Chapter XXXIII: A Retrospect and a Moral (5)

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 role 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.