Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated

by Thomas William Lawson

"Lawson, in the name of Heaven, stop for a second; there is some mistake; I see there is some mistake, some terrible blunder that they have made upstairs. Don't say another word. Give me that paper and I'll take it to Mr. Rockefeller. He will see what is wrong; he and I'll go over it together and you shall have what's right. I will be back in a few minutes and I swear to you you shall have your full share. Yes, I swear to you you shall have what you say is right, even if it takes every dollar of the profits, every dollar."

I handed him the paper without a word and he was out of the room. I heard gates bang and knew he had, as he promised, "gone upstairs." I locked the door and waited. I shall never forget the racking torture of that period of inaction. To make real all the terrors I was suffering it would be necessary for me to enter into elaborate details of the wide-spread financial commitment into which I had been led by my relationship with the Consolidation. I was staggering under immense lines of Boston "Coppers," which were to be included in the second section of Amalgamated, but had been purchased to make part of the first section. Some of these Mr. Rockefeller was carrying for me; the rest were portioned among two dozen banks, trust companies, and brokers. With a portion of the profits I had legitimately calculated upon, I had proposed to lighten my burden and to devote the balance to carrying through the contract I had taken on my shoulders of protecting Amalgamated stock in the market. To do so on this showing would be out of the question; more than ever should I be at "Standard Oil's" mercy. The dangers that threatened me assumed cyclopean proportions as I marshalled them. Suddenly another possibility flashed across my brain, "What if they should tell you that having refused what was fair, you should have nothing—that you could go to the devil and fight? Then where would you be?" That meant ruin, crushing, irrevocable, complete; a series of disasters, so portentously realistic, began a cinematographic procession across my disordered brain, that I found myself shivering in anticipation, when suddenly the door-knob clicked and I jumped to my feet to admit Mr. Rogers. In his hand was the paper. I had eyes for it alone. I took it from his outstretched fingers and devoured its contents. It was the same sheet, the same word "balance," but underneath the old figures was a line below which appeared a new set of ciphers, showing just a fraction under five millions of dollars. In the brief interval of minutes my balance had doubled. Before I could utter a word, with his hand on my arm to arrest my attention, Mr. Rogers was exclaiming:

"Lawson, one word before you open your mouth. Remember I said you should be satisfied. Mr. Rockefeller agrees with me. He is convinced these figures now are right, but wants me to tell you if you believe they are not, to make your own and you'll have what they call for."

As I said before, Henry H. Rogers knows the human animal, and in the intimate intercourse of preceding years he had had ample opportunity to learn those very human characteristics which go to the blending of my individuality. It is a weakness of which I am intensely conscious, yet cannot altogether regret, to be easily moved by any show of generosity and fairness, however specious. When I saw the new figures and realized that all the hell I had conjured up was no more than a nightmare, a very rapture of gratitude and relief seized me. It was not that I lost sight of the fact that this new balance was far below what I knew was my right, for according to the lowest computation my proper share was nine millions; nor that I failed to realize that I was in the power of this man whose greed, callousness, and brutal obstinacy in the face of opposition no one knew better than I. Still, though his unusual deference convinced me that by continued, fiery insistence I could force from him the remaining four millions (for the one thing Standard Oil never lets get into court is a dispute over a division of profits on a joint stock deal), the first shock had been so awful, and the reaction was so sudden, that my whole being revolted at the idea of further wrangle. Indeed, I was in the same condition as the man whose runaway horse suddenly stops just as the children in the roadway seemed doomed to be crushed and beaten to death beneath its iron heels. He condones the running away in gratitude for the timely halt. A glad voice within me seemed to be saying, "It's all right, all right—that's money enough to fight him out with—that's ammunition for victory—victory for yourself, for the friends who have banked on your ability to protect them."

I said to Mr. Rogers: "Tell Mr. Rockefeller I thank him for his fairness. I thank you both. I'm satisfied and this is settled." I put my finger on the account which lay on the table.

Yes, I positively thanked these men who had tried to rob me of seventy-five per cent. of all the millions that I had earned by all the laws of the game, and that I so urgently needed to protect those whom I had lured to probable destruction; needed as a mother in the desert needs milk to keep life in her babe. I thanked these men in heartfelt terms because they had returned me an additional third of my own money. Idiot, you say. I went further; I shook Mr. Rogers by the hand, and as the tears gathered in his eyes I said, and it was from the heart, too:

"Don't think, Mr. Rogers, that I shall ever lay up this day against you and Mr. Rockefeller, or that I shall resent not getting all I believed I should have had. I want you both to understand that I do know I am entitled to more, but it ends here. I will cherish no ill-feeling, for this balance is amply sufficient to enable me to do what I intended to do, and—there is more on earth than millions."

We were both emotionally excited; I from relief at escaping the clutches of that dread hell of which for certain moments I had felt the flaming grasp; he because of a sudden degrading realization that he had attempted to practise on a faithful comrade in arms a cowardly and contemptible piece of treachery. My impulsive gratitude for the measure of justice granted me made his avaricious greed seem even to him despicable, and for an instant Henry H. Rogers was honestly ashamed.

Some years have elapsed since this episode, but a thousand times I suppose the scene has arisen to rack Henry H. Rogers with bitter memories of his baseness. The severest punishments are not those that we mortals inflict on our fellows whom for violations of our little earthly laws we clap in striped suits and shackle with steel bracelets. What are striped suits which imprint no mark on the body of the wearer, or handcuffs that any blacksmith can strike off at a blow, in comparison with the ever-recurring torture of the white-hot iron with which God sears the hearts and brains of those sinners whose wrong-doing is beyond human retribution? What memories of prison and disgrace are comparable with the exquisite suffering of the undetected criminal who in the dark watches of the night pores over the bitter scroll of his delinquencies? When Henry H. Rogers reads the record set down here of this faithless and degrading action, he will suffer infinitely more than ever I did for the loss of the gold he and his associates so meanly filched. Nor will the knowledge of the seven and a half score of millions marshalled ready at his nod, abate one jot or tittle of the measure of his humiliation and shame.

Peace having been established, Mr. Rogers sent "upstairs" for the checks and stocks to complete the settlement, and while we waited we talked, and, as was inevitable after so strenuous a session, we found ourselves back on the sincere and frankly friendly footing of our earlier intercourse. A knock-down and attempted drag-out which at the end is declared a draw invariably promotes cordiality between the principals, and ours was no exception to the rule. Evidently Mr. Rogers had been doing considerable thinking since our last conversation and had accumulated troublesome ideas which had to be worked off. My mood at the moment seemed made to order for the purpose, and he ran over our affairs, one after another, until he thought it safe to explode his bomb. He rang for a clerk, and instructed that Mr. Stillman be called up and asked to send over "that paper if it was ready." Soon afterward the messenger returned with a big, square package. Mr. Rogers opened it.