Frenzied Finance Part 10

"Well and good. My office is in West Street. Give your card to my first, second, or third secretary and I will not keep you waiting long."

"The office of the mayor of Boston is at the City Hall and my first or under-secretary will make things agreeable while you wait. When will you call?"

"I would have you understand, Mr. Mayor, that any one to talk gas with J. Edward O'Sullivan Add.i.c.ks, Gas King and United State Senator-to-be, comes to his office."

"Good-day to you, Mr. Gas King and United States Senator-to-be."

"Good-day to you, Mr. Mayor."

I do not, of course, guarantee that the conversation took exactly the form here given it, but no injustice has been done its substance, nor would it be possible to estimate in miles the breach it created. From that telephonic encounter date the earnest efforts of Matthews and Add.i.c.ks to do up each other, in which both were successful to a degree that filled their hearts with Indian pleasure.

A few days later public announcement was made that the Brookline Gas Company, Rogers' corporation, had been awarded the contract for lighting Boston, and that henceforth the legal price of gas to the consumer was to be $1 per thousand feet. This was due notice to all concerned that "Standard Oil" had captured City Hall, and Add.i.c.ks realized his error.

He sought the mayor's office, but the mayor had no time to see him. His companies met the new rate. There was nothing else for them to do.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT BAY STATE GAS FIGHT

It was to this condition that I had to adapt my campaigning plans. I determined first to raise the market price of Add.i.c.ks' securities; to turn the tide against the "Standard Oil" by that most potent of stock-market weapons, publicity; and then to attack Rogers from the rear through the City Hall. For Add.i.c.ks to attempt to match pocket-books with Rogers and "Standard Oil" in corrupting city or State officials I knew would be useless; and besides a fundamental stipulation in the agreement with the Delaware financier on the _Now-Then_ had been that under no circ.u.mstances should bribery or corruption be allowed to enter into any of our plans while I was connected with the enterprise. I had always held, do now, and always shall hold, that the meanest crime in the calendar of vice is bribery of the servants of the people. I felt pretty sure, moreover, that I could play a card that would more than offset the dollars of "Standard Oil." Nathan Matthews was on the high-road to the governor's chair, but I happened to know that, however ambitious he might be for political preferment, his temperament rendered him more avid for distinction in business. Add.i.c.ks had within his gift the richest plum in all the Boston commercial world. As controller of the affairs of the Bay State Company of Delaware, which controlled the nomination and consequent election of the officers of the old Boston gas companies, he could award to any one he pleased the presidency of these corporations, together with the large salary that went with the office.[6]

My plans in shape, I rushed to the firing-line. I began with a statement to the investors of New England and the gas consumers of Boston br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with facts and figures. Then I fired a volley of candid details as to the manner in which city and State officials had recently betrayed the public's interests. Lastly, I discharged at "Standard Oil" a broadside which my attorneys and friends a.s.sured me meant jail on a libel charge. I put my banking-house and my personal guarantee behind the old and new loans, and proceeded to roll up my sleeves in the stock-market. I got results at once. A change became apparent in public sentiment--the rottenness of Add.i.c.ksism was overcome by the stench of "Standard Oil." The prices of Bay State stocks and bonds shot up; loan funds were offered freely and at lower rates of interest.

There were, however, reprisals. Rogers met my onslaught by a manoeuvre new in "Standard Oil" tactics. He came into the open, issuing a proclamation over his own signature which gave me the lie, at the same time tearing off a yard or two of my skin and throwing on a bucket of brine to remind me I had lost it. This attack was just off the press when I was out with a rejoinder which he, in after-years, referred to as quite the hottest thing of its kind he had ever read. In it I calmly, but in that "chunk English" which those who really wish to convey the truth naked can always find handy, told him plainly who he was, explicitly what "Standard Oil" was, and exactly who and what I was. I opine that about either a.s.sault there was nothing dignified, generous, or refined, but in stock-exchange battles one has not time to scent shrapnel. The immediate result of this interchange of deckle-edged[7]

insults was to daze the public. "Standard Oil" attacked and actually replying; Rogers a.s.saulting Lawson and Lawson sending back worse than he got--almost anything might happen next. It was right here I got to Rogers' _solar plexus_. I came out with another plain public talk, and gave him the choice of haling me into court--in which event I pledged him my word I would send him and his a.s.sociates to jail for bribery and other crimes--or of acknowledging to the world he was licked and on the run. He was silent and I loudly claimed victory. The price of Add.i.c.ks stocks quickly emphasized our success by a further advance.

Thus far the campaign appeared to be working smoothly, and I turned my attention next to my rear attack. I began negotiations with Mayor Matthews for the withdrawal of his support from Rogers. It was a difficult task, but after much manoeuvring I landed my big fish. I promised him the presidency of the Boston, South Boston, Roxbury, and Bay State gas companies for the term of three years, at a salary of $25,000 per annum, with the explicit understanding that he was to allow me, as his vice-president, to see that the bargain between us was lived up to. When the trade was made it was understood that the fact of Matthews' change of base should be kept secret, and that he should not a.s.sume the office until the end of his term as mayor of Boston. With that agreement the deal was clinched, signed, sealed, and delivered.

