with the scene in the wilmington court-room that i was almost sure i heard the subdued weeping of the blindfolded lady of the scales on the bills which occupied such a prominent part in the disreputable proceedings. nothing now could impede the course of events, so i concluded to take time by the headgear and secure what bay state stock was in the market before braman and foster got in their work. over another wire which was at my elbow i gave the word "go!" to my own brokers in boston and new york, and when a few minutes later they told me they were securing thousands of shares, and that the stock was climbing toward 10, i could not repress an inward chuckle at the thought that the money we had so reluctantly parted with would spread over only one-half or one-third the surface it was originally intended to cover. it was all over in a few minutes, and when my partner said, "it's done," and "by jove, there go dwight braman and roger foster on the dead run with a dress-suit case apiece!" i held my sides as parker chandler in his inimitable way bawled: "tom, let's leave our straw hats on the pegs, for we'll probably be back next spring figuring out how to pump air enough through the gas-measuring meters to pay for that money we've just loaned braman and foster for a day or two." braman and foster, as i have observed before, knew their business. the danger to which $175,000 in currency would be exposed, in a territory controlled by addicks, had appealed to their cautious instincts, and once outside the court-room they literally took to their heels and ran for a corner of the railway yard, where awaiting them was a special car and engine. they jumped aboard, yelling to the engineer: "let her go." in the meantime eager-eyed ruffians searched the streets and hung round the hotels, looking for two men with dress-suit cases. a hundred of them were on the station platform, awaiting the departure of the regular train. ten minutes before leaving-time one of the henchmen appeared among the gang, and passed round the word that the gents and the "stuff" had got off by a special, and it was no use waiting any longer. later that afternoon, addicks, to use his own words, in one of his rendezvous, "dealt out his own good money in place of that he had hoped would take care of the people's rights." it was a fierce session of the stock exchange that saturday morning. shortly before closing time a new set of brokers were frantically grabbing for bay state stock round 10, and monday morning, when all the world knew that the receivership had been lifted and our company was itself again, the same crowd continued to buy fiercely. to these eager purchasers i resold all that i had previously gathered, and enough short besides, to compensate me for some of the losses i had previously suffered, for this latter i was enabled to repurchase at half price, when news came that another suit had begun against bay state. this latter drop in price so shattered the nerves of braman and foster that they retired, having made up their minds that they did not know quite as much about one end of "frenzied finance" as they did about the other. as a matter of fact, nothing came of the suit in question, for it was evident when the transfer of the boston gas companies to rogers' control became known, that bay state gas receiverships had played their last successful engagement. my readers will not object if i again call their attention to the inevitable workings of the law of compensation. the losses occasioned by the market action of bay state stock in these four days so mixed up braman and foster in their financial accounts that later they were sued by their client, buchanan, who in court stated that he in turn was so confused as to what was done in connection with this business that he really knew less after it was over than before the suits were brought. but one thing was indelibly impressed upon his mind--that his bonds had disappeared in the whirl and he had not received anything for them. i think this suit is still pending. chapter xxviii peace at last when the curtain fell on the closing scene of the performance in the delaware court there ensued a brief interval of quiet in the affairs of bay state gas. rejoicing in the temporary diversion of public attention, the chief actors proceeded to assume their former rôles, and soon affairs began to move at their old gait. rogers took possession of all the boston gas companies and patiently awaited the coming down the pike of some traveller with more money than brains. having successfully corrupted the state of delaware, addicks was being measured for the senatorial toga, when accidentally the blind lady dropped her scales on his unprotected head, which catastrophe laid him out long enough to enable another to sneak the prize he had so long striven for. we are not at present concerned with the affairs of delaware, and it suffices to say in passing, that after a heated contest one richard kenney was chosen to the senatorial seat addicks had so long coveted, and that this man, a typical delaware vote-rancher, after being sworn in as united states senator, was brought back to wilmington and tried for robbing a delaware bank, his accomplices being some other heelers of addicks. the disclosures made in the trial showed that the case in all characteristics conformed to the addicks standard of indecency, for the bank officials, not satisfied with "blowing in" every dollar of deposits and capital the institution owned or controlled, had actually "lifted" in addition the building in which the bank was situated. one of the court functionaries who had heard the evidence tersely remarked: "talk about stealing a red-hot stove: this is a case where they took the funnel with it to keep the draught going until they set it up in a new location!" but delaware, as my readers have doubtless gathered long ere this, is its own kind of a country, and rewards and punishments are so perversely adjusted that it seems a sort of topsyturvydom. in this instance certain of addicks' heelers went to state's prison and death; kenney returned to the senate to help make laws for the great free people of america, while the chief conspirator, with a threat to sue the blindfolded lady for damage done, began to set out the pieces on the bay state gas chessboard with a view to trying certain new moves that had occurred to his perpetual-motion mind. the situation of bay state gas stock was fully understood by the public. while rogers had possession of the boston companies, he simply held them in trust, and must give them up whenever the parent corporation had coin enough to redeem them. the securities were still in the hands of the public and my friends, and my own duty to get bay state gas on its feet was plain. it was again a case of raising money, and to do this we had the issue of securities which we were preparing to float just before foster and braman swooped down on us. addicks agreed that if i would undertake the marketing of this stock, he would issue only enough of it to redeem the properties from rogers. his directors met and formally "resoluted" on this point, and i felt satisfied before going ahead that there was no danger of this money being put in jeopardy without actually stealing it. the company, for the nonce, had no other business but to pay office rent and clerk hire, and in spite of addicks' financial immorality, all who knew him were aware he took no chances of ever getting himself sent to jail. so i began to sell the stock in the open market. _part ii_ chapter i the magic world of finance though this is the twentieth century and enlightenment is supposed to prevail throughout this broad land of ours, the majority of people still regard the world of finance as the world of magic. within the fairy realm of finance the laws of nature apparently are suspended, and, overnight, wonders are worked. the ordinary mortal, wise in all other walks of life, sees the man who yesterday stood beside him at the plough or at the bench emerging from the mysterious portals bearing the fruits of the endeavors of a hundred or a thousand lives, although a moment ago he passed through them with nothing. who can deny the magic that thus demonstrates its power, or fail to accord veneration to the magicians that work such marvels? no wonder the ordinary mortal feels that he has no license to enter the world of finance save on his knees, hat in hand, bearing tribute to the divinities enthroned within this enchanted territory. it is my purpose to do away with this extraordinary deception and to show it up as one of the artifices with which tricksters, since the beginning of the world, have imposed upon the people. there should be nothing in finance that any man or woman of ordinary intelligence and experience cannot understand, and i purpose to explain here the machinery of the "system" so that every one will exactly understand it from headlight to rear-end lantern. many intelligent people have no clear idea of what a certificate of stock or a bond really is, and the words "money," "stock-exchange," and "finance" are mere terms which they glibly use without knowledge of their meaning. it is not difficult to understand the grocery or the dry-goods business. standard articles of well-known form are sold by weight or measure over the counters for fair prices. the patrons of such businesses insist on knowing what they are buying--what they are to get in exchange for the money which is the fruit of their labor, and then, after they have been told, and they trade, they require that the goods be as described or they will know why not. the average american would consider it a huge joke should his grocer undertake to induce him to buy one hundred times more sugar than he could use, on the ground that he might find in the sugar bags when he reached home gold and diamonds. but would he not wrathfully seek the police if, after opening his sugar bag, for which he had paid $1, he found it contained only 50 cents' worth of sugar? he would tell you if you met him at this stage: "you can bet that chap on the corner cannot get away with any such trick as that--not in america. he might in zanzibar or in the kingdom of the sultan of sulu, but i will show him he cannot rob americans in these enlightened times." the grocer would be hustled to jail without a "by your leave," and thenceforward his name would be a by-word among all honest tradesmen. and so it goes in every business but finance--finance, the most important of all, the business into which is merged all other businesses, the business of taking and preserving the results of all other businesses, of all other human endeavor. over our land to-day are big, able americans, long-headed and experienced, adept at a jack-knife swap or a horse trade--industrious farmers, hard-handed miners, shrewd manufacturers, each in his own line a good business man, yet these sturdy traders, whom the "gold-brick" artist or the "green-goods" practitioner would never dream of tackling, come weekly into wall street, or into such branch shops as exist in every community on the continent, and are done out of their savings like the veriest "come-ons." humbly they take, in return for the gold earned with the sweat of their brows, a piece of paper of a given value which they return later and exchange for half the amount the paper cost them originally. in the space between purchase and sale fifty per cent. of their investment has disappeared--has been filched away, but yet they have no resentment. they evince none of the feelings of the man whose pocket has been picked or whose till has been robbed. on the contrary, their sentiment is of admiration for the banker, the broker, the financier through whose agency their money has been lost. take, for instance, the prosperous tanner who goes to his banker with $100,000, the fruit of ten years' success, and exchanges this sum for 1,000 shares of steel preferred. now, if he were to examine this security with half the thought or investigation he gives to a $500 car-load of bark, he would learn that there was not 20 cents on the dollar of real value behind it. in six months the eminent tanner is again at the banker's offering for sale his thousand shares of steel. in the meantime it has declined in value and he has to part with it for $50,000. but he does not complain; indeed, he bows his way out of the palatial office of the great man and is full of sincere thanks when the banker promises to let him know the next good thing on the market. suppose our tanner had purchased ten cars of tan bark and found that each car-load was short ten per cent. would he not at once go to his attorney and exclaim emphatically that he would spend thousands rather than let the scoundrel who had tricked him get away with his swag? suppose our grocer waxing rich invests his funds in the sugar trust. he thinks he knows all there is to be known about sugar. the business of the trust is to make the sweet commodity and sell it to the people. no mystery or magic, surely, about this simple pursuit. yet when our grocer invests his savings, the sugar stock is many dollars more valuable than when, scared into selling by fluctuations which he cannot see any reason for, he tries to get back his investment. so many times have investors been milked of their savings by this one trust during the past twenty years that in the coffers of its creators and jugglers are hundreds of millions of money that once belonged to the people for which they have received absolutely nothing in return. both the tanner and the grocer must know, when they look up and down wall street at the great office buildings which tower into the sky on either side of the street, that these are huge hives of expensive bees who, from new year's to new year's, do not produce a dollar. they should realize that the hundreds of millions spent each year for the expense of running the "system's" game, and the millions which the game-makers flaunt in their faces, must have been derived from such as they--the men who produce. it is the phenomenon of the age that millions of people throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "system" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "system" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on them twelve months later. you may ask if i desire to convey the idea that the great financial institutions and trusts of this country, which have their head centre in wall street, are all concerned in a conspiracy to rob the people of their savings. you think, doubtless, that so sweeping a statement goes beyond the truth. i desire to go on record right here in declaring that all financial institutions which in any way are engaged in taking from the people the money that is their surplus earnings or their capital, for the ostensible purpose of safeguarding it, or putting it in use for them, or exchanging it for stocks, bonds, policies, or other paper evidences of worth, are a part of the machinery for the plundering of the people. this is a terrible charge, i am well aware, but it is based upon a thorough knowledge of the subject and made with a full appreciation of its gravity. i do not mean to say that all the men who handle and control the different institutions i mentioned have guilty knowledge of the bearing of their actions. many of them are of the purest minds and most honest intentions, and are quite incapable of participating voluntarily in a conspiracy to wrong any one. they do not know, however, that the relation between their own minor institution and the general financial structure constitutes the former an agency for the "system," which controls and has organized the general financial structure into an instrument for converting the money of the public to its own purposes. in fact, the "system" has cunningly possessed itself of the financial mechanism of the country and is running it, not for the object for which the machine was devised, but for the benefit and personal profit of its votaries, and so the vast correlated organization of banks, trust companies, and insurance corporations which were brought into being for the safe handling of the people's savings has become an agency for transferring these savings to the control of unscrupulous manipulators, who take liberal toll of every dollar that passes through their hands. the duty of the american people is to unloosen the thraldom of the "system" on our financial mechanism; to pluck out of their high places the dishonest usurpers who have degraded the purposes of our financial institutions, and to restore those institutions to their legitimate functions. when the people are fully awakened to the condition i describe, surely they will arise in their wrath and sweep the money-changers from the temple. chapter ii the "system" and the louisiana lottery compared years ago one of the greatest evils in this country was the louisiana lottery. through that lottery millions and millions annually were taken from the people and transferred to a few unprincipled schemers, who soon found themselves in possession of enormous fortunes. wise men called for the abatement of this awful drain on the savings of the nation, but the law-abiding, god-fearing people of the country met their plaints with "why should we be bothered about this matter? if fools and knaves elect to gamble in such palpably fraudulent ways, let them gamble, and their losses are no affair of ours. it is none of our business." but presently these honest people had it pounded into their well-meaning heads that the principal instrument by which the swindle was conducted was their own mail service, one of the most important branches of their government; that, in fact, in each and every city, town, village, and cross-road in all our virtuous land, government officials were acting as distributing agents for this huge corrupter and robber. then the people rose in their irresistible might, and between the rising of one day's sun and its setting this powerful machine went as goes the gum-drop on the red-hot stove cover at a pop-corn soirée. it melted, leaving nothing but a faint odor and a thin stain, both of which disappeared in the next morning's scrubbing, and the louisiana lottery was as though it had never been. yet during its reign its insolent votaries could prove to the absolute satisfaction of all intelligent, patriotic men that it was useless for any man or set of men to attempt the lottery's destruction, because they would be met with the accumulated resistance of the reckless spending of the vast amounts of festered dollars which had been stolen from the people. the argument of these comparatively petty thieves was: "no men nor sets of men can hope to 'stack up' against us, for their money comes hard, cents and dollars at a time; they are obliged to earn it, while we get ours in chunks by simply taking it. we can buy lawyers and can hire law-makers, and we can lease government officials, and we can outbid any honest men, who are the only ones who object to our game. in the market for legislative or business talent you cannot get within touching distance of us." yet the people had but to sneeze and this foul parasite was detached from their free and honest structure and was wafted away with the dead leaves and the dust to bottomless nowhere. in the height of its prosperity the louisiana lottery took from the people only a paltry ten or twenty million dollars a year, while to-day there are single groups of banks, trust companies, corporations, and trusts which take from the people by might, by trick, and by theft hundreds of millions each year; and there are scores of such groups. the sugar trust has been the instrument of gathering, in one year, a hundred millions of the people's savings, and the steel trust alone has robbed the people of over five hundred millions of dollars in a single twelve months. to-day the "system" and its methods are as clearly and as sharply defined in the tangibility of their relation to the people as was ever the louisiana lottery. on certain days the louisiana lottery sold its tickets, which the people bought with their savings. on a certain day the drawing took place, at which all those who had parted with their dollars expected to receive them back together with immense profits, and upon that day disappointment was spread broadcast among the many and unhealthy joy among the few. so with the "system." on certain days the public is sold their stock, bond, and insurance policy certificates. upon other days they look for their savings and profits. on the contrary, they learn that their savings have decreased in value or have been wiped out, and that there never was any chance of profit. my critics will say that such a comparison cannot hold, for in the lottery nothing was dealt in but gambling tickets, whereas the stock or bond certificate represents an ownership in the material things of the country. this is the fallacy the "system" spends millions every year to foster and disseminate. between the two the difference is in favor of the louisiana lottery, for both are gambles and the lottery game was square. those who ran it had for their trouble a fixed percentage of the profits, an enormous percentage, it is true, but the general fund was never encroached upon by the controllers. who is to say what percentage the votaries of the "system" take in their game? it depends on how much their victims have to lose. the public have been persuaded, too, that in purchasing stocks they do not gamble, but only invest, or, at the worst, speculate, so they are deceived as well as plundered. a few millions each year satisfied the lottery owners; the votaries of the "system," among whom the "swag" must be divided, demand millions upon millions each. the tickets of the lottery had a definite value at all times until the drawing took place. the stocks and bonds of the "system" have no rigid or unalterable value when issued or at any other time, and do not represent a fixed ownership in all the savings of the people which have been paid for them. morally, legally, or ethically, the louisiana lottery, with all its attendant curses, was a far better institution for the people to bump up against every month than is the "system" against which the whole people are now directly or indirectly dealing every working day of the year. startling this statement may be, but not more startling than the facts. the records of the lottery company will show how many dollars it took in from the public; how many were returned in prizes and expenses; and how many went into the pockets of the owners. the records of the banks, corporations, trusts, and stock-exchanges will exhibit how many dollars were paid into the "system" by the people; how much they received back in return therefor; how much the expense of conducting the business was; and how much profit went to the votaries of the "system." compare the two and it will be found that there is annually taken by the "system" from the people a hundred, yes, a thousand times more than the louisiana lottery ever obtained in the same period. this being the fact, for how long will the people allow such a monstrous wrong to be done? how long will they suffer a few men to siphon automatically the money of the many into their own pockets? it is only a matter of simple mathematics to ascertain the day, and that only a few years away, when ten men will be as absolutely and completely the legal owners of the entire united states and all there is of value in it, as john d. rockefeller is the absolute legal owner of the large section of it of which he is to-day possessed. _when that day is here, the people will legally be the slaves of these ten men._ if this is so--and it is as surely so as it is that the constitution of the united states of america guarantees to every man, woman, and child who is a part of it perpetual freedom--it is so because the legal interest alone to which the ten men will be entitled and which they must receive (or our entire structure will fall) will of itself bring to their coffers all the wealth in existence within a given time. if this is so, then why have the american people allowed themselves to reach this condition? why are they to-day not only resting peacefully under this worse than death-bringing yoke, but assisting in the further riveting of this badge of dishonor and degradation? the reason is simple: they have been lulled to sleep by the "system" and its cunning votaries until they have but a dull appreciation not only of existing conditions but of their coming consequences. it is almost incredible that a people as intelligent as the american people, and as alert to that individual and national honor which they have bought with so much of their blood and their peace of body and mind, can be so deceived and juggled with. when one looks about, however, and notes happenings of which one personally knows, and the degradation and dishonor to which public opinion is seemingly indifferent, nothing is incredible. one sees a certain man openly displaying five hundred millions of dollars, a sum which represents the life earnings of 150,000 of our population, and knows that this man has secured this incredible amount during forty years of his life. one sees the second highest and most honorable office in the nation, a united states senatorship, openly bought for a few stolen dollars by a man who up to the very day of its purchase was a watch repairer in a small country town, and who had never done a single meritorious deed or been possessed of worldly goods to the extent of $5,000. one sees a wily adventuress secure from the banks, which exist only to safeguard the people's deposited savings, hundreds of thousands of dollars on her bare story that she was the possessor of some mysterious documents. one sees a $6-a-week office-boy of one of the "system's" votaries able to borrow for the "system," on his bare note, four millions of dollars from a new york institution which only exists to safeguard the people's savings--although the law says that such institutions shall not loan to any man on any kind of collateral, even government bonds, one-tenth that sum. one sees two men, drunk with their success, gouging and tearing at each other's hearts in wall street, and sees their gouging and tearing bring about a panic which takes from the people in an hour over a billion dollars and drives scores to suicide, murder, and defalcation--the two men continuing meanwhile as ornamental pillars of society instead of wearing prison stripes. one sees a great railroad corporation, in which are millions of the trust funds of widows, orphans, and charitable institutions, caught "short" (having sold something it did not own) in the stock-gambling game and held up to the tune of ten million dollars by a reckless stock gambler, who says "if you don't settle to-night it will be twenty millions to-morrow"; and the toll is paid, while the great banker who conducts the release of the hold-up charges the further tribute of twelve million dollars for his services. and then one sees this twenty-two millions of "commission" tacked on to the capital stock of the great railroad which is subsequently capitalized into a "bond" and sold to great life-insurance companies as a first-class investment for their trust funds. when one sees these things and a hundred other as rankly fraudulent, one should not wonder at anything american connected with dollars. such things occur because the "system" has so far been able to keep the public in ignorance of its doings. on the surface there is nothing to suggest that a set of vampires have captured the high places of finance and are sucking away the life-blood of the nation. our banks and trust companies all present a fair exterior and apparently are the same safe and honorable institutions they were before the canker fastened on them. only its votaries know what the "system" is, and their way is the way of silence and darkness. a tie, stronger and more effective than the oath of the mafia, binds them to its service, and woe be to him who dares divulge its methods. he who is bold enough to enter upon a recital of these secrets must be strong indeed to withstand the bribes to silence which would be placed in his hands. the "system" can well afford to pay any price rather than be brought face to face with its past, with an enraged people for referee. and even if the being be found who will venture an exposé of the conspiracy, he will find it strangely difficult to get his story past the traps and pitfalls which will be placed between it and the people for whose enlightenment it is intended. chapter iii the fundamentals of finance finance is easy enough to comprehend if it be explained, but so long as an explanation is deadly to the interests of the men who control it, one can be sure none will be offered. there is no term more common to-day than "trusts," and we are surrounded by "trusts," institutions whose workings during the past twenty years have awakened intense public curiosity to know what a "trust" is. yet there is not extant a definition of a "trust" which conveys to the rank and file of the people any real idea of what a "trust" is. so vague is the general understanding of the "trust's" functions and purposes that the most intelligent and honest statesmen struggle and hopelessly flounder when they attempt to define them, and we have at the present time the able chief of our nation talking of regulating them by law, when, as a matter of fact, a "trust" is, top, sides, bottom, outsides, and insides, an absolutely illegal institution, created outside the law, existing outside the law, and having for its purpose the performance of those things and only those things which the law says cannot be performed legally. imagine our law-makers gravely meeting to make laws for the control and regulation of the pick-pocket or burglar or counterfeiting industry, or endeavoring to prescribe legally the times, places, and amounts of national bank defalcations, or the kind of ink, paper, and pens which must be used by forgers in the pursuit of their profession--imagine it! in entering upon an explanation of the workings of the "system," it is necessary to set forth plainly the fundamentals of finance, the few rules and inventions by and through which humanity regulates its affairs. in the beginning, of course, might was right and men supplied their wants by force, trickery, or cunning. in time the disadvantages of this became obvious, for while the stronger could overcome the weaker and satisfy desire, a combination of the weaker units acting together could always wrest the prize from the individual. to equalize things, the people got together and made for themselves rules and regulations governing the conduct of their lives and their relations with one another. this was invention no. 1: _law_. presently it developed that the physical barter of the commodities of labor was not a satisfactory basis of exchange; so to the statutes already in existence a new one was added providing an interchangeable token of value. this was invention no. 2: _money_. the statute insisted that the money be of a fair and just standard, by which all the people should receive the equivalent of their labor, and no more. as conditions became more settled, there grew up a realization of the value of a man's life to those dependent on him, and of the fact that when he died his wife and his children were deprived of the livelihood his labor won for them. a new regulation was added to the code, providing that men contributing to a fund during their lifetime should be entitled at death to leave to their heirs a sum in proportion to the amount of their contribution to the fund, less the actual expense of caring therefor. this was _life insurance_--invention no. 3. but there were other calamities less distant than death to be guarded against, and a common fund, also based on the contributions of individuals, to aid and relieve in case of fire and kindred calamities, was organized. hence invention no. 4: _fire insurance_. 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 _frappé_ 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 rôle 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 minutiæ 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. poor vinal! another victim of that soulless corporation hag, boston gas, to prolong whose life he had spent some of the best years of his own. vinal was very dear to me. he had filled my canteen, held my ammunition, and carried my knapsack through many a hard-fought battle, willingly allowing others to do the cheering in victory, but reserving to himself the right to suggest and console when the clouds lowered and we were left alone on the field of defeat or the dusty road of retreat. poor vinal! he was worth a hundred copper deals or corporation hags. between death and life, success and failure, what a hair's-breadth after all. if vinal had stubbed his toe, or had been able to take the first cab he found; if he had heard my call which would have brought him back; if he had tarried a moment longer in the young men's christian association where he had stopped to deliver a message, he would have escaped. the thought did not occur to me at the moment, for vinal's death was too keen a personal sorrow to allow me to estimate my own narrow escape, but if that envelope, so miraculously preserved, had been burned as were the other papers in my secretary's pocket, there might have been no amalgamated. "coppers" must have dropped back to the lowly place from which rogers had lifted them, for i should have been financially ruined. to show the marvelous workings of him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb: at the same moment that i was called away from my guns, the commanding general of the opposing forces received the same call. the aged mother of the president of the boston & montana and butte & boston, while riding in her carriage, had been a victim of the same explosion. footnotes: [19] "the street" is a general term used to designate the stock operators, the fraternity in new york being known as wall street, in boston as state street, and in philadelphia as broad street; these streets are the centre of the financial districts of their respective cities, the stock exchanges being situated on them. chapter xii the buncoing of the stockholders of utah this was veritably a period of financial delirium in boston. no one talked or thought of aught but "coppers," at least no one with a spare dollar or good credit. the air was full of mysterious yarns and the stock exchange was hung with aladdin lamps. from every nook and corner of state street, from the chinks between its sedate old cobblestones, came forth copper-mines--mines undreamt of before and unheard of since. innumerable devices were rigged to take advantage of the prevailing intoxication. the prices of the strong properties leaped up with breath-taking rapidity. the copper epidemic spread over new england and began to extend in constantly widening circles through the rest of the country, while from england, france, and germany came daily news of symptoms which proved that the infection had crossed the ocean. i, with my hands full, kept two secretaries busy shooing away industrious promoters who came at me in armies with old and new copper properties, which i might have on my own or any old terms. in the midst of this excitement i had my first real demonstration of the "system's" method of making dollars from nothing. well as i thought i knew the stock game, i'll admit that i looked on open-mouthed, like the veriest novice, at the magic wrought by the simple use of the name "standard oil." even now i can hear myself as i gasped: "heaven help the people if this sort of thing can be done in america, for heaven alone has power to help them." the boston and new york brokerage house of clark, ward & co. had promoted the utah consolidated mining company of utah. it was less than two years old, and its 300,000 shares had been kicked from gutter to curb and curb to gutter at from $2 to $4 per share. samuel untermyer, the astute corporation lawyer who, on his own account and as the representative of a large european clientele, had long been interested in "coppers," had taken hold of utah, and believing it a good thing had bought large quantities of its stock for himself and his european connections. under the stimulus of my campaign the price of this stock had leaped to 17 or 18, and rumor had it that utah was a prospective factor in my consolidation. one day mr. rogers asked me if i were in any way responsible for these rumors, and i replied that i knew nothing more about them than that they were in circulation. "good," replied rogers. "do this, then--send word that we propose to issue a denial that we are to have anything to do with utah consolidated, and bring me their answer." i carried the message in person. the utah people were absolutely panic-stricken. such an announcement meant destruction to the pretty price-fabric they were rearing, and they begged to be allowed to make a proposition to rogers before he should declare himself. this was their proposal: that mr. rogers should admit their property to the consolidation provided he found it good enough; that every facility should be accorded his experts to examine the mine; and that if the report was favorable, and they were convinced that it would be, and he decided to take hold, he should be given an option on a block of stock way below the market. this offer i took back to mr. rogers, who smiled one of his thin, easy smiles, and questioned me closely about the genuineness of the market for this stock. could 50,000 shares be sold readily? i assured him that when it once became known that we were even looking at utah it would be easy to sell 100,000 shares and at constantly advancing prices. "all right," said mr. rogers, "if you're sure of this we'll go ahead. tell them we'll take a sixty-day option on 50,000 shares, no liability to us, at--well, we'll be liberal, say at 15, and when you mention the price impress upon them that i know it cost them but $2 to $4." i returned at once and began negotiations, but, as is usually the case, the fact that "standard oil" was nibbling leaked before i had clinched the option, and before we had even begun to examine the property, prices had advanced until there was a profit of $500,000 for us in the transaction. to look over the utah property mr. rogers sent his son-in-law, broughton, and in a short time i got word to feed out the 50,000 shares on the market at the best prices obtainable, and to borrow it for delivery in such ways that the clark-ward-untermyer contingent should suspect nothing about it. no information was given me as to the expert's report, and i was absolutely ignorant whether it was good, bad, or indifferent, though from the fact that we were to sell the stock i inferred that it was unfavorable. the public took the 50,000 shares at between 32 and 36, much as an elephant takes in water after a thirsty tramp across sandy deserts--the shares were just sucked in without a gulp or a gasp. i did not know until long afterward that the purchasers were the english holders who had contributed the greater part of the 50,000 shares to meet our option--in other words, were buying back from us their own stock at more than twice the price we were to pay them for it, and that their eagerness was due to confidential information that the expert's examination had disclosed such richness that the price would surely jump to over $100 when "standard oil" assumed the management. just where they acquired this information or how it was put in their path was a matter i never found out. as i have previously demonstrated, "standard oil" has its own system of wires and underground passages and rumor bureaus. it works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. this section of the deal was soon wound up, and the transaction showed us a profit of $1,000,000. that is, we had sold 50,000 shares which we did not possess, but which were ours on demand, for $1,000,000 more than we should have to pay their owners for them. when i reported my success to mr. rogers he expressed complete satisfaction, and ordered me to inform the utah people that another 50,000 shares must be added to the option, as he could not think of tacking the great name of "standard oil" to an enterprise in which he had less than a third interest; indeed, he was not sure that he would consider less than a one-half ownership. this second request was a bitter pill to the clark-ward-untermyer crowd, who hated to surrender for such a low figure this tremendous parcel of a stock that was now selling fast at 40 per share. there was no gainsaying the soundness of rogers' reasoning, however: "who made it worth 40? who but 'standard oil'? and what will happen if 'standard oil' declares that it will not take utah into the consolidation?" the bare suggestion threw the utah contingent into one of those hundred-in-the-shade, twenty-below-zero sweats, which resemble the moisture upon steam-pipes that pass through cold-storage boxes. they succumbed. at the moment the option was signed over to us it represented a profit of $1,000,000 more, and when we sold it, it netted us $1,250,000, for the market was still climbing. this latter phenomenon was not surprising, for it should be borne in mind that when our demand for the second 50,000 shares was made, the heavy utah stockholders were called together and it was explained to them by their own managers--not by "standard oil" or by mr. rogers mind, for "standard oil" never makes false statements--that the expert's examination had developed such wealth that "standard oil," the mighty of mighties, had insisted on having at least 100,000 shares; but that, of course, "standard oil" could not be asked to pay over twenty for stock which had cost its original owners but $2 to $4. what was there to do? the stockholders just gave up, and then once more climbed over one another in the market to get back their precious shares as best they could. just to keep the conditions of the transaction at this stage before my reader's mind, i'll repeat that the clark-ward-untermyer people had now given us the right to buy of them 100,000 shares of their stock (_at a price $2,250,000 less than we had already sold it for_), with the understanding--not in words or in writing, of course, because "standard oil" never makes a promise in writing, but implied as sacredly as though it had been set down and attested under oath--that we would take and pay for their stock and engage with them in their enterprise, giving them the benefit of our experience, our capital, and our prestige. i say they had every reason to assume that we were acting in absolute good faith, and no ground to suppose that there was any ulterior motive behind our negotiations. it must be remembered that this occurred some years ago, before the "system's" perfidy was a calculated contingency. the knife was now in, but the "system" had still to corkscrew it in the wound. chapter xiii the trap in finance after "pulling off" such a big "trick," as the professional crooks put it, and getting away with such a fat bundle of "swag," you, my good reader, might naturally suppose that this shining light of the "system," contented with his profits, would pass on to new victims; or, if you have a mistaken impression of mr. rogers' sense of humor, for really he has a keen sense of the ridiculous--after five o'clock on week-days and all day sunday--you might think he would take the opportunity to order me to tack up his card on the utah office door, inscribed, "we will return when you recoup," and transfer his milking machine to other udders. no, that is where you, old-fashioned reader that you are, have "sized up" mr. rogers inaccurately. he had not finished. utah was not yet exhausted as a wealth-producer for the "system." after a brief lull, representatives of clark, ward & co. came to me requesting that they be allowed to see "standard oil's" report on their mine. it was most important for their financial arrangements that they be told what was in store for them. that was what they thought. i told mr. rogers. he instructed me to report to the utah people that mr. rogers had looked wise and said nothing. the double-perfected "look-wise-and-say-nothing" is one of "standard oil's" pet business devices. whoever tries to penetrate its secrets is always welcome to his inferences, but no one in "standard oil" is ever on record in case the inquisitive one guesses wrong. "lawson," rogers said, "just tell those people that our way of doing business is to send out reports when we decide it is time for them to be seen." in the meantime utah kept booming. a week before the expiration of our option, the price being then forty-five, i heard from mr. rogers again. he gave me the most mysterious order of all: "sell 50,000 more." up to that time i should have declared to any one that i was up in all the quirks and kinks of the stock game, but this move puzzled me. however, i sold, and at the very top. we had now "out" 150,000 shares of utah, had sold that number "short," in fact. clark, ward & co. were bound to deliver us 100,000 shares when we called for them. these 100,000 shares had been contributed by the large stockholders to clark, ward & co. at the price we had agreed to pay. assuming that "standard oil" control of utah would immensely enhance its value, the stockholders naturally desired to replace the holdings of stock they had contributed, and instructed clark, ward & co. and other brokers to buy them back in the market. so clark, ward & co. were carrying all one end and much of the other end of the deal, paying for the actual stock which our option called for as it came in, and carrying their customers for the new stock purchased for them at vastly higher prices. _but_, as we had not taken up our option and paid clark, ward & co. for our stock, the money necessary to finance the whole transaction had to be borrowed from the banks. it is evident that, at this phase of the game, clark, ward & co. must have been, as the phrase goes, "extended." while the operation had been in process, during the life of the option in fact, money at the "banks" became as "easy" as an old haircloth rocker for whoever desired to borrow on utah copper collateral. the fact was much commented on at the time by the "street," and clark, ward & co. often gratefully remarked to their customers: "after all, 'standard oil' is good to its associates." the day before the option matured, mr. rogers briefly said to me: "lawson, i've been thinking that utah matter over and have made up my mind that it is not safe to go ahead unless we have the actual control of the company, 151,000 shares. tell them so, and that we must have 51,000 shares in addition to our 100,000." at last his game was plain to me. i gasped as i took in all the features of the new plan. "they'll never stand for it," i cried. "they won't, eh?" he said. "you look it over more carefully and i think you will agree they _must_ stand it even if i make it another 100,000. this is the situation: they are sure we are going to take and pay for 100,000 shares, and in anticipation have borrowed millions on call at the banks. for fear they may not see all the nice points of their position you can show them that if they refuse, the banks as well as every one else will know that we not only are not going into utah as investors, but would not--in fact, could not--become connected with the management, because our thorough examination of the property shows that the mines are not as valuable as they affirmed. now, when they grasp the fact that they have all the utah stock they had, to start with, and 150,000 more which they have bought since, they must realize that in a slump the price of their shares will go lower than the $2 or $4 it started from. have no fear. clark, ward, and untermyer will do just what we ask, and, in fact, if it were not for the stir a lot of failures would make and the bad effect these would have on our general plans, i'd refuse to take up that option anyway, for there would be more money in buying back in a smash what we have sold than in taking it from them at our own price," he went on. the implication in my suggestion that he was going too far in the utah deal stung him. he said: "the fact is, lawson, americans who have accumulated great fortunes get no credit; on the contrary, they are unfairly treated. instead of being honored for our splendid efforts as evinced by our wealth, the people howl as though they had not equal chances with us. take this very case: we did not ask these people to give us options; we did not ask them to allow us to become associated with them. we have done nothing but take what they have thrown upon us, and yet if we refuse to exercise the option we did not ask for, and there comes a smash, we should never hear the last of how 'standard oil' robbed them. the more i see of the fool way americans look at such things the less sympathy i have for their losses and what they entail. there was a period when i allowed myself to waste time on such ideas as you seem to entertain, but, thank goodness, i have outlived it." the job cut for me was one i hated to perform. i could refuse, but what then? some one else would carry out rogers' mandate, and where should i and my great copper structure be? if i balked here, they would go no farther with me--and remember, we were just at the beginning of our association. had i foreseen the misery and ruin with which the future was fraught, i should have stopped then and there; but the future was hidden, and i was expectantly revelling in a glorious and delightful period in which i and all who were following me into "coppers" should be gloriously successful and rich. so i looked at the situation in a practical business way, and i said to myself that even if we did insist on having the 100,000 shares extra rogers had mentioned instead of the 50,000 he had decided to demand, the clark-ward-untermyer combination would still have remaining more of value than their whole property could possibly have been worth without our association. therefore i tumbled into their midst and dropped mr. rogers' bomb--and bomb it was. at once they realized that they were looking into the cold steel muzzles of 45-calibre revolvers, for there was no concealing the money-or-your-life inference of the message. i had honestly tried to soften the blow as well as i could, but all they could see was 50,000 shares more at something like a million dollars less than its market value--or in twenty-four hours a panic and no market for their stock at any price. what could they do? with perspiration streaming in big beads down their foreheads, they declared that even if their people were willing to submit to the knife, it was impossible in the brief time available to get to them. at least would i not beg mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller to take up the 100,000 shares pending their negotiations for the balance? would i not, because they had made all their financial arrangements for big payments of loans next day which they could not renew at such short notice--i must!--i must! as i listened to the pleadings of these men there flashed into my mind a conviction of the malignant humor of my situation. here was i, father of a plan in the successful execution of which i had figured myself out as a benefactor to all concerned, turning the torture screws of "standard oil's" new dollar rack--fashioned from my structure--and i was powerless to stop or rescue the screaming victim. "but why," ask my readers, "did you not denounce the men and renounce the work, instead of profiting by it, as you undoubtedly did?" you have never--you who ask that question--sat in at the great game of millions; you know nothing of the excitement of the dollar chase, of the terrible joy of hearing, "a million while you wait." i am not, in telling this story, setting myself up as an angel, nor posing as better than others. my experience of business has demonstrated to me long before this that rapacity rules in the modern dollar game, and that in wholesale dollar making many of the laws of men and more of the laws of god are inevitably violated. but he who cannot or will not play according to the rules of those who are making the game is disqualified. he should go elsewhere. hitherto in my life i had followed the code of a smaller game, in which we seldom pressed an advantage to the limit or cut our pound of flesh from out a vital part. now i had voluntarily associated myself with other men in a venture i believed was big, fair, and square, and i was learning that the rule of their game was thumbs down--give nothing--take everything. i might have retired, but i was already deep in, with resources pledged to the limit; and what would my reluctance to press our advantage with clark, ward & co. be considered but fool sentimentality? if i insisted on my view, what would happen? the people who had followed me so far--and their number was thousands and their quality, measured by any heart and soul standard, more human than any of those whom rogers was thumb-screwing--as well as i myself, would be surely ruined. if i went on, at least i could care for those i had brought along with me. i looked at the complication fairly and squarely, weighed my duty with such powers of judgment as i possessed, and decided, wisely or unwisely, that it was best to go on. wisely or unwisely i made up my mind to accept the responsibility of acting as fireman to the engine--and to bide my time. that time, thank god, is here now. i reported to mr. rogers. his fox-trap jaws, with their bone-and heart-and soul-crushing teeth, came together with a snap, and when they relaxed his lips parted into one of his marrow-chilling smiles. "i thought so," said he. "those able gentlemen are loaded, lawson, loaded, and without a by-your-leave have made up their minds that mr. rockefeller and myself are only in business to draw their load to some convenient safe-deposit vault, from which they can from time to time take it out to pay for palaces, yachts, fast horses, and society crowns. lawson, don't tell me of their plight. don't waste my time with their pleadings." the tiger was awake, his cage rattled; it was raw-meat time. i watched. presently he snapped: "what do you suppose they would answer were they in our position? this: 'give us the additional 50,000 shares we have demanded quick, or take the consequences.' they are able business men, so what they would do is just good enough for us to do. take back this answer: 'you have the only proposition we will make; decide at once!'" i looked at him. i said not a word--i could not. perhaps my thoughts were miles and ages away to scenes where cæsars, napoleons, and bismarcks stood gazing over fields strewn with corpses oozing blood. i remembered "to the victor belong the spoils"; but there also wandered into my mind the memory of a good mother's knee on a sunday afternoon, and of a voice which repeated, "for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" as i left him mr. rogers said: "you had better sell 10,000 shares more of utah. sell them quick and sharp, and perhaps they will read our answer on the tape before you get to them." i sold the 10,000 shares. the price dropped two to three points, and, sure enough, by the time i got to clark, ward & co.'s office i found them poring dazedly over the ticker tape. they knew my answer before i stated it, and were trembling with nervous apprehension. i wondered if they, too, saw the tiger, his bloody chops and claws and his piece of raw meat. i said what mr. rogers had told me to say in so many words, and then i talked frankly to them about their situation, and advised that they meet "standard oil's" demands. i called their attention to the tape: "they told me to throw over only 10,000 shares," i concluded. "great heavens!" said armstrong, the negotiating partner of clark, ward & co., "they are likely to follow it up with 90,000 more. they have it; at least they can demand it of us, and if they do we are ruined. what can we do, lawson? what _can_ we do?" i pointed out that their only possible course was to lay the situation before the large shareholders involved, stating the absolute necessity of coming to "standard oil's" time, and to make their medicine a little more palatable i added: "once you come to time i can induce my people, i believe, to make a public announcement that they will take the open management and control of the utah company, and you know that will surely make the stock jump--enough, perhaps, to offset what you people lose on the extra 50,000 shares you yield up." i advised them to the best of my ability as to their only way out. if i had revealed to them that we had sold every share of the stock they were to turn over to us, it would have served no good purpose, for it would have made business impossible between us, and a crash would have occurred which would have ruined utah, inflicted destruction on their price structure, and only enriched "standard oil." when i concluded, they started in to do as i had suggested, and the way they burnt up time and annihilated space was marvellous to behold. though the thing was almost a miracle, they met the condition within the time limit, and we had turned over to us 150,000 shares of stock. the moment mr. rogers saw the deal was a "go" all his hardness melted as the snow upon the mountainsides under the april sun. nothing could be softer, kinder, and fairer. the blood had disappeared; the tiger was a great, purring house-cat, intent only on catching naughty rats and mice for the good of the household. why, he would do anything to help out these good gentlemen; certainly, the world should know of his great interest in the utah properties, and as the millions of golden dollars clinked into his golden bucket the next day, the world did learn of the great value of utah, for his private counsel was made president, and certain other gentlemen who bear the uncounterfeitable "standard oil" tag were appointed as directors. there was a general jubilation--i had almost said, a killing of the fatted calf; but that part of the ceremony had been most ably attended to by mr. rogers in the preliminary stages of the entertainment. note.--when this startling and cold-blooded-trick part of my story was published in _everybody's magazine_, it astounded the world, and my enemies took advantage of the fierce anger which was aroused to call attention to my part, which they attempted to show was as bad as that of rogers. right here i wish to go on record: if i had been a human angel instead of a stock-broker, actuated solely by a desire to do just right, to do that which would work least harm to the greatest number of innocents, and least good to the largest number of tricksters, i should have done as i did. author. chapter xiv lawyer untermyer discovers the "nigger" i have dwelt on this utah episode because it shows phases of the "system's" methods never heretofore made public, just as episodes which are to follow in the narrative will develop other startling and ingenious deviltries. but, before going on, the sequel to the utah affair deserves a place in the story. a sequel there was, and my readers will agree, i think, that it has a mordant humor quite its own. to-day, after the years that have gone by, i cannot think of this tremendous bunco game, in spite of its cruel and tragic phases, without a laugh at the manner in which the smart gentlemen who composed the utah consolidated crowd were "outwitted." bear in mind that clark, ward & co. were among the "flyest" operators in wall street's juggle factories. they asked no odds of any one in shuffling and dealing their cards, and with them was the eminent samuel untermyer, surely the head of his class of corporation counsellors, and himself a master in the fine arts of copper financiering. on the conclusion of the deal, these gentlemen and their partners in utah assumed all the airs and graces they conceived proper for associates of "standard oil," and at once enlarged their hatbands and let out their waistcoats. some of them, i believe, went so far as to be measured for copper crowns. the stories they set afloat about the richness of utah, as proved by "standard oil's" determination to have its 150,000 shares, would have made the constructor of aladdin's palace look to his laurels as a treasure-house creator, and the stockholders of the corporation felt so good over their prospects that in london and new york two large banquets were simultaneously given at which the prospective millionaires tossed cable congratulations at one another across the atlantic and toasted in vintage champagnes the brilliant promoters who had worked such wonders. at these entertainments there was no question but that utah was destined to be the foundation company in the coming great copper consolidation. with this roseate view mr. rogers did not entirely coincide. his diagnosis of the situation had all that whichever-way-the-cat-jumps frankness i had learned to look upon as characteristic of the man. he said to me: "lawson, this is the situation: we are in absolute control of the utah property. if it were good we could do great things with it, but it's bad, very bad; there is nothing out there but a bunch of ore which is rich enough, but which cannot possibly last longer than six years, and then--then there is nothing but a hole in the ground. of course there is a possibility of our finding other bunches, but with all the machinery in our hands it looks to me as though we could play a very safe game. if we find things that will make the stock valuable, we can keep the good news buried until we shake the price down and get whatever we want. if it is all bad, we can sell the stock and buy it in at big profits. i think, on the whole, it is safe to call this deal completed and mark it a success." with this understanding we left it, and for some little time i paid no attention whatever to utah. one day i was surprised to notice on the tape that the price of the stock was declining. i was puzzling over what could have happened, when i received a sudden call from the machiavelli of the new york bar, samuel untermyer. the set glare of his eyes, the fervor of his hand-shake, told me that i had a volcano to deal with. "lawson," said he, "something came up the other day that led me to investigate, and do you know, i have got to a point already where i can put my fingers on people, outside of any one connected with 'standard oil,' who own over 200,000 shares of utah. if this is so, how can rogers and his crowd own the 150,000 shares they took away from us at millions below the market? it seems impossible, but it looks as though we had been buncoed--buncoed as no one outside a crazy-house was ever buncoed before." that steely imperturbability which is alternately the pride and pleasure of mr. untermyer's friends, the glittering surface of which it is said no cloud has ever shadowed or no gale disturbed, was fast losing its distinction under the influence of the excitement that welled up in the heaving bosom of the eminent cross-examiner; and excitement and he were so remote, so studiously antagonistic, that i looked on and listened in wonder for the outcome. an interesting situation was evidently fast developing, and to grasp its possibilities one should know the attitude of mr. rogers toward mr. untermyer. for this astute lawyer the "standard oil" magnate has something akin to terrified admiration. mr. rogers has said many times to me and to others among his associates that there is but one lawyer in the united states whose cross-examination on the witness-stand could afford him anything but amusement and recreation; and this extraordinary exception is samuel untermyer. the bare thought of being subjected under oath to the remorseless questioning of this astute dissector and analyst of motives and actions brings him to the verge of rippling chills. and here was this legal nemesis on the war-path and headed directly for 26 broadway. "what does it mean, lawson?" his voice was in a court-and-jury key. the opportunity was too good to miss. i could not help it. i said, "untermyer, you have another guess coming." "do you refuse to tell me anything about it?" he snapped. "tell you about it?" said i. "what could i possibly tell you about your own scheme? you flatter me; you are getting excited. let me ask you a question, what do you say it means?" "i say it means," he fairly yelled, "that we have been buncoed--swindled!" "if that is a fact," i said, "you are the best man on earth to tackle such a proposition. introducing swindlers to justice is your specialty." "lawson," said he, "let's talk it out. i don't see wherein you are in any way to blame, but i tell you if i find true what i now suspect, there will be music in the copper world that will set copper investors by the ears." i saw there was no use trying to dodge the issue, and we entered into executive session. he had gathered most of the facts, he told me, and to ascertain the balance, proposed at once to call a meeting of utah consolidated stockholders. also he had men out examining the transfer agencies to find who got the shares of utah delivered to rogers. i said to him, "what do you think has happened, untermyer?" "i think you people have sold the bulk of that stock," he said. "suppose we have," i said; "there is no crime in that, is there?" "no crime," said he, "but it is a piece of dirty double-dealing." "all right, suppose i admit it," said i, "what of it?" "well, did you do it? did you sell that stock after we delivered it to you?" "not a share," said i. "do you give me your word for it?" "i give you my word, we didn't sell a share of that stock after you delivered it to us." "when did you sell it?" said he. "every share before we secured it of you." at this the distinguished impassivity faded finally away and samuel untermyer was actually and absolutely flabbergasted. the sight of him dumfounded, confused, was too much for me. i laughed. it is seldom one gets the laugh on mr. untermyer. "do you mean to tell me you were short the whole bunch?" "short every share of it, and 10,000 besides," said i. "and where do you stand now?" he pursued. "still short of it, and before you can get fairly to work kicking up a rumpus i should not be surprised if we were short the whole capital stock. rogers, as you know, does play a great game, that is, when he has all the cards, owns the table, the room it's in, and has control of the doorkeeper." there was an interval of tense silence. untermyer was making a noble effort to swallow his fury. i began to figure the degree of my responsibility if he should burst a blood-vessel or have an apoplectic stroke. finally he said: "lawson, if i don't blow this thing to pieces and shake 26 broadway to its foundations, i'm not sam untermyer." the time had come to reason with the heated legal gentleman, and in plain language i proceeded to show him where he stood, the position of the property, the public's relation to it, and his own duty to the clients whose money he had invested in it. under the logic of my argument he cooled. he saw the net, and that he and his friends were absolutely enmeshed. he even admitted that he and his friends had unknowingly aided in what had occurred and were mostly to blame for their present position; but while he acknowledged all this, he reiterated over and over again that in all his experience--and in samuel untermyer's professional position he has either prosecuted, defended, or had an inquisitorial finger in every sword-swallowing, dissolving-view, frenzied finance game that has been born or naturalized in wall street within the decade--he had never met the equal in high-handed bunco of this deal in utah. finally he said: "there's one thing i can do, if i cannot get even with rogers; and that is, i can 'fire' the present management of this company, and i'm going to do it now, this very minute, and incidentally i'm going to state what i think of them and the whole dirty business." i called up "standard oil" on the telephone and told what had happened. mr. rogers said: "cool him down at any cost, but particularly try to show him i had little to do with the deal; that it was largely the outgrowth of what the clark-ward people thrust upon us, and that i left the details to you and the lawyers." again i had visions of what would be the cost of making "coppers" a success. within an hour untermyer was back visibly relieved and glowing after his encounter. he had the resignations in his pocket, and he began joyously to detail the specific opprobriums he had cast upon the management. "i shall put in an entirely new management," he proclaimed triumphantly. "you have positively made up your mind to that?" said i. "you bet i have," he answered. "excuse me for a few minutes, then," i said; "i want to give my brokers orders to rip out 50,000 or 60,000 shares of utah. rogers and rockefeller would take me to task if i wasted a minute." "hold on there, lawson," he said. "not a minute," said i; "you know the game well enough, untermyer, to realize that there are a few millions hanging very low on the boughs at just this second. i want to get my hat under them before you and your friends have an opportunity to roll in your own hogsheads." it was no time for diplomacy, and i set forth in plain, dog-eat-dog terms to mr. untermyer exactly where he was "at," and that no one but himself and his associates would be the sufferers by a public explosion. reluctantly he agreed with me that under no conditions must the "standard oil" management be changed, but he was bound to have one victim to show. "you have the resignations of the present board--why not put in new men, the strongest 'standard oil' men you know?" i suggested. "i'll do it," he said, "but i'll throw out the present president, blame him for all that's happened, but--whom shall i put in to replace him? how about rogers himself?" knowing mr. rogers' cross-purposes i was sure he would never become officially responsible for the company; so i told untermyer this was impossible, but i continued: "the next best man and the closest i know to rogers is broughton, his son-in-law. there's your president." whereupon broughton was elected president of the utah company. the stock has since dropped from 52 to 22, gone from 22 to 37-1/2, dropped to 18-1/2, with frequent repetitions, and is now 43: and all the drops have been preceded by tremendous short selling, followed by stories of the absolute worthlessness of the property; and all the rises, by tremendous buying and stories of the mine's fabulous richness. some one has made millions. "standard oil" is ever ready to forgive and forget those it has injured, but it has power and place for those who have made it tremble. its associates to-day are often yesterday's enemies. as one looks back upon the utah episode from over the divide, it helps accentuate its humor to contrast the present attitudes of the parties engaged with those they then held to one another. we now see the virtuously indignant samuel untermyer shoulder to shoulder with his wicked betrayer, henry h. rogers, whose counsel he is against the original ally of the same henry h. rogers, thomas w. lawson, historian of "frenzied finance." and the talented expert, most trusted of "standard oil" mining emissaries--broughton, whose unfavorable report on utah consolidated was the instrument of the plundering of the clark-ward-untermyer contingent--elected president by samuel untermyer, has remained ever since at the head of the property he had pronounced worthless. chapter xv degrees in crime every profession has its social grades. even crime is not without an aristocracy. there are as many classes of crooks as there are things to steal, and the more dangerous the theft, the more distinguished is the criminal in the eyes of his professional brethren. in the thieving fraternity the burglar and the highwayman figure as important persons, for do they not take their lives in their hands every time they "pull off" a trick? he who signs another man's name to a check requires fine dexterity to be successful and endangers his liberty for a long term, so the forger is of high consequence. pickpockets and sneak-thieves stake freedom on the agility of their fingers and legs, and are the small fry of the fraternity, yet figure as legitimate practitioners. but the confidence man, he who goes forth among rural communities disguised as a clergyman or doctor, and wheedles money out of some unsuspecting fellow-creature by means of the trust he has inspired, ranks low in the estimation of his plucky brethren of the jimmy and the black-jack. force they respect; stealth they despise. the burglar is frankly a burglar; the confidence man conceals his plundering purpose under the aspect of respectability. he is doubly a knave in that he pretends to be honest. the utah trick performed by the "system," as described in my last chapter, was essentially a confidence operation. the men who executed it had the reputation and appearance of honesty, and their victims were hypnotized into security by accepting standing in the community, great business prestige, and enormous wealth as guarantees of individual probity. the only capital employed in capturing three millions of "made dollars" and the control of a great corporation was respectability. i contend, then, that the magnitude and success of the deal do not make it less despicable. some of my readers will doubtless ask me why i so insistently repeat the details of the "system's" criminality, which for all purposes of argument have already been sufficiently established. my answer is that repetition alone will impress people with the real character of the class of individuals with whom i deal. the mass of americans look upon these men as great leaders, and regard their millions as monuments to their commercial genius. i am showing that this commercial genius is no better than a high talent, for financial jugglery, and that its successes are achieved by a calculated disregard of the laws of the game. the "system's" fortunes have been won by means of marked cards and cogged dice, crooked wheels and bribed umpires--in other words, by the corruption of legislatures, the undermining of competitors, the evasion of railway rates, the wrongful manipulation of stocks, the perversion of justice, by intrigue, graft, and four play. once the people realize this, the "system" is doomed; and it is my purpose to demonstrate so clearly and forcibly the crimes of the past that the nation may be aroused not only to prevent their repetition, but to crush their rascally perpetrators as they would so many reptiles. i shall so familiarize the people with the rights to which they are properly entitled and with the outrages committed in violation of them under the guise of legitimate commerce, that they will know them as they do the common facts of their daily lives. let any "system" attempt to interfere between a man and his bible, his meat and bread, and his proper allowance of sleep, and there would occur an explosion fierce enough to wipe the conspirators and their plots off the face of the earth; yet it is absolutely the fact that in the past our people have suffered unwittingly much fiercer wrongs than these would be, and far more vital invasions of their rights. chapter xvi mr. rogers unmasks there was in montana a great copper property known as the daly-haggin-tevis group, the centre of which was the huge anaconda mine with its 1,200,000 shares. this is the mine that marcus daly induced the late george hearst to buy and develop for the marvellously successful syndicate of california mining operators, composed of j. b. haggin, noted now the world over for his horses; lloyd tevis, an extraordinarily shrewd san francisco financier; and senator george hearst, himself perhaps the greatest mining expert america has ever known. after senator hearst's death his estate sold its holdings to european investors, who with the other three owned the company at the time of which i am writing. i had never in my copper-consolidation plans contemplated including this property, for the reason that the public i was operating among was not familiar with it. i did not care to put in jeopardy the success of our venture by admitting any but mines of such well-known and unquestionable value that there could arise no possible doubt as to the security of the investment. i was well along in my task of gathering in, through public-market manipulation and private negotiation, the shares of the several good boston companies whose merits i myself knew about and had so carefully gone over with mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller, when one day mr. rogers called me up on the telephone and requested that i come to new york to see him. "i have," he said, "a very important matter to go over with you." i took the train and early next morning was at 26 broadway. as soon as we started in i was struck by a certain strangeness in his manner--an unusual impressiveness that indicated to me at once that something was in the wind. this proved to be the case. i was soon in possession of the information that he and mr. rockefeller had been putting in a lot of work on the copper business; that they had evolved some further schemes, and that now the plans were so far along that i could not upset them, therefore they proposed to let me in--all this in the pleasantest manner. in answer to my quick inquiry as to what plans i had ever upset he waved a chilling hand toward me. "don't start in looking for trouble," he said. "there are certain things which cannot be done by a man who works as you do. from the very beginning you have insisted upon taking the public into your confidence, with the result that they get large profits which otherwise would come to us. if you did your business as we do ours--acted first and talked after, or, better still, did not talk at all--there would be no difference of opinion between us. still, we recognize that each man must do business in his own way, and we have let you go ahead where it was possible." after a short pause he continued: "while you were getting the boston companies in shape i unearthed another situation which almost seemed as though it were made to order for us. what do you know of the anaconda company?" the way he asked this question in one of his cross-bred, cat-purring-and-fox-bark tones which i had seen him work on others, and which i had observed always denoted a perfect knowledge of your answer to his question before you had it, did not help my guessing any. i told him i knew nothing more than that there was such a company with stock dealt in on the english and our markets. "nothing more than that?" and he looked at me quizzically. "have you been watching the stock's actions in the market?" in a second it flashed over me that anaconda had been quite active of late, that is, had been largely traded in without attracting much attention, although the price had been steadily advancing. "i thought you boasted you could read the tape, lawson?" he went on, "and that nothing could be happening in a field you were interested in without your smelling it out? when i tell you mr. rockefeller and myself have bought control of the biggest copper property in the world, measured either by the number of shares and their selling price or by production, without your even suspecting it, much less the public's jumping in and running up the price on us, you can see there is something in our quiet way of doing things compared with your public way." "all right, mr. rogers; i have never contended that there were as many dollars in my way of doing things as in yours--as many dollars for _us_." "lawson," said he, "the public are about ready to invest in the first section of our new consolidated company, are they not?" "sitting up nights to see that they get a place in line the minute we scatter our first handbills," i answered. "well, are we ready to put our things together? have we got the necessary companies to meet the ideas you have been educating the public into?" "we have things in such shape that we can whip a $75,000,000 or a $100,000,000 company up for public subscription