Frenzied Finance Part 18

"Lawson," said Mr. Rogers, looking at me with intense and deadly seriousness, his voice charged with conviction, "if Bryan's elected, there will be such a panic in this country as the world has never seen, and with his money ideas and the crazy-headed radicals he will call to Was.h.i.+ngton to administer the nation's affairs, business will surely be destroyed and the working people will suffer untold misery. You know we all hate to do what Uncle Mark says is necessary, but it's a case of some of us sacrificing something for the country's good. Bryan's election would set our country back a century, and I believe it's the sacred duty of every honest American to do what he can to save his land from such a calamity."[14]

The "System's" conscience has its own quaint logic--the logic of self-interest--and this is how it reasoned: "The election of Bryan would disturb our control of American inst.i.tutions, therefore American inst.i.tutions would be destroyed by Bryan's election. On us, the 'System,' devolves the sacred if expensive duty of saving the nation, and, however abhorrent to our fine moral sense, patriotism compels us to spend millions in bribing and corrupting the electorate so that virtue, 'Standard Oil,' and J. P. Morgan may continue the good work of caring for the public's interests as their own."

As I listened to Rogers' exordium on the duties of a citizen in an emergency, I remembered the "Standard Oil" code--"Everything for G.o.d (our G.o.d); G.o.d (our G.o.d) in everything." It was so essentially "Standard Oil," this willingness to commit even that greatest wrong, subverting the will of the people in the exercise of their highest function--the election of a President--but only that good (their good) might come of it. It was no more than selfish greed tricked out in the n.o.ble trappings of morality, an infamous crime disguised as patriotism. Doubtless, the excellent, G.o.d-fearing, law-abiding citizens of the doubtful States who read this and learn how the "System" defeated their will at the polls will cry, "Monstrous! Can such things be in America?" and then will resume their interrupted occupation of "letting well enough alone."

However, this is aside from my story.

Having clearly set forth the political situation through which we should be saved, Mr. Rogers proceeded to map out my own programme. First, I must perfect an alibi for him by going to Foster and Braman, and impressing upon them the fact that he was absolutely out of the affair, and must under no circ.u.mstances be brought into it; next, I must convince Add.i.c.ks to the same effect, and in addition tell him that Mr.

Rogers had angrily refused to get into the mix-up; I should then hold myself in readiness to meet John Moore and Hanna or Osborne as soon as an appointment could be arranged. That afternoon I got the word and went to 26 Broadway, and from there Mr. Rogers and I went over to John Moore's office, slipping in the private door from the rear street.

"John," said Mr. Rogers, "I am going to turn this matter over to you and Lawson, and I am to have nothing further to do with it. What you two agree to will be satisfactory to me, and remember, both of you, every dollar that is paid is paid by the National Committee, but after it's all settled, and if there is no slip-up, I will look to Lawson for whatever is expended. Is it understood?"

We agreed that it was, and Mr. Rogers left us.

John Moore deserves more than a mere pa.s.sing mention here, for he was at this time a distinguished Wall Street character and one of the ablest pract.i.tioners of finance in the country. During the last fifteen years of his life, John Moore was party to more confidential financial jobs and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he handled them with great skill and high art. Big, jolly, generous, a royal eater and drinker, an a.s.sociate of the rich, the friend of the poor, a many-times millionaire, who a few years before had been logging it on the rivers of Maine, his native State, John Moore well deserved his "Street" name, "Prince John." His firm, Moore & Schley, transacted an immense brokerage business, and numbered among its clients great capitalists and bankers all over the country. Especially were Moore & Schley famed for their discretion, and the highest proof of confidence reposed in the firm was the fact that it did the bulk of the stock speculating for what is known as "the Was.h.i.+ngton contingent." This is, perhaps, the most peculiar and delicate business that comes to "the Street." A big Wall Street house opens a Was.h.i.+ngton office and organizes an elaborate system of special wires, wires from which there can be no possibility of leakage. It is then ready for the patronage of members of Congress, United States Senators and national officials, whose honorable positions make them the custodians of national secrets of great commercial value. If, for instance, a new law is to be pa.s.sed which must favorably affect a given stock, legislators who are on "the inside" often buy thousands of shares in order to reap the profit of the rise in value incidental to its pa.s.sage. Or perhaps there is in prospect a law which will interfere with the special privilege of some other stock and reduce its price. Those in possession of advance information "go short" of that stock (sell for future delivery) to profit by the drop. There are many other opportunities the Was.h.i.+ngton "insider" of speculative turn may use to advantage. For instance, if a high official of the Government were about to issue a proclamation against a foreign nation, and should desire secretly to make a million or so out of the panic he knew must follow the announcement, he would cast about him for a broker who would preserve this sacred confidence. It would invariably be through the Moore firm that his secretary or confidential man would do the short selling. There are also the operations of lobbyists who, to affect important legislation for this great interest or the other, buy or sell stock for the benefit of legislators whose votes they desire to influence. Extreme caution is demanded in the execution of such orders, or all hands might by some slip-up find themselves wearing striped suits.[15]

