Of the millions of dollars of bonds that were sold, some were registered in the name of William Mellen or Richard Dawson, or of known stool-pigeons—clerks in their offices, etc. This became known in the end, though Dawson delayed the inevitable as long as possible. Then, of course, the mystery was solved: The “Fort Dawson” crowd was selling bonds and buying stocks! The country was prosperous. There was no cloud in the financial sky. Obviously, the greatest capitalists in the United States were engineering a gigantic stock boom!
The Evening Scold, the greatest journalistic exponent of the Undoubted Wisdom of the Sneer, promptly filled itself with wrath and editorialized its feelings, as follows:
The abnormal increase in the cash resources of the New York banks during the past few weeks, was too good an opportunity for certain bank presidents and their pals to neglect. The banks are not in Wall Street to safeguard the interests and the cash of their depositors, but obviously to help the directors and their schemes. In this instance, the overgrown arrogance of the latest stock-market millionaires has degenerated into imbecility, induced by protracted success in their despoilment of the public. Fortunately, it should prove the undoing of the financial Condottieri, for the stupid public surely cannot be stupid enough to permit itself to be hypnotized into paying absurd prices for brazenly manipulated insecurities like Transcontinental Air Line or Great Southern Preferred, or into sacrificing gilt-edged bonds. Let the would-be buyer of stocks, and the would-be seller of bonds, beware!
But, after all, it was only the very wise—Messrs. Dawson and Mellen—who bought stocks. Only a few foolish lambs sold stocks at the high prices and bought bonds at the low! Also some of the alert-eyed men over whose office doors were foreign names ending in “stein,” and “baum,” and “berg,” and “mann.” The fools in their folly, and the shrewd in their shrewdness, were helping the richest man in the world, and the ablest bank president in the United States, during those stirring days in Wall Street—shivering days when a great crash in the stock-market was expected momentarily by so many that it did not come.
The expected never happens in Wall Street. It can’t afford to.
“How do we stand, Richard?” asked Mr. Mellen, as he walked into the president’s office.
“Almost there,” answered Dawson. “I have sold most of your semi-speculative issues, and we are working off the last better than I expected. You got the memorandum of stocks bought to-day?”
Mellen nodded. Then he walked to the busy ticker in the corner, and regarded the tape.
“The newspapers have warned the public against buying inflated stocks, or selling bonds at unreasonably low prices. A free press, Richard, is the best safeguard of the liberties of a nation. We should be grateful for this boon.” There was a trace of nervousness about his manner; but it was a nervousness as of relief rather than uneasiness.
Mr. Dawson laughed admiringly, and approached his friend.