You libelled me in thousands of private letters to policy-holders, many of which came back to me.
You employed James M. Beck, ex-Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, then and now chief attorney for Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil Company, the "System," and the Mutual Life Insurance Company, to ridicule my utterances and asperse my honor in addresses in the cities of Philadelphia and Boston.
You employed James H. Eckels, ex-Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, now president of the Commercial Bank and representative of the "System" in the West, to attack my arguments and distort my motives in Chicago.
You ordered Vice-President Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance Company, to perform similar service in Philadelphia; and
The burden of all these documents, advertisements, and disguised advertisements and addresses was: "Lawson is an unmitigated liar and scoundrel, whose sole reason for attacking the insurance companies is that we refused him insurance."
I replied by printing your personal letter to me, wherein you importuned me to accept insurance in your company.
Again you gave me the lie, and pronounced your letter spurious.
I replied to you and your followers by instancing cases of perjury, bribery, and false statements.
I stated that your claim that your company did not own, nor loan upon, stocks was false, and that it was made for the purpose of misleading and imposing upon your policy-holders, banks, trust companies, Government officials, and investors.
You answered this by writing a letter to one of the great churchmen of America, and in it you said: "I pledge you my word of honor this company has never, since 1899, had a dollar's interest, directly or indirectly, in any stock. Lawson knows this, and deliberately, for his own base purposes, makes charges to the contrary which he knows to be false."