Frenzied Finance Part 16

Henry M. Whitney is a great general. He also can light his cigar, when the battle's on, with the friction of a pa.s.sing cannon-ball.

"I'm going to pa.s.s it over the governor's veto," he instantly answered.

"Can you do it?" I asked.

"I can, for I must." He meant it. It needed but one look into his and Towle's eyes to see they both had read the message on the back of To-morrow's visiting-card.

"All right," I said. "Let your people have the word, and it must have no doubtful ring; tell your brokers to buy Dominion Coal, and don't let them stand on the order of their buying. Dominion Coal must be put back, regardless of how much it costs or how little you want what you must buy. I will turn Bay State before three if it is necessary to trade in the whole capital stock to do it."

As I came out of Parlor 11 to rush back to my office I said to the despairing men who crowded the corridor outside the head-quarters, and who had in their desperation thrown all caution or thought of concealment to the winds: "Coal and Gas look to me like good buys." The sudden revulsion of feeling was pathetic. In a minute the news had spread by way of them to their brokers and their suffering friends: "It's all right; Whitney and Lawson are buying stock." It got to the Exchange almost as soon as I did.

We turned the market.

That night Whitney and Towle's plans were mapped out to the army and their orders despatched with a vicious snap that plainly said: "Whoever attempts to put the Whitney machine in a hole will be shown no mercy."

The morning papers announced that Whitney had picked up the gantlet Governor Wolcott had thrown at his feet, and--all roads led up Beacon Hill.

It was a quick, sharp set-to. Every man was lined up with a jerk, and when the line was tallied up and tallied down and Towle had consented to the last raise in price of votes and given away to the final squeeze, the word went up and down the ranks that the Whitney bill would, on the approaching last day of the session, go flying through both Houses over the governor's veto with a vote or two to spare. Again the prices of the two stocks shot upward.

Then, sharp and quick as a bolt of lightning, Fate, who apparently had been camped on the trail of Bay State Gas and Add.i.c.ks from the first, let fly another of her quiver's contents. On the morning of the closing day of the session (the one selected for the Whitney coup), there slipped in and out amongst the Whitney legislative ranks a man with a story. As each legislator listened, his brow knitted and he nodded a.s.sent. The story was a simple one: In one of Whitney's former campaigns, desperate like this one, on payment-day Towle had gone back on his promises and forced the acceptance of a fifty-cents-on-the-dollar settlement; and, so the story now went, he, Towle, had put the saved fifty cents, a matter altogether of some $75,000, in his own pocket.

Probably he was now going to repeat the operation on an even larger scale. In an hour there came to Young's Hotel a trusty messenger who delivered to Towle himself the ultimatum of the Great and General Court of the dear old Commonwealth: "Money in advance or no bill!"

Consternation reigned. The army was quickly recalled to head-quarters, and despatched back to the State House to put through every manoeuvre known to the two veterans--but to no purpose. The Great and General Court stood its ground, openly defied the army and hurled back into Towle's teeth all his frantic threats. It was the last day, and the Great and General Court was intrenched inside the protecting walls of the State House, and it knew that before it could be compelled to come forth to face Towle he must come to a decision. A terrible dilemma, surely, for the amounts promised had run up to such an enormous aggregate that it was impossible to pay all in so short a time, even if such had been Whitney and Towle's intention. Yet to pay one or a few of the dangerous malcontents meant to pay every one; the gang had firmly banded themselves together.

This was the real moment of panic. Even Whitney and Towle were at their wits' end. Finally, in desperation, and as a last resort, Whitney rushed to the governor, threw up his hands, and asked for mercy. "What would the governor sign?"

Ma.s.sachusetts' able and fearless Governor Wolcott, who seemed to have been expecting some such outcome of the battle, gave his answer clear as an anvil-blow:

"You have told the people your company would give them cheap gas. Bind yourself to do it by amending the charter so that the highest price your gas can be sold at will be sixty cents. Then I will sign."

There was nothing else to do.[10] At the last minute the amendment was inserted. The governor's representative gave the word that it was satisfactory, and it pa.s.sed.

I was in my office taking care of the market. Of the stampede I knew nothing. Suddenly came the word: "The Whitney bill has pa.s.sed on the governor's recommendation." Both stocks started to jump; then a halt, then--I didn't try to stop the decline, for I saw something terrible had happened. In a few minutes the news was on the Street: "The charter was not worth the parchment upon which it was engrossed."

