The following day all holders could have sold at an average of 74--300,000 did.
The third day all holders could have sold at an average of 66--200,000 did.
Then the Wall Street powers got desperate and stopped the decline.
During these days I did not sell a share nor do anything in the market to a.s.sist the decline, but did buy enormous amounts to prevent it from breaking below 60.
Every scheme known to frenzied financiers is being worked to make it appear now that this stock is going to sell much higher.
It is advertised broadcast that I was working with the bear raiders and "Standard Oil."
This is a lie.
My brokers were requested by another client to publish a statement that a prominent copper company president stated there was $33 in the Amalgamated treasury.
Instantly the rumors were sent broadcast that I had settled with "Standard Oil" and was bulling the stock.
This, too.
I know the man who made the statement and the high officer of the Amalgamated who got him to make it.
And it shows the desperate position of the Amalgamated "Insiders."
They are loaded with the stock.
I dare any officer of the Amalgamated Company to publish the above statement over his signature.
If he does court proceedings will be begun at once.
I also dare Mr. Rogers or Mr. Rockefeller to deny the statement made by me that they have said the stock is not worth 50, and that Marcus Daly deceived them. I dare them.
I repeat what I have said to holders of Amalgamated:
Sell your stock now, before it is too late.
Bear in mind when Amalgamated sells at 33 that I have warned you.
And in the meantime watch for sharp breaks in Amalgamated. I will give no further warning on this stock, and under no circ.u.mstances will change my now advertised position on it.
Thomas W. Lawson. BOSTON, December 12, 1904.
The second test brought a stronger demonstration than the first. This time the "System"s" votaries were drawn up in solid phalanx; behind them uncounted millions and unmeasured power braced to meet attack. All day Monday the people hurled their securities at the gamesters, and with every onslaught prices crumbled until, when the Stock Exchange closed, the "System"s" losses were represented by hundreds of millions of dollars. The people had learned a lesson, and a hundred years more of the "System"s" trickery and falsehood will not efface its impression.
VILIFICATION NO REPLY TO FACTS
The attacks I made on the "System" were frank and direct statements of facts. The destruction they wrought upon the cherished plans of the gamesters was due to their truth. If the things I stated about Amalgamated were not true, how easy to prove them false, and how completely then should I have been discredited. But what has the "System" in its blind rage done? Well may the American people who read what is printed below say to themselves, ""Whom the G.o.ds would slay, they first make mad." What is Thomas W. Lawson in this transaction that his personality need enter into a controversy wherein the issue is of facts alone?" Suppose I were all that my enemies say of me, the question is not of my guilt, but of the truth of my charges. I was not surprised to read on the morning of Tuesday, the 13th of December, the diatribe printed below. It was published in the leading papers of the country in the form of an advertis.e.m.e.nt, in great type covering half a page.
THOMAS W. LAWSON--READ THIS PICTURE
NEW YORK, December 12, 1904.
THOMAS W. LAWSON, Boston, Ma.s.s.
For six months I have read with close attention your story of "Frenzied Finance," in _Everybody"s Magazine_, and have paid close attention to the manner in which, by pandering to the worst prejudices of the American people, you have endeavored by misstatement of facts to distort the conditions actually existing through what you call the workings of the "System."
What is the conclusion to be deducted from your own statements? What is the "System" to which you have so often referred?
From the standpoint of honest, unprejudiced men no other conclusion can be derived but from your own statements you have endeavored personally and through subornation of others to debauch legislation, to distort facts, to create in the minds of investors a lack of confidence in men whom the public for many years have looked up to as the leaders in the industrial world.
By every foul vilification and every statement which distorted imagination is capable of producing, you have endeavored to show that the so-called leaders of finance of the United States are in league to rob and defraud the investing public.
Taking all your statements and a.n.a.lyzing them, what do they amount to? That certain men, amongst whom you yourself was one of the leaders, have bought out certain corporations which were capitalized at a price which you state was far above their cost.
Not one single new fact has been brought to the attention of the public. If men, by their brains, their capital, and their energy, acquire properties that have not been appreciated by the public, put them forth under whatsoever name, so that the statements made in connection with those properties are true, and capable of verification, what is it but a business proposition that cannot be criticised?
What is the "System" which you denounce as the very personification of evil? Is it not the "System" of which you have been the leading advocate, votary, and exponent for many years? Is not the "System," when a.n.a.lyzed and reduced to its root, a stock-brokerage of which you are and have been for many years one of the shining lights; not the system of honest, legitimate brokerage, but the system of endeavoring by false statements and by exciting the fears of the mult.i.tude to depress and destroy values in order that its votaries may reap their ill-gotten gains?
Is there one thing in connection with all that you have written in your articles on "Frenzied Finance" in which you have not been from start to finish one of the prime movers?
Who is the man that, from the inception of the enterprise which you most severely criticise, has been most prominently before the public? Who is the man that, from your own words, originated the idea and carried it to its completion? Is it not Thomas W. Lawson? Who is the man that, in the various schemes which you hold up to the condemnation of the public, has taken from start to finish the leading part? Is it not Thomas W. Lawson?
Is there one honest man in the United States who to-night believes that, in spending the thousands and thousands of dollars that you have spent in advocating your views and in posing as the friend of the people, that you have not acted for your own selfish ends? Do you believe that there is one man in all this wide world to-day who honestly believes one single statement that you have made, or who believes that you have ever turned your hand to, or aided in the slightest degree in, any honest enterprise? You criticise the copper corporations who have placed their stock before the public as a legitimate investment. Can you point to one single instance in which a misrepresentation of fact or figure has ever been made in anything connected with the Amalgamated Company?
Who are you, who should say in relation to a copper mine whether it is good or bad? Did you ever see a copper mine?
Did you ever put a pick into ore? Did you ever reduce one ton of metal so that it would yield up its wealth for the benefit of mankind. Have you ever done anything excepting to act as a parasite upon honest labor and, by chicanery and by misrepresentation, endeavor to rob the people of their hard earnings? I speak to you plainly, knowing you yourself for what you are. Can you show one man that can point to any honest industry in which you ever took part; to one single act of yourself that ever contributed to the welfare or the advancement of the working people? Can you point to one single act in your career that was ever based on any other motive than absolute egotism and selfishness; to one single utterance, act, word, or deed of yourself that was not based on selfishness and a desire to rob or misrepresent or, in some other manner, attach the earnings of the people to your coffers without effort on your part?
I address this communication to you knowing you for what you are; as a man who, throughout his many years of active life on the Stock Exchange, came to be generally considered as the synonym of chicanery and of misrepresentation. To-day, through your perversion of truth and partial misstatement of fact, which, through many years in pursuance of your calling, you have become an adept in, you can destroy the confidence of the people who make the money and the wealth of the country. Do you for one moment suppose that there is one honest person in this country to-day who believes that you are actuated by a sincere desire to aid them?
Do you not know that your only motive is, by destroying confidence, to endeavor to make a large profit for yourself, by the methods which you have pursued of advertising to the public? The men who do things, the men who created wealth, the men who are known throughout the world for integrity and for their business qualifications, will unanimously say that your motive is selfish from start to finish.
Do you remember the dealings that you had with me, how they were based on falsehood and misrepresentation from start to finish? How, by the use of names that are well known in the financial and business world, you endeavored to rob and convert to your own use what you thought was one of the greatest properties in the world? What has been the result of your advertis.e.m.e.nts of the last few days? Has it not been to destroy confidence, to create a panic among people who had invested their earnings in what they have considered as legitimate propositions? Have you ever paused and thought for one moment about what the results of your selfish and distorted statements might be?
In your articles you have spoken of the loss that has been entailed upon widows and orphans, of disgrace and suicide and other ills that have come through what you are pleased to call the workings of the "System," the "System" of which you have been and are to-day the exponent, the system of misrepresentation and of spreading false statements; in other words, of stealing Heaven"s livery to serve the devil in. Millions of dollars of legitimate investments have been lost to the people who have made them. Why? Because you, in your selfish egotism, have looked to nothing but your personal gain, thinking nothing, caring less for the woe that you might work to thousands, pandering to the worst prejudices, and by means of such words as "Standard Oil,"
"Amalgamated," "Frenzied Finance," etc., and making statements which investors have not the means or the time to dispute, you have endeavored to destroy values that have been created by the works of a lifetime.
To-morrow, in Boston, I shall call upon you. I for many years have stood as a worker, as a man who has built up and who has created, and I know that the savings of a lifetime of many honest investors have been swept away by the falsehoods that you have spread abroad through the public press.
To-morrow, at your office, I shall denounce you for what you are. The Master long ago said: "By your works ye shall be judged."
Personally I shall call upon you for your answer to-morrow.
W. C. GREENE.
This is the rejoinder of the "System." No denial of my facts. No defence against my charges, but a volley of mud and a threat of a.s.sa.s.sination. I had dared tell the people how they had been robbed.
All remember the panic of 1901, the famous Northern Pacific corner, in which values shrank hundreds of millions in a few hours and tens of thousands of the people lost their entire savings. Who precipitated that terrific slaughter? Certain great railroad magnates and bankers were at each other"s throats; two greedy corporations had quarrelled ferociously over the control of a railway line. No man in all our broad land dared to hint at the a.s.sa.s.sination of a Morgan or a Perkins or a Harriman or any of the "Standard Oil" votaries who were parties to the bitter contest that left Wall Street strewn with the mangled and bleeding carca.s.ses of the ruined and bankrupt. That time, however, the "System"
had both money and stocks--the people had lost both.
I am not going to enter into a defence of myself against Colonel Greene"s charges. In the newspapers of the country that matter was fully ventilated at the time. I simply republish his vituperation to show how the "System" sets about silencing those who dare protest against its villainous methods. In the first six months of the publication of my story the sole defence the "System" entered against my specific and terrible charges of plunder and debauching of the people was to attack me personally. It inaugurated a war of mud-slinging and vilification directed by the New York _Commercial_, Henry H. Rogers"s own paper, which printed the ridiculous statement that I was crazy. This editorial made splendid ammunition for the big insurance corporations, which caused it to be distributed among their policy-holders, and for the yelping pack of insurance papers which may be depended on to bark, and bite the legs of any one who dares attack their master, the "System"s,"