Such a catastrophe seemed imminent some years ago when the Sugar Trust was before the United States Senate for some legislation necessary to bolster up its monopoly. Its agents had either been less cautious than usual in disguising the raw bribery they were perpetrating, or this particular Senate was too brazen to take the usual precautions to hide its greed from the world. In any case, so great an outcry was made in the press of the country that some sacrifice to the people's wrath was called for--one of those familiar sacrifices which, at intervals of ten or fifteen years in this republic, our rulers make to the great G.o.d Integrity. An investigation was organized, and a Senatorial inquisition had before it eminent sugar capitalists and many other distinguished gentlemen who could by no possibility shed light on the transactions, and then, realizing that a show of earnestness, at least, was demanded, it was agreed that some member of Moore & Schley's firm must go on the witness-stand, and, on refusing to tell which Senators had speculated in sugar, must be sent to jail. This grandstand play, it was calculated, and rightly, would so hold the attention of the American people that when the committee concluded its investigation with the usual loud acclaim of duty well done, its Draconian punishment of the unsubmissive broker would act as another ten years' stay against outcry.

When this stratagem was decided on, John Moore announced that he as head of the firm should be the sacrifice. But the representatives of the "System" and the Senate firmly refused to a.s.sign him that role, and instead, to his grief and anger, nominated for jail the a.s.sociate member who had charge of Moore & Schley's Was.h.i.+ngton business, whom they declared the logical victim. During the thirty days that his friend and partner spent behind the bars John Moore's hair whitened more than in all the years before, and from that time until his death he refused firmly to take part in his old line of work, or was ever again his old jovial self.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Over a year after the publication of this statement startled the country, John A. McCall, President of the New York Life Insurance Company, and George W. Perkins, Vice-President of the same company and partner of J.

Pierpont Morgan, were compelled to confess that they had contributed from their policy-holders' deposits, large amounts of money to a fund to defeat Bryan in 1896 and to the Republican campaign funds of the two following presidential elections, and that they gloried in it. At the same time Jacob Schiff, director of the Equitable Life and a partner in the great international banking-house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., admitted that funds belonging to the policy-holders of the "Big Three," the New York, the Mutual, and the Equitable, were used in a joint fund to influence the Legislature of every State in the Union.

[14] President McCall used almost the same language in September, 1905, in justifying his payment.

[15] The President was notified some few months ago that the cotton report was being juggled by employees of the United States Department of Agriculture in the interest of certain Wall Street speculators who were gambling in cotton. Investigation proved that it was the practice to falsify the report; and certain Government officials and brokers are now under indictment.

CHAPTER XXV

ATHLETICS OF FINANCE

Entirely apart from his relations.h.i.+p with Mr. Rogers it was a great help in this Bay State emergency to have the aid of a man of John Moore's wealth of vim and wide knowledge of men and affairs. Freely and frankly I explained our situation to him with its innumerable complications until he had mastered its intricacies. A tough job he p.r.o.nounced our proposition, and he was the authority on the subject. After our talk was ended he called in Osborne, who had evidently already been talked to. He said to Osborne:

"I've been over Add.i.c.ks' affairs with Lawson, and there is no question in my mind and that of other friends of the party that he should have what is necessary to carry Delaware. You had better have the committee ready to put in between $350,000 and $400,000 if we call for it. I will see that it is kept down as low as possible."