in a very few days, if you give the word." mr. rogers leaned toward me and said in his most decisive and imperious tones: "very well; i have plans all shaped up which will allow us to offer the first section, but not made up as we first arranged. mr. rockefeller and myself have decided to put entirely new companies in the first section, and to reserve the butte and the montana and other companies you have been working on for the second section." the blow had fallen. my head swam. visions of clark, ward, untermyer, utah, and others i had seen on the rack writhed fearfully across the stage of memory. here i was loaded with butte, montana, and other stocks which i had felt as certain were to go into the first section as one can feel in regard to a thing which seems in one's own control. on my public and private assurances as the accredited agent of mr. rogers and william rockefeller and "standard oil," my friends and following had large amounts of money in the same securities. the market was booming on what i had proclaimed was to happen, and here an absolutely new condition was being imposed, a condition which gave all my assertions the lie, which discredited me, and would, i felt sure, precipitate a terrible disaster. inevitably the copper public would be dazed, would be shaken; a reaction would follow which would bring on a panic and a destruction of values impossible to measure. in it all, i should be left alone to bear the brunt of the storm of ruin, wrath, and denunciation as the result of what must seem base trickery to those who had accepted my representations. i tried to pull myself together, for i felt mr. rogers' keen eyes burning into the back of my head, appraising the effect of his words and measuring the degree of my numb terror. he saw, in spite of all my efforts to appear calm, that i knew i had been given a knock-out blow. as in a dream i inquired what companies it had been decided should go into the first section. "anaconda, washoe, colorado, and all the big timber lands, coal-mines, banks, stores, and other montana properties that go to make up the daly-haggin-tevis properties," he replied crisply. i found my numb inertia melting in a fierce anger. i jumped up. i raised my voice: "mr. rogers, do you mean to tell me that mr. rockefeller and yourself have deliberately decided to take advantage of the situation i have made--the situation i have not only made but put myself into--to try to sell to the investors of this country other property than that i have promised them they were to have? you cannot mean that--you surely cannot, for you and all your 'standard oil,' even though you were many times bigger than you are, would never have dared to tell it to me face to face." i was boiling over--becoming literally frenzied at the picture unrolling before me. now it was mr. rogers' turn to be aroused. his voice quivered with intensity and his fist came down on his desk with a force that shook the inkstand. it flashed into my brain that this anger was assumed to cow me, and i tried to look through his eyes on to his mind tablets back of them, and read what was there recorded. the gaze that met mine was polished steel ice coated, off which my glances slipped and slid. i dropped into my chair. "in the name of all that's sensible, lawson, hear me out and quit acting like a child." he stopped a second and then went on impressively. "in looking over the copper field i discovered a number of things you failed to see. first, that haggin and tevis, who own anaconda with marcus daly, have grown so wealthy that they have left the management of their montana copper and silver properties entirely to daly, and he has been coddling the mines along, saying nothing about their real worth and quietly passing by the richest parts, awaiting the day when he could buy his partners out. shortly after you let it be known that we were to go into 'coppers,' daly came to me to talk things over, and it took me only a short time to get under his waistcoat and find just what he had out there, and it took me still less time to decide that he offered something a little better than anything we had yet turned up. these properties, which we can secure for $24,000,000, which will carry with them the majority of the 1,200,000 shares of anaconda, alone are worth $75,000,000, and with the addition of the colorado, washoe, and parrott, which he recommends that we buy and which he is in a way to secure for us at a bargain, will cost not over $15,000,000. so it came right down to this: we could trade with daly immediately, while if we waited until the first section was out to the public the inevitable appreciation of anaconda stock in the market would alone make it impossible; for even if daly was willing to go in with us, haggin and tevis would not let him at anything like the prices he now names. it seemed best to take action at once, so we closed with him; and we have also just closed with the washoe and colorado, and we want you to secure the parrott. under these circumstances, could we do otherwise than we have done?" his argument seemed conclusive. it looked so fair and unanswerable that i could not disguise from him that my fears had fled. i was immensely relieved. my fight oozed; i became as pliable as any of the brittle clay which he daily kneaded for each shaping with his applications of oil. "what are your plans, mr. rogers?" i asked quietly. "this is what we thought would be the thing to do if you agreed, lawson, for, of course, you are, after all, the one who must decide. first, you shall go over everything we have done, and if you feel sure we have property worth at least, at the hardest kind of hard-pan prices, $75,000,000, we want to whoop up the country to the very top notch of expectation, and while doing so begin to hint that there are to be three or four sections, and that the first one will embrace anaconda, colorado, washoe, parrott, and lots of other unnamed things. then our idea was to offer the $75,000,000 by public subscription, and by using every dollar we receive for it to support it in the market, to make it sell afterward under all conditions at a big premium over cost, so that every one would make big profits, and so, consequently, by the time the second section came along, the demand for subscriptions would be unprecedented. we could continue this until all the good 'coppers' were in our company, and then our consolidation would be a prodigious success, just as you outlined at the start. there cannot possibly be any loss to any one; in fact, success is so assured that william rockefeller, daly, stillman, and all the others who will be associated with us, do not propose to sell a share of their stock, but, on the contrary, will go along with us to the finish. so good does it look to us that i feel it will really beat out standard oil itself as a money-maker, and you must remember that whatever else they may say about standard oil, no one who has ever owned a share has lost money; on the contrary, every one has made large profits." chapter xvii "extract every dollar" "standard oil's" arguments always are absolutely flawless, and this was one of their best. i was fast becoming imbued with the wisdom of the plan which mr. rogers was revealing so adroitly, and began secretly to wonder if after all i was not a novice in such business. unerringly mr. rogers followed my thoughts. he piled pelions of better things on ossas of good ones. surely it was after watching some parallel hoodwinking put through by a remote ancestor of "standard oil" that puck enunciated his famous dictum, "what fools these mortals be." i fell in like the veriest tyro--hypnotized and happy. "how much of this first section do you figure, mr. rogers, that we are to give to the public?" i inquired. "we, mr. rockefeller and myself, have carefully considered this phase of it, and as we all want to retain as much as possible of the stock, we would not sell over $5,000,000 to the public." "but can you do this?" i asked. "if the public know 'standard oil' is retaining nearly all the stock they will sour on it." "leave that to us," he said, knowingly. "we can iron this out so easily you need not give it another thought, for no one can have any possible rights in the matter until he has been allotted stock, and as all those who come in are to have big profits from the start, they will raise no objection to anything we do." "all right, if you think it's wise. you know," i responded; "but who will be in this besides ourselves?" "every one of us--stillman, daly, olcott, flower, morgan, all who can be of use to us will have to be let in on some of the ground floors. the foundation profits, as we agreed under the old plan, will be twenty-five per cent. to you, seventy-five per cent. to us. after that we will jointly take care of those we let in. is that all right?" when henry h. rogers sets out to batter down an antagonist he is as fierce as an eagle foraging for her young; victorious, he is as amiable and generous as a salesman who has unloaded on a customer a big cargo of damaged goods. anything the victim wants he can have by simply naming it. fascinated by his mastery of the subject and the obvious completeness of his plans, i could only continue to assent. he went on: "there's another section of the subject we must get at now, lawson, and decide on once and for all. you seem to have made no provisions for the most important end of the whole business, the selling end. what is your idea as to how we shall control the selling end?" "i had given that little thought, mr. rogers," i replied. "i believe that easily takes care of itself. the demand is always greater than the supply. we shall have the metal to sell, the world will be more anxious to buy than we to sell: what more can be necessary?" "lawson," said the master brain of the greatest and most successful commercial enterprise in the world, "you know the stock-market, but you don't know the first principle of working to advantage a great business in which you absolutely control the production. the novice assumes that consumption when it is greater than production makes the price, but this is one of the many time-worn sophistries of business. do you suppose standard oil has built itself up to where it is and made the money it has simply because there were always more lamps than we had oil? if you do, you are in dense ignorance of the foundation requisite for great success. as the world goes to-day, the prices of necessities and luxuries are fixed and should be fixed by the man who controls both the selling and the producing end, for there is a greater profit to be had by supply to regulated demand and demand to regulated supply than from a charge made and regulated by supply and demand. standard oil gets to-day and has always since its birth got its enormous profit from its 'regulation' department. production yields it a proper profit and by supplying legitimate demands it earns other fair profits, but its big gains come from so adjusting one to the other that there can be no such thing as competition. do you see?" "i agree that is not my end, mr. rogers, though in a general way i know about railroad rebates, steamship comebacks, and such things; but i don't see how they are required in our copper business, where the demand is of such proportions that the producer sets the price and makes a profit away above what may be gained in other business enterprises. surely no one would ask larger gains than are naturally made out of copper." "lawson," responded mr. rogers with oracular emphasis, "that is where your business education is flawed. no man has done his business properly who has missed a single dollar he could have secured in the doing of it. i do not think a fair judge would find me guilty of avarice, either in business or in the manner of my living, and yet i am made fairly miserable if i discover that, in any business i do, i have not extracted every dollar possible. it is one of the first principles mr. rockefeller taught me; it is one he has inculcated in every 'standard oil' man, until to-day it is a religion with us all." there you have it--the fundamental precept of the gospel of greed. "what must ye do to be rich? extract every dollar." how the formula explains "standard oil," and how completely it reveals the rockefeller attitude of mind! greed crystallized into a practice, dignified into a principle, consecrated into a religion and become a fanaticism. but, mind you, not the dross, but the rule; not profit, but precedent. money no object, but our laws must be kept. shylock's god is "standard oil's." the ravenous lust for gold that possesses these men is not an appetite, but a fever. in them it is the craving of the tiger for blood. gorged and glutted with riches, their millions piled into the hundreds, masters of the revenues of empires, still they are as the daughters of the horse-leech. once in ogreland there was a giant, larger and fiercer than any of his fellows, and it was the habit of this monster to compel the inhabitants of the territory which he ruled to render him every evening a tribute of human hearts. at sundown he would come out of his castle and seat himself in a great chair in front of the huge iron gate, and his vassals would lay at his feet the dripping sacks of hearts for which they had scoured the land. "how many have you brought me to-day, my merry men?" he would say as he weighed the sacks in his mighty fingers. "are they large and juicy?" how they came or whence, he cared not at all; the screams of the unfortunates whose hearts were torn from their breasts he neither heard nor thought of; hearts he must have, and if people were killed, so much the worse for them. but the ogre _ate_ all the human hearts his vassals gathered for him; he lived on them and grew greater and lustier, for they were the food his great frame required for its sustenance, and he never had all he really wanted. "standard oil" in our life to-day plays the rôle of this mythological giant, forcing its tribute of dollars from the people, indifferent to the blood and tears in which they are soaked, oblivious of the cries of the victims from whom they have been dragged; but, unlike the giant, _"standard oil" does not need this tribute to sustain its life, nor to make richer its blood_. but to return to mr. rogers, who triumphantly proceeded with his plot: "let me show you, lawson, how you have overlooked the best part of the copper business. we have found that for years lewisohn brothers have had a double-clamped and riveted contract with at least half the best producing mines in the country to sell their output, and they have grown very wealthy. as near as we can make it, they have made at least fifty millions in one way or another in the last ten or twelve years. first, they have had a big profit as their commission for selling; next, big interest out of the advances they make to companies while their output is being sold; now, they actually control the copper market of the world. think of it, lawson, for a few seconds, and the possibilities will loom up to you. you can buy or sell any number of millions of pounds in futures or actual deliveries. suppose a man controlling the selling of three or four hundred million pounds a year should knock the price to, say, ten cents, sell to himself the year's output of all the mines he controls and then lift the price to, say, twenty cents. he would have a sure profit, with absolutely no risk, of thirty to forty millions of dollars. if he should sell the next year's output short at twenty and drop the price back to ten, he would have another thirty or forty millions. wouldn't he? then if, before he broke the price, he sold copper mining stocks short, and if, before advancing the price, he covered and loaded up with them, he could easily make an additional thirty or forty millions. think it over, and you will agree with me that the possibilities are far beyond those of oil, and perhaps at the same time you can account for the violent fluctuations in copper stocks and the price of the metal during recent years. a man in such position could absolutely _dictate_ to all new mines whose selling agency he could secure under long-term contracts. when their stocks were up, he could pinch them to the edge of bankruptcy by refusing to sell their metal or advance them the cash they needed for operation. now, don't you agree with me that you overlooked one of the most important branches of the copper business when you made no provision for taking in the selling end?" again it crept into my mind that in comparison with the diabolic astuteness of this man, such knowledge and experience of business as i had gathered were as those of the primary student to the post-graduate scholar's. again, there was no quarreling with his logic or his conclusions. "it is common knowledge in boston," i replied, "that copper commissions on the surface and below constitute as soft graft as any one would ask for, but no one suspected the possibilities you outline. do you actually mean to say that that is the way the business has been conducted in the past?" mr. rogers lowered his voice confidentially: "i can only tell you, lawson, that we have dug up some queer doings during our investigation, and i think i can put my finger on a great many millions of dollars now in the hands of certain mine officers which could be recovered by the different companies they have been acting as trustees of. it would be quite an eye-opener to some of your pious bostonians to know that the controlling officials of several mines are silent partners in some of the big selling agencies." there was a pregnant interval of silence. perhaps the expression of my face suggested the thronging thoughts which seethed through my head as i said: "but surely, mr. rogers, that's off our beat. we shall make money enough along our lines without getting into that kind of a game." mr. rogers swung his chair half round and looked straight at me. for a long second he stared--sitting half upright, his long, fine hands clasping the arms of the chair with a clutch like steel. he said not a word. then he replied: "of course, lawson, we have no need for such methods in our affairs. but it is a duty we owe investors and ourselves not to conduct this business in a way that will encourage others to continue doing it along the old lines." he frowned at me as much as to say (only he never uses such expressions), "oh, but you do make me tired," as he always did when i, with a serious face, would ask him, as i often did: "how is it, mr. rogers, that young john d. can make such a success of his sunday-school-class trust, and at the same time of his father's oil and investment business?" in business hours mr. rogers taboos frivolity. the neophyte in crime, being initiated into the mysteries of the profession by some able fagin, gets his instruction by degrees. great care is taken that he shall not realize too soon the depravity he is to practise, lest, appalled by the hideousness of it, he might jump the track, and along with each advance in knowledge goes a picture representing the ease of the life and the lordly rewards and pleasant adventures of the "industry." from the remote perspective of to-day very similar seems to have been the process in this most momentous conversation between mr. rogers and myself. the apprentice at the knees of the master was being gently and gradually admitted into the secrets of the calling--financial highwaymanry. at the moment, however, it never entered my thoughts to imagine myself other than a favorite lieutenant gathering the garnered wisdom of a great general of commerce. so when mr. rogers shifted bobbins in his shuttle and agreeably and naturally wove fancy patterns into the woof of our conversation, i suspected no sinister motive. indeed, in reply to his kindly queries, i was delighted to tell him how well i was getting along with butte, montana, and the other stocks that i had been dealing in, and how deeply interested all the country was in our plans. we must have been fully half an hour discussing the degree to which the craze for "coppers" had spread over all america and had affected even europe, and it was pleasant to realize his interest in my own personal well-being. then, suddenly, as the thread on a bobbin runs out, he paused and shifted to the old subject--just as if a new phase of it had occurred to him. "to come back, lawson, to lewisohn brothers. we must buy that concern, and at once. had you best do it or we?" our pleasant talk had restored my mind to its normal alertness, and i grasped at once the significance of the switch. "i don't think i could begin to do as well as you on a trade of that kind, mr. rogers," i answered, off the reel, "for i don't suppose they will be anxious to sell, will they?" "anxious?" he replied, as quick as a chipmunk; "about as anxious as apollo to have one of his front teeth pulled! but they will sell, and at my price, too. i think i know just where they stand, and when they know i know it, i don't believe they will be long in seeing it my way, for i shall show them what coming in with us means, and just what refusing my offer means, too!" click! his jaws came together. "these are my plans," he continued. "they have all the money they want, and such a large european and american following that nothing could be accomplished by a financial squeeze, even if we resorted to that form of pressure; and they are very bright men. leonard lewisohn, head of the firm, is second to no man in america as a business man, which means he will not hanker for a fight with us; and when i show him we will buy, if necessary, the control of all the companies they represent, he will see the absolute futility of opposing us. i have it right from the inside of his own concern that lewisohn brothers have on hand a little over five millions cash and its equivalent, and that they consider the good-will and business of the firm worth ten to twelve millions more, which is fair enough, for their direct earnings must be a million and a quarter to a million and a half a year. now here is what i propose offering them, and no more: we will incorporate the firm into a new selling company, which will have irrevocable contracts not only with our consolidated companies but with everything that we can influence, and the capital will be just the cash on hand, say five millions, we to take fifty-one per cent. of the stock and give them forty-nine. i will undertake to show them that their forty-nine will be more valuable under those conditions than the whole is now." this is where i sat up amazed. "but, mr.--," i gasped. i remember reading somewhere that new york's infamous boss tweed, at the zenith of his extraordinary corrupt career, actually began negotiations with a syndicate composed of his friends to sell them the new york city hall on a long-time note. when some curious heelers asked where the city fathers should conduct the affairs of the metropolis, he beamed on them in a paternal way as he explained: "oh, a detail of the sale will be a hundred years' lease back to the city at a rental which will give us enough each five years to pay the purchase price." absurd, you say. not so far-fetched as you may think, if you will remember the conditions under which the national city--the "standard oil" bank--acquired new york's old custom house on wall street. they bought it from the united states government, credited the purchase price to uncle sam on their books, then rented it for a good round price to the government, whose new custom house was not ready for occupancy, and because it remained in uncle sam's possession, evaded municipal taxation on the investment. they got the property absolutely without paying a cent, and have ever since collected a splendid interest on the million they did not invest. but this deal which mr. rogers outlined to me seemed to go both of these transactions a point or two better, inasmuch as neither of the parties were corrupt city or government officials, but merely private citizens in a country where all are free and equal, and where the constitution guarantees that no man's property shall be taken from him without due process of law. before i could get my breath, mr. rogers, as if he divined my thought, quietly said: "one of the inducements i offer will be to allow them to reinvest the money we pay them in the new consolidated company's stock, at a good big advance over what it will cost us." this was too much. i roared and roared, and even he had to laugh as he quietly remarked: "i said you would find we had done better for you than you could do for yourself, lawson, for you must remember you are in on this at actual cost." i stopped laughing. "how is that? i thought you intended the new copper company to have the fifty-one per cent. of the selling company?" he looked at me with something akin to disgust. then his voice changed, and he let me have it straight from the shoulder: "lawson, do you really intend that this whole copper business shall be a charitable affair? if you do, just count us out right here. we are willing to accede to a lot of your ideas, but there is a line we must refuse to cross even to please you. this fifty-one per cent. of the selling company is to be owned by all of our friends, and it is one of the things we must use as a sop to daly, stillman, morgan, and the rest, to make them enthusiastic on our main scheme, and it will not come under our general arrangements of seventy-five and twenty-five per cent. it is one of the things i want you to leave entirely to mr. rockefeller and myself, and you can depend upon it we will do the right thing. all the stock is to be pooled in our hands for a long term of years, so you can say to the public that its operations will be in favor of the consolidated company." there you will note was the second explosive point in our conversation. i was too much concerned at the moment to take in all his words implied or to appreciate the fine dexterity with which a difficult situation was being handled. these decisive sentences were cracked off quick, sharp, emphatic, like the snapping of a bunch of firecrackers. i began a "but, mr. rogers," when he interrupted, and his words came stern, aggressive: "is it satisfactory to you or not? i am half beginning to think you are crowding this good thing we have in copper a bit too much. i simply ask now, is this satisfactory to you? do you leave it to us, or not? but whether you do or not, this particular part does not go to the public in any way." he really showed a heap of irritation, and even now i think a little of it was genuine anger. it came over me that perhaps i _was_ overcrowding it and treating the whole copper enterprise too much as if it were my personal property; for here was something i had had nothing to do with, the setting out, pruning, and gathering the fruit from, this particular plum-tree, and so i answered without any hesitation: "it is you, i think, mr. rogers, who are a little unreasonable in not giving me a chance to tell you how i look at it. yes, it is perfectly satisfactory. i will leave it entirely to you and mr. rockefeller. whatever you do will be all right." at once mr. rogers' expression changed. he looked relieved, making no attempt to disguise the fact that he had discharged a troublesome duty. "that is the way to look at it, lawson," he said. "you'll not suffer, i promise you." meditating over the conversation afterward, i realized how delicate his task really had been, and how well he had performed it. it had been to settle this matter and to rearrange our copper plans that he had summoned me to new york, and if i had proved refractory i can see he would have been badly snagged in his negotiations with the lewisohns. if there had been a trace of dissension in our camp, that firm would never have surrendered their great business on such terms as rogers proposed to exact. this is as good a place as elsewhere to tell exactly how fair and just mr. rogers proved himself in the cutting of this particular melon, and to explain why he had been at such pains to have me leave it entirely to his and mr. rockefeller's generosity. the fifty-one per cent. of the sales company amounted in hundred-dollar shares to 26,000 ($2,600,000). if i had insisted upon the arrangement then in force my share would have been 6,500 shares ($650,000), which to-day are worth a fabulous figure. for some time after this i heard nothing about the matter and was in complete ignorance of what my portion was until one day mr. rogers said in an offhand way: "by the way, lawson, you can send me a check for your allotment of the selling company's stock, 250 shares." before i got a chance to interpose a word he said: "we had to divide that up among a great many, or there would have been a good deal of hard feeling, but, after all, it's only a side-show and does not amount to anything when you consider our real plans." at this moment, carefully chosen for that very reason, our affairs were swimming along so magnificently and my own profits were so great, that i had not the heart to make any serious objection. i let the matter go with an inward resolution that at the first convenient moment i would slip out of the selling company. sure enough, shortly afterward mr. rogers said to me: "lawson, i do wish we could get in that selling company's stock from the different holders." he did not actually say he was buying it in for the amalgamated copper company, but he desired that i infer it. i snapped him up: "all right. you can have mine, mr. rogers," i said. "at what price?" and i think he thought that he would be compelled to do some trading. "oh, about cost and interest," said i; and the thing was done. i afterward learned that he had treated every one in much the same way, and that he and mr. william rockefeller practically had it all. they have it to-day, just as they and john d. rockefeller, and possibly one or two others in "standard oil," have appropriated all the inner companies of "standard oil" where the real melons are cut--the secret rebates and all the other under-the-rose profits--while they are so industrious in their unloading of the stock of the main company, standard oil, that the last annual report showed that the list of outside stockholders numbers 4,100, this too at a time when 26 broadway sits up nights to disseminate the impression that the rockefellers and rogers own it all. chapter xviii the biters bit to see and judge actions aright one must have them in perspective. as the celt remarked, "you can get the best view of your life after you're dead." looking back on the performances of this period, i myself am amazed at their monstrous audacity. remote from common experience, their extravagance suggests unreality. here were the master of the greatest business the world has ever known, and i, a mere captain of his forces, without even a by-your-leave, calmly carving up a big commercial enterprise, the property of other men who had spent the days of their lives in creating it; and these men whose institution was thus being ravished were not children, idiots, or aged dolts, but able merchants renowned the world over for their shrewdness and success. the one phase of the contemplated operation which occurred to neither of us as worth discussing was the possibility of not securing the property. this transaction demonstrates the despotism of the "system," the extent of its rapacity, and its arrogant disregard of all laws and rights, human or divine, in the enforcement of its exactions. and it was but one of a hundred similar transactions. before mr. rogers and myself parted, i had definite instructions: first, to begin to teach the public to look for new things in the first section; second, to overcome the objections of the holders of butte & boston and boston & montana, and other boston stocks to being in the second section of the consolidation; third, to purchase the majority of the parrott company's stock; fourth, to see that the public kept away from anaconda in the market for the time being. while the minor details of these plans were being mapped out, i had let my mind run over the market situation of anaconda stock, and had arrived at certain conclusions which i determined to test forthwith. so i said: "some one, mr. rogers, must have bought lots of anaconda while you have been working this plan out--i mean lots outside of that which is going into the new company--and i should like to know if i'm in on any part of what may have been gathered in?" his eyes focused me with a cold stare which told me even before he spoke that i had better have kept my suspicions to myself. "i have heard of no one putting you in on any anaconda," he said sarcastically. "you have not given any one any orders, have you, nor sent any one your check to pay for any, have you?" i was nettled at his tone. "that is all i wanted to know," i answered. "of course, anaconda will have a still bigger rise, and if we have all we care to buy for the new company, no one will object to my telling the public what a good thing it is and putting them aboard now." i was on perilous ground. he gave me an ugly glare which i knew meant real danger as he slowly said: "i think, lawson, you have done all that is necessary for you to do for the public in letting them in on the things you already have, and for some time any one who interferes with the market on anaconda stock, which i consider fairly belongs to mr. rockefeller and myself, will not find his investment a profitable one." "well and good, mr. rogers," i answered. "if you consider the market yours, i will not interfere, but i wanted to know just how it stood." "you know now, and i shall expect you not only to keep out of it, but to see that it is handled in such a manner that all others stay out--all others except sellers," which meant that not only was no one to get any of the benefits on this stock, but that innocent holders were to be enticed into selling, that "standard oil" might buy before the real rise came. as i write these sentences i marvel at my patience, and my blood tingles with the thought of how, if the opportunity were again mine, i should reply to such an imperious mandate. if men said and did at the crucial moment all the wise, strong things that occur to them afterward, this would be a different world. the brave and scornful words i should have uttered i choked back, and, as countless others had done before me, i bowed my head and--submitted. conscience and honesty slunk sadly into the background as i flaunted off on the arms of policy and discretion, pirouetting to the jingling music of golden shekels. great fortunes are seldom achieved without sacrifice of morals--or at least of pride--and ambition makes meaner cowards of us than conscience. then and there i might have made a martyr of myself by threatening an exposure of the whole bad scheme and defying "standard oil" to do its worst; but martyrs seldom give themselves to the flames, and looking back dispassionately from the vantage-ground of the present, i doubt seriously if by denouncing the conspiracy i should have done more than discredit myself. the interview ended, i returned to boston and at once began the execution of the new plans, the remoulding of the public and the purchase of the parrott mine. parrott was an active mine earning a large revenue and with something over 200,000 shares of capital stock. for the purpose of mr. rogers' plan its inclusion was essential, for it was well known and helped cover up the inflation in his consolidation. possession of 100,000 shares would give control, and the public would imagine when the announcement of its purchase was made that this meant ownership of most of the entire capital stock. indeed, it afterward developed that this was one of the conditions mr. rogers and william rockefeller relied on to deceive investors, for it was a natural assumption that nearly all of anaconda and parrott were included in the consolidation, and in estimating the value of the properties the public would multiply the market prices of their shares by the total capital stock and assume the result represented the assets of the amalgamation. for instance, the valuation of 1,200,000 shares of anaconda at $70, and 200,000 shares of parrott at $68--the prices at the time amalgamated was floated--would represent respectively $84,000,000 and $13,600,000; whereas the company owned only 602,000 shares of anaconda and a few shares over 100,000 of parrott, selling for in all about $48,600,000. the control of parrott was in the hands of certain wealthy connecticut brass manufacturers, and, just previous to my receiving orders from mr. rogers to acquire the property, they were so anxious to sell this mine that they had given my brokers, brown, riley & co., of boston, an option on a majority of their shares at $10 per share, agreeing to pay a large commission should a good customer be secured. before i could clinch at this figure they took advantage of the excitement in "coppers" to bid up the stock, so that when i began operations parrott was in the market at $15, and i offered $20 for the majority of the shares. an intimation of our purpose must have leaked, for other shrewd owners, also connecticut men, bid the price up still higher until i was forced to raise my limit to $30 per share--quite an advance on $10. on that figure we all agreed and the papers were prepared, but at the last moment a young man "butted in"--i think he was the son-in-law of one of the owners, who turned up with an option, and declared he could get $40 per share for the property. we were trapped, for the alternative presented was to forego the purchase or pay the price demanded. there was a conference, at which i denounced the "hold-up" in strenuous terms; but the son-in-law proved equal to the emergency and stood by his guns, though some of the old gentlemen declared his exaction was unwarrantable. in the discussion there developed a queer fact--the son-in-law told us that the property was a good deal richer than any one thought: he had discovered that a certain section of rich ore in which there were several millions of dollars had been walled up by some designing person for his own purpose and the mine was easily worth $40 per share. i had heard stories of this kind before and frankly professed incredulity. the son-in-law agreed to reveal the ore to any one we might send to the mine, and so one of our most trusted engineers was despatched with him to butte on the agreement that if he were convinced that the walled-up values were all that had been indicated, we should pay $40. if not, $30 would be the price. the twain started at once; our expert was convinced, and we paid four millions instead of one, two, or three. strange to say, the subsequent operations of the mine have never revealed the walled-up values; instead, there has been developed a queer lot of litigation, the tendency of which suggests strange uses of that extra million. anyway, the trade was made, and the gentleman of the nutmeg state went home chuckling at the thought that though there was a "standard oil," there were others. "standard oil" never forgets. sometimes it may get left at the post, but always it catches up in the running--so as to be in the lead at the tape. when i reported the conclusion of this parrott deal to mr. rogers, he said: "lawson, all's fair in a trade"; but i shall never forget the expression his face wore as he went on. "just give me the name, lawson, again, of that particular individual in this particular trade, that i may remember him hereafter." he spoke in a low, intense tone, and each word was separated from the preceding one by a dwelling stop. i gave him the name and the identification marks to go with it, and felt satisfied that even if the nutmeg financier lived to be a thousand and henry h. rogers kept him company, there would surely come an evening-up which would be the worse for the erstwhile victor. sure enough it came soon afterward, for the able connecticut man, embarrassed at possessing so much uninvested money, came to us to ask advice about reinvesting it. the "standard oil" magnate was most sympathetic and generous, and pointed out the obvious advantages offered by the great new company amalgamated, which would be out in a few days at $100 per share, and doubtless would sell soon afterward for $150 per share. the nutmegite nibbled and then swallowed bait and hook whole, for when the subscription was announced his agents' names were found opposite a large block. later on he applied to us for consolation and advice, for the stock he had bought at $100 and $124 was then selling at $33. we figured out for him that after all he had little to complain of; "for you see," we explained, "fair exchange is no robbery, and you have had just a fair exchange. you sold us your property inflated four times, and we sold it back to you under another name at about the same percentage." before the fireworks began, anaconda sold in the market at $25 per share, and parrott, as i have shown, at $10, and in addition to the enormous profits which mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller made in the amalgamated company proper, they cleared some $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 on their outside purchases of anaconda, and some $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 more later by selling it short (as i shall show hereafter), at the tremendously high prices which were obtained by leading the public as well as myself to believe that they intended to purchase the entire stocks of both companies for the amalgamated--that is, it was given out that the sections which were to come after were to have these minority holdings included in them. they sold anaconda short in enormous quantities between $50 and $70, and parrott between $50 and $68; afterward they bought them at $14 and $16 respectively, and no one knows how many millions these gentlemen are taking in now, for both stocks are again on the return trip, selling at the present writing at $32 and $30 respectively. chapter xix the despoiling of leonard lewisohn a few days later there came another summons from new york. realizing that matters of importance were in the balance, i hurried over. nothing could surpass the cordiality of mr. rogers' greeting as i entered his office. "lawson," he said, "we own lewisohn brothers." "you certainly lost no time," i replied. "is it actually fixed up already?" "yes," he said, settling back in his chair. "it was about as i outlined to you the other day. we had a very pleasant sit-down--leonard lewisohn and i--and i frankly told him what i wanted, explained our plans, and gave him twenty-four hours to think things over. next day he was in and we went at it again. he began by talking $15,000,000, and it did come hard to bring it down to a little less than the actual cash and copper on hand; but when he saw i intended to have things my way or not at all, he meekly surrendered, and the united metals selling company ($5,000,000 capital stock) is now a reality. and, lawson, if i ever had to do with a better scheme i certainly cannot recall it." "did not lewisohn put up any sort of a fight?" i persisted, surprised that so able and forceful a man should succumb so easily. "didn't you have any words about the matter?" "not any but pleasant ones," replied mr. rogers, "although lewisohn did, in an almost pathetic way, gasp when i emphasized that my only terms were $5,000,000, fifty-one per cent. to us and forty-nine per cent. to his people. he told me how he and his brothers had struggled up to success. they began in a small way as feather merchants, you may remember, and from one thing to another they progressed until the firm is known to-day as one of the greatest copper houses and the greatest coffee house in the world. he explained how he had brought up his three sons and his daughter's husband in the firm until they had become great merchants, too; and his ambition was that their sons and grandchildren should succeed to the institution, enlarging and strengthening it until the house of lewisohn was as famous as the house of rothschild--with which, by the way, he is closely connected. i tell you, lawson, i felt a bit mean when, after he had told me how he had always kept his name's credit as good as any other man's bond, he asked me almost with tears in his eyes to let the name of the new company be lewisohn brothers. indeed, he made a strong argument on the great value of the name to the copper business; but it did not take me long to show him the evils that grow out of letting men's personalities get into the public's mind. i battered down his objections by showing him the wisdom of mr. rockefeller's attitude in this connection. always, from the first, he has taken the stand: 'the business first, the man second': with the result that there has never been jealousy or dissension in standard oil." "too bad," i interrupted. "yes," mr. rogers went on; "i wished i might have done this for him, for he is a splendid fellow; but it would not do, for after the newness wore off he, or more probably his sons, would surely imagine that they, and not we, were the real heads of the business." as i have explained, henry h. rogers, when not working the handle or hopper end of the "system's" grinder, is a warm-hearted and generous man. and now, resting from his labors, he was the genial and kindly gentleman whom his social acquaintances admire so sincerely. i believe he felt almost as badly as i did over the sad picture he had drawn of the proud old merchant yielding up his children's birthright. i felt grieved to the depths of my soul at leonard lewisohn's predicament, for i knew, as did all men connected with wall street or copper, what a stalwart he was. he had the heart of an ox and the pluck of a lion, and his white-man squareness and sense of justice belonged to other periods than that of frenzied finance. no man or woman in distress ever left his house or office without relief, and he gave as generously of his time and advice as of his money. amid the jagged rocks and treacherous cross currents of wall street leonard lewisohn stood as a beacon lighting the way to better things, and men pointed at him and said, "there is still hope." amalgamated may not have broken this man's heart as it did others, but i can imagine the bitterness and distress it caused him, whose proud boast it was that he had never gone back on his word. one of the promoters of the company, his name stood, in the minds of many investors, especially european, for a guarantee of fair play and square dealing. yet the course of amalgamated was one continuous going back on words. he had never allowed an associate of his to lose through his ventures, but in amalgamated there was nothing but loss, and loss by trick and fraud. after the flotation, with its harvest of disgrace and scandal, leonard lewisohn became a changed man. his old-time happy smile was seldom seen, and it is said that before he died he summoned his sons to him and instructed them to destroy the notes and obligations of all his poor debtors and to return to them their collateral, of which there was a safe full. this man employed no press agent, and so his golden deeds were never reported in the papers, nor did he found a college to perpetuate his name; but he left a million of his estate to found a great home for the jewish poor, for he loved and was proud of his race. i have given you a portrait of this man; let me, by way of contrast, present another picture, which will help toward an appreciation of how the votaries of the "system" respond to generosity and chivalrous self-abnegation. before leonard lewisohn died he organized a tremendous deal in coffee, and rogers, rockefeller, and all the other "standard oil" men were in. a fund of $5,000,000 was subscribed, to which all contributed in due proportion, and an immense amount of coffee was bought against a prospective scarcity. the condition mr. lewisohn anticipated did not immediately develop, and instead of rising, coffee dropped down and down until the $5,000,000 and more were all used up. another man would have called on his associates for additional margin, or, at least, closed up the deal. not so leonard lewisohn. though some of the other members of the combination were many times richer than he, he shouldered the burden alone, saying: "it's my scheme, and i'll carry it if it breaks me, or until my judgment is proven sound." still coffee declined until he had sunk $12,000,000, but never a whimper and not a word of complaint to his partners. things were near the worst when he died, but he had instructed his heirs not to wind the deal up until every cent of his associates' liability was wiped out. there came a time not long ago when leonard lewisohn's foresight was vindicated, and an advance in the price of the commodity relieved the "standard oil" coterie of their responsibility. the sons of the old man then desired to dispose of the great holdings of coffee, and so close the deal and secure the locked-up millions for the estate. they went to the various members of the syndicate and asked them to sign a release simply agreeing to relieve the estate of liability for presumptive profits growing out of further advances in coffee after they had sold out. it was a very ordinary legal precaution, and no great favor to the lewisohns under the circumstances. the members of the syndicate signed the release in due course, until the document finally came to henry h. rogers, and this is the contrasting picture: "coffee is going up, i think," said the "standard oil" magnate, "and now that the lewisohns have extricated themselves from a bad hole, they may as well carry the stuff until i get some profit out of it. neither mr. rockefeller nor i will sign that document." chapter xx the christening of amalgamated my readers may recall the wave of indignation which swept over this country when the news came of the kidnapping of miss stone, the american missionary, by the bandits of bulgaria, and how hot we all felt at the capture of ion perdicaris by raissuli, the morocco rebel. only in remote and barbarous countries, we reflected, could such outrages occur, and we dwelt with high inward satisfaction on our own splendid american institutions and law-abiding civilization. if only these miscreants were on american soil so american justice could lay hands on them--what stern punishment would be meted out to them! yet, under the panoply of these noble institutions and just laws of ours, one citizen of our commonwealth was enabled to seize from another millions of money and the ownership of a great enterprise--literally wrench it from the hands of men who had spent their lives in developing it--and the execution of the deed involved neither financial nor physical risk and carried with it no legal nor social consequences. look on the picture, all ye free americans rejoicing in vaunted liberty and the right to the pursuit of happiness--this able and successful merchant, head of a great business which it has been his life-work to rear, surrendering the splendid structure at the mere nod of one man, whose "i want it" is more potent, more irresistible, than family pride or government decree. if leonard lewisohn, a millionaire many times over, rich in connections with the strongest financial houses of europe, meekly submitted to the behest of "standard oil," what resistance could the average man oppose to such a power? the logic of the situation is inevitable. can you free americans absorb the details of this most extraordinary performance and not see the coming storm as clearly as the mariner does when all along the horizon creep the hosts of boreas and the barometer drops like lead in a shot tower? at last, in april, 1899, the first section of the much-heralded company was ready to step before the footlights to the plaudits of an awaiting financial world, and it was really a great moment when mr. rogers sent me word: "come over, and be prepared to stay until the consolidation is formed and launched." i was at 26 broadway next day, and we entered at once on our council of war. it was a momentous sitting and secret, for, until the entire programme was mapped out and decided upon, no one was a party to it or had knowledge of it but mr. rogers, his counsel, william rockefeller, and myself. after we had finished the final details, mr. rogers said: "this is a job on which we must not lose time, for if we give any one, even those who are to be directors, too long to think things over, there will be counterplots, and a cog may slip or jump and we shall all be crushed. we must all bear in mind that this thing has rolled up and up until it is unprecedented in business affairs, and if we slip up in any of the important details, we shall have a panic on our hands such as wall street has never witnessed." on all sides for weeks there had been accumulating evidence, which we could see pointed to a monumental success or an avalanche failure. the copper market was literally boiling, and investors from one end of america to the other and throughout europe were on the _qui vive_ for the anticipated announcement. at intervals in history great "booms" are started, which bloom into iridescent bubbles, and for a moment dazzle the world with fairy dreams of sudden millions. greatest of all these was the south sea bubble. since then we have had the tulip craze in holland, the hooley excitement, and the barney barnato south african mining furor in england, the secretan copper corner, and the tremendous bonanza delirium in california; but none of these, save the first, is comparable with the magnitude of the copper maelstrom of 1899. the tulip craze could have been thrust in and withdrawn again without diverting one of its currents; the barney barnato affair was little more than an eddy on the surface of english finance in contrast. we were dealing in hundreds and five hundreds of millions; shares rose and fell twenty to fifty points in a day; some had mounted to the giddy height of $900 each; thousands of the public had invested their savings in one copper property or another, and all awaited with bated breath and marvelling anticipations the launching of this copper monster with its freight of hopes and visions. the programme as specifically arranged had several important clauses. the first involved the notification of james stillman, president of the national city, the "standard oil" bank, who was to be let into only as much of the secret as was necessary to enable him to handle his important end intelligently. to leonard lewisohn it was decided to intrust the french, english, and german end of the subscription, and he was at once to receive orders to lay his pipes. i may say here that this task was admirably executed through his son-in-law, philip henry, of the english branch of lewisohn brothers. the other directors of the company were then and there selected, but it was agreed that they should not be told of the distinction thrust upon them until the very eve of the company's formation. this decision surprised me at the moment it was concluded, for with my boston ideas i had regarded the gentlemen we had chosen to preside over the destinies of our great company--all men of the highest prestige and standing in american finance--as so powerful and so independent in their own fields as to be beyond either the coercion or the cajolery of "standard oil." it was because of this reputation for integrity and the confidence their names would inspire in the public mind that we had selected them; yet here was mr. rogers irreverently using them as the veriest pawns in his game, and taking absolutely for granted their immediate consent to the loan of their reputations and honor for any scheme he might put up. the possibility of one of these eminent financiers objecting to be used in any way "standard oil" might desire was a contingency evidently so remote as to be unworthy of consideration. the legal aspects of the problem were considered, but as we felt sure of our ground it was agreed to avoid all delays in this direction. as a matter of form and habit, however, mr. rogers said that at the last moment, when the papers were ready to issue, he would have the wise lawyers in charge of the legal department of 26 broadway run over them, but whether they approved or not, he would allow no technicalities to hold up the flotation. this was certainly a departure from the well-ordered rule of "standard oil," but the urgency of the situation seemed to require it. after our council adjourned, not a moment was lost. the organization was quickly shaped up and got ready, and the time was ripe to broach to mr. stillman the part that he and the funds deposited in the national city bank were to play in the forthcoming engagement. this was a crucial point, and i saw that mr. rogers approached the task with no gusto. before he went off that night he spoke about the interview which was to occur after dinner, and he said: "i don't mind giving fewer or olcott or even morgan but a minute's notice, for every one of them will do about what i ask him to, but i shall feel better when i get through with stillman." "but mr. stillman would never dare to refuse what you and mr. william rockefeller asked, any more than he would the request of john d., would he?" i asked. "i don't know about that," mr. rogers replied. "stillman has been growing fast of late, and it is not nearly so easy to get him to consent to run deals blindly as it was formerly. of course, if he were in on the bottom floor with us, it would be different. all i fear is, he may ask questions, and if he does, it will not do for me to refuse an answer. and too many answers may be dangerous to our plans." "why not take him in with us--you, mr. rockefeller, and myself?" i suggested. "the profits will stand it, and as far as my share goes i am willing." "not by a jugful, lawson," said mr. rogers emphatically. "stillman will only get what fairly belongs to him. he has had none of the risk or work, and we do not need him in any way except through the bank, and the bank is 'standard oil's,' not his. he is lucky to get what i am going to give him." it is interesting to note in passing the authoritative manner in which 26 broadway speaks of the so-called institutions of the people that it controls--the banks, trust companies, and insurance companies, having deposits of hundreds of millions of the public's money. familiarly they are alluded to as "_our_ bank" or "_our_ insurance company," as the case may be. we are all apt to feel we own the things we use, and that mr. rogers should speak of the millions of the national city bank as "our funds" is not surprising when he possesses the power and the privileges of doing with them as he pleases. i was too fascinated at that time by the ready magic of "standard oil" to observe all the anomalous conditions my relation with it revealed. such things all seemed a natural attribute of the despotic and all-powerful institution that i served. i was vastly relieved when mr. rogers reported, the following morning, that at the dinner with stillman everything had slipped through very smoothly. not only would the national city bank take charge of the subscription, but through the institution mr. stillman would furnish the millions necessary to form the company. this meant supplying the paraphernalia in loans, checks, and cash necessary to pay in the seventy-five millions capital, thirty-nine millions of which must at once be "book-keepingly" available to pay for the property bought from daly, haggin, and tevis, and purchased by the company. "it couldn't have gone through easier, lawson," mr. rogers said quietly, "for the fact is, stillman seems to have got the copper fever as badly as any one else and is as anxious to take a hand as we are to have him. it will be plain sailing now unless we strike some snag with sterling or elliott"--referring to the principal "standard oil" lawyers. by this time such substantial progress had been made with the plans that they were formulated on paper and the time had come when it seemed advisable to try them on the "standard oil" law-department. we arranged that night that next morning mr. rogers should himself go over the matter with mr. sterling. i was waiting in his office when he returned from this consultation, and the expression of his face as he entered indicated plainly that a real snag had been struck. his jaw and the droop of the upper corners of his eyelids gave a curiously sinister aspect to his face. "well," said he, "sterling says if we carry out that plan there may be h--l to pay some day." "wherein does he say it is wrong?" i asked, not over-surprised. "everywhere. he says if there is any slip-up in the future mr. rockefeller and myself may have to pay back a lot of money." "well, what are you going to do?" i said. "just what we started to do." no lawyer's warnings could hold him back from the bursting barrels now in sight. he went on: "i told sterling to forget i had asked him to pass on the matter, and that i would have my own counsel take the responsibility. so we go right ahead, and nothing is to be said to any one, not even to william rockefeller. i have always argued that it is fool business to go to a lawyer with a scheme that depends entirely on how it is carried through as to whether it is perilous or not. i could have told sterling there is apt to be more danger in a deal in which one makes thirty-five to forty million dollars without turning a hair, than in furnishing staid advice from an office-chair for a fixed sum per diem." the concentrated incisiveness of these sentences! opposition, the mere suggestion of danger, had stimulated his determination to proceed rather than enjoined caution. himself convinced of the expediency of our deal, no power on earth could make him deviate or face about. truly a man of blood and iron, as bismarck or moltke was, his erected will is a sword and a vise. to gain a predetermined goal henry h. rogers will go through hell, fire, and water, swing about and make the return trip, and then repeat, until death interferes or his object is attained. such men as he in other days subjugated kingdoms or made deserts where they operated; in religion they became st. pauls or savonarolas. it may occur to my readers that in depicting henry h. rogers i use more whitewash than tar, and that if he is half as determined and relentless as my characterization of him, he will surely exact a terrible reprisal for what i have written here. in describing the man i adhere to the facts, and before i began this crusade i weighed well the consequences. from the implacable wrath of henry h. rogers and his associates, from a thirst for vengeance which grows more bitter as it is deferred, nothing can save me, nothing but--myself. and now events flew. mr. rogers took the forenoon to notify governor flower, president frederic p. olcott, of the central trust company; marcus daly, and j. p. morgan, that they, in connection with william rockefeller, himself, his counsel, and james stillman, were to constitute the directors of the new company. "there, lawson," he said, when he returned to 26 broadway, "that job is done, and i am glad it's off my hands. it was all pleasant enough but the morgan part. i wish it were possible for us to get along without having his assistance, but it isn't. leaving him out would create comment, from which it would be only a short step to wall street's nosing around and manufacturing something uncomfortable, even if they didn't discover it. i don't like morgan a bit, and he likes us less. it won't be long before one or the other of us will be able to do business without knowing what the other's about, much less consulting him--not very long." as the "not very long" shot out from between his lips much as the tail-end of an up-chimney wind switches itself around the angle of the fireplace, i felt there was little doubt in his mind who would be left to do business after the final drag-out and clean-up. at the same time it did not dissipate a sort of come-and-go confidence i had that the old terrapin around whom so many of wall street's eddies have swirled would cause the 26-broadway crowd many a broken knife-blade before crawling or being pushed into his shell. turtles are not much good as sprinters, but they're blue-ribbon winners when it comes to the staying class. "you didn't meet with any set-back with morgan, did you?" i asked. "oh, no," mr. rogers replied; "he simply said it would be best, everything considered, for us to put in his right-hand man, robert bacon, instead of himself, and i agreed with him; in fact, i think it much better, as bacon is a rattling good fellow who takes no interest in the other fellow's business, even when he does happen to be a director in the other fellow's company, and he will recognize that this copper affair is mine, not morgan's." he stopped abruptly. "now, lawson, let us settle upon what in this case is an important point, the name of the company." he had asked me the day before to think of a suitable title for our organization, and i had put in some time with a pad and pencil experimenting. i had several names ready for him, but after i had run over them and given my reasons, he said: "there is nothing more important than to have just the right name for a company which is going to make history, is there?" i agreed; in fact, even more than he i was impressed with the desirability of a suitable name for a corporation whose stock was bound to become a great market star, and i was not satisfied with any i had dug up. give a stock or a book a good name, and it is sure to be numbered among the best sellers. mr. rogers continued: "lawson, we want something as good as 'standard oil,' if it is possible to find it. now"--and he drew over one of his little writing-pads and taking a slim gold pencil from his pocket slowly wrote something and handed it to me--"how do you like this?" i read "'amalgamated copper company.' perfect!" i exclaimed. "i thought you would say so"; and he reached over and wrote underneath the name, "a second standard oil." it was an impressive moment for both of us. i folded the slip, and putting it in my pocket said: "you will see this again, mr. rogers, when its stock sells for as much as standard oil." surely an adder crawled from that tiny golden cylinder and upon the smooth white paper distilled its subtle venom. i, poor fool, exulting in the splendid throes of accomplishment, never dreamed that the real christening of my bantling was the toast the master of hell drank as the name "amalgamated" was slowly traced upon the pad before my eyes; never dreamed that this cherished offspring on whose rearing i had lavished all i possessed of dollars, of ideals, of generous hopes and high expectations--whose growth i had literally watered with my sweat--was an imp of darkness. my fool's paradise i had planted with all manner of fair flowers and lordly trees, and in my folly believed that those who had been my friends were forever after assured of pleasant places, lovely perfumes, and grateful shade; but like the grecian in the ancient fable, i found i had sown dragon's teeth, and the crop i reaped was of hatred and envy, passion and revenge. chapter xxi fixing the responsibility on the day before amalgamated's incorporation, mr. rogers and i conferred long and earnestly upon the plan of campaign for the company's organization. it was very necessary to avoid all errors, and to have everything cut and dried in advance. we were obliged to railroad things through, once started, a hitch or a side-track might be fatal, and i desired to have mr. rogers pass upon the programme i had drawn up. therein was set down the work of each captain, lieutenant, and water-carrier who was to take part, and we discussed every detail to a finish. when he had approved everything up to the point where formation ended and the flotation began, i said: "now comes the most important part of all--the offer to the public; for a slip-up, the misuse of a single phrase, or even of a word, at this point might destroy our whole structure." "quite true, lawson," he answered, "but i have no fear of you there. let me have your idea." "first," i replied, "there should be an advertisement of the national city bank, and one of the amalgamated company, and in this advertisement the story of the good things we have collected must be told in strong terms." i am now about to explain exactly of what the first crime of amalgamated consisted, and it behooves my readers to weigh carefully the details, for i make the claim here that without further proof they will be able to realize not only my own position and purpose at this, the crucial, stage of the amalgamated enterprise, but to grasp the cold-blooded villany of the men i am exposing. at this time i was in a most uncomfortable and uncertain position. each day that i did business with mr. rogers and his associates increased my knowledge of their heartless brutality in dollar-making. i knew i was on dangerous ground; but to retreat meant not only my own destruction but terrible losses to my friends who had followed me and to the public which had come in on my advice. so i had made up my mind to go on but to keep my eyelids pinned back, my tongue anchored, and what gray matter i possessed oscillating. remember, i was in no way sure that mr. rogers intended to misuse the public, but i suspected that his coat-sleeves contained more things than his shirt-cuffs, and that he was playing a game other than the one he let me see. up to now mr. rogers and william rockefeller had kept me between the people and their legal responsibility by having all public statements made over my signature. i had half-way concluded that this was done to avoid future accounting, but there might be other reasons. i determined when it came to the flotation, which would be the first time they took openly the public's money, to connect them publicly with my statements. it is next to impossible for any man to sit in front of henry h. rogers and give one reason for his actions and have another about his person; but this was a desperate situation and i resolved at any cost to carry my point. how difficult a task i had undertaken i did not realize until i was well into it. when i had stated the form i thought amalgamated's first announcement should have, mr. rogers paused. he repeated: "the city bank--that's a question. now, how do you propose to go about that advertisement?" "simply this way," i replied. "i will draw up a memorandum of the main strong points about the amalgamated company, and you will ask mr. stillman to have some of his people write them into a good, clear statement. this we will publish as an advertisement over the bank's signature, and have the amalgamated company indorse it, showing that it is joined with the bank in responsibility for the truth of the announcement." mr. rogers said nothing, but continued to gaze inquiringly at me. i went on: "or, the amalgamated company can be the principal and the bank the indorser." "just what is the bank to say in this statement?" he asked very seriously. "the big things about our enterprise that i have been telling the public. we will put them forward in an old-fashioned, unequivocal way--that should accomplish what we want," i replied. he was looking at me in a curiously searching manner as i spoke. he said: "let us have the strongest one or two as an illustration." "well, for instance, what i have advertised so often, that this stock is so good the 'standard oil' people who formerly owned the property behind it would prefer to own all the stock and hold it as a permanent investment, but that the enterprise is so large their interests will be better served by letting the public in than going it alone. you and i know that's true. also that the company is earning sixteen per cent. and will always pay eight per cent. or over. something to that effect." "do you suppose, lawson," said mr. rogers, straightening up and speaking very impatiently, "that the public will swallow any statement of that kind? just think it over--william rockefeller, james stillman, and myself, to say nothing of others, openly spending our money for advertisements to induce tom, dick, and harry to buy stock at par which we know is earning sixteen per cent. and will always pay eight!" "why not?" i responded. "i have practically stated the same thing scores of times as your agent, until, so far as the public is concerned, my telling it is the same as though 'standard oil' had said it." "well and good," mr. rogers went on dryly. "but, lawson, you know there's a heap of real difference between your telling it and our putting it over our signature." i well knew the difference, but i had my point to make; so i said: "all right. let the city bank and mr. stillman put it their own way." "lawson, that's foolish," mr. rogers returned. "they must not be allowed to have anything to do with it save to o. k. what we are to advertise over their signature. stillman would never agree to our using the city bank to hawk any stock but a gilt-edged one." "isn't this a gilt-edged one?" mr. rogers glared at me. "why waste time and words over a matter that you know as well as i must be handled very, very gingerly? it is not because it is not gilt-edged, but because of the peculiar situation of it. the public thinks this stock which is to be offered to it belongs to the amalgamated company, and that the city bank is selling it for the amalgamated treasury just as in any of the ordinary first-class issues they offer for subscription; whereas we know that the stock belongs to us and the bank is selling it for our profit. if the public suspected that this stock was ours, and that we were not going to subscribe on the same basis as themselves, it would demand to know what we paid for it, and if we didn't tell, it would be figured out as a clear case of false representation. where would that leave us? mr. rockefeller, myself, the bank, and stillman would be held for every cent of the capital forever. we cannot put our heads into any such halter." "i cannot see why not," i expostulated. "you and i know there is no more chance of loss than if we were dealing in the city bank's own stock, because of the way we are handling the deal, selling only $5,000,000 to the public, and standing behind every dollar of that, all possible risk is eliminated." "call all that true," angrily replied mr. rogers, "and you don't alter the fact that such a scheme as you map out _is impossible_. you must get to work and figure out some plan which is practical." "i knew that we should find this a difficult matter to get right," i said. "now, what is your idea of how it should be gone about?" this time the burden of explanation was fairly upon mr. rogers, and i waited his answer expectantly. he replied, in much milder tones: "there is no real difference between us, lawson, except that you don't seem to realize the actual position we are in. we are going to do what is fair and right in this enterprise--indeed, there is no necessity for anything else--but we must not put the bank or ourselves in such a place that either or both of us can be held legally responsible for anything that happens in connection with this company. you must keep in mind sterling's words, that the thing is risky enough anyway, and that even under the best circumstances and conditions we may find ourselves in a hole. exactly how to do it i have not figured out, but the city bank must appear as offering the subscriptions, and the amalgamated company as owning the stock, and simultaneously some one else must tell all about the advantages. unless this latter is very fully done, the public will not only refuse to subscribe, but will get suspicious, and there might be a big scandal. it seems to me as though this part of the job is yours to do, and to do just right." so far in our argument we were even. we eyed each other as fighters do in a ring--looking for an opening. both sparred for an idea. mr. rogers' reluctance to shoulder any legal responsibility deepened my suspicions, and inwardly i sweated blood at the thought of the deviltry that might be piled up around the affair. however, there was nothing for it but to square away and keep sparring, for if i lost my temper and exploded, it meant that i should be ground up or disappear in the hopper, and then, good-by to independence. it was the first time i had ever sat in a finish game with the master of "standard oil," and i trembled at the possible outcome. yet this duel--for it was as clearly a fight for life on my side as though we both were armed with deadly weapons--was but one of a thousand similar encounters the rogerses and rockefellers had had with other adversaries as fearless and as honest as i, and out of these heart-breaking and soul-crushing sit-downs they had always emerged survivors, while behind the "standard oil" juggernaut, defeated and submissive, trudged the men who had dared oppose them. should the fate of these others be also mine? across my mind flitted "not while my brain retains its fly-wheels and my hands their power"; and i found myself wondering if there were not some stage at which a man cornered by arbitrary conditions and legal observances was justified in bursting all such trammels and meeting artifice with physical violence. murder is a crime against society and against nature, and we must all observe the canons of god and the regulations of the law; but at least a dozen times in my wrestles with the exasperating, grinding, hell-generating machine, it was only my inborn reverence for god's law and man's that prevented me from--well, shall i say, strangling the fox? all this, however, was between me and my mind. i showed not a vestige of it on the surface, but went on with much earnestness: "mr. rogers, i think i understand the situation perfectly, but let us see if i do. we have reached a point where we are out in the open, and the whole world is in position to pass judgment on us and our venture. there must be between us unanimity of purpose, for the time is past when i can say one thing, you another, and stillman and his bank confuse all concerned by agreeing with one story and denying the second. it is essential that we all pull together, yet conditions are such--and no one's to blame for them, for they have so developed--that we cannot have a general pow-wow to organize a programme. we, you and i, must formulate a plan which can be sent out to the public with the approval of all concerned, all the parties to it being sure they understand absolutely its meaning, while in reality it means something different to each of them. isn't that about it?" "you have covered the situation fully, lawson," approved mr. rogers. "you must understand that this tie-up is due to our having departed from our usual way of doing business. 'standard oil' never goes to the public direct for money, but works up its projects through some of our"--he almost said "dummies," but caught himself--"our lieutenants. you have worked up this affair in our name instead of your own, as would have been the safer way." i thought to myself, "you cannot, whatever you do, evade responsibility for the millions you are to take this time"; but i went on smoothly: "this, then, is how i see our procedure: we will write out an advertisement for the city bank. you will have mr. stillman pass it for the bank, by authorizing me to publish it. you will then authorize me to publish a second advertisement on behalf of the amalgamated company. if there is any slip-up, i, as the agent of both, will have to become responsible instead of you. is that right?" he nodded. i went on: "besides these, there must be a third advertisement, in which some one will tell the strong facts about amalgamated, and it will be so worded as to bring the public with its money into the city bank just the same as though it were signed by the bank, stillman, the amalgamated company, and you and mr. rockefeller. what's the use of beating round the bush any longer? the one to sign that story and stand behind it is myself, because, owing to conditions, no one else will." i had said it. mr. rogers' eyes snapped just once. only on two other occasions in all my long and intimate acquaintance with this wonderful man have i seen him lose his self-control. to anger he will give way frankly if the occasion justifies it or he desires to intimidate or impress an individual; but his face, mobile though it is, presents a calm and impassive mask. i caught the snap, and i think he caught me catching it. it meant much to me--more even than if he had said in so many words "i've got him." in such encounters one cannot see into one's adversary's mind nor know what he is trying to do, and any indication is like the sight of a buoy in a fog to a mariner. i gathered that the snap indicated relief at my compliance, and that he had been afraid i might balk. that showed me that consent on my part was important--which meant that he saw no possible way of carrying the enterprise to the end we had mapped out unless i stepped into the gap. then i knew that he would have to agree to my terms, provided they were not too harsh and that i did not too vehemently insist upon them. it is a cardinal principle of "standard oil" never to do anything they decide they won't do, and that which they decide they won't do is what any man on earth says they must do. you may lead "standard oil," but you cannot drive it. if at that critical moment i had foreseen all that subsequently occurred, or realized that this copper affair, which was to me a matter of life and death, was to henry h. rogers only another device to extort dollars from the public, i should then and there have thrown down the gauntlet and demanded that "standard oil" step out into the open and assume all legal responsibility, or have exposed the whole scheme. but my suspicions were suspicions only, and i could not be sure that mr. rogers was doing other than discretion warranted, when he desired to have things done in such a way as to allow me to continue to conjure with the magic name "standard oil." in other words, wasn't he doing exactly what i myself was engaged upon? i was planning to have him consent to things he was otherwise unwilling to allow, and he, in his turn, was scheming to have the bank and his "standard oil" associates pass over things they would be sure to question if presented less adroitly, or if they came from some other quarter. yet all i was trying to accomplish was honest and best for all. why might not his intentions be as fair as mine? however, the eye-snap determined me to steer nearer the wind. "well and good, mr. rogers," i went on. "i will tell the story i know is true and that you know is true, and that you have repeatedly given me your word you would stand by me in telling, but i will only do so in a way i deem safe and fair to myself. is that agreed?" he winced a bit. "what do you mean by that?" he said. "what do you mean by a 'way safe and fair' to yourself? you are not suspicious of any of us, are you?" "suspicious is not the word, mr. rogers. i brought you and mr. rockefeller this copper enterprise. we have gone ahead with it upon clearly laid down lines. i have done to the letter all i agreed, and, so far, the enterprise has more than fulfilled my promises. i realize that our success has largely come from our going to the public and openly telling it what we were doing and what we intended to do. until now, i am the one who has made all the promises, and, legally, up to this point, i am the only one who can be called to account, but it is the fact that for any statement i have made, you and mr. rockefeller have been as much responsible as myself, and you as much or more than i have had the benefit which has come from what i have promised. now we are ready for business with the public, and there must be a clear and distinct understanding with it or it will not part with its money. this understanding can have but one bearing--_that what the public read, we must all be responsible for legally and morally, not some of us, but all of us, you, mr. rockefeller, the city bank, james stillman, and myself_. for bear in mind it was you and mr. rockefeller who changed my plans by substituting companies and properties of which i knew nothing but what you told me. all the things we ought to tell, you say cannot be put into words, because if they are powers beyond us will refuse to allow the enterprise to go through as it must go through. then the condition must be implied, must be between the lines. you say this is my task, and that i alone can perform it properly. all right--but i will perform it in a way that will hold every one concerned to his legal as well as to his moral responsibility just as it will me who sign it. to save our enterprise i will concede just this much: the advertisements will be so worded as not apparently legally to involve stillman, william rockefeller, or the bank but in reality they will be bound to as strict responsibility as though their signatures were in the place of mine. in doing this i compromise with my conscience, mr. rogers, because it is now of paramount importance that our consolidation go through--as important to the thousands of others who have followed us as to ourselves." "you mean this, lawson, that you will insist upon having this done in a way that will make every one legally responsible?" "i mean just that, mr. rogers. in what other way can it be done?" "as all such affairs are arranged--by allowing the public to think for themselves--but steering our end clear of all possible legal entanglements," he replied in a voice half choked with suppressed rage. now we were both thoroughly aroused, he fairly seething with fury at my rebellion, and i boiling over at his willingness to sacrifice me to his own safety. by this time he was on his feet facing me, and it was evident the tussle would be serious. still i slowly and coldly asked: "how can that be done?" "by _your_ taking the responsibility," he as slowly and freezingly answered. "you mean that _i_ shall go ahead and make glowing and generous promises, on the strength of which the public will put up its money, and that if these promises for any reason are not carried out, i alone shall be the one to face the music? is that what you mean, mr. rogers?" i held myself together, with closed hands and clinched teeth. "just that," he returned. "you are making millions out of this enterprise, and i consider this is one of the places where you earn them." "not if every one of the millions you mention were multiplied a thousand times, mr. rogers, do i say one word to the public to induce it to part with its money--not a word that will not hold you and mr. rockefeller, stillman, and the city bank to a full responsibility--not if, on the other hand, i become a pauper." it was out. i know that the deadly earnestness i felt was in my voice, for though i spoke in a low tone i thought my head would burst until the last word was spoken. we looked at each other--glared is not the word to define that white-hot yet frozen, "another-step-and-i-shoot" look which of all expressions of which the human face is capable is most intense and dangerous. i did not flinch. i did not know what he would do, but i saw my words impressing on his mind the absolute conviction that for once he was face to face with a resolution no power of his could alter. slowly his anger, his will, seemed to subside, but as they did i was aware intuitively that he had changed tactics and was coming at me from another direction. in an instant his whole being seemed to relax and he dropped into a chair with a sigh of relief as he said: "all right, lawson. you've thought it out, i see. you are making a bad mistake, but as your mind is made up, i can do the only thing left to do--call the whole business off for the time being." i had not served as mr. rogers' pike-carrier in vain. superb actor though he is, i saw his bluff, and quick as a hair-trigger called it. "is that your decision, mr. rogers?" i asked, almost before the last word was out of his mouth. i did not attempt to shade the "if-it-is-i'm-off" tone of my voice. he replied slowly and naturally, as though he were taking his decision right off the scales: "yes, i think so." "then we will call it off for good. i've hung so long by the heels on this whole matter that anything is better than a further wait. i'm for boston on the next train, and by to-morrow i'll have figured out where we stand." i started for the door. "just a minute." his voice was as indifferent as though no tremendous issue were at stake, for henry h. rogers is of the iron-willed breed whom peril never betrays into trepidation. he would throw dice for his life as casually as one of your wall street tipsters would for a cigar, and here reputation and millions were in the balance. i knew as well as though i had seen the message telegraphed across his mind that he had said to himself, "it didn't work, i must round to," but i knew my man well enough to realize that a false move now would tip victory back into defeat. i halted. as naturally as though there had been no calculation in the tone of resigned despair which tinged my voice, i said: "mr. rogers, don't let us prolong this talk. you well know what this decision of yours means to me, so let me go where i can think it to a finish." in an instant henry h. rogers was again his virile and commanding self. he jumped to his feet. his words came round and tense, passionately convincing and persuasive. "lawson, are you crazy? would you go back to boston and smash this business that we have spent years on? would you sacrifice the millions that are in your grasp? would you? would you, i say? you know i would not threaten you, but i ask, would you do this, and at a time when you are all tied and tangled up with us in such a way that you would be bankrupt, literally be a pauper, and all because i insist upon things that conditions over which i have no control compel me to demand?" whether he intended to halt or not i never knew, for i let him have my pent-up feelings in eleven words that gave me as much relief as any thousand i could have selected had i a day to do it in: "as true as there is a god above us, i would!" chapter xxii the responsibility fastened life's alternatives are seldom labelled. right is not always white, nor wrong, black. the parting of the ways is oftentimes to the eye no more than the forking of main-travelled roads, and good intentions are no sure guide to the straight path. this, however, was one of those rare crossings at which fate's red light swung full in view, and in its warning glow i seemed to read the sign: "settle right or forever regret." well it was for me and for those thousands who were victimized and robbed later that i heeded the monition, for if in the interests of peace i had allowed myself to be overwhelmed by the imperious will of henry h. rogers, i should to-day be as helpless as those others who, coming forward to accuse, are met with "standard oil's" crushing rejoinder, "it's a lie--you can't prove it." i have wondered since if the master of "standard oil" also saw the red signal or interpreted its prophetic message. his eyes still met mine in the same deadly, intense stare, but the anger had passed out. then in an instant the battle was mine. henry h. rogers came out of the clouds and with a gesture of his hand waved away all that had passed, and said: "d--n it, lawson, you are a most impractical man to do business with, but i suppose you must have your way. now just tell me--and put it in few and plain words--what is it you intend to do to get this affair through, for we must carry it to a finish at once, although it does seem hard that i must do things i don't want to and which may put me in a bad hole; but let us hope the future will only show that all these precautions were a waste of energies. bear in mind, though, that whatever is done, must be so arranged that no one but me will know the real condition, for though i have given way, william rockefeller and stillman, to say nothing of the others, would throw up the whole affair rather than incur the danger of future litigation and trouble." at that moment mr. rogers had, i believe, made up his mind to play so fair with the public that there should never arise dissatisfaction with the course of amalgamated, that is, he had determined to be content with a half brick of gold without retribution or restitution in place of the whole fraught with penalties of exposure and reprobation. at that period his cupidity had not flared into the towers of fire it afterward became, in the smoke and flame of which all undefined dangers were obscured. "as you will, mr. rogers," i assented; "that part is not my hunt. i should prefer that our associates knew things as _we_ do, but as it seems that is impossible, i must be satisfied with knowing that you thoroughly understand the conditions i am going ahead on. here they are: first, all public notices must bear the names not only of the amalgamated company and the city bank, but of the individuals, rockefeller, rogers, and stillman. as the real story is to be told by me alone, these names will prevent any suspicion the public, particularly wall street, would have that there was any lukewarmness or dodging. this means that you and mr. rockefeller must be known as officers of the company as well as directors." "now, lawson, right there, that is impossible--absolutely out of the question. william rockefeller will under no circumstances take on additional duties of this kind, and whatever the consequences, i cannot persuade him to." i saw he meant this, and that we must get around it. "let us begin at the beginning, then--the president. you should be president--over the flotation, at least." "that is impossible, too, for you know it is settled that marcus daly is president. i promised the position to him as a part of the trade. it would be ridiculous for me, who it is known am not a copper expert, to be president of a new copper company in which marcus daly is a large owner and is supposed to have a prominent hand. besides, in certain parts of the country his name will stand much better than mine, and it means much to all miners the world over." "all right for president," i answered. "that settles, then, where you would naturally come in--vice-president; and as vice-president it will be proper to print your name in the advertisement below that of the president." he demurred at first, but finally acquiesced, for he had now made up his mind to play out the string. for treasurer and secretary he suggested a brother of governor flower's, but i knew that this was now the only place left where the magic name of rockefeller could be used and i drew his attention to the fact. "how can we do it, lawson, when i have told you it is impossible?" "william rockefeller has a son, william g. rockefeller. he's our man for treasurer and secretary. not one in ten thousand but will think william g. is the senior rockefeller, so the name is as good for the country as his father's, and in state and wall streets it is better, for among financiers it is known that william rockefeller would hesitate longer about putting his son out in the open in an enterprise he did not approve than about getting in himself. so william g. rockefeller it must be." mr. rogers did not take kindly to the idea, and i could see it would be quite a task for him to arrange the matter. however, it was necessary, and he undertook the contract. i went on: "that covers the company. second, we will print three advertisements--a plain notice of the city bank, which must be signed not only with the usual 'national city bank,' but 'james stillman, president.' this will immediately follow the company's advertisement, which i shall so word that the enormous properties composing the consolidation will be set forth, yet without details of the extent of our holdings in any of them. in its own advertisement offering the stock the city bank will refer to the advertisement of the amalgamated as though all particulars had there been given, and i will see that it reads openly and frankly and yet contains nothing that need scare stillman. then there will be a third advertisement, signed by myself, in which, in the plainest and strongest terms at my command, i shall tell just what the company is and what it proposes to do." "so far all right," assented mr. rogers. "there is one more thing," i went on. "it cannot openly be put forward that i am the authorized agent of the amalgamated company and the city bank--well, i must have the equivalent of this. it must be shown by inference. if i insert these three advertisements in the papers and pay for them, and the company pays me for them, it will be proof positive for all time that i acted as the authorized agent of not only the company and the city bank, but of marcus daly, yourself, william rockefeller's son, and james stillman, and therefore that whatever my advertisement says is binding upon them. remember, though, it will be your affair whether you tell them of it or not." "you persist, lawson, that this is necessary?" mr. rogers interrogated. "you seem to lose sight of the position i shall be in should anything happen later to reveal to these men with whom i am so closely associated in business that they were binding themselves without their knowledge, and that i was fully aware of the fact." [illustration: lawson's advertisement which appeared in conjunction with amalgamated's. =coppers.= =amalgamated subscription.= owing to the very large number of inquiries (over 3,000 the first day), received and anticipated, as to the best means of securing an allotment of the first issue of the consolidated stock, it is necessary to reply collectively by this advertisement. i advise the purchase of amalgamated by subscription, because it is, in my opinion, the best opportunity ever offered the public for safe and profitable investment. it is probably the first time in the history of public subscriptions that a stock is worth and can be sold for 50 to 75 per cent. more than the subscription price, and yet will be allotted to each and every subscriber in proportion to his application. this means that every one who makes a bona-fide subscription, large or small, will receive shares at one hundred dollars each that can be sold at once at a large profit. in my opinion the entire $75,000,000 is worth and can be sold to-day for from 30 to 60 per cent. more than the subscription price. first--because the assets now owned by the amalgamated company are worth from $100,000,000 to $125,000,000. second--because the amalgamated company is now earning at the rate of 12 to 16 per cent. per annum. third--because it will, from the start and always after, pay 8 per cent. dividends annually. fourth--because the interests actively engaged in its management will make and keep it one of the most conservative and sought-for investments. fifth--because there will be rights attaching to it almost at its beginning that will give to it large profits independent of those accruing from its dividends. the fact that the above values are now known to some, and will be in the next few days recognized by all, will cause the stock to be largely oversubscribed, but this should deter no one from subscribing, for the reason that, notwithstanding this certainty, those who are engaged in perfecting this great enterprise have decided that instead of a favored few being allotted the entire amount, all shall be treated alike. captious critics of "coppers" will probably again cry their sarcastic "philanthropy," but to the legion of broad-minded investors who have followed and profited by this great industrial revolution, the policy of this liberal treatment will be obvious--the consolidated company is to be many times larger than its present capital indicates; it, in my opinion, will from time to time offer to the investing public large amounts of increased stock for the purpose of obtaining hundreds of millions of cash with which to pay for all the producing copper mines, as it is now obvious to students of affairs financial that this company must in time become the owner of all good mines, because all such mines can be run to better advantage to the consumer of copper, the investor in copper stocks and the present owners, by the amalgamated company than by others. this being so it requires no supernaturally bright mind to see the wisdom of a policy that insures a constantly increasing premium for every new issue of stock. i advise all intending subscribers to send their subscriptions personally or through their banking or brokerage house direct to the national city bank of new york. while my firm will, for the convenience of its clients, forward subscriptions, i would have it understood that such subscribers will receive the same treatment if they send their applications direct. my firm will also furnish subscription blanks to those who, through lack of time or otherwise, cannot secure them elsewhere. all subscribers should bear in mind, if on receiving their allotment they are disappointed with the amount, that their subscription is only reduced in the same ratio as all others, and that they have the pledge from a board of directors whose personnel means good faith. in again advising the purchase of "amalgamated" i call attention to the names of the men who are to conduct it to a future, and to the fact that from its inception it will surely give a return of over 8 per cent. per annum on its par. thomas w. lawson.] "absolutely necessary, mr. rogers," i returned without an instant's hesitation. "now let us run over the situation finally, for i want to relieve your mind of the idea that i am doing anything selfish in insisting on these conditions. when the public subscription is offered, there must be a story of facts to go with it. some one must make it. the men who should, will not, although they are prepared to reap all the benefits of what the man who will, says. it seems i am that man, and what i say must be what i understand is the exact truth about the enterprise. well and good. it is essential for the one who assumes this responsibility to do it in such a way that he can for all time show that the men who benefited and upon whose say-so he acted were in every way responsible for what he did. all this is undeniable. there are only two possible considerations that enter into the problem: first, that the facts i am to state are not true; second, that it devolves on me to accept a risk those associated with me will not take. if the first can be maintained, farewell to our enterprise, and get ready for the worst financial scandal wall street ever faced. if it's the last--mr. rogers, the 'standard oil' people are all very strong, but i don't believe any of them would have the nerve to ask me to accept a risk they dared not themselves undertake." there was no escaping my conclusion, and unwelcome as the fact was, he saw no further talk would avail, so he snapped: "draw up the advertisements you think proper. have them ready in an hour, and i will in the meantime see william rockefeller and stillman and do what is necessary." i noted the set of henry h. rogers' jaw and the down slant of his eyelid as he uttered these words, and i had no doubt of the compliance of james stillman and william rockefeller with whatever demands he chose to propose that day. "cyclones and thunderbolts! heaven help these or any others who venture to resist him in this mood," i inwardly commented, "especially if they are of those with whom he has travelled the 'standard oil' blood-trail." my imagination showed me a picture of 26 broadway and the national city bank swaying and shaking like full-blown hollyhocks in a gale. i had my advertisements ready and was waiting when he returned. "lawson," said he peremptorily, "if your work will pass me you may go ahead with it." "you mean you have obtained all the consents necessary?" [illustration: initial advertisement of amalgamated copper company. =amalgamated copper co.= =capital................$75,000,000= this company is organized under the laws of the state of new jersey for the purpose of purchasing and operating copper-producing properties. its capital is $75,000,000, divided into 750,000 shares of common stock, of the par value of $100 each. it has no bonds or mortgage debt. this company has already purchased large interests in anaconda copper company, parrott silver and copper company, washoe copper company, colorado smelting and mining company, and other companies and properties. marcus daly, pres., h. h. rogers, vice-pres., wm. g. rockefeller, sec'y and treas. new york, april 28, 1899. =offer for public subscriptions.= referring to the foregoing statement of the amalgamated copper company of new jersey, notice is hereby given that offers for subscription to 750,000 shares of the par value of $100 each of the stock of the said copper company will be received at the national city bank of new york, until 12 o'clock noon, thursday, may 4, 1899, at the rate of $100 per share. subscriptions must be addressed to the said bank and accompanied by a certified check to its order for 5 per cent. of the amount of such subscription, the balance to be payable within 10 days after date of notice of allotment. temporary negotiable receipts on payment of sums due on allotment will be issued exchangeable for certificates of stock, as soon as same can be engraved. in case of oversubscription, allotment will be made pro rata. the right is reserved, however, to reject any subscription. new york, april 28, 1899. national city bank of new york, james stillman, president. =52 wall street, new york.=] "i mean that we will waste no more words on this matter. the advertisements you can convince me are right you may have inserted in the papers, and no one will say a word publicly or otherwise. neither william rockefeller, his son, stillman, the bank nor any officer or director of the amalgamated company will talk until after the subscriptions have been closed and the allotments made; not one word but what you say or print will be uttered. can you ask anything more than that?" "not a thing more." i then laid out the rough copies of what afterward appeared in the papers throughout the country (reproduced on pages 336 and 338). chapter xxiii the first crime of amalgamated that those of my readers who are not versed in stock affairs may appreciate the unusual character of these announcements, it is proper for me to explain their divergence from the form of the average financial advertisement. it is the invariable custom in all stock subscriptions for the corporation which is being offered for sale, or the bank or bankers assuming responsibility for the proposition, to set forth at length the facts essential to a proper understanding of the enterprise: if a new corporation, its reason for existence and the security offered; if old, its history and the immediate purposes for which additional funds are asked. it is the same in finance as in ordinary business. if you are offering for sale goods which cannot speak for themselves, it is necessary that some one talk for them so those who purchase may know what they are receiving for their money. under normal circumstances the initial advertisement of the amalgamated company would have stated the amount of its capital, its organization, and that the proceeds of the $75,000,000 of stock offered for sale were to go into its treasury to purchase designated properties. it will be seen from the amalgamated's advertisement reproduced herewith, that all the information vouchsafed intending investors is mention of its $75,000,000 capital, that it has no bonds or mortgage debt, and that it has already purchased large interests in the anaconda and other copper properties. not a word about indebtedness, equally vital, nor in definition of the extent of the interests owned. it is quite the briefest, most meagre notice of subscription ever placed before the public. indeed, it is informative and specific only in regard to the officers, who are given extraordinary prominence. such announcements are usually signed by the president and the secretary and treasurer, or else the names of all the officers and directors are stated, so it is obvious here that the prominent insertion of the vice-president's name is for a purpose. and all wall street as well as the general public gathered that "standard oil" was so sure of this enterprise that its principal men were anxious to be known as being behind it. the offer of the national city bank begins with a reference to "the foregoing statement," as though that really showed the purpose of the sale of stock--leaving the inference that the beneficiary was the amalgamated company. other details--the designation of conditions of subscription, terms, etc., follow the ordinary form. in the matter of oversubscription the offer diverges vitally. usually it is prescribed that "in case of oversubscription stock will be allotted pro rata and the right is reserved to reject any subscription in whole _or in part_." in preparing the advertisement i purposely left out the "or in part," thereby making it impossible to reject any part of any subscription--in other words, rejection had to be without compromise, so that every subscriber whose subscription was not wholly rejected would stand on equal terms with every other subscriber, as he would receive his exact proportion. the terms of these advertisements prescribed the conditions under which subscriptions for the stock of the amalgamated copper company must be made to the national city bank, and bound the bank to accept subscriptions presented in compliance therewith. in fact they constituted a legal contract binding the national city bank, an institution doing business under the national banking laws of the united states, to allot to every subscriber whose subscription was not rejected in full, his proportionate part of the entire 750,000 shares of the capital stock of the corporation, his proportionate part being the ratio his subscription bore to the entire subscription received at the national city bank before twelve noon of thursday, may 4, 1899. on receipt of official notification from the national city bank that he had been allotted twenty per cent. of his subscription, or one share in every five subscribed for, the subscriber had a right to think he knew that the total subscription to the stock had been five times $75,000,000--$375,000,000--or five times 750,000 shares--3,750,000 shares; and that before noon, may 4th, the national city bank had in hand certified checks to the amount of $18,750,000. the public, including the shrewdest wall streeters, has, since the subscription closed, believed that the subscription totalled the figures given above. indeed no one has ever suspected anything to the contrary, because it was clear that if the allotment was conducted under conditions other than those contracted for in the advertisement, the national city bank had laid itself open to a charge of fraud and was liable to each subscriber for the proportion of shares of which he had been deprived. _the actual amount of the subscriptions received on or before noon, may 4, 1899, at the national city bank was but $132,067,500, and the amount of the five per cent. certified checks received in the institution up to noon was only $6,603,375, or $5 per share on a total of 1,320,675 shares._ the meaning of this is that every legitimate subscriber--and i except the millions of subscriptions which the bank decided were illegitimate and rejected, as they had a perfect right to do under their contract with the public--was defrauded of two shares of each three to which he was entitled. before me as i write is the original allotment of the national city bank to the subscribers, which i propose to print in my second volume as part of this indictment, showing that the figures are exactly as i have stated. from the beginning of my narrative i have claimed that the frauds committed in connection with amalgamated could be completely demonstrated from records outside any evidence of mine. the list of subscribers and the most cursory examination by the government national bank authorities at washington will furnish all the proof necessary to substantiate the accuracy of my statement here. at this juncture i shall not attempt to sum up the bearing or the consequences of this illegal and dishonest act, but it was one of the main cogs in bringing about the disaster that ensued. the conditions which led to its perpetration are narrated later. in passing i may say that while the formation of the amalgamated company by the clerks and office boys (as i have already described it) and the means by which mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller let in their friends to their appointed "floors" were deceptive and outrageous in their double-dealing, and should be prohibited by law, i knew them to be so commonly practised throughout our american financial centres that it never entered my mind to suggest that they were criminal. the infraction i have just explained, however, is a tangible fraud and a very different proposition. the two announcements alone would have had but little efficacy in persuading the public to part with its money for amalgamated stock, but in conjunction with the third advertisement--mine--they proved irresistible. there was nothing equivocal in my announcement. i not only advised the purchase of the stock by subscription on the ground that it was the best opportunity for safe and profitable investment ever offered the people, but asserted that the shares could afterward be sold for fifty to seventy-five per cent. advance on the subscription price, so that every one who obtained a share of amalgamated for $100 was buying something which would subsequently be worth $150 to $200. further i promised that all the subscribers should be treated alike and gave it as my opinion that the whole 750,000 shares could at the time the public was reading my statement be sold for thirty to sixty per cent. more than the subscription price, and declared unqualifiedly that the assets owned by the amalgamated company were worth from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five millions; that the company was then earning from twelve to sixteen per cent. per annum, and that from the start and ever afterward it would pay eight per cent. dividends annually. as i have previously stated, i had no personal knowledge of the conditions in the several properties comprising the first section of amalgamated, but the facts and figures which were put forward in this advertisement were supplied me by henry h. rogers and through him by marcus daly, who vouched for them, and furthermore the three advertisements were carefully read and scanned by mr. rogers himself. if i had not believed them to be true i should not have put them forward nor allowed them to be published, but i accepted them as the public and the financiers did when they read them over the signature of the known agent and mouthpiece for amalgamated and "standard oil," myself. i showed that i believed them by putting my signature to them. i was and am personally responsible for the truth of these statements, but more so are h. h. rogers, william g. rockefeller, the national city bank, and the amalgamated company. even if it had not been a matter of public knowledge that i was the agent of the city bank and the amalgamated company and the "standard oil" party; if it had not been a fact, as it was, that i inserted these three advertisements by agreement with those who were responsible for them and who were doing business directly with the public; if it had not been a fact that these people through me paid for these advertisements, thereby directly showing i was their authorized agent; if i had not taken the precaution to see that such payment was made by a check signed by william g. rockefeller, treasurer of the amalgamated company, and yet made to the order of the newspaper people and handed by me to them, thereby clinching my agency, nevertheless the advertisement itself would have made it clear that i was the full and authorized agent, or it would have been stopped there and then and the bank and the company would have refused to proceed further, for i say: "i advise all intending subscribers to send their subscriptions personally or through their banking or brokerage house direct to the national city bank of new york. while my firm will, for the convenience of its clients, forward subscriptions, i would have it understood that such subscribers will receive the same treatment if they send their applications direct. "my firm will also furnish subscription blanks to those who, through lack of time or otherwise, cannot secure them elsewhere." i think i have made clear so far the conditions under which these vital statements were put forward and have lodged the legal responsibility for them where it belongs. the national city bank is plainly liable for violation of the published stipulations under which subscriptions were allotted, and it is common knowledge that the stock was allotted one share in five subscribed for, while the original list of subscriptions shows that the total allotment was less than twenty-seven millions and the full subscription less than double the amount to be allotted. it is common knowledge that the dividends were cut to two per cent., and are at the present time, the best ever known in the copper business, only four per cent., and that they have been cut under eight per cent., so they either could not have been twelve to sixteen per cent. at the time it was stated they were, or there has been great fraud committed since. as we are dealing with the greatest national bank in the country, it will be simple for the government and banking officials at washington instantly to disprove my statements if they are false; otherwise they must take action, civil and criminal, against the national city bank. chapter xxiv the subscription opens when mr. rogers on returning from his conference with james stillman and william rockefeller had given the word that the course was clear, i was conscious of the necessity of clinching the decision so that there could be no further backing and filling. i told mr. rogers so and suggested that we insert at once the advertisement of the city bank and the amalgamated company in the new york papers, and that the following day i have arrangements concluded with my advertising agents for their publication throughout the country. the announcements appeared in new york and the following day they were spread before the public in the great papers of this country and england. thus was amalgamated launched. with the appearance of these long anticipated announcements the pent-up copper excitement burst forth, and an avalanche of queries began to pour in upon us all. the interest was tremendous, and i felt certain we were to reap a greater success than i had dared dream of. the days preceding the opening of the subscription were taken up in answering a thousand questions regarding conditions, in supervising the advertising, and steering "coppers" in the market. on the eve of the opening day mr. rogers said to me: "lawson, at last we are to know how well your work has been done. the time of talk ends to-night and after that we'll have facts to go upon. what do you place the subscription at?" "i'll stake my prospective profits that when the books close there will be from forty to fifty millions subscribed and that when your 'standard oil' experts have analyzed the subscriptions they will tell you that three-quarters of all have come from the country--from my campaign--and not over a quarter from the 'standard oil's' following and wall street," i answered. "then you and mr. rockefeller will admit i was right when i told you that the public will respond to open and fair treatment when it is deaf and blind to stock trickery and manipulation." "i do hope you are right," returned mr. rogers, in a quiet, earnest, i-pray-it-may-really-be-so tone, "but if it is from six to ten millions we will all take off our hats to you." this defined the expectation of the man who above all others knew most of what had been done to mature and perfect the venture. i realized that none of the parties to the enterprise anticipated an extraordinary success, and though i felt more confident than the others, i was far from cognizant of the actual feeling abroad among the people. monday morning i got an inkling of what was coming. my office in boston was the centre of a dense mass of people from morning until night, and round the national city bank in new york crowds were gathered watching the throng fight its way through the doors. inside, a long line of men and women headed for the subscription desk stood laden with checks and currency, patiently awaiting their turn, and every mail brought sacks of orders. the big banking and brokerage offices in the financial districts of boston, philadelphia, and new york were packed with customers asking to be shown the way to secure as much as possible of this easy money, while the wires buzzed with messages and bids from the far west and from europe. the excitement knew no bounds. in my rooms at the waldorf i sat beside the telephone getting rapid reports from my lieutenants. from 26 broadway i learned of the progress of events at the bank, and was impressed with the fact that the prevailing excitement and the strain were beginning to affect even the nickel-steel equilibrium of mr. rogers himself. indeed, he made no attempt to disguise his uneasiness, and told me that william rockefeller was in much the same condition. it was the first venture of size these two strong wheelmen of "standard oil" had undertaken without the co-operation of john d. rockefeller, and it appeared that he was considerably worked up over the public hubbub, and so opposed to the whole amalgamated affair that nothing short of a great success could justify his subordinates' temerity. however one looked at the situation, it was evident that henry h. rogers and william rockefeller were playing for the stake of their lives, though how great the stake was no one at that time guessed. since then they have steadily forged ahead, both in riches and in influence, until to-day they have actually supplanted john d. rockefeller in the kingship of finance. at that day, though his had always been the master-mind of "standard oil," i don't believe mr. rogers was worth, all told, over twelve to fifteen millions, while to-day he is probably a hundred and fifty times a millionnaire. it must be remembered that there was good cause for trepidation over this venture, for though the stock markets buzzed with "coppers" it was all guesswork as to how far the public would go with us. the question was, what would they do now that our stock was within their reach? it was a tremendous proposition we had put forth, for remember this was before the period of the great trustifications, and ten to twenty millions figured as the limit of large flotations. even these were of well-known properties and invariably were offered below par. to come into the open, offering at $100 a share a brand-new stock capitalized at $75,000,000, was breaking the record, and we might well wonder what was before us. so far as man could do i had safeguarded the public and my own reputation, and believed that the assurances i had secured eliminated all opportunities of fleecing investors. mr. rogers and mr. rockefeller had each pledged me his solemn word, under no circumstances to sell to subscribers over five million dollars of the stock, and to place at my disposal the five millions cash received, to use in the open market for the purpose of protecting the stock so that it should never decline below par. that this promise should be kept was of the utmost consequence. while "standard oil" held the large majority of the amalgamated stock and the public but a small minority, there was no danger of the latter being slaughtered, whereas if the public was loaded up with stock at $100 per share, it would be profitable for rogers, rockefeller, and stillman to practise the method i was fast beginning to see was their favorite device for accumulating wealth--selling stock and then dropping its price and taking it away from its holders at twenty-five to fifty per cent. below what they had purchased it at. if my plan of guarding against this possibility were adhered to, i knew that there would be such a demand for the shares in the open market after the allotment that when the second section of seventy-five or one hundred millions came to be offered, it would be even more eagerly sought than the first. so with the third and other sections contemplated, until in time the whole stock would be distributed among the investors of the world, and assuming that part of our enormous profits would always be used to keep up its market price, there could be no possible decline. thus amalgamated, like "standard oil" or a government bond, must always be worth more than par, first because there would be value to justify it, and second because its holders would have absolute confidence that the security could always be sold for as much or more than they had paid for it. so far, i had carefully refrained from discussing with mr. rogers how we should go about securing our part of the subscription. i had not forgotten it. indeed, i had it well in mind and was ready to enter upon the matter when it came up. an iron-bound contract held the amalgamated company and the national city bank over the signatures of a rogers, a rockefeller, and a stillman to allow the public to subscribe for $75,000,000 of stock, and the terms were that every subscription must be in the bank at noon, may 4th, and that each subscription must be accompanied by a certified check of $5 for every share applied for. _as we had agreed that the public should be sold but five millions of the stock, that meant that we proposed to retain seventy millions of it ourselves, but to obtain this allotment legally, we must comply with the conditions of the advertisement exactly as outsiders had. so it was necessary that we have a bid in before noon on thursday for our seventy millions, accompanied by a check for_ $3,500,000, _which would secure us our quota provided the public subscription was no more than five millions._ if the public subscription ran over five millions, then the bank must throw out all additional subscriptions over that amount, for the advertised contract specifically declared that all accepted subscriptions would be allowed pro rata. by my suppression of the usual condition that the bank reserve the right to reject any part of any subscription, it was absolutely precluded from the common method of dealing with such an emergency and so could not reject _parts_ of subscriptions. there was a way out--without practising fraud. if at noon on thursday the public had subscribed ten or fifteen millions then the insiders must put in bids of $140,000,000 to $210,000,000, in which event the entire subscription would be divided by allotting each subscriber one share for every two or three subscribed. i presumed then that some such method would be followed. it surprised me at the time that mr. rogers should have given so little attention to so vital a part of our programme, for he is in the habit of thoughtfully thumbing over just such details to avoid slip-ups, but the idea that our subscription would run into unwieldy amounts never occurred to him, and he let things go, trusting to luck and "standard oil's" motto "to hell with the people anyway," to adjust the matter at the last moment. to-day henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, and james stillman would each give five millions from his private fortune if this seemingly unimportant detail had then been provided for. its neglect is the bloody finger-print on the knife-handle of the murderer, it is the burglar's footprint in the snow. in this case it furnishes the evidence of the crime of amalgamated. chapter xxv dollar hydrophobia our first fears of failure were soon succeeded by apprehensions of a different nature. by tuesday noon it was evident that the flotation would far exceed the low expectations of rogers and rockefeller, and i knew that if the people's interest continued to develop at the rate the subscriptions indicated, the totals would be far ahead of my own most sanguine anticipations. every hour the excitement intensified. the crowds on the street and in the brokers' offices; the rush of investors to the city bank--all demonstrated a feverish condition of the public mind, a state of unrest that fills the conservative banker with dread lest something happen to precipitate a disorder and a panic. the acute sensitiveness of a body of investors to extraneous influence, however slight, is familiar to any one who has had to do with market manipulation. in a theatre or church one strenuous spirit can quell a tumult with some ringing assurance, but long before the leader of a financial movement has got word to his following, wide-spread over the country, it has taken alarm, the rout has begun, and the field is strewn with corpses. a great financial excitement, like a rocket, should soar triumphantly into the air, leaving behind it a comet-like trail of glory, climaxing in a shower of gold; diverted from its course, it runs a mad, brief, tragic career along the earth, spreading ruin and disaster in its path. there comes a time when all great enterprises must emerge from the nursery and be exposed to the sunlight and the breezes of every day. we were crossing the ominous tract which divides the trenches of preparation from the sheltering fortress of attainment, and the hosts of failure were rallied to dispute our passage. at this juncture any accident to our venture might affect the whole american business fabric, and no one realized the danger of the situation better than mr. rogers and myself. during the anxious days that were passing we canvassed the dire possibilities that the situation contained, just as children tell each other ghost stories when left alone in the darkness of the night. the great catastrophes of finance, we remembered, had all been born of the unexpected--of unforeseen contingencies--far beyond the range of human foresight. who knew but that the hours were pregnant with some terrible potentiality--the assassination of a king or president, a chicago or boston fire, an epidemic of cholera, a belligerent message from the president, such as cleveland's venezuela ultimatum, a great bank defalcation, the suicide of an important operator, the death of an eminent capitalist--a breath of one of these world cyclones would crumble our structure into the dust and take along with it the neighboring edifices on both sides of the street. there were also the hidden possibilities of betrayal, of treachery, for we knew that scores of wall street's most ingenious minds were bent on unravelling and exposing the secret threads of our enterprise. on wednesday morning soon after ten o'clock mr. rogers, on his way downtown, came to the waldorf. he was plainly excited. "lawson," he said, "this is something unheard of, unprecedented. the bank is being buried under subscriptions. stillman says he is adding scores of clerks, but that he cannot possibly keep pace with the subscriptions. mr. rockefeller is very nervous, and i must confess to feeling a bit of 'rattle' myself. it now looks as though the total would run into fabulous figures. the lewisohns are being swamped with orders from europe. they alone will probably put in more than ten millions. wall street has lost its head entirely, and our people at 26 broadway are coming in asking advice and doubling and trebling their subscriptions. if we don't keep our heads something bad may happen, for it looks now as though the cash the subscription is tying up would make a money-pinch. this affair must not be allowed to run away with us. what do your reports from boston and the country show?" "the same as yours. the people have simply gone wild. calls come in ceaselessly to me from wall street men. the hotel is so full of brokers from out of town that they are placing cots in the big rooms. i went down into the office just now to talk to them and was nearly mobbed. already they are talking of a premium of $40 to $60 per share, but if we keep to the line we have laid down, i don't think we need fear bad consequences." we discussed other aspects of the affair, the intense interest developed in europe, and the effect of the excitement on the price of the metal. as he started to go down to his office, mr. rogers said, as though by way of an after-thought: "lawson, if the people are so hungry, why should we not take some advantage of it?" the suggestion, with all it implied, stunned me for a second. "what do you mean, mr. rogers? take advantage--how?" "would it not be well to let the subscribers have more than the amount we agreed? why not take more of this money than five millions?" this was out of a clear sky, for there had not been the slightest suggestion of a change of programme and i had rested in the certainty that our plan insured the safety of all who had gone in on my say-so. i choked down my excitement. "good god, mr. rogers, are you mad?" i exclaimed. "don't let us depart a hair from what we all in our cool moments decided was best. we are in the field now. it would be sure ruin to try any new schemes at this moment." "you are rattled yourself, lawson. there's no need for excitement. i merely offered the suggestion. everything is going well," he reassured me, but the picture his words conjured before my mind disturbed me all day. that he would dare do what he had suggested i did not credit, for the assurances i had were too solemn to allow me to believe such treachery could be meditated. nevertheless i brooded over the matter, and late in the afternoon ran down to 26 broadway, ostensibly to hear the latest news from the bank, but really to try if i could not look into mr. rogers' head and see if the imps i had sighted early in the day were still there. mr. rogers was over with stillman at the bank. in half an hour he came in, and the excitement he labored under was plainly evident in his face. "lawson," he said, "no one has ever seen anything like this before. stillman is bewildered. he says it looks as though by to-morrow there will be a mob around the bank doors, and if between now and then anything unusual should happen, there'll be the devil to pay sure. i tell you i'm so tired out that i'm going home now to rest up." together we went uptown on the elevated, and when i left him at thirty-third street to cross over to my hotel, somehow the dark forebodings of the morning had been lulled by his frank geniality and carried away by his enthusiastic rejoicings in the success of our enterprise. the picture of that soft spring evening hangs in my memory's gallery--the declining sun seen through a long perspective of gilded brick and brownstone façades, the heavy rumble of trains, the clamor of newsboys crying last editions, the packed cable-cars slowly threading their way amid the hurrying crowds of clerks and shop girls streaming homeward, the cabs swinging in and out of the throng, through whose windows i caught glimpses of jewels on bare shoulders, light silks, and sweeping plumes--the butterflies of fashion or folly hurrying out on their evening trysts. broadway, with its hundreds of sights and sounds, was before me in the hour of its transformation, the street lamps breaking into incandescence, and the huge electric signs beginning to glare above the theatre entrances. by the time i reached the waldorf, that high abode of yankee royalty, the kinks and curlicues were so far ironed from my nerves and brain that i had little doubt of my ability to take a fall out of fate in whatever sort of collar-and-elbow tussle she might designate. in this mood i swung into the huge hotel through the carriage entrance on thirty-fourth street, eager to forget myself amid the rapt concourse of dollar worshippers, preening themselves against the plush, onyx, and gildings of the astor caravansary. i seemed to see in the mirrors, on the walls, on the buttons of the lackeys' livery, in the patterns of the rugs, inscribed on the tessellated floors and painted on the lofty ceilings, dazzling and glittering, the universal crest of the twisted s with its two upright bars. _dollars, dollars, dollars._ through the office i pushed, my path disputed by the hosts of croesus in ambush for market information. colonels and generals of the almighty-dollar army were on either flank of me, and the air was thick with the echo and the rumor of millions. at last i found myself in the high and splendid room, with its tall windows elaborately curtained with velvet, its floor space studded with small tables, where after four o'clock any afternoon, the year round, you will find the active wall street contingent busily discussing the day's doings and plotting good or evil for the morrow. there they all were, that eventful evening, in parties of seven or eight clustered at the little tables, and as i entered a vigorous hail caught my ear and again i found myself surrounded. "sit down a minute, lawson," said ex-congressman jefferson m. levy--"jeff levy" in wall street--"and tell us about amalgamated. i suppose there's not a chance to get what one wants unless one subscribes for five or ten times more than one needs, but if you say that's straight, i'll put in another subscription for ----." in the group were sitting "harry" weil, who time and again has tied tin cans to wall street's tail; big, bluff, honest "billy" oliver, whose "i'll take ten thousand more" is as familiar to stock exchange members as the sound of the gong; and little "jakey" field, most audacious and resourceful of floor operators, graduated but a few years ago from the ranks of wall street's errand boys--"jakey" field, who is able single-handed to turn a "bear" market in a rout by "bidding 'em up all round the room five thousand at a crack"--which means he dares buy one hundred thousand shares off the reel in a demoralized market when every one is selling, thus standing to make or lose a million or two on his judgment. they listened, breathless, while i poured out the story of the terrific rush of amalgamated subscribers. another group hailed me and i recounted the same story. so it went all over the busy assemblage--"_dollars, dollars, dollars_," how to get them, how to get them quick. the money talk ebbed and flowed; the chink of dollars echoed in the rattle of china, in the tinkling of glasses, in the laughs and salutations, in the shuffle of feet. it was the one word, the single theme, the alpha and omega of all these men of talent and virility who accorded me recognition as one of themselves and assumed that i, too, was crucified to the two bars on the snaky s; the whole thing was so interesting that i lost sight of the terrible seriousness of it, and i chuckled as one does when one sits on the cool grass under the apple-trees in summer and watches myriads of ants hustling and jostling and bumping over each other to get away with what to humans is but a tiny grain of dirt. as i arose to go at last, the head waiter came forward and led me into a corner, where his assistant and the chef awaited me. all with tremendous earnestness asked, "is it safe, mr. lawson, for us to put our savings in amalgamated?" they took my breath away by telling me they proposed to subscribe for one thousand, five hundred, and two hundred shares each, $100,000, $50,000, and $20,000 worth, if i but said the word. "_dollars, dollars, dollars_" beat a tattoo on my ear-drums as the rain used to on the roof at the old farmhouse. a moment later manager thomas of the great hotel slipped up to me. "i'm in for a thousand or two, if you say the word," he whispered. at dinner my old waiter, who i would have sworn did not know a stock certificate from a dog license, bent over respectfully to tell me that twenty of the boys had chipped in and desired me to take their thousand dollars and put it up for two hundred shares--$20,000 worth more. room clerk palmer called over to me as i went by his desk a moment later to say he was going in for three hundred shares if it broke him. and so it went--bell-boys, chambermaids, valets, elevator men, all begging an interview, and all with the same request--"would i not put their savings into this magic money-maker?" all were friends or protégés of mine, these managers, clerks, stewards, and waiters. their money was more sacred to me than my own. i had been instrumental in bringing many of them up to the palace of american dollar royalty from the old brunswick, and i would rather have lost a finger any day than have jeopardized their savings. for all of them i had but one answer: "go your limit." i looked over the memoranda and telegrams piled high on the table in my room, all recording the whirlwind sweep of this tremendous copper movement that i had set a-booming. "_dollars, dollars, dollars._" requests from friends for some of the easy money i was dispensing to the public, appeals from old associates for special allotments of the subscription, urgent petitions from capitalists and bankers with whom i had business relations that their bids for shares should have preference, perfumed notes on tinted paper in feminine handwriting begging aid, advice, my influence, on a hundred specious pleas. it seemed to me that all the world was in a conspiracy of dollars and i the one object of its plotting. for a moment there overcame me a sickening disgust at this universal greed, at this all-absorbing passion for gold which my momentary pre-eminence revealed to my view. then sanity asserted itself, and i remembered that if there was a conspiracy i was its ringleader, that i myself for months past had thought intensely of nothing but dollars. why, then, should i resent the eager desires of others to attach to their own bank accounts some of the money which i was proclaiming from the housetops any one who desired might have for the asking? many of these men, moreover, who sought my assurance of the safety of their little ventures, had earned the private word by thoughtful service and friendly attentions. dollars were food and drink and fine raiment; were music, pictures, and theatres; were horses and dogs; were green fields, blossoming trees, and the open air of heaven; were liberty, release from sordid cares, from servitude--and why should i, who had helped myself in bountiful measure to the good things in life's cornucopia, feel superior when confronted by the lusts i myself had been instrumental in arousing? i laughed at my egregious virtue and dropped off to sleep. chapter xxvi deviltry afoot thursday, may 4, 1899, dawned as fair a spring morning as ever set off sacrificial rite or triumphal jubilee--a day of buoyant, delicious airs which set the blood throbbing in the veins and ambition thrilling in the heart--a day for action, achievement, for wild gallops along country lanes, for swift motion on land or water. i looked out of my lofty parlor window far up fifth avenue's long vista of mansions and palaces to where the sunlight glittered on the tender verdancy of central park. a trickle of cabs and carriages headed southward already had begun the descent to wall street. almost the first call over the telephone came from mr. rogers, asking for the morning's news. i told him there was not a cloud on our sky, not a single breeze but blew from the right quarter to fill our sails. "and what were my movements?" to stick to my rooms right handy for anything. was there a sinister thought, i wonder, behind the "good, i agree with you," that came back from him in his heartiest tones? "i will look after things down-town and we can keep each other posted at near intervals." it was as busy a forenoon as man ever lived through. my boston wire kept up a constant ringing; chicago, philadelphia, and other long distance points showered in messages. a direct wire to wall street informed me of the progress of events in the financial maelstrom. all went merrily and well. it was nearing noon when a lull came; i was sitting back in my chair enjoying the sudden cessation of clatter and buzzing, thinking that after all my forebodings our ship was headed right for harbor and in a few moments would be across the bar and into smooth water, when a sharp ring at the telephone summoned me back to attention. 'twas from 26 broadway, from whom it doesn't matter for the purpose of this story. suffice it to say that it was from one who, because of past acts of mine, would make any sacrifice to warn me of danger. only a few words, for he who sends secret messages from the mysterious depths of 26 broadway, even to dwellers on its threshold, is wise in remembering that brevity is the essence of safety--but were few words ever charged with such damnable import? this is what i heard: "mr. stillman has just left mr. rogers and there is deviltry afoot. you cannot get to him any too quick." "one word of its nature?" i whispered back. "they are going to grab more than five millions of the subscription money." i hung up the receiver. the face of my world had changed. to choke back the passion of fury that rose in my throat i went over to the open window and looked out at the brilliant world below, at the procession of pleasure carriages rolling up and down the avenue, the sunlight flashing from gold-mounted harness and shining on the sleek, polished flanks of splendid horses. a gay rumble of traffic, the murmur of voices, the clangor of street-car bells were borne in to me on the mellow air. but for me the light had fled and the may world was black and freezing cold. the grim agony of that moment's silence i shall never forget. i jumped for the door; a second's delay to tell my secretary to catch me with any important messages at mr. rogers' office, and i was flying down fifth avenue through washington square, and down the back streets my cabby knew so well how to make time on. when the recording angel calls off page after page of my life-book and comes to the black one covering that ride, i fear 'twill be no easy task excusing the murderous passion that filled my heart and the poison-steeped curses my lips involuntarily formed. after an eternity i was at 26 broadway. i flew to the elevator, was on the eleventh floor in an instant, bolted by fred, the colored usher who guards mr. rogers' sanctum, and strode, without knock or announcement, into the large private office beyond. mr. rogers was alone with his secretary, who at my first words shot out of the room. he was bending over a stack of papers, and as i landed at his desk he looked up quickly, and in a surprised way asked: "what does this mean, lawson?" no one ever enters mr. rogers' room without his permission. "it means that i have just learned that you and stillman have decided to break your solemn promise to me." i tried to control myself, but the seethe of rage almost choked me. "it means that you have decided to take more of that subscription money than the five millions we agreed upon, and that means hell." mr. rogers stood up, his jaws set as in their last hold, and, recognizing the crisis, he met me, not with the fierce anger i half expected and hoped he would show, but with quiet earnestness. "stop just there, lawson--remember you are in my office. who gave you this tale?" "never mind. is it true? are you going to break your promise to me? do you intend to allot the public more than five millions?" he hesitated only a second. just a second, but it seemed an age; then slowly and calmly: "yes, it has been decided that considering the tremendous number and amounts of the subscription it will be best to give them more." "how much more?" i shouted, for i was beside myself. "ten millions in all," he slowly answered. "who has decided?" "every one, mr. rockefeller, stillman, all of us." "all of us? have _i_ been consulted? have _i_ decided? have _i_ consented to the breaking of your word, mr. rockefeller's word? what have stillman and the rest to say about this? what have they to do with the promises i have made the people? i have been trapped just as all the others you and i have dealt with have been trapped. i see it all now. trapped, trapped until now it is too late for me even to save my reputation. to think i should have been fool enough to allow myself to be made a stool-pigeon for 'standard oil,' and all because i took your word." my rage was exhausted, and then, heartbroken, i turned and plead, plead for fair treatment, for an honest deal for my friends and associates--plead for my good name in his keeping--plead as i never before plead to any man. i had lost control of myself--begged as no man should beg another even for life, though the things i sought were more than life. he calmly awaited the end of my feverish, broken petition; then he went to work as the expert diamond cutter goes at a crystal. he focussed my position, twisted and turned my arguments, chipped and split my reasoning, smoothed off the corners, and then polished up the subject so that it might retain its old-time lustre for the bedazzlement of the customer whose favorable decision he meant to have. as ever, mr. rogers' arguments were plausible and intelligent. the subscriptions were coming in at such a rate it would be dangerous to allot as little as five millions; there might be talk, and an investigation which would so affect the market later that we could have no second section. then where should we be with our millions of butte, montana, and other boston stocks? and where would our friends be--and the public? on and on he spun, lulling my fagged brain with his specious arguments until the change of plan seemed robbed of its poison and i swallowed it. "lawson," he concluded, "every dollar of the additional five millions will be kept intact and, with the first five millions, will be at all times behind the price, and as you are going to have the handling of it how can there be any wrong or any more danger because of it than if it were only five millions?" i gave in, agreed to go back to the waldorf and take hold of the lever again. i left him, driving uptown by way of broad and wall streets so i might see the crowds outside the stock exchange and in front of james stillman's money trap. by the time i reached the hotel i had recovered some of my optimism, and went to work to catch up with the mail and messages accumulated in my absence. at three o'clock i called up mr. rogers. he was very jubilant. at the stroke of twelve, he told me, it required four big policemen to close the bank doors in the faces of hundreds of belated subscribers; that it had been decided that those inside the building were legally entitled to pass in their subscriptions and at that moment they were still doing so. sacks of mail still awaited opening; it would be well toward midnight before the last of the subscriptions were tabulated. stillman was making a tremendous effort to get at an approximate statement in time for me to deal it out to the newspapers before they went to press at midnight. "how does it look to stillman now?" i asked. "he cannot tell much about it yet," mr. rogers replied, "although he can see far enough ahead to be sure even your estimate was too low. it will be at least fifty millions." "and about our big subscription--have you and mr. rockefeller put it in yet?" i asked, and how i strained for his answer! i well knew they had not done so, knew they would think it safe to wait until the final tally to see just how much they must put in to get their $65,000,000, which would thus leave the public $10,000,000. "not yet," he returned. "it's all right, but we can do nothing till stillman gives us the total. he says there are millions and millions of such a nature that he can easily throw them out. at four o'clock we will have a meeting and figure out the best way to fix this matter up." he saw no danger spot. i felt anyway his error was beyond correction now. i told him i would be at his office by five, so that we could arrange how much the press should have of our affair. chapter xxvii the black flag hoisted it was a little after five when i reached 26 broadway--my second visit that day. mr. rogers was still at the bank. half an hour later he entered and threw himself wearily into a chair. "lawson, this is a fitting climax for all the stories you have been telling mr. rockefeller and myself and the public for the past year about 'coppers.' i have talked with the lewisohns, governor flower, morgan, and many others, and i have just come from an hour with stillman and we are all agreed this amalgamated subscription is the greatest accomplishment in finance. it is truly marvellous. the bank is literally buried in money, and as near as we can make it out, the stock to be delivered when allotted is actually selling at forty to fifty dollars over the subscription price. the job is done, and you and i have good reason to congratulate each other." "i am not so sure, mr. rogers, that we should, right now. there's lots of work ahead, and we may strike big snags yet," i began. he interrupted impatiently: "oh, no, you're wrong, lawson! we have the money safely housed at the bank. nothing can now turn it into failure." there was a new note in his voice as he spoke. tired though he was, i detected a sharpness that seemed to indicate at once a relief and an indifference which said plainer than words: "i am now beyond all your power to hurt or harm me." i went on: "i don't want to bring up any new things to-day, for you must be tired out, mr. rogers, but surely you are taking into consideration that unless everything is steered carefully to-morrow and for some time to come, we may have a crash in the market which will throw back on our hands the ten millions of stock, and it might take us years to bring out the other section. don't lose sight of the fact that the people are all expecting to see fifty or one hundred points profit to-morrow on whatever stock they secure." as i talked i saw that he was getting impatient, irritated, angry, that he wanted to hear of no more unfavorable things. "good lord, lawson, it is about time for you to let up on your croaking about what may happen. you have done a big thing and you have been paid handsomely; you have made millions, and we have just now decided that you are entitled to a good rest. governor flower has agreed to take charge of the market end and he is amply able to keep us out of all trouble in that direction." a cold chill struck into my heart and crept over my whole being. i looked straight at him and he gave me back the look with a defiance which plainly said that we might as well have it out now as any other time. "mr. rockefeller and myself have tried to play fair with you, lawson, and we think we have been generous, but at times you have been almost intolerable. the only way you know how to do things is to do them your own way, and we cannot do business except in our way. this morning you kicked up a disturbance because we decided to adjust ourselves to conditions as they arose. i did tell you five millions would be all we would sell, but when we agreed to that we had no idea the subscription would be so large. since then we have got far enough to see that the subscription will run even beyond fifty millions, and you may as well hear now that in consequence it has been decided by every one interested with the exception of yourself to raise it still another five millions, that is, fifteen millions instead of ten, and i don't want to go through any more scenes about broken promises and what the people will think, either. the people have gone into this thing with their eyes wide open; we are giving them good value; you are in no way their guardian, and you are not going to run this affair any more than others who are interested. you may as well make up your mind to it right now." he let himself go as he talked, breathing fire and defiance, but i cared nothing for all the terrors of his anger. a blind fury seized me--i don't believe there was ever such a scene before at 26 broadway, and i think it has had but one parallel since, when mr. rogers and myself again had it out over another matter. this time there were no pleas or petitions. i denounced, demanded, threatened. he had straight and strong my version of the vampire history of "standard oil," and also in rough, crude terms my opinion of his trickery and double-dealing. my voice was raised. i had lost all thought of what his people in the outer office would think. as i went on he wilted and tried to stop me, for i had shown him, until he knew it was so, that nothing but my death before i left the building would prevent me from taking the whole miserable affair, first to the newspapers, and then to the courts. i proved to him that i would have injunctions against stillman, the national city bank, and every one in interest, before the allotment could be made. gradually his rage subsided and he broke down--not as other men break down, but as much as it is possible for his stern nature to give way. we remained there until seven o'clock. the building was as still as a set mouse-trap, and he strove with me. such action, he demonstrated, would precipitate a panic. his argument was perfect in its logic. "not one man in a million, lawson, will agree with you that you are justified in bringing about all this disaster simply because you think that we are taking too much of the cash that has been voluntarily paid in by people well able to attend to their own affairs. you must remember once this scandal and trouble are public they never can be smothered. there can be no more consolidation, no more copper boom in your lifetime and mine, and when the collapse comes every one will look for the victim, and that victim will be you. even your best friend will say if you were going to turn informer you should have been smart enough to have discovered your mare's nest before you let it grow so big. look at it, lawson, look at it, and in the name of everything that is reasonable get back your senses." my readers must remember that the henry h. rogers i am portraying here is no ordinary man, but the strongest, most acute, and most persuasive human being that in the thirty-five active years of my life i have encountered. and on me all the magic of his wonderful individuality, all the resources of his fertile mind, all the histrionic power of his dramatic personality were concentrated. his logic was resistless. as he spun the web of his argument my position seemed hopeless; even more forcible than his reasoning was the graphic recital of how both increases had been made. his eyes watered as he spoke. they were not his proposals, but stillman's and the others' who had been let in on the several floors, but to whom he had never explained my rights nor my position in the enterprise. "the truth is, lawson," he said--"and i'll not mince matters further: from the beginning i have done business with you on a basis entirely different from that on which it is our rule to deal with agents or associates. at the start i expected that you would, as all others have done, fall into our ways. instead, you have grown more stubborn, and the result is, i have been forced into all kinds of holes, some of which i have not even let william rockefeller know about. here at last i am in between the grinders. i cannot go to such men as stillman and morgan and admit that you are the one who has been doing this copper business that i have had them think i was doing myself. you would not ask me to put myself in such a humiliating position. think what john d. rockefeller would say of such a confession. it's impossible. and when these associates of mine get down to this matter and all agree upon the way it should be closed up, what can i do but go with them? if they knew the facts it would be easy to run you in between us, and then you would either have to convince them or give way yourself, but this is not possible here." the straight and narrow way is easy to follow, but once lost is hard to find. the defaulting bank president who overnight "borrows" a few thousands from his institution, fully intends to return the "loan" next day, but repairing an error is even more difficult than resisting a temptation, and when a man is in crime's net, his struggles to escape seem only to tighten around him its meshes. when the incidents of his downfall are before the jury or the coroner, there will always appear a dozen places where the unfortunate might have cut his way out of the strangling coils, but he who surveys such situations from the outside has a clearer vision than the blinded and desperate wretch in the trap. he who enlists with the brigands of "frenzied finance" and takes the oath of addition, division, and silence cannot discharge himself because his comrades are needlessly harsh to their victims. eventually he may decide on desertion as preferable to throat-cutting, but to suggest resignation is to invite destruction, for it is a tradition of the fraternity that the best cure for repentance is a knife-thrust. mr. rogers and myself wrestled with the situation until both were fairly exhausted. finally we went uptown together; he home, to return later to the bank, i to the waldorf to meet the newspaper men who were there awaiting the news of the subscription. i left him at thirty-third street, the question between us still unsolved. in the years that have passed since that ill-starred night, over and over again i have sifted and pounded the talk that then passed between us, and never have i been able to decide how much of what mr. rogers said to me was true and how much cunning argument to make me accede to his wishes. i hope none of my readers will ever find themselves so caught between the high cliffs and the deep water as i was that night. i recalled the old story of the sea-captain whose ship was captured by pirates and who was offered the alternative of hoisting the black flag and joining the band with his crew, or walking the plank. if he became a pirate, at least he saved the lives of his men, for their fate hung on his decision. if he refused--well, he retained his own virtue and kept intact that of his crew. the captain in my story had preferred propriety to piracy, and fifteen men lost their lives to no purpose, whereas the part of wisdom would have been to submit, with reservations, on the chance of throwing the pirates to the sharks at the first opportunity. if i should throw the bomb that i had threatened rogers with, i felt sure it would put an end to all his evil machinations, but i could not limit the area of destruction to the guilty. i let my mind dwell on mr. rogers' words: "lawson, no harm can come to your people, for the fifteen millions will be used in the market to protect the stock, just as i promised you." if this promise were kept, what was there to fear? but would it be kept? in the face of the evidence of broken pledges already crowded on me, and the bitter knowledge i had acquired of the wolfish greed of this man and his associates, it would be paltering with facts to say that even then i felt certain the money would be so used. yet "standard oil" avoids such direct illegality as might bring it within the law's clutches, and i knew that already a fraud had been committed. i might hold that over them and compel them to go straight. then i recalled the passion that possessed them to grab at real money when it came within their clutches, and the "governor flower to handle the market in such a way that no harm can come to us." i carried my heart-tearing perplexities to dinner, cogitated over the arguments pro and con, and finally made up my mind that the percentage of wisdom was in favor of sticking by the ship. on board i was in better shape to protect my friends and followers than if i jumped into the ocean. time has shown since that it would have been far better for all concerned for me to have touched off the powder magazine that night, had one grand and glorious explosion, and gone down with the wreckage, than to have sailed through the hell of after years. i am not the first man who has balked at amputation and got blood-poisoning. chapter xxviii the bogus subscription later, on his way downtown, mr. rogers came to my rooms. "are you ready for the finals, lawson?" he said cordially. he, too, had dined, and doubtless philosophized; his whole air showed me he had satisfied himself that i would submit to the logic of conditions. no man knows the human animal from his heart's seed to its bloom better than henry h. rogers--and i was human. i told him i would hold the reporters until i got the word from him, and that it must not be later than midnight. no questions were asked nor assurances given. he left in a moment for the national city bank, and there in its solemn chambers he and james stillman perpetrated the act which is the crime of amalgamated, in itself a stark and palpable fraud, but aggravated by the standing of the men concerned in it, and the pledges that were slaughtered, into as arrant and damnable piece of financial villany as was ever committed. about eleven o'clock my telephone rang. i heard mr. rogers' voice. "lawson, stillman's tally is so far completed that we know about where we are. give out to the press that the subscription runs between four hundred and four hundred and twenty-five millions, call it four hundred and twelve millions, after throwing out one hundred and seventy millions from speculators, and sixty-two millions as defective, and after shutting out fifty millions more which were received too late. each subscriber will be allotted fifteen to twenty per cent. of his subscription--call it eighteen per cent." the figures were paralyzing. i made no attempt to analyze them. they came so late that as soon as the newspaper-men with me got them they flew to their offices and thus i escaped a strenuous ordeal of interviewing. our arrangements for distributing the facts throughout the country were made through the _boston financial news_, to which we had given the exclusive right to send out the details, and its special wires were soon clicking the news to all the world. the next morning the press contained the particulars. i reproduce from the papers of may 5th the tale. * * * * * =$412,000,000 for amalgamated coppers= =$75,000,000 subscribed more than five times over= =financial world copper mad= subscriptions of $412,000,000--the largest in any financial deal in the world's history--are reported by the _boston financial news_ to have been received toward the amalgamated company. "the world has gone copper mad" in truth. subscribers can be allotted only eighteen one-hundredths, or less than one share in five of the amount applied for. one week ago, says the report, it was announced that the standard oil magnates, rogers, rockefeller, and their associates, had begun their conquering march upon copperdom--that the much heralded copper consolidation was a thing of fact--that the amalgamated company had been incorporated, and that its first capital, $75,000,000, would be offered to the public by subscription through the national city bank of new york at $100 per share--$100 per share, without a discount, a commission, or profit to any one. never before since the first dollar of civilization was invented to take the place of the stone tokens of barbarism had such a thing been heard of--$75,000,000 of stock to be sold to investors at $100 per share, and in one week after the birth of the corporation upon which it was based. the financial world held its breath, and from that time up to the closing of the books of subscription, at twelve o'clock noon yesterday, the financial world, english, german, and french, have awaited with bated breath the outcome of this great feat of modern financiering. during the entire week from all parts of the world have poured into the national city bank applications, accompanied by checks for the first payment--one continuous stream of entreaties--for some of the shares of this great enterprise. nothing in history tells of such a movement. early in the week it became evident to the managers of the great industrial revolution that something must be done to stop the movement or it would run to such an extent as to cause serious trouble in the money markets of the world. since monday most strenuous efforts have been made to discourage the taking of large subscriptions. to that end the powerful financiers interested have begged all who contemplated subscribing for over $1,000,000 to keep their applications down to that figure, and their efforts met with complete success. again, all those who were connected with the enterprise and who had intended subscribing on the same basis as outsiders for very large amounts, agreed that if the subscription ran over $150,000,000 they would refrain from subscribing that those who had subscribed would not become dissatisfied with the smallness of their allotment. still the rush continued. from all financial centres of the world came the unbroken chain of applications, until those most interested in the success of the undertaking were appalled at the magnitude of the interest aroused. for the past forty-eight hours the national city bank has had employed, night and day, a corps of forty-odd extra clerks calculating and arranging the applications and checks. at exactly twelve o'clock noon four uniformed watchmen closed the doors of the subscription department of the city bank in the face of over three hundred intending subscribers, who were frantic at their vain efforts to get in their subscriptions before the appointed hour arrived. up to eleven o'clock to-night the entire bank force, regular and extra, have been at work, and at this hour the figures were announced which make the subscription of the amalgamated copper the greatest event in finance since the world began. after throwing out bids that were, on examination, proved to be the efforts of speculators to take advantage of the great interest to make money with no risk, and after throwing out bids unaccompanied by checks, or checks that were not satisfactory, the first class amounting to over $170,000,000, and the last to over $62,000,000, the total cash subscription was found to have reached the gigantic sum of $412,000,000, which gave to each and every subscriber eighteen per cent. of his subscription. it is not known how much was represented in the 300 subscribers who were too late, but it is estimated at $50,000,000--five of the 300 had single subscriptions of $1,000,000 each. it is estimated that the sum total of the subscriptions that were thrown out or that arrived by messenger or mail--for the mail is still pouring into the bank--was between $300,000,000 and $400,000,000, which, added to what insiders had intended to secure for themselves, would have carried the total to over $1,000,000,000. it is estimated also that there are a great many who, anticipating the enormous over-subscriptions, have refrained from subscribing and will purchase in the open market. immediately after the subscription closed, 140, or forty per cent. premium, was bid for the stock secured by the lucky bidders. it is said the company will issue the next $100,000,000 at once, as those insiders who refrained from subscribing were practically promised that they would at once be given an equal opportunity to subscribe if they would hold back on this issue. it is apparent that the next subscription will be even greater and cause more excitement than the first one, particularly as it is agreed by all that the price of the stock will quickly mount to $200 per share, as it is to be put upon the english, german, french, new york, and boston stock exchanges, and will undoubtedly become one of the greatest investments sought for by the wealthy classes. england sent in subscriptions for $50,000,000; germany and france, $20,000,000 each; boston and new england showed their steadfast faith in copper by subscribing for over $200,000,000. there is great excitement at the clubs and meeting-places of investors and brokers to-night. * * * * * here is what mr. rogers and mr. stillman did. after discarding all unsatisfactory and imperfect subscriptions, there remained subscriptions of between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000 which had complied with all legal conditions, and accompanying these were checks aggregating between $6,250,000 and $7,500,000. this was real money, in the bank and within reach, and the two great financiers, hungering for every dollar of it, determined to possess themselves of this great sum and use it as surety to compel the payment of the balance. first, they agreed that not a dollar of the five per cent. subscription should be returned; next, to so use this amount that no one to whom stock was allotted would back out, but, on the contrary, promptly take his whole allotment and pay up the balance. to effect this they decided to allot each subscriber just the number of shares of amalgamated necessary to render the amount of money accompanying his subscription equal to about a twenty-five or thirty per cent. payment on his whole allotment. this would constitute such a large margin as to assure the payment of the other seventy or seventy-five per cent. due. for instance, a man who applied for a hundred shares accompanied his subscription with a check for $500. he was allotted twenty shares, value $2,000, on which his $500 check represented a payment of twenty-five per cent. if the conditions of the national city bank's advertisement had been complied with, he was absolutely entitled to three shares of every five subscribed for, or sixty in all. to bring about the proportion which mr. rogers wanted, a bogus subscription of five or six times the unallotted balance was put in by him, and this is where the fraud was committed. the national city bank was in duty bound to protect the public from any such bogus subscription, and to see that fair treatment was accorded to all subscribers. yet, unfaithful to the trust, it permitted this bogus subscription to be put in, many hours after the bids had been opened. it utterly failed to comply with the conditions of its advertisement, and was thus a direct party to the fraud perpetrated by its president and mr. rogers. the exact amount of the bogus subscription could not be decided until the exact figures of the subscriptions had been compiled, so the figures i gave out that night were only estimates. within the next few days it was ascertained that the genuine subscriptions totalled $132,067,500, upon which an allotment of one share in five, or $26,413,500 of stock altogether, was made to the public. in this way the conspirators secured from the public $26,413,500 of the original cost, $39,000,000, and yet retained over $48,500,000 of the authorized stock of $75,000,000. in other words the public paid two-thirds of the purchase price, and the conspirators retained nearly two-thirds of the property. the fraud thus perpetrated amounts to this: every subscriber legally entitled to three shares of amalgamated stock was deprived of two of them by the national city bank, and the proof is to be found in the books of said national city bank. my readers may say here that this constitutes a fortunate condition rather than a crime to be punished, for the less amalgamated a man had, the better he was off, as the stock afterward declined. this conclusion is a false one, however. here, in simple terms, is an illustration of what was done in amalgamated and of what the wrong was. b had a valuable race-horse and decided to dispose of him in five shares. he offered these five shares for public subscription and advertised that if over five were subscribed for he would split up the shares and allot them pro rata. there were on the final day seven subscriptions. instead of turning over the horse to the seven subscribers to own and race in their own way, b notified them that twenty-one subscriptions had been received, and that for their seven he had allotted them a one-third ownership, while the other subscribers would retain two-thirds. in the two-thirds resided the right to manage and race the horse, and the seven had no say whatever in this direction. the seven honest subscribers, not suspecting that b had simply sold them one-third of his horse for nearly his whole cost, and that he still retained a two-thirds ownership in him, supposed that fourteen others had subscribed on the same terms as themselves. if the horse were really able to race and thereby earn large sums of money, it was by this fraud in b's power to make him appear so worthless that the seven bona-fide subscribers would be inclined to turn over their ownerships to b at his own figure. contrariwise, b could so dose the horse as to make him appear more valuable than he really was, and use the advantage to dispose of his fourteen shares for fictitiously high prices. the world assumes an attitude of horror and amazement at the mention of crime, and thousands of words are written to describe what led up to and away from any given overt deed; but the deed itself, however grave, shameful, or portentous, seems strangely barren and bloodless set down in naked words. yet the mountain peak that tops the great ranges is but a shoulder over its neighbor, though it may be the apex of a continent. a misconstrued word has caused the spilling of the blood of millions; the needle-point of a stiletto has severed kingdoms. between temptation and consequence there is but little space, yet it is deep and wide enough for all the poison in the tongues of all the world's serpents. to-day, a simple peasant, humble, gentle, is an insignificant atom in the great russian empire, and nicholas is the supreme ruler of rulers. to-morrow, by a simple swing of an arm a bomb is thrown, and the peasant is the one human being in all the world; the face of russia is changed, and nicholas--is not. the first crime of amalgamated is a matter of mathematics. it involved plain fraud and misrepresentation, the insertion of a bogus subscription and the disruption of solemn pledges, but the commission of it was nothing more than a matter of arrangement between two men, one the master of the greatest of all business organizations, and the other the head of the strongest bank in the united states. the consequences were world-wide. that night no bomb was thrown, but a seed was sown for the cruelest harvest of crime, dishonor, unhappiness, and desolation ever reaped within the confines of our republic. note.--the above statement has now been in the hands of the public, has been printed and commented on in thousands of the leading journals of the world for twelve months, and no government official has taken cognizance of it. the charges i make constitute one of the gravest business crimes ever committed by any national bank. if they are true, the government at washington has no more important duty than to punish the criminals. if they are false, i should be sent to prison. what a commentary on our boasted freedom and equality! the national city bank does business at the old stand. rogers, rockefeller and stillman walk the streets; so do i, and since i published the above statement and submitted the above proof, at least half a dozen poor national bank clerks and officials who have stolen a few hundreds or thousands have been sent to prison, or have committed suicide to avoid being sent there. chapter xxix the aftermath it was just past the midnight of may 4th. the last newspaper-man had taken his departure, my friends had all retired, and i was alone for the first moment since the news had come from the city bank. i had not then stopped to analyze its character, for there had been only time to announce it. now, however, i sat down at my desk and with a pencil and a piece of paper began to cipher out what the "412 millions" meant. as i figured, cold sweat began to gather on my forehead, and the further i figured the colder the sweat, until at last in an agony of perplexity i again called up mr. rogers. my agitation must have betrayed itself in my voice, though i tried to assume a tone of calm inquiry. "mr. rogers," i said, "i've been vainly trying to figure out the meaning of the subscription figures you gave me and i cannot make head or tail of them. you said '400 to 425 millions'; of course that means you have put in our dummy subscription, but what was the real subscription? it is absolutely essential that i know to-night, for in the morning i shall be besieged for information, and ignorance on my part may get all hands into trouble." "lawson," he replied, "you must not talk such things over the wire--you don't know who is listening. you must not." "i can't help it," i replied determinedly. "i positively must have the real figures, for even you and mr. stillman may have made a slip-up and i want to work the thing out so that i may have it clear in my head for the morning. it is essential." he realized that it was useless to try to escape my insistence, and he snapped out: "all i can say now is, it is between 125 and 150 millions real, solid subscriptions, backed with actual money. we haven't got it figured out within some millions, and won't before to-morrow, when we will put in our subscription for the right amount, but we know it is surely between these two figures, and that each subscriber will have about one share in five, so we shall have a good, strong twenty-five per cent. margin. that is all i will or can say to-night." i heard the sharp click as he hung up the receiver. i went back to my pencil and pad and began again the interminable figuring. my head throbbed and my senses reeled. in those still, dark hours of the early morning i covered sheet after sheet with figures, all of which had for a basis 125 to 150 millions, 400 to 425 millions, one in five, and twenty-five per cent. margin, and these figures i turned and twisted in a vain, vain effort to bring out something with fifteen millions for an answer. "no, it will not come," i said to myself at last in hopeless despair. numb and dull, i leaned back in my chair with half-closed eyes, while night, that master phantom maker, played upon my harried nerves and distraught mind. stealthily out of his murky caldron the ghosts and goblins crept. i saw the spectres of all my dearest dreams trail slouching by, jostled and driven by sneering bullies. i saw a great company of scowling men, wailing women, and little children, with drawn, pinched faces, and they seemed to point at me as they plodded past, muttering, "but for you." then, to the clanking of chains, hoarse curses, and the sharp whip-snap, lines upon lines of men in striped suits, with cropped heads, and faces branded by despair, filed up. faintly a mutter of sobs and groans echoed, "but for you." the clanking ceased; there came the slow shuffling of many feet, and a procession of men, bearing stretchers on which lay shrouded figures, advanced into view. like a solemn knell upon my ear smote the reproach, "suicides because of you." and now out of the caldron sprang a mob of goblin dollar-signs compounded of blood-red snakes and copper bars, that danced a mad saraband around my chair to a weird chorus of, "but for you." transfixed and aghast i stared at the train of awful forms. so real were they, they seemed almost to touch me as they swept onward. at last, with a convulsive effort, i threw off the spell, banished the phantasms of my frightened brain, and shook myself together with a: "you have work ahead and dreaming will not do it for you." back into my mind trooped the unanswerable, cold realities. there could be no doubt that the announcements in the morning papers would surprise those who had been led to expect an allotment of one share in twenty or thirty and had subscribed accordingly, and likewise those who had expected to get all, or at least one out of two. there might be murmurs of foul play and a general suspicion that trickery had been practised. looking at the situation, i saw that upon me the chief blame must fall, and that it behooved me to think soundly and quickly over what had best be done to protect from the impending massacre those whom i had lured into the ambush. the smoke-wreaths had all gone out of my brain now, and as the known factors began to group themselves symmetrically before my mind i forced myself to face certain all-too-evident facts: rogers and stillman had plainly hoisted the black flag; they had broken all their promises to me and assuredly had no intention of carrying out to the public the pledges i had made on their behalf; they would handle this affair as they had others i knew about--only to extract the greatest number of dollars from it--and in the course of their operations i and my friends would probably be sent through the crusher with the rest. all this being true, i could do little by denunciation or exposure, for these men, caring nothing for the sufferings of others, would not fear the consequences of their own acts; my only hope was to meet them on their own ground and outplay them at their own game. then and there i determined on my course--to compel them to undo the wrongs they had committed and, if so great an achievement were possible, put the people in position to do to them what they had done to the people. an almost hopeless resolution at that juncture, it would seem, but, as results have shown, by no means out of the power of man's accomplishment. this is what i reasoned out before i retired to bed: if the actual subscription were 125 to 150 millions, then six to eight millions of real cash had been paid into the national city bank. on an allotment of one share in five, these six to eight millions represented a margin of about twenty-five per cent.--big enough to cover any ordinary drop in the price of the stock, and big enough also to lead those to whom shares had been assigned to make good the balance. but to meet this allotment, a very large bogus subscription had been necessary, and therein i saw the weakness of rogers and rockefeller and the weapon that providence had intrusted to my hands. mr. rogers' uncertainty as to the totals of the subscription made it evident that the bogus subscription was not in the bank even yet, and as it must be for a definite amount and backed up by a five-per-cent. check, it could not be put in until james stillman's clerks had computed to the last cent the public's applications, and that enormous piece of work would not be completed on the next day nor even the day following. this bogus subscription was already outlawed--its insertion even at the present moment would have been criminal; how much worse the criminality if days were allowed to elapse between the legally fixed last moment for bids and the actual time at which this outlawed subscription was admitted. and as the transaction involved the making of a large check and other formalities, it was obvious it was not one that could be easily concealed. it must be a part of the bank's records. if i but played aright the cards dame fate had put into my hands, i might yet redeem myself and save the public i had led into the trap. but as clear as the new moon against a november sky stood forth the warning that if i attempted to cut into a "standard oil" game, i must play cards their way--dispassionately, scientifically, with no sentiment nor consideration for adversary or partner. with this conviction i went to bed. it was quite early on the following morning that i met mr. rogers, and without giving him time to begin the conversation, for i was determined he should have no provocation for the break with me that i guessed he had on his programme, i started in: "i have been figuring this thing out, mr. rogers, and i think i see things as they are, and although i might not have handled it as you and stillman did, it is done, and the only thing to do now is to make some arrangements to keep the subscribers feeling good until the stock gets to a round premium. of course it would not do to have any slump below par until after the receipts are issued and the whole amount of the subscriptions paid up." mr. rogers looked me over, very suspiciously at first, then brightened up, and it did not require an extra eye to see he was agreeably surprised at my cheerful attitude. doubtless he explained to himself the change on the ground that "he at last sees the dollars he is to have." "what suggestion have you, lawson, as to what should be done this morning?" "only that all hands look happy, talk big, and do all possible to keep a good premium on the stock to be delivered when issued. by the way, have you and stillman changed the scheme about putting all the cash received behind the stock?" this i asked in as mild a tone as possible, and tried to convey by my voice the suggestion, "because you may have had good reason to, and if you have i will not kick over the traces." it took every ounce of will-power in my armament to keep from grating my teeth as i so spoke. again his eyes bored piercingly into mine, and i felt as though all the man's mental faculties were ranged to assail me, but i guess i ran the gauntlet. "yes," he said slowly, "we have changed it some. the fact is, lawson, i have agreed to leave that part wholly to flower and stillman, while i run out of town for a few days." i had steeled myself to play the game and said not a word, but silence was a mighty effort. "and," he went on, "if i were you, lawson, i should just dig out too for a while." "what a heartless rascal!" was on my lips, but i gripped myself hard and pushed the insult clear way back, and made never a protest by word or look. "i am afraid that won't be best," i said in an every-day, pondering tone. "there are lots of sharp chaps on 'the street' who will insist on asking questions, questions flower cannot possibly answer, and in a jiff they might start in to offer the subscriptions down, and before one could whistle a bar from 'wait till the clouds roll by' the air might be full of falling stars." this seemed to strike home. "well, what have you to propose?" he asked. "some one should be ready in the market to take any amount of stock--" i argued. he interrupted in his old aggressive way before the sentence was half out of my mouth: "cut that line out, lawson; i told you flower has that end of the affair entirely in his hands." and at this point my resolution to keep quiet and play the game did almost go by the board. for a second i literally boiled. then there flashed before my mind's mirror the dreadful procession of the night before, and i once more held tight and, oh, so deferentially and politely, like a chastened school-boy, went on: "oh, that will be all right. i was not going to suggest that you let me interfere with flower's plans, for i can gather, mr. rogers, that you and the others have decided on doing things your own way, and you can rest easy i shall not interfere." "that's something like, lawson," he said, with a heartiness i could see was from the lower hold. "that's the way to look at a big thing of this kind, and if we all just pull together for a while we shall have your old plans going like oil again." yes, mr. rogers was plainly pleased at my complaisance and the prospect of using me to gather in another harvest of dollars later. playing my game, i pursued: "is it fair, mr. rogers, to ask what arrangements stillman has made for loaning money to those who may want to borrow on their subscriptions? you know we gave out before the subscription was opened that the city bank would loan on the stock?" "that is one of the things i was going to tell you, lawson. flower is going to let it be known that any one and every one who cares to, can borrow the remaining seventy-five per cent. at the city at going rates, so there will be no excuse for any one selling." there it was as plain as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which i had played upon; the bars were up now and "standard oil" was ready to begin its familiar trick of going through their clothes. already "standard oil" had laid its hands on the amount each subscriber had paid in, which represented twenty-five per cent. of the total value of the shares allotted. the national city bank would generously loan the balance. a little later an accomplice would cause a flurry in the market. the loans would be called and, automatically, the stock, together with the money that had been paid for it, would fall into the greedy maws of rockefeller and rogers. no fluttering fly was ever so surely enmeshed and at the mercy of weaving spider as the unfortunates whom i had so decoyed to the "standard oil" web. with the most valiant assumption of indifference, i continued: "that being the case, it cannot possibly interfere with flower's set-out for me to spread the news, too, that any one who wants to borrow the balance of his subscription can get it from stillman's bank?" "you can do better than that, lawson," said mr. rogers with an air of real cordiality. "you can let it be known to the brokers and the wall street men that any good house can borrow all it wants on amalgamated to the extent of ninety cents on the dollar. of course, this won't be for irresponsible outsiders, for the stock might break below ninety, but give the word that any responsible broker can always borrow as high as ninety dollars a share for those who want the stock on margin." "that will help things," i answered. "now, mr. rogers, let me tell you what i have decided to do on my own hook. don't misunderstand me; it has nothing to do with you or the rest, and, of course, none of you will object to my doing all i care to on my own account. as you said yesterday, one portion of our job is finished, and we have thirty-six millions' profit. this means either cash or its equivalent, stock, which at par or over is as good as cash, at least as good as ninety, which i can have my brokers borrow at the city. i calculate that my share is nine millions less whatever you have given away in the handling of the enterprise." i paused as i saw a black cloud gathering on his face at my mention of nine millions of dollars, but before he could object i went on: "i understand, of course, that the expense and the shares you have had to give to others represent a huge total. at the same time there have been huge profits on the side. there is no necessity to enter upon what is coming to me just now, but what i intended to say was this: i have millions with you and mr. rockefeller--millions more than i owe you on account of butte and other boston stocks of the second section. now, i propose to take a million or two of that and start in on my account to support the market right from this morning; independent of flower or your other operations, i will see if i cannot get up a good feeling." at once the frown relaxed and his set features broke into a smile of gratification. "that's something like it, lawson," he said. "when you get down to real business we never have differences. it is only when you start up that confounded croaking about what we must do for the people, that i get angry." "all right, mr. rogers," i answered. "let those things drop and, as you say, we'll keep down to business. how much can i depend upon drawing from my account this morning, provided i want it?" "how will two millions do?" he answered cheerily. "plenty," i said. "all right; i will notify stillman that you or your brokers may want to borrow up to that, and if you need the amalgamated stock, you can have it at any time. i will leave word to that effect with curtis." curtis was william rockefeller's secretary and right-hand man, who then handled the details of all their financial matters. before leaving i indicated to mr. rogers the details of my proposed actions, and explained that i had sent for my principal boston brokers who would be with me on wall street to help steer the craft. evidently my plans met his personal approval. indeed, from the change that had come over his manner i realized that he felt he had been spared a disagreeable task and that my shift had been a pleasant surprise to him. it was plain that he and stillman had decided that i must be thrown to the sharks if i kept on my old tack, and were therefore gratified to find that i was not only ready to assist in steering the ship their way, but also willing to feed the engines coal at my own expense to keep up her speed. in spite of mr. rogers' confidence in governor flower's ability to take care of the market, it was a great relief to his mind to know that i should be there, for he realized that no one, however able and popular--and governor flower was both to an unusual degree--could possibly take up such an intricate bunch of lines as those with which we had been driving, without a lot of feeling-out practice. there was another aspect of the situation that had been suggested to me by a certain passing twitch of his lip that i had noted when i had said i proposed putting some of my own millions behind the market. it was as though the tongue had involuntarily started to lap the chops for blood, and i scribbled a memo on my mind's black-board, "think over whether he does not intend to set traps for your share of the spoils." chapter xxx the morning after it was with a feeling of intense relief that i left mr. rogers and returned to the waldorf. at last i knew where i "was at": i was to play a lone hand; my enemies were in front; there were no partners from whose treacherous knife-blades i should have to protect my back. the path was clear, and as i examined my position, i felt my old self again. promptly i called up my boston brokers, who were at the holland house, to say i would drop in for them on my way downtown, and with a clear plan of campaign in my mind, i determined to face the breakfasting crowd in the big café downstairs. almost immediately i found myself in the centre of a knot of men who began eagerly to press me for further particulars of the amalgamated subscriptions. we all know the story of the comedian informed in the midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh and antic to the end of the play. i appreciated the heavy-hearted actor's plight as i surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in their dollar affairs. i longed to mount a chair and tell them how they had been duped, but my rôle called for different lines. it was my part to feign satisfaction and my duty to keep every cent invested in our enterprise from shrinking a mill. i pumped as much enthusiasm into my speech as possible. "you see what the papers say," i said. "that gives you all the information i have, for although you may not think it, i have been spending the night just as the rest of you have--in lands where all flotations sell away over par. i'm going down to wall street just now. after a while i'll have more to tell you." the flutter of an eyelash, a hair-breadth of hesitation, a mumbled word and there may be born in the mind of the investor that instinctive distrust which is the beginning of panic. in a stock market as in a powder magazine there are always dread possibilities of explosion, and he who would survive must have incombustible nerves and an ice-packed brain; asbestos assurances and an unblushing swagger have averted many money conflagrations and set prices hill-climbing. my little congregation had all the fluttering fugitiveness of the investor-out-for-quick profits, and after a few generalities, i got down to the one question they all longed to ask but none dared to voice--"what can i sell my subscription for if i want to part with it?" raising my voice a trifle and looking straight at them: "don't get excited about what you read in print these next few days," i said, as though some one had asked me the question, "for there will be hogsheads of rumors unhooped, and remember that rumor prices are never real money. the papers this morning say that any one can sell at 40 to 60 per cent. profit, but that hardly seems reasonable to me; in fact, if i were any of you who have been allotted stock and could get such profit as that overnight, i'd take it. all i'll do just now is this: i will give 110 for any amount any of you want to sell, provided you sell right now--and 10 per cent. profit is not so bad when you come to think it's 40 per cent. on what actual money you have put up." in the vernacular of stocks this process i used is called "moulding public opinion" and "making a market," and it had the expected effect on that bright may morning which followed the closing day of the amalgamated flotation. i was not offered a share; in fact, there was a loud guffaw, and it was a hundred to one wager that as i passed on to another group each listener tumbled over his neighbor to get in first. "110! that's a good joke! i wonder if he takes us for children! evidently he is out early this morning to catch any stray worms napping! 110 for something worth 160!" inside of ten minutes it was all over the waldorf and on the wires, "look out for lawson! he's trying to get amalgamated at 110." and by the time i got to the holland, a block down the avenue, the brokers and investors gathered there were ready to give me the laugh with "you're out early, we see, to pick up a bundle of easy money." my first task had been accomplished to my own satisfaction. inside of an hour it would be flashed over the world that there was a firm reliable market at 110 bid and almost any price asked for amalgamated, and while 110 was not anything like the wild 140 to 160 that rumor gossiped of, it represented such a good profit that it was sure to set the market off with an all-round chipperness. my readers must bear in mind that as yet there was no real amalgamated stock which could be sold, and no place to sell it if there had been, for until each subscriber received official notice no one really knew for certain that he had been allotted any stock, and until the amalgamated shares were listed on the stock exchange, there could be no reliable market, although they could be traded in on the curb. at the holland house, i quickly outlined to my chief brokers my plans for the day. then together we started for wall street. the hours that followed were busy ones, and confusing as well. wall street was a-buzz with curiosity and from all sides poured questions. "the street," it was evident, had awakened to the fact that the situation in amalgamated disclosed a different line-up of conditions from that which it had anticipated. as to whether the change was good or bad no one dared hazard a guess. for the first time in my experience, wall street was completely at sea. the shrewdest plungers and manipulators, men to whom the tape yields up its secrets as the penitent to the priest; to whom the ticker babbles the inner mysteries of directors' meetings and deep-down deals--these men whose eyes, ears, and noses decades of stock-play had trained to supernatural acuteness were as impotent to track the truth as the veriest tyro. all admitted that the conditions were unusual, that the subscriptions had far exceeded expectation, that time would be required to get them straightened out. because of this it was natural that the market should be slow and in the absence of definite facts it might easily look one price and be another. if the subscription really were 412 millions and if each subscriber would have a fifth of his allotment, then there was the usual chance for trick playing and "standard oil" might be scheming to gather in this valuable stock at 110 when its proper price mayhap was 140 to 160 or more. in wall street the best brains of all the western world centre. fortunes are there waiting for brains to carve and take; stacked up there are millions which he who has brains can pocket without a "by-your-leave." wall street is the millionnaire's checker-board, but brains direct the moves and make the plays. and with all its mordant wisdom, cynical cunning, cold suspicion, wall street was baffled. there was nothing to do but to continue my campaign of smiles and cheerfulness, repeat my 110 bid in every quarter possible, and so keep up the delusion. late that afternoon i saw mr. rogers, who eagerly interrogated me. "well, lawson, what do you make out?" "it is the most mixed-up mess 'the street' has ever wrestled with," i replied, "but one thing is clear: no one will dare to sell much until he receives notice of just what he has been allotted, and then most will be timid about selling until they have received the receipts. i don't see how, if nothing definite leaks out, there can be much danger until after they get their hands on the receipts, and by that time, of course, you will have a fine market organized to take care of any offerings." he flinched. i saw again that i had touched his sore spot, for at every faintest suggestion that our profits should be used to protect the market, he became as shy as a pick-pocket at a police parade. chapter xxxi i walk the plank have you ever seen a bunch of school-boys who, having sneaked under a corner of the circus tent, are prowling furtively round the show in holy terror lest some one who has seen their entry may be awaiting a chance to nab them? one minute they are tasting the raptures of being under the canvas; the next, longing to be safely outside. that is about how wall street felt on the memorable friday after the amalgamated flotation. the same feeling prevailed generally on saturday, though i was obliged to buy a few blocks of the stock at 110 from wall street men whose sharp noses had sniffed a carrion scent in the air. sunday was uncomfortable, for i realized that i might have to face bad conditions on the morrow. on monday an ominous feeling began to rise and pervade "the street" like a miasma mist in a tropical swamp. the bacillus of distrust had started its infection. i had to buy quite a lot of subscriptions and was now varying the price from 110, for it seemed possible any moment that something would break loose. these were the conditions when on tuesday a telephone call came from mr. rogers asking me to drop round to 26 broadway, as he had an important matter to talk over with me. i reported at the appointed time. mr. rogers was evidently full of business. "lawson," he said, "we have figured everything up and balanced accounts, and each member of the different syndicates is to be given his share, cash and stock, at once." "all right," i answered. "that suits me." "i thought so," he continued pleasantly. "mr. rockefeller has had curtis figure up your account, and while in the rush he may not have got everything in, he's fairly accurate. from what you said about getting your affairs into shape to help the market, it occurred to me you might like to have your balance of this section in hand ready for use. i have the statement here, and if you find it all right i'll go upstairs and get all it calls for fixed up at once." we were in the little glass pen where most of our conferences took place. i, with my elbows on the small mahogany table, sat looking across at him leaning back in his chair. without knowing what was to happen, but from a certain suppressed eagerness i had detected under his frigid composure, i had a strong conviction that he was nerving himself for a coup of some kind. i realized that he and mr. rockefeller had talked me over pretty thoroughly and had decided that they had best run this gauntlet as soon as possible. since mr. rogers had broached the substitution of anaconda for the properties originally intended for the first section of amalgamated, i had felt that this balancing of accounts would be a crucial affair, and after the recent turn of the screw, i hardly knew what to expect, but was ready for the worst. now a swift thrill of apprehension suggested i'd better look for real deviltry. there was perhaps a minute's delay while he fumbled in his pocket and drew out letters and papers. my blood steeplechased in my veins as i waited for him to deal me the hand that might decide my fate. in such tense moments thoughts flash in and out of the mind like lightning, and as i watched him rise, the fateful paper in his hand, it came over me with a sharp exultation that however the trumps fell it was a great game--great even for this king of gamesters who was about to play his hand. henry h. rogers looked piercingly into my eyes and said: "there's the account, lawson." he laid on the table in front of me an oblong piece of paper. on it were some lines of words followed by other lines of figures. that was all. i spread it out carefully between my two hands and bent over it. then i looked up. before i allowed the significance of the figures to penetrate my mind, i wished to know exactly what they represented. "if i understand aright, mr. rogers," i asked, "this statement does not take in our boston deals nor my loans on the butte and other affairs, but is a settlement of this first section only--a final clearing-up showing just what my twenty-five per cent. of the amalgamated and the things connected with it amount to? am i right?" my voice was even and calmly business-like, and he answered in exactly the same tone. "it shows where you stand on this particular affair, and gives your balance of stock and cash, which we are ready to pay over in whole or in part, in case you may want to leave some of it against the loans on the other section." i turned to the paper; i leaned over it, letting my two hands with the elbows resting on the table support my head. mr. rogers could see only the back and top of my head, no part of my face. at the first glance i caught the balance--it was a little less than two millions and a half. at once the other lines upon the sheet became a crimson blur. into my mind rushed an avalanche of figures and facts which seemed to prove irresistibly that i should have read nine millions in place of the numbers that were burning themselves into my brain. but what if it were rightly but two and a half millions, and the great sum on which all my market movements had been predicated was a hideous miscalculation on my part? then inevitably was i hopelessly bankrupt, or saved from that only to find my neck irrevocably caught in the "standard oil" noose. i strove fiercely to steady my nerves, to arrest the stampeding terrors that had broken loose in my brain. there came to me a feverish memory of the hideous procession of thursday's midnight vigil. i desperately asseverated to myself, "i must be cool, i must, i must." but all my resolutions went as goes the powder when touched by the match. in an instant more nothing in the world mattered; i sprang to my feet, kicked over the chair, and with an exclamation which was half yell, half imprecation, i stuck the paper under mr. rogers' eyes. on the balance line i beat a tattoo with my trembling forefinger. heaven knows what i said, for all barriers were down and a flood-tide of rage, overwhelming, terrific, swept my being. there was no chance for mr. rogers to answer or to interrupt me. suddenly i became conscious that i was asking, "am i to understand that this is final? is this what i get for all i have stood for?" my voice as i heard it was strange--a hoarse hiss--and the words fell on my ear like a death sentence. "no, by god, no!" i sprang between him and the door. "lawson, in the name of heaven, stop for a second; there is some mistake; i see there is some mistake, some terrible blunder that they have made upstairs. don't say another word. give me that paper and i'll take it to mr. rockefeller. he will see what is wrong; he and i'll go over it together and you shall have what's right. i will be back in a few minutes and i swear to you you shall have your full share. yes, i swear to you you shall have what you say is right, even if it takes every dollar of the profits, every dollar." i handed him the paper without a word and he was out of the room. i heard gates bang and knew he had, as he promised, "gone upstairs." i locked the door and waited. i shall never forget the racking torture of that period of inaction. to make real all the terrors i was suffering it would be necessary for me to enter into elaborate details of the wide-spread financial commitment into which i had been led by my relationship with the consolidation. i was staggering under immense lines of boston "coppers," which were to be included in the second section of amalgamated, but had been purchased to make part of the first section. some of these mr. rockefeller was carrying for me; the rest were portioned among two dozen banks, trust companies, and brokers. with a portion of the profits i had legitimately calculated upon, i had proposed to lighten my burden and to devote the balance to carrying through the contract i had taken on my shoulders of protecting amalgamated stock in the market. to do so on this showing would be out of the question; more than ever should i be at "standard oil's" mercy. the dangers that threatened me assumed cyclopean proportions as i marshalled them. suddenly another possibility flashed across my brain, "what if they should tell you that having refused what was fair, you should have nothing--that you could go to the devil and fight? then where would you be?" that meant ruin, crushing, irrevocable, complete; a series of disasters, so portentously realistic, began a cinematographic procession across my disordered brain, that i found myself shivering in anticipation, when suddenly the door-knob clicked and i jumped to my feet to admit mr. rogers. in his hand was the paper. i had eyes for it alone. i took it from his outstretched fingers and devoured its contents. it was the same sheet, the same word "balance," but underneath the old figures was a line below which appeared a new set of ciphers, showing just a fraction under five millions of dollars. in the brief interval of minutes my balance had doubled. before i could utter a word, with his hand on my arm to arrest my attention, mr. rogers was exclaiming: "lawson, one word before you open your mouth. remember i said you should be satisfied. mr. rockefeller agrees with me. he is convinced these figures now are right, but wants me to tell you if you believe they are not, to make your own and you'll have what they call for." as i said before, henry h. rogers knows the human animal, and in the intimate intercourse of preceding years he had had ample opportunity to learn those very human characteristics which go to the blending of my individuality. it is a weakness of which i am intensely conscious, yet cannot altogether regret, to be easily moved by any show of generosity and fairness, however specious. when i saw the new figures and realized that all the hell i had conjured up was no more than a nightmare, a very rapture of gratitude and relief seized me. it was not that i lost sight of the fact that this new balance was far below what i knew was my right, for according to the lowest computation my proper share was nine millions; nor that i failed to realize that i was in the power of this man whose greed, callousness, and brutal obstinacy in the face of opposition no one knew better than i. still, though his unusual deference convinced me that by continued, fiery insistence i could force from him the remaining four millions (for the one thing standard oil never lets get into court is a dispute over a division of profits on a joint stock deal), the first shock had been so awful, and the reaction was so sudden, that my whole being revolted at the idea of further wrangle. indeed, i was in the same condition as the man whose runaway horse suddenly stops just as the children in the roadway seemed doomed to be crushed and beaten to death beneath its iron heels. he condones the running away in gratitude for the timely halt. a glad voice within me seemed to be saying, "it's all right, all right--that's money enough to fight him out with--that's ammunition for victory--victory for yourself, for the friends who have banked on your ability to protect them." i said to mr. rogers: "tell mr. rockefeller i thank him for his fairness. i thank you both. i'm satisfied and this is settled." i put my finger on the account which lay on the table. yes, i positively thanked these men who had tried to rob me of seventy-five per cent. of all the millions that i had earned by all the laws _of the game_, and that i so urgently needed to protect those whom i had lured to probable destruction; needed as a mother in the desert needs milk to keep life in her babe. i thanked these men in heartfelt terms because they had returned me an additional third of my own money. idiot, you say. i went further; i shook mr. rogers by the hand, and as the tears gathered in his eyes i said, and it was from the heart, too: "don't think, mr. rogers, that i shall ever lay up this day against you and mr. rockefeller, or that i shall resent not getting all i believed i should have had. i want you both to understand that i do know i am entitled to more, but it ends here. i will cherish no ill-feeling, for this balance is amply sufficient to enable me to do what i intended to do, and--there is more on earth than millions." we were both emotionally excited; i from relief at escaping the clutches of that dread hell of which for certain moments i had felt the flaming grasp; he because of a sudden degrading realization that he had attempted to practise on a faithful comrade in arms a cowardly and contemptible piece of treachery. my impulsive gratitude for the measure of justice granted me made his avaricious greed seem even to him despicable, and for an instant henry h. rogers was honestly ashamed. some years have elapsed since this episode, but a thousand times i suppose the scene has arisen to rack henry h. rogers with bitter memories of his baseness. the severest punishments are not those that we mortals inflict on our fellows whom for violations of our little earthly laws we clap in striped suits and shackle with steel bracelets. what are striped suits which imprint no mark on the body of the wearer, or handcuffs that any blacksmith can strike off at a blow, in comparison with the ever-recurring torture of the white-hot iron with which god sears the hearts and brains of those sinners whose wrong-doing is beyond human retribution? what memories of prison and disgrace are comparable with the exquisite suffering of the undetected criminal who in the dark watches of the night pores over the bitter scroll of his delinquencies? when henry h. rogers reads the record set down here of this faithless and degrading action, he will suffer infinitely more than ever i did for the loss of the gold he and his associates so meanly filched. nor will the knowledge of the seven and a half score of millions marshalled ready at his nod, abate one jot or tittle of the measure of his humiliation and shame. peace having been established, mr. rogers sent "upstairs" for the checks and stocks to complete the settlement, and while we waited we talked, and, as was inevitable after so strenuous a session, we found ourselves back on the sincere and frankly friendly footing of our earlier intercourse. a knock-down and attempted drag-out which at the end is declared a draw invariably promotes cordiality between the principals, and ours was no exception to the rule. evidently mr. rogers had been doing considerable thinking since our last conversation and had accumulated troublesome ideas which had to be worked off. my mood at the moment seemed made to order for the purpose, and he ran over our affairs, one after another, until he thought it safe to explode his bomb. he rang for a clerk, and instructed that mr. stillman be called up and asked to send over "that paper if it was ready." soon afterward the messenger returned with a big, square package. mr. rogers opened it. "lawson," he said, "here's the whole story. stillman has been steadily at work and has just finished two copies of the entire subscription. i think you ought to look it over." "look it over," i repeated. "why, it is of the utmost importance to the whole enterprise that i study every name. i alone can tell just what that list means. after i've been over it i'll know pretty thoroughly who will hold, who will want to sell, who must sell, and who will need encouragement." "that's just what i thought," he answered, with an air of high approval. then, dropping to his most friendly and confidential key, the tone of voice that never fails to persuade an associate that he is in on the bottom floor and that all others are outsiders, he went on: "and more than that, lawson, why cannot you get in touch with all those subscribers who are disappointed at the amounts they received and sell them what they want?" mr. rogers leaned back to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. at any other moment i should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and i let him spin his webs. any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of henry h. rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of circe, pays the penalty of his indiscretion. some he uses and contemptuously casts aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals or servitors and proudly flaunt his livery; a few, the strong, independent souls, tempted with great rewards and beguiled by the man's baleful, intellectual charm into his clutches, preserve a semblance of freedom; but let the boldest of these turn restive--he is maimed or garroted with sickening promptitude. chapter xxxii perfecting the double cross to get back to my story. i realized that though one disaster had been averted, i was far from any haven of rest. remembering my cue, however, i asked innocently: "have you all decided to sell more of the stock, mr. rogers?" "all? why no," he said. "just let me show you where we stand now. all the unsold stock, roughly forty-eight millions, has been divided up and each man has to carry his own. that's easy, because stillman will carry them all at the bank, for they are all good, lewisohn, morgan, olcott, flower, daly, and the others. the only loose stock will be mr. rockefeller's, yours, and mine, and that we must turn into money before we can bring out the second section. you have been losing sight of the fact, lawson, that we have millions upon millions tied up here, and mr. rockefeller has decided he will not go ahead until we have turned this venture into money." marvellous, marvellous man! he unrolled the new scheme as openly and as freely as though he were a world's philanthropist explaining a new benefaction and i an enthusiastic minister employed to carry the glad tidings to the people. the plot was obvious. in spite of flower and stillman and all the talk of our taking a rest he was back on his black courser again, in a new saddle, with a freshly lighted lantern, and the old blackjack newly leaded. and i was the only one who could stalk the game. i listened. "now let me show you, lawson, what a pretty campaign i have laid out," he went on. "i've pledged all the others to hold their stock and i've got it rigged in such a way they can't let go a share without my knowing of it. then i've got them all enthusiastic and have formed a pool at flower's office which, if necessary, can buy 500,000 shares, and what with the money they have made and the promise that they will be let in on the second section if they're good, we ought to have things pretty much our own way." the scheme seemed to be perfect for robbing every one in sight, and here was i being taken right in--i who had but one thought: to get those i had mired on to firm soil and myself outside the breastworks of this pirate stronghold. "it looks perfect, mr. rogers," i said. "now where do i come in on all this?" he shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "you see as well as i can tell you," he replied evasively. "i take it that you want me to unload our stock on to the pool and the other members of the syndicate?" i asked with a brutal frankness that i realized, after i heard the words, was almost indecent. "what is the use of putting it that way, lawson?" he replied angrily. "you know i mean nothing of the sort. you know i want you to keep every one you can from selling, and simply supply the legitimate demand that can be worked up among the subscribers all over the country. if worked as you can work it, this ought to clean up our stock without any one's being hurt." i understood perfectly. if mr. rogers and i had been on terms of flippancy instead of dignity, at this stage we should have given each other the wink. just what he wanted done i knew. he knew i knew what he wanted, and i knew he knew i knew, and yet we were pretending not only that we knew nothing but that there was really nothing to know. fortunately, at this stage of the duel mr. rogers' secretary arrived with my checks and stock, and while we were verifying these, i had time to study my mental chess-board for the next move. the papers were all passed at last and then i entered into some explanation of my own intentions. i told mr. rogers that for the time being i would hold all my stock, but that i intended to borrow a stack of money on it from stillman through my brokers, for i fully intended to support the market, as my belief in the stock was absolute. i could have sworn mr. rogers inwardly chuckled at my fatuity, but i went right on: "if mr. rockefeller has decided that your share and his of the allotment must, in whole or in part, be turned into money before the second section is tackled, there's nothing for it but to go ahead, and i will put in great work for you (i didn't add, "my work, if i can make it, will keep you in as long as the public have a share"), because," said i, "my one ambition now is to complete the second section and get things in such shape that those people i have had locked-in so long can get out, if they care to." it was an intricate problem that was thus settled, for mr. rogers well knew that it would be useless to attempt to sell big quantities of amalgamated without my detecting it, and he dared not ask me to have a hand in his plot without including my own stock. when he saw i intended to stand by my baby, and yet was so anxious to get to the second section that i would accede to mr. rockefeller's wishes, he perceived that the situation was ideal for his purposes. "let me glance over that subscription list," i said; and i opened up the book, for book it really was. my readers may surmise how intense was my interest in scanning the results of my work. this great stack of bank sheets before me was the official list of the subscription, stitched together in seventeen sections of twenty pages each; twenty-eight names, with city, state, street number addresses, and amounts subscribed to a page, all in ink in longhand. "better take them with you to the hotel and go carefully over the names and amounts," put in mr. rogers. "it certainly is a long job, but one that you must tackle some time, and the sooner the better." here was the missing link in my chain of evidence, delivered directly into my hands without a word of persuasion or cajolery. providence played that hand for me surely. i concealed my jubilance by rattling along vociferously: "i shall have to work over this a heap, sending out circulars and what not. it would have been better to have had it in typewriting, but i suppose stillman didn't dare intrust it to the machine people. however, i can divide up the seventeen sections among different people and none will know the whole story. i will keep it in boston with the other papers, and--gracious! what's this?" "what is it?" he asked, smiling at my excitement. in front of me was the section beginning with the "mc's," and the largest subscription on the page was 6,000 shares--1,200 allotment. i followed the line back to the name. it was that of hugh mclaughlin, then the big "boss" of brooklyn, who, like all the other big bosses of new york state, was a trusted lieutenant of "standard oil." i put my finger on the amount and said: "you have taken care of your friend across the river, i see. no wonder all the politicians were so anxious to get in, for they know you would not put this old gentleman into anything that is not pretty sure." mr. rogers nodded wisely: "yes, i told the old stalwart he had better have about half a million, but he went $100,000 better, i see. i sent the word around to the others, too, but have not had a chance to go over the list carefully. have they all gone in under their own names?" i ran over page after page, looking for names as he called them off, but most of them had disguised their ventures through dummies. we had no trouble in putting our fingers on their allotments, however; mr. rogers commenting in his sage and caustic way on men and politics. it was growing late, and at a natural stopping-place in our talk i sent for paper and string, with my own hands tied up the book, and--with all the airs of extreme leisureliness--literally bolted. no school-boy with a three-pound trout caught in a deep hole under a big willow bearing the sign, "any one fishing here will be prosecuted," no burglar with an unexpected fat swag, was ever in such a fever to lug his booty to a concealed place as i to get that infinitely precious bundle to the waldorf. at last i landed it in my room and began to scan the interesting pages. my first thought was to look for our own big dummy subscription. as i supposed, it was not there. _roughly i added the totals of the different sheets and compared them, with the 412 millions we had given the public, which was now indelibly, the world over, a matter of record._ again i stopped to congratulate myself on my good fortune in securing this first-hand evidence of the fraud that had been practised on the people. i leaned over the thick pages with their various inscriptions. the names and addresses carried me into every corner of the united states and into the great cities of europe as well. set down there were towns and villages i had never heard of, and my mind made pictures for me of fathers, mothers, and children, beguiled by my pledges and promises, embracing the opportunity to add to their scanty hordes. but it was not a moment to indulge in scares, so i slipped over the people's mites and fixed my mind on the millions. the lewisohns were down for eleven millions, and mr. rogers' old cronies, john moore's firm, were represented by a subscription of between six and seven millions. as i ran over the names i found million after million down to mr. rogers' friends, which told me that he had spared no one. all the lieutenants and the queer people who do the confidential business of the "system," and invariably turn up at melon-cutting time, were down for round amounts. conspicuous among the rest was the name of that rising votary of the "system" who won notoriety, while comptroller of the currency under president cleveland, as manipulator of the slick bond deal which has gone into american history as among the queerest performances of its period. loaded up with government banking secrets, this young man subsequently became a prize for whom the various organizations of the "system" competed valorously. there he was, in three places--james h. eckels, president of the commercial bank of chicago, 6,000, 2,000, and 2,000 shares--or a million dollars altogether. another name caught my eye: "bay state gas co., j. edward addicks, 20,000 shares"--two millions of dollars. i leaned back and laughed as i thought of this wary old fox, with the bruises and scars of the "system's" hopper thick all over his body, dutifully bringing his contribution to his old enemy, rogers. and rogers, disdainful and contemptuous of the man, found his $400,000 good. this, i said to myself, is a case of spider eat spider with a vengeance; and i wondered if experience is really as good a teacher as the text-book says. hour after hour i pondered over that list, "sizing up" each subscriber and questioning what his financial condition might be. at last i dropped it, swearing to myself to use every effort to protect these thousands of people who had ventured so much money on the strength of my pledges. two days later the allotments were officially announced; in a few days more the receipts were issued and amalgamated was fairly out in the world on its own feet. it was not listed on any of the exchanges yet, but it was very much in the mouths of people, and in the papers. and every day grew the ominous feeling that something was wrong. it was a contradictory situation and no one could put a finger on the trouble. rumors one heard, but no definite derogatory statements. the truth was that those who knew what was wrong had good reasons for saying nothing, while all who had to do with stock affairs and surmised the evil, were themselves loaded up with the stock and hoping against hope that our promises of great profits would yet be fulfilled. it was my part to keep up these anticipations and by hook or crook prevent rogers and rockefeller from unloading. i bought and bought to steady the market when no one else apparently would buy; and when i found others whom i could induce to venture, i had them relieve those who were faltering and who must sell. when mr. rogers took me to task, i invented all manner of excuses to account for my tardiness in creating a market on which he could unload his holdings. he listened impatiently and incredulously, and i felt that sooner or later he would take the bit in his teeth. in spite of my efforts the price of amalgamated dropped and dropped and it was all i could do to prevent a quick crash. my profits--the immense sum of money i had obtained at the settlement--had been used up, together with the great sums i had borrowed on my own allotment of shares. at intervals i stopped long enough to make brief excursions into sugar or other stocks, out of which i captured additional hundreds of thousands, but every cent of such gains went toward staying the avalanche. these indeed were days of desperation and black despair, all the more trying because i had to look happy and talk hopefully; all the more difficult because my enemies came out of their holes and did their share to balk my efforts; all the more painful because the public were beginning to doubt whether the second section was coming--and whether it had best come--and our boston "coppers" had begun to drop in value. during all this time i had troubled myself but little about the flower pool, which had been set going soon after the conversation in which mr. rogers had told me that he and mr. rockefeller intended to unload their stock. i concluded that the pool would surely get a share of what they had to sell, and showed no inclination to join in with it. but at last mr. rogers said to me: "as every one is going into the pool, lawson, it will seem strange if you are missing, so you had better send flower your check and i will see you get it back later." "for how much?" i asked him. "a hundred thousand will be about right," he answered, and i sent it, and that was all i had heard of the subject until one day after the stock had been weaker than usual i received by mail a brusk notice from flower & co. to mail them another hundred thousand dollars. immediately i called up the banking-house, and learned to my horror and astonishment that the pool had accumulated over 225,000 shares. i went at once to mr. rogers with flower's call and said: "i know nothing whatever of this affair, mr. rogers, and as i have not been unloading any of my stock and have all i can do to keep up my end anyway, you will look after it, of course." he took the notice and said: "i will attend to it." remembering his intentions to unload, after what i had heard of the pool's accumulations i was not surprised at mr. rogers' willingness to take care of this matter of mine. it is of interest now, in looking back over our affairs, to recall that though there were several periods later when the sledding was hard, and i needed all the money i could lay hands on, he never offered to return me that hundred thousand, not even after the pool had liquidated, as will be shown later. in spite of this fact, in his readiness to hurl any charge or insult at me, he had his hireling, denis donohoe, recently make the accusation that i alone of all its members refused to keep up my payments to the flower pool. chapter xxxiii a retrospect and a moral the crime of amalgamated and its immediate consequences are before my readers. i have fulfilled the promise made in my foreword to expose to the people of america the manner in which they have been plundered and the methods by which the "system" habitually cheats them out of their savings. robbery conducted on so gigantic a scale as i have pictured must necessarily simulate the natural processes of finance, and to understand the deep devices of the schemers requires a knowledge of banking and commercial practices which the average man has no chance to attain. if i had begun my story by stating exactly what constituted the crime of amalgamated, my readers would not have grasped its heinousness. in the chapters that i have devoted to leading up to it they have been educated in the piratical practices of finance and financiers, and have acquired familiarity with the jugglery of corporations and the multiplication and division of stock certificates through which most of the great american fortunes have been created. depending still on the ignorance of its blinded dupes, the "system" again raises its brazen face from among the poison rushes of wall street and hisses, "listen to what he calls a great crime--a simple business transaction. it is no crime, but a common practice of modern finance and by no means unusual or extraordinary." no crime to take by a trick from thousands of the people thirty-six millions of the results of our great country's prosperity? think of what this vast sum represents--the revenues of a year's work of 36,000 men earning each $1,000. think of it, ye millions who dig and delve and bear heavy burdens that your mothers, wives, and children may in exchange have a bite to eat and a couch to sleep upon! the crime of amalgamated, as i have explained it, constitutes a specific breach of the banking laws of the state and nation. but the legal aspects of the offence are trivial in comparison with the great moral crime which was consummated by henry h. rogers and james stillman, in the national city bank on that night in may, 1899. through false representations and specious pledges and the credit of the names of "standard oil" and the national city bank, thousands of people were beguiled into investing their savings in this amalgamated copper company. because of the promise of great gains other thousands mortgaged their homes, appropriated their wives' savings, even their employers' funds, and embarked in this fair-seeming enterprise. the greatest bank in america aided and abetted the conspiracy by the loan of its funds to lure the victims deeper into the toils. all in, the trap is sprung; the thousands are despoiled of their savings by familiar devices of finance, and throughout the land is spread a wave of misery, madness, and despair. the crime of amalgamated, a critical correspondent writes me, is purely a wall street offence, important to bankers and capitalists but of no consequence to the working men, the farmers, or the toiling millions who have no savings to invest in stocks. "of what concern is it to us," says this writer, "how one section of the rich robs another of its hoardings?" poor fool! a few men cannot deprive even a few thousands of so great a sum as $36,000,000 without working untold injury upon the entire body of the people. such a stupendous sum looted from the coffers of the many and piled in the vaults of three or four men unbalances the whole economic structure of the nation. the consequences of that act do not end in the series of defalcations and bankruptcies, imprisonments and suicides, in the ruined homes and wrecked careers that follow in its immediate wake. in the grip of these plunderers intrenched in the stronghold of finance each of these filched millions becomes a new weapon of oppression. because of the crime of amalgamated every pound of food that goes to sustain life in the american people, every shingle on every roof that shelters the american people, every mile of transportation for man or freight in america; in fact, every necessity and every luxury of the american people has had added to its cost some fractional increase, representing in the aggregate tens and tens of millions annually, which, flowing into the coffers of the "system," strengthen and extend its stupendous grip on the property of the nation. our country for a generation has been prosperous beyond the dreams of man, yet what have the masses of our people to show for it? a better, a higher, and a more expensive standard of living--that is all. that this prosperity which is our national boast will last forever is incredible. sooner or later will come one of the times when nature frowns and sends her floods, her droughts, and her epidemics of disease. is the american people prepared by its long-sustained prosperity to bridge over that period of want and suffering? the truth is that the mass of our population has not sufficient surplus laid by to last over thirty days of such a calamitous interval. all the unearned increment of national prosperity the "system" has captured and capitalized. not only have the people been deprived of the profits of their labor, but this capitalized prosperity is the stern instrument by which new burdens are laid on their shoulders and new tithes are exacted from their wages. but for the plundering "system" the great mass of our people would be able to sit in their tents in the shade of their husbanded harvests and laugh to scorn the frowns of fortune. now, i say, god help the nation when nature, tired from her great work, rests, and the people, too, are compelled to rest--for then will come an awful awakening. when the millions face famine and realize for the first time that their gigantic storehouses, filled to bursting with the surplus of the past, are the property of the few who cannot even count the contents, much less use them--when they realize that these hoarded treasures are as far beyond their starved reach as are the violets and daisies beyond the picking of the galley-slave, then they will appreciate how much deeper and more damnable are the crimes of the "system," such crimes as amalgamated and its like, than even such national tragedies as the assassinations of lincoln, garfield, and mckinley, at each of which all the people held aloft their hands in horror. why is it that the millions of intelligent, able-bodied americans, who could crush the tribe of rockefeller as elephants crush snakes, rise with each sun and dig and delve and suffer that a rogers may wallow in wealth and an armour gain a greater income than the rothschilds? why are they so easily hoodwinked into imagining that the elaborate reports detailing the immense and growing wealth of the country represent their own well-being and affluence? because the wise men of the "system" know human nature, know that most men and women accept unquestioningly the conditions they find surrounding them. each day it is pounded into the heads of the people through a hundred agencies that it is the greatest and most flourishing of peoples and that the laws and customs which regulate its lives and rights are the best in all the world. how shall the people know that these glowing rumors, these propitious tidings, are but the siren songs of the "system" under the spell of which it is despoiled of its savings? ask yourselves, my friends, how much you know about those familiar things which are part of your lives as are the sunshine, the grass, and the flowers--your bible, your money, your playing-cards. each is an institution so consecrated by custom that you accept it exactly for what it meant to your father just as he took it from his own father a generation before. that the holy book is god's message to his children, the human race, we know because we have the words of our ancestors therefor; the stamped silver and gold we take for granted as we do shoes and clothes, because money is an essential factor in the social fabric and the form in which it comes to us seems as inevitable as the moon or our ten fingers; humanity has gone on for hundreds of years considering the knave of greater value than the ten-spot and the ace of higher worth than all the rest of the pack, because it is content to believe that the rules that have been handed down apportioning these values are the best that could be devised. with a hundred other elements and details of our daily life, it is the same--we accept unreasoningly what we are told or what is given us, with no look forward or back, and, engaged with the thousand new toys and problems which fate, the conjurer, shakes out of his hat, we become bound by habit and blinded by precedent. the love men have for the formulas and conventions of their daily lives is the "system's" opportunity for plunder, and it is this fundamental principle of humanity that makes my work so difficult. it would be as easy to convince the masses that their playing-cards are all wrong and that the ace is really of lower value than the two-spot as it is to awaken them to the terrors of the conditions that are confronting them; to compel them to realize that a despotism of dollars is being organized among them; that the cherished institutions of generations are the instruments by which a few daring schemers are concentrating into their own hands the money of the nation, and that this concentration can have no other result than the abject slavery of the american people. end of volume lawson and his critics i the insurance controversy in the july, 1904, number of _everybody's magazine_ i announced that i proposed to give to the world a story concerned with events which had taken place in real life--a true story. i outlined it, giving the names of the persons and events it would deal with. these things happened: the edition of the magazine was sold out in three days; my chapter was printed in part or in full in nearly all the papers and periodicals of the united states and canada; many of the representative journals, even in england, published long editorials on the subject, and with but few exceptions, editorials and news comments were favorable. i was urged to continue. my second chapter appeared. the magazine, with an additional 100,000 copies, was sold out in two days. the press took hold of the matter with even greater interest than it had accorded my first chapter. the third chapter met with a still more cordial reception. the edition of the magazine, although increased another 100,000, sold out as before, and my mail expanded to a degree that surprised me. in addition to thousands of press notices and criticisms, i received ever so many letters from all classes of americans and canadians--teachers of the word of god, and members of the flocks who are taught, earnest statesmen and insincere politicians, millionnaires and paupers, anarchists, socialists, municipal-ownershipists, and the hundred and one travelers on the beaten highways and lowways of life, who, spurred by ambition or unrest, pantingly seek a chance to blaze a way for the trudging millions of the future to that goal of all ambitious and restless dreamers--a people's utopia. nearly all appealed to me to give them the word as to the ultimate intention of "frenzied finance"--"is it only to point to the sores, or will it prick them with its long sharp point and will its double edge cut the flesh in which they are rooted?" others required further information or explanation about the subjects i had treated; another section questioned my statements and found fault with my disclosures. the volume of these communications and criticisms finally became so large and they were so urgent in tone that i made up my mind it was necessary to devise some fair and intelligent way to remove the writers' difficulties and resolve their doubts. the modern surgeon finds the preparation of a patient who is to go under the knife as important as the operation itself. my readers, unacquainted with the intricate details of finance and confused by the angry outcries and denials of those i had attacked, required education _en route_ to be able to absorb and digest the hard facts and strong statements i was dealing out to them in monthly instalments. my publishers agreed with me as to the necessity of dealing in some radical way with the emergency, and devoted to my service additional pages in the back of _everybody's magazine_. here i decided to begin a department to be called "lawson and his critics" in which i would solve the knotty problems my correspondents presented to me, set right their misunderstandings, and reply fully to those critics who had aspersed my motives or were attempting to discredit my message. i began the department in october, 1904, and though i have been most seriously pressed for time, and in many instances have dealt imperfectly with the problems treated, i must say that the task i set myself has proved interesting and agreeable, and the letters the department evoked have been a tremendous source of inspiration and encouragement to me along the hail-stony road i had set myself to travel. the bulk of the department during the months of 1904 was devoted to the subject of insurance. in an early chapter of my story i said that the three great insurance corporations, the new york life, the equitable, and the mutual life of new york, were an integral part of the "system," and especially instanced the new york life as one of the most pliable tools of the "made dollar" makers. this statement, so mild and so vague in view of subsequent developments, was the first move in the historic controversy that has resulted in the extraordinary exposures that are being made as this book goes to press. when that first pebble was thrown, the surface of the insurance pond was as placid as a mountain lake, unruffled by a ripple, and in it were reflected the benignant faces of the noble philanthropists who consented to spend their days conserving the interests of the widows and the orphans of america. the people had grown so accustomed to regarding the mccalls, the perkinses, the hydes, the mccurdys, and the alexanders, whose eminent physiognomies looked out at them from their insurance policies, as lofty and generous souls far removed from thoughts of pelf or self-aggrandizement, that my assertion caused consternation such as would occur in a chinese temple if some rough intruder struck the idol, before whom a congregation was worshipping, with a stone. at once an avalanche of letters--protests, demands for further facts, anxious appeals from policy-holders--poured in upon me, and frankly i took up the subject, giving my readers exactly what they desired. new hampshire traction in order that the controversy may be unfolded in the manner in which it was first given to the public, i give here the first letter of the series, and then follow directly along with those passages from succeeding numbers that are devoted to the subject: buffalo, n. y., august 25, 1904. mr. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. _dear sir_: i have been astounded beyond measure at the revelations you make in your second article regarding the new york life insurance company, because i have two policies in that concern which i am keeping up for the protection of my family. my confidence in the company has been shaken by your revelations, and i wonder if much more can be said. perhaps it is best for clean life insurance to tell all now--the rest will be the better for it. do you really believe the officers of the company personally profited from using the "cash on hand" of the company? go on in your exposure; you are doing a meritorious work, and we poor devils, plodders, will never cease to thank you for your work. should like to have you intimate if anything more about new york life is coming. yours truly, ------to this i replied: i desire to emphasize that the new york life insurance company, which i cited, is no different from the equitable and the mutual life, or many of the other large companies. they are links in the chain of the "system"--necessary links in the device by which dollars are "made," by which the savings of the people are sucked from the people to the "system," the "private things." i will, later in my story, dwell upon this tremendous phase of this stupendous question, and will only say at the present time, as an answer to such questions as "buffalo's": the insurance companies use the billions the people have placed with them to buy or create banks and trust companies, the stocks of which are a large part of their assets. they then use these banks and trust companies, which exist because of the people's savings, in stock gambling enterprises, speculations as unsafe and as frenzied as those of the wildest plunger of wall street. i will give one illustration: the new york life insurance company's directors and managers created the new york security and trust company. $1,000,000 capital; $500,000 surplus--in all, $1,500,000. $150 per share, of which the insurance company held about two-thirds. the trust company soon secured deposits to the extent of about $50,000,000, and these it loaned out by "financing" new and old enterprises. among them was the new hampshire traction. the trust company flourished. its stock advanced in price to over $1,300 per share, or over $13,000,000, and its different speculative ventures prospered exceedingly. new hampshire traction kept pace with the rest and simultaneously with them bounded upward in value until the amount of this stock owned by the trust company represented a value of between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000. there came a time when the directors of the new york life insurance company decided to dispose of their stock in the trust company, and did so to a syndicate composed of their own members, headed by john d. rockefeller, at $800 per share. afterward the stock disposed of at $800 per share advanced to over $1,300, or, with the third which had not been owned by the insurance company but by the "insiders" and their friends, to a total of over $13,000,000. then came the slump, and the price of the new hampshire traction fell to twenty-five cents on the dollar, and the trust company's stock to less than $600. if in all the histories of the wildcats of the wild catteries of wall street a wilder case of "frenzied finance" can be discovered, i don't know it, and yet this is only one of many i could quote, selected at random. boiled down, it means that what was bought at $150 went to $1,400 and back to $590, and that it changed hands at $800 before it got to $1,400, and that the plunger in this transaction, which made this plunging possible, was one of the most conservative life insurance companies in america. i will answer "buffalo's" question by asking another: suppose all the insurance companies have been doing business on the same scale, and have tied up billions of the people's money in such schemes as new hampshire traction, and the people, learning these facts, should demand their savings to the extent of the $9,000,000,000 which they have deposited in banks and trust companies, what would happen? what would happen to the undigested securities, the insurance companies, the people's savings, and the policies such as "buffalo" says he has purchased for the benefit of his family? * * * * * this statement precipitated a perfect flood of letters and queries, growing more urgent as the month wore on. it was impossible to answer all of them. i contented myself with replying to the letter of a prominent philadelphia church-man, a policy-holder in the new york life, who wrote as follows: philadelphia, september 23, 1904. mr. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. _my dear sir_: i have just finished reading the current article on "frenzied finance," and like "buffalo" i am astounded at your statements regarding the "new york life." i, too, have a policy in that company and have been led to believe that i was not only insured in the best and most conservative company, but that i had a first-class and perfectly _safe_ investment as well. this particular company claims that not a dollar of its assets is invested in stocks of any kind, and yet, to quote from your article: "the insurance companies use the billions the people have placed with them to buy or create banks and trust companies, the stocks of which are a large part of their assets." either you are manifestly unfair or else the company is guilty of deliberate falsehood for the purpose of deceiving the public. as a policy-holder and prospective sharer in the surplus of the "new york life," i am much interested in knowing whether its statements in regard to its investments are to be relied upon. will you take just a moment to answer the following question? is the "new york life" telling a falsehood when it states that not a dollar of its assets is invested in stocks of any kind? very respectfully yours, ------i replied: the transaction in regard to the new york security company and the new hampshire traction stocks was exactly as i set it forth. i can imagine no one but an absolute idiot who would dare to set it forth unless he knew he was dealing with facts. your high position in the church should, in my opinion, peculiarly fit you to answer fairly your question, "is the new york life telling a falsehood when it states that not a dollar of its assets is in stocks of any kind?" when i unqualifiedly state the fact that the new york life owned the millions of the new york security company's stock; that it paid $150 a share for them and sold them to a syndicate of its own directors at $800 per share, and that the stock afterward sold at over $1,300 per share, and still afterward dropped to less than $600 per share. i did not wish to be unfair to the new york life, or i should have stated, what i shall endeavor to show before my story is ended, that at the time the new york life parted with these shares to their own directors at $800 per share they were actually worth and could have been sold for hundreds of dollars per share more. the honesty of the one man at this the big insurance companies uncovered their guns, and soon the air, the newspapers, and my mail were full of underwriting explosions. it was necessary then to line up my forces and to go at the attack seriously. so, having carefully thought out a campaign which my knowledge of the men whom i was antagonizing taught me would bring results, i began, in december, as follows: when i began to write "frenzied finance" i specifically stated that i should not concern myself with men, but with principles. i held that to put an end to the plundering of the people required more than the denunciation of individual criminals; that the real peril lay in the financial device through which the plundering was done and the "machine" developed for their operation. the "machine" is the tremendous correlation of financial institutions and forces that i call the "system," and the most potent factor in the "system" is the life insurance combine--the three great insurance companies, the new york life, mutual life, and equitable, with their billion of assets and the brimming stream of gold flowing daily into their coffers. that i should have to discuss the relation between the "system" and these great institutions was inevitable; but, knowing how vitally interested the public is in the preservation of the gigantic structures its savings have erected, i had thought to treat this phase of my subject later on, when my readers should be absolutely convinced by what had preceded it of the honesty and fairness of my purpose. moreover, it did not seem possible to touch on life insurance conditions without involving the men who direct the three great companies, and whom policy-holders and the people at large have been taught to regard as men of wellnigh miraculous sagacity, integrity, and beneficence. with these men i have had none but the pleasantest relations, and determined as i am on the performance of my task, i go about it with the reluctance a surgeon feels when, in order to save a friend's life, he must amputate his limb. a contingency has now arisen which compels me to depart from my rule and to discuss much more frankly than i had purposed at this juncture, the new york life insurance company, the system which controls it, and its president, john a. mccall, the "system's" representative. in reply to the inquiries of an anxious policy-holder, who had taken alarm at my statement that the funds of these great corporations were under the control of the "system," i stated in the october issue of _everybody's magazine_ that the new york life was, as well as its so-called competitors, the equitable and the mutual, as much a participant in the frenzied speculation of the period as were the plunging wall street stock gamblers; but in giving an illustration of its methods (the new york security and trust company and the new hampshire traction company) i selected a case which would not unnecessarily alarm nervous people, for the transaction showed an enormous profit as the result of a wild stock plunge, instead of an enormous loss--some of the new york life's other deals were much less fortunate. when i stated that the new york life disposed of its interest in the security trust company to its directors for four millions of dollars, which represented a gain of over $3,000,000 on its original investment, i was careful not to state that the shares for which they paid $800 each were worth at the time $1,300 each, or $7,000,000 for what was sold for $4,000,000--particularly careful to state that they were afterward worth this additional amount. policy-holders in the three great life-insurance companies may argue: "the man who is known to us policy-holders as the real head of the new york life is john a. mccall, its president. all that you may say about the 'system's' votaries being in control may be so, but we depend on the integrity and the character of this one man to protect our interests. he is our representative, not the 'system's,' and our savings are surely safe in his strong hands." there is the point. in the great insurance corporations that are "one-man run," the hundreds of thousands of policy-holders have but one protection. this, notwithstanding the protection of the state laws, the guardianship of the insurance department of the various states, and the provisions of the company's charter and by-laws. however impregnable may seem the safeguards which the law has built round the administration of our great insurance companies, the fact absolutely is that the honesty of "the one man" is the one potent protection policy-holders may depend on. the others may be juggled with as are the rules of the stock exchange, which say in thunder tones, "all within our sacred walls is honest and honorable," when in reality if the microbes of dishonor and dishonesty generated within stock-exchange walls each busy week of every year should be collected and disseminated throughout the land, they would give typhoid of the soul to our eighty millions of americans. so it becomes the duty of every policy-holder to find out by such tests as he can apply, "is 'the one man' who runs our company an honest man or is he a dishonest man?" if "the one man" stands their tests, if he emerges from their ordeal clean, strong, honest, as they believed, then they may rest awhile in patience. but if he is revealed as dishonest, then it behooves the policy-holders of that company to take measures for the protection of their interests. the welfare and happiness, perhaps the very lives of their mothers, their wives, and their children depend on their action. i was recently waited upon by an important man. "lawson, what are you doing in life insurance?" he asked. "giving facts about the life-insurance branch of a 'system' which is foully plundering the people," i answered. "what are you trying to do?" "educate the millions of life-insurance policy-holders to their present peril; after they are educated, arouse them to quick, radical action." "what are you going to do?" he asked. "i am going to cause a life-insurance blaze that will make the life-insurance policy-holders' world so light that every scoundrel with a mask, dark-lantern, and suspicious-looking bag will stand out so clearly that he cannot escape the consequences of his past deeds, nor commit new ones." "have you figured the consequences to yourself?" "having no interest in what the consequences may be to myself in performing what i have decided is a sacred duty, i have not." "let me show them to you. first let me ask, do you intend to confine your criticisms to the new york life insurance company?" "i intend to bring out the facts, particularly as to the new york life, the mutual life, and the equitable life; and, so far as in my power lies, as to every other life-insurance company in america that is connected with the 'system.'" "are you actuated by any selfish motives--gain, revenge, or friendly interest in certain life-insurance companies or banks or trust companies?" "my only interest is to perform a duty in righting a startling wrong, and i would not undertake the terrible task if i could possibly avoid it." "i am sent to ask you these questions, to find out whether, if you are only seeking to serve the policy-holders, and the insurance companies can absolutely prove to you that your making public your facts will cause terrible destruction to policy-holders' interests, you will consent to forego the life-insurance branch of your story?" "i know the facts. i have calmly, and i believe intelligently, reviewed the effects of their being given to the world, and have concluded that the damage to policy-holders and the people would, in any circumstances or conditions, be greater because of my not doing what i have decided to do than by my doing it. therefore i will not in any circumstances consent to stop until i have laid before the world those things i consider it should know." "well and good. let me show you what you are up against. the equitable, the new york life, and mutual life insurance companies, and their affiliated institutions and individuals, are to-day by all odds the greatest power in the world, greater by all odds than any power that can possibly be gathered together from those outside themselves, a power so great that the effort of no man nor party of men outside themselves can possibly prevail against their wishes." "stop where you are for a minute," i answered, "and let me run over to you what i know i am up against, and then you can judge whether i appreciate the difficulties of my task: "first, the three companies i have named have absolute possession of property and money in the form of assets of over $1,000,000,000--more than half the combined assets of all the insurance companies of america--and indirectly, through their affiliated institutions, of an additional sum, the aggregate of which is much greater than the assets of all the national banks of america and the great financial institutions of europe, such as the banks of england, france, and germany. the three have a ready cash surplus of almost $200,000,000, which is greater than the combined capital of the four greatest institutions of europe--the banks of england, russia, france, and germany. the income of these three companies is, each year, $100,000,000 greater than the combined capitals of the banks of england, russia, france, and germany--or about $250,000,000, $200,000,000 of which is taken each year from their policy-holders in the form of premiums. yet from out of this income there is returned to their policy-holders each year in dividends less than $15,000,000, and in total payments of all kinds not over $100,000,000. and yet these three companies pay out each year in what they call expenses to keep the concerns running $50,000,000, paying to the officers of the companies $3,000,000 in salaries, almost $1,000,000 to their lawyers, and a number of millions in various forms of advertising. "second, the three companies are absolutely steered and controlled from a common centre, and the men who do the steering and controlling are the 'system's' foremost votaries, henry h. rogers, william rockefeller, james stillman, and j. pierpont morgan through george w. perkins, a partner in j. pierpont morgan & co. mr. rogers, vice-president of the standard oil company, is a trustee of the mutual life and a director in one of the largest trust companies owned by the three great insurance companies, the guaranty trust company of new york. william rockefeller, vice-president of the standard oil company, is a trustee of the mutual life and director in the national city--the 'standard oil'--bank. james stillman is a trustee of the new york life, and president of the national city--the 'standard oil'--bank of new york. george w. perkins, partner of j. pierpont morgan & co., is vice-president and trustee of the new york life and a director in the national city--the 'standard oil'--bank; while john a. mccall, the president of the new york life, is a director in the national city--the 'standard oil'--bank. "these great institutions own a majority of the capital stock or have absolute control of a number of the leading banks and trust companies of new york and elsewhere; and such ownership shows conclusively the linking together of the three great insurance companies. for instance, the equitable owns more than a majority of the stock of the mercantile trust company of new york, of a book value of about $4,500,000 and a market value of almost $13,000,000; and of the equitable trust of new york, of a book value of $5,500,000 and a market value of $9,000,000; and of the bank of commerce of new york, of a book value of about $8,000,000 and a market value of over $9,000,000; and in the directory of the mercantile trust of new york and equitable trust is e. h. harriman, one of the leading 'standard oil' men and one of the active votaries of the 'system,' while in the directory of the bank of commerce are the president of the mutual life and seven other trustees of the mutual life and three of the trustees of the new york life. "the mutual life owns stock of the bank of commerce, of a book value of $4,500,000 and a market value of $7,500,000; of the united states mortgage & trust company, of a book value of $2,000,000 and a market value of $4,500,000; and of the guaranty trust company of new york, of a book value of $1,250,000 and a market value of $5,500,000. the directors of the united states mortgage & trust company consist of eight trustees of the mutual life, including its president, and two trustees of the equitable life, while in the guaranty trust directory is the president of the mutual life, henry h. rogers, and e. h. harriman, 'standard oil' votary and director in the equitable. "in addition to these financial institutions, the mutual life has about $20,000,000 of its funds invested in the stock of twenty-five other trust companies and national banks, while the equitable has about $10,000,000 invested in some fifteen other trust and banking institutions. "third, the absolute control of the three great companies, and through them of their subsidiary financial institutions, while supposed to be in the hands of the policy-holders, is entirely beyond their regulation, as all policy-holders of the three companies give over complete control of their companies to the 'system' through the following machinery: the control of the new york life rests absolutely in president mccall, that of the mutual life with president mccurdy. originally these men were elected to office by policy-holders' proxies, voted by the great general agents; but so immeasurable has been the growth of these corporations that only rebellion among policy-holders on an international scale could oust from power the mccalls and the mccurdys. the control of the equitable life rests in the $100,000 of capital stock which is almost entirely owned by the men who elect themselves to manage the company. "therefore you will see that i fully comprehend that this power, which you claim to be, and which undoubtedly is, the greatest on earth, is absolutely, for all practical purposes, in the hands of three men, and that any one who attempts to do anything contrary to what this power allows will find himself opposed by practically unlimited money, which can be used first to corrupt all sources of help, including state insurance-law enforcers, and then to keep such corruptions from the policy-holders by subsidizing the press. in other words, you see that i fully comprehend that i, or any man or any body of men, would be absolutely helpless in an attempt to correct present evils unless we could do two things: first, show to the policy-holders of the great insurance companies that they are absolutely in the hands and at the mercy of 'one man,' and next, that this 'one man' is unscrupulous." in other and different ways i had it forcibly impressed upon me that i must go no further in connecting the life-insurance companies with "frenzied financiering"; that while the "standard oil"-amalgamated-city bank crowd might bide their time for reprisal and vengeance, the great insurance companies must at any cost instantly squelch those rash souls who dared to cross their paths. to all such warnings i replied that a life-insurance company, especially great institutions with hundreds of thousands of policy-holders, must be as far above suspicion as cæsar's wife; that the security of the immense funds in their possession must be as unassailable as the united states constitution; but that immunity from criticism could be secured only by honesty of purpose, honesty of method, and honesty of results; and that i would follow "frenzied finance" wherever it might lead, even if the exposure brought every life-insurance concern in the country down to the ring-bolt of making public confession of complicity. but with all my knowledge of the "system's" weakness, i never dreamed of the condition of fatuity into which the past few years of unbridled "frenzied finance" have plunged its votaries. if the correspondence that follows here correctly represents the purposes and the methods of great american life-insurance companies, i ask my readers what quick, sharp, effective means should be taken to call a halt and rescue the billions of the people's savings before it is too late. and i ask all policy-holders in the great insurance companies to weigh carefully what follows, that from it they may decide the question. as soon as it became fixed in the minds of the different interested parties who had communicated with me that my purpose was unalterable, queer things happened: first, there appeared in the press of the country, under large, black headlines, the startling confession of the editor of a new york financial paper, who, conscience-stricken, admitted that he had been engaged in the systematic blackmail of insurance companies and officials and wall street institutions such as banks and trust companies. it was a curious document, and even the casual reader must have wondered at the mysterious lack of detail. the paper, i found out later, was one of the innumerable swarm of journalistic insects generated, like mosquitoes, in the financial swamps of wall street, destined to live a day and die as they deliver their sting, and the attention given it was curiously out of proportion to its importance. among other queer things, the editor announced that after printing his confession he would disappear; no names were mentioned nor a fact printed which identified any one or anything. all this could not happen without a motive, and i said to myself, "the 'system' is planting a mine for some one." not another word appeared. i awaited developments. on october 8th i received the following letters, which tell their own story: fremont, ohio, october 6, 1904. mr. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. _my dear sir_: i have followed with intensest interest your discussion of "frenzied finance." the _exposé_ of the "system," and its machiavellian performances, was highly interesting to me. i was associated with attorney-general monnett in his effort to get testimony and the inside facts concerning the trust and its operations in his prosecution against that corporation for violating the ohio anti-trust law. at that time the books of the company were burned in cleveland, and, as stated in your article, the company now relies upon the superior memory of standard oil. i was well aware of the connection of certain life-insurance companies with morgan and the rockefellers, but until your public charge, was not familiar with the details. as i had considerable money invested myself in new york life insurance i wrote john a. mccall a bitter letter. in this age of commercialism sentimental benevolence gets little place. the common sentiments of humanity and appreciation of responsibility admonish one in moderate circumstances or even in affluence to invite the co-operation of others in providing for those dependent upon the individual hazard of life and fortune. life insurance has come to be a sacred thing. it is the substantial token and expression of responsibility which a reasonable man dying leaves to those dependent upon him. i so wrote mr. mccall, and told him that if the head of a great institution like the new york life insurance company would be guilty of such perfidy as charged by you, the organization which would retain him in a position of responsibility was undeserving of confidence or patronage. [illustration: photograph of john a. mccall's reply to h. c. deran, the policyholder who had asked for a denial of mr. lawson's charges.] i enclose for your inspection mr. mccall's reply. this is doubtless a sample of the sort of campaign waged throughout the country by the "system." i enclose stamped envelope for the return of the mccall letter, as i purpose continuing the correspondence until i force him to an issue. you will observe the very palpable evasion of the issue. i asked him if the details of the transaction described in _everybody's_, in which the new york life insurance figured conspicuously, were true. he answered by saying that he made money out of the trust company venture and retired. the fact that new york life money is so deposited as to suit the convenience of the "system" in its heads--i win, tails--you lose, operation, is a matter which has escaped the attention of the astute financier. i have written him further, calling his attention to the fact that his letter conveys no information not heretofore made public in circular but that my inquiry was directed to the particular transaction alluded to in _everybody's_, and requesting a flat affirmation or denial. trusting that these facts may be of assistance to you, i am, yours very truly, (signed) h. c. deran. i shall spare my readers the enclosures. they were newspaper slips, printed on fairly thick paper, reproduced from unknown publications, and obviously put forth to discredit me by implication. one, headed "a frenzied financial blackmailer," from the _vigilant_, new york city, september 30, 1904, presented the confession, previously referred to, made by the editor of the _united states investors' guardian_, and an editorial denouncing the blackmail of financial corporations. another slip was "stamp out the fake financial newspaper publisher" from the _fourth estate_, new york city, october 1, 1904, in which the wickedness of the aforesaid editor came in for further moral castigation. at once, as i read these letters and ran over the printed slips pinned to mr. mccall's, i realized the purpose of the blackmail editor's confession and just how so much space came to be given it in the daily papers. insurance corporations are large advertisers[20] and enjoy great popularity in the business offices of great newspapers. it is not said in these clippings that either mr. lawson or _everybody's magazine_ belongs to that lowest order of criminal, the self-confessed black-mailer, but the suggestion is obvious. every policy-holder throughout the world who received these enclosures attached to letters from the greatest insurance president in america would instantly supply the connection--"'frenzied finance black-mailer'--that's intended for lawson, surely; 'frenzied financial journal'--_everybody's magazine_, beyond question." will my readers weigh carefully this awful charge: "thomas w. lawson, in addition to being a frenzied financial black-mailer, is attacking the new york life insurance company because he tried to secure insurance from that company, and that company would not give it to him. his attack is made in the interest of some competing company." again, i ask that it be kept in mind that all this is not said by an insignificant and irresponsible trickster, but is deliberately put forth by the greatest insurance president in america, over his signature, to his policy-holder no. 826,152 and 957,006. soon afterward, in its issue of october 20th, a well-known organ of the insurance companies, _the spectator_, published in new york, had a long article dealing with malicious attacks on our great insurance corporations, specifically mentioning my accusation against the new york life. "mr. lawson was actuated by the meanest motives," says _the spectator_. extract from _the spectator_, october 20, 1904: mr. lawson, in the hypocritical rôle of a would-be-reformed-speculator, is a figure calculated to stir the risibilities of all who have watched his antics and read his articles, _especially when each one of the companies he mentions has repeatedly rejected him for insurance_. letters to policy-holders from the new york life insurance officers poured in on me from different parts of the country, all containing the same defence and the same accusations as the one above, and signed by vice-presidents of the company as well as president mccall, showing conclusively that this great corporation as a corporation had deliberately adopted this method of meeting my serious yet conservatively put business accusations. president mccall's defence of the new york life insurance company and his reply to my accusations are now completely before my readers. let us see if there is not a chance here to determine the grave question, "is '_the one man_' who runs each of our great insurance companies honest?" the facts are: during the past twenty years i have been importuned, begged, and hounded by the several great insurance companies of the united states to take out policies with them almost upon any terms i might name. of this statement i could present more photographic proof than would fit in any one issue of this magazine, but most of it would have no bearing on the point at issue. in the present year (1904)--to go no further back--john a. mccall has repeatedly urged me to come into the new york life insurance company. absolute evidence of the truth of this assertion is presented below. mr. mccall's letter reproduced here would be accepted as complete proof in any court of justice. in the correspondence that follows this first letter it will be seen that mr. mccall left no stone unturned in his effort to get me into the new york life insurance company. a duplicate of the communication sent to my residence went on the same date to my office. to quote his own words, "i hope you may" and "i may have the pleasure of welcoming you either to new or increased membership in this great mutual insurance investment." then, his anxiety being so great, after waiting four days for a reply he sent his special agent to argue with me, and, on the following day, his boston manager to urge me further. [illustration: photograph of letter from john a. mccall soliciting insurance, sent to mr. lawson's house.] [illustration: photograph of heading and signature of john a. mccall's letter of january 22d, sent in duplicate to mr. lawson's office; of special agent gillespie's letter of january 27th; of manager hayes's letter of january 28th. these three letters soliciting insurance, followed each other within a period of six days.] is it any wonder that i called the history i am writing "frenzied finance"? the man who wrote the letter practically saying that i was a black-mailer and that my reason for attacking the new york life was my anger because he would not take me into his company, and the man who wrote the ones begging me to come in, are one and the same; and he absolutely controls directly $400,000,000 of the people's savings in the new york life, and indirectly unnumbered millions in affiliated institutions! i think the case is complete. the policy-holders of the new york life have an opportunity to decide whether the "one man" who runs the great institution in which their savings are invested is honest. in making up their minds, i implore them not at the present time, or at least until the question has been more fully ventilated, to allow their policies to lapse. under any and all circumstances they should keep up the payment of their premiums, for the one thing especially desired and schemed for by some of the "frenzied finance" insurance companies is a wholesale lapse of policies. some few years ago the financial world learned with great interest of a new and very useful invention in finance. a group of individuals who had been buying large quantities of a certain stock at a low price, found they could not, on account of the fact of its overcapitalization having become known to the public, resell it; and they were, to use the stock-gambling term, "hung up" with it because it was too water-logged to float. it became necessary to disguise its identity. here's how they did it: they formed a "syndicate," to which they "turned over" their stock at a good profit; the "syndicate" in its turn put it "in trust" by simply depositing the stock certificate with a trust company, which in its turn issued against the stocks thus held a new security, which it called a "bond." for these a ready market was found, for the word "bond" is still a term to conjure with in the world of finance. this seemed such a serviceable arrangement that the originators soon had many imitators. many "syndicates" were formed, and many so-called "bonds" were put on the market. in most cases the stocks were purchased at a low price, turned into "trusts" at double their cost, and then paid for by means of these certificates, dubbed "bonds." as one stock after another was converted into syndicate certificates--"bonds"--the familiarity of the procedure robbed it of its novelty and these "bonds" were quoted and dealt in much as other and more tangible securities bearing the same name. perhaps this is why the startling announcement of the new york life insurance company made about this time, that it proposed to sell all its stocks and thereafter hold nothing but bonds, created so much less of a sensation than was anticipated. the term "bond" had become vulgarized. this excellent example would undoubtedly have had many followers but for the humor of the tobacco trust. this robust institution, with an immense amount of watered stock, audaciously poured it all but a small amount into bonds, $157,000,000 of them, and with a fine trumpet-blast proclaimed these "bonds" safe investments for widows, orphans, and insurance companies. even wall street, with its frenzied votaries and its frenzied environment, was staggered. the culmination of these conversion performances was the brilliant plan evolved by george w. perkins, the junior partner in the firm of j. pierpont morgan & co., vice-president of the new york life insurance company and expert investor of its vast surplus, to have the united states steel trust purchase some $200,000,000 worth of its own water-logged stock and convert the same into more "absolutely safe bonds"; for its most valuable services in the turning-over process the morgan firm was to have a commission of some forty millions of dollars. at this juncture "frenzied finance" became gagged with its own froth, and i have not space here to go further into the subject. the new york life insurance company declares to its agents, policy-holders, and prospective policy-holders that it no longer holds stock securities. in its last report to the insurance commissioners there are set forth stock securities of the kind i have described above, to the amount of fifty millions of dollars. i will give one illustration: "northern pacific--great northern--c., b. & q. collateral 4s, book value--$12,057,132.59, market value--$11,375,000."--(from the official report to insurance commissioners.) now, these bonds are nothing more nor less than chicago, burlington and quincy stock of a par value of $100 per share, which shares were purchased by individuals, and had "bonds" issued against them at $200 per share. (northern pacific and great northern stock in about the same proportion.) in the sense in which the public look upon the old bonds of railroads this "bond" is no more a bond than it is a government bond. it is nothing more nor less than a stock security, _and yet president mccall says in his letter printed above and sent by him to policy-holder deran that the new york life does not and cannot invest its surplus in stock securities_. the true story of how i was "black-listed" the publication of president mccall's letter and the charges which accompanied it attracted so much attention that the "big three" were flooded with letters from policy-holders demanding information. in the january, 1904, issue of _everybody's magazine_, i continued the controversy. after reviewing the conditions of the previous month's argument, i went on: in entering upon the exposure of the most powerful body of men in the world, i knew quite well what i was "up against," and deliberately decided that in the conduct of my fight i would use such strategy as i believed proper to outwit so strong and so unscrupulous an adversary. one can hang a dog as well with a cord as with a hawser, and in proving my assertions i am quite willing that the insurance companies should believe each play is my best card. i decline, however, to show my hand. in reply to the charge that i was attacking the new york life because i had been refused insurance by that company, as positively stated in mr. mccall's letter, i reproduced a letter written and signed by president john a. mccall, dated 1904, soliciting me to take out insurance in his company. i printed parts of three other letters, one directed to my office, also signed by mr. mccall, another from the special agent, and a third from the boston agent of the new york life, supplementing mr. mccall's letter and requesting the privilege of an interview. this correspondence was put forth with a thorough understanding of its nature. the publishers of _everybody's magazine_ and my own lawyers, to whom i submitted it, both pointed out that the insurance companies would undoubtedly take the ground that the mccall letter was no more than a circular that had been sent out to a number of capitalists and had gone to me by mistake. i replied that such a rejoinder would practically amount to an admission that the statement and signature of the highest officials of the new york life were valueless and without significance, which would place president mccall in an untenable position. if his signature were valueless and without significance when appended to a letter addressed to me, why not in other instances if the interests of his corporation seemed to require such a disclaimer? considering my argument, would not such a confession have a pregnant bearing on the proposition--is the "one man" honest, especially as i was equipped with additional documents to offset further attempts on the part of the insurance companies to show me up as a disappointed seeker after their policies? here, specifically, are the details of my encounter with the life-insurance institutions, and i pledge my word to my readers that they constitute all the facts in this connection. they are well known to the prominent men associated with the great companies whose duty it is to keep track of just such transactions. whoever knows by experience of the incessant pursuit of business by the important insurance corporations need not be told that a man in my position has had his share of importuning by agents great and small. i have never sought life insurance, for it has not appealed to me as an investment, but on three separate occasions i have yielded to the persuasions of a friend connected with one of the big institutions and have considered the subject. the first time was in 1887, following a breakdown from overwork. this illness my friend used as an argument to induce me to take out insurance, and i went so far as to agree to submit to a private medical examination by the leading physicians of his company for the purpose of ascertaining if my breakdown, which for a brief time had left a trace of paralysis in my left side, would bar me. this examination was at my own expense, and it was expressly understood that, being private, it should not constitute a record. the physician pronounced me a perfect risk, but advised against going further inasmuch as a rigid rule of the company precluded them from granting insurance to any one who had suffered from this form of illness until seven years after the attack. i was not disappointed except on account of my friend. five years later his solicitation was renewed and i was assured that the officials of his company were so eager to have me that they would waive the seven-year rule, which still had two years to run. this time i went up before another medical examiner, and after the usual tests, was asked the stereotyped question if i had ever previously been rejected for life insurance. my friend replied for me--no. i, however, in spite of his protests stated fully the conditions of my previous examination, which the doctor assured me did not constitute an official rejection, and the application was filled out. in the conversation that ensued, the doctor said that it was safer to await the expiration of the seven years, and i being still indifferent, except to my friend's interest, accepted the apologies of the several people concerned for the trouble i had taken and let it go at that. four years later, in 1896, after the attack of appendicitis which i described in the december, 1904, instalment of "frenzied finance," again my good friend the agent came to me and used the incident of my narrow escape from death to impress upon me once more the desirability of having a large policy of life insurance. those who have read the "system's" disclaimer, will remember that i had been blacklisted since 1892. there were the usual consultations with high officials of the corporation, and when all preliminary bargains had been arranged, i underwent a thorough examination in new york. this time, the seven-year term having expired, i was pronounced a perfect risk. but my latest illness had brought me up against another waiting rule, and once more the subject was abandoned after the usual expressions of regret and good-will. since 1896 my connection with life-insurance companies has been about the same as that of a molasses barrel with the industrious flies in summer. the interviews of 1892 and 1896 are both matters of record. my position in each instance was well understood, and several insurance officials who know the facts as well as i do have, since the publication of the company's statement, come to me and offered to back up my assertions with their own. american manhood is certainly not extinct when men are willing to sacrifice their careers to set a wrong right. the manner in which the great companies have met my rejoinder to president mccall will afford my readers an excellent illustration of how the "system" goes after a man who has excited its antagonism. a few days after the publication of the december issue of _everybody's magazine_, containing my fac-simile of president mccall's letter to policy-holder deran and his two letters to me, the life insurance underwriters met and "resoluted" that i had applied for insurance in the new york life insurance company in 1892, and being asked if i had ever been refused insurance, had replied in the negative. investigation showed that i had been refused four years before by two other companies, whereupon my application was rejected and i was practically black-listed, and so could not secure life insurance in any american company. by way of corroborating this plausible story two letters, purporting to have been written by agents of the two companies to their head officers without my knowledge, were incorporated in the resolution. the letters stated that the writers could secure me for a large amount of insurance if the companies would accept the risk. the virtuous corporations were alleged to have replied that mr. lawson had been refused life insurance before, and for good reasons was not desired as a risk. this resolution was then published throughout the press of america in the news columns, and to all but those initiated in the desperate practices of the "system" and its votaries, it was conclusive evidence that an unprincipled man had been convicted, red-handed, of fraud. you who read this statement of mine doubtless found the resolutions in your own paper, and thought it ordinary news-matter printed because of its public interest. this notice was an advertisement disguised as news, and inserted through the "system's" professional character assassinator, whose head-quarters are in boston, a person who will occupy a prominent part in the chapters of my story wherein i treat of the crimes of amalgamated. the publication cost the insurance companies $2.50 per line of the policy-holders' money, while advertisements that i insert in the course of my private business cost me but 75 cents per line. how the "system" makes its profits it appeared that i had sinned still further, for had i not questioned the virtue and integrity of the new york life's securities? to policy-holder deran, mr. mccall had stated, over his own signature, that the new york life did not and could not own stock securities. (see the deran letter on page 428.) i proved from the regular insurance reports that millions of the new york life's bonds were no more than disguised stock securities, created by the new device of depositing stocks with a trust company at an inflated price and issuing against them a receipt which is arbitrarily called a "bond." i mentioned, as an illustration, the northern pacific-great northern-c., b. & q. collateral 4s, created out of the stock of the chicago, burlington & quincy and other railroads. i could have selected a much worse type of security, just as, instead of the typewritten letter of mr. mccall, i might have published others of a more personal nature. against me out sallied 2d vice-president perkins, brother of george w. perkins, 1st vice-president of the new york life (j. pierpont morgan's partner), and at a banquet in philadelphia boldly answered my aspersions by declaring that the bonds i named "are printed in the list of holdings which the company publishes in detail, and has published for the last five years, in order that its policy-holders may be informed of its affairs in the minutest detail." the convincing logic of this rejoinder the dullest will appreciate, but for a moment i must stop to remind mr. perkins that the publicity on which he plumes himself is really not an expression of the new york life's individual frankness, but merely an observance compelled by the law. all this recapitulation has been for a purpose. my readers will bear in mind before taking hold of my next exhibit that the great insurance companies have published me as a falsifier, who since 1892 has been refused insurance and black-listed for good reasons, and have claimed that mr. mccall's letters were circulars sent me by mistake. we are still considering the problem--_are the men who run our great insurance companies honest?_ well, look at the reproduction on page 442 of a document that is now in my possession and has always been since the date when it was delivered to me by one of the three great representatives of the "system," the equitable life insurance company. this document speaks for itself. my readers are aware of the negotiations and investigations which precede the making of an insurance contract. to them and to the "system's" votaries i recommend the exhibit and the underwriters' resolutions as a simple lesson in frenzied finance. my charge that the directors of the great life-insurance corporations of america use the funds of the companies they control in stock speculation for their personal benefit is but one contention in my argument against the character of their management. here i formally add another charge: it is that in the placing of loans, in the purchase of properties and securities, and in the underwriting of enterprises, there are enormous profits made, directly and indirectly, which are pocketed by individuals and are never shown on the books of the corporation. the basis of life insurance is security. a policy-holder pays his premium to enable the corporation accepting it to make good its contract with him when death or time matures it. the vast sums in the possession of the three great companies are accumulated to safeguard their policy-holders, and should be invested only in securities of tried and solid worth, which will bring in no more nor less than the going rate of interest. there must be no experiments and, above all, no speculation. but what do we find? the positions of managers and manipulators of these huge hoards of the people's money have become the greatest financial prizes of the day. new and ingenious methods of graft have been devised in connection with them. the vast revenues of the insurance companies have become the "system's" most potent instrument in working its will in the stock world. [illustration] [illustration] their investments, largely in the securities of properties or corporations in which the "system's" votaries have large interests, are fertile sources of profit to the "insiders." the groups of banks and trust companies affiliated with them are the medium through which access to the coveted insurance funds is obtained, for these institutions are allowed by law to use money for speculative purposes, which the insurance concerns are prohibited from doing. the immense opportunities for profit afforded by the control of these great money hoards are taken advantage of in various ways. let me illustrate one or two of them. rogers, rockefeller, stillman, and morgan buy the capital stock of three railways at a fair valuation, say, $20,000,000 apiece, $60,000,000 for the three. owning all, or nearly all, the stock, they can put its price on the stock-exchanges to any figure they desire, say, $60,000,000 for each railway, or $180,000,000 in all. they proceed to deposit the stocks of the three roads in a trust company, issuing against them $180,000,000 of what they call "bonds." an "underwriting" syndicate is then organized. this is composed of certain individuals and corporations who agree that when these bonds are offered to the public at $180,000,000, the portion the public does not buy, they (the "underwriters") will purchase on the basis of $120,000,000; in other words, they guarantee the sale of the bonds at $180,000,000. in return they "make" on all the bonds sold the difference between the price to them, $120,000,000, and the price the public pays, $180,000,000. let us assume that the public takes up the issue greedily and the full price, $180,000,000, has been secured. the original owners, rogers, rockefeller, etc., have made $60,000,000, the difference between the first cost and $120,000,000, the cost to the "underwriters," while the "underwriters" have made $60,000,000, the difference between $120,000,000 and the $180,000,000, the cost to the people. in looking over the list of subscribers to these bonds, you will note that the largest purchases have been made for the great insurance corporations and the banks and trust companies owned or controlled by them and "the system." if, in the instance i am using for illustration, a president or vice-president of one of the great insurance companies is known to be willing to subscribe for, say, $10,000,000 for his insurance company; $5,000,000 for his principal trust company, which is owned by the insurance company; $1,000,000 apiece for five other banks and trust companies, also owned or controlled by the insurance company; and can influence five other affiliated institutions to subscribe for $1,000,000 apiece, he controls, as will readily be seen, a purchasing power of $25,000,000, and is sought for as an underwriter, if he is not already an owner. for this $25,000,000 which his institutions buy he "draws down," as his personal profit, 33-1/3 per cent. "underwriters'" commission, or over eight millions of dollars. in taking this amount, he is not _robbing_ his insurance company, in the common acceptance of the term in this era of "frenzied finance," though he has absolutely appropriated to himself a profit which belongs to it and not to him. it must not be supposed that such transactions as this i have outlined are conducted in the simple abc fashion i have set down here for purpose of illustration. no "one man" appears through any deal. the purchases and sales are usually made through dummies, and the final recipient of the "made millions" carefully conceals all the phases of his participation. let us take another type of transaction. an insurance company owns two adjoining pieces of unimproved city real estate, for which it paid $250,000 apiece, but which are now worth $500,000 each. the directors of the corporation formally decide to dispose of these holdings, and sell the first piece to a trust company, which is owned or controlled by the insurance company. one of the "system's" dummies or an officer or director of the corporation agrees to take the other at the same price. this is a perfectly legitimate transaction, and the insurance company shows a half-million profit on its investment. the next step is this. on its piece the trust company erects a two-million-dollar building, procuring the money from the insurance company at a low rate of interest. thereupon the value of the adjoining piece bought by the "system's" votary jumps fifty per cent., so he has made $250,000 without risking a dollar. at the same time there have been several other profitable transactions between institutions and individuals. the agent who disposed of the two pieces of real estate and who is "in" the transaction receives a generous commission for making the sales; the trust company's representative has his own "draw-down," and there are further commissions to the agents who borrow and loan the money and control the erection of the building. my readers may well ask, are these merely illustrations, or do such things really take place? i unqualifiedly reply that deals similar to these have occurred repeatedly and that the principle and procedure set forth are the rule and not exceptional. here is a minor episode of which i have personal knowledge. a well-known man made direct application to the mutual life insurance company for a loan of $400,000 on a valuable city business block which he owned. he was told that the corporation had no funds available for that purpose. the refusal was authoritative and definite. a few days later a lawyer and real-estate agent came to his office and said to him: "i'm informed that you want $400,000 on your property. i can let you have it, or $500,000 if you need that much." "good," said the would-be borrower, "i will take it. whose money is it?" "the mutual's." "my dear fellow," said the would-be borrower, "how can that be? i was there at the office a few days ago and was assured i could not have the money." "that's all right," was the answer. "of course you could not get the money. the right party did not see the right party. d'ye understand?" he understood. a recent issue of the _insurance register_, of philadelphia, in criticizing my comments on president mccall and life insurance, makes the following significant admissions in regard to the conduct of these great corporations: while riding on the train on my way to my office this morning a lawyer told me the following story: a client of his, a real-estate agent, represented a corporation owning and wishing to sell a valuable chestnut street property. the price asked was $750,000. a representative of a new york corporation called upon him and agreed to take the property, but stipulated that the price named in the deed and receipted for should be $850,000, the difference covering his commission of $100,000. the philadelphian, finding it impossible to induce his clients to make this concession, and the new york agent insisting upon it as indispensable to the purchase, made a trip to new york to see the principal, acquaint it with the facts, and find out whether or not some arrangement could be made by which the buyer could take care of its agent's commission. he was received by the manager of the new york corporation, but when he stated that he represented the owner of the philadelphia property he was instantly bowed out of the office, with the assurance: "we never interfere with business in the hands of our agent." the outcome was that the sale was not consummated, because the officers of the philadelphia corporation would not receipt for $850,000 when they were to receive only $750,000, for the reason that they could not square the transaction with their stockholders, and the buyer's agent would not consummate the deal without such a receipt, because he could not square with his client and its stockholders the payment of $850,000 with the consideration of $750,000 mentioned in the deed. this story was told to illustrate the proposition that every action has its prompting motive, and my fellow-passenger imparted to me his conclusion that the motive of the manager of the new york corporation for refusing to listen to his client was that "the scoundrel was in cohoots with the agents to share in the commission and cheat his own company." the public will in time come to look for motives, and we, fellow-editors, and the managers of mutual life-insurance companies, will be judged by what seems the most apparent motive for our actions.... any alliance between life insurance and this modern speculative frenzy cannot be too deeply deprecated, nor too strongly reprobated. every true friend of honest life insurance among insurance journals will demand that this great business, of all businesses, must be kept free from the contagion of corruption that has shamed finance, is covering commerce with a blighting mildew, and threatens our whole land with disaster as well as dishonor. all this is preliminary to treating the case of the prudential insurance company. i want to say here that i do not know the corporation, any of its officers, nor any one interested in the control or management of it, and personally have never had the slightest connection with its officers. i desire to prove through an outsider, some one of unquestioned authority, that the great insurance companies are part of the "system" and are engaged in manipulating the stock-market with the funds their policy-holders put in their hands as a sacred trust. in so far as the prudential is concerned, rank and unsound as are the transactions i am about to speak of, my investigations have proved to me that this insurance corporation is only as a baby-carriage to a runaway automobile compared with the three great representatives of the "system," the new york life, the mutual, and the equitable. certain critics have accused me of being unduly emphatic in my strictures on the doings of the corporations of which i am treating. i will confess to a secret amusement at being able, in this instance, to quote the language of one of the most conservative insurance officials in america, frederick l. cutting, for many years insurance commissioner for the state of massachusetts. the prudential life insurance company has $2,000,000 capital stock. the stock is owned and the company absolutely controlled by a few men. this capital of $2,000,000 represents only $91,000 paid in in cash; the balance has been derived from stock dividends; that is, profits that have been made out of policy-holders. in addition to this enormous amount, there has been paid ten per cent. in cash dividends annually, so that for every thousand dollars paid in the stockholders hold $22,000 of stock, upon which they receive annually $2,200, or, as commissioner cutting puts it, "each year for ten years the stockholders have received in cash dividends more than twice the original investment." i commend to the policy-holders of the prudential and other insurance corporations, and to other honest men, these tremendous figures: every $1,000 invested turned into $22,000, not in a gold or diamond mine, but in a life-insurance company where every dollar comes from the policy-holder who is supposed to pay in only enough to insure a promised payment plus provision for honest expense. the prudential company owned the stock of the fidelity trust company, the capital of which was $1,500,000, and the directors came before commissioner cutting and informed him that they proposed to double up the stock of the fidelity trust company to $3,000,000; that the new $1,500,000 at a par value of $100 was to be sold for $750 per share; that the new stock was to be bought by the prudential company and the equitable company; and that with the proceeds of the sale, the trust company was to buy a control of the prudential company from its directors. the motive of this transaction was as follows: the set of men who absolutely controlled the prudential, with its sixty millions of assets belonging to its policy-holders, proposed to control it for all time, but without tying up $7,000,000 of their own money in the business. in other words, they desired to eat their pudding and yet have it for continuous re-eating, and had found a way to accomplish this heretofore impossible feat. by this plan the men who controlled the prudential company, and thereby the trust company, at the time the plan went into force, would forever continue to manage and control both institutions, although not one of them held a policy or any investment in the insurance company beyond the one share of stock required by law to qualify as director. if this scheme had been consummated it would have borne to "frenzied finance" the same relationship that perpetual motion does to mechanics. by it a few men could gamble forever with the entire assets of the policy-holders of this corporation for their own personal benefit. if my readers will imagine the same scheme applied to several other great insurance companies and the men controlling them, the "system's" votaries, they will recognize the "system's" ideal world, with all the people in a condition of ideal servitude. however, this ingenious plan was forestalled because there happened to be in control of the life-insurance affairs of massachusetts one of those old-fashioned relics of american honesty--a man who thought more of the interests of the people intrusted to his care than of the prospect of innumerable "made dollars" which might have been his had he proved more amenable. it is regrettable that he was not able to deprive the conspirators of their power to juggle with the property of the corporation, for only two weeks later they developed and executed an alternative device which practically accomplished the result which the massachusetts authorities had declared illegal and the courts of new jersey had enjoined. there is food for thought here for the policy-holders of american insurance corporations who have intrusted to the "system" and its upholders the billions of their savings, to which they are adding every year hundreds of millions. to them i recommend a reading of the forty-eighth annual report of the massachusetts insurance commissioner, dated january 1, 1903, and the decision of the new jersey judge who passed on the case. these men are surely not to be accused of exploiting my story. under the head of "control of life insurance companies" in the massachusetts report will be found the following: the insurance commissioner had the honor of addressing the insurance committee of the general court relative to the control of life-insurance companies by other corporations or by syndicates. for some years it has seemed to impartial observers who are conversant with life-insurance matters, and have also seen the eager quest by promoters for funds to finance all kinds of enterprises, and the determined struggle to grasp every opportunity for speculation, that there would be no cause for wonder if covetous glances should be turned toward the massive accumulations of life-insurance companies. it is well, therefore, to pause and ask what would be the chances for obtaining control of them, and what might be the result of such control, and in general whether the funds of such companies are imperilled by modern methods. insurance corporations on a capital stock basis, on the other hand, give their policy-holders no voice in their management. to obtain control of such a company it is necessary only to control by purchase or otherwise a majority of its capital stock. if a "king of finance" should start out with the determination to secure a majority of the stock of such corporations, the chances are that in some cases at least he would be successful. he might, it is true, be obliged to pay more than the "book value" of the shares; but perhaps _control_ of a company's assets would well be worth twice or thrice or even more than what could be figured out as the value of the stock on the books of the company. on no other theory can the figure offered for life-insurance company stock in some cases be accounted for, since these offers are not warranted by the surplus nor by the dividends paid, nor by both combined. is there aught to prevent a bold manipulator from entering this inviting field and purchasing a controlling interest in the stock of enough such life-insurance companies to make their combined assets aggregate one hundred million dollars of the more than six hundred millions of assets of stock life-insurance companies doing business in massachusetts? this accomplished, he transfers his rights to a "trust," or an association, or trust company, which is not only a bank of deposit, but is also engaged in brokerage schemes, in financing large enterprises and promoting all kinds of corporate consolidations, and underwriting their stock for a consideration. the central controlling trust company, or whatever it may be, becomes a medium through which the investments of the controlled insurance companies are made; all sales of their securities pay tribute to its treasury; all funds awaiting investment are deposited in its keeping; the most valuable of their securities are turned into cash, and then used by the controlling power for such purpose as it sees fit. all these things are conceivable, and their accomplishment would be a no greater task, seemingly, than some of the gigantic "operations in finance" of the last few years. judged by what has happened in other fields, this trust would not only control these vast assets, if the plan should be executed, but would control them without individual liability on the part of its managers. the prudential merger case is there really any danger, it may be asked, that any trust or syndicate will attempt to control the stock and assets of life insurance in this way, or is this simply the presentation of possibilities? as an answer to that question here follows a plain, unvarnished story of what has been attempted and what has taken place within the past year between one of the life-insurance companies doing business in massachusetts and a trust company with which it has close relations. in october, 1902, the insurance commissioner received from the president of the prudential insurance company of america a letter, transmitting a copy of a circular letter addressed "to the field and home office staff" of the company. that circular letter disclosed a plan of mutual control between the insurance company and the fidelity trust company, a corporation organized under the laws of new jersey. it stated that: "the capital of the fidelity trust company is about to be increased from $1,500,000 to $3,000,000, the new stock being sold at $750 per share. this will result in giving the fidelity trust company a capital of $3,000,000, a surplus of $13,000,000, and a considerable amount of undivided profits, making this company, from the standpoint of capital and surplus, as large if not larger than any similar institution in the country. sufficient of this stock will be taken by the prudential insurance company to give it, together with its present very large holdings of fidelity stock, absolute control of that company. a very large portion of the balance of said stock is to be taken by the equitable life assurance society of