6
BUCKING "THE SYSTEM"
Why Tom bawson Is After the Money
Powers of W«all Street.
HAS A GRIEVANCE AGAINST "STANDARD OIL"
In the Fight the "Bucket Shop" Men Are His Uninvited Allies—Person
alities of the Men on Both Sides The War Is Just
Begun—A Moral for the Public.
New York.— Thomas W. Lawson'a
iv&r upon the "System" Is but begun.
At the outset It »®ems an unequal
etruggle. Lawson Is a man in the
prime of life, possessor of a number
of unusually nlmblo millions, but he
is apparently without close allies. He
etanda alone.
Lawson haa in the past advertised
himself by his lavish expenditures, al
ways with the name of "Lawson blown
In the glass. He paid $30,000 for a new
kind of carnation; he haa owned some
cf the finest horses In America; he built
a yacht to defend the America s Cup,
*.nd when he quarreled about her with
the New York Yacht club monopolists
who manage the cup contests, he broke
lier up and made medals out of her
•bronze for presentation to the public.
"Lawson la generous, prodigal—yet a
Yankee.
p The "System" is hydra-headed. For
Mr. Lawson's purposes it Is led by
Standard Oil—that little knot of
financit rs who, beginning with a SIOO,-
000 refining plant in Cleveland, have
encircled the world with a power be
eide which the Rothschilds' Is a toy;
Who have as secure a grip upon the
cil trade of Japan as of the United
States; who with their German allies
control the oil trade of Germany; who
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THOMAS W. LAWSON.
Worst Hated Man in America by the Moneyed Interests of Wall Street.
exercise a commanding influence in
three of the six great billion-dollar
railroad systems of this country; who
have wrested the Billion-and-a-Half
Steel Trust from ita matter; whose
eurplus revenues flow resisllessly into
new channels of profit and of power
Into the Etreet car and electric light
ing business of New York, which they
control; into copper, into silver, into
pig-iron; most dangerous of ail, into
banking and trust company promot
ing.
Not that Standard Oil owns all
these things. It does not need to. A
minority interest, coupled with an al
liance with other owners, is enough.
With power to make or break, a
Standard Oil director in any enterprise
is listened to respectfully.
Fighters in the Foreground.
Personality makes the fight inter
esting.
Lawson is magnetic. I defy anyone
to pass an hour in his presence with
out liking him. His magnetism goes
beyond his presence into his pen. He
has always had a personal following
among men who have never seen him.
He is alert in movement and speech,
lavish in expenditure, an adept in ad
vertising. He knows the weak point
in every adversary's armor—even to
his personal faults of temper. He
knows, for Instance, that John D.
Rockefeller is not a fighter. Mr.
Rockefeller has always been more in
sidious than strenuous. Confronted,
be has gone around and got past the
obstacle, not over or through it. His
method has succeeded, if you call suc
cess that which he has achieved. He
never meets an attack. Miss Tar
bell's great history of Standard Oil
has never torn from him one word of
protest.
Rogers has more blood. He is not
tmliue J. P. Morgan. Both men are
pleasant enough when things go their
way. When thwarted it is their
method to be mr.sierful. Morgan has
on eye few men can meet., and of lata
Rogers has oecorne almost as over
bearing. These Titans bear down op
position. Men breathe easier upon
BY AN EX-BROKER.
leaving them. Cromwell must have
nad such a presence.
Yet an agile fencer who Isn't afraid of
a Presence may lure an impressive man
to defeat. Corbett defeated Sullivan,
for all bis eye of set purpose.
Chiefly, Lawson is "after"the
Standard Oil people, for reasons. In
cidentally, his attack will injure oth
ers whose methods are similar. First,
the Morgan group; after that, the
groups of minor capitalists allied with
the one or the other.
Take New York aa example. With
all the vast increase of business in the
city, there are fewer national banks
than 20 years ago. Far fewer big
ones in Wall street. For practical
purposes, there are two groups of al
lied banks—the Morgan banks headed
by the Dank of Commerce, and the
Standard OH banks, headed by the
National City, with Stlllman, father
in-law of a Rockefeller, as lta presi
dent. These banks are closely allied
with the trust companies. In which the
same men who control the banks ap
pear again as directors. Thus a few
men control the loaning power in the
market. By "calling" in loans they
J can at any time produce a "break"
Jin Wall street. By furnishing money
at low Interest—your money and mine,
the money of all the country; for
country banks send their surplus to
the city to be loaned—they can send
prices booming. Stock gamblers sel
dom hesitate to buy a four per cent,
stock, however high, when call money
is plenty at two per cent. Each figures
that he is sharp enough to "get out in
time."
The Life Insurance Companies.
I have hesitated to touch one scree
of power to the System. The life in
surance companies.
The three great life companines of
New York have written $4,000,000,000
worth of insurance—s2so for every
family in the United States. They
have $1,000,u00,0u0 of assets. The
"fluid" portion of those assets, the
steady Inflow of hard cash, it is the
duty of the directors to invest. Con
sider the power of men who control
great railroads, who have their di
rectors in the trust companies, and
who loom large in the directorate of
insurance companies also. What a po
sition from which to "float" the bonds
of new trusts and combinations!
The temptation is the greater be
cause the position of the companies is
so strong. The security of the policy
holder is absolute. If Lawson ever
says otherwise, call him an alarmist,
which it is not a nice thing to be.
The improvement of public health in
recent years and the constant length
ening of human life is the greatest
asset of the companies. But —
Morgan's partner, Perkins, is a di
rector of a great insurance company.
When Morgan started the ill-fated
Shipping Trust, that insurance com
pany took a quantity of the bonds of
the company. The trust failed from
over-capitalization, but the bonds ure
still carried on the insurance com
pany's books at par. It's easy enough
' to call par their price so long as none
of them arc < ver sold.
It would be easy to multiply such
cases. Take the kindreu evil of con
verting stocU into bonds so that trust
funds may be used to pay for them.
It is not good finance.
Such things ought not to be:
CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 1905
I.—Because the temptation la too
great; some day ruin of appalling''pre*
portions might be wrought by an am
bitious man who overdid things and
impaired an insurance company's
assets.
2. —Because the "System" gives a
few men the power, even if they do
not Impair the credit of their insur
ance companies, banks and trust com
panies, to use the people's money to
make power elsewhere, until power
becomes unlimited
How the "System" Works.
Suppose a company with a capital
of $1,000,000. Form now a "holding
HENRY H. ROGERS.
The Special Victim of Lawson'b Attack 011 the Wall Street "System."
company" to hold a majority ot its
stock, 51 per cent. Form now another
company to hold 51 per cent, of the
holding company's stock. An Invest
ment of some $130,000 m the second
holding company will control the
whole business. Now let there be a
prosperous season or two; let the j
company lease other companies; let it ;
sell bonds to trust companies and in- j
surance companies in which its direc- j
tors are interested; and presently ten >
men with an investment of less than
? 15,000 apiece may be controlling mil- ,
lions.
L.et anyone who doubts that such a i
preposterous disproportion of power ,
(o investment Is possible examine for i
himself the manner in which the great j
Hock Island system Is now con- j
trolled.
It is this kind of thing that makes
people nervous when Lawson threat
ens to tell all be knows. Suppose he
should!
Just for one minute —Suppose he
should!
Observe now the power of weakness
and the weakness of power. The
"System" nervous, stung to anger,
trembling at what disclosure next it
I knows not.
And Lawson alone, not a notably
i great millionaire, but—with an Idea.
He has told that idea, often enough.
There is one power in the country
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imwmmZd
ri"''
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.
As Head of the Standard Oil, Ke Comes In for a Share of Lawson'a Criticism.
bigger than the "System." The Peo
ple. The people by demanding legisla
tion can nip the wings of the "Sys
tem." The people, whose money the
"System" is using, niay demand their
money to use otherwise. Where
would the "System" be then? Where
would prices be? What would Wall
street do?
Allies, Yet Not Allies.
Lawson will either make one of the
biggest sensations in financial history,
or one of tho most laughable failures.
He has 110 doubt which it will be.
As to allies, ho needs nono. There
are people who will help him; who
must help him. A red-cheeked Brook
lyn boy, for instance, named Heinze,
[ who for 15 years has made 57 varieties
of trouble for Standard Oil and made a
fireat fortune' 1 fof ''himself as a copper'
magnate in Montana, will not weep at
Lawson's campaign.
Every bucket-shop proprietor will be
in effect hi 3 ally, without any neces
sity for an understanding. The most
damaging accusation that can be made
against Lawson is that he is in league
with bucket-shops, because they
profit by him. That he cannot pre
vent.
Every man in the country with a
dollar to waste ought to know that a
bucket-shop man is always a bear.
Why? Because his customers are
mainly bulls and it is his business
sweet business! —to break them. Nine
customers out of ten are loaded up
on the "long" side, with only a three
point margin between them and loss.
Take a dry goods clerk who "invests"
ten dollars in a stock, at a time like
last September. The stock keeps go
j ing up and at every raise the poor
I fool puts his paper profits back into
j more stock at the same margin. He
; does not putin any more cash —an-
-1 other ten dollars looks so small when
! he Is carrying a "line" of perhaps a hun
| drod shares. Along comes Mr. Law
| son with his thunderbolt! What is
I the bucket-shop man's policy? Obvi
j ously togo into the market with his
I own customers' money and sell —help
i the bear "reaction." In every reac
tion of Wall street history bucket-shop
! men have helped. And their clients
have lost their ten dollar stakes —or
larger, as the case may be. That is
worth remembering.
At a reputable broker's firm the
(.least margin accepted is ten "points"
j —ten dollars per share. In troubled
| times a careful broker demands 20
, j "points" upon "gilt-edged" stock.
. ! Even then a customer may be "cleaned
i out" within a few weeks unless he is
■ prepared to put up more margin. The
. 1 gambling is more dang-erous the better
the stock one gambles upon, odd as
■ that may seem. In a time when all
prices are falling, a man who is load
ed up with miscellaneous stocks must
sell something. He sells that which
will soil best. In Lawson's now fa
mous raid St. Paul lost more "points"
than Steel Common.
Wliero Does Morgan StandP
Speaking of Steel Common—where
does Morgan stand?
There has been more than a suspi
cion that Mr. Morgan was not greatly
displeased to see the Standard's stand
ard-bearers get. a drubbing. He went
up against them in tho Northern Se
curities mattor and camo off a wiser
but not a handsomer man. He lost
control of Steel to them. He has seen
the primacy in Wall street promotion
goto more conservative "bond houses"
—to great Internatioßsi concerns like 1
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the Speyers. j
Is he now Lawson's enemy? Ally of 1
course lie is not. That would not do. j:
But —enemy?
1 only know this: Day after day j
Lawson was "tipped off" by the bears |
as about to attack Steel. The tip was
never good.
For Lawson's purposes. Steel is not i
so vulnerable as Copper. Its strength |
is in its admirable reports. Anyone :
can know at any time how badly or j
otherwise the company is getting i
along. There is no mystery. Amalga- j
mated's management is secret, a cir- i
cumstance more favorable to bear j
raids than to bull operations. The
thing is "on a two per cent, basis." j
That is all we can know about it, but
conjecture may busy itself with the
actual value of a property sold by j
shrewd Marcus Daly to the Standard,
vastly watered by these hydraulic ex
perts, sold to New England school
marms at 130, subsequently beared
to away below 50, a month or mor<
ago up to 86 again. What is it worth':
Who knows?
Lawson Has "Hit It Right."
Lawson has "hit It right." That is
why he has the ear of the public.
Seven months' magazine articles have
been merely preliminary to his main
attack. They were ilka the patent
medicine man's "patter" on the street
before he sells the Universal Pain
Eradicator. He is getting attention.
He was only getting attention when
In early December he "broke the mar
ket" and tipped over apple-carts care
fully loaded for months.
There Is a useful myth in Wall
street, called "re-investment." It Is
very simple. Most dividends are pay
able January 1 and July 1, and lambs
are kept aware of it. They are told
that at these periods rich men who
draw large dividends always reinvest
part of them, which drives prices up.
As if rich men were so fond of paying
high prices Instead of waiting a few
days! The plot was made to "unload"
on the public this December on the
old cry of "re-investments." They
were to be dragged into buy in De
cember In anticipation of a "January
J. EDWARD ADDICXS.
Lawson Pictures Him as a Weak-Kneed Brother in the Bay State Gas Deal.
boom." People with memories know j
that last January prices dropped.
For months the market had been :
boiling with "wash sales." The word
of the "System" was passed that
money for margins would bo kept
cheap, and that there was plenty.
"Three million share days" were
promised. Such a day would mean
the sale of $300,000,000 of securities in
one exchange of one city in one day!
What are "wash sales?" A broker
may make only legitimate sales and
purchases. But there's nothing to pre
vent a man or a "pool" from giving
Belling orders to one broker and buy
ing orders to another for 10,000 shares
each. If this is done through an ex
change member the commission is
trivial. Thus prices were gradually
worked up by an appearance of activi
ty, step by step, for four months, the
public occasionally taking ft few
shares, but the transactions in the
main all speculative. Wall street was
ready for the "killing."
You remember the story of the man
who tried to give his horse medicine
by blowing it clown his throat with e
long tube. The "hoss blowed fust."
That happened this time.