Osborne then spoke his piece and replied that the committee would do whatever was decided best, and asked me to send Add.i.c.ks around next day to explain just how he was pus.h.i.+ng things in Delaware. All this was play-acting for the benefit of Rogers' alibi.

The next thing on my programme was to persuade Add.i.c.ks to relinquish his hold on the old Boston gas companies, and this was likely to prove my most difficult task. I left John Moore, who agreed to hold himself in readiness at any hour to consult on and approve such settlement as I could arrange, and energetically started in on the Delaware financier.

It was a trying ordeal. As soon as Add.i.c.ks saw I had something to work on he began to demur and object. If he could not have things his way, he would do nothing. He knew that I had joined a conspiracy to ruin him; that I was in league with Rogers, who was in league with Braman and Foster, and that all were banded together to take all he had away from him. In the course of that two hours' wrestle I was tempted several times to throw up the whole affair, and there were some bitter and savage word-pa.s.sages that left both of us heated. I could do nothing with him; he must hear from Rogers personally. Finally I got the "Standard Oil" wire, and Rogers talked so plainly and coldly as partially to sober him, but ended by agreeing to have his counsel talk things over with Add.i.c.ks, which was a distinct concession. A little later Mr. Rogers' representative was at the Hoffman and he and Add.i.c.ks had it hot and heavy. After about fifteen minutes of conference they had wellnigh come to blows. However, the hot exchanges had begun to tell.

Add.i.c.ks grew saner, but he insisted on seeing Foster and Braman. I warned him that he was fast getting our affairs into such shape that no one could patch them up, but to no avail. He must meet his enemies face to face if only to ram into their teeth that they were scoundrels.

Finally, I got Braman on the telephone and explained that I was doing my best to quiet a crazy man, who would consent to nothing until after he had seen him and Foster and told them what thieves they were. I heard Braman chuckle. He said: "Bring him along to Foster's house at 10.30,"

and added: "It wouldn't be a bad idea to have an ambulance along, too."

This suggested further complications, for Braman has the reputation on "the Street" of being more eager to face a wild man on a rampage than a sick one in a plaster cast, while Foster, although a little bit of a fellow, was never known to side-step or duck trouble. I slipped word down to Moore at the Waldorf to follow along to Foster's place in a cab.

There are several "spite houses" in New York. Foster's house was one of them. It is a narrow strip of a brownstone dwelling at 79 West 54th Street, built to express the enmity of one property owner for his neighbor who refused to pay an extortionate price for the land. It is about the width of a front door, and inside there is just about room to move around. It afforded a queer background for the scene enacted there that night.

Promptly at 10.30 Add.i.c.ks and I were at the door, and by 10.32 the tunnel-like walls of the "spite house" resounded with as illuminating a verbal interchange of billingsgate biographies as I have ever listened to. At 10.35 I covered Add.i.c.ks in a hasty but quite successful retreat which he beat to our cab. Thence to the Hoffman House, where I summoned Parker Chandler to aid in the calming of our raving a.s.sociate. The next two hours were of the pulse-jumping, vein-tearing kind incidental to "frenzied finance," but they were not without avail, for Add.i.c.ks finally agreed that he might consent to "something" provided the Bay State equities in the Boston companies were so preserved that he could eventually get them back into his hands by repayment to Rogers or by the redemption of bonds.

Having got thus far, I again went after Braman and Foster, who were at the Hotel Cambridge. We repaired for further conference to the University Club, which was then in the old A. T. Stewart marble palace on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. I shall never forget that session. It was past midnight, but the three of us battled with our smoky problem, now good-naturedly, now bitterly. At times it looked hopeless because of this obstinate demand or that steadfast refusal. It must have been three o'clock in the morning when I left them and stepped into the Waldorf for a moment to relieve Moore's vigil. Then back again to the Hoffman, where Add.i.c.ks, Chandler, and some Bay State directors were nodding. By this time I was in no mood to say more than that I would be over in the morning, and that Add.i.c.ks should go early to the National Committee's head-quarters and explain the desperation of conditions in Delaware to Hanna, Osborne, and their a.s.sociates. At last I was free to return to the Brunswick for a few hours' rest.

In the country, c.o.c.k-crow is the signal to be up and doing. In the city, the signal to be up and to do is a hoa.r.s.e, metallic roar that would drown a million country c.o.c.k-crows if each particular c.o.c.k were as big as the mythical rooster of antiquity and could crow in proportion to his size. My readers who dwell on the hills and in dales and wheat-fields, and who are unfamiliar with the wild, weird early morning din of the city, may not know that the metropolitan c.o.c.k-crow is made up of the jingle and jangle of a million tin milk cans jolted over a million blocks of stone to the tune of thousands of steel-shod feet, the shrill cries of an army of butcher and baker boys and the groans and the moans of countless troubled and tortured human souls. c.o.c.k-crow in the country means "Awake to another day of life." c.o.c.k-crow in the city is a signal for the slaves of Mammon to arise to another interval of flight and pursuit.

The great city c.o.c.k was just getting ready to send forth his hoa.r.s.e cry as I went to bed, and he was still on his roost a few hours later, when I awoke. I looked from my window of the Brunswick across the Square, now flooded with the pure sunlight of early morning, and all the kinks and quirks and hobgoblins which the rush and irritation of yesterday had generated seemed to have vanished, and I could not suppress a smile at the thought of the night before, when this battle--this puny, insignificant battle for a few dirty dollars--had almost raised feelings I now knew too well should only be aroused by real battles, battles in which n.o.ble principles were involved, and I felt better able to fight what I had thought, the night before, was going to be a hard battle.

"Pshaw!" said I, as I looked away and beyond the park to the grand battlefields of my better imagination, "what will it matter a hundred years hence what name appears against victor or vanquished in the archives of fame or the records of infamy when the student reads, 'A.D.

1896, Bay State Gas-"Standard Oil" war,'" for I saw that among the countless real deeds there would be no room for any record to mark the existence of any Gas or Dollar war.

With these thoughts still in mind I sat down to breakfast with Parker Chandler, and as I listened to his cheerful gossip of yesterday, I inwardly resolved that whatever the result of the day's effort, I would take it with a smile.

Thursday was another period of strenuous struggle and unceasing effort.

I began early, and every moment was taken up with arguments, wrangles, pleadings! Chandler had agreed to see that Add.i.c.ks kept his appointment with the National Committee and that a quorum of Bay State directors should be on hand in the Hoffman so that we could get quick action on any proposition that came up. This arranged I hurried over to see John Moore, then down for a last word with Mr. Rogers. Add.i.c.ks came next for a spell; from him to Braman and Foster; back to John Moore; more interviews with lawyers and round the circle again. It seemed as though it were impossible to arrive at any agreement that some one of the princ.i.p.als interested would not kick over. At four o'clock Friday morning John Moore and myself ceased our labors for the day, both of us wellnigh exhausted. With all our efforts many of the vital points to our agreement were still in the air. A few hours' sleep and we were back at our task, and by six o'clock on Friday night the last obstacle had been overcome and the deal was completed.

There remained now the tremendous business of putting all the arrangements concluded into execution. A mult.i.tude of legal doc.u.ments had to be drawn up and executed, first by Rogers and then by the Bay State board of directors and officers. It was a pile of work, but not a second was lost, and by 11.20 that night we were ready for the third act, which was to be performed simultaneously by different sets of actors in Boston and Wilmington. For this our officers were split. With the directors of the Boston corporations, Chandler, and Mr. Rogers'

attorney to supervise the legal end of next day's transaction, I left on a special car attached to the midnight train for Boston; while Add.i.c.ks and the Bay State directors set forth on another midnight train for Wilmington, Del., to be followed in the early morning by my New York partner, John Moore's partner, Braman, Foster, and more counsel representing Mr. Rogers. This contingent was to carry the money.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CIRCLING OF THE VULTURES

I don't believe there ever was before or since a financial operation in which so many things, each of vital importance, had to be done at one and the same time.

