While it was immaterial so far as my specific charges went whether this

was so or not, it had a most decided bearing upon the question whether

the officers and controllers of the Big Three insurance companies were

honest or dishonest men. Therefore I picked up their accusation and

began a line of argument to prove they were tricksters and absolutely

devoid of honor.

I showed, by reproducing the personal letters of President McCall, of

the New York Life, to my office and to my house, reenforced by his

special agent's letter, and these reenforced by his Boston agent's

letter, that I had been continuously and urgently importuned to take

insurance during the time he said I was blacklisted. The insurance

people met this by the excuse that these were not personal letters, but

mere advertisements.

I then reproduced the million-dollar policy, hoping to drag from the Big

Three a specific charge that this, too, was an advertisement.

Of course, I did not pretend that the policy in question was in force,

that is, that I was insured in the Equitable Life Assurance Society for

one million dollars. This would have been too childish; first, because

every insurance policy, particularly the very large ones, is as much a

matter of record, to be got at by any one in the insurance business, as

are real-estate records; and, next, because that which I printed had the

signature punched out, which made it obvious that it was not in force.

My object was to lead the Equitable into the positive statement that it

was an ordinary advertisement, when I would have reproduced the

proposition that accompanied it and which the Equitable made in probably

the most elaborate set of documents ever assembled by an insurance

company for the purpose of inducing one of the "best risks" in America

to take out a "great big policy." These constitute the complete argument

which was made by the Equitable Life Assurance Society to persuade me to

take a million dollars' worth of insurance. They are engrossed upon

parchment and bound in a specially gotten-up morocco cover, and, I was

told, cost the insurance company between four and five hundred dollars.

They were presented to me as the result of my demanding that all the

inducements they offered to come into their company should be put down

on paper, so that there could be no mistaking them. The documents as

engrossed and the terms of the contract were carefully copyrighted by

the Equitable, and are now on my table before me as I write.

The question which the publication of the million-dollar policy was to

settle was whether or not I had been importuned to take out great sums

of insurance in the leading insurance company of America, and it proved

exactly what I had contended--that I had been so importuned.

Up to and including my April, 1905, instalment I have made specific

charges against the great insurance companies, the Mutual, the New York

Life, and the Equitable:

1st. That the control of the officers of these great corporations over

the billion dollars of their policy-holders' funds is as absolute and

unrestricted for all practical purposes, as is their control of their

own personal affairs, and is largely exercised for their personal

enrichment.

2d. That the policy-holders have absolutely no voice in the management

of these companies or the control of their funds, because of the

manipulation of proxies in the New York Life and the Mutual and the

control of the stock of the Equitable.

3d. That those who do control the big companies are votaries of the

"System," and as such are subject to the "System's" orders as absolutely

as is James Stillman, president of the "Standard Oil" National City

Bank.

4th. That the insiders of these insurance companies, not one but several

of them, have accumulated fortunes in the past few years, of from one to

twenty millions, while at the same time premium-rates have advanced and

dividends decreased.

5th. That under the present methods of conducting these great companies

it is as inevitable as it was in the case of 520-per-cent. Miller or

Mrs. Howe's Woman's Bank, that as soon as they can get no more

insurance, the funds behind the old insurance will be dissipated and a

crash take place such as the world has never known before.

6th. That the companies are "milked" in every direction, through the

purchase and sale of real estate, through the loaning of their millions,

and through the manipulation and investment of their funds.

7th. That they acquire new business at an expense and by methods which

alone will in time wreck the companies.

8th. That in a single instance the New York Life sold securities for

$5,839,087, but its statement under oath to the State Insurance

Departments showed receipts of only $3,075,392.

9th. That the New York Life sold the stock of the New York Security &

Trust Company, which it held, to its insiders for over $4,000,000 less

then they could have secured for it from others.

I have specifically charged other things, and will, as my story

proceeds, make many more specific charges of as serious a nature; but

the above suffice for my present argument, which is, that up to and

including the April number I have made these accusations and that the

only way they have been met is by underhand mud-slinging and by alleging

that the incentive for my attack was that I could not secure insurance

from any of the American companies; and I have met this with absolute

proof, which must stand until it is disproved, that I have been during

the past ten years importuned and urged by the large insurance companies

of America to take out insurance.

Therefore I will leave the question of this million-dollar policy and

other forms of importuning until the insurance companies offer something

in rebuttal.

THE WAY OUT

The overhauling of the Equitable Life exposed conditions far worse than

I had indicated to the public, and it seemed probable that the usual

whitewashing process would be utilized to conceal the guilt of the

rapacious criminals who had been untrue to the most sacred trust that

can be imposed on man. Since that time, however, the Governor of the

State of New York has appointed a committee to investigate the affairs

of the Big Three corporations, and the resulting disclosures are the

sensation of the hour as this book goes to press. In order to protect

the interests of policy-holders, in case the authorities declined to

act, I issued the following address in the July, 1905, number of

_Everybody's_:

TO THE POLICY-HOLDERS OF THE NEW YORK LIFE, MUTUAL, AND EQUITABLE

INSURANCE COMPANIES

The time has come for you to act. When, less than a year ago, I began my

story, "Frenzied Finance," I exposed the function of the three great

life-insurance companies in the structure of the "System." I explained

that they were controlled in the interests of great financiers and that

their funds were juggled with to compass the huge plundering operations

of Wall Street. At that time the New York Life, the Equitable, and the

Mutual Life loomed before the American people as the greatest, most

respected, and most venerable institutions in our broad land. To-day

they stand for all that is tricky, fraudulent, and oppressive.

A great change to have been accomplished in less than twelve months!

My readers are by this time familiar with the condition of affairs in

the Equitable. The greed, juggling, and grafting practised by its

officers and controllers have been fully exposed through the press. I

hope none of those who have followed the terrific arraignment of

rottenness and rascality made through the Frick report are so foolish as

to imagine that the evils described are confined to the Equitable. In my

own opinion the Equitable is much less reprehensible than the New York

Life, and when that institution and the Mutual are thoroughly shaken up,

as they will be in the future, indubitable evidence of the same fashion

of extravagance, trickery, and fraud will be found in plenty. Conditions

in the three institutions are the same; though of late the New York Life

has altered the character of most of its securities. Each has piled up

an immense surplus which has been used through allied trust companies

for stock juggling; each has paid extravagant commissions to agents; the

funds of each have been managed to afford to high officials plentiful

opportunities of graft; each has its real estate, fire insurance, low

rent and loan favor graft; in each will be found the same type of

syndicates as President Alexander and Vice-President Hyde used for their

personal enrichment in the Equitable. To-day President John A. McCall of

the New York Life is credited with possessing a fortune of between ten

and fifteen millions--a few brief years ago he was State Superintendent

of Insurance in Albany. The chief associate in the management of the

same corporation, George W. Perkins, J. Pierpont Morgan's partner, is

another very rich man, whose wealth has been accumulated in a few short

years. Do you imagine for a moment that such transactions as I set forth

last year in connection with the New York Security and Trust Company, in

which the interest of the New York Life was sold to a syndicate of its

own directors for a sum far below the market value of the shares, were

put through without the connivance of President McCall and

Vice-President Perkins? Even if the New York Life, as its president

explains, did make a large profit on the sale of the trust company's

stock, he cannot deny that the syndicate paid far less than the then

market value of the shares for the insurance company's holdings.

There is something particularly vile about the crimes of these high

officials and distinguished gentlemen who have been waxing fat and

luxurious on life-insurance graft. In a recent number of this magazine I

drew a parallel between the confidence operator and the burglar to show

that the latter despises the former for a sneak thief who takes no

chances in his thieving operations. Infinitely more depraved than the

sneak thief is the high-placed functionary, presiding over a great

institution built up out of the savings of millions of people, paid an

immense salary for his important services, trusted with vast funds

because of his reputation for integrity and business sagacity--who yet

uses his splendid place to line his own pocket. Of all fiduciary

institutions, life insurance should be the most sacred. Its chief

function is to care for the widow, the orphan, and the helpless. The

millions of revenue paid annually into the life-insurance companies of

this country represent the blood and tears and sweat of millions of

Americans who thus provide for the care of their dear ones for the time

when death shall have put an end to their own income-earning abilities.

The administrator of a trust so solemn and exalted should devote himself

to its safeguarding as a priest dedicates himself to the service of his

Maker. The responsibility conferred on him is the highest and holiest

man can repose in his fellow-man. Remembering all this, consider again

the revelations of greed and plunder in the Equitable; consider that

millions upon millions of dollars have been filched and wasted; analyze

the Frick report and the letter of President Alexander to the directors

of the society, calling for Vice-President Hyde's removal from office.

Think, ye farmers and laborers, of personal traveling expenses of

$75,000 in a brief period, of salaries of $100,000 annually paid for a

few hours of work per day; think of vast sums of your money used to

provide expensive safe-deposit institutions with low-priced quarters so

that the personal income of men already multimillionaires may wax still

greater. Think of the great institution to whose hundreds of millions'

income you contribute your hard-earned dollars, being farmed, milked,

and squeezed by a pack of dissolute and greedy schemers and robbers more

conscienceless and oppressive than any band of thugs in the country.

When I began to discuss in _Everybody's Magazine_ the subject of the

three great life-insurance companies, I stated that there is actually

nothing between the two million-odd policy-holders and the possibility

of their being robbed of the billions of dollars of their accumulated

savings but the devotion and the honesty of the men who are in control

of these institutions.

You know what happened when I said this to you the first time--less than

a year ago. The officers, trustees, and hirelings of these great

companies laughed to scorn my statements and called me a liar and a

scoundrel. They drew the attention of the whole world to the standing

and wealth and honesty of the men who managed these great corporations,

and proved by the most positive asseverations that nothing could be more

preposterous than that any one of them could do wrong. But the great

God, who seldom allows His children to remain long deceived to their

undoing, heard these loud-mouthed protestations, and to-day the world is

listening to exposures of low, mean thefts and contemptible crimes far

worse than any to which I had pointed.

And from whom comes the proof of the treacheries and rascalities

perpetrated within the Equitable? From the men who control and manage

this great institution and its hundreds of millions of accumulations.

When my accusations first appeared, these men saw the handwriting on the

wall and some of them, bolder than others, determined to seize these

vast hoards of the public's money and at the same time get possession of

all evidence of past crimes so that they might be immune forever after

from punishment and the necessity of making restitution. In the act of

grabbing, however, the robbers fell out with one another, and, presto!

they are in the public square where all men, women, and children, cats,

dogs, and asses may see and hear as they gouge, bite, and accuse each

other of the vilest crimes.

