This is the rejoinder of the "System." No denial of my facts. No defence against my charges, but a volley of mud and a threat of assassination. I had dared tell the people how they had been robbed.
All remember the panic of 1901, the famous Northern Pacific corner, in which values shrank hundreds of millions in a few hours and tens of thousands of the people lost their entire savings. Who precipitated that terrific slaughter? Certain great railroad magnates and bankers were at each other's throats; two greedy corporations had quarrelled ferociously over the control of a railway line. No man in all our broad land dared to hint at the assassination of a Morgan or a Perkins or a Harriman or any of the "Standard Oil" votaries who were parties to the bitter contest that left Wall Street strewn with the mangled and bleeding carcasses of the ruined and bankrupt. That time, however, the "System" had both money and stocks—the people had lost both.
I am not going to enter into a defence of myself against Colonel Greene's charges. In the newspapers of the country that matter was fully ventilated at the time. I simply republish his vituperation to show how the "System" sets about silencing those who dare protest against its villainous methods. In the first six months of the publication of my story the sole defence the "System" entered against my specific and terrible charges of plunder and debauching of the people was to attack me personally. It inaugurated a war of mud-slinging and vilification directed by the New York Commercial, Henry H. Rogers's own paper, which printed the ridiculous statement that I was crazy. This editorial made splendid ammunition for the big insurance corporations, which caused it to be distributed among their policy-holders, and for the yelping pack of insurance papers which may be depended on to bark, and bite the legs of any one who dares attack their master, the "System's," most profitable institutions. I find I have not space here to reproduce these several mud broadsides, which really are more valuable as evidence of the doddering imbecility and fatuous weakness of the so-called great men of finance than interesting or informative. Since my personality is the issue, I propose to give my readers some testimony of a different character, gathered by experts[22] in the heat of battle.
THOMAS W. LAWSON AT CLOSE RANGE
An Intimate Talk with the Financier and Fighter
By ARTHUR McEWEN
From the New York American, November 27, 1904.
Thomas W. Lawson of Boston, who is making it so interesting for Standard Oil financiers and other able gentlemen that add your money to their corpulent millions while you wait, is himself an interesting man and a very puzzling one to a great many people.
One day last week I spent several hours with him at his rooms in Young's Hotel, and it surely was a stimulating and enjoyable time. Everybody now knows how exceedingly well Mr. Lawson can write, and he talks as he writes—boldly, vividly, audaciously. He thinks out loud, pouring forth a flood of speech, breaking off in the middle of sentences, going into long parentheses, touching on a dozen incidental things by way of illustration as he goes, but always coming back to the main point. He may confuse you, but he does not confuse himself. And notwithstanding the rapidity of his utterance and his copiousness he is not carried away into saying what he would rather not have said.
He is handsome—tall, broad-shouldered, strong, well-knit, and graceful—still almost youthful physically, despite his forty-five years and the beginning of grayness in the dark, wavy hair which covers his large, finely arched, and well-proportioned head. His forehead is high and broad, his gray eyes deep set under brows that come together and give intentness and fierceness to his gaze when he is aroused.