new york, which will give to that company a very substantial interest in the fidelity company, and therefore justify it in materially increasing its business with the fidelity. the bulk of the new money thus to be received by the fidelity trust company is to be used by it in the acquisition of a controlling interest in the entire capital stock of the prudential insurance company.... a contract has been entered into between the fidelity trust company and a large majority of stockholders in interest of the prudential, in which the latter have contracted to sell their holdings of prudential stock, or as much as may be necessary, to the fidelity trust company on or before may 1st next, at $600 for every $100 of par value.... while by this arrangement the prudential company will control the fidelity, and, on the other hand, the fidelity will own a majority of the capital stock of the prudential, the annual meetings of the two companies will be so arranged and other arrangements be so made that the prudential will forever be the dominant factor, as of course it should be. the officers of the prudential are united in their belief that this move is of the greatest possible interest to its stockholders, as well as to all of its policy-holders and its great army of employees. the consummation of this arrangement insures the continuance of the present management of the prudential, both in its home office and in the field. the advantages of the plans of the trust company are too obvious to need comment. it is expected to consummate this entire transaction between the two companies on or about february 1, 1903." the insurance commissioner of massachusetts, on receipt of this circular, wrote united states senator john h. dryden, president of the prudential insurance company of america, declining to approve of the proposed exchange of stock on the ground that the merger was antagonistic to the interests of policy-holders, inasmuch as it forever deprived them of the power to dislodge the management from the control of the institution. the minority stockholders petitioned the new jersey courts for an injunction to restrain the prudential and the trust company's directors from carrying out the proceeding for mutual control, and vice-chancellor stevenson enjoined the corporation from executing its project. however, the reciprocal control was effected by the sale of enough prudential stock to the fidelity, whose capital was increased for the purpose of purchasing it, so that the fidelity lacks but eight shares to control absolutely the prudential. as the situation stands now, the prudential directors control the fidelity, and the fidelity holdings, with eight shares more, control the prudential. practically the ring is about as hard to break into as the plan enjoined. those who control the fidelity can always "dominate" the insurance company. minority stockholders and policy-holders alike are practically in the hands of the trust company for all time, and the insurance company's assets can be managed as the majority of the trust company's directors dictate. the director goes on to explain the relations between a life-insurance company and a trust company, which, in the light of recent exposures, seems prophetic. "the money value of intimate relations between a majority of the directors of a life-insurance company and a trust company may be easily comprehended. these relations are at the beginning based on the needs of the insurance company, which needs it is hard to define and limit, and accordingly hard to say just where the provision for them becomes more of an advantage to the trust company than to the insurance company. standards will differ, and change, too. but here, let us say, is a great insurance company with over $50,000,000 of assets which it has collected from its policy-holders, and which are needed for carrying out their contracts, and which safety requires shall be held in sound investments. such an insurance company has to have a large and active bank account. it must deposit checks and all forms of paper promises or orders for collection, and for the payment of expenses and claims must have a large sum of ready money. this is the absolute need; but the directors are not bound by any legal requirements to limit their deposits to just what will reasonably suffice as a margin to pay current claims and expenses, nor are they required to patronize any particular banks. they conclude, let us say, that 'it will be safer' to take some banking institution for such depository which they 'know about,' and of which, perchance, some of them are directors, or in which, at all events, they are stockholders. if no such trust company is at hand, it is very easy to start one, and easy for the directors of the insurance company to be in 'on the ground floor.' the insurance company then begins to bestow its patronage. the trust company, which is thus supplied with funds, begins to feel the effects of this attention; by the use of its big deposits large dividends are earned. a 'boom' begins, and the director who 'had the sagacity' to invest in the stock of the trust company when it was around about par, sees his holdings advance by rapid strides until he is offered perhaps ten times as much for his stock as its par value. he has seen this stock advance in value in proportion to the amount of funds of the insurance company which the trust company had at its command. it has been worth much to him 'to be on the inside,' and will be worth much in the future for him to be on the inside if any new trust company is to be a depository; the bigger the deposit, the more it will be worth to him." all thinking people, after reading these extracts from insurance commissioner cutting's report, will ask: "why have we never heard of this before?" i can only answer that he found it impossible to get any part of the warning contained in it before the people. it should be remembered that the insurance companies annually spend millions of dollars with the daily, weekly, and monthly press--and it is unnecessary for me to say more. my own advertisement calling attention to the life-insurance chapters in the last issue of _everybody's magazine_ was refused by some of the leading dailies of new york, boston, cleveland, and pittsburg. when i called on the managing editor of one of pittsburg's leading dailies for an explanation of the publication's declination, he said: "don't mention me or you'll get me into trouble. our copy for the advertisement was a day late and the insurance combine had time to get in its work. the local managers sent a representative to all the papers warning them not to run your stuff, under penalty of losing the big full-page annual from each of the three big companies, as well as the numerous fliers through the year." one hears of the sagacious ostrich which, when pursued by an enemy, hides its head in the sand. the ostrich is wise in comparison with the "system's" votaries in the year 1904. the vultures feeding owing to the claims of other subjects on my space, i left the subject of life insurance for a few months. in the meantime president alexander began his grapple with president jimmy hyde for the control of the millions of the equitable life--the historic entanglement which has had such dire consequences for all concerned. in the april, 1905, issue of the critics i wrote as follows: when first i touched on the subject of life insurance and called attention to the manner in which the three great companies were juggling with the immense funds entrusted to them by their policy-holders, the "system" raised a great outcry, declaring that i was unsettling the confidence of the people in a sacred institution. at this moment we have the chief officials of one of these huge organizations engaged in a desperate and disgraceful struggle among themselves for its control. all thought of the widow and the orphan, against whom they declared my hand had been raised, has been forgotten in the mad fight for supremacy over the accumulated millions in stocks, bonds, and in trust companies, from the secret manipulation of which the great private fortunes of successful underwriters are derived. before definitely grappling with the evils of the insurance trust, i hesitated a long time. i realized my words would cause terror or distrust among policy-holders and perhaps induce some misguided ones to abandon their insurance. after long consideration, however, i became convinced that what i had to say would in the long run benefit all policy-holders, insure the greater safety of their funds, reduce their annual premium-payments, and perhaps bring about the restitution of the vast amounts which in the past had been diverted from them to private individuals. the response to my criticism was a flood of abuse. instead of meeting my charges, the big companies denounced me for a liar and a misrepresenter, and the insurance journals and subsidized press declared that the things i had charged were impossible. now, the president of the equitable life insurance company is openly accusing a leading member of his board of trustees, who is one of the foremost votaries of the "system," of loading the company with twenty-two millions of securities, which, as a member of the finance committee of the corporation, he had purchased for himself in his capacity as head of a great banking-house. on the other hand, the president and his associates, who have hitherto swayed the destinies of the institution, are accused by the other party of conspiring to mutualize the institution, not for the benefit of the policy-holders, but to conceal the traces of past misdeeds. before this chapter is in the hands of my readers the officers and directors of this great insurance company may be before the courts and a condition of affairs spread out for the public's gaze such as will make my charges seem, in comparison with the actual truth, as chestnut-burrs to porcupines' quills. one result achieved so far is an awakening of the people's attention to the evils of present conditions; but let them beware of the remedies suggested. the "system" is quick to adjust itself to storms it cannot control, and there are many signs abroad that it is trimming its sails to fly before the present blow, ready when it shall abate to switch back to its old course, and, under fresh canvas, make up for lost time. already we have senator dryden, representing new jersey and the prudential life insurance company in the united states senate, introducing a bill for federal supervision of life insurance, and the "system's" hirelings throughout the land are clamorously agitating the passage of some such measure. it behooves the public to scrutinize carefully the form of reform which these patriots approve. it may be taken for granted that they will initiate nothing that will interfere with their grip on the millions of the policy-holders or will divert fat pickings and commissions from their own pockets. once i asked a leading votary of the "system": "what would you do if by any chance the government decided to get into the railway business, and took a railway or so to see how government control would work?" "oh," was the reply, "we'd manage that all right! as soon as we saw it coming, the stocks and bonds of the roads wanted would go up, so that by the time uncle sam got ready to buy, it would be the fattest sale we could possibly make. after that it would not be difficult to disgust the government with its bargain, and before long the people would be glad to sell the property back to us, and we'd find a way to get it at slaughter prices." the reformation of the big insurance companies is sadly needed, but reformation of a more drastic kind than they'll be willing to administer to themselves. to begin with, there should be a relentless probing of their stock transactions of the last fifteen years, followed by the passage of some simple laws regulating their investments. the relationship between these institutions and the "system" would then at once of necessity terminate, and we could say good-by to the _régime_ under which the expenses of the big three have enormously increased and their dividends to policy-holders have steadily declined while during the same period the private fortunes of their officers and controllers have flourished amazingly. i have been repeatedly asked to define the conditions that make it possible for these immense private fortunes to be gathered, within the law. an examination of the figures that follow will reveal the far-reaching possibilities that reside in the direction of the billion of assets of the great insurance companies. the last issued new york report (1903) shows that the three leading companies had in uninvested funds, all told, $70,212,453. of this sum total there was "deposited in trust companies and banks drawing interest"--at the _close_ of the year: equitable $25,617,668 mutual 22,439,396 new york 17,731,710 ---------- $65,788,774 the balance, $4,423,679, being on deposit without interest. the above aggregate represents 71.7 per cent. of the uninvested interest-bearing funds of twenty-eight companies--leaving but 28.3 per cent. for the remaining twenty-five (in which, by the way, is included $6,801,789 of the prudential, as large in proportion as the funds of the big three, with which it is associated). this sum, at the two-per-cent. interest allowed by the trust companies, returned to the insurance companies $1,315,775, while it earned for the trust companies in the different speculations in which they were engaged, from five to twenty per cent., or an annual profit of $1,973,663 to $11,184,079, over and above the interest paid the insurance companies for its use. but who owns the trust companies? you ask. some are owned jointly by the three great insurance corporations and their directors, others by the directors alone. the men who control the big three organize these flexible depositary institutions, allotting half or more of their stocks to themselves, the balance to the insurance companies, or keeping all the stock themselves, for the purpose of manipulating the stupendous sums in the treasuries of the insurance companies. the trust company is the irrigating canal of wall street, the insurance company the reservoir. for the development of the various schemes of consolidation, trustification, and amalgamation in which wall street profits are made, money is required in large quantities. when the soil is ready for the seed, when negotiations have been sufficiently matured, the trust company's sluice is tapped and the gold flows out. and gold which makes a $225 crop sprout, where previously only a $100 crop grew, is a valuable commodity, for the use of which large compensation is given the engineers. thus the men who hold the treasury-keys of the big three, and who decide how the accumulated premiums of the policy-holders shall be used and where deposited, are actually the owners of these trust companies and of other corporations and trusts which borrow the money the trust companies have on deposit from the insurance companies. the hackneyed defence of the insurance companies to this accusation is that great corporations, such as they are, must keep on hand, ready for emergencies, enormous amounts of cash. this is a futile argument, for in the nature of things the daily receipts of each of the big three are larger than the expenditures. we are also told "we keep large amounts, ready to take advantage of a sudden smash in the market." this sounds well, but cloaks one of the most vicious practices of these great institutions, and another of the insider's opportunities for private graft. it means that the officers of the great insurance corporations are ever ready for a stock gamble with the sacred funds of their policy-holders; that is, they admit their willingness to use the people's savings to make sure-thing gambling-profits from those unfortunates who must throw over their stocks and bonds because of the "system's" manipulations. imagine, my honest, old-fashioned reader, the millions of insurance funds used in this way! let me give you a picture of how it is done. i have seen it worked a score of times. the stock-market is crashing, dropping tens of millions a minute, and business men are saying: "oh, if we only had cash to buy, but we can not get it! the banks will not loan at any price. rates have gone up to 100 to 150 per cent. and no cash is in sight." no one has money but the big insurance companies and the "system's" votaries. suddenly mysterious buying appears--hundreds of thousands of shares of stock, and bonds in million blocks. the crash has been stayed; the panic is over; stocks are bounding upward again; millions are being made by the mysterious buyers with each tick of the clock, and presently it is common knowledge that all the insurance insiders have cleaned up millions, and--of course, the company has made something, but the biggest profits have been won by the men who, having previously personally loaded up, were able to throw the unlimited buying power of the policy-holders' millions into the gap. talk of loaded dice, or any of the sure-thing gambling devices! they are lily-white business schemes compared with this method of plundering the people. again we are authoritatively informed that the great companies have so much cash on hand that it is impossible to find investments for it save at a low rate of interest. the fallacy here is obvious. if these institutions have grown so unwieldy that they cannot conduct their business as ably as the smaller companies, the latter are the ones to insure with, because, right along, they are deriving larger returns from their invested funds than the big companies. there are scores of ways, however, by which the sixty-five millions could be made to earn even larger dividends than do the funds in stocks and bonds. let the big three offer the use of their big cash balances by public competition--under the most conservative conditions that can be prescribed. instantly the net returns will double. all insurance policy-holders are familiar with the specious circulars and letters presenting statements of business done and investments made, which are sent out from the head offices of the great companies at odd intervals on the plea: "we want our policy-holders to know everything we are doing at all times." the public is assured at other intervals that there can be no secret or inside deals in the affairs of insurance companies because of the close examinations they are subjected to by the insurance departments of the various states. the insurance officials say: "all our facts and figures are vouched for by so many different sets of auditors and state departments that they must be exact truths." to what extent is the public actually safeguarded by these investigations? some months ago i called attention to the fact that the directors of the new york life insurance company had sold to themselves the stock of the new york security & trust company at from three to four millions less than the property would have commanded from outsiders. here is another transaction which requires explanation: in 1901, ostensibly in order to maintain its position in the german states--i will explain later on what i mean by "ostensibly"--the insurance company disposed of its remaining holdings of stocks, the same having a book value of $2,965,000 and a market value of $5,471,000, as per report of 1900. these stocks, with possibly sales of some other securities, realized an actual profit of $5,839,087 instead of $3,075,392 as per the company's _sworn_ report to the several state insurance departments. rather a queer proceeding, you say. why should it do such a thing? had some one stolen the extra profit? or what? this is what was done: the company had simply availed itself of the opportunity to conceal an actual cash profit of $2,763,715 in order that it might sequestrate assets to that amount unnoticed by its policy-holders or the departments. the sum so sequestrated was made up of balances due from agents--presumed, as in all such cases, to be amply secured by pledge of renewal contracts--to the amount of $1,919,734, and $843,891 charged off depreciation of real estate. (see massachusetts report, 1902, pages 158-159.) this illegal suppression of most important transactions, directly affecting, as will be seen later, the interests of policy-holders, would have remained a sealed book but for the careful audit of the massachusetts department, which revealed the fact, unnoticed by that of any other state (note in this one instance the boasted careful supervision and boasted double and triple auditing of all accounts before publication!), that the item "agents' balances," amounting in the preceding year to $1,527,123, had disappeared altogether from assets. this led to a prompt request from the massachusetts department for explanation. the honorable business men of the new york life, who pay out so many hundreds of thousands of dollars each year advertising the fact that they are sitting up o' nights to find new ways to acquaint the policy-holders with the innermost secrets of the company, finding there was no avenue of escape from their dilemma, quickly realized that the massachusetts department meant to have the facts, and publish them, too. their own "faked" report was already before the public in the published reports of two departments, those of connecticut and new york. there was but one course open to avert the terrific scandal that was inevitable upon publication of the massachusetts report, and that was to head off and forestall adverse comment and criticism, as far as possible, by making a clean breast of it. no time was lost in preparing a letter of explanation to the department. this answered the purpose of the department, which did not care to press the matter, having accomplished its main object. now for the moral, or the iniquity, rather, of the preceding, the wrong to policy-holders, which has been so completely ignored and passed over by the insurance press and all hands: either the company had, as at least supposedly it has in all such cases, ample security for its advances to agents in the pledges of their renewal contracts, or it had not. on the former hypothesis, that $1,900,000-odd was a sound and valid asset, earning a good rate of interest. on the latter, the company simply squandered this amount of trust funds belonging to its trusting policy-holders in its mad rush for business at whatever cost; or--in either case the money has gone from sight so far as any sign or indication appears to the contrary since. and before leaving this point, it may be well to ask, "has the new york life insurance company altogether discontinued these advances to agents?" if not, how and where are they accounted for? an answer may be found, possibly, in the comparatively meagre underwriting profits of the company, growing relatively smaller and beautifully less with each succeeding year. i say it may possibly be found here, because this is the only place the item could be buried; but i am reasonably sure that it is not buried here, and that these advances to agents are being continued on a scale as large as, or larger than ever, for the agents could not have been shut off and the business increased at one and the same time. again, during the last two months of 1904, or at a time when my story, "frenzied finance," began to get in its work all over the world, i received from many quarters information that the big three had instructed their leading agents to get in a great lot of new risks "at any cost," so that the total business for the year would show such increase as to discredit my claim that the policy-holders were getting "scared." i watched the game with much interest, knowing that bunco would out in time, by whomever worked. during these months i read from week to week of this great policy, or that record-breaking risk just landed by this or that agent. one in particular made me chuckle at its transparency. a certain friend of the new york life, a wall street man, "has just taken out a $2,000,000 policy." about the same time i began to receive information of the remarkable offers that were being made to prospective customers, offers which probably meant an indirect rebate of perhaps the full first year's premium; and i got to thinking and reaching back into my memory-box, and i raked out a number of instances of the same kind of offers which had been made to me in the past, and i ruminated to myself how all this was possible; for even if the big three were bold enough to get around the law against such practices, it puzzled me how they could pay to their agent the big cash commissions that new business called for. presently as i waited i read, as did the rest of the world, the big january full-page advertisements of the new york life to its policy-holders, calling their attention to the increase of $15,000,000 new business over the year before. then i took another think and did a little work, with the following result: a jolt for the new york life the "brown book of life insurance economics" shows that the sum laid by annually for future tontine or other dividends ranged in the ten years ending with 1903 from $2,936,026 to a minimum of $956,597, these amounts being savings after payment of dividends. in 1904, however, for the first time in the tontine history of the company--also the first year of maturity of non-forfeitable tontine contracts with their largely reduced dividends--the dividends paid and credited, $6,018,202, actually exceeded the year's earnings, as shown by the company's sworn statement, by $76,595. i want to call policy-holders' attention right here to what this means to those who are now being beguiled into taking policies on the strength of "adjusted" estimates placed by the company in its agents' hands, showing dividend results ranging from fifteen to fifty per cent. higher than those of 1904, with, however, the saving (?) clause that, depending upon future unforeseeable conditions, the same "may be higher or may be lower." it may be added that, but for a profit realized from sale of securities, the company's gross surplus would have shown shrinkage. in order to realize what such a showing means, let us make a comparison, using the figures of a well-known western company (partly tontine, but operated on diametrically opposite lines from the new york life), for the three years 1901-03, this company being barely four-tenths the size of the new york life as regards outstanding business: comparison of totals, three years, 1901-03 dividend laid by for future earnings. dividends. dividends. new york life $16,826,289 $13,189,278 $3,636,091 western company 17,788,820 12,284,255 5,504,565 ---------- ---------- --------- -$962,531 +$905,023 -$1,867,574 after mulling these over, i dug further in regard to the "prosperity" as shown by the business of 1904. the company boasts of its enormous volume of new business, $345,722,000, which is $15,000,000 in excess of the 1903 business. here is the story: while this new business was being secured, the total terminations were $162,326,114 less those inevitable terminations by death or maturity of endowments 26,767,873 ----------- waste by lapse, surrender, etc. $135,558,241 and when we add the lapsed policies which continued in force, under the "extended-insurance" provision 89,938,500 ----------- we have the total waste of $225,496,741 and this, reduced to its actual significance, means that of the total actual terminations, 83.6 per cent. was _actual waste_ and only 16.4 per cent. legitimate terminations, while the great bulk of the last item of $89,938,500, upon which premium payments have ceased, must run off the books in the near future; and this is what goes on from year to year, more than keeping pace with the boasted increase in volume of new business. the public never sees this side of the question. when i got to this point in my deductions, i was brought face to face with the tremendous expense of acquiring new business. then i saw the light--why it was necessary to wipe off the books nearly two millions of what were considered good assets, that is, pledges from agents of their renewal commissions against which advances had been made, and where the new business came from, and how it was possible to make rebates when the law says they shall not be made. an agent induces a friend to have a policy written, for which the agent practically pays the premium out of his commission, and thereupon has advanced to him large sums against the future premiums which are to be paid by the policy-holder, who has no intention of paying them, and allows his policy to lapse. heavens! what a vista of plundering opportunities the bare thought opens up! somebody has to pay. the million-dollar policy in the may number i inserted the following letter: fort worth, texas, february 16, 1905. thomas w. lawson, esq., boston, mass. _dear sir_: i have read and will continue to read your articles on "frenzied finance," published in _everybody's magazine_, with a great deal of interest. i have noted especially your statements in reference to the big life-insurance companies, as i am a policy-holder in both the new york life and the equitable. under the heading of "lawson and his critics," in _everybody's_ for january, you give your side as to the assertion on the part of the insurance companies that you have been refused life insurance, among other things publishing a fac-simile of a contract of life insurance between yourself and the equitable life assurance society for $1,000,000. on my first reading of your article, i was certainly impressed with the fact that you had $1,000,000 of insurance with this company. on a second reading, i note that you do not say in so many words that this is a policy in force, but you say: "well, look at this reproduction of the document that is now in my possession and always has been since the date when it was delivered to me by one of the great representatives of the 'system,' the equitable life assurance society." this statement taken in connection with others, conveys the idea that you are insured in the company named. in conversation with a gentleman a few days since, who claims to know whereof he speaks, having gotten his information direct from new york, he stated that you had no policy in the equitable life assurance society for $1,000,000, or any other amount, and that the reproduction referred to above, was of a _sample copy_ of a policy, and not a real contract. as your editor states that you will answer any pertinent question, i will ask the following, trusting that you may consider it pertinent: have you a valid subsisting policy in the equitable life assurance society for $1,000,000, the fac-simile of which appears in _everybody's magazine_ for january, 1905? trusting you will favor me with a reply, i am, very truly, ---i answered: since the chapter which contained the fac-simile of the million-dollar policy was published i have received many letters similar to the above, but have not answered any because i wished to see how far the insurance people would go in this matter. finding i did not reply to the different attempts they made in their subsidized journals to draw me out, they grew bolder, until the use of this million-dollar policy has become the chief defence of the big three companies. i want my readers to think this point over and weigh its significance carefully. in a previous chapter i called attention to the fact that there is nothing to protect the policy-holder from being robbed of the amounts he has invested to insure his family from poverty after his death but the honesty of the men who really control the big insurance companies as absolutely as any of their policy-holders do their personal affairs. if these men are honest, policy-holders in their companies may rest easy for the time being; but if they are dishonest, the policy-holders should call them to account, for these men have it absolutely in their power to make way with the funds of the companies they manage until there will not be a dollar left for policy-holders. therefore the one thing for policy-holders to settle, the one vital thing is, are these men honest, or are they tricksters and liars? to settle this point they must be weighed in the same way that all other men and women in this world are weighed--by the simple, ordinary standards: do they lie? do they trick? do they cheat? when i made my charges in my first chapters against the votaries of the "system" who controlled the insurance companies, they met my specific charges as dishonest men would meet them, not as honest men would. they impugned my motives, and specifically charged that my reason for attacking them was that i had been blacklisted by all insurance companies and could not get insurance from any of them. while it was immaterial so far as my specific charges went whether this was so or not, it had a most decided bearing upon the question whether the officers and controllers of the big three insurance companies were honest or dishonest men. therefore i picked up their accusation and began a line of argument to prove they were tricksters and absolutely devoid of honor. i showed, by reproducing the personal letters of president mccall, of the new york life, to my office and to my house, reënforced by his special agent's letter, and these reënforced by his boston agent's letter, that i had been continuously and urgently importuned to take insurance during the time he said i was blacklisted. the insurance people met this by the excuse that these were not personal letters, but mere advertisements. i then reproduced the million-dollar policy, hoping to drag from the big three a specific charge that this, too, was an advertisement. of course, i did not pretend that the policy in question was in force, that is, that i was insured in the equitable life assurance society for one million dollars. this would have been too childish; first, because every insurance policy, particularly the very large ones, is as much a matter of record, to be got at by any one in the insurance business, as are real-estate records; and, next, because that which i printed had the signature punched out, which made it obvious that it was not in force. my object was to lead the equitable into the positive statement that it was an ordinary advertisement, when i would have reproduced the proposition that accompanied it and which the equitable made in probably the most elaborate set of documents ever assembled by an insurance company for the purpose of inducing one of the "best risks" in america to take out a "great big policy." these constitute the complete argument which was made by the equitable life assurance society to persuade me to take a million dollars' worth of insurance. they are engrossed upon parchment and bound in a specially gotten-up morocco cover, and, i was told, cost the insurance company between four and five hundred dollars. they were presented to me as the result of my demanding that all the inducements they offered to come into their company should be put down on paper, so that there could be no mistaking them. the documents as engrossed and the terms of the contract were carefully copyrighted by the equitable, and are now on my table before me as i write. the question which the publication of the million-dollar policy was to settle was whether or not i had been importuned to take out great sums of insurance in the leading insurance company of america, and it proved exactly what i had contended--that i had been so importuned. up to and including my april, 1905, instalment i have made specific charges against the great insurance companies, the mutual, the new york life, and the equitable: 1st. that the control of the officers of these great corporations over the billion dollars of their policy-holders' funds is as absolute and unrestricted for all practical purposes, as is their control of their own personal affairs, and is largely exercised for their personal enrichment. 2d. that the policy-holders have absolutely no voice in the management of these companies or the control of their funds, because of the manipulation of proxies in the new york life and the mutual and the control of the stock of the equitable. 3d. that those who do control the big companies are votaries of the "system," and as such are subject to the "system's" orders as absolutely as is james stillman, president of the "standard oil" national city bank. 4th. that the insiders of these insurance companies, not one but several of them, have accumulated fortunes in the past few years, of from one to twenty millions, while at the same time premium-rates have advanced and dividends decreased. 5th. that under the present methods of conducting these great companies it is as inevitable as it was in the case of 520-per-cent. miller or mrs. howe's woman's bank, that as soon as they can get no more insurance, the funds behind the old insurance will be dissipated and a crash take place such as the world has never known before. 6th. that the companies are "milked" in every direction, through the purchase and sale of real estate, through the loaning of their millions, and through the manipulation and investment of their funds. 7th. that they acquire new business at an expense and by methods which alone will in time wreck the companies. 8th. that in a single instance the new york life sold securities for $5,839,087, but its statement under oath to the state insurance departments showed receipts of only $3,075,392. 9th. that the new york life sold the stock of the new york security & trust company, which it held, to its insiders for over $4,000,000 less then they could have secured for it from others. i have specifically charged other things, and will, as my story proceeds, make many more specific charges of as serious a nature; but the above suffice for my present argument, which is, that up to and including the april number i have made these accusations and that the only way they have been met is by underhand mud-slinging and by alleging that the incentive for my attack was that i could not secure insurance from any of the american companies; and i have met this with absolute proof, which must stand until it is disproved, that i have been during the past ten years importuned and urged by the large insurance companies of america to take out insurance. therefore i will leave the question of this million-dollar policy and other forms of importuning until the insurance companies offer something in rebuttal. the way out the overhauling of the equitable life exposed conditions far worse than i had indicated to the public, and it seemed probable that the usual whitewashing process would be utilized to conceal the guilt of the rapacious criminals who had been untrue to the most sacred trust that can be imposed on man. since that time, however, the governor of the state of new york has appointed a committee to investigate the affairs of the big three corporations, and the resulting disclosures are the sensation of the hour as this book goes to press. in order to protect the interests of policy-holders, in case the authorities declined to act, i issued the following address in the july, 1905, number of _everybody's_: to the policy-holders of the new york life, mutual, and equitable insurance companies the time has come for you to act. when, less than a year ago, i began my story, "frenzied finance," i exposed the function of the three great life-insurance companies in the structure of the "system." i explained that they were controlled in the interests of great financiers and that their funds were juggled with to compass the huge plundering operations of wall street. at that time the new york life, the equitable, and the mutual life loomed before the american people as the greatest, most respected, and most venerable institutions in our broad land. to-day they stand for all that is tricky, fraudulent, and oppressive. a great change to have been accomplished in less than twelve months! my readers are by this time familiar with the condition of affairs in the equitable. the greed, juggling, and grafting practised by its officers and controllers have been fully exposed through the press. i hope none of those who have followed the terrific arraignment of rottenness and rascality made through the frick report are so foolish as to imagine that the evils described are confined to the equitable. in my own opinion the equitable is much less reprehensible than the new york life, and when that institution and the mutual are thoroughly shaken up, as they will be in the future, indubitable evidence of the same fashion of extravagance, trickery, and fraud will be found in plenty. conditions in the three institutions are the same; though of late the new york life has altered the character of most of its securities. each has piled up an immense surplus which has been used through allied trust companies for stock juggling; each has paid extravagant commissions to agents; the funds of each have been managed to afford to high officials plentiful opportunities of graft; each has its real estate, fire insurance, low rent and loan favor graft; in each will be found the same type of syndicates as president alexander and vice-president hyde used for their personal enrichment in the equitable. to-day president john a. mccall of the new york life is credited with possessing a fortune of between ten and fifteen millions--a few brief years ago he was state superintendent of insurance in albany. the chief associate in the management of the same corporation, george w. perkins, j. pierpont morgan's partner, is another very rich man, whose wealth has been accumulated in a few short years. do you imagine for a moment that such transactions as i set forth last year in connection with the new york security and trust company, in which the interest of the new york life was sold to a syndicate of its own directors for a sum far below the market value of the shares, were put through without the connivance of president mccall and vice-president perkins? even if the new york life, as its president explains, did make a large profit on the sale of the trust company's stock, he cannot deny that the syndicate paid far less than the then market value of the shares for the insurance company's holdings. there is something particularly vile about the crimes of these high officials and distinguished gentlemen who have been waxing fat and luxurious on life-insurance graft. in a recent number of this magazine i drew a parallel between the confidence operator and the burglar to show that the latter despises the former for a sneak thief who takes no chances in his thieving operations. infinitely more depraved than the sneak thief is the high-placed functionary, presiding over a great institution built up out of the savings of millions of people, paid an immense salary for his important services, trusted with vast funds because of his reputation for integrity and business sagacity--who yet uses his splendid place to line his own pocket. of all fiduciary institutions, life insurance should be the most sacred. its chief function is to care for the widow, the orphan, and the helpless. the millions of revenue paid annually into the life-insurance companies of this country represent the blood and tears and sweat of millions of americans who thus provide for the care of their dear ones for the time when death shall have put an end to their own income-earning abilities. the administrator of a trust so solemn and exalted should devote himself to its safeguarding as a priest dedicates himself to the service of his maker. the responsibility conferred on him is the highest and holiest man can repose in his fellow-man. remembering all this, consider again the revelations of greed and plunder in the equitable; consider that millions upon millions of dollars have been filched and wasted; analyze the frick report and the letter of president alexander to the directors of the society, calling for vice-president hyde's removal from office. think, ye farmers and laborers, of personal traveling expenses of $75,000 in a brief period, of salaries of $100,000 annually paid for a few hours of work per day; think of vast sums of your money used to provide expensive safe-deposit institutions with low-priced quarters so that the personal income of men already multimillionaires may wax still greater. think of the great institution to whose hundreds of millions' income you contribute your hard-earned dollars, being farmed, milked, and squeezed by a pack of dissolute and greedy schemers and robbers more conscienceless and oppressive than any band of thugs in the country. when i began to discuss in _everybody's magazine_ the subject of the three great life-insurance companies, i stated that there is actually nothing between the two million-odd policy-holders and the possibility of their being robbed of the billions of dollars of their accumulated savings but the devotion and the honesty of the men who are in control of these institutions. you know what happened when i said this to you the first time--less than a year ago. the officers, trustees, and hirelings of these great companies laughed to scorn my statements and called me a liar and a scoundrel. they drew the attention of the whole world to the standing and wealth and honesty of the men who managed these great corporations, and proved by the most positive asseverations that nothing could be more preposterous than that any one of them could do wrong. but the great god, who seldom allows his children to remain long deceived to their undoing, heard these loud-mouthed protestations, and to-day the world is listening to exposures of low, mean thefts and contemptible crimes far worse than any to which i had pointed. and from whom comes the proof of the treacheries and rascalities perpetrated within the equitable? from the men who control and manage this great institution and its hundreds of millions of accumulations. when my accusations first appeared, these men saw the handwriting on the wall and some of them, bolder than others, determined to seize these vast hoards of the public's money and at the same time get possession of all evidence of past crimes so that they might be immune forever after from punishment and the necessity of making restitution. in the act of grabbing, however, the robbers fell out with one another, and, presto! they are in the public square where all men, women, and children, cats, dogs, and asses may see and hear as they gouge, bite, and accuse each other of the vilest crimes. these are the men in whose custody even now are the accumulations on which you, mr. policy-holder, are depending to take care of your wife and little ones, should you die. on the honor and responsibility of men who in the past five years have "saved" out of salaries of $20,000 to $100,000, private fortunes of millions, you must absolutely rely for the safety of the billions of dollars of your savings. the future of the helpless beings whom your hard daily labors provide with a livelihood is in the hands of men who admit having expended $100,000 of your money to provide a lordly and regal entertainment for a set of extravagantly paid agents and solicitors who, spurred on by prodigal inducements, have piled up huge amounts of new business on the company's books. i have explained to you before what such business is worth, that the agent gets so large a commission that he is practically in a position to accept risks at far below their cost to the company, and that such business as this is seldom renewed. the same men have been paying personal secretaries, gardeners, and flunkies out of your earnings; they have been feasting and traveling in private cars with large parties of the new york flubstocracy at your expense; every possible extravagance they have been guilty of by means of the revenues some of you have worked fourteen to eighteen hours a day to gather in. shame, i say, on such contemptible thievery. i cannot resist the temptation to pull back the slide from one episode of the past. when my strictures on the three great life-insurance companies first appeared, one of the vice-presidents of the equitable, gage e. tarbell, in writing to an inquiring policy-holder, said: "pay no attention to lawson; he is only a reckless stock gambler, and every sensible person knows that any man, no matter what his position might be, who would do anything to cause loss to the class of people we insure, must be a rascal." and this is the same man tarbell, it is now admitted by all the equitable officers and investigating committees, who, as soon as he saw the crisis coming in the affairs of the equitable, had his pal, president alexander, pay to him $135,000, which he claimed was due him for commission renewals, even though he was then in receipt of a salary of $60,000 per annum for his services. it is through the operations of this same tarbell that the vast system of rebates, one of the chief evils of the present system of life insurance, came into being, and through his prodigality that the immense sum of $2,000,000 stands on the books of the company, representing advance commissions to the pampered agents. the time has come for all you policy-holders to act, and there is but one way to act. a thousand and one schemes are afloat to confuse and trick you at this period. the cry is--anything to hush things, to confine the fire to the equitable, at any cost, even though it totally consumes the $400,000,000 of the people's savings in that institution. i told you at the beginning that the new york life was worse, if anything, than the equitable, and the mutual life just as bad. therefore i unqualifiedly advise policy-holders to: 1. pay up this year's premium--it will be the last to these plunderers. 2. have nothing to do with any committee or scheme. 3. write me, at once, your name, address, and the amount and character of your policy. i want nothing more from you, and under no consideration will i divulge your name without your further consent in writing. i already have the names of thousands of policy-holders, but to make my plan instantly effective i must have scores of thousands. my plan has for its aim and end, this and only this: the absolute preservation of the face value of your policy. the reduction of future premium payments to forty cents on the dollar on what you now pay. the restitution of millions upon millions looted from the three great companies, or as much as can be collected after a careful examination of the books--and the punishment of the thieves. bear in mind _that i will not have any money connection with you in the working out of my plan. i pay my own expenses. i will not ask any reward or profit, money, office, or otherwise, nor will i under any circumstances accept any._ [illustration: policy-holders reply coupon.] in response to this appeal i received over sixteen thousand proxies, representing over fifty-four millions of insurance. the investigations made by the legislative committee of the state of new york are unearthing in a most thorough manner the iniquities of the directors and managers of the big three, and before proceeding further i shall await the results of its work. if there is any way short of criminal proceedings to compel the restitution of the millions diverted or stolen from policy-holders, i shall begin suits which i am satisfied can be fought to a successful conclusion. the call to arms the extraordinary disclosures made before the investigating committee of the new york legislature, which is now conducting inquiries into the methods of the great insurance companies, led me finally to issue the following open letter to john a. mccall, in which i review the controversy between us and contrast his disclosures of corruption and mismanagement with his brazen professions of virtue and probity made last year. in order to wrest the two great mutual companies from the control of men who are obviously unworthy to direct them and with whom the policy-holders' funds are plainly unsafe, i asked for proxies which would make it possible for me to bring about a change in the control of these two great corporations. this letter and call appeared in the november, 1905, issue of _everybody's magazine_. an open letter to john a. mccall, president new york life insurance company _sir_: it is time your attention was called to the moral sense of the american people. it is time some one dragged you out of the wall street conservatory and set you in the plain white light of daily life. it is time you were shown yourself as you are to-day seen by the millions of your countrymen who, a month ago, believed you to be a great and honorable man. in spite of the terrible exposures of the past few weeks, in spite of the pitiless revealment of yourself and your directors as tricksters, in spite of the unveiling of the jugglery, grafting, and corruption of your administration of the most sacred trust that can be confided to man, you remain unconvinced of your fall and unpenetrated by your shame. fortified by the sympathy of your fellow-sinners, you imagine your audacious bluster and your sly evasions before the investigating committee of the state of new york represented shrewd generalship and able strategy, forgetting that the enemy against whom your manoeuvres were directed was the american people and that, in this inquisition, your character and reputation were as absolutely before the bar as though you had been indicted for sequestration of the funds of some dead friend's wife. throughout this broad country of ours are good americans who have slaved and toiled to gather up the hundreds of dollars which you have exacted from them yearly as the price of the future livelihood of their wives and children, or as the provision for their own old age. you have made yourself the custodian of these funds under sacred pledge of square dealing and safe and honest administration. you have made yourself the national executor, the great depositary of the moneys of the widow and the orphan. you have cried your virtue and honorableness from the housetops, and, under the stress of your pleadings, hundreds of millions of dollars have been confided to you annually--half the savings of the nation have been turned into your coffers, all because you insisted that you were honest beyond all other men, and that the dear ones left behind might rely on your generosity and integrity for their support. and it is with the moneys that might at any time have been claimed by these widows and orphans that you have been rigging syndicates, debauching legislatures, juggling judges, manipulating stock-markets, and doing other things which will be proven later. instead of employing the vast power and the immense wealth intrusted to you to conserve the interests of your policy-holders, you have made yourself a part of the cruel robbing machine which the "system" has created to deprive the american people of their savings. under the pretence of seeking profitable investment, your corporation has been perverted into a vast stock-gambling agency. you have filled the high places in your corporation with your own children and relatives and their relatives, and conferred on them great salaries out of which they have grown rich. you have paid out to friends and associates, on various pleas, millions that rightly belonged to your policy-holders. you have done all these things habitually, yet to-day you describe the investigation being conducted into your operations as an impertinence, and secretly you regard this inquisition and all that pertains to it as a waste of time and energy. you are unrepentant, unashamed, and defiant. i shall take this opportunity, sir, of reviewing our own relations during the past year and contrasting your position to-day with that you boasted twelve months ago. one year ago, in _everybody's magazine_, i said: "the officers, trustees, and officials of the 'big three' life-insurance companies have been and are systematically robbing their policy-holders. they are grafters--mean, contemptible grafters." i gave specific instances of their thieveries. you replied, not by haling me to court, but by: circulating throughout the world documents by the millions, disparaging my reputation by advertisements and "news" and "editorial" statements from your subsidized insurance press, denying my charges and attacking my character, all at the expense of your policy-holders. you libelled me in thousands of private letters to policy-holders, many of which came back to me. you employed james m. beck, ex-assistant attorney-general of the united states, then and now chief attorney for henry h. rogers, the standard oil company, the "system," and the mutual life insurance company, to ridicule my utterances and asperse my honor in addresses in the cities of philadelphia and boston. you employed james h. eckels, ex-comptroller of the currency of the united states, now president of the commercial bank and representative of the "system" in the west, to attack my arguments and distort my motives in chicago. you ordered vice-president perkins, of the new york life insurance company, to perform similar service in philadelphia; and the burden of all these documents, advertisements, and disguised advertisements and addresses was: "lawson is an unmitigated liar and scoundrel, whose sole reason for attacking the insurance companies is that we refused him insurance." i replied by printing your personal letter to me, wherein you importuned me to accept insurance in your company. again you gave me the lie, and pronounced your letter spurious. i replied to you and your followers by instancing cases of perjury, bribery, and false statements. i stated that your claim that your company did not own, nor loan upon, stocks was false, and that it was made for the purpose of misleading and imposing upon your policy-holders, banks, trust companies, government officials, and investors. you answered this by writing a letter to one of the great churchmen of america, and in it you said: "i pledge you my word of honor this company has never, since 1899, had a dollar's interest, directly or indirectly, in any stock. lawson knows this, and deliberately, for his own base purposes, makes charges to the contrary which he knows to be false." to-day you and your fellow-plunderers stand convicted in the eyes of the whole world not only of juggling the moneys of the widow and the orphan in the stock-market, but of manipulating these trust funds for the benefit of your own pockets. to-day the world is aghast at your perfidy and amazed at your temerity. notwithstanding the turpitude already exposed to the people, you still imagine you can so conduct yourself as to prevent the investigators from fastening on you and your associates the more desperate crimes that have been committed in the past--the 150 to 200 millions stolen and diverted or used in corruption. you know as i do that only the very edges of this national cesspool have yet been uncovered. you know that not only have the ballot-box and the legislature at albany been tampered with, but the law-making and administering machinery of other states corrupted, the federal government surrounded, and certain of the judiciary of america "educated." you believe you can keep the evidence of these crimes from the american people by the same kind of bluff and effrontery with which you met my first charges. but you have mistaken the tempers of your countrymen. i have been authorized in writing by over 16,000 policy-holders, carrying over fifty-four millions of insurance, to act for them. i had intended to await the finish of the new york investigation before proceeding, but as i have had placed in my hands during the past few days evidences of the determination of yourself and your accomplices and fellow-conspirators to face it out regardless of consequences, and as i believe men capable of committing the acts that have been proved during the past few days are fully capable of taking the transportable part of the billion and a quarter funds to foreign countries, and of using them to keep themselves from their justly deserved punishments, i have decided to act now. in sending you this open letter, i am actuated only by a desire to bring you and your associates to such a sense of the seriousness of your position that you will see it is useless longer to attempt to defy the american people. yours, for the exposure of corporation sneak thieves, thomas w. lawson. to life-insurance policy-holders at the beginning of my story, in 1904, i made certain accusations against the management of the three big life-insurance companies. i knew, when i began my story, that the big life-insurance companies were in the hands of grafters and thieves, just as are the great banks, trust companies, railroad companies, and big corporations and trusts. _this i knew_ and, in plain language, said it. the big insurance companies, through their officers and trustees, replied by declaring: "he's an unmitigated liar." i kept at my knitting, for i knew the crimes of these insurance grafters were such that, sooner or later, the world would have an opportunity to judge fairly who were the unmitigated liars and thieves. the opportunity is at hand. to-day the press of the world is devoting its space, news and editorial, to a recital of the contemptible and heinous crimes of the new york life and the mutual life insurance companies--not as i relate them, but as their own officers and trustees publicly confess them. in the july instalment of my story i called upon policy-holders to sign a coupon blank inserted in _everybody's magazine_, and send same to me that i might speak for them in a plan to further their interests. in response to my call i have received up to october 4, 1905, 16,307 answers, representing $55,165,916. i think my readers, when they analyze the following list and take into consideration the character of the senders, many of whom are men of the highest standing--bishops, ministers, governors, mayors, judges, senators, members of congress, railroad, bank, and trust company presidents--will agree with me that it is the most remarkable collection ever made by one interest since life insurance began. insurance coupons _received from june 20th to october 4, 1905_ new york life $18,845,410 equitable 17,317,956 mutual 14,550,240 miscellaneous 4,452,310 ---------- $55,165,916 alabama 22 montana 130 arizona 127 nebraska 236 arkansas 124 nevada 28 california 842 new hampshire 73 colorado 211 new jersey 282 connecticut 177 new mexico 40 delaware 43 new york 1,780 district of columbia 152 north carolina 466 florida 230 north dakota 143 georgia 169 ohio 985 idaho 150 oklahoma 154 illinois 1,012 oregon 93 indiana 415 pennsylvania 1,133 indian territory 130 rhode island 67 iowa 560 south carolina 81 kansas 316 south dakota 104 kentucky 153 tennessee 157 louisiana 197 texas 580 maine 144 utah 68 maryland 126 vermont 57 massachusetts 843 virginia 242 michigan 406 washington 417 minnesota 574 west virginia 205 mississippi 173 wisconsin 318 missouri 499 wyoming 36 alaska 27 corea 1 argentina 1 mexico 71 bermuda 1 newfoundland 4 canada 344 new zealand 1 chili 1 panama 2 china 1 philippines 16 colombia 1 porto rico 5 costa rica 1 santo domingo 7 cuba 4 straits settlements 1 england 9 sweden 1 france 4 trinidad 2 hawaii 35 uruguay 2 honduras 2 yukon territory 4 japan 4 -----grand total 16,307 as soon as i received a number of signatures sufficiently large to warrant it, i quietly began operations. the first direct result is the investigation now being held. this investigation has proceeded far enough to put before the public absolute proof of all the crimes i have charged, and three to thirty times as many more. it is now evident to all that: 1st. the policy-holders in the great companies have yearly paid into their company scores of millions more than necessary. 2d. the policy-holders have been robbed of scores of millions. 3d. the vast funds now on hand have been habitually used by the grafters now in control of them in the rankest kind of stock-gambling. 4th. these funds have been used to corrupt the ballot-box and the law-makers of the country. i repeat, absolute proof of all this has been made public. it should now be evident to all that: 1st. the funds now on hand are in actual jeopardy, because they are in the absolute control of unprincipled scoundrels. 2d. unless something is done, and done at once, by the policy-holders, each and every one of the largest companies may become insolvent; that is, they may not be able to meet the engagements of their policies, because of waste of funds, tremendous falling off of new business, tremendous cost of new business, and the nature of the new business--so-called "graveyard business"; for i am credibly informed that they are now seeking to insure those who formerly have been refused insurance because of physical infirmities. it should also be plainly evident that, if the policy-holders move, and move quickly, they can be absolutely assured that: 1st. the funds as they are to-day will remain intact. 2d. they will be added to by the restitution of from $75,000,000 to $150,000,000. 3d. a score of the thieves who have plundered policy-holders in the past will be sent to prison. 4th. the future payments of policy-holders will be largely cut down. 5th. the present swollen surpluses will be returned in large part to policy-holders. 6th. in the future policy-holders will actually run the company. 7th. all policy-holders can be assured that in the future they will receive the actual worth of their policy at surrender. all this being so, it is most eminently desirable for policy-holders to act, and at once. the time will never again be so opportune, for if nothing definite is done now, policy-holders will be discouraged for all time. i have given the subject the closest and most earnest study, assisted by the best insurance experts and lawyers procurable, and guided by the suggestions of over 100,000 policy-holders, for in addition to the 16,000 mentioned, i have received over 90,000 letters. i have come to the conclusion that the one thing for policy-holders to do now is: to authorize some one in whom they have confidence to select a committee to take their proxies and at once seize possession of the two great mutual companies, the new york life and the mutual. i omit the equitable at this stage, because litigation may be necessary before the equitable, being a stock company, can come into the policy-holders' hands. but in the other two, no obstacles can be placed in the way of the policy-holders' taking control. to empower this committee to bring action at once to compel full restitution and enforce full punishment, and then to change the present method of conducting the insurance business. the vital question is: whom can the policy-holders trust to do this? the "big three" are at present spending vast sums of the policy-holders' money to prevent some such action as this, in the following ways: first, by moulding public opinion through paid news and editorial items; next, by the collection of proxies; and third, by the inauguration of different moves and dummy suits and investigations. there are already three of these affairs under way. almost any way the policy-holders turn for relief they are confronted with traps which, if they fall into them, will make relief and rescue impossible. any man or body of men who go to the great expense necessary to collect proxies must have some hidden scheme for reimbursing themselves, or they must be working in the interests of the thieves now in control. i therefore make bold to say: i am the natural one to make this move. just a minute before you pass judgment. let us see if i am: 1st. i have already spent in my work over a million dollars of my own money. 2d. i am willing to spend, if necessary, two millions more. 3d. i will absolutely prove i want nothing in return. 4th. i will absolutely prove on the face of my plans that i cannot in any way benefit beyond the satisfaction i shall derive from putting another spike in the "system's" coffin. i ask of the policy-holders simply this: fill out the following form of proxy; sign and seal it, and send it to me. quick action is most desirable in view of contingencies. [illustration] footnotes: [20] in the course of the legislative investigation of the great insurance companies in new york, it developed that the mutual life insurance company conducts a publicity bureau, organized to discredit any one who dares criticise its methods. this bureau is conducted by one charles j. smith, on a salary of $8,000 per annum, and he works through allan forman, editor of the _journalist_. forman maintains a "telegraphic news bureau" and secures publication in various newspapers or periodicals of matter sent him for dissemination by the mutual life, and he is paid $1.00 per line of the policy-holders' money on all matter for which he obtains publicity. the whitewash paragraphs recently published throughout the country in regard to president mccurdy and the mutual life were all paid for on this basis. ii the enemies i have made when a man discovers that a public building full of men, women, and children is infested with rats and that these vicious rodents have undermined its foundations and honeycombed its structure, it becomes his duty, first, to warn the occupants of the presence of the rats, next, to show them the damage that has been wrought and how the rats can be trapped and killed--and then he may take a hand in the rat-hunt himself. that is about what i have been doing, and if proof were needed that the "system" suffered under my exposure of its villainies, i should have it in plenty in the showers of mud bullets it has fired at me. from scores of quarters these volleys came. a regular army of the "system's" votaries must have been out working like trojans to stop my work, to discredit me, to bespatter me with its dirt. the manner in which the "system" writhed under my attacks showed how seriously it was hurt. what surprises me was that so little intelligence was exhibited in defaming me. such wanton, foolish attacks those that were made on me personally! as though it mattered who or what i am in comparison with the accusations i have made. americans are not fools. to say that lawson is this or that does not minimize or detract from his charge of robbery and conspiracy. every morning after i began to write "frenzied finance" i found a new budget of personalities in my mail, in the newspapers, in pamphlets. learned lawyers traveled about the country slinging mud at me at banquets and society gatherings; scores of hireling weekly and monthly papers devoted pages to vilifying me; the insurance press was laden with assaults, and for fear the public should miss the brickbats, the insurance companies carefully mailed them to their policy-holders. all these tirades were in one key--that of crude abuse. the statements about myself and my career were nothing but lies. they were not even cleverly imagined. upon entering on this crusade against "frenzied finance" i expected attack. reforms are not matured to accompaniments of incense and rose-water, and i had made up my mind to disregard the mud and its slingers. afterward, if there were any "system" left, i rather looked forward to smothering it beneath the foulness of its own generating. there came a time during the year, however, when i deemed it proper to depart from this resolution and nail some of the lies my enemies were circulating about me. i debated the subject thoroughly, for the rancor of these assaults was evident and i could not help feeling that the general run of my readers would be impatient of the space given these gutter rakers. the determination to go at them was clinched by a letter which came to me, with a number of others from clergymen of various denominations, from a learned catholic priest, who put the case for a reply most earnestly. he said: you owe it, my son, to yourself to clear away, for once and all, the charges your enemies have made against you. i have faith you mean all that you say, but there are many, many sons and daughters who are troubled in heart and harassed in mind with doubt whether your motives be pure, and if your deeds in the past have been along the ways of the good. it is my advice, if you will accept it, that you put aside your pride and your dignity and frankly and openly tell us whether these charges that we read are true or false. beck vs. lawson i shall deal with the subject as fairly as possible, reminding my readers, however, that i am at a disadvantage in having to use pen and ink instead of the implement appropriate for the purpose, a hose connected with a disinfectant barrel. to begin with, i reproduce the following from the toledo _blade_, december 26, 1904. (i have similar paragraphs clipped from one hundred other papers.) james m. beck flays lawson calls boston author-broker a frenzied fakir. defines moneyphobia declares he is victim of new disease--compares his actions to "crazed malay running amuck." philadelphia, december 26th.