Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated

by Thomas William Lawson

I remember reading somewhere that New York's infamous Boss Tweed, at the zenith of his extraordinary corrupt career, actually began negotiations with a syndicate composed of his friends to sell them the New York City Hall on a long-time note. When some curious heelers asked where the city fathers should conduct the affairs of the metropolis, he beamed on them in a paternal way as he explained: "Oh, a detail of the sale will be a hundred years' lease back to the city at a rental which will give us enough each five years to pay the purchase price."

Absurd, you say. Not so far-fetched as you may think, if you will remember the conditions under which the National City—the "Standard Oil" Bank—acquired New York's old Custom House on Wall Street. They bought it from the United States Government, credited the purchase price to Uncle Sam on their books, then rented it for a good round price to the Government, whose new Custom House was not ready for occupancy, and because it remained in Uncle Sam's possession, evaded municipal taxation on the investment. They got the property absolutely without paying a cent, and have ever since collected a splendid interest on the million they did not invest.

But this deal which Mr. Rogers outlined to me seemed to go both of these transactions a point or two better, inasmuch as neither of the parties were corrupt city or government officials, but merely private citizens in a country where all are free and equal, and where the Constitution guarantees that no man's property shall be taken from him without due process of law.

Before I could get my breath, Mr. Rogers, as if he divined my thought, quietly said:

"One of the inducements I offer will be to allow them to reinvest the money we pay them in the new consolidated company's stock, at a good big advance over what it will cost us."

This was too much. I roared and roared, and even he had to laugh as he quietly remarked: "I said you would find we had done better for you than you could do for yourself, Lawson, for you must remember you are in on this at actual cost."

I stopped laughing. "How is that? I thought you intended the new copper company to have the fifty-one per cent. of the selling company?"

He looked at me with something akin to disgust. Then his voice changed, and he let me have it straight from the shoulder:

"Lawson, do you really intend that this whole copper business shall be a charitable affair? If you do, just count us out right here. We are willing to accede to a lot of your ideas, but there is a line we must refuse to cross even to please you. This fifty-one per cent. of the selling company is to be owned by all of our friends, and it is one of the things we must use as a sop to Daly, Stillman, Morgan, and the rest, to make them enthusiastic on our main scheme, and it will not come under our general arrangements of seventy-five and twenty-five per cent. It is one of the things I want you to leave entirely to Mr. Rockefeller and myself, and you can depend upon it we will do the right thing. All the stock is to be pooled in our hands for a long term of years, so you can say to the public that its operations will be in favor of the consolidated company."

There you will note was the second explosive point in our conversation. I was too much concerned at the moment to take in all his words implied or to appreciate the fine dexterity with which a difficult situation was being handled. These decisive sentences were cracked off quick, sharp, emphatic, like the snapping of a bunch of firecrackers. I began a "But, Mr. Rogers," when he interrupted, and his words came stern, aggressive: