FOOTNOTES:

Policy-holders reply coupon.policy-holders reply coupon.

In response to this appeal I received over sixteen thousand proxies, representing over fifty-four millions of insurance. The investigations made by the legislative committee of theState of New York are unearthing in a most thorough manner the iniquities of the directors and managers of the Big Three, and before proceeding further I shall await the results of its work. If there is any way short of criminal proceedings to compel the restitution of the millions diverted or stolen from policy-holders, I shall begin suits which I am satisfied can be fought to a successful conclusion.

THE CALL TO ARMS

The extraordinary disclosures made before the investigating committee of the New York Legislature, which is now conducting inquiries into the methods of the great insurance companies, led me finally to issue the following open letter to John A. McCall, in which I review the controversy between us and contrast his disclosures of corruption and mismanagement with his brazen professions of virtue and probity made last year. In order to wrest the two great mutual companies from the control of men who are obviously unworthy to direct them and with whom the policy-holders' funds are plainly unsafe, I asked for proxies which would make it possible for me to bring about a change in the control of these two great corporations.

This letter and call appeared in the November, 1905, issue ofEverybody's Magazine.

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN A. McCALL, PRESIDENT NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

Sir: It is time your attention was called to the moral sense of the American people. It is time some one dragged you out of the Wall Street conservatory and set you in the plain white light of daily life. It is time you were shown yourself as you are to-day seen by the millions of your countrymen who, a month ago, believed you to be a great and honorable man.

In spite of the terrible exposures of the past few weeks, in spite of the pitiless revealment of yourself and your directors as tricksters, in spite of the unveiling of the jugglery, grafting, and corruption of your administration of the most sacred trust that can be confided to man, you remain unconvinced of your fall and unpenetrated by your shame. Fortified by the sympathy of your fellow-sinners, you imagine your audacious bluster and your sly evasions before the Investigating Committee of the State of New York represented shrewd generalship and able strategy, forgetting that the enemy against whom your manœuvres were directed was the American people and that, in this inquisition, your character and reputation were as absolutely before the bar as though you had been indicted for sequestration of the funds of some dead friend's wife.

Throughout this broad country of ours are good Americans who have slaved and toiled to gather up the hundreds of dollars which you have exacted from them yearly as the price of the future livelihood of their wives and children, or as the provision for their own old age. You have made yourself the custodian of these funds under sacred pledge of square dealing and safe and honest administration. You have made yourself the national executor, the great depositary of the moneys of the widow and the orphan. You have cried your virtue and honorableness from the housetops, and, under the stress of your pleadings, hundreds of millions of dollars have been confided to you annually—half the savings of the nation have been turned into your coffers, all because you insisted that you were honest beyond all other men, and that the dear ones left behind might rely on your generosity and integrity for their support.

And it is with the moneys that might at any time have been claimed by these widows and orphans that you have been rigging syndicates, debauching legislatures, juggling judges, manipulating stock-markets, and doing other things which will be proven later. Instead of employing the vast power and the immense wealth intrusted to you to conserve the interests of your policy-holders, you have made yourself a part of the cruel robbing machine which the "System" has created to deprive the American people of their savings. Under the pretence of seeking profitable investment, yourcorporation has been perverted into a vast stock-gambling agency. You have filled the high places in your corporation with your own children and relatives and their relatives, and conferred on them great salaries out of which they have grown rich. You have paid out to friends and associates, on various pleas, millions that rightly belonged to your policy-holders. You have done all these things habitually, yet to-day you describe the investigation being conducted into your operations as an impertinence, and secretly you regard this inquisition and all that pertains to it as a waste of time and energy. You are unrepentant, unashamed, and defiant.

I shall take this opportunity, sir, of reviewing our own relations during the past year and contrasting your position to-day with that you boasted twelve months ago.

One year ago, inEverybody's Magazine, I said:

"The officers, trustees, and officials of the 'Big Three' life-insurance companies have been and are systematically robbing their policy-holders. They are grafters—mean, contemptible grafters."

I gave specific instances of their thieveries.

You replied, not by haling me to court, but by:

Circulating throughout the world documents by the millions, disparaging my reputation by advertisements and "news" and "editorial" statements from your subsidized insurance press, denying my charges and attacking my character, all at the expense of your policy-holders.

You libelled me in thousands of private letters to policy-holders, many of which came back to me.

You employed James M. Beck, ex-Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, then and now chief attorney for Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil Company, the "System," and the Mutual Life Insurance Company, to ridicule my utterances and asperse my honor in addresses in the cities of Philadelphia and Boston.

You employed James H. Eckels, ex-Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, now president of the Commercial Bank and representative of the "System" in the West, to attack my arguments and distort my motives in Chicago.

You ordered Vice-President Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance Company, to perform similar service in Philadelphia; and

The burden of all these documents, advertisements, and disguised advertisements and addresses was: "Lawson is an unmitigated liar and scoundrel, whose sole reason for attacking the insurance companies is that we refused him insurance."

I replied by printing your personal letter to me, wherein you importuned me to accept insurance in your company.

Again you gave me the lie, and pronounced your letter spurious.

I replied to you and your followers by instancing cases of perjury, bribery, and false statements.

I stated that your claim that your company did not own, nor loan upon, stocks was false, and that it was made for the purpose of misleading and imposing upon your policy-holders, banks, trust companies, Government officials, and investors.

You answered this by writing a letter to one of the great churchmen of America, and in it you said: "I pledge you my word of honor this company has never, since 1899, had a dollar's interest, directly or indirectly, in any stock. Lawson knows this, and deliberately, for his own base purposes, makes charges to the contrary which he knows to be false."

To-day you and your fellow-plunderers stand convicted in the eyes of the whole world not only of juggling the moneys of the widow and the orphan in the stock-market, but of manipulating these trust funds for the benefit of your own pockets. To-day the world is aghast at your perfidy and amazed at your temerity.

Notwithstanding the turpitude already exposed to the people, you still imagine you can so conduct yourself as to prevent the investigators from fastening on you and your associates the more desperate crimes that have been committed in the past—the 150 to 200 millions stolen and diverted or used in corruption. You know as I do that only the very edges of this national cesspool have yet been uncovered. You know that not only have the ballot-box and the Legislature at Albany been tampered with, but the law-making and administering machinery of other States corrupted, the Federal Government surrounded, and certain of the judiciary of America "educated."

You believe you can keep the evidence of these crimes from the American people by the same kind of bluff and effrontery with which you met my first charges. But you have mistaken the tempers of your countrymen.

I have been authorized in writing by over 16,000 policy-holders, carrying over fifty-four millions of insurance, to act for them.

I had intended to await the finish of the New York investigation before proceeding, but as I have had placed in my hands during the past few days evidences of the determination of yourself and your accomplices and fellow-conspirators to face it out regardless of consequences, and as I believe men capable of committing the acts that have been proved during the past few days are fully capable of taking the transportable part of the billion and a quarter funds to foreign countries, and of using them to keep themselves from their justly deserved punishments, I have decided to act now.

In sending you this open letter, I am actuated only by a desire to bring you and your associates to such a sense of the seriousness of your position that you will see it is useless longer to attempt to defy the American people.

Yours, for the Exposure of Corporation Sneak Thieves,

Thomas W. Lawson.

To Life-Insurance Policy-Holders

At the beginning of my story, in 1904, I made certain accusations against the management of the three big life-insurance companies.

I knew, when I began my story, that the big life-insurance companies were in the hands of grafters and thieves, just as are the great banks, trust companies, railroad companies, and big corporations and trusts.

This I knewand, in plain language, said it.

The big insurance companies, through their officers and trustees, replied by declaring: "He's an unmitigated liar."

I kept at my knitting, for I knew the crimes of these insurance grafters were such that, sooner or later, the world would have an opportunity to judge fairly who were the unmitigated liars and thieves.

The opportunity is at hand.

To-day the press of the world is devoting its space, news and editorial, to a recital of the contemptible and heinous crimes of the New York Life and the Mutual Life Insurance companies—not as I relate them, but as their own officers and trustees publicly confess them.

In the July instalment of my story I called upon policy-holders to sign a coupon blank inserted inEverybody's Magazine, and send same to me that I might speak for them in a plan to further their interests.

In response to my call I have received up to October 4, 1905, 16,307 answers, representing $55,165,916.

I think my readers, when they analyze the following list and take into consideration the character of the senders, many of whom are men of the highest standing—bishops, ministers, governors, mayors, judges, senators, members of Congress, railroad, bank, and trust company presidents—will agree with me that it is the most remarkable collection ever made by one interest since life insurance began.

INSURANCE COUPONSReceived from June 20th to October 4, 1905New York Life$18,845,410Equitable17,317,956Mutual14,550,240Miscellaneous4,452,310$55,165,916

Alabama22Montana130Arizona127Nebraska236Arkansas124Nevada28California842New Hampshire73Colorado211New Jersey282Connecticut177New Mexico40Delaware43New York1,780District of Columbia152North Carolina466Florida230North Dakota143Georgia169Ohio985Idaho150Oklahoma154Illinois1,012Oregon93Indiana415Pennsylvania1,133Indian Territory130Rhode Island67Iowa560South Carolina81Kansas316South Dakota104Kentucky153Tennessee157Louisiana197Texas580Maine144Utah68Maryland126Vermont57Massachusetts843Virginia242Michigan406Washington417Minnesota574West Virginia205Mississippi173Wisconsin318Missouri499Wyoming36Alaska27Corea1Argentina1Mexico71Bermuda1Newfoundland4Canada344New Zealand1Chili1Panama2China1Philippines16Colombia1Porto Rico5Costa Rica1Santo Domingo7Cuba4Straits Settlements1England9Sweden1France4Trinidad2Hawaii35Uruguay2Honduras2Yukon Territory4Japan4Grand total16,307

As soon as I received a number of signatures sufficiently large to warrant it, I quietly began operations.

The first direct result is the investigation now being held. This investigation has proceeded far enough to put before the public absolute proof of all the crimes I have charged, and three to thirty times as many more.

It is now evident to all that:

1st. The policy-holders in the great companies have yearly paid into their company scores of millions more than necessary.

2d. The policy-holders have been robbed of scores of millions.

3d. The vast funds now on hand have been habitually used by the grafters now in control of them in the rankest kind of stock-gambling.

4th. These funds have been used to corrupt the ballot-box and the law-makers of the country.

I repeat, absolute proof of all this has been made public.

It should now be evident to all that:

1st. The funds now on hand are in actual jeopardy, because they are in the absolute control of unprincipled scoundrels.

2d. Unless something is done, and done at once, by the policy-holders, each and every one of the largest companies may become insolvent; that is, they may not be able to meet the engagements of their policies, because of waste of funds, tremendous falling off of new business, tremendous cost of new business, and the nature of the new business—so-called "graveyard business"; for I am credibly informed that they are now seeking to insure those who formerly have been refused insurance because of physical infirmities.

It should also be plainly evident that, if the policy-holders move, and move quickly, they can be absolutely assured that:

1st. The funds as they are to-day will remain intact.

2d. They will be added to by the restitution of from $75,000,000 to $150,000,000.

3d. A score of the thieves who have plundered policy-holders in the past will be sent to prison.

4th. The future payments of policy-holders will be largely cut down.

5th. The present swollen surpluses will be returned in large part to policy-holders.

6th. In the future policy-holders will actually run the company.

7th. All policy-holders can be assured that in the future they will receive the actual worth of their policy at surrender.

All this being so, it is most eminently desirable for policy-holders to act, and at once.

The time will never again be so opportune, for if nothing definite is done now, policy-holders will be discouraged for all time.

I have given the subject the closest and most earnest study, assisted by the best insurance experts and lawyers procurable, and guided by the suggestions of over 100,000 policy-holders, for in addition to the 16,000 mentioned, I have received over 90,000 letters. I have come to the conclusion that the one thing for policy-holders to do now is:

To authorize some one in whom they have confidence to select a committee to take their proxies and at once seize possession of the two great mutual companies, the New York Life and the Mutual.