--ex-assistant attorney-general james m. beck talked on "moneyphobia" at the thirty-ninth annual commencement exercises of the peirce business college. he paid his respects to thomas w. lawson in such terms as "frenzied fakir" and "crazed malay running amuck." ... "there are abundant indications that this epidemic is now rife in the community. the extraordinary vote polled by a socialistic candidate for president, in a time of general prosperity, seems to evidence this, as does the avidity with which many intelligent people read in a cheap 'penny dreadful' magazine the incoherent, self-contradictory, and self-incriminating articles of a notorious frenzied fakir, who, like a crazed malay, is wildly running amuck, and, without rhyme or reason, slashing at the reputations of judges, senators, and financiers." the following is from a chicago insurance paper, and comes to me with the marginal inscription, "puncture this bladder when convenient." i may say that i receive hundreds of clippings every day from various parts of the country, sent me by correspondents who are determined i shall be apprised of what my antagonists are trying to do against me. banker eckels and broker lawson the splendid tribute to our country's greatness, resources, and possibilities given by president james h. eckels, of the commercial national bank, of chicago, and ex-comptroller of currency of the united states, before the chicago life underwriters' association, was listened to with earnest attention. the brilliant young financier ... believes in life insurance for the people. it creates the valuable habit of saving. he deprecates the malicious attacks on companies by men of mysterious motives, and feels it will be a sorry day if they ever become objects of prey for political thieves. the banker paid his respects to thomas w. lawson, of boston, whom he characterized as a notoriety seeker and branded as a "discredited, disreputable, despised stock-jobber who glories in his infamy." mr. eckels lashed lawson with caustic language, and stated the american people of judgment are not misled by his diatribes. mr. eckels believes that life-insurance presidents reach their high stations by their own ability and grasping of opportunities. because a man is elevated to a position of eminence and responsibility does not mean he is dishonest. he arrives there because he cannot be held down and remains as long as he proves his worth. the banker declared that life companies, with their vast funds, were being safely guided by men of superior mental mould. mr. eckels referred to president mccall, of the new york life, as being a clerk in a state bureau office when he first made his acquaintance. he said president mccall had advanced, like other company executives, owing to his own ability and genius for management. in an early article in this series i stated that one of the favorite operations of the "system" is to pick off those officials who have exhibited unusual talent or energy in protecting the interests of the national government. in this way they secure the services of men who know the secret workings of the people's institutions and how best to guard the corporations against the consequences of their misdeeds. during the cleveland administration there developed a "financial phenomenon," james h. eckels, comptroller of the currency. it did not take long for the astute rogers-morgan-mccall clique to see that this young man's knowledge of finance in connection with his governmental position might prove a dangerous obstacle to their machine if he were not captured. it was not long before he was captured. i met mr. eckels during the cleveland bond performance. i need not enter into the details of that extraordinary affair here, for it is one of the sore spots in recent american history. briefly, the administration at washington attempted to issue $100,000,000 government bonds and deliver them in a snap sale to the "system." the new york _world_ began a crusade against the transaction, and was so successful that the administration was compelled to offer the issue to the public through competitive bids. the result--the bonds fetched many more millions for the government than if the deal had been allowed to slip along the ways the "system" had greased for it. i remember well the scene at the opening of the bids. it was in the united states treasury at washington. with many others who desired an allotment of the bonds, i was present. we were crowded into a small room, and following the direction of young mr. eckels, who handled the transaction, we gave him our bids, which, according to the advertised programme, were in sealed envelopes. after all the bids were submitted--mine was for a number of millions--the envelopes were taken by mr. eckels into a rear room. then a few of the leading financiers present, among them john a. mccall, of the new york life, j. pierpont morgan, and one or two others of the "system's" foremost representatives, got their heads together and began an earnest conference. certain of them went out of the room and after awhile returned for a further conference. there were several such confabulations and comings and goings, until finally, after a monotonous delay, the bids were opened and the bonds awarded. morgan, mccall, _et al._, had secured the bulk of the issue at a price many points above what any one had been led to believe the bonds would sell for, and many points higher than the "system" and the government had proclaimed to the people they could possibly sell for, yet at a price which showed millions of profit a few hours after the bids were opened. i do not charge that the public's envelopes were opened and "peeked" into before the "system's" bids were sealed. such a charge is not necessary. it has been made many times by the press. mr. eckels, to the minds of such of us as could see through cracks in a floor wide enough to drive a four-in-hand coach into without unhooking the leaders, had lived up to his rôle as a financial phenomenon, and when some time afterward it was bruited abroad that this able young man was to have the presidency of the city bank, or any other large bank belonging to the "system" that he might select, there was no surprise, although much comment, in wall street. mr. eckels finally accepted the presidency of the commercial bank of chicago, where he now is one of the important cogs in the "system's" machine. the case of james m. beck has points of similarity. mr. beck, a young philadelphia lawyer, obtained a valuable knowledge of the secrets of the department of justice in washington as assistant united states attorney-general, and in the prosecution of the northern securities suit got an insight into the "system's" methods. it will be remembered that at the trial of the suit he made a great appearance and became famous as the young champion of the people who had succeeded in "busting" this notorious trust. the victory was hardly announced before it became known that the brilliant assistant attorney-general had renounced the cause of the public and had been engaged at a large salary as chief counsel for henry h. rogers, of standard oil. mr. beck has proved a most available and flexible servant in the cause of his master. he has done mr. rogers's bidding in a manner befitting the best traditions of "standard oil." almost his first work was the trial of the famous boston gas suit, in which for weeks he "steered" henry h. rogers while on the witness-stand in the massachusetts supreme court. the very night before this case was to be called for trial, the eminent young "trust buster" and people's champion called on my attorney and made him a proposition. it was that i should meet mr. beck and agree upon the details of certain testimony that mr. rogers and kidder, peabody & co. (the "system's" boston representatives), and myself would be called upon to give upon the witness-stand next day. my attorney brought the proposition to me. "great heavens!" i said, "is it possible that this man has the audacity to come to boston and ask me to commit perjury?" "he does not put it in just those words," my attorney answered. "no, but he says he wishes to _match up_ testimony with me so that we may all testify alike." "that is it," my attorney answered. "but," said i, "i have got to state the facts, and the facts are diametrically opposed to the testimony mr. rogers and the others are to give. this looks to me like subornation of perjury." my lawyer would not have it that way, and i instructed him to secure from mr. beck a writing as to just what he wished me to do, and that writing i have at the present time. in it he states that if i do not see him and agree upon the testimony to be submitted in the supreme court of massachusetts the following day, there may be developments which will be decidedly uncomfortable for mr. rogers and perhaps for the rest of us. i did not meet mr. beck, and henry h. rogers and kidder, peabody & co. told one story and i another. bald perjury was committed by some one. however, i will give all the facts, including the "match up" letter, when i come to them in my story. mr. beck and mr. eckels are the two men designated by the "system" to attend public gatherings and vilify thomas w. lawson. they are at it, industriously. the donohoe episode as soon as the first chapter of "frenzied finance" appeared, henry h. rogers turned loose on me one denis donohoe, a character thug whom he had imported from california for just such emergencies. donohoe's first service for mr. rogers was a vicious onslaught on heinze, of montana, in the new york _commercial_. this was an attack of such unusual vulgarity and malignity that it won donohoe his spurs, for soon afterward, when by a characteristic trick mr. rogers obtained possession of the new york _commercial_, he made donohoe its editor. i may mention that heinze sued the _commercial_ for $300,000 damages, and apropos of the suit an interesting complication occurred which seriously interfered with mr. rogers's plans. the night before the old owners, from whom mr. rogers had grabbed the _commercial_, were to be thrown into the street, they threatened, by way of reprisal for the mean trick that had been served on them, to confess judgment to heinze. one was president and the other secretary of the company, and this action would have settled the proposition. rogers, treated to a dose of his own medicine, had to make a compromise, and the men are still on the paper. the details of this good story are to be found in the detroit _journal_. it was fitting that when i began my exposures of the "system" this thug should be ordered to do his worst by me, and he began the series of virulent assaults that the _commercial_ published and advertised all over the country. the first of these was devoted to proving me crazy, and it was carefully circulated by my friends the insurance companies by way of offsetting the effects of my revelations of their jugglery of the people's funds. later i showed up the fellow so vigorously that john d. rockefeller ordered mr. rogers to muzzle him in his own paper, whereupon arrangements were made with a new york weekly to act as the sewer-conduit for the lies and abuse this thug was warranted to turn out. i should not dream of dealing with this man or his fatuous attacks in a respectable publication save that he has been appointed the "system's" chief defender. it really seems as though the game were too small to take time for its killing, but as these weak and febrile maunderings really represent the "system's" reply to my charges, it may be worth while to show, once and for all, what idiotic lies they put forth and what a silly and ineffective falsifier it is that they have made their champion. i shall take the second article of the series and contrast donohoe's statements with the actual facts. incidents in mr. lawson's versatile career which even those who are not censorious might well deem shameful. if in my career i have done anything of which i or any honorable man should be ashamed, then i am willing to stand convicted of all that this character thug charges against me--of being a stock-jobber, fakir, liar. he claims, if the writer understands him aright, that he is _animated solely_ by a keen regard for the public weal in performing what he describes as a public duty. i stated positively in the foreword of my story, and have reiterated many times since, that in making these revelations i am actuated first and mainly by a desire to benefit the people of this country, not only by informing them how they are being plundered, but how they can in the future guard themselves, and that if it were necessary to accomplish my purpose i would spend every dollar i possess; but mixed with this desire is a hatred of the "system" as deadly as a man can have for anything human. i have also reiterated that at such stage of this revelation as is possible i shall secure from the "system" every dollar i can wring from it to be used in my fight against it, provided always i can get its dollars in legal, fair, and above-board fighting ways--i mean, in the open market. mr. lawson appears before the bar of public opinion as a volunteer witness for the commonwealth--"state's evidence"--as the lawyers phrase it--and hence his reputation, his motives, his character, his every act, become at once fit subjects for the closest scrutiny and examination. whoever says that in telling my story i am revealing anything which it is not fair or just to tell, or that i have not a perfect right to state, says that which is false. i am confining myself to explaining how the "system" gets its money. i do not touch upon how it spends it. if in an honorable way i could write the things that have come to me confidentially, the "system" might well tremble. i confess that at times i have been tempted to depart from my code--when, for instance, soon after the first donohoe chapter, a man came to me and showed that he had been offered $5,000 to vouch for the statement--which denis donohoe, h. h. rogers's right-hand man, had printed, and the insurance companies had spread broadcast--that the first ten years of thomas w. lawson's business life were spent as an employee of richard canfield, the providence and new york gambler, and afterward as his partner. "give us an affidavit to that effect and we will pay you $5,000." to this man i said: "i have never in my life been connected with any gambling-place in any way, nor had to do with gambling in any form, and only once in my life have i set eyes on richard canfield. he was in the waldorf café one day when i was passing through. however, if i did know him i should not be ashamed to admit it, for i consider canfield, from what i have read of him, an angel of purity compared with any one of a score of the 'system's' votaries i could name." the man left me, but soon after returned. he said: "it makes no difference whether what you say is true or not, i can now secure $10,000 for the affidavit." when this kind of fighting is brought to my attention, i am strongly tempted to let down the bars. he relates, with all the graphic art of a novelist, a wellnigh incredible story. chicanery, fraud, blackmail, bribery of a legislature and of a judge, systematic pillage of investors and of the american public. the details i have narrated are facts, and i will prove them to be facts so all may know them. in delving into lawson's career--a most unwelcome task--the writer has detected a continuity of purpose, a fixity of design, a uniformity of method pervading his every public act. what he is doing now, _i.e._, exposing somebody or something, he has repeatedly done on a lesser scale in the past; not from worthy motives, but for the sole purpose of illegitimate pecuniary gain. yes, throughout my entire life i have pursued with a continuity of purpose that class i am pursuing to-day--the class that has taken from the people their earnings by fraud or trick. if other proof were needed that the men i am after have lost the discretion which made them great in the world, these foolish yarns supply it. it is well known that no man ever gets near to "standard oil" in business or socially until their detectives have dissected his career from the cradle up. i spent years in close business relations with these men, so close that, as i will show later, i acted as the agent not only of rogers and rockefeller, but of the amalgamated company and the city bank. he is at present engaged in attacking the "system," as he calls it, and the banks and the insurance companies and wall street and american finance, by circulars, by advertisements, and through the stock-market, as in the past he has repeatedly attacked other corporations and individuals until he obtained what he was seeking, and in every recorded instance that thing was unearned dollars. in the past i have repeatedly attacked individuals and corporations until i obtained what i sought in every case--justice for the defrauded and punishment for those who had cheated them, and in no case dollars or their equivalent. in the gilded biographies of himself which, from time to time, mr. lawson has caused to be written and published in newspapers and magazines. my history is well enough known. i have always lived in the open. it has not been necessary to press-agent myself. a good deal has been printed about me in the newspapers during the last twenty-five years, but if i have ever sought to exploit myself before the public by means of autobiographies or journalistic puffs, and it is so proved by any reputable newspaper, may i be shown up to public scorn. it was mr. stevens who defrayed the expense of a six months' course at a boston business college for his protégé. i have never had such a course of six months, nor of any length, nor have i ever been inside a business college. mr. stevens, who was a kindly, philanthropic man, known and beloved by all his fellow-citizens, died years ago, therefore he cannot dispute what lawson tells. the late horace h. stevens died not years ago, but on march 8, 1904. old residents of new york will recall that long before the days of canfield's gilded palace, and long before the era of the present district attorney, mr. jerome, there was a gambling-house known to the commercial traveller and man-about-town as "818 broadway," and that one of the backers of the game was william f. waldron, or "billy waldron," as he was usually called. waldron retired nearly thirty years ago from the syndicate that controlled this house and moved to providence, where he interested himself in gambling and what, for lack of a better term, may be called the cognate industries. one of these latter was a bucket-shop of the ordinary country town type. this bucket-shop was confined to the tender mercies of one "jo" lumpkin as manager. lumpkin failed to make the business profitable, and waldron, after attaching $500.00 that lumpkin had on deposit in a bank in new york, turned him out. in his place he installed the present loquacious reformer of american finance, thomas w. lawson, or "billy" lawson as he was then known to the gamblers, race-track touts, and confidence men who made providence their head-quarters. my readers will agree with me that such weak and feeble rot is beneath any man's attention, for even if what is here charged were true, namely, that a young man of twenty-one had been so employed, it would have no bearing on his work twenty-six years afterward; but as i have decided to take cognizance of this stuff, here are the facts: what to-day is known as the bucket-shop evil--that is, the speculation in stocks over the counter at offices conducted by brokers outside the pale of the law or the stock exchange--did not exist at the period mentioned. this method of conducting speculation, however, had just been invented, and many of the legitimate brokers, stock-exchange members, utilized the new form in their ventures. indeed, the number of brokers and brokerage shops outside the stock exchange was as large, if not larger, than that of the regular houses. at the time donohoe treats of i was doing considerable business for a young man, as will be evidenced by my business card of that period: +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | thomas w. lawson & co., | | | | bankers and brokers. | | | | dealers in first-class investment bonds and stocks. | | offices: boston, providence, new york, and chicago. | | | | president of the lawson manufacturing company. | | president of the mcdonald-lawson manufacturing company. | | vice-president of the briggs printing machine company. | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ i regularly visited every week my offices in boston, providence, and new york. at one time i had a providence office in the building marked in the cut in the donohoe story, and the sign over the door was "thomas w. lawson & co." it was in providence, during the heyday of the waldron-lawson enterprise, that lawson ... first met "jack" roach, whose apparent employment now is selling diamonds on commission to the so-called "sporting element" of new york, but who is acknowledged to be lawson's personal representative in this city. it was there, too, that he made the acquaintance of herbert gray, who subsequently conducted a gambling-house in boston, and who recently served as one of lawson's captains and managed his trotting stable. ben palmer, a well-known character in state street, who is one of the main cog-wheels of lawson's machine, first made lawson's acquaintance during this period of his career. i do know the waldron brothers, of providence, who are among the oldest residents of rhode island, and who, with the present united states senator nelson a. aldrich, composed the great wholesale grocery house of waldron, wightman & co. they did not graduate from a gambling-house on broadway. i knew the brother referred to familiarly throughout rhode island as "honest bill," and a royal old fellow he was. i did business with him in those days, and to any connection i ever had with him i look back with pleasure. he was then conducting a farm in the suburbs of providence, and in a straightforward, old-fashioned way supplying that city with produce and poultry, and had, to the best of my knowledge, the respect and confidence of all who knew him. i never knew of his having been a gambler, and had no means of knowing, as such matters were then an unknown world to me. i never, up to reading it in donohoe's story the other day, heard of 818 broadway, curious as it may seem for a man of my experience. my knowledge of gambling has always been confined to that kind which comes under the head of stock gambling. i had not met my present friend, john j. roche, of new york, at the time mentioned. i never heard of herbert gray, of boston, until i employed him to manage my stable in 1899. i have known j. benjamin palmer all my life. we were boys together on state street. afterward he was the stock-exchange member of one of the oldest banking-houses in boston. he is still a broker on state street. nothing of certainty can be learned of his career during this period. that he sold "base-ball" cards (a unique kind of playing-cards) at the providence railroad station is stated on credible authority; that he "worked the trains" between new york and providence; that he sold books; that he was a hanger-on at race-tracks, has been alleged. any or all of these rumors may be true--or false--for whatever may be said of lawson, his career has undoubtedly been one of marvellous activity in many diversified lines. i have never sold baseball playing-cards at the providence station, nor anywhere, at this time nor any time, but i did invent the lawson baseball playing-cards, and was president of the lawson playing-card company. i never sold books at this time nor any time, and never "worked trains" at this time nor any time, although i fail to see any disgrace in such honest employment; nor had anything to do with trains in any way whatever at this time nor any time except to ride in them. i have never been a hanger-on at race-tracks, and have never had anything to do with a race-track of any kind other than visiting one for the first time in 1899 to see my own horse, boralma, race, and four or five times since to see my own horses run. i desire to dwell on this especial accusation because these character thugs have caused it to be published throughout the country that i am and have always been a _habitué_ of race-tracks and a plunging bettor upon races. i regret that it is my misfortune never to have seen a horse-race until 1899, but if it can be shown that i was ever upon a race-track before that time, i will agree to stop writing this story of "frenzied finance." in 1882, a concern known as the briggs printing machine company was incorporated in rhode island ... to manufacture a machine that was advertised to "print, cut, pack, and fasten with twine 100,000 tags per hour." thomas w. lawson secured the job of selling agent of this company, and he proved so successful and the advertising matter which he wrote brought such handsome returns, that we find him in 1884 promoted to the position of manager and enjoying a salary of $150 per month. later he became the secretary of the company, and very shortly thereafter, in 1887, the enterprise collapsed, was sold out by the sheriff, and realized little or nothing for the numerous creditors.... it is true that i was the vice-president of the briggs printing machine company, which was organized and owned by others before i had aught to do with it. i was induced to invest considerable money in it and to take charge of its affairs. the briggs company was a close corporation. its stock was never sold to the public, and after i left it it met with failure. in december, 1888, the lamson consolidated store-service company was incorporated at boston. its purpose was to exploit an invention of w. s. lamson ... the overhead trolley system used in department-stores for carrying cash and parcels.... the capital stock at the beginning was $250,000--par value of shares, $50. the company was doing business and declaring two and a half per cent. dividends quarterly, when mr. lawson stepped in and began to manipulate the stock. the price of shares rose steadily to 122. under the influence of speculative excitement the directors increased the capital stock to $1,000,000, then to $4,000,000. mr. lawson boomed the stock on the basis of a report, totally destitute of truth, that an english syndicate was about to purchase a controlling interest in the company. having unloaded all the shares at his disposal on the uproad to 122, mr. lawson suddenly one morning awoke to a realization of the fact that lamson store-service shares possessed absolutely no value, and he at once took the public, as is his custom, into his confidence. in circulars, by advertisements, and by cunningly contrived "news" items he insistently dinned into the public ear that lamson shares were valueless. the result was as well might be imagined. the stock declined to 30, whereupon lawson bought it back and then and there made his first grand _coup_. it is said that first and last he realized $250,000 from the lamson shareholders. i did "lawsonize" the lamson store-service company, just as i am at the present time "lawsonizing" the "standard-oil"-amalgamated-city-bank crowd. the lamson store-service company, with $4,000,000 capital, was blunderbussing all who dared oppose it--all who refused to be bulldozed into consolidating with it. it was the most vicious exponent of the "trust" methods i had ever met up to that time. its arrogance, audacity, and crimes were the themes of the newspapers and courts of the day. a most casual investigation of the newspaper files, particularly in osgood _vs._ lamson, and the new york store-service company _vs._ lamson, will show a state of corporation assassination equal to that of the "standard oil," only on a smaller scale, of course. perjury, bribery, and even murder will be found openly charged and in some cases proved. at the height of the sensational career of the lamson company it ran into one of my corporations, the lawson manufacturing company, and started in to "do me up" or compel a consolidation, and--well, i gave it battle. the following circular to the stockholders will show how the battle started: _dear sir_: i deem it my duty to say to you, as a shareholder of the lamson store-service company, that your mr. lamson and his agents have opened up on my company, and with their usual criminal methods are endeavoring to ruin us. this circular is to inform you that i have this day given notice to each of your officers and directors that, in three days from to-day, if they have not stopped their dirty work and taken their hands off my company, they will take the consequences. i do not pretend to be able to meet them on the fighting grounds of the courts, for i know too well their power of corruption and jury-buying, but i assure you i have other ways by which i can stop them, etc., etc. if donohoe had desired to deal with facts, he could not have missed the details of this story, of which the papers at the time were full. it was a fight which would have warmed the heart-cockles of an embalmed warrior of the catacombs. lamson stock was selling at 62, the highest price it ever attained, not 122, as this numskull states. when i began operations i slaughtered it and the reputation of lamson and his associates; and in the midst of the fight, when the shares were down to 18, or perhaps 14, a great public meeting of stockholders--there were a whole lot of them--was called in the city of lowell, and, amid fiery speeches, lamson was told to choose between refuting my charges of fraud and being deposed from the presidency of the institution. lamson attempted explanations, but the hard-headed stockholders did what the amalgamated stockholders will some time do, passed resolutions that lamson must punish me for libel or that they would punish him. the gathering then adjourned to a future date, at which lamson was to report what action he had taken to punish me for my crimes. the next step was interesting, and bears on an accusation i have seen mentioned frequently of late. i had, when i began my fight, laid before mr. joseph pulitzer, of the new york _world_, the dastardly crimes of which the company had been guilty, and was even then engaged in committing, and he had said: "damnable! i will aid you in exposing them." and he did. day after day there were broadsides in the _world_ relentlessly denouncing the rascalities of the lamson outfit. these finally stirred them to action. one day i received word that some trickery was being put up in the district attorney's office in new york. a few days later there appeared at my office in boston a police officer from new york and three of our head boston police officers. they said to me: "we regret, mr. lawson, but we must take your secretary, mr. william l. vinal, back to new york, as he has been indicted for spreading false reports." "has any one else been indicted?" i asked. "oh, yes," they replied, "you and some of the _world_ people." "mr. vinal has done nothing but obey my orders," i said. "why don't you take me?" "we have no orders to," was the reply. i saw the game and sent word to the governor of massachusetts, who promptly told the combination: "go slow, gentlemen. remember you are not in new york now, but in massachusetts." he ordered a public trial. within two hours from the time they laid hands on my secretary i brought suit in his name for false arrest against the officers who were trying to arrest him, and grabbed the new york official before he could skip out of town. then i went to see the lamson crowd and we had it out. they begged that i allow vinal to go to new york, just to vindicate them, in which circumstances he would be allowed to return on the next train, and the case would never be heard of again. if i would consent, they would agree to a reorganization of the company and the dropping out of lamson. i showed them that they had gone too far, that i had damaging information as to how they had secured the indictment, and that now they must take the consequences. i took the "midnight" for new york, and in the morning was at district-attorney fellows's office. i dared him to arrest me or the officers of the _world_. he replied: "i don't want you, lawson. i cannot and won't help you advertise your fight." it proving impossible to get up any excitement in new york, i returned to boston, and the extradition proceedings furnished a most sensational trial. the cause was bitterly fought. the lawyers even came to blows in the governor's chamber. finally, when governor brackett had all the facts before him, he said: "you cannot work your dirty tricks on me," and he entered a vigorous refusal of the application for mr. vinal's extradition. this case established precedents for all such proceedings since. the fight won, pressure was brought to bear on me to let up on the lamson outfit and call off further proceedings. for some time i persistently refused to do so, as i was determined to contest the constitutionality of the law. finally, however, on condition that lamson should be thrown out, the management of the company reorganized, its criminal methods abandoned, and all records and trace of the indictment against myself and the others removed from the district attorney's books, i consented. this is the history of how i "lawsonized" the lamson store-service company, and if there is anything i have ever done that was good to do and well worth doing, this was it. i am just as proud of my work here as of what i did in the general electric fight upon which i have already touched. in the lamson reorganization i was offered all sorts of good things, but i refused, as i always have in such affairs, to benefit in any way but the open and fair one where i go into the open market and stake my money against that of my opponents on my ability to prove i am right. the facts here are of legal record. following is the donohoe-rogers version. the mendacity is obvious: among the unfortunate lamson-service stockholders were numbered several aggressive people of the old-fashioned kind, who resented mr. lawson's peculiar way of doing things. these submitted, in 1892, to the grand jury of the city of new york a sheaf of lawsonian literature, comprising his scandalous attacks on the company's securities. the grand jury indicted thomas w. lawson, and colonel john r. fellows, the district attorney, and his assistants, francis l. wellman and mr. lindsay, went to boston to try to have lawson extradited. the governor of massachusetts came to lawson's rescue in the nick of time and declined to honor the request of the governor of new york for his extradition; but for years thereafter the future author of "frenzied finance" made his trips to this money-centre incognito. the grand rivers enterprise in 1890 the entire country rang with the fame of grand rivers, and it was thomas w. lawson, of boston, who pulled the bell-rope.... the scheme, as may be deduced herefrom, was a most comprehensive one. the development of the "marvellous deposit of coal and iron," which had been discovered upon the property by mr. lawson, one day while seated in his revolving chair in his state street office, furnished the basis for the incorporation of the furnaces company. after $2,000,000 had been "expended," the clamor of the stockholders caused the company actually to build several furnaces. they were erected and stood idle, with nothing to feed them. the whole scheme collapsed in 1892. the stockholders lost every dollar of their investment.... in this, his fourth financial venture, mr. lawson did but repeat his former experiences--except, in this case, the loss sustained by those who reposed confidence in his promises was heavier than in any of his prior undertakings. the kentucky experience is one of the pleasantest memories of my life. measured by dollars and cents it was expensive but was well worth it, as the young man remarked who broke his arm by being thrown from his horse into the lap of his future wife. it makes a long story, and i shall only touch on the leading facts concerning it by way of showing the desperate straits my enemies are put to in their efforts to discredit my career. my present brokers, messrs. brown, riley & co., one of the oldest and largest boston and new york stock exchange houses, had floated the grand rivers enterprise for some of their wealthy clients. it was an iron, coal, and furnace proposition, and before i ever heard of it, it had been bought and paid for, and enormous furnaces were under way. it was a close corporation. after a very large amount of money--in the millions--had gone into the property, i was induced to take the executive management, and also i put in a very large amount of my own money. my work was to be that of business director, for i did not know an iron or a coal mine from an alabaster ledge in the lunar spheres, and not half as much about an iron smelter as i did about converting whiskers into mermaid's tresses. however, one of the greatest iron men in new england, aretas blood, president of the manchester locomotive works, and of the nashua steel and iron company, was at the head of the enterprise, which apparently safeguarded it. well, it turned out that there was no iron in the mines--at least not enough to pay for extraction, and the investment simply disappeared. i lost a very large amount--at least, a very large amount for me--but i had to show for it the love and friendship and respect of the inhabitants of one of the fairest places on the earth--a place where brave men and lovely women live in peace and comfort in the knowledge of their own fearless, simple honesty, and their hatred of shams and trickery--in absolute ignorance of frenzied financiers and the "system's" votaries. the history of grand rivers is an open book. there is no secret about my connection with the enterprise. it was a straight and proper venture. the men who are my brokers of to-day fathered it, and they are men of honor, probity, and responsibility, who since my first year in business in 1870 have been my close business associates and personal friends. why do not donohoe and his breed of gutter-rooters, when seeking information about me, ask such men as these for facts about my life?--they know what every hour of it has been. strange as it may seem to such vampires, the men i began to do business with when i was a boy i am doing business with to-day, and they are my associates and friends. i postponed until the last moment writing this article in order that i might be able to diagnose the "system's" attack on me. the first of the widely advertised series was such a foolish and asinine thing as to be unworthy of notice, and i desired to see how much further the second would go. in the former it was charged that i was writing my articles solely for the purpose of securing stock-market profits and compelling the "system" to settle; in other words, that i was attempting to blackmail them; that i had no honorable motives in writing my story, and had no remedy of any kind in mind; that in the recent panic i had made a million and a quarter of dollars; that i had secured president roosevelt's message eight days before it was published; that i had advertised on november 29th, unqualifiedly advising all to purchase amalgamated, and that on december 6th i had advertised advising all to sell. it is true that i did advise the public to sell, but that in my advertisement of november 29th i advised the people to buy amalgamated i positively deny. i carefully avoided doing so. the other statements are equally false, and were made with a full knowledge of their falsity. the incidents in my career about which i have here set forth the facts are not secret. all the things i have stated are fully susceptible of proof. for another instant let me take the assertion that my motive in this crusade is personal gain through stock-jobbery, and that i have no aim or end in view other than that. well, i can to-day show the remedy to which i have alluded so often, and which when i worked it out in 1893 i had printed with full detail. it is in my vault now under lock and key. in the year 1894, in london, i laid a copy of this document before joseph pulitzer of the new york _world_. remember, this was a year before i met h. h. rogers or any of the "standard oil" party. since donohoe began his latest series of attacks i have had scores of letters commenting on them. a significant verdict on what the man is accomplishing is the following: buffalo, n. y., january 23, 1905. _dear sir_: i herewith enclose you copy of a letter just sent to mr. donohoe, also to the editor of --- yours respectfully, ---(copy) january 23, 1905. mr. denis donohoe, financial editor, new york _commercial_, new york city. _dear sir_: with considerable pleasure, satisfaction, and conviction, i have carefully read all the articles on "frenzied finance," by mr. lawson, and from my limited knowledge of affairs, gained by fifteen years of active life, am of the opinion that he has been telling facts, although at times they are clothed in the language of a writer of fiction. i have been waiting and confidently expecting, during the past six months, that some able, honest, unbiassed, and free-handed man would take up the discussion against mr. lawson, and in this way aid the people in viewing the entire subject with all possible side-lights, so that when public opinion shall be finally formed, as surely it will be in the future, it may be as nearly right as possible and only the guilty suffer. it was, therefore, with a high degree of exultation that i purchased ---of january 19th, upon the first page of which in bold type appears: "lawson answered--the truth about frenzied finance." at the sight of these words i said in almost audible tones: "now we shall hear the other side, or at least learn what mr. lawson has omitted, if anything." i have just finished reading your article in said issue of ----, and as you now pose as a public writer and benefactor, you of course will welcome frank, honest criticism. after reading and rereading your said article, i am, against my desire, forced to the following conclusions: 1. you are either one of the "system" or are hired by it. 2. this article of yours was prepared for the purposes of making two points: (a) working on the sentiment and passions of the weak, and the women; and (b) diverting public attention and opinion from the real facts at issue, by attacking mr. lawson's personal character, which is not up for discussion. 3. your article is full of high-sounding declarations, and void of either logic or common sense. 4. in your endeavor to express the wishes of the prejudiced and biassed, you are undoubtedly dishonest with yourself without deceiving the public. 5. your article lacks the ring that carries conviction, either as to your sincerity or the truthfulness of the statements you make. 6. the article indicates that you are vainly trying to ape mr. lawson's style. yours respectfully, e. g. mansfield, attorney-at-law. following the donohoe outburst there came innumerable letters, of which this is a good sample: tacoma, wash., february 14, 1905. _dear sir_: it would be greatly appreciated by at least one of your readers if you would furnish the great and only donohoe the details of some really scandalous epoch of your past. it has been stated many times that one man cannot make a million dollars and do it honestly, so we must assume you have done some "things" in your past. we have a very high regard out west for the works of mr. dooley and mark twain, and also are regular subscribers of _puck_ and _judge_, and we don't want to see these noted writers and periodicals unseated, even for the time being, by mr. donohoe. therefore we ask you to give him some tip from which he can work out something serious, so he can make a statement that is not "reported," or the deduction of which does not require sherlock holmes. his work of "dissecting" so far reminds us of the work of a six months' student of a medical college on a tom cat (no pun meant). yours very truly, l. h. m. i answered as follows: _my dear sir_: your request is similar to that of a hundred other correspondents. i regret i can do nothing to help out. donohoe's trouble is, he is short of facts, so "short" that he seems to me completely "cornered." i am "long of" them, as you and all my other readers will admit before i am through my story, but my facts are not the kind donohoe can use, or i would willingly let him have a few to assist him out of his present predicament. donohoe's employers, rogers and the "standard oil," knew before they put him on to his present "job" that my life was a peculiarly and unusually open one--one that had absolutely no dark or covered corner in it; they knew it not only because all men in my walks of life know it, but because they had investigated it with their unerring search-light. most men who have ever been on the inside of "standard oil" know that no man with a bad record could do business, much less have an intimate relation, with rogers and rockefeller for nine seconds; and my connection extended over nine years. the tone of my correspondence during the year was not by any means altogether friendly. the writer of the following letter presented his conclusions straight from the shoulder and i was equally direct in my reply: personal. gainesville, fla., february 21, 1905. mr. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. _dear sir_: pardon my "buttin' in"--seems i must say something. if what donohoe says about your trinity copper company is true, it would seem you ought to stop throwing mud at the standard oil crowd, for you are no better than are they, and they are known thieves and robbers. while you may be telling the truth about the other fellow, yet the fact of your telling it does not set well on the stomach of those who read both sides of the story. seems to me it's "dog eat dog" until every one is disgusted. why don't you come down to business and give the readers of _everybody's_ something wholesome to digest and plenty of it? the way it comes now, we are over our hunger before the next issue shows up, and, in the meantime, your friend has converted many to the thought that you are worse than the standard oil crowd. won't you please answer, in the next issue of _everybody's_, if you made your money--your fortune, honestly, or did you "do others" for fear they would "do you"? i am inclined to think you are as big a "grafter" as ever came down the pike, even though you may be telling on the other fellow--turning state's evidence. yours truly, ---you ask why i do not get down to business. you won't mind my telling you the principal reason is that it is _i_ who am writing "frenzied finance," not you nor any of your kind, and that i propose to decide when it is time to get down to business. if in the meantime there is any one else who can do the job i have cut out better than i, why, none will be better pleased than myself. indeed, i will gladly contribute as a reward to my successor double the many thousands of dollars i am paying each month to get this work of mine properly before the people. what donohoe says of my trinity copper is not only absolutely false, but has over and over again been demonstrated to be so. the actual facts regarding that property have been printed time and again in reputable boston newspapers, and casual inquiry will obtain you the full details. in addition, practically everything which donohoe, the hired mouthpiece of "standard oil" and the "system," has said is absolutely untrue and made from whole cloth. when i say this i cover all criticism which has been made upon me or my work by "standard oil" or the "system," for this character thug has utilized every dirty slander which my enemies ever invented and put into circulation. did i make my fortune honestly, you ask? and i answer: in thirty-six years of active business life, very active, embracing transactions through which i have passed from poverty to wealth and back again from riches to poverty, and in which i might easily have retained the riches by sacrificing a principle, i have never once in all these years and in all these transactions done a wrong to man, woman, or child, nor taken from man, woman, or child a dollar unfairly, much less dishonestly. rather a remarkable record, you will say, for one who has made millions in the stock business. but i should not be broadly honest if i did not add the modification that these millions of dollars were made in the open stock-market, by methods which in the open stock-market are called fair and honest; that is, i have played the game according to the rules, and the "other fellow" has had equal chance with me and might have done anything i ever did. if, however, business were conducted as it should be and as it will be after my "remedy" has reformed present conditions, such methods will net those using them only thousands where i have gained millions. you add that you are inclined to think i am a "grafter." in reply i can only say you would not dare--and i don't know your size, color, or length of trigger-finger--to say it in my presence, though of course, it is absolutely immaterial what you or your kind think of me or my work. the lawson panic during the eighteen months in which "frenzied finance" has been before the public, history has been made at a stiff pace. next to the insurance revelations which are still in process of deliverance, the most striking demonstration of the period has been the flurry in stocks which was spoken of as the lawson panic. in the february, 1905, issue of _everybody's magazine_ i dealt with the performance and its attendant phenomena. without undue vaunting, i may say that my explanation of the mysteries of modern finance has not been without immediate profit to the public. the people, accustomed to invest their money in the legitimate securities of the country, had time and again lost hundreds of millions without dreaming that they had been as ruthlessly robbed as though held up at a pistol-point by a highwayman. they imagined that the great capitalists whose names were emblazoned in the press throughout the land, and who managed the banks and trust companies and insurance corporations to which their savings were intrusted, were noble and public-spirited gentlemen of the highest moral principles and of absolute integrity. they know to-day that many of them are reckless and greedy stock gamblers, incessantly dickering with the machinery of finance for their own private enrichment. i have stripped the veil from these hypocrites and exposed to all the world their soulless rapacity. i have let the light of heaven into the dim recesses of wall street in which these buccaneers of commerce concocted their plots. i have done more than this: i have nipped in the bud the newest conspiracy for the entanglement of the public--the great "bull" market which was organized late in 1904 by the chief votaries of the "system," to harvest a new crop of profits on the securities they had laid in during their last raid. in other words, i have treated wall street to a dose of its own medicine. during the month of december the newspapers devoted considerable space to the doings of the stock-market in connection with the episode to which i refer. i use the word "episode" purposely, for i warn my readers that it was but one of a series of disturbances which must occur before the grasp of the pirates on the great financial interests of this country can be shaken off. david slew goliath with one pebble from his sling, but the giant "system," intrenched in the stoutest citadel ever constructed, and armored in gold and riven steel, will yield to no mere call for surrender. my own part i have cheerfully taken with no delusions as to the difficulties of the contest. he who interferes between the lamb and the wolf is likely to provoke the wrath of the wolf, and i have done worse, for have i not come between the lions of finance and their willing prey? it is worth while here to rehearse the steps of this first disturbance, because it constitutes part of a movement destined to wield a tremendous influence in this country's history. while my revelations of the methods of the "system" were circulating throughout these united states, the "system" was engaged at its old trick of inflating the prices of its favorite stocks and bonds and spreading its nets for another gigantic plundering of the people. in the stock-market and in the highways and by-ways and resting-places of finance nothing was heard for months but fairy tales of great earnings of railroads and industrials, fairy tales of new ore in old mines, fairy tales of great financial forces converging toward colossal combinations. these are the lures of the "system's" hirelings, the decoy calls of the market tout and the financial tipster whose part it is to mould opinion and urge the people to the shambles. before my eyes, with a blind and audacious defiance of my warnings, the old, old game was rigged in full view of the audience and the old players began their venerable antics. in the meantime the "system" attended to its own rôle in the conspiracy--supplying out of its banks and trust companies the public's money for the gamblers to make the game with. then began the artful process of working up the market; stocks gradually climbed higher and higher. amalgamated ascended from the forties into the fifties and the sixties and even into the eighties; steel assumed the appearance of life and grew from ten slowly upward into the twenties and thirties. every day in the stock exchange hundreds of thousands of shares changed hands back and forth among the professionals who lustily played their parts in this financial melodrama. the good old myths of great fortunes made by lucky investors began to reappear in the papers. sales increased; values jumped rather than climbed. the trap was set; the market made. the wily manipulators rubbed their hands gleefully. the public began to bite, to buy. it was then only a matter of sizing up the wool crop before beginning the shearing. before i detail the steps i took to spring its own trap on the "system," i should explain that this market was purely an artificial one. the immense advance of prices was not brought about by any honest methods or legitimate causes. the "system's" votaries had enormous quantities of stocks--millions upon millions of shares, bought when the people during the past two years were compelled to throw them overboard at slaughter prices. by employing one of the oldest swindling devices known to finance,[21] they could bid prices to any figure they desired. honest financial writers called attention each week to the tactics of the manipulators and declared the high quotations unjustifiable and unreasonable. at the stage of the game that i felt sure immediately preceded the unloading signal, i determined to test whether the people had really digested as well as absorbed the cold facts i had been ladling out to them in my story of "frenzied finance"--whether they had grown wise enough to heed a warning. so on monday, december 5th, i carefully prepared the following advertisement, which was published tuesday morning in the great papers of the great cities of this country and later in europe. amalgamated stockholders--warning from the creation of amalgamated i have continuously believed in its worth and constantly advocated the purchase of its stock. henry h. rogers personally negotiated with marcus daly for the properties which went to make up the amalgamated company. henry h. rogers alone knew absolutely their values. henry h. rogers's associates took his word for them. while they cost messrs. rogers, rockefeller, and associates only $39,000,000, we all believed they were worth more than the $75,000,000 at which they were sold to the public. shortly after the public flotation at $100 per share, the stock dropped to 75. i did all in my power to prevent the decline, losing millions in the effort, but i retained my faith in the real worth of the property. some of the insiders made millions; the public was fleeced of millions. i still refused to be discouraged. i urged messrs. rogers and rockefeller to make good their promises made through me to the public. finally they consented. the stock advanced until it sold at 130. at the highest price i was still buying and advising its purchase. then there came the awful slump which slid the stock down to 33. i lost enormously; insiders made vast profits. the public was again fleeced. at 33 i began a new campaign to induce my followers and the public to buy. as a result there were purchased by hundreds of people all over the country directly and indirectly through me, rising 260,000 shares, at an average of 40 to 42, and probably hundreds of thousands more which i could not trace. this campaign i have prosecuted incessantly up to the present time, until now i estimate the public holds 1,000,000 shares, 700,000 of which show at to-day's price, 82, a profit of $28,000,000. when my story, "frenzied finance," began, i advertised that it could do no damage to amalgamated stock, but would help it. hoping to divert the dangerous disclosures i threatened, the leading attorney of messrs. rogers and rockefeller asked for a conference. at it he demanded of me what i expected to accomplish. i replied: "one thing, at least--to put the price of amalgamated back to 100, that those unfortunates who still retain their stock may recover their money." then the secret was revealed to me that amalgamated was not worth anything like the price at which it had been sold to the public. i said: "how can this be?" he answered: "mr. rogers knows for a certainty that marcus daly deceived him about the worth of the properties." i had great faith in this attorney. he was sincere in what he said; his knowledge and relations were such he could not have been deceived, and his special information about this property was such that he could speak in the first person. i believed him. soon afterward another official of amalgamated confirmed his statements. when i received this information my dilemma was a terrible one. if i gave it to my following they would at once throw over their stock, probably at a great loss. i waited. sooner or later i knew these men would get behind the market, push up the prices of the stocks they had gathered in at bottom figures, and, when the moment was ripe, again unload on the public. the market "came in." i did all in my power to assist in raising the price of amalgamated. to-day's situation is the same as that of 1901. "frenzied finance" stock gamblers have accumulated immense lines of amalgamated. the same sensational rumors of a great rise to come flood wall and state streets as in 1901. they have asked me to join in creating a wild market upon which all the amalgamated taken in at lower prices may be turned out upon the public. it would be millions in my pocket to assist, but--- i see the handwriting on the wall which the "frenzied financiers" of wall street do not yet see. it reads: "the people will not stand plundering any longer." and i have decided. i advise every stockholder of amalgamated stock to sell his holdings at once before another crash comes. another slump may carry it to 33 again, or lower. it may go higher, but this is no affair of mine. from the moment of the publication of this notice all those who have looked to me for advice must relieve me of further responsibility. as the people who look to me for advice are scattered all over this country, i know of no other way than this to simultaneously notify them of what i have learned. if the powerful people who manage and control amalgamated, and who, after selling it to the public at $100 a share, allowed it to sink to $75, and after it had advanced to 130, smashed it to 33, regardless of their sacred promise to me and the public through me, now reveal to me that it is not worth over 45, it is inevitable that if they are honest in what they say, the stock must go there of its own weight. if they are not honest, they will put it there anyway, and lower still. i would have waited until the reckless speculators who are now manipulating the market had put the stock higher, but i did not dare. during the past two days i have detected unmistakable signs that the vultures are gathering for the feast. in the past i have told what i thought i knew about amalgamated; from to-day i shall tell what the men who control and manage amalgamated say they have found out about it. no stockholder should, after this fair notice, object or accuse me of trying to injure the property, even though i be compelled to begin court proceedings based on this information so lately revealed to me. this advertisement and my mailed notices will appear in new york and boston, tuesday, december 6th; in the eastern and middle portions of the united states wednesday, and the balance of the country, canada and europe thursday, and i shall wait until friday, that all may have ample time to dispose of their stock, if they care to, before making my next move. every holder of amalgamated must keep before his eyes this one tremendous fact: his property is now absolutely at the mercy of men who have the market in the hollow of their hands, and who in the past have raised this stock to the highest and then dropped it to the lowest without heed or concern but for their own pockets. copper range since copper range consolidated sold at 12 i have advised its purchase. to-day it sells at 70. all who have followed my advice have made immense profits. copper range has 385,000 shares; amalgamated 1,550,000. copper range is a new property at lake superior, consisting of three immense mines and a railroad, with the latest and most complete plant in the world, including its own smelters. it is the largest and richest copper mine discovered and developed in the past twenty years. it is producing now 40,000,000 pounds of copper annually, and will in the near future become the largest producer in the world. amalgamated pays 2 per cent. in dividends. copper range will pay 6 per cent. in the coming year, and continue to increase, to what limit no man can tell. if the present market for copper, the metal, holds at 15 cents, and the best judges think it will probably go higher, amalgamated should increase its dividends to 4 or 6, but with 15-cent metal copper range will earn and pay 8, 10, and 12 per cent., and upward. the curse of amalgamated has been "standard oil" management. copper range has been, and is, directed and controlled by representative boston copper men, who seek their profits in the mine and not in the stock-market. thomas w. lawson. boston, december 6, 1904. the result of this announcement proved that my message had not fallen on stony places, but had been accepted by the public in the spirit of its giving. all tuesday, wednesday, and thursday the people sold their stocks to the "system's" votaries at the falsely inflated prices these gentry had forced for their own plundering purposes. instead of gathering in the savings of the toilers, the "system" had to part with some of its wad. for once the people got the money and the "system" had the stocks. under the stress of tremendous selling the price of "amalgamated" was shattered. other frenzied finance stocks declined in sympathy. the power of publicity had been triumphantly vindicated and the cries of frenzied financiers, their mouths full of their own fish-hooks, resounded through the land. that this condition would be allowed to prevail long, i knew was improbable. the "system's" leading votaries got together and organized to stop the frightful decline in prices. the old cuttle-fish methods were at once resorted to--a campaign of falsehood, deception, and trickery began. lest the people should realize that it was their power which had wrought such havoc, the touts and tipsters shouted in chorus that the slaughter of prices was the work of the "system" itself, and that i was secretly in league with the "system" against the public; that, the public having been robbed of its stocks, prices would advance with an extra bound. scores of millions were drawn from the banks and trust companies to stay the slump. under the influence of all this industry and clamor the market began to boil again; prices recovered, and the people, confused and bewildered, were once more about to be entrapped. a sharp advance was followed by a cry from the votaries that i was a trickster and that what had been in reality the most notable demonstration of "the people's strength" ever given was only another evidence of the "system's" infallibility. if this deceit had prevailed, the task i have undertaken of enlightening the public would have had a setback. relying on my previous work, i put forth the following announcement monday morning, december 12th, and confidently awaited results: investors and speculators--warning! for six months through my story, "frenzied finance," in _everybody's magazine_, i have been educating the people to the terrible condition existing to-day in america--the people are plundered of their savings by a few men through the working of the "system." after a close study for six months i concluded that the people were awakening to the truth. i decided to make a test. i advertised certain truths. that was all. for three days wall street and the "system" were panic-stricken--paper values melted to the extent of hundreds of millions. the laws of the land are strict about panic-breeding by public statements. if any of the terrible statements i have made had been false, i should to-day be in prison or my body suspended from a lamp-post. i could not possibly have escaped. what i have stated is truth. no one dares gainsay it. wall street and the "system" for the first time were compelled to come to the rescue and put in jeopardy their own money by buying stocks from the people at inflated prices. for the first time a break came while the manufacturers of stock still held them. the people sold them. to-day every scheme known to frenzied financiering is being worked to make the world believe last week's panic was the result of stock speculators, bears, "standard oil," and the "system." throughout this country and europe is being spread the story that i was in league with "standard oil" and the "system," that they had sold out their stocks and got me to raid the market to shake out the public. that another great rise is coming. * * * * * this is clever, smart, the only thing possible under the circumstances. but it is a lie. i ask the people to watch the desperate efforts that are being made to get this lie to pass for a truth. the "system" must unload on the public, but above all else the "system" must convince the people that the awful destruction of last week could not have been brought about merely by the people's own doings. if the people are not so convinced they will know their power, and that they have in their own hands, to use at any time, a weapon which can stand the "system" on its head. there is no reason why the people cannot reverse the old process and always sell at the top to the frenzied financiers and buy from them at the bottom. * * * * * this is my warning: i ask the people and wall street and the "system" to give it weight or their loss will be on their own heads. i am going to strike again, suddenly, sharply, sensationally, and in a way that will produce effects upon prices and upon markets, so much more destructive, that the effects and the destruction of last week will appear by comparison as milk to vitriol. every owner of an active stock in which the "system" has any interest owes it to himself to weigh my warning. the result must be terrible for wall street and the "system," and nothing can avert it. it matters not how much preparation is made, as it will come in a way not possible to guard against. i want all to know now, so they will not blame me when the slaughter is on. my first and only warning will come in the form of a public notice that certain named stocks should be sold the day my advertisement appears. three days afterward i will publish why, but with the why it will be too late for holders of stock to save themselves. i now say to all, if you decide after reading this that i am only talking, well and good, but when it is too late, remember what i did say. while waiting for me to speak, again think it over. * * * * * when "frenzied finance" first appeared, only six months ago, the wise heads of the "system" said: "the public will tire of it in sixty days." at the end of six months the people, the press, and the pulpit are lashing themselves into a fury over its revelations, and it is impossible to print magazines enough to meet the demand. when i first touched on the life-insurance companies they laughed. to-day policy-holders are panic-stricken, and the big companies are falling behind millions a week. when i said my story would affect wall street, wall street laughed; last week it yelled, cursed, and begged. and i am only in the mild, preliminary stages yet. while waiting for the next move, make no mistake. when real work begins wall street and the "system" will look like a last year's straw hat in the swirls of niagara. amalgamated last tuesday morning i publicly said: "the men who control amalgamated told me it is not worth half the price it was floated at. if they told the truth it will go back to 33. if they have lied they will smash it back to 33 as they did before. sell it." all that day (tuesday) holders could have sold at an average of 79. holders of over 200,000 shares did. the following day all holders could have sold at an average of 74--300,000 did. the third day all holders could have sold at an average of 66--200,000 did. then the wall street powers got desperate and stopped the decline. during these days i did not sell a share nor do anything in the market to assist the decline, but did buy enormous amounts to prevent it from breaking below 60. every scheme known to frenzied financiers is being worked to make it appear now that this stock is going to sell much higher. it is advertised broadcast that i was working with the bear raiders and "standard oil." this is a lie. my brokers were requested by another client to publish a statement that a prominent copper company president stated there was $33 in the amalgamated treasury. instantly the rumors were sent broadcast that i had settled with "standard oil" and was bulling the stock. this, too. i know the man who made the statement and the high officer of the amalgamated who got him to make it. and it shows the desperate position of the amalgamated "insiders." they are loaded with the stock. i dare any officer of the amalgamated company to publish the above statement over his signature. if he does court proceedings will be begun at once. i also dare mr. rogers or mr. rockefeller to deny the statement made by me that they have said the stock is not worth 50, and that marcus daly deceived them. i dare them. i repeat what i have said to holders of amalgamated: sell your stock now, before it is too late. bear in mind when amalgamated sells at 33 that i have warned you. and in the meantime watch for sharp breaks in amalgamated. i will give no further warning on this stock, and under no circumstances will change my now advertised position on it. thomas w. lawson.</sc> boston, december 12, 1904. the second test brought a stronger demonstration than the first. this time the "system's" votaries were drawn up in solid phalanx; behind them uncounted millions and unmeasured power braced to meet attack. all day monday the people hurled their securities at the gamesters, and with every onslaught prices crumbled until, when the stock exchange closed, the "system's" losses were represented by hundreds of millions of dollars. the people had learned a lesson, and a hundred years more of the "system's" trickery and falsehood will not efface its impression. vilification no reply to facts the attacks i made on the "system" were frank and direct statements of facts. the destruction they wrought upon the cherished plans of the gamesters was due to their truth. if the things i stated about amalgamated were not true, how easy to prove them false, and how completely then should i have been discredited. but what has the "system" in its blind rage done? well may the american people who read what is printed below say to themselves, "'whom the gods would slay, they first make mad.' what is thomas w. lawson in this transaction that his personality need enter into a controversy wherein the issue is of facts alone?" suppose i were all that my enemies say of me, the question is not of my guilt, but of the truth of my charges. i was not surprised to read on the morning of tuesday, the 13th of december, the diatribe printed below. it was published in the leading papers of the country in the form of an advertisement, in great type covering half a page. thomas w. lawson--read this picture new york, december 12, 1904. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. for six months i have read with close attention your story of "frenzied finance," in _everybody's magazine_, and have paid close attention to the manner in which, by pandering to the worst prejudices of the american people, you have endeavored by misstatement of facts to distort the conditions actually existing through what you call the workings of the "system." what is the conclusion to be deducted from your own statements? what is the "system" to which you have so often referred? from the standpoint of honest, unprejudiced men no other conclusion can be derived but from your own statements you have endeavored personally and through subornation of others to debauch legislation, to distort facts, to create in the minds of investors a lack of confidence in men whom the public for many years have looked up to as the leaders in the industrial world. by every foul vilification and every statement which distorted imagination is capable of producing, you have endeavored to show that the so-called leaders of finance of the united states are in league to rob and defraud the investing public. taking all your statements and analyzing them, what do they amount to? that certain men, amongst whom you yourself was one of the leaders, have bought out certain corporations which were capitalized at a price which you state was far above their cost. not one single new fact has been brought to the attention of the public. if men, by their brains, their capital, and their energy, acquire properties that have not been appreciated by the public, put them forth under whatsoever name, so that the statements made in connection with those properties are true, and capable of verification, what is it but a business proposition that cannot be criticised? what is the "system" which you denounce as the very personification of evil? is it not the "system" of which you have been the leading advocate, votary, and exponent for many years? is not the "system," when analyzed and reduced to its root, a stock-brokerage of which you are and have been for many years one of the shining lights; not the system of honest, legitimate brokerage, but the system of endeavoring by false statements and by exciting the fears of the multitude to depress and destroy values in order that its votaries may reap their ill-gotten gains? is there one thing in connection with all that you have written in your articles on "frenzied finance" in which you have not been from start to finish one of the prime movers? who is the man that, from the inception of the enterprise which you most severely criticise, has been most prominently before the public? who is the man that, from your own words, originated the idea and carried it to its completion? is it not thomas w. lawson? who is the man that, in the various schemes which you hold up to the condemnation of the public, has taken from start to finish the leading part? is it not thomas w. lawson? is there one honest man in the united states who to-night believes that, in spending the thousands and thousands of dollars that you have spent in advocating your views and in posing as the friend of the people, that you have not acted for your own selfish ends? do you believe that there is one man in all this wide world to-day who honestly believes one single statement that you have made, or who believes that you have ever turned your hand to, or aided in the slightest degree in, any honest enterprise? you criticise the copper corporations who have placed their stock before the public as a legitimate investment. can you point to one single instance in which a misrepresentation of fact or figure has ever been made in anything connected with the amalgamated company? who are you, who should say in relation to a copper mine whether it is good or bad? did you ever see a copper mine? did you ever put a pick into ore? did you ever reduce one ton of metal so that it would yield up its wealth for the benefit of mankind. have you ever done anything excepting to act as a parasite upon honest labor and, by chicanery and by misrepresentation, endeavor to rob the people of their hard earnings? i speak to you plainly, knowing you yourself for what you are. can you show one man that can point to any honest industry in which you ever took part; to one single act of yourself that ever contributed to the welfare or the advancement of the working people? can you point to one single act in your career that was ever based on any other motive than absolute egotism and selfishness; to one single utterance, act, word, or deed of yourself that was not based on selfishness and a desire to rob or misrepresent or, in some other manner, attach the earnings of the people to your coffers without effort on your part? i address this communication to you knowing you for what you are; as a man who, throughout his many years of active life on the stock exchange, came to be generally considered as the synonym of chicanery and of misrepresentation. to-day, through your perversion of truth and partial misstatement of fact, which, through many years in pursuance of your calling, you have become an adept in, you can destroy the confidence of the people who make the money and the wealth of the country. do you for one moment suppose that there is one honest person in this country to-day who believes that you are actuated by a sincere desire to aid them? do you not know that your only motive is, by destroying confidence, to endeavor to make a large profit for yourself, by the methods which you have pursued of advertising to the public? the men who do things, the men who created wealth, the men who are known throughout the world for integrity and for their business qualifications, will unanimously say that your motive is selfish from start to finish. do you remember the dealings that you had with me, how they were based on falsehood and misrepresentation from start to finish? how, by the use of names that are well known in the financial and business world, you endeavored to rob and convert to your own use what you thought was one of the greatest properties in the world? what has been the result of your advertisements of the last few days? has it not been to destroy confidence, to create a panic among people who had invested their earnings in what they have considered as legitimate propositions? have you ever paused and thought for one moment about what the results of your selfish and distorted statements might be? in your articles you have spoken of the loss that has been entailed upon widows and orphans, of disgrace and suicide and other ills that have come through what you are pleased to call the workings of the "system," the "system" of which you have been and are to-day the exponent, the system of misrepresentation and of spreading false statements; in other words, of stealing heaven's livery to serve the devil in. millions of dollars of legitimate investments have been lost to the people who have made them. why? because you, in your selfish egotism, have looked to nothing but your personal gain, thinking nothing, caring less for the woe that you might work to thousands, pandering to the worst prejudices, and by means of such words as "standard oil," "amalgamated," "frenzied finance," etc., and making statements which investors have not the means or the time to dispute, you have endeavored to destroy values that have been created by the works of a lifetime. to-morrow, in boston, i shall call upon you. i for many years have stood as a worker, as a man who has built up and who has created, and i know that the savings of a lifetime of many honest investors have been swept away by the falsehoods that you have spread abroad through the public press. to-morrow, at your office, i shall denounce you for what you are. the master long ago said: "by your works ye shall be judged." personally i shall call upon you for your answer to-morrow. w. c. greene. this is the rejoinder of the "system." no denial of my facts. no defence against my charges, but a volley of mud and a threat of assassination. i had dared tell the people how they had been robbed. all remember the panic of 1901, the famous northern pacific corner, in which values shrank hundreds of millions in a few hours and tens of thousands of the people lost their entire savings. who precipitated that terrific slaughter? certain great railroad magnates and bankers were at each other's throats; two greedy corporations had quarrelled ferociously over the control of a railway line. no man in all our broad land dared to hint at the assassination of a morgan or a perkins or a harriman or any of the "standard oil" votaries who were parties to the bitter contest that left wall street strewn with the mangled and bleeding carcasses of the ruined and bankrupt. that time, however, the "system" had both money and stocks--the people had lost both. i am not going to enter into a defence of myself against colonel greene's charges. in the newspapers of the country that matter was fully ventilated at the time. i simply republish his vituperation to show how the "system" sets about silencing those who dare protest against its villainous methods. in the first six months of the publication of my story the sole defence the "system" entered against my specific and terrible charges of plunder and debauching of the people was to attack me personally. it inaugurated a war of mud-slinging and vilification directed by the new york _commercial_, henry h. rogers's own paper, which printed the ridiculous statement that i was crazy. this editorial made splendid ammunition for the big insurance corporations, which caused it to be distributed among their policy-holders, and for the yelping pack of insurance papers which may be depended on to bark, and bite the legs of any one who dares attack their master, the "system's," most profitable institutions. i find i have not space here to reproduce these several mud broadsides, which really are more valuable as evidence of the doddering imbecility and fatuous weakness of the so-called great men of finance than interesting or informative. since my personality is the issue, i propose to give my readers some testimony of a different character, gathered by experts[22] in the heat of battle. thomas w. lawson at close range an intimate talk with the financier and fighter by arthur mcewen from the _new york american_, november 27, 1904. thomas w. lawson of boston, who is making it so interesting for standard oil financiers and other able gentlemen that add your money to their corpulent millions while you wait, is himself an interesting man and a very puzzling one to a great many people. one day last week i spent several hours with him at his rooms in young's hotel, and it surely was a stimulating and enjoyable time. everybody now knows how exceedingly well mr. lawson can write, and he talks as he writes--boldly, vividly, audaciously. he thinks out loud, pouring forth a flood of speech, breaking off in the middle of sentences, going into long parentheses, touching on a dozen incidental things by way of illustration as he goes, but always coming back to the main point. he may confuse you, but he does not confuse himself. and notwithstanding the rapidity of his utterance and his copiousness he is not carried away into saying what he would rather not have said. he is handsome--tall, broad-shouldered, strong, well-knit, and graceful--still almost youthful physically, despite his forty-five years and the beginning of grayness in the dark, wavy hair which covers his large, finely arched, and well-proportioned head. his forehead is high and broad, his gray eyes deep set under brows that come together and give intentness and fierceness to his gaze when he is aroused. and when lawson is aroused you see a fighter with all his wits about him and of utter fearlessness. he would have made a first-class soldier, with his quickness and dash and the pluck that was born in him, and has not to be summoned by thinking and resolving. the boston view of lawson the boston view of lawson is illuminating. they are afraid of him on state street. he thinks so rapidly and does things with such instant decision that he bewilders the conventional plodders. they admit that he is brilliant, that he has a genius for gathering in the dollars, but he shocks the financial mrs. grundy. they tell you that he is "irregular," "sensational," "bizarre," and the rest of it--all of which means simply that he is a man of original mind, who follows his own methods, succeeds with them, and doesn't care a snap of his fingers about being out of the fashion. he has a hundred ideas and impulses where the "safe and steady-going" business man has one--and as the safe and steady-going state-streeter doesn't understand the ninety-nine lawson ideas and impulses which do not come to him, he charges them up to "eccentricity" and "charlatanism." boston says lawson is vain. he certainly does hold a good opinion of himself, and he has a right to. a boy who goes into a bank at twelve as he did and before he is seventeen cleans up $60,000 is hardly to be rebuked for considering that he is better fitted for the financial game than most. he knows life, he knows men. he has made and lost fortunes and is not afraid of being "broke." that experience has been his repeatedly, but always he rose again. his brains, energy, and daring would cause him to rise anywhere. had he been given birth in a south american republic, the dictatorship would have been his inevitably. lawson was born a money-maker, but he is a great deal more than that. he is a many-sided man, interested ardently in lots of things to which the ordinary money-maker is oblivious. he is very, very human. he has a soul. although he is raining blows on important men, who are not accustomed to being treated with disrespect--although he is charging them with crimes, and hopes, i should say, to drive them out of the country or into the penitentiary, he speaks of some of them with the greatest kindness, thoroughly understanding their good personal qualities. the wonderful rogers he denounces h. h. rogers, for example, as a robber, a criminal, and he said to me: "rogers is a marvellously able man and one of the best fellows living. if you knew him only on the social side, and knew him for years, you couldn't help loving him. he is considerate, kindly, generous, helpful, and everything a man should be to his friends. but when it comes to business--his kind of business--when he turns