Lawson's great advertisement ou
copper set the public to eelling in
stead of buying. To prevent the mar
ket from going to pieces like a card
house tne "System" had to buy—not
only the men for whom Lavvson was
gunning, but all those who wanted to
see "business good." And yet custom
ers were sold out by bucket-shops and
by the regular brokers! There's no
making of omelets without breaking
eggs. Amalgamated dropped 2-4 points.
It has never recovered, or hn.lf recov
ered. People are waiting. St Paul
went down over ten points. It ia a
Standard Oil specialty. Pennsylvania,
a "gilt-edge" stock, not especially Oily,
dropped eight points. '1 hat was a
shrinkage of $30,000,000 in Amalga
mated, or $9,000,000 in Pennsylvania.
Other stocks lost in proportion—sev
eral hundred millions on the whole
list.. Not even the best stocks ap
proached the prices they would have
reached had the "unloading" process
been carried out upon the public on
I the original plan.
What did it cost Lawson? Nothing.
I He sold all his own holdings of copper
before the hreak. Wall street know
that. When he began his war he
"went short, ' covering later at a sub
stantial gain at the expense of his foe.
The advertisements by which he
fought cost about SSO,OOO, a trifle in
comparison with the possible gains.
Any warrior must have the sinews of
war. Apparently all Lawson has to
do when he wants money is to jump
out from behind the fence, say "15 JO!"
and gather up what is left behind by
the other fellows in their flight.
He may say "Boo!" once too often
and get the worst drubbing of his life.
| You never can tell.
Nothing Like the Truth.
! There's nothing like the truth to
: frighten people. Lawson has the atidi
j ence because what he says jibes with
! facts that everyone knows. He criti
! cises insurance methods and backs it
up by extracts from an Insurance su
perintendent's report. He tells the
story of the Delaware receivership of
Bay State Gas, and all the men con
cerned in that strange proceeding
tumble over each other to tell their
stories. He brings in Jim Keene's
name, and Keene admits having
manipulated $22,000,000 worth of
Amalgamated stocks for Insiders —ap-
parently a "remainder" they got
"caught with" when they made the
first "unloading."
He told the truth as to the manner of
Rogers' acquisition of the New York
Commercial as a Standard Oil and
Amalgamated Copper organ.
He told the truth to Col. Greene.
I have kept that marvelous incident
for the last because it gives the key
of this man's power. When Greene l«-
sued his famous midnight message fcy
advertisement his language meant
murder. Greene is a man who has
mined copper. He has four notches
on his pistol stock. Two days later he
went to Boston, met Lawson, talked
seven hours. What magic did Lawsoa
! use with Greene? Just the truth.
Just told him how, because he tried to
sustain the stock of his Greene Cop
per company in a general decline
he was "loaded up" with it from every
source until his banks —oh, those
banks, controlled by the very peopl#
who had been selling him his stock!
—called his loans. Then he lost four
millions in twice as many minutes and
the other fellows got his really valu
able stock cheap. Great game, isn't
it? Nice game for innocent people
in the country to think they can beat,
after reading a few circulars pushed
out by the literary artists of th«
bucket-shops! *
Lawson is a Standard Oil ally turn
ing "state's evidence." What a situa
tion for the plain people to enjoy!
Everybody's Magazine was bought
on credit mainly from John Wana
maker for a trifle by two bright young
men. They are now selling advertise
ments for SSOO a page, printed 725,000
copies last issue—all they could print;
they could easily have sold more—•
and raised the price to 15 cents. Law
son makes no charge for his
cles, of course. He only wants a
medium to get his points before the
public. All the advertisements of the
magazine in the daily papers which
have been signed by Lawson he liaa
personally paid for. The publishers
often know nothing about such an an
nouncement until they see it In print.
Since Lawson cannot make one
blade of grass grow where two grew
before, I am inclined to say: Let the
man have his say. If the "System" is
wrong, it should be proved. If it is
right, the truth will come out. In any
case the public will have a chance to
learn that stock gambling is a gam*'
for fools.
(Copyright, 1904, by W. A. Patterson.)
In a Serious Difficulty.
See the man who is carving.
Observe his red face, his awkward
ness, his nervous and flustered manner.
Is it the first time he has ever offici
ated?
Not at all.
His rich but nearsighted aunt, who is
taking dinner with the family, and from
whom he has expectations, has just
asked him for some of the white meat.
The Christmas fowl happens to be a
goose.—Chicago Tribune.
■Recently Diseoveisci Elements.
The rare elements reccntlj uncovered,
scandium, gallium andgermanium, w. •
prophesied 30 years ago by Mendelt
who christened them probationally ei a
bo-'on, tka-aluminium and eka-sllicon.