Before I took the train for Boston, just after the last deed had been signed, Braman, Foster, and I had come to a complete understanding in regard to the manner in which the court proceedings the following morning should be conducted. It was understood that no one should take another's word for anything, and consequently that no money should pa.s.s until specific performance of all the required conditions. Immediately on the release of the receivers.h.i.+p, Foster and Braman were to be paid their "fee," and they asked that the $175,000 cash coming to them should be arranged in separate piles of bills. The two packages containing Foster's and part of Buchanan's, and Braman's $50,000 were to be in the joint custody of John Moore's representative and my partner, who, with Rogers' counsel and Add.i.c.ks, had been a.s.signed to represent Bay State in the court.

What would happen after the transfer of these several amounts was outside my jurisdiction. Add.i.c.ks did not confide to me his own scheme of revenge, but of Braman and Foster's purposes I had a clear idea. As Braman had explained, the great winning of his adventure should be made in the stock plunge he and Foster contemplated in Bay State Gas stock, then selling at 3-1/2 to 4; but lest there be some slip-up in court, "buy" orders to their brokers were contingent on the word "go!" from Wilmington. To get this off at the right moment a clerk was taken along, whose only part in the play was to telephone this word "go!" They expected in this way to make at least half a million.[16]

Add.i.c.ks' intentions, as I afterward learned, were less exalted but much more direct. He had conceived a plan whereby without danger to himself he could punish Braman and Foster for the wrong they had done Bay State, and at the same time meet his election expenses at no cost to his own pocket. In the course of his electioneering campaign in Delaware, conducted as all the world knows how, Add.i.c.ks had gathered to his cause as tough and rascally a set of "heelers" as ever waylaid aged woman or lame man on the highway. A lieutenant who had been despatched to Delaware early Friday afternoon, when it had become evident that we should get things settled up, gathered the st.u.r.diest members of this precious troop together and solemnly told them that a serious. .h.i.tch had occurred in Add.i.c.ks' game and that it looked as though, owing to the receivers.h.i.+p, there would be no "stuff" to put in circulation this year.

The men responsible for this outrage were to be in Wilmington on the following day and from the appearance of things would get the money Add.i.c.ks had destined for his followers. He understood they were to receive it in cash, too--$175,000--cash that really belonged to Add.i.c.ks, who had intended it for his good friends in Delaware. The thugs, properly indignant at the wrong that had been done "the Boss," dispersed rapidly to discuss the information among themselves. That night a group of leaders got together and figured out a little plan of campaign to frustrate the robbery of their beloved master. Court proceedings to release the receivers.h.i.+p could not take long, and they calculated that the train schedule would detain Braman and Foster at least two hours in Wilmington after the adjournment. What more easy than the organizing of a little scuffle on the station platform or on the street and in the rush--well, many things happen in a rush. This simple procedure commended itself to all concerned, and that night there was much rejoicing among the Add.i.c.ks camp-followers at the pleasant things that should be pulled "off" at the flim-flamming bee next day.

All these things were in the air when court opened in Wilmington on Sat.u.r.day morning. A special telephone line had been run and arrangements made for a clear wire right into the directors' office in the head-quarters of the Gas Light Company in Boston. At the telephone in Wilmington sat my partner ready to communicate to me the exact course of the proceedings, so that I might simultaneously make the agreed transfers of our companies to Rogers. I knew my partner's voice; he knew mine. We, too, were taking no chances.

* NEW YORK, February 21, 1905.

_Dear Mr. Lawson_: In your article in _Everybody's Magazine_ for January, among other misstatements upon which I shall not now comment--since you have committed yourself too far to make it likely that you will withdraw them--you accuse me of having speculated in Bay State Gas stock with Mr.

Buchanan's money; and of having subsequently been sued by him. I hold Mr. Buchanan's receipt for the money collected for him, which I paid him the night that I returned from Delaware. He has never sued me. Please inform me whether you are willing and agree to strike out these statements from your article when published in book form, and also whether you will agree to withdraw the same in your magazine. I tried to call on you and discuss the case when in Boston, January 21st; and I also tried to meet you on the day after last Thanksgiving; but apparently you were unwilling to see me. I remain,

Very truly yours, ROGER FOSTER.

THOMAS W. LAWSON, ESQ., Boston, Ma.s.s.