In order that my readers may comprehend the events that follow, it is necessary that they understand something of the complications in which Add.i.c.ks' manipulations had involved that corporation.

When Add.i.c.ks purchased the several Boston gas properties he organized a company, the Bay State of Delaware, in which this ownership was vested.

In order to facilitate the financing of the new corporation and for other manipulative purposes of his own, Add.i.c.ks created an inner corporation, the Bay State of New Jersey, owned by the treasury of the Bay State of Delaware, to which he turned over the stocks of the Boston gas companies. These the Bay State of New Jersey transferred to the Mercantile Trust Company of New York as collateral for the twelve million Boston Gas bonds which had been sold to the investing public.

While to all intents and purposes the Bay State of Delaware was owner of the subsidiary properties, the contract with the Mercantile Trust Company was made with the Bay State of New Jersey, and it was to the president of the latter corporation (Add.i.c.ks) that the Trust Company was bound to deliver the proxies for the gas stocks in its possession, three days before an annual election. Knowledge of this subcutaneous corporation was confined to Add.i.c.ks and his immediate a.s.sociates, and the Delaware financier alone quite grasped its potentialities.

Hitherto Add.i.c.ks had used the proxies to elect himself president of each of the subordinate corporations, drawing the several salaries which went with the offices. To prevail on him to give up these places and their emoluments to a man he hated as bitterly as he did Matthews was a difficult task, but his situation was desperate. Finally, he agreed. I did not know till long afterward that this reluctant compliance was yielded only after Add.i.c.ks had had a secret session with his Bay State directors, at which they voted him, by way of salve for his resignation, a sum equal to three years' salary, $75,000.

The mayor, who was a lawyer, prided himself on his shrewdness, and was fully alive to the serpent strategy of Add.i.c.ks. He determined that the prize he had secured should not slip through his fingers for lack of precaution. We had many legal pow-wows in which the most astute lawyers at the Boston bar were called in, and finally the directors of the Bay State made an iron-clad contract with Nathan Matthews, agreeing to deliver over to him whatever proxies it, the Bay State Gas of Delaware, received from the Mercantile Trust Company of New York, on a given day before the annual election, with which he, of course, could elect himself president. This contract was signed by Add.i.c.ks and his directors and by all the officers of the Bay State of Delaware corporation, and was pa.s.sed on and approved by the eminent law sharps both sides had retained.

A few days after the doc.u.ment that made Nathan Matthews supreme boss of Boston Gas was conveyed to him, there came an explosion. Like the premature bursting of a bombsh.e.l.l at a Fourth of July celebration, the transaction "leaked," and the press announced in sable head-lines that Mayor Matthews had sold out, that Add.i.c.ks was on top, and that Rogers and "Standard Oil" would surely be found beneath the _debris_. Matthews has always claimed that this "leakage" was a piece of Add.i.c.ks' double dealing; Add.i.c.ks declares it was a part of Matthews' and Rogers'

deep-laid plan to give him the double cross. Anyway, as a hurrier-up of coming events the news was most successful, although its effect was somewhat of the nature of that produced by the throwing in of an overdose of soda at a candy pull--the pot boiled over, and the air for a time was permeated with the odor of burned sweets. In spite of all public and private criticism Matthews budged not a jot, and confirmed the reports. I made the most of our triumph over "Standard Oil," and for a few days the public took to it, too. Then came one of those return waves of sentiment which may always be counted on in any contest in which "Standard Oil" is engaged. From mysterious places and in untraceable ways the report became current that victory was really with Rogers instead of with our side; that the deal was a smooth piece of Machiavelian work; that Matthews when he took the helm was to steer our ship alongside one of Rogers' forts and perhaps drop anchor under a row of his concealed guns.

This rumor alarmed me. I lost no time in running it to earth, and discovered to my consternation that Matthews had spent the night before he made the agreement to come over to us in New York, at the home of H.

H. Rogers. Exactly what had occurred there, or what their programme was, I don't know. Long after this episode had slipped into gas history, at the time when Rogers and myself were doing business together, I asked him to enlighten me on this one point, and he did to the extent of saying, "Matthews only did what I approved of." This certainly redeemed Matthews in my eyes from the reproach of having sold out his friends.

There is nothing more despicable than a man who, after having consented to be "put" will not "stay put"--even though the first "put" be of a questionable character.

This new complication demanded immediate action. I called on Matthews to make public announcement that I was to be his vice-president, and thus set at rest the reports that were fast destroying the beneficial effects of our coup. I argued that such an announcement would convince the public that victory was with us and not with Rogers. My surprise may be grasped when the Mayor placed this icicle in my hot palm:

"Mr. Lawson, it has long been my ambition to show the public of Boston and gas consumers what I could do with this situation, and now that I am absolutely a.s.sured of gas supremacy, I would have you and all others distinctly understand I will run it as I deem best, regardless of the wishes of any one."

