Frenzied Finance Part 51

I have stripped the veil from these hypocrites and exposed to all the world their soulless rapacity. I have let the light of heaven into the dim recesses of Wall Street in which these buccaneers of commerce concocted their plots. I have done more than this: I have nipped in the bud the newest conspiracy for the entanglement of the public--the great "bull" market which was organized late in 1904 by the chief votaries of the "System," to harvest a new crop of profits on the securities they had laid in during their last raid. In other words, I have treated Wall Street to a dose of its own medicine.

During the month of December the newspapers devoted considerable s.p.a.ce to the doings of the stock-market in connection with the episode to which I refer. I use the word "episode" purposely, for I warn my readers that it was but one of a series of disturbances which must occur before the grasp of the pirates on the great financial interests of this country can be shaken off. David slew Goliath with one pebble from his sling, but the giant "System," intrenched in the stoutest citadel ever constructed, and armored in gold and riven steel, will yield to no mere call for surrender. My own part I have cheerfully taken with no delusions as to the difficulties of the contest. He who interferes between the lamb and the wolf is likely to provoke the wrath of the wolf, and I have done worse, for have I not come between the lions of finance and their willing prey?

It is worth while here to rehea.r.s.e the steps of this first disturbance, because it const.i.tutes part of a movement destined to wield a tremendous influence in this country's history. While my revelations of the methods of the "System" were circulating throughout these United States, the "System" was engaged at its old trick of inflating the prices of its favorite stocks and bonds and spreading its nets for another gigantic plundering of the people. In the stock-market and in the highways and by-ways and resting-places of finance nothing was heard for months but fairy tales of great earnings of railroads and industrials, fairy tales of new ore in old mines, fairy tales of great financial forces converging toward colossal combinations.

These are the lures of the "System's" hirelings, the decoy calls of the market tout and the financial tipster whose part it is to mould opinion and urge the people to the shambles. Before my eyes, with a blind and audacious defiance of my warnings, the old, old game was rigged in full view of the audience and the old players began their venerable antics.

In the meantime the "System" attended to its own role in the conspiracy--supplying out of its banks and trust companies the public's money for the gamblers to make the game with. Then began the artful process of working up the market; stocks gradually climbed higher and higher. Amalgamated ascended from the forties into the fifties and the sixties and even into the eighties; steel a.s.sumed the appearance of life and grew from ten slowly upward into the twenties and thirties. Every day in the Stock Exchange hundreds of thousands of shares changed hands back and forth among the professionals who l.u.s.tily played their parts in this financial melodrama. The good old myths of great fortunes made by lucky investors began to reappear in the papers. Sales increased; values jumped rather than climbed. The trap was set; the market made. The wily manipulators rubbed their hands gleefully. The public began to bite, to buy. It was then only a matter of sizing up the wool crop before beginning the shearing.

Before I detail the steps I took to spring its own trap on the "System,"

I should explain that this market was purely an artificial one. The immense advance of prices was not brought about by any honest methods or legitimate causes. The "System's" votaries had enormous quant.i.ties of stocks--millions upon millions of shares, bought when the people during the past two years were compelled to throw them overboard at slaughter prices. By employing one of the oldest swindling devices known to finance,[21] they could bid prices to any figure they desired. Honest financial writers called attention each week to the tactics of the manipulators and declared the high quotations unjustifiable and unreasonable.

At the stage of the game that I felt sure immediately preceded the unloading signal, I determined to test whether the people had really digested as well as absorbed the cold facts I had been ladling out to them in my story of "Frenzied Finance"--whether they had grown wise enough to heed a warning. So on Monday, December 5th, I carefully prepared the following advertis.e.m.e.nt, which was published Tuesday morning in the great papers of the great cities of this country and later in Europe.

AMALGAMATED STOCKHOLDERS--WARNING

From the creation of Amalgamated I have continuously believed in its worth and constantly advocated the purchase of its stock.

Henry H. Rogers personally negotiated with Marcus Daly for the properties which went to make up the Amalgamated Company.

Henry H. Rogers alone knew absolutely their values.

Henry H. Rogers's a.s.sociates took his word for them.

While they cost Messrs. Rogers, Rockefeller, and a.s.sociates only $39,000,000, we all believed they were worth more than the $75,000,000 at which they were sold to the public.

Shortly after the public flotation at $100 per share, the stock dropped to 75. I did all in my power to prevent the decline, losing millions in the effort, but I retained my faith in the real worth of the property.

Some of the insiders made millions; the public was fleeced of millions.

I still refused to be discouraged. I urged Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller to make good their promises made through me to the public. Finally they consented. The stock advanced until it sold at 130.

At the highest price I was still buying and advising its purchase. Then there came the awful slump which slid the stock down to 33. I lost enormously; insiders made vast profits. The public was again fleeced.

At 33 I began a new campaign to induce my followers and the public to buy. As a result there were purchased by hundreds of people all over the country directly and indirectly through me, rising 260,000 shares, at an average of 40 to 42, and probably hundreds of thousands more which I could not trace.

This campaign I have prosecuted incessantly up to the present time, until now I estimate the public holds 1,000,000 shares, 700,000 of which show at to-day's price, 82, a profit of $28,000,000.

When my story, "Frenzied Finance," began, I advertised that it could do no damage to Amalgamated stock, but would help it.

Hoping to divert the dangerous disclosures I threatened, the leading attorney of Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller asked for a conference. At it he demanded of me what I expected to accomplish. I replied: "One thing, at least--to put the price of Amalgamated back to 100, that those unfortunates who still retain their stock may recover their money."

Then the secret was revealed to me that Amalgamated was not worth anything like the price at which it had been sold to the public. I said: "How can this be?"

He answered: "Mr. Rogers knows for a certainty that Marcus Daly deceived him about the worth of the properties."

I had great faith in this attorney. He was sincere in what he said; his knowledge and relations were such he could not have been deceived, and his special information about this property was such that he could speak in the first person. I believed him. Soon afterward another official of Amalgamated confirmed his statements.

When I received this information my dilemma was a terrible one. If I gave it to my following they would at once throw over their stock, probably at a great loss. I waited. Sooner or later I knew these men would get behind the market, push up the prices of the stocks they had gathered in at bottom figures, and, when the moment was ripe, again unload on the public.

The market "came in." I did all in my power to a.s.sist in raising the price of Amalgamated.

To-day's situation is the same as that of 1901.

"Frenzied finance" stock gamblers have acc.u.mulated immense lines of Amalgamated. The same sensational rumors of a great rise to come flood Wall and State streets as in 1901. They have asked me to join in creating a wild market upon which all the Amalgamated taken in at lower prices may be turned out upon the public.

It would be millions in my pocket to a.s.sist, but----

I see the handwriting on the wall which the "frenzied financiers" of Wall Street do not yet see. It reads:

"The people will not stand plundering any longer."

And I have decided.

I advise every stockholder of Amalgamated stock to sell his holdings at once before another crash comes. Another slump may carry it to 33 again, or lower.

It may go higher, but this is no affair of mine. From the moment of the publication of this notice all those who have looked to me for advice must relieve me of further responsibility.

As the people who look to me for advice are scattered all over this country, I know of no other way than this to simultaneously notify them of what I have learned.

If the powerful people who manage and control Amalgamated, and who, after selling it to the public at $100 a share, allowed it to sink to $75, and after it had advanced to 130, smashed it to 33, regardless of their sacred promise to me and the public through me, now reveal to me that it is not worth over 45, it is inevitable that if they are honest in what they say, the stock must go there of its own weight. If they are not honest, they will put it there anyway, and lower still.

I would have waited until the reckless speculators who are now manipulating the market had put the stock higher, but I did not dare. During the past two days I have detected unmistakable signs that the vultures are gathering for the feast.

In the past I have told what I thought I knew about Amalgamated; from to-day I shall tell what the men who control and manage Amalgamated say they have found out about it. No stockholder should, after this fair notice, object or accuse me of trying to injure the property, even though I be compelled to begin court proceedings based on this information so lately revealed to me.

This advertis.e.m.e.nt and my mailed notices will appear in New York and Boston, Tuesday, December 6th; in the Eastern and middle portions of the United States Wednesday, and the balance of the country, Canada and Europe Thursday, and I shall wait until Friday, that all may have ample time to dispose of their stock, if they care to, before making my next move.

Every holder of Amalgamated must keep before his eyes this one tremendous fact: His property is now absolutely at the mercy of men who have the market in the hollow of their hands, and who in the past have raised this stock to the highest and then dropped it to the lowest without heed or concern but for their own pockets.

COPPER RANGE

Since Copper Range Consolidated sold at 12 I have advised its purchase. To-day it sells at 70. All who have followed my advice have made immense profits.

Copper Range has 385,000 shares; Amalgamated 1,550,000.

Copper Range is a new property at Lake Superior, consisting of three immense mines and a railroad, with the latest and most complete plant in the world, including its own smelters. It is the largest and richest copper mine discovered and developed in the past twenty years. It is producing now 40,000,000 pounds of copper annually, and will in the near future become the largest producer in the world.

Amalgamated pays 2 per cent. in dividends. Copper Range will pay 6 per cent. in the coming year, and continue to increase, to what limit no man can tell. If the present market for copper, the metal, holds at 15 cents, and the best judges think it will probably go higher, Amalgamated should increase its dividends to 4 or 6, but with 15-cent metal Copper Range will earn and pay 8, 10, and 12 per cent., and upward.

The curse of Amalgamated has been "Standard Oil" management.

Copper Range has been, and is, directed and controlled by representative Boston copper men, who seek their profits in the mine and not in the stock-market.

THOMAS W. LAWSON.

BOSTON, December 6, 1904.

The result of this announcement proved that my message had not fallen on stony places, but had been accepted by the public in the spirit of its giving. All Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the people sold their stocks to the "System's" votaries at the falsely inflated prices these gentry had forced for their own plundering purposes. Instead of gathering in the savings of the toilers, the "System" had to part with some of its wad. For once the people got the money and the "System" had the stocks. Under the stress of tremendous selling the price of "Amalgamated" was shattered. Other frenzied finance stocks declined in sympathy. The power of publicity had been triumphantly vindicated and the cries of frenzied financiers, their mouths full of their own fish-hooks, resounded through the land.

That this condition would be allowed to prevail long, I knew was improbable. The "System's" leading votaries got together and organized to stop the frightful decline in prices. The old cuttle-fish methods were at once resorted to--a campaign of falsehood, deception, and trickery began. Lest the people should realize that it was their power which had wrought such havoc, the touts and tipsters shouted in chorus that the slaughter of prices was the work of the "System" itself, and that I was secretly in league with the "System" against the public; that, the public having been robbed of its stocks, prices would advance with an extra bound. Scores of millions were drawn from the banks and trust companies to stay the slump. Under the influence of all this industry and clamor the market began to boil again; prices recovered, and the people, confused and bewildered, were once more about to be entrapped. A sharp advance was followed by a cry from the votaries that I was a trickster and that what had been in reality the most notable demonstration of "the people's strength" ever given was only another evidence of the "System's" infallibility. If this deceit had prevailed, the task I have undertaken of enlightening the public would have had a setback. Relying on my previous work, I put forth the following announcement Monday morning, December 12th, and confidently awaited results: