I shall not estimate the vast sums it cost the Roebuck-Langdon clique
to maintain the prices of National Coal, and so give plausibility to
the fiction that the public was buying eagerly. In the third week of my
campaign, Melville was so deeply involved that he had to let the two others
take the whole burden upon themselves.
In the fourth week, Langdon came to me.
The interval between his card and himself gave me a chance to recover from
my amazement. When he entered he found me busily writing. Though I had
nerved myself, it was several seconds before I ventured to look at him.
There he stood, probably as handsome, as fascinating as ever, certainly as
self-assured. But I could now, beneath that manner I had once envied, see
the puny soul, with its brassy glitter of the vanity of luxury and show.
I had been somewhat afraid of myself--afraid the sight of him would stir
up in me a tempest of jealousy and hate; as I looked, I realized that
I did not know my own nature. “She does not love this man,” I thought.
“If she did or could, she would not be the woman I love. He deceived her
inexperience as he deceived mine.”
“What can I do for you?” said I to him politely, much as if he were a
stranger making an untimely interruption.
My look had disconcerted him; my tone threw him into confusion. “You keep
out of the way, now that you've become famous,” he began, with a halting
but heroic attempt at his customary easy superiority. “Are you living up in
Connecticut, too? Sam Ellersly tells me your wife is stopping there with
old Howard Forrester. Sam wants me to use my good offices in making it up
between you two and her family.”
I was completely taken aback by this cool ignoring of the real situation
between him and me. Impudence or ignorance?--I could not decide. It seemed
impossible that Anita had not told him; yet it seemed impossible, too, that
he would come to me if she had told him. “Have you any _business_ with
me?” said I.
His eyelids twitched nervously, and he adjusted his lips several times
before he was able to say:
“You and your wife don't care to make it up with the Ellerslys? I fancied
so, and told Sam you'd simply think me meddlesome. The other matter is the
Travelers Club. I've smoothed things out there. I'm going to put you up and
rush you through.”
“No, thanks,” said I. It seemed incredible to me that I had ever cared
about that club and the things it represented, as I could remember I
undoubtedly did care. It was like looking at an outgrown toy and trying
to feel again the emotions it once excited.
“I assure you, Matt, there won't be the slightest difficulty.” His manner
was that of a man playing the trump card in a desperate game--he feels it
can not lose, yet the stake is so big that he can not but be a little
nervous.
“I do not care to join the Travelers Club,” said I, rising. “I must ask you
to excuse me. I am exceedingly busy.”
A flush appeared in his cheeks and deepened and spread until his whole body
must have been afire. He seated himself. “You know what I've come for,” he
said sullenly, and humbly, too.
All his life he had been enthroned upon his wealth. Without realizing it,
he had claimed and had received deference solely because he was rich. He
had thought himself, in his own person, most superior; now, he found that
like a silly child he had been standing on a chair and crying: “See how
tall I am.” And the airs, the cynicism, the graceful condescension, which
had been so becoming to him, were now as out of place as crown and robes on
a king taking a swimming lesson.
“What are your terms, Blacklock? Don't be too hard on an old friend,” said
he, trying to carry off his frank plea for mercy with a smile.
I should have thought he would cut his throat and jump off the Battery wall
before he would get on his knees to any man for any reason. And he was
doing it for mere money--to try to save, not his fortune, but only an
imperiled part of it. “If Anita could see him now!” I thought.
To him I said, the more coldly because I did not wish to add to his
humiliation by showing him that I pitied him: “I can only repeat, Mr.
Langdon, you will have to excuse me. I have given you all the time I can
spare.”
His eyes were shifting and his hands trembling as he said: “I will transfer
control of the Coal combine to you.”
His tones, shameful as the offer they carried, made me ashamed for him.
For money--just for money! And I had thought him a man. If he had been a
self-deceiving hypocrite like Roebuck, or a frank believer in the right of
might, like Updegraff, I might possibly, in the circumstances, have tried
to release him from my net. But he had never for an instant deceived
himself as to the real nature of the enterprises he plotted, promoted and
profited by; he thought it “smart” to be bad, and he delighted in making
the most cynical epigrams on the black deeds of himself and his associates.
“Better sell out to Roebuck,” I suggested. “I control all the Coal stock I
need.”
“I don't care to have anything further to do with Roebuck,” Langdon
answered. “I've broken with him.”
“When a man lies to me,” said I, “he gives me the chance to see just how
much of a fool he thinks I am, and also the chance to see just how much of
a fool he is. I hesitate to think so poorly of you as your attempt to fool
me seems to compel.”
But he was unconvinced. “I've found he intends to abandon the ship and
leave me to go down with it,” he persisted. “He believes he can escape and
denounce me as the arch rascal who planned the combine, and can convince
people that I foozled him into it.”
Ingenious; but I happened to know that it was false. “Pardon me, Mr.
Langdon,” said I with stiff courtesy. “I repeat, I can do nothing for you.
Good morning.” And I went at my work as if he were already gone.
Had I been vindictive, I would have led him on to humiliate himself more
deeply, if greater depths of humiliation there are than those to which
he voluntarily descended. But I wished to spare him; I let him see the
uselessness of his mission. He looked at me in silence--the look of hate
that can come only from a creature weak as well as wicked. I think it
was all his keen sense of humor could do to save him from a melodramatic
outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without
another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the
loss of which would not impair his fortune--plunder he had stolen with many
a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our debonair dollar
chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game was with him.
That afternoon he threw his Coal holdings on the market in great blocks.
His treachery took Roebuck completely by surprise--for Roebuck believed in
this fair-weather “gentleman,” foul-weather coward, and neglected to allow
for that quicksand that is always under the foundation of the man who has
inherited, not earned, his wealth. But for the blundering credulity of
rascals, would honest men ever get their dues? Roebuck's brokers had bought
many thousands of Langdon's shares at the high artificial price before
Roebuck grasped the situation--that it was not my followers recklessly
gambling to break the prices, but Langdon unloading on his “pal.” As soon
as he saw, he abruptly withdrew from the market. When the Stock Exchange
closed, National Coal securities were offered at prices ranging from eleven
for the bonds to two for the common and three for the preferred--offered,
and no takers.
“Well, you've done it,” said Joe, coming with the news that Thornley, of
the Discount and Deposit Bank, had been appointed receiver.
“I've made a beginning,” replied I. And the last sentence of my next
morning's “letter” was:
“To-morrow the first chapter of the History of the Industrial National
Bank.”
* * * * *
“I have felt for two years,” said Roebuck to Schilling, who repeated it to
me soon afterward, “that Blacklock was about the most dangerous fellow in
the country. The first time I set eyes on him, I saw he was a born
iconoclast. And I've known for a year that some day he would use that
engine of publicity of his to cannonade the foundations of society.”
“He knew me better than I knew myself,” was my comment to Schilling. And I
meant it--for I had not finished the demolition of the Coal combine when I
began to realize that, whatever I might have thought of my own ambitions,
I could never have tamed myself or been tamed into a devotee of dollars
and of respectability. I simply had been keeping quiet until my tools were
sharp and fate spun my opportunity within reach. But I must, in fairness,
add, it was lucky for me that, when the hour struck, Roebuck was not twenty
years younger and one-twentieth as rich. It's a heavy enough handicap,
under the best of circumstances, to go to war burdened with years; add the
burden of a monster fortune, and it isn't in human nature to fight well.
Youth and a light knapsack!
But--to my fight on the big bank.
Until I opened fire, the public thought, in a general way, that a bank was
an institution like Thornley's Discount and Deposit National--a place for
the safe-keeping of money and for accommodating business men with loans to
be used in carrying on and extending legitimate and useful enterprises. And
there were many such banks. But the real object of the banking business,
as exploited by the big bandits who controlled it and all industry, was
to draw into a mass the money of the country that they might use it to
manipulate the markets, to wreck and reorganize industries and wreck them
again, to work off inflated bonds and stocks upon the public at inflated
prices, to fight among themselves for rights to despoil, making the people
pay the war budgets--in a word, to finance the thousand and one schemes
whereby they and their friends and relatives, who neither produce nor help
to produce, appropriate the bulk of all that is produced.
And before I finished with the National Industrial Bank, I had shown that
it and several similar institutions in the big cities throughout the
country were, in fact, so many dens to which rich and poor were lured for
spoliation. I then took up the Universal Life, as a type. I showed how
insuring was, with the companies controlled by the bandits, simply the
decoy; that the real object was the same as the real object of the big
bandit banks. When I had finished my series on the Universal Life I had
named and pilloried Roebuck, Langdon, Melville, Wainwright, Updegraff, Van
Steen, Epstein--the seven men of enormous wealth, leaders of the seven
cliques that had the political and industrial United States at their mercy,
and were plucking the people through an ever-increasing army of agents.
