The same stuff has recently appeared without signature in a Goldfield paper which originally came into possession of George Wingfield through foreclosure proceedings, and in a Reno evening paper which is controlled by Senator Nixon, who owns a large slice of the paper's mortgage. It has also appeared in other papers "friendly" to Wingfield and Nixon. Tens of thousands of copies of the Goldfield publication containing the anonymous libel have been sent broadcast.
Other newspapers have reproduced the libelous stuff, some innocently and some for sordid reasons, but of this more later. My career is fraught with instances of recourse by enemies to blackmail and attempted blackmail. If I should undertake to tabulate the cases where men and interests, ranging from impecunious newspaper reporters to financial-newspaper publishers and mining-stock brokers and market operators who, from the background, publish market letters or furnish the capital for mining publications, have attempted to levy tribute or to club me into submission by the use of so vile a weapon, I should be compelled to write a big book on the subject.
And right here I should like to place myself on record to the effect that seemingly the principal shortcoming that has marked my mining-financial career has been that I had a youthful Past—a Past which during the last decade has never been taken into serious consideration by men who have held close business relations with me, but which, of course, is a thorn in the sides of men and interests whose bidding I have failed to obey.
I defy any man to cite a single instance where I was guilty of crookedness in a mining transaction or a business transaction of any kind in my entire career as a promoter. I have been fearless—too much so. I have been a rabid enthusiast. I have tried to build. I have given quarter, but have never taken any. I have been honest. Were I really dishonest, I could have prevented every publication of an attack of consequence on me by lending myself in advance to the base purposes of my traducers, and I would have millions now for having compromised with them. It is heaven's own truth that in nine cases out of ten, when I have been attacked in print, the motive of the attacking party has been base and the facts have been so distorted or misrepresented that the fabric was a lie. Nor has the cruelty of the operation stayed any one's hand.
At the very moment in Goldfield when I knew that the Denver Mining Record would not assault the Sullivan Trust Company again because of the settlement of the libel suit by my lawyers out of court, fresh rumors were spread that the Denver Mining Record was getting ready for another attack and that tens of thousands of copies of that newspaper were to be circulated. But you can't stop a rumor by the declaration of the truth, and the Sullivan Trust Company decided that it would be unwise to make a denial in print, for by so doing it would communicate to all stockholders the news that the Sullivan stocks were actually under attack and thus cause more "frightened selling."
Sight drafts from brokers in New York, Chicago, Salt Lake and San Francisco, drawn on the Sullivan Trust Company, with large bundles of Sullivan stocks attached, were pouring into our office through the local banks for presentation. John S. Cook & Company made a specialty of this department of banking, and most of the drafts on us were cleared through the Wingfield-Nixon bank. It was reported to me that Senator Nixon was openly discussing the enormous volume of stocks coming in on us and was questioning our ability to stem the tide. As a strategic measure, the Sullivan Trust Company decided to "cross" sales on the San Francisco Stock Exchange so that it might ship out of the camp, through the banks, large blocks of stock with draft attached against San Francisco brokers and thus convey to the minds of local bankers that we were selling large blocks of stock as well as buying them. The volume of the "cross" trades caused some talk in San Francisco, and was magnified by brokers operating for the decline.
THE TIME WHEN MONEY TALKS
Some of our brokers in San Francisco now demanded an independent bank guaranty that the drafts on us would be honored. We asked for a line of credit at the State Bank & Trust Company. It was promptly given. As fast as the brokers asked for a guaranty, the State Bank & Trust Company telegraphed them formally that it would honor our paper to the extent of $20,000 or $30,000 in every case. To protect the bank and in order to be able to borrow a large sum of money, should we need it in the event of another selling movement starting in, we deposited stocks of a market value of $1,500,000 with the State Bank & Trust Company, which signed a paper that this collateral was to stand against loans for any amount which the State Bank & Trust Company might make to us on open account.
A few days later we borrowed from the bank $300,000 in cash, and it was agreed that should we need $300,000 more on the same collateral, it would be promptly placed at our disposal. We did not yet need the money, but I realized the desirability of assembling cash in an exigency such as that. Nor was this an unusual proceeding. There was a time during the Manhattan boom when the overdraft of the Sullivan Trust Company in the Nye & Ormsby County Bank was $695,000. The bank held against this overdraft Sullivan stocks at the promotion price. Nearly all of these stocks at that early period were as yet unlisted.
The idea of withdrawing support and letting the market go to smash did not occur to me at all. As already stated, I believed the stocks were worth the money. But that was not the chief reason for my stubborn market position. I took great pride in the fact that every listed stock of the Sullivan Trust Company showed a big profit to stockholders. I considered the greatest asset of the trust company to be, not its money, but its prestige, and I entertained big ideas as to a future I had mapped out for the corporation. I did not suspect that an organized campaign was on to destroy us and that the dominant interests of the camp were reaching out for everything in sight. Nor did I have any use for money for hoarding purposes. The only thing that seriously nettled me was the fact that the Sullivan Trust Company had been compelled to turn borrower.