Frenzied Finance Part 50

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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociates 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 a.s.sociates 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sertion 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 doc.u.ment 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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, unbia.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sions 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 bia.s.sed, 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sist 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, Ma.s.s.

_Dear Sir_: Pardon my "b.u.t.tin' 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 d.i.c.kering with the machinery of finance for their own private enrichment.