The curse of Amalgamated has been "Standard Oil" management. Copper Range has been, and is, directed and controlled by representative Boston copper men, who seek their profits in the mine and not in the stock-market.
Thomas W. Lawson.
Boston, December 6, 1904.
The result of this announcement proved that my message had not fallen on stony places, but had been accepted by the public in the spirit of its giving. All Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the people sold their stocks to the "System's" votaries at the falsely inflated prices these gentry had forced for their own plundering purposes. Instead of gathering in the savings of the toilers, the "System" had to part with some of its wad. For once the people got the money and the "System" had the stocks. Under the stress of tremendous selling the price of "Amalgamated" was shattered. Other frenzied finance stocks declined in sympathy. The power of publicity had been triumphantly vindicated and the cries of frenzied financiers, their mouths full of their own fish-hooks, resounded through the land.
That this condition would be allowed to prevail long, I knew was improbable. The "System's" leading votaries got together and organized to stop the frightful decline in prices. The old cuttle-fish methods were at once resorted to—a campaign of falsehood, deception, and trickery began. Lest the people should realize that it was their power which had wrought such havoc, the touts and tipsters shouted in chorus that the slaughter of prices was the work of the "System" itself, and that I was secretly in league with the "System" against the public; that, the public having been robbed of its stocks, prices would advance with an extra bound. Scores of millions were drawn from the banks and trust companies to stay the slump. Under the influence of all this industry and clamor the market began to boil again; prices recovered, and the people, confused and bewildered, were once more about to be entrapped. A sharp advance was followed by a cry from the votaries that I was a trickster and that what had been in reality the most notable demonstration of "the people's strength" ever given was only another evidence of the "System's" infallibility. If this deceit had prevailed, the task I have undertaken of enlightening the public would have had a setback. Relying on my previous work, I put forth the following announcement Monday morning, December 12th, and confidently awaited results:
INVESTORS AND SPECULATORS—WARNING!
For six months through my story, "Frenzied Finance," in Everybody's Magazine, I have been educating the people to the terrible condition existing to-day in America—the people are plundered of their savings by a few men through the working of the "System."
After a close study for six months I concluded that the people were awakening to the truth.
I decided to make a test.
I advertised certain truths. That was all.