On rainy days when the tickers drone along and there is no exciting news, evil-minded derelicts of the memorable Nipissing campaign are prone to figure how much a man might have made in the market with a foreknowledge of the two adverse reports and to figure on the sporting chances for a "double cross" that such a situation would hold.
Scandal mongers, too, who have watched closely the friendship which exists between W. B. Thompson and John Hays Hammond often ask unkindly what has cemented the bond between the two. Recently, when the Rocky Mountain Club needed a new club-house, Messrs. Hammond and Thompson subscribed an equal amount—a goodly sum it was—to build it.
They are seen much together in public and seem to have many tastes in common. Mr. Thompson, whose strangely fortunate campaign in Nipissing on the New York Curb was helped to a triumphant promotion climax by the Hammond report to the Guggenheims, bears Mr. Hammond no ill-will for that—and who would blame him for the kindly feeling?
WHO GOT THE $75,000,000?
But what of the public? It played $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 into the game, and has never yet learned who got it. Who did get it? Some of the details of the grand separation scheme have been set forth in the foregoing, but nothing like enough to satisfy the curiosity of the public who footed the bill, paid the freight, contributed sucker-toll for the whole prodigious sum.
Did the author of the report on the strength of which tens of millions were plunged on Nipissing by an army of deluded investors and speculators ever suffer in fortune by the mischance or misshot, or whatever name you may give the "come-on" document? Not that you could notice. True, he gave up his alleged $1,000,000 job with the Guggenheims. But is he not a heavy contributor to the Republican national campaign fund, a close personal friend of the Administration, and did he not represent this great Government as Special Ambassador at the Coronation of England's King? Was he not talked of as running mate for Mr. Taft, and did he not organize the National League of Republican Clubs two years ago? He is tremendously rich and round-shouldered under a mountain-high burden of honors.
Every mother's son of the old Nipissing crowd is at this very hour up and at it in regions where the public's money flows. Many of them still have a grip on the property. It was a good old cow to milk. E. P. Earle, who was president of Nipissing in 1906, headed the company four years later. Captain Delamar slipped down and away (he's now in on the extravagantly touted Porcupine Dome Mines Company), and so did E. C. Converse, whose time is all taken up managing the Stock Exchange banknote engraving monopoly and a couple of banks and trust companies. W. B. Thompson, who came into the Nipissing directory in 1907, still sticks in spite of the awful experience of 1906-07.
Has an outraged Government ever raised hue and cry against these eminent captains of industry? Not yet, nor soon.
What difference is there between the respectable multi-millionaire bankers putting across a losing promotion and the little fellow? Both may be equally honest or equally crooked, yet in equity both are entitled to the same treatment and the same consideration. Their operations differ only in degree. The aim of each is to get the public's money. And the big fellow is more dangerous by a hundred thousand degrees.
Where does real tangible evidence of a conspiracy to defraud in Nipissing exist? Does any exist? Now I venture to say that you could put on the scent any young man who is a graduate of the public schools, and within thirty days he would obtain enough evidence to prove to any jury in the land that the manipulators of that stock used improper measures to get the public's money.