"However used we may have become to buying Legislatures, however commonplace it may be, still, when a financially responsible man like yourself gives concrete instance, and is prepared with proofs, the fact is horribly startling to everybody that cares for his country. What is to be the end of this sort of thing—the purchase of the people's representatives by the criminal rich?"
"Well, you can ask me a question even broader than that. What is going to be the end, not only of such things as I have stated in regard to the corruption of the Legislature of Massachusetts—and we all admit that the same thing is being done in other States—what is going to be the outcome of this rottenness in connection with the practices in Wall Street that I am telling about in my magazine narrative in 'Frenzied Finance'? To answer would be to disclose my remedy—the climax to my whole story. At present I can only say that I make no charges loosely, on insufficient evidence. I state only what I know. I have seen the iniquities worked out. I know that these crimes are being committed every day; that these great financial schemes are carried through, not only by the commission of moral crimes, but legal crimes—crimes for which those participating in them can be held responsible if they are gone after in the right way, and I am going to show the right way.
THE REMEDY
"I believe that I have a remedy. That, of course, is a tremendous thing to say. I have spent my life on it. I have been waiting for the opportunity."
"I may not ask you what your remedy is?"
"No, I shall propose that myself when I have laid all my facts about these crimes before the people. I am going to tell them about some startling crimes. All that I have told so far, including the systematic corruption of the Massachusetts Legislature, relates to the past. That is, the deeds are dead, so to speak. But the crimes of Amalgamated, though in one sense they are now past, are yet connected with the present, because Amalgamated is alive. The man who was robbed in 1899, in 1900, and 1901 has his claim unsettled. That man is alive and Amalgamated is a big, living corporation. When I get to that I shall be talking in the present and something is going to be done.
"I have the remedy for the whole thing. You will appreciate the largeness of that statement, but I have thought and advised and worked it out. My remedy is based on common sense."
"Does it aim at any real change in our political system? Is it socialistic?"
"Oh, no; it doesn't mean a turning over in politics. You and I know that the dollar is what is running things in this country to-day, and if you come along with an ideal proposition—a proposition that carries with it a change in our laws or a proposition to have some new laws passed—you might as well say good-by to it, because the fellow whose hundred millions you want to take away is going to say: 'How many dollars does it need to turn that upside down?' and he is going to supply the dollars."
LAWSON'S VERSATILITY