Frenzied Finance Part 57

I'll disappoint you. If my "Critics" pages had actually been on the press at the moment your questions came in, I should have telegraphed the publishers to yank off the plates and hold up the edition at my own expense until I should have had time to polish off your interrogations.

Before starting in let me say to you that if you will find a way of getting my answers out into the open under oath, I shall consider that you have done me and my work a good turn.

QUESTION 1. I _know_ economics and finance, money, banking, credits, corporations, and business in their broad relations to the people, the American Government, and natural laws, and the relation each holds to the other--not so well as I should like to know them, but as well as any member of the "Standard Oil," of the "System," or any one of their hirelings knows them. You have been brutally blunt in putting your questions, so don't accuse me of egotism if I bluntly answer: I know them all, top, sides, and bottom, from thirty-six years' book study of them and thirty-six years' actual experience in the nine-pin alleys where they are daily and nightly set up for the express purpose of being knocked down. I know the relation of each of these important life factors to each of the now-you-see-it-and-now-you-don't jokers of the "System." Make no mistake, Mr. Banker, my knowledge is not "a skimming and smattering such as any alert and bright stock speculator would naturally pick up in years of experience as a broker and manipulator,"

but the straight brand which the "Standard Oil" and the "System" so like to impress into their service when they run up against it in their continuous robbing excursions. You may judge that my knowledge is not of the smattering kind when I say that for years, in spite of my refusal to join the band and wear the collar, whenever Rogers and Rockefeller had a particularly hard nut to crack they called me in to try it on my "_knows_."

2. Yes, I am aware that there have always been, and that there will always continue to be, very rich men, and that there cannot be many of them, and that where they are there must be very poor ones. And I also know that no honest man, rich or poor, objects to the necessarily few very rich ones who have honestly acquired great fortunes as the reward of their own or their ancestors' labors of body or brain in the interest of all the people. Don't misunderstand me--no honest man or woman can object to the _necessary_ great fortunes, but all honest American men and women do object, and are getting ready to make their objection heard, to all unnecessary great fortunes, "made dollar" fortunes gained by trick of finance or evasion of law, or the brutal and ruthless stock manipulation of recent years. The sooner the "System" and the other possessors of these "unnecessaries" realize that their doom is sealed and dig for the cyclone cellars, the quicker the American people will get through with the strenuous house-cleaning job for which they are just rolling up their sleeves.

3. I do know there must be billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds in America. I also know that among these legitimate billions of dollars are now mixed other billions of dollars that have no proper t.i.tle to being, save the greed of the "System." That while the existence of certain billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds is proof positive of the great prosperity of the whole country and the whole people, it does not follow that their existence is proof that the hands they are found in are the hands they should rest in. Further, I a.s.sert that the existence of other billions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds is proof positive that the laws have been violated and that the great prosperity of the whole country has been used as the excuse and motive of this violation, and declare that, in my opinion, it is the duty of honest men and women to do all in their power to shrink fict.i.tious securities and to destroy them; and, further, that it is the duty of all honest men to lend a hand so that the legitimate billions of dollars of stocks and bonds may be returned to the hands of those who are legally ent.i.tled to them.

4. I am aware that the people owned billions of these stocks and bonds three years ago, and also that if they had then sold them back to the "System," even at the price they had paid for them, and had kept their money in the banks without interest, or had even buried it in the ground or kept it in their stockings for a year, they would have been able to buy back for fifty cents on the dollar what they had sold the "System,"

thereby making for themselves billions of dollars and impoverishing the "System" by just as many billions as they had made. You know that the "System," after it had loaded up the people with its stocks, "shook them out," and thereby gathered in half the billions of money the people had paid for what they bought.

Let me ill.u.s.trate. The people bought of the "System" for 760 millions of dollars the Steel Trust stocks and bonds, and after the people had the "System's" chromos and the "System" had the people's 760 millions of savings, the "System" caused the price to be cut in two. Then it bought back the Steel Trust's chromos for 380 millions, thereby transferring from the people to the "System," in this one instance alone, 380 millions. And, further, after the people had been shaken out of their stocks and bonds and the millions of their savings--in the Steel Trust alone 380 millions--the "System," having these securities in its possession, began to inflate prices for the purpose of again selling to the people; in December last they had inflated the prices of billions of stocks and bonds to their old false figures, and were then preparing to unload them on to the people; in the case of the Steel Trust stocks and bonds the price had again mounted to 760 millions. In compliance with my warnings the people began in December last to unload upon the "System"

the billions they then held at these inflated prices, and they have continued to do so ever since, and have suffered no hardship by the forced selling into which I have frightened them. I further know that they will find good use for this money at a later period in buying back from the "System" these same securities at their true worth; in other words, that before I am through with my work they will be able to repurchase from the "System" for 380 millions or less the Steel stocks and bonds now selling for 760 millions.

5. I do know that one of the most colossal impositions ever perpetrated on the whole people of any nation is that formula which the "System" has so insidiously instilled into the minds of the American people during the last century, to wit: that they must do nothing which might disturb the "System" in its use at two to four per cent. per annum of all the people's savings, deposited in banks and trust companies throughout the country; that if they do, there will be a Wall Street panic, and thereby all the people will be made to suffer great hardships. On the contrary, I know that if the people do what is necessary to shake off the "System's" strangling grip upon their savings, the "System" will suffer death, and everlasting profit and advantage will accrue to the nation.

Though it be necessary for the people to withdraw from the banks and trust and insurance companies their billions of savings, and even though such withdrawal must cause a temporary business crash and the failure of many of the financial inst.i.tutions of the country, the sacrifice would be many thousand times compensated for by the benefits that would follow in its train. I will go further and state that if such radical action should become necessary, the people should willingly face the failure and destruction of one-half the banking inst.i.tutions of New York if by doing so they could absolutely destroy the "System." But do not misunderstand me--the simultaneous withdrawal of the people's savings from the banks and trust companies throughout the United States would be such a terrible temporary hardship that nothing could justify it but the absolute necessity for uprooting and eradicating the "System"; I should not hesitate, however, to face the full responsibility for such a move if the "System" cannot be destroyed in any other way, even though I were sure I should be lynched or torn limb from limb by those people who have been crazed and deluded, not by my teachings, but by the d.a.m.nable doctrines and acts of the "System" and its votaries.

6. I am well aware that the result of the people's selling their stocks and bonds in concert and the withdrawal of their savings would bring a tremendous drop in the price of stocks and bonds. _This is what I am working for_, but I am proceeding in such a way that I believe when the crash comes the people will be free from their stocks and bonds. Your proposition that the bears will be the only beneficiaries I regard as rot; on the contrary, I know that the people will benefit a dollar where the combined bears will benefit a cent. Pardon my giving you here an A B C lesson in finance--I know a bear is no more dishonest than a bull.

When a man tries to put up the price of stocks and bonds, he is a bull.

When he tries to put them down, he is a bear. If a bull tries to put prices to a point of fair worth, he is an honest bull. When he tries to put them any higher than fair worth, he is a dishonest bull, for he does so for the purpose of obtaining from the one to whom the stocks are sold a greater gain than he is ent.i.tled to, and always by false pretences.

When a bear tries to put stocks from an artificially high price to their fair worth, he is an honest bear. When he tries to put them any lower, he is a dishonest bear, because he does so for the purpose of purchasing from their owners stocks or bonds at less than their fair price, that he may pocket the difference between the artificially low price he makes and the higher price at which he has sold, and this profit is procured by false pretence. You, and thousands like you, should get out of your heads the false notion that a bear is necessarily less honest than a bull.

7. Life insurance is a great inst.i.tution, and should be a sacred inst.i.tution--_provided_ it is honest life insurance. He who would, for any dishonest reason, disturb the people's confidence in honest life insurance I consider a criminal; but I am sure that one who, having the power to awaken the people to their peril, yet stands silently by and suffers them to be bled and plundered in the name of life insurance is even a greater scoundrel.

_What is life insurance--honest life insurance?_ A contract between two parties by which the first agrees, in return for a certain fixed charge per year, to pay to the family or other beneficiary of the second party a stipulated sum in case of said second party's death; but it is plainly understood between them that the annual charge exacted by the first party shall be only such an amount as will insure the carrying out of the contract, plus whatever is the legitimate expense of conducting the business connected therewith. Under no circ.u.mstances would I say aught in disparagement of such a contract, but if I did not lift my voice against such life insurance as is carried on by the Mutual, New York Life, and Equitable companies, knowing what I do know, I should be a deep-dyed scoundrel.

Life insurance as it has been conducted in the past and as it is being conducted at present by these three companies, I regard as the most d.a.m.nable imposition ever practised upon the people of any nation. Under the pretence that it is necessary to enable life-insurance companies to carry out their contracts, two million policy-holders are annually tricked into contributing from their savings sums which not only insure the performance of these contracts but enable the officers and trustees--mere servants of the policy-holders--to maintain the most gigantic stock-gambling machine the world has ever known. Through its operation the companies themselves not only make and lose millions at single throws of the dice, but the bands of schemers whose services it is pretended are essential for the transaction of the life-insurance business filch for themselves huge individual fortunes. Piled on to these excessive charges are additional amounts which enable these tricksters to maintain palaces, hotels, bars, and every conceivable kind of business, to pay for armies of lackeys and employees and private servants of officers and trustees, and for debauches and banquets which vie with any given by the kings and queens of the most extravagant and profligate nations on earth; in addition, enough more to acc.u.mulate huge and unnecessary funds--which are juggled with for the enrichment of individuals. Such wicked exactions and shameful extravagances const.i.tute an imposition of the most wanton and criminal character, and those responsible should be sent to State prison for life, as too vicious and dangerous to be allowed freedom among an honest people.

I would say further that the trickery and frauds that have been practised by the New York Life and the Mutual companies are fully as bad as, if not worse than, those of the Equitable, now publicly confessed.

8. It is difficult for me to answer such a question--just as difficult as it is for the mature man to answer the question of the child, "If the moon is made of green cheese, what kind of rat-traps do they use in heaven?" The "System" for forty years has taught the people that it is impossible for them to improve upon the conditions which the "System"

has moulded for its own plundering purposes, yet I have a simple Remedy, readily understood, which I believe the people will eagerly embrace as soon as it is given them. This Remedy is adjusted to laws now in force; and when it is put into operation those who have acquired enormous fortunes by trickery and fraud will find themselves deprived of their ill-gotten gains by the simple application of natural laws to which the said Remedy affords leverage and action. All honest people, the richest as well as the poorest, will be benefited in fair and just proportion.

Once the Remedy is in force, it will be out of the power of the trickster and the thief to acc.u.mulate overnight scores of millions, although the Edisons, the Stephensons, the Morses, or any man who by brain or body does those things for his fellows which they cannot do for themselves, will continue to receive that great reward which the whole people in their wisdom and generosity decide is fair for exceptional services; the common miner, too, when he discovers the hidden gold, silver, or copper in the earth will obtain the same return that he is ent.i.tled to under to-day's laws, or even better.

9. This story is written, as I have explained so many times before, simply and solely in performance of my duty toward my country and its people and without hope or desire for reward of any kind.

10. I do not own any part of _Everybody's Magazine_, nor have I any money interest in it, directly or indirectly. I have not made a dollar from _Everybody's Magazine_ directly or indirectly, but, on the contrary, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a.s.sist in getting my story into the hands of the people.

11. Before my first advertis.e.m.e.nt in December, at a time when I did not know how the people would take it, and when I did not know whether stocks would go up or down, I took my chance in the open of making loss or profit and did sell large amounts of stock short, making some hundreds of thousands of dollars profit; but when in the middle of the disturbance I saw how seriously the people took my message and that there might be a great panic, I began to buy, and thereby sacrificed a million of profits. And, since then, that is, after I realized that the people would respond to my warnings, I have refrained from going short in advance of these advertis.e.m.e.nts, because I desire to keep strictly apart transactions conducted for my own personal account and operations I am directing for the benefit and safeguarding of the public. I am determined to use every means in my power to keep the people out of a dangerous market and to concentrate the billions of stocks in the hands of the "System," and am not actuated by any desire or necessity for gain. Already the "System's" votaries are tottering under their load and it is certain that in the coming months they will employ every possible means to persuade the public back into their trap. More than ever, then, is it necessary to be firm against their blandishments, for when the crash comes it will be a terrific one, and those who have great holdings of speculative securities will surely find their values cut in half. Since my first public announcement I have not made enough out of market operations to pay even the expenses of any particular advertis.e.m.e.nt.

12. I shall not commit any crime; I have too much veneration for the laws of our country; although let it be understood that I may, at any time, commit what some hireling judge of the "System" may call a crime, _for I am going to call upon the American people to withdraw their deposited savings at the proper time; and the proper time will be that time when I am absolutely sure they will withdraw them. But I shall not resort to this last move unless it is certain that the "System" cannot be crushed in any other way_.

13. I will first thank G.o.d and then proceed to a.s.sist in burying the corpse of the "System."

14. The "System" will be brought to its knees; stocks will fall to figures representing their legitimate values and the public will reinvest its money therein, and thus regain control of the great transportation and industrial interests of the country which the "System" has filched from them.

15. I say unqualifiedly to the American people that this Remedy of mine will, when adopted, correct the greatest evil in the financial system of this country. That while it is simple it is absolutely new, and that neither I nor any one else can possibly benefit moneywise from it except in the some proportion as all other people in the country benefit.

16. My Remedy was worked out before 1894, and in that year, one year before I had met any of the "Standard Oil" people, it was so far perfected that in London I laid before Joseph Pulitzer, then and now owner of the New York _World_, the identical first printed plan that I will print in _Everybody's Magazine_ when I judge the people are ready to receive it.

17. I unqualifiedly say to you and to the American people that I lost millions of dollars more in what you call the Amalgamated swindle than I made, and that I lost trying to make good my word to the Amalgamated subscribers.

18. I have spent much more money, hundreds of thousands of dollars more, in getting this work, "Frenzied Finance," into the hands of the people than I have made through anything in any way connected with it.

THE CRIME OF AMALGAMATED

Many of my readers had difficulty in following the intricacies of the great crime of Amalgamated and I had many letters desiring further explanation of that act.

PEAKE'S ISLAND, ME., May 31, 1905.

T. W. LAWSON, ESQ.

_Dear Sir_: Have just finished June number of "Frenzied Finance."

You are running a "primary cla.s.s" of High Finance for millions; have been able to follow you up to this number, and my apology in writing to you is to state that I don't understand this lesson and I believe I am of the average intelligence of your readers.

I am not clear on the following points, and if you can take the time and have the desire to do so, I should be glad to have you set my gray matter moving in the right direction.

1. Why should subscribers think that a company, who had as good a thing as advertised, would sell the entire stock, thus giving an opportunity to any financier to gather in fifty-one per cent. and practically take away its good thing?

2. How would it have been possible for you with the $5,000,000 from the shares it was originally the plan to sell to protect those 50,000 shares on a bear market with 700,000 shares in Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller's possession?

3. Why would it not have been a crime to dispose of only 50,000 shares when the whole 750,000 were advertised?

4. Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller were the Amalgamated Company after purchasing the capital stock from the office-boys, were they not?

5. If Rogers and Rockefeller paid for their shares, what became of the Amalgamated Company's $75,000,000 secured by sale of stock?

These may sound foolish to you, but I'm interested and should like to understand.

Permit me to state that I admire your pluck and ability and wish you success in your remedy, whatever it may be.

Respectfully yours, (Signed) ----

I replied:

Your first question is a hard one to answer, as it goes to the very foundation of "the stock-market." In the ideal operation of stock-markets, owners of valuable properties should always allow the public to join in their "good things" at fair prices, because all who thus partic.i.p.ated would make money and would be ready for the next "good thing," and so on to the end. On the other hand, if the public were only invited into the "bad things," in time they would not come in on anything, good or bad, and there would be no stock-market. The foundation of stock-markets, like all other kinds of markets, is the public interest therein--for it is the people who own the great bulk of the money in the country, and its aggregate is far beyond the amount that the very few rich men possess. Stock-markets are no different, at least should be no different, from horse-markets, boot and shoe markets, or mowing-machine markets. The horse-markets whose dealers sell to their patrons good horses at fair prices, succeed; those whose dealers offer only the "culls" and "no goods," fail.

2. Had I been able to keep 700,000 shares in the hands of Rogers and Rockefeller with but 50,000 in the hands of the public, Rogers and Rockefeller would never have permitted the stock to go down, because they would have lost $700,000 at every point drop and by "bearing" they could make only $50,000 a point drop. Stock schemers never "bear" a stock of which they own a large majority and the public a small minority.

3. It would have been no crime if Rogers and Rockefeller had subscribed honestly--that is, according to the advertised terms--for enough to secure the stipulated 700,000 shares, because there was nothing in the conditions which excluded them or any one from subscribing. The crime was in the way they obtained the amount thus retained and in their "intentions" subsequently executed, also in the selling of $27,000,000 worth of the stock when they had pledged their word solemnly to me in my capacity as protector of the people that they would sell but $5,000,000.

4. Yes.

5. The office-boys, equipped with the check of $75,000,000 provided by the National City Bank, were organized into a corporation and turned over to the treasurer of the new corporation the $75,000,000 check in payment for the capital stock of the company. The company then turned this same check over to Rogers and Rockefeller for the mining properties comprising the consolidation, for which Rogers and Rockefeller had paid thirty-nine millions of dollars; then Rogers and Rockefeller paid back to the office-boys the seventy-five-million check and received from them the seventy-five-million stock. The check was returned to the bank by the office-boys, who stood where they stood at the beginning of the transaction, and canceled. Thus Rogers and Rockefeller at the close of the transaction had in their possession the entire capital stock of the Amalgamated Company.