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 pass until specific performance of all the required conditions. Immediately on the release of the receivership, 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 Addicks, had been assigned to represent Bay State in the court.
What would happen after the transfer of these several amounts was outside my jurisdiction. Addicks 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]
Addicks' 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, Addicks 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 sturdiest members of this precious troop together and solemnly told them that a serious hitch had occurred in Addicks' game and that it looked as though, owing to the receivership, 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 Addicks had destined for his followers. He understood they were to receive it in cash, too—$175,000—cash that really belonged to Addicks, 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 receivership 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 Addicks 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 Saturday 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, Mass.
February 23, 1905.
My Dear Mr. Foster: I received your letter of the 21st inst., and in reply will say, if I have done you any wrong in my story, "Frenzied Finance," or otherwise, it has been unintentional, and I regret it, and I seek this, the first opportunity, to give my regrets the same wide circulation as my original statements.
As I wrote you previous to the publication of the magazine containing the parts you refer to, I try to exercise the greatest care in allowing nothing to appear in my story but facts—facts I know to be facts, and in addition only such facts as are absolutely necessary to my work, which is the portrayal of those events of the past essential to a proper understanding by the people of the evils that have been done them, and how they have been done, that they may do what is necessary to undo them and to prevent their repetition in the future, and, in addition, such facts as it is fair for me to use. I repeat what I said to you then: I have absolutely no feeling in regard to you other than an intense desire to do you exact justice.
I dealt with you in the entire Bay State receivership affair in connection with Mr. Braman and I thought that I had every reason to believe that his Bay State Gas purchases were for your joint account; but now that you assure me they were not, I hasten to have such assurances chase my original story with the hope that they may speedily overtake it.
My information that you had been sued by Mr. Buchanan came to me in a way that left no doubt in my mind of its correctness—no doubt until I received your letter. Papers were sent to me some time ago by reputable attorneys in a suit of Buchanan against Braman and, I understood, yourself, along the lines outlined in my story, with the request that I allow my deposition to be taken, so that Buchanan could get at the facts in his attempt to recover the moneys claimed.
Your assurances to the contrary in regard to this matter I also hasten to start on the road you point out, and I will see that both statements are expunged from my book.
You are in error in thinking that I did not wish to see you when you were in Boston. I did not know in either case of your desires until it was too late to see you. I certainly would have had a "sit-down" with you if it had been possible.
Again assuring you not only that it is a pleasure to set forth the facts you have called to my attention, but that I am your debtor inasmuch as you have given me an opportunity to perform that duty which I owe to every individual my story treats of—to state facts and only facts with which they have been connected—believe me,
Yours truly,
Thomas W. Lawson.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] See foot-note on pages [189] and [190].