The biter had been fatally bitten.

The market closed with the tape and ticker fiercely, exultingly shouting "Ruin!" with each tick and slip: and that night Whitney's head-quarters was little better than a mob. Frantic men demanded money, money due to them for votes, money they had promised for margins to the brokers before the Stock Exchange opened the next day, and swearing desperate consequences to Whitney and Towle regardless of the effect upon themselves.

Early next morning there came to my office two wild-eyed, desperate creatures, Towle and Mr. Patch.

I had spent the night going over my accounts and those of which I had charge, and in addition to a quick, real loss of over a million dollars, I realized that the immediate future was so hung with dark clouds that I dared not antic.i.p.ate what the coming day might mean to me and mine; but when I looked upon the big, powerful man, who had always seemed in any light in which I had heretofore beheld him to fear neither man nor G.o.d--when I looked and saw his plight I pitied him deeply, sincerely. He carried a large travelling-bag, and Mr. Patch two others.

"Lawson, for G.o.d's sake, don't do what they are all doing--don't upbraid me! I've got to get out into the world and be dead to all I know--family, friends, every one. If I stay, it's State's prison or worse, and Whitney says I must go. I've got all the papers together and Whitney has given me what cash he had on hand, and this check of $10,000. Do me one last favor, get me gold for it. I know I have no right to ask any favors of you, but think if you were in my place. I have a wife and children, and--" and the great, strong man wept like a child.[11]

I called my secretary, and in a short time George Towle with the $10,000 in gold and the bags of "evidence" faded out of my life and into the gray mist of eternity.

A few days after, a vessel dropped anchor off the island of Jamaica; George Towle's body was carried ash.o.r.e and buried, and Mr. Patch was escorted back to the ship. A few days later, with weights of lead to carry it to its last resting-place at the ocean's bottom, the latter's dead body was dropped over the vessel's side. And somewhere floating the high seas are a venturesome sailor-captain and a crew, who when in their cups tell, 'tis said, strange tales of bags of gold and mysterious doc.u.ments.

As for the members of the Great and Good Court of the old Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts for the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, they received, none of them could tell from where, their promised vote-money in the form of a yarn that the "stuff" belonging to them had been delivered to George Towle, but that Towle had decamped with it to foreign sh.o.r.es, where he was living in luxury with Mr. Patch.

'Tis writ that some crimes are so black and foul that they will not down, and when I read over what is written here, I wonder if there will not some day be another chapter of "Frenzied Finance" written by another pen than mine.

I sent two police officials to the island of Jamaica, and had the contents of the coffin marked "George H. Towle" photographed. I could not photograph the contents of the ocean's depths.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] A stock operator's one reliable source of information is his ticker and tape. For the benefit of those of my readers who are unacquainted with the paraphernalia by which stock-markets and financial operations are conducted, I would say that the ticker is a small printing machine through which pa.s.ses an endless paper tape. The machine is run by telegraph wires, and it prints upon the tape letters and figures which are abbreviations of the names and prices of all the stocks and commodities dealt in on the stock-exchanges and boards of trade throughout the world. The instant anything of moment happens anywhere, it is reflected by a rise or fall in the price of securities or commodities such as wheat, corn, pork, cotton, etc., that are dealt in in the different stock-exchanges or boards of trade. As soon as a share of stock or bushel of wheat is sold by one operator to another on the floors of the different exchanges, its price is within a second printed on the tapes in the different offices. Therefore what the ticker "ticks" out onto the tape is instantly read by operators throughout the world, and as "the tape never lies," operators turn to it for their real information. When the ticker begins to increase its clatter and the tape to travel fast, an operator will tell you its activity means something unusual is happening. The ticker begins to talk at ten o'clock each week-day morning and finishes at 3 P.M., with the exception of Sat.u.r.day, when the hour is 12 noon. These are the hours that the stock-exchanges are in session.

