In delving into Lawson's career—a most unwelcome task—the writer has detected a continuity of purpose, a fixity of design, a uniformity of method pervading his every public act. What he is doing now, i.e., exposing somebody or something, he has repeatedly done on a lesser scale in the past; not from worthy motives, but for the sole purpose of illegitimate pecuniary gain.
Yes, throughout my entire life I have pursued with a continuity of purpose that class I am pursuing to-day—the class that has taken from the people their earnings by fraud or trick. If other proof were needed that the men I am after have lost the discretion which made them great in the world, these foolish yarns supply it. It is well known that no man ever gets near to "Standard Oil" in business or socially until their detectives have dissected his career from the cradle up. I spent years in close business relations with these men, so close that, as I will show later, I acted as the agent not only of Rogers and Rockefeller, but of the Amalgamated Company and the City Bank.
He is at present engaged in attacking the "System," as he calls it, and the banks and the insurance companies and Wall Street and American finance, by circulars, by advertisements, and through the stock-market, as in the past he has repeatedly attacked other corporations and individuals until he obtained what he was seeking, and in every recorded instance that thing was unearned dollars.
In the past I have repeatedly attacked individuals and corporations until I obtained what I sought in every case—justice for the defrauded and punishment for those who had cheated them, and in no case dollars or their equivalent.
In the gilded biographies of himself which, from time to time, Mr. Lawson has caused to be written and published in newspapers and magazines.
My history is well enough known. I have always lived in the open. It has not been necessary to press-agent myself. A good deal has been printed about me in the newspapers during the last twenty-five years, but if I have ever sought to exploit myself before the public by means of autobiographies or journalistic puffs, and it is so proved by any reputable newspaper, may I be shown up to public scorn.
It was Mr. Stevens who defrayed the expense of a six months' course at a Boston business college for his protégé.
I have never had such a course of six months, nor of any length, nor have I ever been inside a business college.
Mr. Stevens, who was a kindly, philanthropic man, known and beloved by all his fellow-citizens, died years ago, therefore he cannot dispute what Lawson tells.
The late Horace H. Stevens died not years ago, but on March 8, 1904.