I still refused to be discouraged. I urged Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller to make good their promises made through me to the public. Finally they consented. The stock advanced until it sold at 130.
At the highest price I was still buying and advising its purchase. Then there came the awful slump which slid the stock down to 33. I lost enormously; insiders made vast profits. The public was again fleeced.
At 33 I began a new campaign to induce my followers and the public to buy. As a result there were purchased by hundreds of people all over the country directly and indirectly through me, rising 260,000 shares, at an average of 40 to 42, and probably hundreds of thousands more which I could not trace.
This campaign I have prosecuted incessantly up to the present time, until now I estimate the public holds 1,000,000 shares, 700,000 of which show at to-day's price, 82, a profit of $28,000,000.
When my story, "Frenzied Finance," began, I advertised that it could do no damage to Amalgamated stock, but would help it.
Hoping to divert the dangerous disclosures I threatened, the leading attorney of Messrs. Rogers and Rockefeller asked for a conference. At it he demanded of me what I expected to accomplish. I replied: "One thing, at least—to put the price of Amalgamated back to 100, that those unfortunates who still retain their stock may recover their money."
Then the secret was revealed to me that Amalgamated was not worth anything like the price at which it had been sold to the public. I said: "How can this be?"
He answered: "Mr. Rogers knows for a certainty that Marcus Daly deceived him about the worth of the properties."
I had great faith in this attorney. He was sincere in what he said; his knowledge and relations were such he could not have been deceived, and his special information about this property was such that he could speak in the first person. I believed him. Soon afterward another official of Amalgamated confirmed his statements.
When I received this information my dilemma was a terrible one. If I gave it to my following they would at once throw over their stock, probably at a great loss. I waited. Sooner or later I knew these men would get behind the market, push up the prices of the stocks they had gathered in at bottom figures, and, when the moment was ripe, again unload on the public.