The agents kept some of the feathers--“The Seven” could afford to pay
liberally. But the bulk of the feather crop was passed on to “The Seven.”
I shall answer in a paragraph the principal charges that were made against
me. They say I bribed employees on the telegraph companies, and so got
possession of incriminating telegrams that had been sent by “The Seven” in
the course of their worst campaigns. I admit the charge. They say I bribed
some of their confidential men to give me transcripts and photographs
of secret ledgers and reports. I admit the charge. They say I bought
translations of stenographic notes taken by eavesdroppers on certain
important secret meetings. I admit the charge. But what was the chief
element in my success in thus getting proofs of their crimes? Not the
bribery, but the hatred that all the servants of such men have for them. I
tempted no one to betray them. _Every item, of information I got was
offered to me_. And I shall add these facts:
First, in not a single case did they suspect and discharge the “guilty”
persons.
Second, I have to-day as good means of access to their secrets as I ever
had--and, if they discharged all who now serve them, I should be able soon
to reestablish my lines; men of their stripe can not hope to be served
faithfully.
Third, I had offers from all but three of “The Seven” to “peach” on the
others in return for immunity. There may be honor among some thieves, but
not among “respectable” thieves. Hypocrisy and honor will be found in the
same character when the sun shines at night--not before.
* * * * *
It was the sardonic humor of fate that Langdon, for all his desire to keep
out of my way, should have compelled me to center my fire upon him; that I,
who wished to spare him, if possible, should have been compelled to make of
him my first “awful example.”
I had decided to concentrate upon Roebuck, because he was the richest and
most powerful of “The Seven.” For, in my pictures of the three main phases
of “finance”--the industrial, the life-insurance and the banking--he, as
arch plotter in every kind of respectable skulduggery, was necessarily in
the foreground. My original intention was to demolish the Power Trust--or,
at least, to compel him to buy back all of its stock which he had worked
off on the public. I had collected many interesting facts about it, facts
typical of the conditions that “finance” has established in so many of our
industries.
For instance, I was prepared to show that the actual earnings of the Power
Trust were two and a half times what its reports to stock-holders alleged;
that the concealed profits were diverted into the pockets of Roebuck, his
sons, eleven other relatives and four of “The Seven,” the lion's share
going, of course, to the lion. Like almost all the great industrial
enterprises, too strong for the law and too remote for the supervision
of their stock-holders, it gathered in enormous revenues to disburse
them chiefly in salaries and commissions and rake-offs on contracts to
favorites. I had proof that in one year it had “written off” twelve
millions of profit and loss, ten millions of which had found its way to
Roebuck's pocket. That pocket! That “treasury of the Lord”!
Dishonest? Roebuck and most of the other leaders of the various gangs,
comprising, with all their ramifications, the principal figures in
religious, philanthropic, fashionable society, did not for an instant
think their doings dishonest. They had no sense of trusteeship for this
money intrusted to them as captains of industry bankers, life-insurance
directors. They felt that it was theirs to do with as they pleased.
And they felt that their superiority in rank and in brains entitled them
to whatever remuneration they could assign to themselves without rousing
the wrath of a public too envious to admit the just claims of the “upper
classes.” They convinced themselves that without them crops would cease
to grow, sellers and buyers would be unable to find their way to market,
barbarism would spread its rank and choking weeds over the whole garden of
civilization. And, so brainless is the parrot public, they have succeeded
in creating a very widespread conviction that their own high opinion of
their services is not too high, and that some dire calamity would come if
they were swept from between producer and consumer! True, thieves are found
only where there is property; but who but a chucklebrain would think the
thieves made the property?
Roebuck was the keystone of the arch that sustained the structure of
chicane. To dislodge him was the direct way to collapse it. I was about to
set to work when Langdon, feeling that he ought to have a large supply of
cash in the troublous times I was creating, increased the capital stock
of his already enormously overcapitalized Textile Trust and offered the
new issue to the public. As the Textile Trust was even better bulwarked,
politically, than the Power Trust, it was easily able to declare tempting
dividends out of its lootings. So the new stock could not be attacked in
the one way that would make the public instantly shun it--I could not
truthfully charge that it would not pay the promised dividends. Yet attack
I must--for that issue was, in effect, a bold challenge of my charges
against “The Seven.” From all parts of the country inquiries poured in upon
me: “What do you think of the new Textile issue? Shall we invest? Is the
Textile Company sound?”
I had no choice. I must turn aside from Roebuck; I must first show that,
while Textile was, in a sense, sound just at that time, it had been
unsound, and would be unsound again as soon as Langdon had gathered in
a sufficient number of lambs to make a battue worth the while of a man
dealing in nothing less than seven figures. I proceeded to do so.
The market yielded slowly. Under my first day's attack Textile preferred
fell six points, Textile common three. While I was in the midst of
dictating my letter for the second day's attack, I suddenly came to a full
stop. I found across my way this thought: “Isn't it strange that Langdon,
after humbling himself to you, should make this bold challenge? It's a
trap!”
“No more at present,” said I, to my stenographer. “And don't write out what
I've already dictated.”
I shut myself in and busied myself at the telephone. Half an hour after I
set my secret machinery in motion, a messenger brought me an envelop, the
address type-written. It contained a sheet of paper on which appeared, in
type-writing; these words, and nothing more:
“He is heavily short of Textiles.”
It was indeed a trap. The new issue was a blind. He had challenged me to
attack his stock, and as soon as I did, he had begun secretly to sell it
for a fall. I worked at this new situation until midnight, trying to get
together the proofs. At that hour--for I could delay no longer, and my
proofs were not quite complete--I sent my newspapers two sentences:
“To-morrow I shall make a disclosure that will
send Textiles up. Do not sell Textiles!”
XXXIII. MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL.
Next day Langdon's stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a little,
closing at practically the same figures at which they had opened. Then I
sprang my sensation--that Langdon and his particular clique, though they
controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much as one-fiftieth of its
voting stock. True “captains of industry” that they were, they made their
profits not out of dividends, but out of side schemes that absorbed about
two-thirds of the earnings of the Trust, and out of gambling in its bonds
and stocks. I said in conclusion:
“The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago--an honest
man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the Textile Company
away from those now plundering it.”
As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon
and his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought
frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to
Chicago to reason with Edmunds--that is, to try to find out at what figure
he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully reporting to
the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The Langdon attempt to
regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and his allies made what
must have been to them appalling sacrifices; but even at the high prices
they offered, comparatively little of the stock appeared.
“I've caught them,” said I to Joe--the first time, and the last, during
that campaign that I indulged in a boast.
“If Edmunds sticks to you,” replied cautious Joe.
But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself. Probably
it was pitifully small; cupidity usually snatches the instant bait tickles
its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature got its severest
shock.
“You are down this morning,” said Thornley, when I looked in on him at his
bank. “I don't think I ever before saw you show that you were in low
spirits.”
“I've found out a man with whom I'd have trusted my life,” said I.
“Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I've tried to be an optimist like
you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or ninety-five per
cent. of the business couldn't be done on credit as it is.”
Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster. “That
proves nothing as to honesty,” said he. “It simply shows that men can
be counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The truth
is--and a fine truth, too--most men wish and try to be honest. Give 'em a
chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don't trust them. Trust--that's the
making of false friends and the filling of jails.”
“And palaces,” I added.
“And palaces,” assented he. “Every vast fortune is a monument to the
credulity of man. Instead of getting after these heavy-laden rascals,
Matthew, you'd better have turned your attention to the public that has
made rascals of them by leaving its property unguarded.”
Fortunately, Edmunds had held out, or, rather, Langdon had delayed
approaching him, long enough for me to gain my main point. The uproar
over the Textile Trust had become so great that the national Department
of Commerce dared not refuse an investigation; and I straightway began to
spread out in my daily letters the facts of the Trust's enormous earnings
and of the shameful sources of those earnings. Thanks to Langdon's
political pull, the president appointed as investigator one of those
rascals who carefully build themselves good reputations to enable them to
charge higher prices for dirty work. But, with my facts before the people,
whitewash was impossible.
I was expecting emissaries from Langdon, for I knew he must now be actually
in straits. Even the Universal Life didn't dare lend him money; and was
trying to call in the millions it had loaned him. But I was astounded when
my private door opened and Mrs. Langdon ushered herself in.
“Don't blame your boy, Mr. Blacklock,” cried she gaily, exasperatingly
confident that I was as delighted with her as she was with herself. “I told
him you were expecting me and didn't give him a chance to stop me.”
I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging
her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I
felt that my face was darkening--her very presence forced forward things I
had been keeping in the far background of my mind, “How can I be of service
to you, Madam?” said I.
“I bring you good news,” she replied--and I noted that she no longer looked
haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling with a certain
girlishness, like a young widow's when she finds her consolation. “Mowbray
and I have made it up,” she explained.