I omit the Equitable at this stage, because litigation may be necessary before the Equitable, being a stock company, can come into the policy-holders' hands. But in the other two, no obstacles can be placed in the way of the policy-holders' taking control.

To empower this committee to bring action at once to compel full restitution and enforce full punishment, and then to change the present method of conducting the insurance business.

The vital question is: Whom can the policy-holders trust to do this?

The "Big Three" are at present spending vast sums of the policy-holders' money to prevent some such action as this, in the following ways:

First, by moulding public opinion through paid news and editorial items; next, by the collection of proxies; and third,by the inauguration of different moves and dummy suits and investigations.

There are already three of these affairs under way. Almost any way the policy-holders turn for relief they are confronted with traps which, if they fall into them, will make relief and rescue impossible.

Any man or body of men who go to the great expense necessary to collect proxies must have some hidden scheme for reimbursing themselves, or they must be working in the interests of the thieves now in control.

I therefore make bold to say: I am the natural one to make this move.

Just a minute before you pass judgment. Let us see if I am:

1st. I have already spent in my work over a million dollars of my own money.

2d. I am willing to spend, if necessary, two millions more.

3d. I will absolutely prove I want nothing in return.

4th. I will absolutely prove on the face of my plans that I cannot in any way benefit beyond the satisfaction I shall derive from putting another spike in the "System's" coffin.

I ask of the policy-holders simply this:

Fill out the following form of proxy; sign and seal it, and send it to me. Quick action is most desirable in view of contingencies.

FOOTNOTES:[20]In the course of the legislative investigation of the great insurance companies in New York, it developed that the Mutual Life Insurance Company conducts a publicity bureau, organized to discredit any one who dares criticise its methods. This bureau is conducted by one Charles J. Smith, on a salary of $8,000 per annum, and he works through Allan Forman, editor of theJournalist. Forman maintains a "telegraphic news bureau" and secures publication in various newspapers or periodicals of matter sent him for dissemination by the Mutual Life, and he is paid $1.00 per line of the policy-holders' money on all matter for which he obtains publicity. The whitewash paragraphs recently published throughout the country in regard to President McCurdy and the Mutual Life were all paid for on this basis.

[20]In the course of the legislative investigation of the great insurance companies in New York, it developed that the Mutual Life Insurance Company conducts a publicity bureau, organized to discredit any one who dares criticise its methods. This bureau is conducted by one Charles J. Smith, on a salary of $8,000 per annum, and he works through Allan Forman, editor of theJournalist. Forman maintains a "telegraphic news bureau" and secures publication in various newspapers or periodicals of matter sent him for dissemination by the Mutual Life, and he is paid $1.00 per line of the policy-holders' money on all matter for which he obtains publicity. The whitewash paragraphs recently published throughout the country in regard to President McCurdy and the Mutual Life were all paid for on this basis.

When a man discovers that a public building full of men, women, and children is infested with rats and that these vicious rodents have undermined its foundations and honeycombed its structure, it becomes his duty, first, to warn the occupants of the presence of the rats, next, to show them the damage that has been wrought and how the rats can be trapped and killed—and then he may take a hand in the rat-hunt himself.

That is about what I have been doing, and if proof were needed that the "System" suffered under my exposure of its villainies, I should have it in plenty in the showers of mud bullets it has fired at me. From scores of quarters these volleys came. A regular army of the "System's" votaries must have been out working like Trojans to stop my work, to discredit me, to bespatter me with its dirt.

The manner in which the "System" writhed under my attacks showed how seriously it was hurt. What surprises me was that so little intelligence was exhibited in defaming me. Such wanton, foolish attacks those that were made on me personally! As though it mattered who or what I am in comparison with the accusations I have made. Americans are not fools. To say that Lawson is this or that does not minimize or detract from his charge of robbery and conspiracy.

Every morning after I began to write "Frenzied Finance" I found a new budget of personalities in my mail, in the newspapers, in pamphlets. Learned lawyers traveled about the country slinging mud at me at banquets and society gatherings; scores of hireling weekly and monthly papers devoted pages to vilifying me; the insurance press was laden withassaults, and for fear the public should miss the brickbats, the insurance companies carefully mailed them to their policy-holders. All these tirades were in one key—that of crude abuse. The statements about myself and my career were nothing but lies. They were not even cleverly imagined.

Upon entering on this crusade against "Frenzied Finance" I expected attack. Reforms are not matured to accompaniments of incense and rose-water, and I had made up my mind to disregard the mud and its slingers. Afterward, if there were any "System" left, I rather looked forward to smothering it beneath the foulness of its own generating. There came a time during the year, however, when I deemed it proper to depart from this resolution and nail some of the lies my enemies were circulating about me. I debated the subject thoroughly, for the rancor of these assaults was evident and I could not help feeling that the general run of my readers would be impatient of the space given these gutter rakers. The determination to go at them was clinched by a letter which came to me, with a number of others from clergymen of various denominations, from a learned Catholic priest, who put the case for a reply most earnestly. He said:

You owe it, my son, to yourself to clear away, for once and all, the charges your enemies have made against you. I have faith you mean all that you say, but there are many, many sons and daughters who are troubled in heart and harassed in mind with doubt whether your motives be pure, and if your deeds in the past have been along the ways of the good. It is my advice, if you will accept it, that you put aside your pride and your dignity and frankly and openly tell us whether these charges that we read are true or false.

BECK VS. LAWSON

I shall deal with the subject as fairly as possible, reminding my readers, however, that I am at a disadvantage in having to use pen and ink instead of the implement appropriate for the purpose, a hose connected with a disinfectant barrel. To begin with, I reproduce the following from the ToledoBlade, December 26, 1904. (I have similar paragraphs clipped from one hundred other papers.)

JAMES M. BECK FLAYS LAWSONCalls Boston Author-Broker a Frenzied Fakir.Defines MoneyphobiaDeclares He is Victim of New Disease—Compares His Actions to "Crazed Malay Running Amuck."Philadelphia, December 26th.—Ex-Assistant Attorney-General James M. Beck talked on "Moneyphobia" at the thirty-ninth annual commencement exercises of the Peirce Business College. He paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson in such terms as "frenzied fakir" and "crazed Malay running amuck." ... "There are abundant indications that this epidemic is now rife in the community. The extraordinary vote polled by a Socialistic candidate for President, in a time of general prosperity, seems to evidence this, as does the avidity with which many intelligent people read in a cheap 'penny dreadful' magazine the incoherent, self-contradictory, and self-incriminating articles of a notorious frenzied fakir, who, like a crazed Malay, is wildly running amuck, and, without rhyme or reason, slashing at the reputations of judges, senators, and financiers."

JAMES M. BECK FLAYS LAWSON

Calls Boston Author-Broker a Frenzied Fakir.

Defines Moneyphobia

Declares He is Victim of New Disease—Compares His Actions to "Crazed Malay Running Amuck."

Philadelphia, December 26th.—Ex-Assistant Attorney-General James M. Beck talked on "Moneyphobia" at the thirty-ninth annual commencement exercises of the Peirce Business College. He paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson in such terms as "frenzied fakir" and "crazed Malay running amuck." ... "There are abundant indications that this epidemic is now rife in the community. The extraordinary vote polled by a Socialistic candidate for President, in a time of general prosperity, seems to evidence this, as does the avidity with which many intelligent people read in a cheap 'penny dreadful' magazine the incoherent, self-contradictory, and self-incriminating articles of a notorious frenzied fakir, who, like a crazed Malay, is wildly running amuck, and, without rhyme or reason, slashing at the reputations of judges, senators, and financiers."

The following is from a Chicago insurance paper, and comes to me with the marginal inscription, "Puncture this bladder when convenient." I may say that I receive hundreds of clippings every day from various parts of the country, sent me by correspondents who are determined I shall be apprised of what my antagonists are trying to do against me.

BANKER ECKELS AND BROKER LAWSONThe splendid tribute to our country's greatness, resources, and possibilities given by President James H. Eckels, of the Commercial National Bank, of Chicago, and ex-Comptroller of Currency of the United States, before the Chicago Life Underwriters' Association, was listened to with earnest attention.The brilliant young financier ... believes in life insurance for the people. It creates the valuable habit of saving. He deprecates the malicious attacks on companies by men of mysterious motives, and feels it will be a sorry day if they ever become objects of prey for political thieves.The banker paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, whom he characterized as a notoriety seeker and branded as a "discredited, disreputable, despised stock-jobber who glories in his infamy." Mr. Eckels lashed Lawson with caustic language, and stated the American people of judgment are not misled by his diatribes.Mr. Eckels believes that life-insurance presidents reach their high stations by their own ability and grasping of opportunities. Because a man is elevated to a position of eminence and responsibility does not mean he is dishonest. He arrives there because he cannot be held down and remains as long as he proves his worth. The banker declared that life companies, with their vast funds, were being safely guided by men of superior mental mould.Mr. Eckels referred to President McCall, of the New York Life, as being a clerk in a State bureau office when he first made his acquaintance. He said President McCall had advanced, like other company executives, owing to his own ability and genius for management.

BANKER ECKELS AND BROKER LAWSON

The splendid tribute to our country's greatness, resources, and possibilities given by President James H. Eckels, of the Commercial National Bank, of Chicago, and ex-Comptroller of Currency of the United States, before the Chicago Life Underwriters' Association, was listened to with earnest attention.

The brilliant young financier ... believes in life insurance for the people. It creates the valuable habit of saving. He deprecates the malicious attacks on companies by men of mysterious motives, and feels it will be a sorry day if they ever become objects of prey for political thieves.

The banker paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, whom he characterized as a notoriety seeker and branded as a "discredited, disreputable, despised stock-jobber who glories in his infamy." Mr. Eckels lashed Lawson with caustic language, and stated the American people of judgment are not misled by his diatribes.

Mr. Eckels believes that life-insurance presidents reach their high stations by their own ability and grasping of opportunities. Because a man is elevated to a position of eminence and responsibility does not mean he is dishonest. He arrives there because he cannot be held down and remains as long as he proves his worth. The banker declared that life companies, with their vast funds, were being safely guided by men of superior mental mould.

Mr. Eckels referred to President McCall, of the New York Life, as being a clerk in a State bureau office when he first made his acquaintance. He said President McCall had advanced, like other company executives, owing to his own ability and genius for management.

In an early article in this series I stated that one of the favorite operations of the "System" is to pick off those officials who have exhibited unusual talent or energy in protecting the interests of the National Government. In this way they secure the services of men who know the secret workings of the people's institutions and how best to guard the corporations against the consequences of their misdeeds. During the Cleveland administration there developed a "financial phenomenon," James H. Eckels, Comptroller of the Currency. It did not take long for the astute Rogers-Morgan-McCall clique to see that this young man's knowledge of finance in connection with his governmental position might prove a dangerous obstacle to their machine if he were not captured. It was not long before he was captured.

I met Mr. Eckels during the Cleveland bond performance. I need not enter into the details of that extraordinary affair here, for it is one of the sore spots in recent American history. Briefly, the Administration at Washington attempted to issue $100,000,000 government bonds and deliver them in a snap sale to the "System." The New YorkWorldbegan a crusade against the transaction, and was so successful that the Administration was compelled to offer the issue to the public through competitive bids. The result—the bonds fetched many more millions for the Government than if the deal had been allowed to slip along the ways the "System" had greased for it. I remember well the scene at the opening of the bids. It was in the United States Treasury at Washington. With many others who desired an allotment of the bonds, I was present. We were crowded into a small room, and following the direction of young Mr. Eckels, who handled the transaction, we gave him our bids, which, according to the advertised programme, were in sealed envelopes. After all the bids were submitted—mine was for a number of millions—the envelopes were taken by Mr. Eckels into a rear room. Then a few of the leading financiers present, among them John A. McCall, of the New York Life, J. Pierpont Morgan, and one or two others of the "System's" foremost representatives, got their heads together and began an earnest conference. Certain of them went out of the room and after awhile returned for a further conference. There were several such confabulations and comings and goings, until finally, after a monotonous delay, the bids were opened and the bonds awarded. Morgan, McCall,et al., had secured the bulk of the issue at a price many points above what any one had been led to believe the bonds would sell for, and many points higher than the "System" and the Government had proclaimed to the people they could possibly sell for, yet at a price which showed millions of profit a few hours after the bids were opened. I do not charge that the public's envelopes were opened and "peeked" into before the "System's" bids were sealed. Such a charge is not necessary. It has been made many times by the press. Mr. Eckels, to the minds of such of us as could see through cracks in a floor wide enough to drive a four-in-hand coach into without unhooking the leaders, had lived up to his rôle as a financial phenomenon, and when some time afterward it was bruited abroad that this able young man was to have the presidency of the City Bank, or any other large bank belonging to the "System" that he might select, there was no surprise, although much comment, in Wall Street. Mr. Eckels finally accepted the presidency of the Commercial Bank of Chicago, where he now is one of the important cogs in the "System's" machine.

The case of James M. Beck has points of similarity. Mr. Beck, a young Philadelphia lawyer, obtained a valuable knowledge of the secrets of the Department of Justice inWashington as Assistant United States Attorney-General, and in the prosecution of the Northern Securities suit got an insight into the "System's" methods. It will be remembered that at the trial of the suit he made a great appearance and became famous as the young champion of the people who had succeeded in "busting" this notorious trust. The victory was hardly announced before it became known that the brilliant Assistant Attorney-General had renounced the cause of the public and had been engaged at a large salary as chief counsel for Henry H. Rogers, of Standard Oil.

Mr. Beck has proved a most available and flexible servant in the cause of his master. He has done Mr. Rogers's bidding in a manner befitting the best traditions of "Standard Oil." Almost his first work was the trial of the famous Boston Gas suit, in which for weeks he "steered" Henry H. Rogers while on the witness-stand in the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The very night before this case was to be called for trial, the eminent young "trust buster" and people's champion called on my attorney and made him a proposition. It was that I should meet Mr. Beck and agree upon the details of certain testimony that Mr. Rogers and Kidder, Peabody & Co. (the "System's" Boston representatives), and myself would be called upon to give upon the witness-stand next day. My attorney brought the proposition to me.

"Great heavens!" I said, "is it possible that this man has the audacity to come to Boston and ask me to commit perjury?"

"He does not put it in just those words," my attorney answered.

"No, but he says he wishes tomatch uptestimony with me so that we may all testify alike."

"That is it," my attorney answered.

"But," said I, "I have got to state the facts, and the facts are diametrically opposed to the testimony Mr. Rogers and the others are to give. This looks to me like subornation of perjury."

My lawyer would not have it that way, and I instructed him to secure from Mr. Beck a writing as to just what he wished me to do, and that writing I have at the present time.In it he states that if I do not see him and agree upon the testimony to be submitted in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts the following day, there may be developments which will be decidedly uncomfortable for Mr. Rogers and perhaps for the rest of us.

I did not meet Mr. Beck, and Henry H. Rogers and Kidder, Peabody & Co. told one story and I another. Bald perjury was committed by some one. However, I will give all the facts, including the "match up" letter, when I come to them in my story.

Mr. Beck and Mr. Eckels are the two men designated by the "System" to attend public gatherings and vilify Thomas W. Lawson. They are at it, industriously.