away from his better self and goes aboard his pirate brig and hoists the _jolly rover_, god help you! and, then, as a buccaneer you have to admire him, for he is a master among pirates, and you have to salute him, even when he has the point of his cutlass at the small of your back and you're walking the plank at his order. rogers is wonderful. he is one of the most prolific human creatures i have ever met; prolific in thought, in devices--and i've been at the game a long time now and ought to know. "don't think me egotistical, but i can't help looking under the surface and going to the bottom of things. so i learn more about men in wall street and what they are at than most. this is my thirty-fourth year of sixteen and seventeen hours a day and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and i have seen them all come and go. i _am_ with the third generation of my time now. in such matters i feel somehow that i'm about three hundred years old. "men like rogers are all very good fellows. they are genial and tolerant in their judgment of others. yes, they are mighty good fellows, until you turn them around and look at their other side. rogers is lovable enough until he touches the other button. then he goes with perfect ruthlessness for what he wants. and yet, though you are his victim, you can't bring yourself to hate him. after he has thrown you down and taken all you have and you turn yourself over and find the dark lantern has disappeared, and you hear him going up the lane, you pick yourself out of the gutter and admire the skill with which he did the job. if you could stand it, you would almost whistle to have him come back and do it over." "it is easy to see," i said, "by what you write of mr. rogers in your magazine story, that you were fond of him and gave him the highest rank for ability, but just the same you said you had to go on the stand in the gas suit and swear exactly opposite to his testimony. do you charge him flatly with perjury?" "i have put it fifty times in black and white," answered mr. lawson, "that he committed perjury. there isn't any question about it. i produced my secretary's minutes, delivered over the telephone, received by his secretary and afterward confirmed. he confirmed the message to me, called me up and talked it over and did business on that agreement. two men, rogers and myself, followed each other on the stand and made diametrically opposite statements; and neither one of them reserved himself in stating that it was knowledge at first hand. therefore there was perjury." legislative corruption "mr. lawson, the whole country is familiar enough with legislative corruption, so there's nothing new in your charge that the legislature of massachusetts was bought up. but what will attract national notice is the definiteness of your accusation. you charge h.m. whitney, brother of the late w. c. whitney, and one of the foremost business men of your state, with having done the corrupting in order to get through a complete charter for a gas company. now, when you pillory a person of whitney's standing and prominence, as you have done, he has got to do one of two things--either force you to come to the front and compel you to prove the truth of what you say or stand before the public morally convicted." "that's right," agreed lawson heartily. "do you stand ready to prove your charge if he challenges you to do it?" "what else can i do? of course i can prove it. i'm sorry for whitney. he is a good fellow on his personal side, like rogers, but truth is truth." "however used we may have become to buying legislatures, however commonplace it may be, still, when a financially responsible man like yourself gives concrete instance, and is prepared with proofs, the fact is horribly startling to everybody that cares for his country. what is to be the end of this sort of thing--the purchase of the people's representatives by the criminal rich?" "well, you can ask me a question even broader than that. what is going to be the end, not only of such things as i have stated in regard to the corruption of the legislature of massachusetts--and we all admit that the same thing is being done in other states--what is going to be the outcome of this rottenness in connection with the practices in wall street that i am telling about in my magazine narrative in 'frenzied finance'? to answer would be to disclose my remedy--the climax to my whole story. at present i can only say that i make no charges loosely, on insufficient evidence. i state only what i know. i have seen the iniquities worked out. i know that these crimes are being committed every day; that these great financial schemes are carried through, not only by the commission of moral crimes, but legal crimes--crimes for which those participating in them can be held responsible if they are gone after in the right way, and i am going to show the right way. the remedy "i believe that i have a remedy. that, of course, is a tremendous thing to say. i have spent my life on it. i have been waiting for the opportunity." "i may not ask you what your remedy is?" "no, i shall propose that myself when i have laid all my facts about these crimes before the people. i am going to tell them about some startling crimes. all that i have told so far, including the systematic corruption of the massachusetts legislature, relates to the past. that is, the deeds are dead, so to speak. but the crimes of amalgamated, though in one sense they are now past, are yet connected with the present, because amalgamated is alive. the man who was robbed in 1899, in 1900, and 1901 has his claim unsettled. that man is alive and amalgamated is a big, living corporation. when i get to that i shall be talking in the present and something is going to be done. "i have the remedy for the whole thing. you will appreciate the largeness of that statement, but i have thought and advised and worked it out. my remedy is based on common sense." "does it aim at any real change in our political system? is it socialistic?" "oh, no; it doesn't mean a turning over in politics. you and i know that the dollar is what is running things in this country to-day, and if you come along with an ideal proposition--a proposition that carries with it a change in our laws or a proposition to have some new laws passed--you might as well say good-by to it, because the fellow whose hundred millions you want to take away is going to say: 'how many dollars does it need to turn that upside down?' and he is going to supply the dollars." lawson's versatility mr. lawson gave me nearly three hours of his time, and during those three hours he was interrupted every five minutes or so by telephone calls. he conducted his business right along, ordering the selling and buying of stocks, making or declining appointments, talking with his publishers, his lawyers, his family, his friends. it would have goaded almost any man into excitement and irritability, but it was all in a day's work with lawson. yet he is not phlegmatic; indeed, he is extraordinarily animated. but it is animation with composure. in a business way there is not a busier man in the country, but he finds leisure for other interests--books, pictures, bronzes, horses. he has a beautiful country home, where he goes daily by special train, and then puts up the bars against business, bores, and all intruders. in his talk with me he ran a remarkable gamut. he spoke of business like the shrewdest and readiest of practical men. then in the midst of some story of stock-market guile, such as he is exposing in _everybody's magazine_, his face, voice, and hands conveyed amusement, anger, disgust. with his good looks and gift of expression he would have made his way to the top of the stage. i do not know if he has done any public speaking. but when he got into the full tide of denunciation of the crimes of amalgamated i regretted that he was not addressing a great audience, for it was real oratory--strong talk, ardent, electric, manly. his eyes flashed, his teeth came together with a snap and he shook both fists under my nose. he has enthusiasm, capacity for righteous wrath, and the spirit of battle. but he doesn't lose poise for a moment. his confidence in himself cheerfulness, gay confidence in his own powers, is his predominant trait. "you are firing hot shot into these people," i said. "they have endless money, and you are in the stock-market, taking chances every day. aren't you afraid they will dig pits for you?" "well, what can they do to any of us in this world except to send us to the poor-house or the grave? i don't fear them. i know them and all about them. you must remember this is not a new occupation with me. for twenty-five years or more i have been in the habit of picking up a brick without looking to see how many corners it had or whether it was round or square and hitting the first head i thought i had a good reason to hit. i have been doing these things regardless of how they liked it. it's upward of a quarter of a century since i had my first wrestle with a corporation in the newspapers. i have tried not to be a common scold and avoided being vicious when i could. i have only attacked when i thought some fellow had done me a deliberate wrong. and when i have felt that way i have started after him. then it has been vicious, hard fighting, you know; vicious, but not malicious. "with the 'standard oil' crowd i have this big advantage--i am only one man, a small target, and it needs a mighty good aim to hit me, whereas they present a large surface and i have only to heave a brick in any direction to break a window. the contest is unequal. everything favors me. my ammunition is the truth." there is cheerful courage for you--more particularly in the case of a man who proclaims from the housetop that there is no limit to the villainy of his adversaries. "mr. lawson," i said, "there are few who would care to be in your shoes--a rich man waging a war of this sort. the chances are altogether in favor of their smashing you financially." "let them, if they can. there are worse things in this life than being smashed financially." mr. lawson's smile was sunny and confident. he is fearless. * * * * * lawson, the man by james creelman from the new york _world_, december 12, 1904. boston, december 10th. all through the critical business hours of friday, when thomas w. lawson, master spirit in the present extraordinary war against standard oil finance in wall street, was reported to be locked up with h. h. rogers, generalissimo of standard oil, perfecting the details of a settlement for $6,000,000--all through that anxious time, when the stock-tickers and newspapers of the country were trying to guess the meaning of mr. lawson's sudden silence and inaccessibility, he was standing in his quiet room in young's hotel, explaining the situation to the public through the _world_. although i sat in the room with him almost from the time that the stock-market opened until long after it closed, not once did mr. lawson show the slightest sign of excitement over market affairs. strong as an ox, clear-eyed, tranquil, smiling, the man who had moved the financial market downward against the will of the greatest combination of capital the world has ever seen, bore himself like one absolutely confident of success. the bunch of blue corn-flowers in his button-hole was not fresher than he, although on the previous day he had fought through one of the greatest battles in the history of speculation, had made an hour-and-a-half speech at a night banquet, had gone to bed after midnight, and risen before five in the morning. in that one day he had forced nearly 3,000,000 shares of stock into the market in new york. "my one instrument is publicity," he said. "it is the most powerful weapon in the world. with it i have been able to strike with some of the power which eighty millions of americans possess when they are wide-awake and in earnest. "this week's work is only the beginning of a demonstration that the secrecy of the frenzied finance system--under the cover of which the savings of the people gathered into banks, trust institutions, and insurance companies, have been used by the standard oil crowd to rob the people through the stock-market--cannot succeed against publicity. the people only need light to save themselves. "at the beginning of the week i advised the people of the united states to sell amalgamated copper and the other pool stocks. it was the first step in the final realization of plans i had been maturing for ten years. since then, against the whole force of the billions and billions commanded by the standard oil system, amalgamated has dropped from 82 into the 60's. i give the people my word, which i have never yet broken, that not once in that time have i sold a share of amalgamated stock. not only that, but i have actually bought large blocks of amalgamated in order to steady the market and prevent too great and too sudden a panic, so that my friends everywhere might be able to get out without complete ruin. but for that i believe we would have had a panic greater than the northern pacific crash. "i simply went out into the public square and told the people the truth. i was in a position to tell the truth. i knew the methods by which they had been robbed. i knew that ruin was staring them in the face unless they acted quickly. spent $92,000 advertising "i advertised the fact over my signature in the newspapers of new york, boston, chicago, los angeles. i cabled the advertisement to london. all this cost, with incidental expenses, something like $92,000. "the frightened leaders and agents of the 'system' spread reports that i was in league with the leading plungers and manipulators of wall street, that i was making a mere stock raid, that i was trying to 'shake down' mr. rogers. the truth is that i have no partners. not a soul knew my plans until my first advertisement appeared. i have no price, for there can be no peace now until the whole rotten scheme of frenzied finance is smashed and things are brought back to their natural honest level. i am in deadly earnest. no man knows better than i do how great a service i am rendering to the american people." mr. lawson stood squarely upon his heels, the incarnation of strength and courage. the square head, high and wide at the top, the long line of the jaw and broad, fighting chin, big, blue-gray eyes, the big, flat teeth, the strong nose, large firm mouth, sinewy neck, hairy hands, broad, deep chest, powerfully curved thighs, and the steady voice--these were eloquent of strength, determination, and concentration. there was a black pearl in his cravat and an almost priceless canary-colored diamond sparkling on his little finger. he wore gray, striped trousers and a black coat and vest, across which was a beaded gold watch-chain. everywhere in his room were flowers, roses, lilies, and bunches of the famous lawson pink, the flower for which he once paid $30,000. the man whom i had expected to find haggard, pale, wild-eyed, and excited, in the centre of a nervous hurricane, was rosy-cheeked, cheerful, and apparently as free from care as though he had never heard of wall street. he spoke rapidly but in an even voice, occasionally pacing the floor and sometimes gesturing or setting his hands firmly on his hips. he answered questions promptly and with an almost boyish appearance of frankness. it would be hard to imagine a more masculine, compact, and concentrated personality. this is the man who left school in cambridge at the age of twelve, walked into boston with his books under his arm, and secured a three-dollar-a-week position as an office-boy almost on the very spot where, after thirty-six years, he has worked himself up into a position from which he feels able to captain the fight against standard oil and its allies. he owns a palace in boston filled with works of art; he has a six-hundred acre farm on cape cod, with seven miles of fences, three hundred horses, each one of whom he can call by name; a hundred and fifty dogs, and a building for training his animals larger than madison square garden. some of his horses are worth many thousands of dollars apiece. even the experts of the german government who examined dreamwold the other day were amazed at its costliness and perfection. within forty-eight hours mr. lawson wrote and published a large illustrated book analyzing his farm and gave it to his german visitors as a souvenir, after organizing for them a horse show that overwhelmed them with surprise. he built the yacht _independence_ at a cost of $200,000, and when it was shut out from the america's cup race smilingly threw it on the scrap heap. he established a great racing stable, and when tired of playing with it, broke it up. he went to kentucky, and the day before a great trotting race bought boralma for $17,000. his pride was aroused by the fact that the betting was against his trotter. he gave $104,000 to a friend to sustain boralma's reputation in the betting and won $92,000. and yet he claims that he has never been seriously interested in betting, and that his winnings on boralma were simply an accident. that $30,000 pink but it was the purchase of a pink carnation, wonderful in color and vigor, which had been named by a boston experimental florist after mrs. lawson, that made mr. lawson's name known all over the world. thirty thousand dollars for a pink! the news was spread broadcast, and printed in the newspapers of all countries as an illustration of the vulgar extravagance and folly of an american millionaire. mr. lawson explained that incident while i was with him, and his explanation threw a new light upon his character. he bought the flower originally as a matter of sentiment, but the sum he offered was comparatively small. mr. higginbotham, of chicago, bid $25,000 for the lawson pink. when he heard this news, mr. lawson sat down with a florist friend and figured out the possibility of the new flower as a business investment. he closed the matter in a few minutes by paying $30,000. some time later on the florist bought back the right to the lawson pink for $30,000, and gave mr. lawson, in addition, $15,000 profit, according to agreement. a curious evidence of this man's astonishing coolness is the fact that, at the very time when the market was closing on friday, when it was whispered all over the country that he was arranging terms of peace for the standard oil with mr. rogers, mr. lawson was actually explaining the peculiar and beautiful qualities of his favorite flower. a reason for his last attack "but if amalgamated copper shares were worth $100 when you were market manager for mr. rogers and his friends, how is it that they are not worth that price now?" i asked. mr. lawson leaned against the edge of an open door and thrust his hands deeply into his pockets. "i have tried to make that plain to the public," he said quietly. "the other day mr. rogers's lawyer was trying to get me to stop. i told him that i intended to force the standard oil crowd to put the price of amalgamated copper back to $100, at which i advised my friends to buy it. he said that the stock was not worth $100. i asked him how he knew. he answered that mr. rogers, mr. stillman, mr. rockefeller, and the other fellows in control had discovered that they had been deceived when the property was bought. they did not consider it worth more than $45 a share. "that settled it in my mind. i appealed to the public to test the situation. i advised them to sell amalgamated at once and keep on selling. if it was worth $100, the men in the 'system,' having billions of dollars behind them, would buy it. if it was worth only $45 a share, then the price must fall to that point in the end. it was simply a question whether the public could unload on the standard oil crowd before the 'system' could unload on the public." "then you caught the leaders of standard oil at the psychological moment." mr. lawson's smile was beyond words to describe. "that partly explains the crash," he said. "they were ready to unload on the public, but the public moved too quickly. publicity destroyed the one great weapon of the standard oil men, which is secrecy. i had been tricked and deceived, and those who were responsible had used my name to deceive and trick the public. i got out into the open and laid the plot bare. i had been working up to that point for many years, always waiting, waiting, waiting for the day when i could begin a work of reformation in behalf of 80,000,000 of people. "i know my game. i have stood here in boston for thirty-six years studying man and his ways. i have no false conceptions of my own strength. i know, and i have known all along, that to win against a system backed by billions of dollars working in the dark and controlling largely the law-making powers of the nation, i must have the people with me. my articles in _everybody's magazine_ were simply in preparation of the public mind for the practical demonstration which i have made this week, that the whispering manipulators of wall street will not buy at $68 a share stock which they were selling to the public at $100 a share. "the standard oil interests came into my world simply because they entered boston to control gas affairs. they wanted to run their automobile down a particular road, but they found a fellow standing in the middle of the road. they did not dare to run over that fellow, as little as he was, because he warned them that he had in his pocket a stick of dynamite that would blow the machine up if it passed over him. mr. rogers is a really big and brainy man. he saw and understood the situation. he offered to take me inside of his secret lines. his independence "it is said by my enemies, and they are many--and some of them are crackajacks, i admit--that i am a squealer, that i have peached on my pals. that is absolutely untrue. from my boyhood up i have always insisted on being free and independent. i have punched a head when i thought it needed punching, without asking whose it was or what the consequences would be. but i have never consciously told a lie or violated a confidence. the newspaper files will show that when i made my deal with the standard oil people, i publicly announced that i had entered into a secret agreement with them. that brought a hurried call from mr. rogers, who wanted to know what i meant. i told him, as i had told him before, that i had to work in my own way, that my methods were open and above board, and that i could not work successfully unless i was free to do things as i thought they should be done. "that was my arrangement with standard oil. they had a great chest, and the whole method of the 'system' was to prevent any one from getting a peep at that chest save as one of them and on their own terms. i refused to be bound by their code. i told mr. rogers again and again that everything i learned as the market manager of the standard oil interests i felt free to use publicly at any time. mr. rogers again and again assured me that this was fully understood. the remedy "all through that time i had, deep down in my heart, the plan which i am carrying out now. each day brought me nearer to the day when i would expose the whole system of fraud to the public. having that idea always present with me, i was careful to avoid deals or partnerships which involved any loss of independence to act when the day for action came. i have been worth as much as $28,000,000, and i have lost as much as $14,000,000. but never have i altered my purpose to awaken the public to a realization of the great crimes committed against them in the name of finance. "if the people will stand by me, and i have always been open and honest with them, america will witness a great transformation. with an honest and courageous president in the white house we shall see whether the 'system' will be able to use the fiduciary institutions of the country for piratical purposes. the fall in the price of amalgamated and other pool stocks is only a bubble on the surface. the final revelation, and the final solution, are yet to come into sight." just then the telephone bell rang and mr. lawson put the receiver to his ear and laughed as he listened. "no," he answered softly, through the instrument, "i am not locked up with mr. rogers, but with a man who has more power." then he turned to me, rocking back strongly on his heels and clasping his hands behind his square head. "i meant that," he said; "there is more power in the pen of one honest writer in the service of an honest, fearless newspaper than in all the wealth and cunning of the 'system.'" the munroe & munroe episode there came a time in the first twelve months of my "frenzied finance" crusade when people rather took the attitude that i was exaggerating conditions and that neither wall street nor the "system" was so bad as i had depicted them. about this time, following the so-called lawson panic, occurred the munroe & munroe _esclandre_, the details of which plainly showed eminent financiers in the vulgar business of stock-washing. i frankly treated the subject in _everybody's_, and as it is part of the history of the movement, i reproduce the passage: the average man is prone to lose sight of perfidy in magnitude and to say, when he hears all the facts: "at least these rascals hunt big game." i wish to say here that such distinction is undeserved. the "system" is omnivorous. its insatiable maw yawns as greedily for the ten-cent pieces of the people as for the thousands of the larger investor. it is as avid and relentless in devising ant-traps as elephant-snares. there fell into my hands recently certain valuable documents in the meanest of contemporary swindles, which reveal the connection of the national city bank, certain of its officers and other important financial interests, with a plot to fleece the fag ends of the public. the details of the munroe & munroe-montreal & boston conspiracy have been widely published, and the world is well acquainted now with the two munroes, graduates of a "gents' furnishing-goods" shop in montreal, introduced into high finance in new york, organizing with the assistance of the great rockefeller-stillman-rogers bank a copper corporation with shares at a par value of five dollars. there never was such barefaced exploitation as was used on behalf of this proposition. it was advertised as a bonanza; investors were guaranteed against loss by an assurance that their stock would double and treble in price, and that the company would stand ready at all times to buy back shares at cost. the intention was plainly to entice into the montreal & boston people of very limited means, who could ill afford to lose their savings. the sudden panic, brought about by the warning to the people of the traps that were being set for them, caught napping many of the "system's" votaries, large and small, and before they could get their different devices even-keeled from the shock caused by that single blast of truth, the public got a peep 'tween decks into the machinery. among those whose port-holes were blown wide open was the munroe & munroe-city bank-montreal & boston outfit, whose scheme went down like a card-house in the blow. a receiver was at once appointed to take care of the débris. this mishap revealed an amazing condition of affairs. with only $2,000 capital, munroe & munroe had arranged with the great national city bank to honor their checks for immense sums every day, the proceeds being used to carry on a series of fictitious transactions in montreal & boston stock for the purpose of beguiling the public into purchasing it. the affair was a ten-days' wonder, and was finally squelched by the great bank's throwing over its vice-president, archibald g. loomis, who had bravely shouldered the responsibility for the transaction. at writing, two professional gamblers, who seem to have been the principal victims of the underwriting end of the swindle, are being settled with, and the whole affair will soon be buried from public gaze. the episode was, on the whole, so foul in its revelation of greed that even wall street was horrified--not at the arrant double-dealing exposed, but that the "system" should descend to such vulgar malpractice. the documents now in my possession, which i shall publish later in my story, include the original underwriters' agreement, which, at great cost of time and money, has so far been kept from the public, and they show some of the greatest bankers in the land deliberately planning, by the use of fraudulent papers and bogus agreements, to beguile investors to adventure their money in a scheme the sole purpose of which was the enrichment of its organizers. the whole performance reveals a depravity so profound and a greed so heartless that the people may well tremble for the safety of their savings intrusted to the custody of men of this type. it also proves my contention that the "system," while depending on burglary for its largest returns, does not despise the small profits of the pick-pocket. footnotes: [21] groups of stock-exchange members each day appear to buy from other groups great quantities of shares of different stocks at advancing prices. in reality all the brokers--the ones appearing to buy and those who sell to them--are in league with each other, and none of the transactions is actual. the performance bears the same relation to legitimate stock-exchange trading that the purchase and sale of a gold brick among confederates at a circus do to the genuine work of the gamblers and pick-pockets who are really attending to business around them. on certain days in the months i refer to, when the official records of the stock exchange told that one and a half million shares had been bought and sold, and prices had advanced until the aggregate increase in the worth of the stocks dealt in amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, not more than a few thousand shares of real stock changed hands. the rest was barefaced fraud for the purpose of deceiving the millions of investors and speculators throughout the country who are dependent upon the daily press and "market letters" for information in regard to investments for their savings. [22] arthur mcewen and james creelman are among the strongest and ablest of american newspaper writers. their names are not as familiar to the readers of magazines as some others, but they are, perhaps, the most highly paid men in journalism to-day, and they have a well-earned reputation for independence and personal integrity. mr. mcewen, who is now one of the editors of the new york _american_, is known throughout the country as a fearless exponent of corporate villainies. mr. creelman is a distinguished member of the new york _world's_ editorial staff, and has interviewed more of the world's great men than any other journalist living. from their standing in their profession, their well-known hatred of hypocrisies and shams, their wide experience in estimating men of all degrees--the verdict of mr. creelman and mr. mcewen, as set forth in their papers, should be conclusive. iii explanations the revelations i delivered to the public in my story of "frenzied finance," together with the accompanying expositions of insurance and other rottenness in the "critics" department, were not accepted without protest from my correspondents. though the majority of the letters that came to me in shoals from all parts of the country have been generous in their appreciation of my work, many have seriously taken my methods to task and dubiously questioned my motives. the most salient and satisfactory expression of these doubters was a letter that came to me from a new york banker, to which i replied at length, for it afforded me the opportunity to get before my readers in general many matters about which explanations seemed due them. the letter was as follows: new york. _dear sir_: i have read all that you have written in _everybody's magazine_, and have been unusually interested. if you will consult the amalgamated subscription list you will see my house is down for quite a large amount. for this reason and others, and as an old member of our stock exchange, i naturally follow such writings as yours. at the beginning i agreed with most bankers in believing that you were actuated by a desire to get even with mr. rogers, mr. rockefeller, or mr. addicks; but as your tale progressed i thought i perceived a sincere desire to carry out some genuine work of reform in the system of conducting the stock business; then when you began your advertising work last december, i shifted again and felt that your efforts were probably for personal gain. since then i have noted your every move with an acute interest, for i became convinced that you were going to work considerable mischief before you got through. of late you have been so bold--and i believe i voice the opinions of the large majority of men connected with financial affairs when i say _dangerous_--that i cannot resist writing you as i do herewith. you advertise through the daily press and in your "critics" pages that you are doing all in your power to create unrest and fear among the people for the purpose of frightening them into selling their stocks and bonds, and you go further and openly make the most astounding of statements, the most dangerous and vicious--that you will endeavor to have all the people owning deposits in banks, trusts, and insurance companies withdraw them in concert. i will be frank and state that if i did not know your business career, and had not read your writings, i should dismiss this latter statement of yours by calling on the proper authorities to take cognizance of you as a most dangerous lunatic, but as your business career and your writings show you to be an able financier, a successful business man, an advanced thinker and brilliant writer, i feel that mental derangement cannot be the cause of this remarkable proceeding. therefore i challenge you, as one who professes to be an honest man, to answer at once the inclosed list of questions fully and unqualifiedly in your magazine before you make any more extraordinary and, i believe, perilous public requests; and i warn you that if you do not do so, i shall consider it my duty to make public through the press of this country, and in other places where you have been advertising your vicious theories, that you have not dared to make answer. in other words, i shall, after the next issue of _everybody's magazine_, if it does not contain your answers, publish broadcast a copy of this letter, and in all fairness and sincerity, i warn you i shall not be deterred from doing this by any excuse you may make that my letter was received too late for the july number of the magazine, or that more important matters take up your space. i have, by diligent research, ascertained that you will have at least forty-eight hours from the time this letter is placed in your hands before the section containing your "lawson and his critics" pages is sent to press; or, to be plainer, i can have advertisements inserted in the same section as that containing your "critics" pages if i hand in my copy forty-eight hours after you will have received my letter. therefore you have sufficient time to formulate your answer, and you know as well as i that, in the present excited condition of the public mind, which has been created largely by your public statements, there can be nothing more deserving of space in _everybody's magazine_ than the answers to my questions. you must realize, sir, that in all sections of the country small holders of stocks are not only selling their holdings, but that small depositors in banks and trust companies are already beginning to withdraw their deposits, that already many small banks have failed because of this feeling of apprehension. so far as wall street is concerned, legitimate business is practically dead, and you have, for the time being at least, killed it. i will not add what ill your attacks have worked in the large insurance companies, for it is, i am sorry to say, patent to all that there is but little life-insurance business being done at present by the very large companies, and at best it will require years to live down the unsettlement you have wrought in the people's confidence in this worthy and time-proven institution. these are the questions i want answers to, and answers in keeping with those broad professions of honesty and keen regard for the best interests of the people which you have been making. earnestly and respectfully yours, --- 1. do you know economics and finance, money, banking, credits, corporations, and business in their broad relations to the people, the american government, and natural law, and the relation each holds to the other, or is your knowledge confined to the skimming and smattering such as any alert and bright stock speculator would naturally pick up in years of experience as a broker and manipulator? 2. do you not know that in all times there have been, and must naturally be, very rich men, and that necessarily there can be but very few of these, and that where they are there must be very many times as many poorer ones, very poor ones? 3. do you not know that there must be billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds in america, and that they must not only increase but increase very rapidly, and that their existence instead of being evidence of great evil is proof positive of the great prosperity of the whole country and the whole people, and that it is the sacred duty of all the people down to the very poorest, who own none of these, to guard, protect, and maintain their price, and not the duty of any honest man to destroy or shrink the value of this evidence of real wealth? 4. do you not know that a large portion of all these stocks and bonds is owned by the masses of the people; that if they should be frightened into selling them there would be no place to put the vast sums they would receive for them, as the banks could not profitably use this cash if it were added to what is deposited now, and that the only sufferers by this frightened and forced selling would be the people whom you profess to be working for? 5. do you not know that if the people should start on a given day to withdraw their money from the banks and trust companies throughout this country, there would be the worst calamity in this country that the world has ever witnessed; that all lines of business would be disorganized; that the country would be set back a very long time, and that the principal sufferers would be the working people and the farmers, and, in fact, all those classes you profess to be working for; and do you not know that in the middle of this calamity you would probably be lynched and perhaps torn limb from limb by the crazed and deluded people, who would then see the danger of your teachings? 6. do you not know that the result of the people's selling their stocks and bonds in concert would be a great drop in their price, and that the people's raiding the banks and trust companies of their deposits would also bring about a tremendous drop in the price of stocks and bonds; that the only ones who can possibly benefit are the bears who sell short; that these bears have no legitimate standing in the business world, and should have none, and that in the broadest sense of the term they are not honest men? 7. do you not know that the greatest institution in this country to-day is life insurance, and that if you disturb the confidence of the people in life insurance their families will be deprived of the greatest source of income at a time when most in need of it? 8. do you not know that there can be no new remedy for the present condition of affairs, even if it is really as bad as you picture it, and that the only remedy or cure possible is a more honest enforcement of our present laws, a more honest conduct of our present enormous business, and a more intelligent recognition by the working people and farmers of the inevitable natural laws? also that there can be nothing more pernicious than this constant teaching them that their interests are opposed to the interests of the very rich class? 9. did you not write your story to advertise yourself for the purpose of making money out of the following your disclosures would bring you and for the purpose of making money for _everybody's magazine_? 10. do you not own the largest part of _everybody's magazine_, and has not your part of the profits received from that source since you began your story been very large? 11. do you not sell stocks short before each of your advertisements, and are not the press stories and the one now current in wall street that you made over a million dollars in the decline which preceded the appearance of the june _everybody's_, true? 12. are you going to commit the crime of calling out bank and trust company deposits? 13. if you make such a call, and it is answered, and there is a destructive panic and a number of the big new york banks and trust companies fail, what will you do? 14. if the masses should sell their stocks and bonds and get their money, what would then happen? 15. do you dare say to your readers now and unqualifiedly, that you have a real remedy for the present financial evils, and that it will show when it is given that it is anything more than some new scheme by which you personally are to get the people's money? 16. do you dare to say now to your readers unqualifiedly that this remedy will show conclusively that it has not been invented since you began your story of "frenzied finance"? 17. do you dare tell your readers now and unqualifiedly that you personally did not make money out of what you call the "amalgamated swindle"? 18. do you dare tell your readers now and unqualifiedly that you have not made money, and an enormous amount of it--very much more than all you have spent in connection with your work of "frenzied finance"--out of the people since your story began? i will state in fairness to you before you make answer to the above questions that it is now my intention to take your answers into court in a suit which will be brought, and that if you have made answers different from those you make under oath you will be held up to the scorn of the whole american people. i replied: i admire your smartness. of the thousands of letters i have recently received yours is the cunningest. if i do not answer your shrewd and adroitly put questions in the brief space at my disposal, you will discredit my work. if i take offence at your way of putting your questions, you will have the pretext you are evidently looking for. then, your closing warning is so manly and generous! i must not lie, because, if i do, you will expose me in court! you thought that would make good reading after i had refused to make reply in this issue, and you had advertised your letter. again, you probably figured that as my june chapter was all taken up with my story and there was no room for the insurance article i had promised, i should need all my "critics" space this month for it; so, all in all, i guess you were pretty sure i could not answer your apparently fair and honest questions. i'll disappoint you. if my "critics" pages had actually been on the press at the moment your questions came in, i should have telegraphed the publishers to yank off the plates and hold up the edition at my own expense until i should have had time to polish off your interrogations. before starting in let me say to you that if you will find a way of getting my answers out into the open under oath, i shall consider that you have done me and my work a good turn. question 1. i _know_ economics and finance, money, banking, credits, corporations, and business in their broad relations to the people, the american government, and natural laws, and the relation each holds to the other--not so well as i should like to know them, but as well as any member of the "standard oil," of the "system," or any one of their hirelings knows them. you have been brutally blunt in putting your questions, so don't accuse me of egotism if i bluntly answer: i know them all, top, sides, and bottom, from thirty-six years' book study of them and thirty-six years' actual experience in the nine-pin alleys where they are daily and nightly set up for the express purpose of being knocked down. i know the relation of each of these important life factors to each of the now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don't jokers of the "system." make no mistake, mr. banker, my knowledge is not "a skimming and smattering such as any alert and bright stock speculator would naturally pick up in years of experience as a broker and manipulator," but the straight brand which the "standard oil" and the "system" so like to impress into their service when they run up against it in their continuous robbing excursions. you may judge that my knowledge is not of the smattering kind when i say that for years, in spite of my refusal to join the band and wear the collar, whenever rogers and rockefeller had a particularly hard nut to crack they called me in to try it on my "_knows_." 2. yes, i am aware that there have always been, and that there will always continue to be, very rich men, and that there cannot be many of them, and that where they are there must be very poor ones. and i also know that no honest man, rich or poor, objects to the necessarily few very rich ones who have honestly acquired great fortunes as the reward of their own or their ancestors' labors of body or brain in the interest of all the people. don't misunderstand me--no honest man or woman can object to the _necessary_ great fortunes, but all honest american men and women do object, and are getting ready to make their objection heard, to all unnecessary great fortunes, "made dollar" fortunes gained by trick of finance or evasion of law, or the brutal and ruthless stock manipulation of recent years. the sooner the "system" and the other possessors of these "unnecessaries" realize that their doom is sealed and dig for the cyclone cellars, the quicker the american people will get through with the strenuous house-cleaning job for which they are just rolling up their sleeves. 3. i do know there must be billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds in america. i also know that among these legitimate billions of dollars are now mixed other billions of dollars that have no proper title to being, save the greed of the "system." that while the existence of certain billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds is proof positive of the great prosperity of the whole country and the whole people, it does not follow that their existence is proof that the hands they are found in are the hands they should rest in. further, i assert that the existence of other billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds is proof positive that the laws have been violated and that the great prosperity of the whole country has been used as the excuse and motive of this violation, and declare that, in my opinion, it is the duty of honest men and women to do all in their power to shrink fictitious securities and to destroy them; and, further, that it is the duty of all honest men to lend a hand so that the legitimate billions of dollars of stocks and bonds may be returned to the hands of those who are legally entitled to them. 4. i am aware that the people owned billions of these stocks and bonds three years ago, and also that if they had then sold them back to the "system," even at the price they had paid for them, and had kept their money in the banks without interest, or had even buried it in the ground or kept it in their stockings for a year, they would have been able to buy back for fifty cents on the dollar what they had sold the "system," thereby making for themselves billions of dollars and impoverishing the "system" by just as many billions as they had made. you know that the "system," after it had loaded up the people with its stocks, "shook them out," and thereby gathered in half the billions of money the people had paid for what they bought. let me illustrate. the people bought of the "system" for 760 millions of dollars the steel trust stocks and bonds, and after the people had the "system's" chromos and the "system" had the people's 760 millions of savings, the "system" caused the price to be cut in two. then it bought back the steel trust's chromos for 380 millions, thereby transferring from the people to the "system," in this one instance alone, 380 millions. and, further, after the people had been shaken out of their stocks and bonds and the millions of their savings--in the steel trust alone 380 millions--the "system," having these securities in its possession, began to inflate prices for the purpose of again selling to the people; in december last they had inflated the prices of billions of stocks and bonds to their old false figures, and were then preparing to unload them on to the people; in the case of the steel trust stocks and bonds the price had again mounted to 760 millions. in compliance with my warnings the people began in december last to unload upon the "system" the billions they then held at these inflated prices, and they have continued to do so ever since, and have suffered no hardship by the forced selling into which i have frightened them. i further know that they will find good use for this money at a later period in buying back from the "system" these same securities at their true worth; in other words, that before i am through with my work they will be able to repurchase from the "system" for 380 millions or less the steel stocks and bonds now selling for 760 millions. 5. i do know that one of the most colossal impositions ever perpetrated on the whole people of any nation is that formula which the "system" has so insidiously instilled into the minds of the american people during the last century, to wit: that they must do nothing which might disturb the "system" in its use at two to four per cent. per annum of all the people's savings, deposited in banks and trust companies throughout the country; that if they do, there will be a wall street panic, and thereby all the people will be made to suffer great hardships. on the contrary, i know that if the people do what is necessary to shake off the "system's" strangling grip upon their savings, the "system" will suffer death, and everlasting profit and advantage will accrue to the nation. though it be necessary for the people to withdraw from the banks and trust and insurance companies their billions of savings, and even though such withdrawal must cause a temporary business crash and the failure of many of the financial institutions of the country, the sacrifice would be many thousand times compensated for by the benefits that would follow in its train. i will go further and state that if such radical action should become necessary, the people should willingly face the failure and destruction of one-half the banking institutions of new york if by doing so they could absolutely destroy the "system." but do not misunderstand me--the simultaneous withdrawal of the people's savings from the banks and trust companies throughout the united states would be such a terrible temporary hardship that nothing could justify it but the absolute necessity for uprooting and eradicating the "system"; i should not hesitate, however, to face the full responsibility for such a move if the "system" cannot be destroyed in any other way, even though i were sure i should be lynched or torn limb from limb by those people who have been crazed and deluded, not by my teachings, but by the damnable doctrines and acts of the "system" and its votaries. 6. i am well aware that the result of the people's selling their stocks and bonds in concert and the withdrawal of their savings would bring a tremendous drop in the price of stocks and bonds. _this is what i am working for_, but i am proceeding in such a way that i believe when the crash comes the people will be free from their stocks and bonds. your proposition that the bears will be the only beneficiaries i regard as rot; on the contrary, i know that the people will benefit a dollar where the combined bears will benefit a cent. pardon my giving you here an a b c lesson in finance--i know a bear is no more dishonest than a bull. when a man tries to put up the price of stocks and bonds, he is a bull. when he tries to put them down, he is a bear. if a bull tries to put prices to a point of fair worth, he is an honest bull. when he tries to put them any higher than fair worth, he is a dishonest bull, for he does so for the purpose of obtaining from the one to whom the stocks are sold a greater gain than he is entitled to, and always by false pretences. when a bear tries to put stocks from an artificially high price to their fair worth, he is an honest bear. when he tries to put them any lower, he is a dishonest bear, because he does so for the purpose of purchasing from their owners stocks or bonds at less than their fair price, that he may pocket the difference between the artificially low price he makes and the higher price at which he has sold, and this profit is procured by false pretence. you, and thousands like you, should get out of your heads the false notion that a bear is necessarily less honest than a bull. 7. life insurance is a great institution, and should be a sacred institution--_provided_ it is honest life insurance. he who would, for any dishonest reason, disturb the people's confidence in honest life insurance i consider a criminal; but i am sure that one who, having the power to awaken the people to their peril, yet stands silently by and suffers them to be bled and plundered in the name of life insurance is even a greater scoundrel. _what is life insurance--honest life insurance?_ a contract between two parties by which the first agrees, in return for a certain fixed charge per year, to pay to the family or other beneficiary of the second party a stipulated sum in case of said second party's death; but it is plainly understood between them that the annual charge exacted by the first party shall be only such an amount as will insure the carrying out of the contract, plus whatever is the legitimate expense of conducting the business connected therewith. under no circumstances would i say aught in disparagement of such a contract, but if i did not lift my voice against such life insurance as is carried on by the mutual, new york life, and equitable companies, knowing what i do know, i should be a deep-dyed scoundrel. life insurance as it has been conducted in the past and as it is being conducted at present by these three companies, i regard as the most damnable imposition ever practised upon the people of any nation. under the pretence that it is necessary to enable life-insurance companies to carry out their contracts, two million policy-holders are annually tricked into contributing from their savings sums which not only insure the performance of these contracts but enable the officers and trustees--mere servants of the policy-holders--to maintain the most gigantic stock-gambling machine the world has ever known. through its operation the companies themselves not only make and lose millions at single throws of the dice, but the bands of schemers whose services it is pretended are essential for the transaction of the life-insurance business filch for themselves huge individual fortunes. piled on to these excessive charges are additional amounts which enable these tricksters to maintain palaces, hotels, bars, and every conceivable kind of business, to pay for armies of lackeys and employees and private servants of officers and trustees, and for debauches and banquets which vie with any given by the kings and queens of the most extravagant and profligate nations on earth; in addition, enough more to accumulate huge and unnecessary funds--which are juggled with for the enrichment of individuals. such wicked exactions and shameful extravagances constitute an imposition of the most wanton and criminal character, and those responsible should be sent to state prison for life, as too vicious and dangerous to be allowed freedom among an honest people. i would say further that the trickery and frauds that have been practised by the new york life and the mutual companies are fully as bad as, if not worse than, those of the equitable, now publicly confessed. 8. it is difficult for me to answer such a question--just as difficult as it is for the mature man to answer the question of the child, "if the moon is made of green cheese, what kind of rat-traps do they use in heaven?" the "system" for forty years has taught the people that it is impossible for them to improve upon the conditions which the "system" has moulded for its own plundering purposes, yet i have a simple remedy, readily understood, which i believe the people will eagerly embrace as soon as it is given them. this remedy is adjusted to laws now in force; and when it is put into operation those who have acquired enormous fortunes by trickery and fraud will find themselves deprived of their ill-gotten gains by the simple application of natural laws to which the said remedy affords leverage and action. all honest people, the richest as well as the poorest, will be benefited in fair and just proportion. once the remedy is in force, it will be out of the power of the trickster and the thief to accumulate overnight scores of millions, although the edisons, the stephensons, the morses, or any man who by brain or body does those things for his fellows which they cannot do for themselves, will continue to receive that great reward which the whole people in their wisdom and generosity decide is fair for exceptional services; the common miner, too, when he discovers the hidden gold, silver, or copper in the earth will obtain the same return that he is entitled to under to-day's laws, or even better. 9. this story is written, as i have explained so many times before, simply and solely in performance of my duty toward my country and its people and without hope or desire for reward of any kind. 10. i do not own any part of _everybody's magazine_, nor have i any money interest in it, directly or indirectly. i have not made a dollar from _everybody's magazine_ directly or indirectly, but, on the contrary, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to assist in getting my story into the hands of the people. 11. before my first advertisement in december, at a time when i did not know how the people would take it, and when i did not know whether stocks would go up or down, i took my chance in the open of making loss or profit and did sell large amounts of stock short, making some hundreds of thousands of dollars profit; but when in the middle of the disturbance i saw how seriously the people took my message and that there might be a great panic, i began to buy, and thereby sacrificed a million of profits. and, since then, that is, after i realized that the people would respond to my warnings, i have refrained from going short in advance of these advertisements, because i desire to keep strictly apart transactions conducted for my own personal account and operations i am directing for the benefit and safeguarding of the public. i am determined to use every means in my power to keep the people out of a dangerous market and to concentrate the billions of stocks in the hands of the "system," and am not actuated by any desire or necessity for gain. already the "system's" votaries are tottering under their load and it is certain that in the coming months they will employ every possible means to persuade the public back into their trap. more than ever, then, is it necessary to be firm against their blandishments, for when the crash comes it will be a terrific one, and those who have great holdings of speculative securities will surely find their values cut in half. since my first public announcement i have not made enough out of market operations to pay even the expenses of any particular advertisement. 12. i shall not commit any crime; i have too much veneration for the laws of our country; although let it be understood that i may, at any time, commit what some hireling judge of the "system" may call a crime, _for i am going to call upon the american people to withdraw their deposited savings at the proper time; and the proper time will be that time when i am absolutely sure they will withdraw them. but i shall not resort to this last move unless it is certain that the "system" cannot be crushed in any other way_. 13. i will first thank god and then proceed to assist in burying the corpse of the "system." 14. the "system" will be brought to its knees; stocks will fall to figures representing their legitimate values and the public will reinvest its money therein, and thus regain control of the great transportation and industrial interests of the country which the "system" has filched from them. 15. i say unqualifiedly to the american people that this remedy of mine will, when adopted, correct the greatest evil in the financial system of this country. that while it is simple it is absolutely new, and that neither i nor any one else can possibly benefit moneywise from it except in the some proportion as all other people in the country benefit. 16. my remedy was worked out before 1894, and in that year, one year before i had met any of the "standard oil" people, it was so far perfected that in london i laid before joseph pulitzer, then and now owner of the new york _world_, the identical first printed plan that i will print in _everybody's magazine_ when i judge the people are ready to receive it. 17. i unqualifiedly say to you and to the american people that i lost millions of dollars more in what you call the amalgamated swindle than i made, and that i lost trying to make good my word to the amalgamated subscribers. 18. i have spent much more money, hundreds of thousands of dollars more, in getting this work, "frenzied finance," into the hands of the people than i have made through anything in any way connected with it. the crime of amalgamated many of my readers had difficulty in following the intricacies of the great crime of amalgamated and i had many letters desiring further explanation of that act. peake's island, me., may 31, 1905. t. w. lawson, esq. _dear sir_: have just finished june number of "frenzied finance." you are running a "primary class" of high finance for millions; have been able to follow you up to this number, and my apology in writing to you is to state that i don't understand this lesson and i believe i am of the average intelligence of your readers. i am not clear on the following points, and if you can take the time and have the desire to do so, i should be glad to have you set my gray matter moving in the right direction. 1. why should subscribers think that a company, who had as good a thing as advertised, would sell the entire stock, thus giving an opportunity to any financier to gather in fifty-one per cent. and practically take away its good thing? 2. how would it have been possible for you with the $5,000,000 from the shares it was originally the plan to sell to protect those 50,000 shares on a bear market with 700,000 shares in messrs. rogers and rockefeller's possession? 3. why would it not have been a crime to dispose of only 50,000 shares when the whole 750,000 were advertised? 4. messrs. rogers and rockefeller were the amalgamated company after purchasing the capital stock from the office-boys, were they not? 5. if rogers and rockefeller paid for their shares, what became of the amalgamated company's $75,000,000 secured by sale of stock? these may sound foolish to you, but i'm interested and should like to understand. permit me to state that i admire your pluck and ability and wish you success in your remedy, whatever it may be. respectfully yours, (signed) ---i replied: your first question is a hard one to answer, as it goes to the very foundation of "the stock-market." in the ideal operation of stock-markets, owners of valuable properties should always allow the public to join in their "good things" at fair prices, because all who thus participated would make money and would be ready for the next "good thing," and so on to the end. on the other hand, if the public were only invited into the "bad things," in time they would not come in on anything, good or bad, and there would be no stock-market. the foundation of stock-markets, like all other kinds of markets, is the public interest therein--for it is the people who own the great bulk of the money in the country, and its aggregate is far beyond the amount that the very few rich men possess. stock-markets are no different, at least should be no different, from horse-markets, boot and shoe markets, or mowing-machine markets. the horse-markets whose dealers sell to their patrons good horses at fair prices, succeed; those whose dealers offer only the "culls" and "no goods," fail. 2. had i been able to keep 700,000 shares in the hands of rogers and rockefeller with but 50,000 in the hands of the public, rogers and rockefeller would never have permitted the stock to go down, because they would have lost $700,000 at every point drop and by "bearing" they could make only $50,000 a point drop. stock schemers never "bear" a stock of which they own a large majority and the public a small minority. 3. it would have been no crime if rogers and rockefeller had subscribed honestly--that is, according to the advertised terms--for enough to secure the stipulated 700,000 shares, because there was nothing in the conditions which excluded them or any one from subscribing. the crime was in the way they obtained the amount thus retained and in their "intentions" subsequently executed, also in the selling of $27,000,000 worth of the stock when they had pledged their word solemnly to me in my capacity as protector of the people that they would sell but $5,000,000. 4. yes. 5. the office-boys, equipped with the check of $75,000,000 provided by the national city bank, were organized into a corporation and turned over to the treasurer of the new corporation the $75,000,000 check in payment for the capital stock of the company. the company then turned this same check over to rogers and rockefeller for the mining properties comprising the consolidation, for which rogers and rockefeller had paid thirty-nine millions of dollars; then rogers and rockefeller paid back to the office-boys the seventy-five-million check and received from them the seventy-five-million stock. the check was returned to the bank by the office-boys, who stood where they stood at the beginning of the transaction, and canceled. thus rogers and rockefeller at the close of the transaction had in their possession the entire capital stock of the amalgamated company. * * * * * another correspondent had even greater difficulties with the problem: may 29, 1905. mr. thomas w. lawson, boston, mass. _dear sir_: the writer of this letter has had much experience in literary matters, but does not remember ever reading after any one who could hold his interest as you can. he is an author himself (though not so well known as you), and feels some little ability to measure and appreciate not only literary worth, but the intentions of the author in hand. from the "internal evidences" alone he has a settled conviction that you are perfectly honest in this crusade, and from the bottom of his heart wishes you godspeed. a few points are certainly not clear to the ordinary reader. closely as i have followed you i cannot see some things as you think they should be seen. for instance: 1. just why were you so fearfully wrought up at the thought of the public's getting ten millions instead of five? if you had such confidence in the gigantic possibilities of amalgamated, why should you not have been glad to let the poor suffering public have ten millions, or twenty millions, instead of a paltry five millions? was this hydrophobia of yours at the mere suggestion prompted by a perfectly pure or by a selfish motive? at the first did _you_ not plan to let the public have very much more than this? was it not your thought, i mean, that the public should be in the thing about equally with you promoters? then why not welcome the suggestion of rogers? i do not understand this at all. 2. about that "bogus subscription." did you not all plan to do about the same thing? did you not intend to have rogers put in a towering subscription, large enough to cover the situation, and to permit the bank to reject all above the five millions to be allowed the public? i believe _you_ expected rogers to make it "genuine" by really putting it in in time, and by laying down his check for the five per cent.; but, as you fully expected to realize on the thing so quickly, did you not understand that the whole of this "subscription" would not have to be paid at all, and that your "check" was after all only technical? if i am right, how did this differ so greatly from what rogers did? was not your avowed object to cheat the public into thinking they were to be allowed to subscribe to seventy-five millions, when actually you were only going to let them subscribe to five? and if, on that last day, you knew the subscriptions were pouring in in such a flood, and knew that offers of a big premium were then being made, how in the world did the idea of letting the outside public have twenty millions or so (on which to immediately realize this premium) seem so abhorrent to you, when you professed to be looking after their interests? the more i think of these points, the more mixed i become, and i think many, very many of your readers are in the same boat. your illustration of the horse-race does not clear the matter a particle. it certainly does appear on the face of the facts you present that the people who did not get any stock were the lucky ones, whether rogers's precise action was criminal or not. you say yourself that it would have been good all round if you had pricked the bubble that night--that is, if you had then and there prevented anybody from getting any premiums, from buying or selling a share. then in the name of reason, why was it not really good for those who were rejected, that they were left out? 3. now, in plain language, brief and straight, what would you have deemed the right thing, that night at the bank? with hundreds of millions subscribed, how many shares would you have thought the public should have? how many do you think now? and how should the balance have been kept for you promoters? perhaps in answering this you will make it plain. sincerely yours, (signed) ---in answer to question 1, i said: all my dealings had been conducted on the basis of selling to the public a fair amount of the first section of the consolidation and i had no tremors as to consequences. i knew that whatever allotment was made them would be worth all they were to pay for it, for i was personally familiar with the value of the properties of which the section was to be composed. when mr. rogers, as i have explained in my story, substituted, under circumstances that rendered me defenceless, an entirely new set of mines for those programmed for the first section--properties about which i knew only what he told me--from that time on my only guarantee against the jugglery and fraud i feared was to keep in the hands of rogers and rockefeller so large a part of this stock that they could play no tricks on the public without themselves suffering much more severely. if they regarded the stock as so valuable a possession that it was a security to be held as "standard oil," then their attitude to it guaranteed its value, and no harm could come to any one. when, however, they showed a readiness to part with more shares than the number they had promised me they would not go beyond, my fears were aroused, for all the contingencies i dreaded at once became imminent. besides, such action was proof positive that in their opinion the mines were not worth the price at which they were selling them. later on, when i had practical evidence that they were unloading and proof positive that they were juggling the stock, i felt certain that these facts constituted proof positive that they had lied to me about the cost and worth of the amalgamated mines. my answer to question 1 practically disposes of part of question 2, and my replies to the other inquiries above take care of another part. i did expect mr. rogers to make an honest subscription for that part of the stock which we were to retain and which i was doing all in my power to have him retain, not because i desired to hold all of the good thing and so cheat the public, but because i did not think it safe for the public to hold so many shares that it would be to rogers's and rockefeller's interest to "bear" prices later and take shares away from the holders at slaughter prices. in one sense it was not fair to lead people to imagine that they were being offered $75,000,000 of an issue when as a matter of fact they were really offered only $5,000,000, but if only $5,000,000 were offered no harm could come to them, because every one who got some of it would make a profit, and those who received none would not suffer. steel common and preferred a definite accusation of misrepresentation was presented in a letter that came to me early in the year in criticism of steel facts and figures i had used in illustrating the artificial advance and depression of stocks: cincinnati, o., january 24, 1905. thomas w. lawson. _sir_: lawson, you are both a fakir and a fool. a fakir because you misrepresent, and a fool because you do not begin to understand the people. when you said the stockholders of the steel corporation lost $500,000,000, you knew that you lied. because the difference in price of the stock to-day and when it was quoted on the new york stock exchange for the first time in 1901 does not approach that amount. i say that you knew this when you made that statement, but you thought and hoped that the general public would not be posted in the matter. the whole substance of your magazine articles has been nothing but half-truths, and a half-truth is worse than a lie. you know that it is to gratify your personal spite, and not to help the general public, that you have engaged in your frenzied writings. the public is wiser than you think, although your conceit has blinded you to that fact. respectfully, f. f. methven. this frenzied nincompoop is evidently ignorant of the fact that 360,281,000 shares of steel preferred were sold to the public at over $100 per share, and that 5,500,000 shares of steel common were sold at over $50 per share, or nearly $300,000,000, and that months later, when the people were compelled to resell to the "system," they could get only $50 for this preferred stock and $10 for the common, while the $551,000,000 of bonds depreciated in value over $100,000,000 more. what this critic desired to say was that, at the present price of steel stocks, no such loss as $500,000,000 is shown, which proves my oft-repeated contention--the "system," having "shaken out" the public and acquired their holdings at fifty and ten respectively, is now engaged in putting the price back to the old figure, intending to repeat the robbery process later. a votary of the "system," whom i know quite well, said to me a few weeks ago: "lawson, you keep chasing 'frenzied finance' will-o'-the-wisps while the rest of us are pulling in the dollars, and see where you will come out in the end. look what i've done: i sold 200,000 shares of steel common for $8,000,000. it cost me $3,000,000. i made $5,000,000. i then 'shorted' 100,000 at $50 and bought it back at $12. i made $3,800,000. i then bought 300,000 at 10. it's now 30. when i sell out at 40, i shall have $9,000,000 more, making $18,000,000, without turning a hair or risking a dollar. with prizes such as these a man can stand a lot of frenzied hard names, can't he?" the remedy as i have explained on another page of the "critics," my remedy cannot be dealt with save at considerable length and with living, tangible illustrations. i have purposely abstained from starting it until i have the american public educated to the point of comprehending its value and appreciating its practicability so far as to be ready to put it into operation. during the year i have had thousands of letters in regard to it, the following being a fair example: topeka, kan., january 5, 1905. _dear sirs_: i have followed mr. lawson's article very closely and, as i understand it, he intimates that he has a remedy for the rotten condition of affairs now prevailing. what i, and many more of your readers, would like to know is, whether mr. lawson, in offering a remedy, is taking into consideration the 22,000,000 people of the country who neither invest in stocks nor hold any amount of insurance, or is his remedy meant merely to protect the four million small capitalists from being eaten up by what he terms the "system." it is very evident to some of us that if he cannot show us how to protect the great majority of the people who, although they are not even small capitalists, are the ones who are really footing the bills, his remedy will not be the grand success he anticipates. j. p. ferriter. my remedy will benefit the whole american people. it will help most the man who nowadays in america deserves most to be helped--the producer, who to-day is exchanging the efforts of all his working hours for the bare necessities of himself and family; not those bare necessities which the white slaves of europe are ground down to believe are their only requirements, but those which the free and enlightened american believes, and has taught his family to believe, should be his necessities. it is intended to benefit most the man who has nothing left over after paying his bills saturday night but the terrors of not being able to meet them the coming week. it would indeed be a parody on a remedy if it did not bring relief to this class. next, my remedy will benefit that great middle class whose savings go to make up the billions in the savings-banks, national banks, trust and insurance companies, which are used by the "system" to secure for themselves a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand per cent. interest on _their_ capital, while the owners of these billions must be content with two and a half to four per cent. per annum; and next, it will benefit that class which possesses large fortunes honestly acquired, inasmuch as it will enable them to know what there is behind their investments. none but those who have plundered the people--acquired overnight fortunes many times larger than any honest lifetime efforts could possibly bring--can possibly be hurt by the application of my remedy. you are right--any remedy which would do other than what mine proposes to do would be a farce. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's notes: | | | | page vi: scheheherezade _sic_ | | page 40: missing "l" added to "loser" in footnote 2 | | page 59: guerilla _sic_ | | page 62: dumfounded _sic_ | | page 64: villany _sic_ | | page 99: gayly _sic_ | | page 107: machiavelian _sic_ | | page 134: machiavelian _sic_ | | page 154: "slighest" amended to "slightest" | | page 175: comma added after "perjury" in footnote 12 | | page 193: "metres" amended to "meters" | | page 277: dumfounded _sic_ | | page 289: opening quotes added to "every one of us...." | | page 348: millionnaire _sic_ | | page 352: comma added after "defalcation" | | page 388: milllionnaire's _sic_ | | page 447: cohoots _sic_ | | page 471: "very rich men" amended to "very rich man" | | page 478: haling _sic_ | | page 482: corea and porto rico _sic_ | | page 490: "managment" amended to "management" | | page 548: "insuarnce" amended to "insurance" | | | | hyphenation has generally been standardized. however, when | | hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of a word each occur | | an equal number of times, both versions have been retained | | (baseball/base-ball; blackjack/black-jack; blacklisted/ | | black-listed; chessboard/chess-board; cooperation/ | | co-operation; downtown/down-town; handshake/hand-shake; | | headlight/head-light; headlines/head-lines; setback/ | | set-back; typewritten/type-written; uptown/up-town; | | viewpoint/view-point). | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ 