INVESTORS AND SPECULATORS—WARNING!For six months through my story, "Frenzied Finance," inEverybody'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 thatI 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.AMALGAMATEDLast 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 madeby 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.Boston, December 12, 1904.
INVESTORS AND SPECULATORS—WARNING!
For six months through my story, "Frenzied Finance," inEverybody'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 thatI 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 madeby 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.
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 PICTURENew York, December 12, 1904.Thomas W. Lawson, Boston, Mass.For six months I have read with close attention your story of "Frenzied Finance," inEverybody'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 notThomas 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.
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," inEverybody'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 notThomas 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 Morganor 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 YorkCommercial, 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 RANGEAn Intimate Talk with the Financier and FighterByARTHUR McEWENFrom theNew 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 LAWSONThe 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 ROGERSHe 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 theJolly 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. Iamwith 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 VERSATILITYMr. 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 inEverybody'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 HIMSELFCheerfulness, 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 mea 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.
THOMAS W. LAWSON AT CLOSE RANGE
An Intimate Talk with the Financier and Fighter
ByARTHUR McEWEN
From theNew 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 theJolly 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. Iamwith 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 inEverybody'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 mea 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 MANByJAMES CREELMANFrom the New YorkWorld, 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 theWorld.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 steadyvoice—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 yachtIndependenceat 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 PINKBut 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 wereresponsible 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 inEverybody's Magazinewere 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.'"
LAWSON, THE MAN
ByJAMES CREELMAN
From the New YorkWorld, 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 theWorld.
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 steadyvoice—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 yachtIndependenceat 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 wereresponsible 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 inEverybody's Magazinewere 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 & Munroeesclandre, the details of which plainly showed eminent financiers in the vulgar business of stock-washing. I frankly treated the subject inEverybody'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 suchdistinction 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. Theaffair 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.