Mr. Lawson gave me nearly three hours of his time, and during those three hours he was interrupted every five minutes or so by telephone calls. He conducted his business right along, ordering the selling and buying of stocks, making or declining appointments, talking with his publishers, his lawyers, his family, his friends. It would have goaded almost any man into excitement and irritability, but it was all in a day's work with Lawson. Yet he is not phlegmatic; indeed, he is extraordinarily animated. But it is animation with composure. In a business way there is not a busier man in the country, but he finds leisure for other interests—books, pictures, bronzes, horses. He has a beautiful country home, where he goes daily by special train, and then puts up the bars against business, bores, and all intruders.
In his talk with me he ran a remarkable gamut. He spoke of business like the shrewdest and readiest of practical men. Then in the midst of some story of stock-market guile, such as he is exposing in Everybody's Magazine, his face, voice, and hands conveyed amusement, anger, disgust. With his good looks and gift of expression he would have made his way to the top of the stage. I do not know if he has done any public speaking. But when he got into the full tide of denunciation of the crimes of Amalgamated I regretted that he was not addressing a great audience, for it was real oratory—strong talk, ardent, electric, manly. His eyes flashed, his teeth came together with a snap and he shook both fists under my nose. He has enthusiasm, capacity for righteous wrath, and the spirit of battle. But he doesn't lose poise for a moment.
HIS CONFIDENCE IN HIMSELF
Cheerfulness, gay confidence in his own powers, is his predominant trait.
"You are firing hot shot into these people," I said. "They have endless money, and you are in the stock-market, taking chances every day. Aren't you afraid they will dig pits for you?"
"Well, what can they do to any of us in this world except to send us to the poor-house or the grave? I don't fear them. I know them and all about them. You must remember this is not a new occupation with me. For twenty-five years or more I have been in the habit of picking up a brick without looking to see how many corners it had or whether it was round or square and hitting the first head I thought I had a good reason to hit. I have been doing these things regardless of how they liked it. It's upward of a quarter of a century since I had my first wrestle with a corporation in the newspapers. I have tried not to be a common scold and avoided being vicious when I could. I have only attacked when I thought some fellow had done me a deliberate wrong. And when I have felt that way I have started after him. Then it has been vicious, hard fighting, you know; vicious, but not malicious.
"With the 'Standard Oil' crowd I have this big advantage—I am only one man, a small target, and it needs a mighty good aim to hit me, whereas they present a large surface and I have only to heave a brick in any direction to break a window. The contest is unequal. Everything favors me. My ammunition is the truth."
There is cheerful courage for you—more particularly in the case of a man who proclaims from the housetop that there is no limit to the villainy of his adversaries.
"Mr. Lawson," I said, "there are few who would care to be in your shoes—a rich man waging a war of this sort. The chances are altogether in favor of their smashing you financially."
"Let them, if they can. There are worse things in this life than being smashed financially."