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 a.s.saults, 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 a.s.saults was evident and I could not help feeling that the general run of my readers would be impatient of the s.p.a.ce 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 hara.s.sed 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-a.s.sistant 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" a.s.sociation, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 compet.i.tive 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 a.s.sistant 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 a.s.sistant 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 a.s.saults 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.