Nathan Matthews was destined later to learn that in an Add.i.c.ks edifice there are secret trap-doors and concealed pa.s.sageways available for quick escape in emergency, and that the term "absolutely a.s.sured" is of relative value when used in high finance, with Add.i.c.ks to interpret the relativeness. A few days after the mayor had shown his colors the annual election was "pulled off" in an unexpected manner. The Mercantile Trust Company delivered its proxies to the president of the Bay State _of New Jersey_, who promptly re-elected himself and his friends to their old offices.

Next morning the public, the press, and the ex-mayor were alike surprised to learn that J. Edward O'Sullivan Add.i.c.ks was still president of all the Boston gas companies; that General Sam Thomas, of New York, and Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, were vice-presidents; and that the expected and widely heralded Matthews turnover to Matthews had been indefinitely postponed. There was a tremendous "towse" for a few days during which time I tried my hand at public-opinion moulding, and so successfully that all interested saw that the tide had really turned, and was running swiftly against the heretofore invincible "Standard Oil." Rogers tried to stem it by causing it to be known that Matthews was to carry the new complication to the courts, but we quickly disposed of this possibility by reaching a settlement with our man. This was brought about by the payment to Matthews of a number of thousands of dollars, which Add.i.c.ks afterward informed me he had entered in the gas-books as "balm salary." From this event until August, 1895, it was one continuous running fire with Rogers and his crowd, with a constant gain to our side in public opinion, though final victory was still far off because of the unlimited money resources of "Standard Oil." In fact, it gradually became evident that, though we might hold out, it was impossible to whip "Standard Oil" to an open acknowledgment of defeat.

The phase of the problem that gave me keenest cause for uneasiness was the possibility I recognized of treachery in my own camp. I had become painfully aware that Add.i.c.ks was getting impatient and was ready at any favorable moment to make one of his quick Judas turns, which would land him safe with Rogers as the price of the slaughter of the rest of us.

True, I had taken all possible precautions to safeguard my own and my friends' interests against his craft by securing from him and from the subsidiary companies iron-clad power to act for them without consultation. To get this I had had to use great pressure, for he had balked long and hard against giving it. This was the condition of affairs when I decided to stake everything on one move.

* Certain of my critics have seized upon the transaction with Mayor Matthews, narrated in this chapter, to say: "He bribed the Mayor and is no better than other bribers."

The fact is, that the only thing the Mayor of Boston could do in the gas war--take sides with Rogers, grant a permit to the Brookline company to open the streets and come in compet.i.tion with our companies, thus compelling, in the interests of the people, a reduction in the selling price of gas from $1.25 to $1.00--the Mayor had already done. There was nothing more in his power, and the only object we had in securing his services was to put him between our companies and Rogers, in the belief that Rogers, owing to his former relations, would not dare fire through him.

I never, directly or indirectly, bribed Mayor Matthews; but, on the contrary, only induced him to do what he had a moral right to do and I a moral right to ask him to do.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] See page 109.

[7] Mr. Lawson's proclamations and market communications are invariably printed on the finest grade of deckle-edged paper.--THE PUBLISHER.

CHAPTER XVI

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH ROGERS

Having made up my mind that the time had come for a final engagement, I decided myself to try legitimately to settle with Mr. Rogers, and prepared two letters which, if he were willing for us to get together, would pave the way for a meeting. These letters I sent by my secretary, Mr. Vinal, to Mr. Rogers at Fairhaven. My readers, in weighing this odd correspondence, must bear in mind what the relations between Mr. Rogers and myself had been. We had vilified each other in every imaginable way, and I knew, or at least I thought I did, that the "Standard Oil" magnate would not hesitate to use any written communication of mine that he could lay hold of to bring about a split between Add.i.c.ks and myself. I had good evidence that he believed that in such a rupture lay his only chance of bringing home the quieting blow he had been trying to inflict on us. Letter I. read as follows:

HENRY H. ROGERS, Fairhaven, Ma.s.s.

_Dear Sir_: My secretary, Mr. Vinal, will hand you this letter. If after reading it you are desirous of further communication with me, he has instructions, after you have returned this one to him, sealed in the enclosed envelope, to hand you another, which if after reading you return to him in another enclosed envelope, he will bring to me with whatever verbal answer you may care to send.

My secretary knows nothing more of his errand or the contents of either letter. He can, therefore, give you no further information. If you do not call for the second letter, I will consider you do not care to pursue the subject further, which will lead me to notify you that the Boston gas war will end in a most sensational way next Wednesday.

Believe me, sir, Yours respectfully, (Signed) THOMAS W. LAWSON.

Upon his return from Fairhaven Mr. Vinal informed me that Mr. Rogers, after reading this letter twice, folded and placed it in the envelope I had sent and handed it without comment to him, whereupon my secretary delivered to him letter II., which was a type-written communication on a plain bit of paper, addressed to no one, signed by no one, and bearing no marks to identify the sender:

There is a gas war now existing. Upon one side is the "Standard Oil." Upon the other the Add.i.c.ks Bay State companies.

After a fight has been begun there are but four things possible:

"Standard Oil" can sell out to the Bay State.

The Bay State can sell out to the "Standard Oil."