These are the men in whose custody even now are the accumulations on

which you, Mr. Policy-holder, are depending to take care of your wife

and little ones, should you die. On the honor and responsibility of men

who in the past five years have "saved" out of salaries of $20,000 to

$100,000, private fortunes of millions, you must absolutely rely for the

safety of the billions of dollars of your savings. The future of the

helpless beings whom your hard daily labors provide with a livelihood is

in the hands of men who admit having expended $100,000 of your money to

provide a lordly and regal entertainment for a set of extravagantly paid

agents and solicitors who, spurred on by prodigal inducements, have

piled up huge amounts of new business on the company's books. I have

explained to you before what such business is worth, that the agent gets

so large a commission that he is practically in a position to accept

risks at far below their cost to the company, and that such business as

this is seldom renewed. The same men have been paying personal

secretaries, gardeners, and flunkies out of your earnings; they have

been feasting and traveling in private cars with large parties of the

New York flubstocracy at your expense; every possible extravagance they

have been guilty of by means of the revenues some of you have worked

fourteen to eighteen hours a day to gather in. Shame, I say, on such

contemptible thievery.

I cannot resist the temptation to pull back the slide from one episode

of the past. When my strictures on the three great life-insurance

companies first appeared, one of the vice-presidents of the Equitable,

Gage E. Tarbell, in writing to an inquiring policy-holder, said: "Pay no

attention to Lawson; he is only a reckless stock gambler, and every

sensible person knows that any man, no matter what his position might

be, who would do anything to cause loss to the class of people we

insure, must be a rascal." And this is the same man Tarbell, it is now

admitted by all the Equitable officers and investigating committees,

who, as soon as he saw the crisis coming in the affairs of the

Equitable, had his pal, President Alexander, pay to him $135,000, which

he claimed was due him for commission renewals, even though he was then

in receipt of a salary of $60,000 per annum for his services. It is

through the operations of this same Tarbell that the vast system of

rebates, one of the chief evils of the present system of life insurance,

came into being, and through his prodigality that the immense sum of

$2,000,000 stands on the books of the company, representing advance

commissions to the pampered agents.

The time has come for all you policy-holders to act, and there is but

one way to act.

A thousand and one schemes are afloat to confuse and trick you at this

period. The cry is--anything to hush things, to confine the fire to the

Equitable, at any cost, even though it totally consumes the $400,000,000

of the people's savings in that institution. I told you at the beginning

that the New York Life was worse, if anything, than the Equitable, and

the Mutual Life just as bad. Therefore I unqualifiedly advise

policy-holders to:

1. Pay up this year's premium--it will be the last to these plunderers.

2. Have nothing to do with any committee or scheme.

3. Write me, at once, your name, address, and the amount and character

of your policy. I want nothing more from you, and under no consideration

will I divulge your name without your further consent in writing.

I already have the names of thousands of policy-holders, but to make my

plan instantly effective I must have scores of thousands.

My plan has for its aim and end, this and only this:

The absolute preservation of the face value of your policy.

The reduction of future premium payments to forty cents on the dollar on

what you now pay.

The restitution of millions upon millions looted from the three great

companies, or as much as can be collected after a careful examination of

the books--and the punishment of the thieves.

Bear in mind _that I will not have any money connection with you in the

working out of my plan. I pay my own expenses. I will not ask any reward

or profit, money, office, or otherwise, nor will I under any

circumstances accept any._

[Illustration: Policy-holders reply coupon.]

In response to this appeal I received over sixteen thousand proxies,

representing over fifty-four millions of insurance. The investigations

made by the legislative committee of the State of New York are

unearthing in a most thorough manner the iniquities of the directors and

managers of the Big Three, and before proceeding further I shall await

the results of its work. If there is any way short of criminal

proceedings to compel the restitution of the millions diverted or stolen

from policy-holders, I shall begin suits which I am satisfied can be

fought to a successful conclusion.

THE CALL TO ARMS

The extraordinary disclosures made before the investigating committee of

the New York Legislature, which is now conducting inquiries into the

methods of the great insurance companies, led me finally to issue the

following open letter to John A. McCall, in which I review the

controversy between us and contrast his disclosures of corruption and

mismanagement with his brazen professions of virtue and probity made

last year. In order to wrest the two great mutual companies from the

control of men who are obviously unworthy to direct them and with whom

the policy-holders' funds are plainly unsafe, I asked for proxies which

would make it possible for me to bring about a change in the control of

these two great corporations.

This letter and call appeared in the November, 1905, issue of

_Everybody's Magazine_.

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

COMPANY

_Sir_: It is time your attention was called to the moral sense of the

American people. It is time some one dragged you out of the Wall Street

conservatory and set you in the plain white light of daily life. It is

time you were shown yourself as you are to-day seen by the millions of

your countrymen who, a month ago, believed you to be a great and

honorable man.

In spite of the terrible exposures of the past few weeks, in spite of

the pitiless revealment of yourself and your directors as tricksters,

in spite of the unveiling of the jugglery, grafting, and corruption of

your administration of the most sacred trust that can be confided to

man, you remain unconvinced of your fall and unpenetrated by your shame.

Fortified by the sympathy of your fellow-sinners, you imagine your

audacious bluster and your sly evasions before the Investigating

Committee of the State of New York represented shrewd generalship and

able strategy, forgetting that the enemy against whom your manoeuvres

were directed was the American people and that, in this inquisition,

your character and reputation were as absolutely before the bar as

though you had been indicted for sequestration of the funds of some dead

friend's wife.

Throughout this broad country of ours are good Americans who have slaved

and toiled to gather up the hundreds of dollars which you have exacted

from them yearly as the price of the future livelihood of their wives

and children, or as the provision for their own old age. You have made

yourself the custodian of these funds under sacred pledge of square

dealing and safe and honest administration. You have made yourself the

national executor, the great depositary of the moneys of the widow and

the orphan. You have cried your virtue and honorableness from the

housetops, and, under the stress of your pleadings, hundreds of millions

of dollars have been confided to you annually--half the savings of the

nation have been turned into your coffers, all because you insisted that

you were honest beyond all other men, and that the dear ones left behind

might rely on your generosity and integrity for their support.

And it is with the moneys that might at any time have been claimed by

these widows and orphans that you have been rigging syndicates,

debauching legislatures, juggling judges, manipulating stock-markets,

and doing other things which will be proven later. Instead of employing

the vast power and the immense wealth intrusted to you to conserve the

interests of your policy-holders, you have made yourself a part of the

cruel robbing machine which the "System" has created to deprive the

American people of their savings. Under the pretence of seeking

profitable investment, your corporation has been perverted into a vast

stock-gambling agency. You have filled the high places in your

corporation with your own children and relatives and their relatives,

and conferred on them great salaries out of which they have grown rich.

You have paid out to friends and associates, on various pleas, millions

that rightly belonged to your policy-holders. You have done all these

things habitually, yet to-day you describe the investigation being

conducted into your operations as an impertinence, and secretly you

regard this inquisition and all that pertains to it as a waste of time

and energy. You are unrepentant, unashamed, and defiant.

I shall take this opportunity, sir, of reviewing our own relations

during the past year and contrasting your position to-day with that you

boasted twelve months ago.

One year ago, in _Everybody's Magazine_, I said:

"The officers, trustees, and officials of the 'Big Three' life-insurance

companies have been and are systematically robbing their policy-holders.

They are grafters--mean, contemptible grafters."

I gave specific instances of their thieveries.

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

Circulating throughout the world documents by the millions, disparaging

my reputation by advertisements and "news" and "editorial" statements

from your subsidized insurance press, denying my charges and attacking

my character, all at the expense of your policy-holders.

You libelled me in thousands of private letters to policy-holders, many

of which came back to me.

You employed James M. Beck, ex-Assistant Attorney-General of the United

States, then and now chief attorney for Henry H. Rogers, the Standard

Oil Company, the "System," and the Mutual Life Insurance Company, to

ridicule my utterances and asperse my honor in addresses in the cities

of Philadelphia and Boston.

You employed James H. Eckels, ex-Comptroller of the Currency of the

United States, now president of the Commercial Bank and representative

of the "System" in the West, to attack my arguments and distort my

motives in Chicago.

You ordered Vice-President Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance

Company, to perform similar service in Philadelphia; and

The burden of all these documents, advertisements, and disguised

advertisements and addresses was: "Lawson is an unmitigated liar and

scoundrel, whose sole reason for attacking the insurance companies is

that we refused him insurance."

I replied by printing your personal letter to me, wherein you importuned

me to accept insurance in your company.

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

I replied to you and your followers by instancing cases of perjury,

bribery, and false statements.

I stated that your claim that your company did not own, nor loan upon,

stocks was false, and that it was made for the purpose of misleading and

imposing upon your policy-holders, banks, trust companies, Government

officials, and investors.

You answered this by writing a letter to one of the great churchmen of

America, and in it you said: "I pledge you my word of honor this company

has never, since 1899, had a dollar's interest, directly or indirectly,

in any stock. Lawson knows this, and deliberately, for his own base

purposes, makes charges to the contrary which he knows to be false."

To-day you and your fellow-plunderers stand convicted in the eyes of the

whole world not only of juggling the moneys of the widow and the orphan

in the stock-market, but of manipulating these trust funds for the

benefit of your own pockets. To-day the world is aghast at your perfidy

and amazed at your temerity.

Notwithstanding the turpitude already exposed to the people, you still

imagine you can so conduct yourself as to prevent the investigators from

fastening on you and your associates the more desperate crimes that have

been committed in the past--the 150 to 200 millions stolen and diverted

or used in corruption. You know as I do that only the very edges of this

national cesspool have yet been uncovered. You know that not only have

the ballot-box and the Legislature at Albany been tampered with, but

the law-making and administering machinery of other States corrupted,

the Federal Government surrounded, and certain of the judiciary of

America "educated."

You believe you can keep the evidence of these crimes from the American

people by the same kind of bluff and effrontery with which you met my

first charges. But you have mistaken the tempers of your countrymen.

I have been authorized in writing by over 16,000 policy-holders,

carrying over fifty-four millions of insurance, to act for them.

I had intended to await the finish of the New York investigation before

proceeding, but as I have had placed in my hands during the past few

days evidences of the determination of yourself and your accomplices and

fellow-conspirators to face it out regardless of consequences, and as I

believe men capable of committing the acts that have been proved during

the past few days are fully capable of taking the transportable part of

the billion and a quarter funds to foreign countries, and of using them

to keep themselves from their justly deserved punishments, I have

decided to act now.

In sending you this open letter, I am actuated only by a desire to bring

you and your associates to such a sense of the seriousness of your

position that you will see it is useless longer to attempt to defy the

American people.

Yours, for the Exposure of Corporation Sneak Thieves,

THOMAS W. LAWSON.

TO LIFE-INSURANCE POLICY-HOLDERS

At the beginning of my story, in 1904, I made certain accusations

against the management of the three big life-insurance companies.

I knew, when I began my story, that the big life-insurance companies

were in the hands of grafters and thieves, just as are the great banks,

trust companies, railroad companies, and big corporations and trusts.

_This I knew_ and, in plain language, said it.

The big insurance companies, through their officers and trustees,

replied by declaring: "He's an unmitigated liar."

I kept at my knitting, for I knew the crimes of these insurance grafters

were such that, sooner or later, the world would have an opportunity to

judge fairly who were the unmitigated liars and thieves.

The opportunity is at hand.

To-day the press of the world is devoting its space, news and editorial,

to a recital of the contemptible and heinous crimes of the New York Life

and the Mutual Life Insurance companies--not as I relate them, but as

their own officers and trustees publicly confess them.

In the July instalment of my story I called upon policy-holders to sign

a coupon blank inserted in _Everybody's Magazine_, and send same to me

that I might speak for them in a plan to further their interests.

In response to my call I have received up to October 4, 1905, 16,307

answers, representing $55,165,916.

I think my readers, when they analyze the following list and take into

consideration the character of the senders, many of whom are men of the

highest standing--bishops, ministers, governors, mayors, judges,

senators, members of Congress, railroad, bank, and trust company

presidents--will agree with me that it is the most remarkable collection

ever made by one interest since life insurance began.

INSURANCE COUPONS

_Received from June 20th to October 4, 1905_

New York Life $18,845,410

Equitable 17,317,956

Mutual 14,550,240

Miscellaneous 4,452,310

-----------

$55,165,916

Alabama 22 Montana 130

Arizona 127 Nebraska 236

Arkansas 124 Nevada 28

California 842 New Hampshire 73

Colorado 211 New Jersey 282

Connecticut 177 New Mexico 40

Delaware 43 New York 1,780

District of Columbia 152 North Carolina 466

Florida 230 North Dakota 143

Georgia 169 Ohio 985

Idaho 150 Oklahoma 154

Illinois 1,012 Oregon 93

Indiana 415 Pennsylvania 1,133

Indian Territory 130 Rhode Island 67

Iowa 560 South Carolina 81

Kansas 316 South Dakota 104

Kentucky 153 Tennessee 157

Louisiana 197 Texas 580

Maine 144 Utah 68

Maryland 126 Vermont 57

Massachusetts 843 Virginia 242

Michigan 406 Washington 417

Minnesota 574 West Virginia 205

Mississippi 173 Wisconsin 318

Missouri 499 Wyoming 36

Alaska 27 Corea 1

Argentina 1 Mexico 71

Bermuda 1 Newfoundland 4

Canada 344 New Zealand 1

Chili 1 Panama 2

China 1 Philippines 16

Colombia 1 Porto Rico 5

Costa Rica 1 Santo Domingo 7

Cuba 4 Straits Settlements 1

England 9 Sweden 1

France 4 Trinidad 2

Hawaii 35 Uruguay 2

Honduras 2 Yukon Territory 4

Japan 4 ------

Grand total 16,307

As soon as I received a number of signatures sufficiently large to

warrant it, I quietly began operations.

The first direct result is the investigation now being held. This

investigation has proceeded far enough to put before the public absolute

proof of all the crimes I have charged, and three to thirty times as

many more.

It is now evident to all that:

1st. The policy-holders in the great companies have yearly paid into

their company scores of millions more than necessary.

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

3d. The vast funds now on hand have been habitually used by the grafters

now in control of them in the rankest kind of stock-gambling.

4th. These funds have been used to corrupt the ballot-box and the

law-makers of the country.

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

It should now be evident to all that:

1st. The funds now on hand are in actual jeopardy, because they are in

the absolute control of unprincipled scoundrels.

2d. Unless something is done, and done at once, by the policy-holders,

each and every one of the largest companies may become insolvent; that

is, they may not be able to meet the engagements of their policies,

because of waste of funds, tremendous falling off of new business,

tremendous cost of new business, and the nature of the new

business--so-called "graveyard business"; for I am credibly informed

that they are now seeking to insure those who formerly have been refused

insurance because of physical infirmities.

It should also be plainly evident that, if the policy-holders move, and

move quickly, they can be absolutely assured that:

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

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

$150,000,000.

3d. A score of the thieves who have plundered policy-holders in the past

will be sent to prison.

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

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

policy-holders.

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

7th. All policy-holders can be assured that in the future they will

receive the actual worth of their policy at surrender.

All this being so, it is most eminently desirable for policy-holders to

act, and at once.

The time will never again be so opportune, for if nothing definite is

done now, policy-holders will be discouraged for all time.

I have given the subject the closest and most earnest study, assisted by

the best insurance experts and lawyers procurable, and guided by the

suggestions of over 100,000 policy-holders, for in addition to the

16,000 mentioned, I have received over 90,000 letters. I have come to

the conclusion that the one thing for policy-holders to do now is:

To authorize some one in whom they have confidence to select a committee

to take their proxies and at once seize possession of the two great

mutual companies, the New York Life and the Mutual.

I omit the Equitable at this stage, because litigation may be necessary

before the Equitable, being a stock company, can come into the

policy-holders' hands. But in the other two, no obstacles can be placed

in the way of the policy-holders' taking control.

To empower this committee to bring action at once to compel full

restitution and enforce full punishment, and then to change the present

method of conducting the insurance business.

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

The "Big Three" are at present spending vast sums of the policy-holders'

money to prevent some such action as this, in the following ways:

First, by moulding public opinion through paid news and editorial items;

next, by the collection of proxies; and third, by the inauguration of

different moves and dummy suits and investigations.

There are already three of these affairs under way. Almost any way the

policy-holders turn for relief they are confronted with traps which, if

they fall into them, will make relief and rescue impossible.

Any man or body of men who go to the great expense necessary to collect

proxies must have some hidden scheme for reimbursing themselves, or they

must be working in the interests of the thieves now in control.

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

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

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

money.

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

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

4th. I will absolutely prove on the face of my plans that I cannot in

any way benefit beyond the satisfaction I shall derive from putting

another spike in the "System's" coffin.

I ask of the policy-holders simply this:

Fill out the following form of proxy; sign and seal it, and send it to

me. Quick action is most desirable in view of contingencies.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] In the course of the legislative investigation of the great insurance

companies in New York, it developed that the Mutual Life Insurance Company

conducts a publicity bureau, organized to discredit any one who dares

criticise its methods. This bureau is conducted by one Charles J. Smith, on

a salary of $8,000 per annum, and he works through Allan Forman, editor of

the _Journalist_. Forman maintains a "telegraphic news bureau" and secures

publication in various newspapers or periodicals of matter sent him for

dissemination by the Mutual Life, and he is paid $1.00 per line of the

policy-holders' money on all matter for which he obtains publicity. The

whitewash paragraphs recently published throughout the country in regard to

President McCurdy and the Mutual Life were all paid for on this basis.

II

THE ENEMIES I HAVE MADE

When a man discovers that a public building full of men, women, and

children is infested with rats and that these vicious rodents have

undermined its foundations and honeycombed its structure, it becomes his

duty, first, to warn the occupants of the presence of the rats, next, to

show them the damage that has been wrought and how the rats can be

trapped and killed--and then he may take a hand in the rat-hunt himself.

That is about what I have been doing, and if proof were needed that the

"System" suffered under my exposure of its villainies, I should have it

in plenty in the showers of mud bullets it has fired at me. From scores

of quarters these volleys came. A regular army of the "System's"

votaries must have been out working like Trojans to stop my work, to

discredit me, to bespatter me with its dirt.

The manner in which the "System" writhed under my attacks showed how

seriously it was hurt. What surprises me was that so little intelligence

was exhibited in defaming me. Such wanton, foolish attacks those that

were made on me personally! As though it mattered who or what I am in

comparison with the accusations I have made. Americans are not fools. To

say that Lawson is this or that does not minimize or detract from his

charge of robbery and conspiracy.

Every morning after I began to write "Frenzied Finance" I found a new

budget of personalities in my mail, in the newspapers, in pamphlets.

Learned lawyers traveled about the country slinging mud at me at

banquets and society gatherings; scores of hireling weekly and monthly

papers devoted pages to vilifying me; the insurance press was laden

with assaults, and for fear the public should miss the brickbats, the

insurance companies carefully mailed them to their policy-holders. All

these tirades were in one key--that of crude abuse. The statements about

myself and my career were nothing but lies. They were not even cleverly

imagined.

Upon entering on this crusade against "Frenzied Finance" I expected

attack. Reforms are not matured to accompaniments of incense and

rose-water, and I had made up my mind to disregard the mud and its

slingers. Afterward, if there were any "System" left, I rather looked

forward to smothering it beneath the foulness of its own generating.

There came a time during the year, however, when I deemed it proper to

depart from this resolution and nail some of the lies my enemies were

circulating about me. I debated the subject thoroughly, for the rancor

of these assaults was evident and I could not help feeling that the

general run of my readers would be impatient of the space given these

gutter rakers. The determination to go at them was clinched by a letter

which came to me, with a number of others from clergymen of various

denominations, from a learned Catholic priest, who put the case for a

reply most earnestly. He said:

You owe it, my son, to yourself to clear away, for once and

all, the charges your enemies have made against you. I have

faith you mean all that you say, but there are many, many

sons and daughters who are troubled in heart and harassed in

mind with doubt whether your motives be pure, and if your

deeds in the past have been along the ways of the good. It

is my advice, if you will accept it, that you put aside your

pride and your dignity and frankly and openly tell us

whether these charges that we read are true or false.

BECK VS. LAWSON

I shall deal with the subject as fairly as possible, reminding my

readers, however, that I am at a disadvantage in having to use pen and

ink instead of the implement appropriate for the purpose, a hose

connected with a disinfectant barrel. To begin with, I reproduce the

following from the Toledo _Blade_, December 26, 1904. (I have similar

paragraphs clipped from one hundred other papers.)

JAMES M. BECK FLAYS LAWSON

Calls Boston Author-Broker a Frenzied Fakir.

DEFINES MONEYPHOBIA

Declares He is Victim of New Disease--Compares His Actions to "Crazed

Malay Running Amuck."

PHILADELPHIA, December 26th.--Ex-Assistant Attorney-General

James M. Beck talked on "Moneyphobia" at the thirty-ninth

annual commencement exercises of the Peirce Business

College. He paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson in such

terms as "frenzied fakir" and "crazed Malay running amuck."

... "There are abundant indications that this epidemic is

now rife in the community. The extraordinary vote polled by

a Socialistic candidate for President, in a time of general

prosperity, seems to evidence this, as does the avidity with

which many intelligent people read in a cheap 'penny

dreadful' magazine the incoherent, self-contradictory, and

self-incriminating articles of a notorious frenzied fakir,

who, like a crazed Malay, is wildly running amuck, and,

without rhyme or reason, slashing at the reputations of

judges, senators, and financiers."

The following is from a Chicago insurance paper, and comes to me with

the marginal inscription, "Puncture this bladder when convenient." I may

say that I receive hundreds of clippings every day from various parts of

the country, sent me by correspondents who are determined I shall be

apprised of what my antagonists are trying to do against me.

BANKER ECKELS AND BROKER LAWSON

The splendid tribute to our country's greatness, resources,

and possibilities given by President James H. Eckels, of the

Commercial National Bank, of Chicago, and ex-Comptroller of

Currency of the United States, before the Chicago Life

Underwriters' Association, was listened to with earnest

attention.

The brilliant young financier ... believes in life insurance

for the people. It creates the valuable habit of saving. He

deprecates the malicious attacks on companies by men of

mysterious motives, and feels it will be a sorry day if they

ever become objects of prey for political thieves.

The banker paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston,

whom he characterized as a notoriety seeker and branded as a

"discredited, disreputable, despised stock-jobber who

glories in his infamy." Mr. Eckels lashed Lawson with

caustic language, and stated the American people of judgment

are not misled by his diatribes.

Mr. Eckels believes that life-insurance presidents reach

their high stations by their own ability and grasping of

opportunities. Because a man is elevated to a position of

eminence and responsibility does not mean he is dishonest.

He arrives there because he cannot be held down and remains

as long as he proves his worth. The banker declared that

life companies, with their vast funds, were being safely

guided by men of superior mental mould.

Mr. Eckels referred to President McCall, of the New York

Life, as being a clerk in a State bureau office when he

first made his acquaintance. He said President McCall had

advanced, like other company executives, owing to his own

ability and genius for management.

In an early article in this series I stated that one of the favorite

operations of the "System" is to pick off those officials who have

exhibited unusual talent or energy in protecting the interests of the

National Government. In this way they secure the services of men who

know the secret workings of the people's institutions and how best to

guard the corporations against the consequences of their misdeeds.

During the Cleveland administration there developed a "financial

phenomenon," James H. Eckels, Comptroller of the Currency. It did not

take long for the astute Rogers-Morgan-McCall clique to see that this

young man's knowledge of finance in connection with his governmental

position might prove a dangerous obstacle to their machine if he were

not captured. It was not long before he was captured.

I met Mr. Eckels during the Cleveland bond performance. I need not enter

into the details of that extraordinary affair here, for it is one of the

sore spots in recent American history. Briefly, the Administration at

Washington attempted to issue $100,000,000 government bonds and deliver

them in a snap sale to the "System." The New York _World_ began a

crusade against the transaction, and was so successful that the

Administration was compelled to offer the issue to the public through

competitive bids. The result--the bonds fetched many more millions for

the Government than if the deal had been allowed to slip along the ways

the "System" had greased for it. I remember well the scene at the

opening of the bids. It was in the United States Treasury at

Washington. With many others who desired an allotment of the bonds, I

was present. We were crowded into a small room, and following the

direction of young Mr. Eckels, who handled the transaction, we gave him

our bids, which, according to the advertised programme, were in sealed

envelopes. After all the bids were submitted--mine was for a number of

millions--the envelopes were taken by Mr. Eckels into a rear room. Then

a few of the leading financiers present, among them John A. McCall, of

the New York Life, J. Pierpont Morgan, and one or two others of the

"System's" foremost representatives, got their heads together and began

an earnest conference. Certain of them went out of the room and after

awhile returned for a further conference. There were several such

confabulations and comings and goings, until finally, after a monotonous

delay, the bids were opened and the bonds awarded. Morgan, McCall, _et

al._, had secured the bulk of the issue at a price many points above

what any one had been led to believe the bonds would sell for, and many

points higher than the "System" and the Government had proclaimed to the

people they could possibly sell for, yet at a price which showed

millions of profit a few hours after the bids were opened. I do not

charge that the public's envelopes were opened and "peeked" into before

the "System's" bids were sealed. Such a charge is not necessary. It has

been made many times by the press. Mr. Eckels, to the minds of such of

us as could see through cracks in a floor wide enough to drive a

four-in-hand coach into without unhooking the leaders, had lived up to

his role as a financial phenomenon, and when some time afterward it was

bruited abroad that this able young man was to have the presidency of

the City Bank, or any other large bank belonging to the "System" that he

might select, there was no surprise, although much comment, in Wall

Street. Mr. Eckels finally accepted the presidency of the Commercial

Bank of Chicago, where he now is one of the important cogs in the

"System's" machine.

The case of James M. Beck has points of similarity. Mr. Beck, a young

Philadelphia lawyer, obtained a valuable knowledge of the secrets of the

Department of Justice in Washington as Assistant United States

Attorney-General, and in the prosecution of the Northern Securities suit

got an insight into the "System's" methods. It will be remembered that

at the trial of the suit he made a great appearance and became famous as

the young champion of the people who had succeeded in "busting" this

notorious trust. The victory was hardly announced before it became known

that the brilliant Assistant Attorney-General had renounced the cause of

the public and had been engaged at a large salary as chief counsel for

Henry H. Rogers, of Standard Oil.

Mr. Beck has proved a most available and flexible servant in the cause

of his master. He has done Mr. Rogers's bidding in a manner befitting

the best traditions of "Standard Oil." Almost his first work was the

trial of the famous Boston Gas suit, in which for weeks he "steered"

Henry H. Rogers while on the witness-stand in the Massachusetts Supreme

Court. The very night before this case was to be called for trial, the

eminent young "trust buster" and people's champion called on my attorney

and made him a proposition. It was that I should meet Mr. Beck and agree

upon the details of certain testimony that Mr. Rogers and Kidder,

Peabody & Co. (the "System's" Boston representatives), and myself would

be called upon to give upon the witness-stand next day. My attorney

brought the proposition to me.

"Great heavens!" I said, "is it possible that this man has the audacity

to come to Boston and ask me to commit perjury?"

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

"No, but he says he wishes to _match up_ testimony with me so that we

may all testify alike."

"That is it," my attorney answered.

"But," said I, "I have got to state the facts, and the facts are

diametrically opposed to the testimony Mr. Rogers and the others are to

give. This looks to me like subornation of perjury."

My lawyer would not have it that way, and I instructed him to secure

from Mr. Beck a writing as to just what he wished me to do, and that

writing I have at the present time. In it he states that if I do not

see him and agree upon the testimony to be submitted in the Supreme

Court of Massachusetts the following day, there may be developments

which will be decidedly uncomfortable for Mr. Rogers and perhaps for the

rest of us.

I did not meet Mr. Beck, and Henry H. Rogers and Kidder, Peabody & Co.

told one story and I another. Bald perjury was committed by some one.

However, I will give all the facts, including the "match up" letter,

when I come to them in my story.

Mr. Beck and Mr. Eckels are the two men designated by the "System" to

attend public gatherings and vilify Thomas W. Lawson. They are at it,

industriously.

THE DONOHOE EPISODE

As soon as the first chapter of "Frenzied Finance" appeared, Henry H.

Rogers turned loose on me one Denis Donohoe, a character thug whom he

had imported from California for just such emergencies. Donohoe's first

service for Mr. Rogers was a vicious onslaught on Heinze, of Montana, in

the New York _Commercial_. This was an attack of such unusual vulgarity

and malignity that it won Donohoe his spurs, for soon afterward, when by

a characteristic trick Mr. Rogers obtained possession of the New York

_Commercial_, he made Donohoe its editor. I may mention that Heinze sued

the _Commercial_ for $300,000 damages, and apropos of the suit an

interesting complication occurred which seriously interfered with Mr.

Rogers's plans. The night before the old owners, from whom Mr. Rogers

had grabbed the _Commercial_, were to be thrown into the street, they

threatened, by way of reprisal for the mean trick that had been served

on them, to confess judgment to Heinze. One was president and the other

secretary of the company, and this action would have settled the

proposition. Rogers, treated to a dose of his own medicine, had to make

a compromise, and the men are still on the paper. The details of this

good story are to be found in the Detroit _Journal_. It was fitting that

when I began my exposures of the "System" this thug should be ordered

to do his worst by me, and he began the series of virulent assaults that

the _Commercial_ published and advertised all over the country. The

first of these was devoted to proving me crazy, and it was carefully

circulated by my friends the insurance companies by way of offsetting

the effects of my revelations of their jugglery of the people's funds.

Later I showed up the fellow so vigorously that John D. Rockefeller

ordered Mr. Rogers to muzzle him in his own paper, whereupon

arrangements were made with a New York weekly to act as the

sewer-conduit for the lies and abuse this thug was warranted to turn

out.

I should not dream of dealing with this man or his fatuous attacks in a

respectable publication save that he has been appointed the "System's"

chief defender. It really seems as though the game were too small to

take time for its killing, but as these weak and febrile maunderings

really represent the "System's" reply to my charges, it may be worth

while to show, once and for all, what idiotic lies they put forth and

what a silly and ineffective falsifier it is that they have made their

champion. I shall take the second article of the series and contrast

Donohoe's statements with the actual facts.

Incidents in Mr. Lawson's versatile career which even those

who are not censorious might well deem shameful.

If in my career I have done anything of which I or any honorable man

should be ashamed, then I am willing to stand convicted of all that this

character thug charges against me--of being a stock-jobber, fakir, liar.

He claims, if the writer understands him aright, that he is

_animated solely_ by a keen regard for the public weal in

performing what he describes as a public duty.

I stated positively in the Foreword of my story, and have reiterated

many times since, that in making these revelations I am actuated first

and mainly by a desire to benefit the people of this country, not only

by informing them how they are being plundered, but how they can in the

future guard themselves, and that if it were necessary to accomplish my

purpose I would spend every dollar I possess; but mixed with this desire

is a hatred of the "System" as deadly as a man can have for anything

human. I have also reiterated that at such stage of this revelation as

is possible I shall secure from the "System" every dollar I can wring

from it to be used in my fight against it, provided always I can get its

dollars in legal, fair, and above-board fighting ways--I mean, in the

open market.

Mr. Lawson appears before the bar of public opinion as a

volunteer witness for the commonwealth--"state's

evidence"--as the lawyers phrase it--and hence his

reputation, his motives, his character, his every act,

become at once fit subjects for the closest scrutiny and

examination.

Whoever says that in telling my story I am revealing anything which it

is not fair or just to tell, or that I have not a perfect right to

state, says that which is false. I am confining myself to explaining how

the "System" gets its money. I do not touch upon how it spends it. If in

an honorable way I could write the things that have come to me

confidentially, the "System" might well tremble. I confess that at times

I have been tempted to depart from my code--when, for instance, soon

after the first Donohoe chapter, a man came to me and showed that he had

been offered $5,000 to vouch for the statement--which Denis Donohoe, H.

H. Rogers's right-hand man, had printed, and the insurance companies had

spread broadcast--that the first ten years of Thomas W. Lawson's

business life were spent as an employee of Richard Canfield, the

Providence and New York gambler, and afterward as his partner. "Give us

an affidavit to that effect and we will pay you $5,000." To this man I

said: "I have never in my life been connected with any gambling-place in

any way, nor had to do with gambling in any form, and only once in my

life have I set eyes on Richard Canfield. He was in the Waldorf Cafe one

day when I was passing through. However, if I did know him I should not

be ashamed to admit it, for I consider Canfield, from what I have read

of him, an angel of purity compared with any one of a score of the

'System's' votaries I could name." The man left me, but soon after

returned. He said: "It makes no difference whether what you say is true

or not, I can now secure $10,000 for the affidavit." When this kind of

fighting is brought to my attention, I am strongly tempted to let down

the bars.

He relates, with all the graphic art of a novelist, a

wellnigh incredible story. Chicanery, fraud, blackmail,

bribery of a legislature and of a judge, systematic pillage

of investors and of the American public.

The details I have narrated are facts, and I will prove them to be facts

so all may know them.

In delving into Lawson's career--a most unwelcome task--the

writer has detected a continuity of purpose, a fixity of

design, a uniformity of method pervading his every public

act. What he is doing now, _i.e._, exposing somebody or

something, he has repeatedly done on a lesser scale in the

past; not from worthy motives, but for the sole purpose of

illegitimate pecuniary gain.

Yes, throughout my entire life I have pursued with a continuity of

purpose that class I am pursuing to-day--the class that has taken from

the people their earnings by fraud or trick. If other proof were needed

that the men I am after have lost the discretion which made them great

in the world, these foolish yarns supply it. It is well known that no

man ever gets near to "Standard Oil" in business or socially until their

detectives have dissected his career from the cradle up. I spent years

in close business relations with these men, so close that, as I will

show later, I acted as the agent not only of Rogers and Rockefeller, but

of the Amalgamated Company and the City Bank.

He is at present engaged in attacking the "System," as he

calls it, and the banks and the insurance companies and Wall

Street and American finance, by circulars, by

advertisements, and through the stock-market, as in the past

he has repeatedly attacked other corporations and

individuals until he obtained what he was seeking, and in

every recorded instance that thing was unearned dollars.

In the past I have repeatedly attacked individuals and corporations

until I obtained what I sought in every case--justice for the defrauded

and punishment for those who had cheated them, and in no case dollars or

their equivalent.

In the gilded biographies of himself which, from time to

time, Mr. Lawson has caused to be written and published in

newspapers and magazines.

My history is well enough known. I have always lived in the open. It has

not been necessary to press-agent myself. A good deal has been printed

about me in the newspapers during the last twenty-five years, but if I

have ever sought to exploit myself before the public by means of

autobiographies or journalistic puffs, and it is so proved by any

reputable newspaper, may I be shown up to public scorn.

It was Mr. Stevens who defrayed the expense of a six months'

course at a Boston business college for his protege.

I have never had such a course of six months, nor of any length, nor

have I ever been inside a business college.

Mr. Stevens, who was a kindly, philanthropic man, known and

beloved by all his fellow-citizens, died years ago,

therefore he cannot dispute what Lawson tells.

The late Horace H. Stevens died not years ago, but on March 8, 1904.

Old residents of New York will recall that long before the

days of Canfield's gilded palace, and long before the era of

the present district attorney, Mr. Jerome, there was a

gambling-house known to the commercial traveller and

man-about-town as "818 Broadway," and that one of the

backers of the game was William F. Waldron, or "Billy

Waldron," as he was usually called. Waldron retired nearly

thirty years ago from the syndicate that controlled this

house and moved to Providence, where he interested himself

in gambling and what, for lack of a better term, may be

called the cognate industries. One of these latter was a

bucket-shop of the ordinary country town type.

This bucket-shop was confined to the tender mercies of one

"Jo" Lumpkin as manager. Lumpkin failed to make the business

profitable, and Waldron, after attaching $500.00 that

Lumpkin had on deposit in a bank in New York, turned him

out. In his place he installed the present loquacious

reformer of American finance, Thomas W. Lawson, or "Billy"

Lawson as he was then known to the gamblers, race-track

touts, and confidence men who made Providence their

head-quarters.

My readers will agree with me that such weak and feeble rot is beneath

any man's attention, for even if what is here charged were true, namely,

that a young man of twenty-one had been so employed, it would have no

bearing on his work twenty-six years afterward; but as I have decided to

take cognizance of this stuff, here are the facts:

What to-day is known as the bucket-shop evil--that is, the speculation

in stocks over the counter at offices conducted by brokers outside the

pale of the law or the Stock Exchange--did not exist at the period

mentioned. This method of conducting speculation, however, had just been

invented, and many of the legitimate brokers, Stock-Exchange members,

utilized the new form in their ventures. Indeed, the number of brokers

and brokerage shops outside the Stock Exchange was as large, if not

larger, than that of the regular houses. At the time Donohoe treats of I

was doing considerable business for a young man, as will be evidenced by

my business card of that period:

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

| THOMAS W. LAWSON & CO., |

| |

| BANKERS AND BROKERS. |

| |

| Dealers in First-class Investment Bonds and Stocks. |

| Offices: Boston, Providence, New York, and Chicago. |

| |

| President of the Lawson Manufacturing Company. |

| President of the McDonald-Lawson Manufacturing Company. |

| Vice-President of the Briggs Printing Machine Company. |

+----------------------------------------------------------------+

I regularly visited every week my offices in Boston, Providence, and New

York. At one time I had a Providence office in the building marked in

the cut in the Donohoe story, and the sign over the door was "Thomas W.

Lawson & Co."

It was in Providence, during the heyday of the

Waldron-Lawson enterprise, that Lawson ... first met "Jack"

Roach, whose apparent employment now is selling diamonds on

commission to the so-called "sporting element" of New York,

but who is acknowledged to be Lawson's personal

representative in this city. It was there, too, that he made

the acquaintance of Herbert Gray, who subsequently conducted

a gambling-house in Boston, and who recently served as one

of Lawson's captains and managed his trotting stable. Ben

Palmer, a well-known character in State Street, who is one

of the main cog-wheels of Lawson's machine, first made

Lawson's acquaintance during this period of his career.

I do know the Waldron Brothers, of Providence, who are among the oldest

residents of Rhode Island, and who, with the present United States

Senator Nelson A. Aldrich, composed the great wholesale grocery house of

Waldron, Wightman & Co. They did not graduate from a gambling-house on

Broadway. I knew the brother referred to familiarly throughout Rhode

Island as "Honest Bill," and a royal old fellow he was. I did business

with him in those days, and to any connection I ever had with him I look

back with pleasure. He was then conducting a farm in the suburbs of

Providence, and in a straightforward, old-fashioned way supplying that

city with produce and poultry, and had, to the best of my knowledge, the

respect and confidence of all who knew him. I never knew of his having

been a gambler, and had no means of knowing, as such matters were then

an unknown world to me.

I never, up to reading it in Donohoe's story the other day, heard of 818

Broadway, curious as it may seem for a man of my experience. My

knowledge of gambling has always been confined to that kind which comes

under the head of stock gambling. I had not met my present friend, John

J. Roche, of New York, at the time mentioned. I never heard of Herbert

Gray, of Boston, until I employed him to manage my stable in 1899. I

have known J. Benjamin Palmer all my life. We were boys together on

State Street. Afterward he was the Stock-Exchange member of one of the

oldest banking-houses in Boston. He is still a broker on State Street.

Nothing of certainty can be learned of his career during

this period. That he sold "base-ball" cards (a unique kind

of playing-cards) at the Providence railroad station is

stated on credible authority; that he "worked the trains"

between New York and Providence; that he sold books; that he

was a hanger-on at race-tracks, has been alleged. Any or all

of these rumors may be true--or false--for whatever may be

said of Lawson, his career has undoubtedly been one of

marvellous activity in many diversified lines.

I have never sold baseball playing-cards at the Providence station, nor

anywhere, at this time nor any time, but I did invent the Lawson

Baseball Playing-Cards, and was president of the Lawson Playing-Card

Company. I never sold books at this time nor any time, and never "worked

trains" at this time nor any time, although I fail to see any disgrace

in such honest employment; nor had anything to do with trains in any way

whatever at this time nor any time except to ride in them. I have never

been a hanger-on at race-tracks, and have never had anything to do with

a race-track of any kind other than visiting one for the first time in

1899 to see my own horse, Boralma, race, and four or five times since to

see my own horses run. I desire to dwell on this especial accusation

because these character thugs have caused it to be published throughout

the country that I am and have always been a _habitue_ of race-tracks

and a plunging bettor upon races. I regret that it is my misfortune

never to have seen a horse-race until 1899, but if it can be shown that

I was ever upon a race-track before that time, I will agree to stop

writing this story of "Frenzied Finance."

In 1882, a concern known as the Briggs Printing Machine

Company was incorporated in Rhode Island ... to manufacture

a machine that was advertised to "print, cut, pack, and

fasten with twine 100,000 tags per hour." Thomas W. Lawson

secured the job of selling agent of this company, and he

proved so successful and the advertising matter which he

wrote brought such handsome returns, that we find him in

1884 promoted to the position of manager and enjoying a

salary of $150 per month. Later he became the secretary of

the company, and very shortly thereafter, in 1887, the

enterprise collapsed, was sold out by the sheriff, and

realized little or nothing for the numerous creditors....

It is true that I was the vice-president of the Briggs Printing Machine

Company, which was organized and owned by others before I had aught to

do with it. I was induced to invest considerable money in it and to take

charge of its affairs. The Briggs Company was a close corporation. Its

stock was never sold to the public, and after I left it it met with

failure.

In December, 1888, the Lamson Consolidated Store-Service

Company was incorporated at Boston. Its purpose was to

exploit an invention of W. S. Lamson ... the overhead

trolley system used in department-stores for carrying cash

and parcels.... The capital stock at the beginning was

$250,000--par value of shares, $50. The company was doing

business and declaring two and a half per cent. dividends

quarterly, when Mr. Lawson stepped in and began to

manipulate the stock. The price of shares rose steadily to

122. Under the influence of speculative excitement the

directors increased the capital stock to $1,000,000, then to

$4,000,000. Mr. Lawson boomed the stock on the basis of a

report, totally destitute of truth, that an English

syndicate was about to purchase a controlling interest in

the company. Having unloaded all the shares at his disposal

on the uproad to 122, Mr. Lawson suddenly one morning awoke

to a realization of the fact that Lamson Store-Service

shares possessed absolutely no value, and he at once took

the public, as is his custom, into his confidence. In

circulars, by advertisements, and by cunningly contrived

"news" items he insistently dinned into the public ear that

Lamson shares were valueless. The result was as well might

be imagined. The stock declined to 30, whereupon Lawson

bought it back and then and there made his first grand

_coup_. It is said that first and last he realized $250,000

from the Lamson shareholders.

I did "Lawsonize" the Lamson Store-Service Company, just as I am at the

present time "Lawsonizing" the "Standard-Oil"-Amalgamated-City-Bank

crowd. The Lamson Store-Service Company, with $4,000,000 capital, was

blunderbussing all who dared oppose it--all who refused to be bulldozed

into consolidating with it. It was the most vicious exponent of the

"Trust" methods I had ever met up to that time. Its arrogance, audacity,

and crimes were the themes of the newspapers and courts of the day. A

most casual investigation of the newspaper files, particularly in Osgood

_vs._ Lamson, and The New York Store-Service Company _vs._ Lamson, will

show a state of corporation assassination equal to that of the "Standard

Oil," only on a smaller scale, of course. Perjury, bribery, and even

murder will be found openly charged and in some cases proved. At the

height of the sensational career of the Lamson Company it ran into one

of my corporations, The Lawson Manufacturing Company, and started in to

"do me up" or compel a consolidation, and--well, I gave it battle. The

following circular to the stockholders will show how the battle

started:

_Dear Sir_: I deem it my duty to say to you, as a

shareholder of the Lamson Store-Service Company, that your

Mr. Lamson and his agents have opened up on my company, and

with their usual criminal methods are endeavoring to ruin

us. This circular is to inform you that I have this day

given notice to each of your officers and directors that, in

three days from to-day, if they have not stopped their dirty

work and taken their hands off my company, they will take

the consequences. I do not pretend to be able to meet them

on the fighting grounds of the courts, for I know too well

their power of corruption and jury-buying, but I assure you

I have other ways by which I can stop them, etc., etc.

If Donohoe had desired to deal with facts, he could not have missed the

details of this story, of which the papers at the time were full. It was

a fight which would have warmed the heart-cockles of an embalmed warrior

of the catacombs. Lamson stock was selling at 62, the highest price it

ever attained, not 122, as this numskull states. When I began operations

I slaughtered it and the reputation of Lamson and his associates; and in

the midst of the fight, when the shares were down to 18, or perhaps 14,

a great public meeting of stockholders--there were a whole lot of

them--was called in the city of Lowell, and, amid fiery speeches, Lamson

was told to choose between refuting my charges of fraud and being

deposed from the presidency of the institution. Lamson attempted

explanations, but the hard-headed stockholders did what the Amalgamated

stockholders will some time do, passed resolutions that Lamson must

punish me for libel or that they would punish him. The gathering then

adjourned to a future date, at which Lamson was to report what action he

had taken to punish me for my crimes. The next step was interesting, and

bears on an accusation I have seen mentioned frequently of late. I had,

when I began my fight, laid before Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York

_World_, the dastardly crimes of which the company had been guilty, and

was even then engaged in committing, and he had said: "Damnable! I will

aid you in exposing them." And he did. Day after day there were

broadsides in the _World_ relentlessly denouncing the rascalities of the

Lamson outfit. These finally stirred them to action. One day I received

word that some trickery was being put up in the district attorney's

office in New York. A few days later there appeared at my office in

Boston a police officer from New York and three of our head Boston

police officers. They said to me: "We regret, Mr. Lawson, but we must

take your secretary, Mr. William L. Vinal, back to New York, as he has

been indicted for spreading false reports."

"Has any one else been indicted?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," they replied, "you and some of the _World_ people."

"Mr. Vinal has done nothing but obey my orders," I said. "Why don't you

take me?"

"We have no orders to," was the reply.

I saw the game and sent word to the Governor of Massachusetts, who

promptly told the combination: "Go slow, gentlemen. Remember you are not

in New York now, but in Massachusetts." He ordered a public trial.

Within two hours from the time they laid hands on my secretary I brought

suit in his name for false arrest against the officers who were trying

to arrest him, and grabbed the New York official before he could skip

out of town. Then I went to see the Lamson crowd and we had it out. They

begged that I allow Vinal to go to New York, just to vindicate them, in

which circumstances he would be allowed to return on the next train, and

the case would never be heard of again. If I would consent, they would

agree to a reorganization of the company and the dropping out of Lamson.

I showed them that they had gone too far, that I had damaging

information as to how they had secured the indictment, and that now they

must take the consequences.

I took the "midnight" for New York, and in the morning was at

District-Attorney Fellows's office. I dared him to arrest me or the

officers of the _World_. He replied: "I don't want you, Lawson. I cannot

and won't help you advertise your fight." It proving impossible to get

up any excitement in New York, I returned to Boston, and the extradition

proceedings furnished a most sensational trial. The cause was bitterly

fought. The lawyers even came to blows in the governor's chamber.

Finally, when Governor Brackett had all the facts before him, he said:

"You cannot work your dirty tricks on me," and he entered a vigorous

refusal of the application for Mr. Vinal's extradition. This case

established precedents for all such proceedings since.

The fight won, pressure was brought to bear on me to let up on the

Lamson outfit and call off further proceedings. For some time I

persistently refused to do so, as I was determined to contest the

constitutionality of the law. Finally, however, on condition that Lamson

should be thrown out, the management of the company reorganized, its

criminal methods abandoned, and all records and trace of the indictment

against myself and the others removed from the district attorney's

books, I consented.

This is the history of how I "Lawsonized" the Lamson Store-Service

Company, and if there is anything I have ever done that was good to do

and well worth doing, this was it. I am just as proud of my work here as

of what I did in the General Electric fight upon which I have already

touched. In the Lamson reorganization I was offered all sorts of good

things, but I refused, as I always have in such affairs, to benefit in

any way but the open and fair one where I go into the open market and

stake my money against that of my opponents on my ability to prove I am

right. The facts here are of legal record. Following is the

Donohoe-Rogers version. The mendacity is obvious:

Among the unfortunate Lamson-Service stockholders were

numbered several aggressive people of the old-fashioned

kind, who resented Mr. Lawson's peculiar way of doing

things. These submitted, in 1892, to the grand jury of the

city of New York a sheaf of Lawsonian literature, comprising

his scandalous attacks on the company's securities. The

grand jury indicted Thomas W. Lawson, and Colonel John R.

Fellows, the district attorney, and his assistants, Francis

L. Wellman and Mr. Lindsay, went to Boston to try to have

Lawson extradited. The Governor of Massachusetts came to

Lawson's rescue in the nick of time and declined to honor

the request of the Governor of New York for his extradition;

but for years thereafter the future author of "Frenzied

Finance" made his trips to this money-centre incognito.

THE GRAND RIVERS ENTERPRISE

In 1890 the entire country rang with the fame of Grand

Rivers, and it was Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, who pulled

the bell-rope.... The scheme, as may be deduced herefrom,

was a most comprehensive one. The development of the

"marvellous deposit of coal and iron," which had been

discovered upon the property by Mr. Lawson, one day while

seated in his revolving chair in his State Street office,

furnished the basis for the incorporation of the Furnaces

Company. After $2,000,000 had been "expended," the clamor of

the stockholders caused the company actually to build

several furnaces. They were erected and stood idle, with

nothing to feed them. The whole scheme collapsed in 1892.

The stockholders lost every dollar of their investment....

In this, his fourth financial venture, Mr. Lawson did but

repeat his former experiences--except, in this case, the

loss sustained by those who reposed confidence in his

promises was heavier than in any of his prior undertakings.

The Kentucky experience is one of the pleasantest memories of my life.

Measured by dollars and cents it was expensive but was well worth it, as

the young man remarked who broke his arm by being thrown from his horse

into the lap of his future wife. It makes a long story, and I shall only

touch on the leading facts concerning it by way of showing the desperate

straits my enemies are put to in their efforts to discredit my career.

My present brokers, Messrs. Brown, Riley & Co., one of the oldest and

largest Boston and New York Stock Exchange houses, had floated the Grand

Rivers enterprise for some of their wealthy clients. It was an iron,

coal, and furnace proposition, and before I ever heard of it, it had

been bought and paid for, and enormous furnaces were under way. It was a

close corporation. After a very large amount of money--in the

millions--had gone into the property, I was induced to take the

executive management, and also I put in a very large amount of my own

money. My work was to be that of business director, for I did not know

an iron or a coal mine from an alabaster ledge in the lunar spheres, and

not half as much about an iron smelter as I did about converting

whiskers into mermaid's tresses. However, one of the greatest iron men

in New England, Aretas Blood, president of the Manchester Locomotive

Works, and of the Nashua Steel and Iron Company, was at the head of the

enterprise, which apparently safeguarded it. Well, it turned out that

there was no iron in the mines--at least not enough to pay for

extraction, and the investment simply disappeared. I lost a very large

amount--at least, a very large amount for me--but I had to show for it

the love and friendship and respect of the inhabitants of one of the

fairest places on the earth--a place where brave men and lovely women

live in peace and comfort in the knowledge of their own fearless, simple

honesty, and their hatred of shams and trickery--in absolute ignorance

of frenzied financiers and the "System's" votaries.

The history of Grand Rivers is an open book. There is no secret about my

connection with the enterprise. It was a straight and proper venture.

The men who are my brokers of to-day fathered it, and they are men of

honor, probity, and responsibility, who since my first year in business

in 1870 have been my close business associates and personal friends. Why

do not Donohoe and his breed of gutter-rooters, when seeking information

about me, ask such men as these for facts about my life?--they know what

every hour of it has been. Strange as it may seem to such vampires, the

men I began to do business with when I was a boy I am doing business

with to-day, and they are my associates and friends.

I postponed until the last moment writing this article in order that I

might be able to diagnose the "System's" attack on me. The first of the

widely advertised series was such a foolish and asinine thing as to be

unworthy of notice, and I desired to see how much further the second

would go. In the former it was charged that I was writing my articles

solely for the purpose of securing stock-market profits and compelling

the "System" to settle; in other words, that I was attempting to

blackmail them; that I had no honorable motives in writing my story, and

had no remedy of any kind in mind; that in the recent panic I had made a

million and a quarter of dollars; that I had secured President

Roosevelt's message eight days before it was published; that I had

advertised on November 29th, unqualifiedly advising all to purchase

Amalgamated, and that on December 6th I had advertised advising all to

sell. It is true that I did advise the public to sell, but that in my

advertisement of November 29th I advised the people to buy Amalgamated

I positively deny. I carefully avoided doing so. The other statements

are equally false, and were made with a full knowledge of their falsity.

The incidents in my career about which I have here set forth the facts

are not secret. All the things I have stated are fully susceptible of

proof. For another instant let me take the assertion that my motive in

this crusade is personal gain through stock-jobbery, and that I have no

aim or end in view other than that. Well, I can to-day show the Remedy

to which I have alluded so often, and which when I worked it out in 1893

I had printed with full detail. It is in my vault now under lock and

key. In the year 1894, in London, I laid a copy of this document before

Joseph Pulitzer of the New York _World_. Remember, this was a year

before I met H. H. Rogers or any of the "Standard Oil" party.

Since Donohoe began his latest series of attacks I have had scores of

letters commenting on them. A significant verdict on what the man is

accomplishing is the following:

BUFFALO, N. Y., January 23, 1905.

_Dear Sir_: I herewith enclose you copy of a letter just

sent to Mr. Donohoe, also to the editor of ----

Yours respectfully,

----

(COPY)

January 23, 1905.

MR. DENIS DONOHOE,

Financial Editor, New York _Commercial_, New York City.

_Dear Sir_: With considerable pleasure, satisfaction, and

conviction, I have carefully read all the articles on

"Frenzied Finance," by Mr. Lawson, and from my limited

knowledge of affairs, gained by fifteen years of active

life, am of the opinion that he has been telling facts,

although at times they are clothed in the language of a

writer of fiction.

I have been waiting and confidently expecting, during the

past six months, that some able, honest, unbiassed, and

free-handed man would take up the discussion against Mr.

Lawson, and in this way aid the people in viewing the entire

subject with all possible side-lights, so that when public

opinion shall be finally formed, as surely it will be in the

future, it may be as nearly right as possible and only the

guilty suffer. It was, therefore, with a high degree of

exultation that I purchased ---- of January 19th, upon the

first page of which in bold type appears: "Lawson

Answered--the Truth About Frenzied Finance." At the sight of

these words I said in almost audible tones: "Now we shall

hear the other side, or at least learn what Mr. Lawson has

omitted, if anything."

I have just finished reading your article in said issue of

----, and as you now pose as a public writer and benefactor,

you of course will welcome frank, honest criticism. After

reading and rereading your said article, I am, against my

desire, forced to the following conclusions:

1. You are either one of the "System" or are hired by it.

2. This article of yours was prepared for the purposes of

making two points: (a) Working on the sentiment and passions

of the weak, and the women; and (b) diverting public

attention and opinion from the real facts at issue, by

attacking Mr. Lawson's personal character, which is not up

for discussion.

3. Your article is full of high-sounding declarations, and

void of either logic or common sense.

4. In your endeavor to express the wishes of the prejudiced

and biassed, you are undoubtedly dishonest with yourself

without deceiving the public.

5. Your article lacks the ring that carries conviction,

either as to your sincerity or the truthfulness of the

statements you make.

6. The article indicates that you are vainly trying to ape

Mr. Lawson's style.

Yours respectfully,

E. G. MANSFIELD,

Attorney-at-law.

Following the Donohoe outburst there came innumerable letters, of which

this is a good sample:

TACOMA, WASH., February 14, 1905.

_Dear Sir_: It would be greatly appreciated by at least one

of your readers if you would furnish the great and only

Donohoe the details of some really scandalous epoch of your

past. It has been stated many times that one man cannot make

a million dollars and do it honestly, so we must assume you

have done some "things" in your past. We have a very high

regard out West for the works of Mr. Dooley and Mark Twain,

and also are regular subscribers of _Puck_ and _Judge_, and

we don't want to see these noted writers and periodicals

unseated, even for the time being, by Mr. Donohoe.

Therefore we ask you to give him some tip from which he can

work out something serious, so he can make a statement that

is not "reported," or the deduction of which does not

require Sherlock Holmes.

His work of "dissecting" so far reminds us of the work of a

six months' student of a medical college on a Tom cat (no

pun meant).

Yours very truly,

L. H. M.

I answered as follows:

_My Dear Sir_: Your request is similar to that of a hundred other

correspondents. I regret I can do nothing to help out. Donohoe's trouble

is, he is short of facts, so "short" that he seems to me completely

"cornered." I am "long of" them, as you and all my other readers will

admit before I am through my story, but my facts are not the kind

Donohoe can use, or I would willingly let him have a few to assist him

out of his present predicament.

Donohoe's employers, Rogers and the "Standard Oil," knew before they put

him on to his present "job" that my life was a peculiarly and unusually

open one--one that had absolutely no dark or covered corner in it; they

knew it not only because all men in my walks of life know it, but

because they had investigated it with their unerring search-light. Most

men who have ever been on the inside of "Standard Oil" know that no man

with a bad record could do business, much less have an intimate

relation, with Rogers and Rockefeller for nine seconds; and my

connection extended over nine years.

The tone of my correspondence during the year was not by any means

altogether friendly. The writer of the following letter presented his

conclusions straight from the shoulder and I was equally direct in my

reply:

Personal.

GAINESVILLE, FLA., February 21, 1905.

MR. THOMAS W. LAWSON, Boston, Mass.

_Dear Sir_: Pardon my "buttin' in"--seems I must say

something.

If what Donohoe says about your Trinity Copper Company is

true, it would seem you ought to stop throwing mud at the

Standard Oil crowd, for you are no better than are they, and

they are known thieves and robbers. While you may be telling

the truth about the other fellow, yet the fact of your

telling it does not set well on the stomach of those who

read both sides of the story. Seems to me it's "dog eat dog"

until every one is disgusted.

Why don't you come down to business and give the readers of

_Everybody's_ something wholesome to digest and plenty of

it? The way it comes now, we are over our hunger before the

next issue shows up, and, in the meantime, your friend has

converted many to the thought that you are worse than the

Standard Oil crowd.

Won't you please answer, in the next issue of _Everybody's_,

if you made your money--your fortune, HONESTLY, or did you

"do others" for fear they would "do you"? I am inclined to

think you are as big a "grafter" as ever came down the pike,

even though you may be telling on the other fellow--turning

State's evidence.

Yours truly,

----

You ask why I do not get down to business. You won't mind my telling you

the principal reason is that it is _I_ who am writing "Frenzied

Finance," not you nor any of your kind, and that I propose to decide

when it is time to get down to business. If in the meantime there is any

one else who can do the job I have cut out better than I, why, none will

be better pleased than myself. Indeed, I will gladly contribute as a

reward to my successor double the many thousands of dollars I am paying

each month to get this work of mine properly before the people.

What Donohoe says of my Trinity Copper is not only absolutely false, but

has over and over again been demonstrated to be so. The actual facts

regarding that property have been printed time and again in reputable

Boston newspapers, and casual inquiry will obtain you the full details.

In addition, practically everything which Donohoe, the hired mouthpiece

of "Standard Oil" and the "System," has said is absolutely untrue and

made from whole cloth. When I say this I cover all criticism which has

been made upon me or my work by "Standard Oil" or the "System," for this

character thug has utilized every dirty slander which my enemies ever

invented and put into circulation.

Did I make my fortune honestly, you ask? and I answer: In thirty-six

years of active business life, very active, embracing transactions

through which I have passed from poverty to wealth and back again from

riches to poverty, and in which I might easily have retained the riches

by sacrificing a principle, I have never once in all these years and in

all these transactions done a wrong to man, woman, or child, nor taken

from man, woman, or child a dollar unfairly, much less dishonestly.

Rather a remarkable record, you will say, for one who has made millions

in the stock business. But I should not be broadly honest if I did not

add the modification that these millions of dollars were made in the

open stock-market, by methods which in the open stock-market are called

fair and honest; that is, I have played the game according to the rules,

and the "other fellow" has had equal chance with me and might have done

anything I ever did. If, however, business were conducted as it should

be and as it will be after my "Remedy" has reformed present conditions,

such methods will net those using them only thousands where I have

gained millions.

You add that you are inclined to think I am a "grafter." In reply I can

only say you would not dare--and I don't know your size, color, or

length of trigger-finger--to say it in my presence, though of course, it

is absolutely immaterial what you or your kind think of me or my work.

THE LAWSON PANIC

During the eighteen months in which "Frenzied Finance" has been before

the public, history has been made at a stiff pace. Next to the insurance

revelations which are still in process of deliverance, the most striking

demonstration of the period has been the flurry in stocks which was

spoken of as the Lawson panic. In the February, 1905, issue of

_Everybody's Magazine_ I dealt with the performance and its attendant

phenomena.

Without undue vaunting, I may say that my explanation of the mysteries

of modern finance has not been without immediate profit to the public.

The people, accustomed to invest their money in the legitimate

securities of the country, had time and again lost hundreds of millions

without dreaming that they had been as ruthlessly robbed as though held

up at a pistol-point by a highwayman. They imagined that the great

capitalists whose names were emblazoned in the press throughout the

land, and who managed the banks and trust companies and insurance

corporations to which their savings were intrusted, were noble and

public-spirited gentlemen of the highest moral principles and of

absolute integrity. They know to-day that many of them are reckless and

greedy stock gamblers, incessantly dickering with the machinery of

finance for their own private enrichment.

I have stripped the veil from these hypocrites and exposed to all the

world their soulless rapacity. I have let the light of heaven into the

dim recesses of Wall Street in which these buccaneers of commerce

concocted their plots. I have done more than this: I have nipped in the

bud the newest conspiracy for the entanglement of the public--the great

"bull" market which was organized late in 1904 by the chief votaries of

the "System," to harvest a new crop of profits on the securities they

had laid in during their last raid. In other words, I have treated Wall

Street to a dose of its own medicine.

During the month of December the newspapers devoted considerable space

to the doings of the stock-market in connection with the episode to

which I refer. I use the word "episode" purposely, for I warn my readers

that it was but one of a series of disturbances which must occur before

the grasp of the pirates on the great financial interests of this

country can be shaken off. David slew Goliath with one pebble from his

sling, but the giant "System," intrenched in the stoutest citadel ever

constructed, and armored in gold and riven steel, will yield to no mere

call for surrender. My own part I have cheerfully taken with no

delusions as to the difficulties of the contest. He who interferes

between the lamb and the wolf is likely to provoke the wrath of the

wolf, and I have done worse, for have I not come between the lions of

finance and their willing prey?

It is worth while here to rehearse the steps of this first disturbance,

because it constitutes part of a movement destined to wield a tremendous

influence in this country's history. While my revelations of the methods

of the "System" were circulating throughout these United States, the

"System" was engaged at its old trick of inflating the prices of its

favorite stocks and bonds and spreading its nets for another gigantic

plundering of the people. In the stock-market and in the highways and

by-ways and resting-places of finance nothing was heard for months but

fairy tales of great earnings of railroads and industrials, fairy tales

of new ore in old mines, fairy tales of great financial forces

converging toward colossal combinations.

These are the lures of the "System's" hirelings, the decoy calls of the

market tout and the financial tipster whose part it is to mould opinion

and urge the people to the shambles. Before my eyes, with a blind and

audacious defiance of my warnings, the old, old game was rigged in full

view of the audience and the old players began their venerable antics.

In the meantime the "System" attended to its own role in the

conspiracy--supplying out of its banks and trust companies the public's

money for the gamblers to make the game with. Then began the artful

process of working up the market; stocks gradually climbed higher and

higher. Amalgamated ascended from the forties into the fifties and the

sixties and even into the eighties; steel assumed the appearance of life

and grew from ten slowly upward into the twenties and thirties. Every

day in the Stock Exchange hundreds of thousands of shares changed hands

back and forth among the professionals who lustily played their parts in

this financial melodrama. The good old myths of great fortunes made by

lucky investors began to reappear in the papers. Sales increased; values

jumped rather than climbed. The trap was set; the market made. The wily

manipulators rubbed their hands gleefully. The public began to bite, to

buy. It was then only a matter of sizing up the wool crop before

beginning the shearing.

Before I detail the steps I took to spring its own trap on the "System,"

I should explain that this market was purely an artificial one. The

immense advance of prices was not brought about by any honest methods or

legitimate causes. The "System's" votaries had enormous quantities of

stocks--millions upon millions of shares, bought when the people during

the past two years were compelled to throw them overboard at slaughter

prices. By employing one of the oldest swindling devices known to

finance,[21] they could bid prices to any figure they desired. Honest

financial writers called attention each week to the tactics of the

manipulators and declared the high quotations unjustifiable and

unreasonable.

At the stage of the game that I felt sure immediately preceded the

unloading signal, I determined to test whether the people had really

digested as well as absorbed the cold facts I had been ladling out to

them in my story of "Frenzied Finance"--whether they had grown wise

enough to heed a warning. So on Monday, December 5th, I carefully

prepared the following advertisement, which was published Tuesday

morning in the great papers of the great cities of this country and

later in Europe.

AMALGAMATED STOCKHOLDERS--WARNING

From the creation of Amalgamated I have continuously

believed in its worth and constantly advocated the purchase

of its stock.

Henry H. Rogers personally negotiated with Marcus Daly for

the properties which went to make up the Amalgamated

Company.

Henry H. Rogers alone knew absolutely their values.

Henry H. Rogers's associates took his word for them.

While they cost Messrs. Rogers, Rockefeller, and associates

only $39,000,000, we all believed they were worth more than

the $75,000,000 at which they were sold to the public.

Shortly after the public flotation at $100 per share, the

stock dropped to 75. I did all in my power to prevent the

decline, losing millions in the effort, but I retained my

faith in the real worth of the property.

Some of the insiders made millions; the public was fleeced

of millions.

I still refused to be discouraged. I urged Messrs. Rogers

and Rockefeller to make good their promises made through me

to the public. Finally they consented. The stock advanced

until it sold at 130.

At the highest price I was still buying and advising its

purchase. Then there came the awful slump which slid the

stock down to 33. I lost enormously; insiders made vast

profits. The public was again fleeced.

At 33 I began a new campaign to induce my followers and the

public to buy. As a result there were purchased by hundreds

of people all over the country directly and indirectly

through me, rising 260,000 shares, at an average of 40 to

42, and probably hundreds of thousands more which I could

not trace.

This campaign I have prosecuted incessantly up to the

present time, until now I estimate the public holds

1,000,000 shares, 700,000 of which show at to-day's price,

82, a profit of $28,000,000.

When my story, "Frenzied Finance," began, I advertised that

it could do no damage to Amalgamated stock, but would help

it.

Hoping to divert the dangerous disclosures I threatened, the

leading attorney of Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller asked for

a conference. At it he demanded of me what I expected to

accomplish. I replied: "One thing, at least--to put the

price of Amalgamated back to 100, that those unfortunates

who still retain their stock may recover their money."

Then the secret was revealed to me that Amalgamated was not

worth anything like the price at which it had been sold to

the public. I said: "How can this be?"

He answered: "Mr. Rogers knows for a certainty that Marcus

Daly deceived him about the worth of the properties."

I had great faith in this attorney. He was sincere in what

he said; his knowledge and relations were such he could not

have been deceived, and his special information about this

property was such that he could speak in the first person. I

believed him. Soon afterward another official of Amalgamated

confirmed his statements.

When I received this information my dilemma was a terrible

one. If I gave it to my following they would at once throw

over their stock, probably at a great loss. I waited. Sooner

or later I knew these men would get behind the market, push

up the prices of the stocks they had gathered in at bottom

figures, and, when the moment was ripe, again unload on the

public.

The market "came in." I did all in my power to assist in

raising the price of Amalgamated.

To-day's situation is the same as that of 1901.

"Frenzied finance" stock gamblers have accumulated immense

lines of Amalgamated. The same sensational rumors of a great

rise to come flood Wall and State streets as in 1901. They

have asked me to join in creating a wild market upon which

all the Amalgamated taken in at lower prices may be turned

out upon the public.

It would be millions in my pocket to assist, but----

I see the handwriting on the wall which the "frenzied

financiers" of Wall Street do not yet see. It reads:

"The people will not stand plundering any longer."

And I have decided.

I advise every stockholder of Amalgamated stock to sell his

holdings at once before another crash comes. Another slump

may carry it to 33 again, or lower.

It may go higher, but this is no affair of mine. From the

moment of the publication of this notice all those who have

looked to me for advice must relieve me of further

responsibility.

As the people who look to me for advice are scattered all

over this country, I know of no other way than this to

simultaneously notify them of what I have learned.

If the powerful people who manage and control Amalgamated,

and who, after selling it to the public at $100 a share,

allowed it to sink to $75, and after it had advanced to 130,

smashed it to 33, regardless of their sacred promise to me

and the public through me, now reveal to me that it is not

worth over 45, it is inevitable that if they are honest in

what they say, the stock must go there of its own weight. If

they are not honest, they will put it there anyway, and

lower still.

I would have waited until the reckless speculators who are

now manipulating the market had put the stock higher, but I

did not dare. During the past two days I have detected

unmistakable signs that the vultures are gathering for the

feast.

In the past I have told what I thought I knew about

Amalgamated; from to-day I shall tell what the men who

control and manage Amalgamated say they have found out about

it. No stockholder should, after this fair notice, object or

accuse me of trying to injure the property, even though I be

compelled to begin court proceedings based on this

information so lately revealed to me.

This advertisement and my mailed notices will appear in New

York and Boston, Tuesday, December 6th; in the Eastern and

middle portions of the United States Wednesday, and the

balance of the country, Canada and Europe Thursday, and I

shall wait until Friday, that all may have ample time to

dispose of their stock, if they care to, before making my

next move.

Every holder of Amalgamated must keep before his eyes this

one tremendous fact: His property is now absolutely at the

mercy of men who have the market in the hollow of their

hands, and who in the past have raised this stock to the

highest and then dropped it to the lowest without heed or

concern but for their own pockets.

COPPER RANGE

Since Copper Range Consolidated sold at 12 I have advised

its purchase. To-day it sells at 70. All who have followed

my advice have made immense profits.

Copper Range has 385,000 shares; Amalgamated 1,550,000.

Copper Range is a new property at Lake Superior, consisting

of three immense mines and a railroad, with the latest and

most complete plant in the world, including its own

smelters. It is the largest and richest copper mine

discovered and developed in the past twenty years. It is

producing now 40,000,000 pounds of copper annually, and will

in the near future become the largest producer in the world.

Amalgamated pays 2 per cent. in dividends. Copper Range will

pay 6 per cent. in the coming year, and continue to

increase, to what limit no man can tell. If the present

market for copper, the metal, holds at 15 cents, and the

best judges think it will probably go higher, Amalgamated

should increase its dividends to 4 or 6, but with 15-cent

metal Copper Range will earn and pay 8, 10, and 12 per

cent., and upward.

The curse of Amalgamated has been "Standard Oil" management.

Copper Range has been, and is, directed and controlled by

representative Boston copper men, who seek their profits in

the mine and not in the stock-market.

THOMAS W. LAWSON.

BOSTON, December 6, 1904.

The result of this announcement proved that my message had not fallen on

stony places, but had been accepted by the public in the spirit of its

giving. All Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the people sold their

stocks to the "System's" votaries at the falsely inflated prices these

gentry had forced for their own plundering purposes. Instead of

gathering in the savings of the toilers, the "System" had to part with

some of its wad. For once the people got the money and the "System" had

the stocks. Under the stress of tremendous selling the price of

"Amalgamated" was shattered. Other frenzied finance stocks declined in

sympathy. The power of publicity had been triumphantly vindicated and

the cries of frenzied financiers, their mouths full of their own

fish-hooks, resounded through the land.

That this condition would be allowed to prevail long, I knew was

improbable. The "System's" leading votaries got together and organized

to stop the frightful decline in prices. The old cuttle-fish methods

were at once resorted to--a campaign of falsehood, deception, and

trickery began. Lest the people should realize that it was their power

which had wrought such havoc, the touts and tipsters shouted in chorus

that the slaughter of prices was the work of the "System" itself, and

that I was secretly in league with the "System" against the public;

that, the public having been robbed of its stocks, prices would advance

with an extra bound. Scores of millions were drawn from the banks and

trust companies to stay the slump. Under the influence of all this

industry and clamor the market began to boil again; prices recovered,

and the people, confused and bewildered, were once more about to be

entrapped. A sharp advance was followed by a cry from the votaries that

I was a trickster and that what had been in reality the most notable

demonstration of "the people's strength" ever given was only another

evidence of the "System's" infallibility. If this deceit had prevailed,

the task I have undertaken of enlightening the public would have had a

setback. Relying on my previous work, I put forth the following

announcement Monday morning, December 12th, and confidently awaited

results:

INVESTORS AND SPECULATORS--WARNING!

For six months through my story, "Frenzied Finance," in

_Everybody's Magazine_, I have been educating the people to

the terrible condition existing to-day in America--the

people are plundered of their savings by a few men through

the working of the "System."

After a close study for six months I concluded that the

people were awakening to the truth.

I decided to make a test.

I advertised certain truths. That was all.

For three days Wall Street and the "System" were

panic-stricken--paper values melted to the extent of

hundreds of millions.

The laws of the land are strict about panic-breeding by

public statements.

If any of the terrible statements I have made had been

false, I should to-day be in prison or my body suspended

from a lamp-post. I could not possibly have escaped.

What I have stated is truth. No one dares gainsay it.

Wall Street and the "System" for the first time were

compelled to come to the rescue and put in jeopardy their

own money by buying stocks from the people at inflated

prices.