THE DONOHOE EPISODE

As soon as the first chapter of "Frenzied Finance" appeared, Henry H. Rogers turned loose on me one Denis Donohoe, a character thug whom he had imported from California for just such emergencies. Donohoe's first service for Mr. Rogers was a vicious onslaught on Heinze, of Montana, in the New YorkCommercial. This was an attack of such unusual vulgarity and malignity that it won Donohoe his spurs, for soon afterward, when by a characteristic trick Mr. Rogers obtained possession of the New YorkCommercial, he made Donohoe its editor. I may mention that Heinze sued theCommercialfor $300,000 damages, and apropos of the suit an interesting complication occurred which seriously interfered with Mr. Rogers's plans. The night before the old owners, from whom Mr. Rogers had grabbed theCommercial, were to be thrown into the street, they threatened, by way of reprisal for the mean trick that had been served on them, to confess judgment to Heinze. One was president and the other secretary of the company, and this action would have settled the proposition. Rogers, treated to a dose of his own medicine, had to make a compromise, and the men are still on the paper. The details of this good story are to be found in the DetroitJournal. It was fitting that when I began my exposures of the "System" this thug should be ordered to do his worst by me, and he began the series of virulent assaults that theCommercialpublished and advertised all over the country. The first of these was devoted to proving me crazy, and it was carefully circulated by my friends the insurance companies by way of offsetting the effects of my revelations of their jugglery of the people's funds. Later I showed up the fellow so vigorously that John D. Rockefeller ordered Mr. Rogers to muzzle him in his own paper, whereupon arrangements were made with a New York weekly to act as the sewer-conduit for the lies and abuse this thug was warranted to turn out.

I should not dream of dealing with this man or his fatuous attacks in a respectable publication save that he has been appointed the "System's" chief defender. It really seems as though the game were too small to take time for its killing, but as these weak and febrile maunderings really represent the "System's" reply to my charges, it may be worth while to show, once and for all, what idiotic lies they put forth and what a silly and ineffective falsifier it is that they have made their champion. I shall take the second article of the series and contrast Donohoe's statements with the actual facts.

Incidents in Mr. Lawson's versatile career which even those who are not censorious might well deem shameful.

If in my career I have done anything of which I or any honorable man should be ashamed, then I am willing to stand convicted of all that this character thug charges against me—of being a stock-jobber, fakir, liar.

He claims, if the writer understands him aright, that he isanimated solelyby a keen regard for the public weal in performing what he describes as a public duty.

I stated positively in the Foreword of my story, and have reiterated many times since, that in making these revelations I am actuated first and mainly by a desire to benefit the people of this country, not only by informing them how they are being plundered, but how they can in the future guardthemselves, and that if it were necessary to accomplish my purpose I would spend every dollar I possess; but mixed with this desire is a hatred of the "System" as deadly as a man can have for anything human. I have also reiterated that at such stage of this revelation as is possible I shall secure from the "System" every dollar I can wring from it to be used in my fight against it, provided always I can get its dollars in legal, fair, and above-board fighting ways—I mean, in the open market.

Mr. Lawson appears before the bar of public opinion as a volunteer witness for the commonwealth—"state's evidence"—as the lawyers phrase it—and hence his reputation, his motives, his character, his every act, become at once fit subjects for the closest scrutiny and examination.

Whoever says that in telling my story I am revealing anything which it is not fair or just to tell, or that I have not a perfect right to state, says that which is false. I am confining myself to explaining how the "System" gets its money. I do not touch upon how it spends it. If in an honorable way I could write the things that have come to me confidentially, the "System" might well tremble. I confess that at times I have been tempted to depart from my code—when, for instance, soon after the first Donohoe chapter, a man came to me and showed that he had been offered $5,000 to vouch for the statement—which Denis Donohoe, H. H. Rogers's right-hand man, had printed, and the insurance companies had spread broadcast—that the first ten years of Thomas W. Lawson's business life were spent as an employee of Richard Canfield, the Providence and New York gambler, and afterward as his partner. "Give us an affidavit to that effect and we will pay you $5,000." To this man I said: "I have never in my life been connected with any gambling-place in any way, nor had to do with gambling in any form, and only once in my life have I set eyes on Richard Canfield. He was in the Waldorf Café one day when I was passing through. However, if I did know him I should not be ashamed to admit it, for I consider Canfield, from what I have read of him, an angel of purity comparedwith any one of a score of the 'System's' votaries I could name." The man left me, but soon after returned. He said: "It makes no difference whether what you say is true or not, I can now secure $10,000 for the affidavit." When this kind of fighting is brought to my attention, I am strongly tempted to let down the bars.

He relates, with all the graphic art of a novelist, a wellnigh incredible story. Chicanery, fraud, blackmail, bribery of a legislature and of a judge, systematic pillage of investors and of the American public.

The details I have narrated are facts, and I will prove them to be facts so all may know them.

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