[10] The charter as originally pa.s.sed had gone through by a fair majority, but to pa.s.s it over the governor's veto was another matter. That required a two-thirds majority of both houses, and in the brief time at the disposal of the conspirators the securing of the additional votes was wellnigh impossible. From the necessities of the case such votes must cost much more than those of the original supporters of the bill, for it may be taken for granted that most of the members of the minority had already withstood such temptations as the Whitney faction had cared to offer. It was therefore a case of bringing into camp the most honorable and the most expensive members of the legislature, and without opportunity for strategy or manipulation. The sole recourse was rank, flat bribery, and that in full view of a mutinous following ready at the suggestion of the slightest favoritism to the new men to become actively hostile. The task was altogether too fraught with peril, to be undertaken. When they realized how threatening the situation really was, Whitney and Towle decided to make terms with the governor. The charter once obtained, they calculated that the obnoxious clause might be amended out of it at a subsequent session (as a matter of fact this charter, with its 60-cent clause, was afterward made the nucleus of the present Ma.s.sachusetts Gas companies which has just been floated on a basis of $53,000,000 capital). Besides, the state of feeling of the legislators and conditions in the stock-market had both to be taken into consideration. It was not the fault of the legislators who had voted for the charter that the governor had vetoed it, for they had been given to understand by Mr. Whitney that he would not oppose it. They had delivered their goods, and now, if the governor's sanction could be had under any sort of a compromise, they would certainly hold Towle and Whitney responsible for failure to make whatever arrangements were necessary.

[11] Towle told me, as he waited impatiently in my office for the gold, that in addition to the great losses the drop in price of the two stocks had inflicted on himself and his a.s.sociates, there were losses on stocks held by legislators, who had plunged on a.s.surances that the charter would go through, and that the amounts he would be called on to pay, if he remained, were far greater than could possibly be met.

CHAPTER XXII

PLUNDERED OF THE PLUNDER

So extraordinary a happening as the disappearance of George H. Towle and Mr. Patch, you think, should have furnished a national sensation. And this is the first you have ever heard of it. Bear in mind that here for the first time the facts of this case are set forth in their proper relation to one another, and without the fear or favor that has. .h.i.therto prevented them from being understood.

In Boston after the adjournment of the Legislature, however bitter the feeling of the men who had sold themselves, and those others who had lost their all in the crash of stock values that had followed Whitney's defeat, their own complicity enforced silence and prevented outcry. It was given out that George H. Towle and Mr. Patch, tired by their labors, had gone to the country for a brief sojourn. On their return there would be a settlement. And with these a.s.surances, both legislators and lieutenants had, perforce, to be satisfied. Gradually, betrayers and betrayed drifted back to their own homes and their erstwhile avocations, and when the strange story of the disappearance and death of the chief actors in the Whitney drama came from over the seas, it fell on the heedless ears of men who had written off a loss and desired to forget the experience. A conspiracy of silence is easily organized among accomplices.

I myself was the greatest sufferer by the disaster. Banking on Whitney's a.s.surance of success I had loaded up heavily with Bay State on my own account; and my customers pinning their faith to my predictions of a rise, had also bought heavily both of the gas stock and Dominion Coal.

In my attempt to support the market when the first decline occurred, I had further increased my holdings, and, at the final break, thousands of shares purchased for my clients were left on my hands. So my loss was very large, many times larger than Whitney's. Like the others, I said nothing, crediting the expense to education, while Whitney silently tucked his emasculated charter into a crypt already furnished with other corporation derelicts, to await some fair opportunity of legislative or other resuscitation; for the instrument, shorn though it had been of its immediate availability, was by no means without real value. Probably in view of prospective contingencies, perhaps with a sense of what his error had cost me, he said to me: "Lawson, the Pipe Line charter is worthless now, but if at any time in the future it becomes valuable, you or your company shall have half of it."

If Henry M. Whitney had kept that promise, what a world of disaster and bitterness might have been averted. Generated in corruption, perhaps it is not strange that this charter has since been so fertile a breeder of dissension and ruin among all who have attempted to handle it. It may be accepted as an axiom of finance that double-dealing is as dangerous to the dealer as to his victim. The fierce conflicts that at intervals burst out in the financial world and like a cyclone spread dishonor and destruction broadcast, invariably are caused by some one man's treachery.

