At this time I was in a most uncomfortable and uncertain position. Each day that I did business with Mr. Rogers and his associates increased my knowledge of their heartless brutality in dollar-making. I knew I was on dangerous ground; but to retreat meant not only my own destruction but terrible losses to my friends who had followed me and to the public which had come in on my advice. So I had made up my mind to go on but to keep my eyelids pinned back, my tongue anchored, and what gray matter I possessed oscillating. Remember, I was in no way sure that Mr. Rogers intended to misuse the public, but I suspected that his coat-sleeves contained more things than his shirt-cuffs, and that he was playing a game other than the one he let me see. Up to now Mr. Rogers and William Rockefeller had kept me between the people and their legal responsibility by having all public statements made over my signature. I had half-way concluded that this was done to avoid future accounting, but there might be other reasons. I determined when it came to the flotation, which would be the first time they took openly the public's money, to connect them publicly with my statements. It is next to impossible for any man to sit in front of Henry H. Rogers and give one reason for his actions and have another about his person; but this was a desperate situation and I resolved at any cost to carry my point. How difficult a task I had undertaken I did not realize until I was well into it. When I had stated the form I thought Amalgamated's first announcement should have, Mr. Rogers paused. He repeated:
"The City Bank—that's a question. Now, how do you propose to go about that advertisement?"
"Simply this way," I replied. "I will draw up a memorandum of the main strong points about the Amalgamated Company, and you will ask Mr. Stillman to have some of his people write them into a good, clear statement. This we will publish as an advertisement over the bank's signature, and have the Amalgamated Company indorse it, showing that it is joined with the bank in responsibility for the truth of the announcement."
Mr. Rogers said nothing, but continued to gaze inquiringly at me. I went on:
"Or, the Amalgamated Company can be the principal and the bank the indorser."
"Just what is the bank to say in this statement?" he asked very seriously.
"The big things about our enterprise that I have been telling the public. We will put them forward in an old-fashioned, unequivocal way—that should accomplish what we want," I replied.
He was looking at me in a curiously searching manner as I spoke. He said:
"Let us have the strongest one or two as an illustration."
"Well, for instance, what I have advertised so often, that this stock is so good the 'Standard Oil' people who formerly owned the property behind it would prefer to own all the stock and hold it as a permanent investment, but that the enterprise is so large their interests will be better served by letting the public in than going it alone. You and I know that's true. Also that the company is earning sixteen per cent. and will always pay eight per cent. or over. Something to that effect."