Of course, the promotion was a huge success. When the subscription books were opened a small river of gold poured in from applicants for shares. The issue was enormously over-subscribed. Baron Grant and his associates selected, as far as possible, the smaller class of investors. These are less able to roar in an effective manner when the inevitable day of reckoning comes for every crooked deal.
The Emma mine was regularly listed on the London stock exchange, alongside of reputable and conservative companies. It became the feature of a tremendous gamble. In the hands of expert market manipulators, the stock ebbed and flowed like the tide. Stories of fabulous dividends were passed from mouth to mouth and the stock soared from one high level to another till ten pound shares touched thirty-two pounds. This absolutely valueless and exhausted property had a paper value of $16,000,000. When it shrank under profit taking and selling pressure, reports of new strikes, vast ore bodies uncovered, sent the prices booming once more. Had it not been for the utter heartlessness of the thing, one could almost admire the skill with which a huge deception was organized and kept alive.
Of course, I shouted “murder” from the housetops. I publicly denounced the Emma mine as an exhausted, worthless hole in the ground. It was like a voice raised in the wilderness. No one paid the least attention to my warnings in the midst of the bawling crowd. I was classified either as a general calamity howler or as the leader of a “bear” faction, anxious to organize a “bear” raid and interrupt the wave of prosperity. At length, to gain a larger audience and put my statements in responsible form, I made an effort in a new field of endeavor by founding the London Stock Exchange Review.
CHAPTER XXV.
Inspired by Desire to Expose Emma Mine Swindle Author Begins Publication of Financial Journal.
Ralston Reports Discovery of Immense Diamond Field and Declares His Find is Worth $50,000,000.
Many times I had learned to have a deep respect for printer’s ink. I had seen it make history, change fortune, influence the thought of great bodies of people, prove a mighty instrument for good or ill. Without the least desire to be disrespectful to the present, I have a strong impression that the journalism of fifty years ago had a wider dominion over the minds of its readers than the modern school. I cannot say that this was always for the best. Men had a blind devotion to their pet newspapers that amounted to something very much akin to bigotry. Such newspapers were the final authority on everything from religion to politics, and everyone who questioned their opinions, politics or statements had a fair prospect for a fight. Thus when an editor fell into some grievous error he was certain to pull nearly all of his subscribers into the same abyss.
So I realized that to have any influence in my new place of business, to attack the power of Baron Grant, now bitterly antagonistic in every way, and to offset the Emma mine fraud, I must have a personal organ. For this purpose, I established a financial weekly paper known as the London Stock Exchange Review. It was issued, for apparent reasons, ostensibly by a brokerage firm, but it was an open secret that the publication was mine. I engaged an able editor-in-chief, and directed him to employ the best financial writers in England, giving each his proper department, such as railroad securities, industrial, mining shares, foreign and domestic loans and the like. I retained a page for which I furnished material hot enough to burn holes in an asbestos blanket. The page was devoted to the Emma mine and Baron Grant.
The Stock Exchange Review was a breezy, well-written sheet, full of valuable information to investors, put together in an attractive, readable form. I had set aside £6,000 to pay the losses of the venture. Much to my surprise and pleasure, it proved a money-maker from the start. The style was such a departure from the ordinary dry-as-dust publications of its kind that it made a hit on the street with the first issue. The price was a shilling, but often big premiums were offered when it came out with an extra seasoning of tabasco.
I had reason to know that it tickled the hide of Baron Grant unpleasantly. It managed to hit on a number of raw spots in his past career, and in particular interfered with the Emma mine proceedings. While I spoke as a private person, my charges might be disregarded, but when a publication, reasonably responsible in damages and absolutely responsible in a criminal charge, made a downright allegation of fraud, that was quite another thing. The libel laws of England were then, as now, airtight. It was not a jocular affair to call anyone a thief in print, and those who did not seek redress had to suffer under the suspicion, just or unjust, that the accusation was substantially true. The Emma mine was brought out in two sections, for promoting each of which Baron Grant received a commission of £100,000. When the first section was issued it almost took a squad of policemen to keep back the crowd of investors. The second appeared just after the Stock Exchange Review began to hammer. While the stock was taken, the promotion staggered and was never quite itself again. One thing it prevented absolutely—the declaring of a great dividend—on air—which would have sent the stock skyward like a rocket. The managers had determined on this piece of rascality, but doubtless fearing that I had certain knowledge of the fact that not a dollar’s worth of precious metal had been produced, this particular piece of villainy was reluctantly abandoned.