"Rogers is a marvellously able man and one of the best fellows living. If you knew him only on the social side, and knew him for years, you couldn't help loving him. He is considerate, kindly, generous, helpful, and everything a man should be to his friends. But when it comes to business—his kind of business—when he turns away from his better self and goes aboard his pirate brig and hoists the Jolly Rover, God help you! And, then, as a buccaneer you have to admire him, for he is a master among pirates, and you have to salute him, even when he has the point of his cutlass at the small of your back and you're walking the plank at his order. Rogers is wonderful. He is one of the most prolific human creatures I have ever met; prolific in thought, in devices—and I've been at the game a long time now and ought to know.
"Don't think me egotistical, but I can't help looking under the surface and going to the bottom of things. So I learn more about men in Wall Street and what they are at than most. This is my thirty-fourth year of sixteen and seventeen hours a day and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and I have seen them all come and go. I am with the third generation of my time now. In such matters I feel somehow that I'm about three hundred years old.
"Men like Rogers are all very good fellows. They are genial and tolerant in their judgment of others. Yes, they are mighty good fellows, until you turn them around and look at their other side. Rogers is lovable enough until he touches the other button. Then he goes with perfect ruthlessness for what he wants. And yet, though you are his victim, you can't bring yourself to hate him. After he has thrown you down and taken all you have and you turn yourself over and find the dark lantern has disappeared, and you hear him going up the lane, you pick yourself out of the gutter and admire the skill with which he did the job. If you could stand it, you would almost whistle to have him come back and do it over."
"It is easy to see," I said, "by what you write of Mr. Rogers in your magazine story, that you were fond of him and gave him the highest rank for ability, but just the same you said you had to go on the stand in the gas suit and swear exactly opposite to his testimony. Do you charge him flatly with perjury?"
"I have put it fifty times in black and white," answered Mr. Lawson, "that he committed perjury. There isn't any question about it. I produced my secretary's minutes, delivered over the telephone, received by his secretary and afterward confirmed. He confirmed the message to me, called me up and talked it over and did business on that agreement. Two men, Rogers and myself, followed each other on the stand and made diametrically opposite statements; and neither one of them reserved himself in stating that it was knowledge at first hand. Therefore there was perjury."
LEGISLATIVE CORRUPTION
"Mr. Lawson, the whole country is familiar enough with legislative corruption, so there's nothing new in your charge that the Legislature of Massachusetts was bought up. But what will attract national notice is the definiteness of your accusation. You charge H.M. Whitney, brother of the late W. C. Whitney, and one of the foremost business men of your State, with having done the corrupting in order to get through a complete charter for a gas company. Now, when you pillory a person of Whitney's standing and prominence, as you have done, he has got to do one of two things—either force you to come to the front and compel you to prove the truth of what you say or stand before the public morally convicted."
"That's right," agreed Lawson heartily.
"Do you stand ready to prove your charge if he challenges you to do it?"
"What else can I do? Of course I can prove it. I'm sorry for Whitney. He is a good fellow on his personal side, like Rogers, but truth is truth."