To return to my story. To all appearances, the gas war was over. We bore the palm of victory, but looming up before us was the task of getting together the six millions which Rogers must have by November 1st. That paid, the companies became permanently ours. It was a period of unremitting effort, but the prospects of success were excellent. Add.i.c.ks had got ready a new lot of Bay State stock, and I had prepared the public to take it. With the proceeds of this stock and the securities which Rogers would turn over to us, we should have money enough to meet our engagement, always provided no slip-up occurred. Since the May 1st settlement our relations with Rogers had been satisfactory--I should say, _my_ relations--for he persistently kept Add.i.c.ks and his crowd at a distance, refusing to have anything to do with them. But it's hard to keep a big pot boiling in the open without some intruder smelling the savor of your soup and sneaking up for a mouthful. Though secrecy had been solicitously preserved regarding the details of our bargain with the "Standard Oil" magnates, certain of the camp-followers of "Frenzied Finance" had nosed out the facts, and at the very moment when our position and prospects seemed most secure a plot was being laid, which, as after-events will show, came close to bringing about the destruction we had thus far managed to escape.

As the time of settlement drew near, it became necessary for me to have frequent conferences with Add.i.c.ks and his directors, and we opened head-quarters at the Hoffman House in New York. It was my habit to come over for a short time every week, when we got together, reported progress, and discussed future moves. It was at one of these gatherings, on Friday, October 16th, that we had intimation of our peril. I had come down on the midnight train from Boston and was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with pleasant news and agreeable antic.i.p.ations. The day and all other things seemed good to me. The air was crisp and the morning sun gleamed brightly on the red and yellow autumn tints of the trees in Madison Square. For a moment I stood on the corner beside the naval monument watching the down-townward procession of cabs and coupes in which the spider aristocracy of finance makes its way to its webs in Wall Street and lower Broadway. In the parlor of Add.i.c.ks' suite at the Hoffman the directors were gathered when I entered, and with them was Parker Chandler, the Bay State's general counsel. We got down to business at once. I told them how well our affairs were moving in Boston and listened to their tidings of progress elsewhere. We were all in the merry mood of success. The past was nothing but a bad dream; our thoughts were on the rich moments beyond November 1st when we should handle and know the real currency of our victory.

The telephone bell rang. Some one wanted Add.i.c.ks quick.

Add.i.c.ks stepped to the instrument. We all heard him say: "h.e.l.lo."

Then--"Is that you, Fred?" (Fred Keller was his personal secretary.) Then--"Yes, I hear you plainly. Repeat it." Then--a minute's wait while we listened. Then--"When will they get up there?" Then--"Send every one home, lock up and go over to the house, and call me on my wire." All this in his ordinary, well-attuned, even voice, without the emphasis of a word to show that the subject was a hair more important than any of the hundred and one ordinary messages which went to make up a large part of his daily life. The talk was so commonplace that we were none of us interested enough to even stop our chatter.

Add.i.c.ks stepped from the telephone and in a "bring-me-a-finger-bowl"

tone of voice said: "Tom, come into the other room for a minute; I want a word with you."

He pa.s.sed ahead of me through a small parlor into his bedroom. I followed. He went straight to the bureau, took something from a drawer, slipped it into his pocket, turned and dropped upon a lounge. But a minute had elapsed since he had gone to the telephone. Could this gray ghost be the same man who a short time ago had been smiling so contentedly at Parker Chandler's last story? His face was the color of a mouldy lead pipe and seared with strange lines and seams. The eyes that met mine were dim and glazed, l.u.s.treless and dead as the eyes of a fish dragged from watery depths.

Courage is not character; it is temperamental. There is an impression that the man truly brave is he who can face sudden, unexpected misfortune or calamity without a tremor or a flicker to suggest his hurt. That is but a single phase and indicative of physical rather than moral qualities; or, perhaps, merely the callousness born of long exposure to danger. One of the bravest men I've ever known stood watching the ticker one day during a downward run. Suddenly I heard "My G.o.d, I'm ruined!" and he fell in a faint on the floor. And a certain bank officer, whom I knew to be an arrant coward when arrested for stealing a million, smiled at the policeman who had tapped his shoulder and asked him for a light for his cigarette. Add.i.c.ks had not turned a hair as he hung up the telephone receiver, and here he was cowering in a mortal funk, abjectly hopeless.

"Lawson, the game's up," he said in a trembling voice. "That was Fred.

He says Dwight Braman has had himself appointed receiver of Bay State; that he raided the Wilmington office immediately after he was appointed, broke open desks, and took all the papers he could find, and that in an hour or so he will be in Philadelphia and in possession of all my books and papers. He has a court order for the bank accounts and the right to take charge of our funds."

"This is a startler," I said; "what are we going to do?"