"You had better sell 10,000 shares more of Utah. Sell them quick and sharp, and perhaps they will read our answer on the tape before you get to them."
I sold the 10,000 shares. The price dropped two to three points, and, sure enough, by the time I got to Clark, Ward & Co.'s office I found them poring dazedly over the ticker tape. They knew my answer before I stated it, and were trembling with nervous apprehension. I wondered if they, too, saw the tiger, his bloody chops and claws and his piece of raw meat. I said what Mr. Rogers had told me to say in so many words, and then I talked frankly to them about their situation, and advised that they meet "Standard Oil's" demands. I called their attention to the tape: "They told me to throw over only 10,000 shares," I concluded.
"Great heavens!" said Armstrong, the negotiating partner of Clark, Ward & Co., "they are likely to follow it up with 90,000 more. They have it; at least they can demand it of us, and if they do we are ruined. What can we do, Lawson? What can we do?"
I pointed out that their only possible course was to lay the situation before the large shareholders involved, stating the absolute necessity of coming to "Standard Oil's" time, and to make their medicine a little more palatable I added: "Once you come to time I can induce my people, I believe, to make a public announcement that they will take the open management and control of the Utah Company, and you know that will surely make the stock jump—enough, perhaps, to offset what you people lose on the extra 50,000 shares you yield up."
I advised them to the best of my ability as to their only way out. If I had revealed to them that we had sold every share of the stock they were to turn over to us, it would have served no good purpose, for it would have made business impossible between us, and a crash would have occurred which would have ruined Utah, inflicted destruction on their price structure, and only enriched "Standard Oil." When I concluded, they started in to do as I had suggested, and the way they burnt up time and annihilated space was marvellous to behold. Though the thing was almost a miracle, they met the condition within the time limit, and we had turned over to us 150,000 shares of stock.
The moment Mr. Rogers saw the deal was a "go" all his hardness melted as the snow upon the mountainsides under the April sun. Nothing could be softer, kinder, and fairer. The blood had disappeared; the tiger was a great, purring house-cat, intent only on catching naughty rats and mice for the good of the household. Why, he would do anything to help out these good gentlemen; certainly, the world should know of his great interest in the Utah properties, and as the millions of golden dollars clinked into his golden bucket the next day, the world did learn of the great value of Utah, for his private counsel was made president, and certain other gentlemen who bear the uncounterfeitable "Standard Oil" tag were appointed as directors. There was a general jubilation—I had almost said, a killing of the fatted calf; but that part of the ceremony had been most ably attended to by Mr. Rogers in the preliminary stages of the entertainment.
Note.—When this startling and cold-blooded-trick part of my story was published in Everybody's Magazine, it astounded the world, and my enemies took advantage of the fierce anger which was aroused to call attention to my part, which they attempted to show was as bad as that of Rogers. Right here I wish to go on record: If I had been a human angel instead of a stock-broker, actuated solely by a desire to do just right, to do that which would work least harm to the greatest number of innocents, and least good to the largest number of tricksters, I should have done as I did.
Author.