Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated

by Thomas William Lawson

I outlined it, giving the names of the persons and events it would deal with.

These things happened:

The edition of the magazine was sold out in three days; my chapter was printed in part or in full in nearly all the papers and periodicals of the United States and Canada; many of the representative journals, even in England, published long editorials on the subject, and with but few exceptions, editorials and news comments were favorable.

I was urged to continue. My second chapter appeared.

The magazine, with an additional 100,000 copies, was sold out in two days. The press took hold of the matter with even greater interest than it had accorded my first chapter.

The third chapter met with a still more cordial reception. The edition of the magazine, although increased another 100,000, sold out as before, and my mail expanded to a degree that surprised me. In addition to thousands of press notices and criticisms, I received ever so many letters from all classes of Americans and Canadians—teachers of the Word of God, and members of the flocks who are taught, earnest statesmen and insincere politicians, millionnaires and paupers, anarchists, socialists, municipal-ownershipists, and the hundred and one travelers on the beaten highways and lowways of life, who, spurred by ambition or unrest, pantingly seek a chance to blaze a way for the trudging millions of the future to that goal of all ambitious and restless dreamers—a people's Utopia. Nearly all appealed to me to give them the word as to the ultimate intention of "Frenzied Finance"—"Is it only to point to the sores, or will it prick them with its long sharp point and will its double edge cut the flesh in which they are rooted?" Others required further information or explanation about the subjects I had treated; another section questioned my statements and found fault with my disclosures. The volume of these communications and criticisms finally became so large and they were so urgent in tone that I made up my mind it was necessary to devise some fair and intelligent way to remove the writers' difficulties and resolve their doubts. The modern surgeon finds the preparation of a patient who is to go under the knife as important as the operation itself. My readers, unacquainted with the intricate details of finance and confused by the angry outcries and denials of those I had attacked, required education en route to be able to absorb and digest the hard facts and strong statements I was dealing out to them in monthly instalments. My publishers agreed with me as to the necessity of dealing in some radical way with the emergency, and devoted to my service additional pages in the back of Everybody's Magazine. Here I decided to begin a department to be called "Lawson and His Critics" in which I would solve the knotty problems my correspondents presented to me, set right their misunderstandings, and reply fully to those critics who had aspersed my motives or were attempting to discredit my message.

I began the department in October, 1904, and though I have been most seriously pressed for time, and in many instances have dealt imperfectly with the problems treated, I must say that the task I set myself has proved interesting and agreeable, and the letters the department evoked have been a tremendous source of inspiration and encouragement to me along the hail-stony road I had set myself to travel.

The bulk of the department during the months of 1904 was devoted to the subject of insurance. In an early chapter of my story I said that the three great insurance corporations, the New York Life, the Equitable, and the Mutual Life of New York, were an integral part of the "System," and especially instanced the New York Life as one of the most pliable tools of the "Made Dollar" makers. This statement, so mild and so vague in view of subsequent developments, was the first move in the historic controversy that has resulted in the extraordinary exposures that are being made as this book goes to press. When that first pebble was thrown, the surface of the insurance pond was as placid as a mountain lake, unruffled by a ripple, and in it were reflected the benignant faces of the noble philanthropists who consented to spend their days conserving the interests of the widows and the orphans of America. The people had grown so accustomed to regarding the McCalls, the Perkinses, the Hydes, the McCurdys, and the Alexanders, whose eminent physiognomies looked out at them from their insurance policies, as lofty and generous souls far removed from thoughts of pelf or self-aggrandizement, that my assertion caused consternation such as would occur in a Chinese temple if some rough intruder struck the idol, before whom a congregation was worshipping, with a stone. At once an avalanche of letters—protests, demands for further facts, anxious appeals from policy-holders—poured in upon me, and frankly I took up the subject, giving my readers exactly what they desired.

NEW HAMPSHIRE TRACTION

In order that the controversy may be unfolded in the manner in which it was first given to the public, I give here the first letter of the series, and then follow directly along with those passages from succeeding numbers that are devoted to the subject: