FOOTNOTES:
[21] Groups of Stock-Exchange members each day appear to buy from other groups great quantities of shares of different stocks at advancing prices. In reality all the brokers—the ones appearing to buy and those who sell to them—are in league with each other, and none of the transactions is actual. The performance bears the same relation to legitimate Stock-Exchange trading that the purchase and sale of a gold brick among confederates at a circus do to the genuine work of the gamblers and pick-pockets who are really attending to business around them. On certain days in the months I refer to, when the official records of the Stock Exchange told that one and a half million shares had been bought and sold, and prices had advanced until the aggregate increase in the worth of the stocks dealt in amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, not more than a few thousand shares of real stock changed hands. The rest was barefaced fraud for the purpose of deceiving the millions of investors and speculators throughout the country who are dependent upon the daily press and "market letters" for information in regard to investments for their savings.
[22] Arthur McEwen and James Creelman are among the strongest and ablest of American newspaper writers. Their names are not as familiar to the readers of magazines as some others, but they are, perhaps, the most highly paid men in journalism to-day, and they have a well-earned reputation for independence and personal integrity. Mr. McEwen, who is now one of the editors of the New York American, is known throughout the country as a fearless exponent of corporate villainies. Mr. Creelman is a distinguished member of the New York World's editorial staff, and has interviewed more of the world's great men than any other journalist living. From their standing in their profession, their well-known hatred of hypocrisies and shams, their wide experience in estimating men of all degrees—the verdict of Mr. Creelman and Mr. McEwen, as set forth in their papers, should be conclusive.
III
EXPLANATIONS
The revelations I delivered to the public in my story of "Frenzied Finance," together with the accompanying expositions of insurance and other rottenness in the "Critics" department, were not accepted without protest from my correspondents. Though the majority of the letters that came to me in shoals from all parts of the country have been generous in their appreciation of my work, many have seriously taken my methods to task and dubiously questioned my motives. The most salient and satisfactory expression of these doubters was a letter that came to me from a New York banker, to which I replied at length, for it afforded me the opportunity to get before my readers in general many matters about which explanations seemed due them. The letter was as follows:
New York.
Dear Sir: I have read all that you have written in Everybody's Magazine, and have been unusually interested. If you will consult the Amalgamated subscription list you will see my house is down for quite a large amount. For this reason and others, and as an old member of our Stock Exchange, I naturally follow such writings as yours. At the beginning I agreed with most bankers in believing that you were actuated by a desire to get even with Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rockefeller, or Mr. Addicks; but as your tale progressed I thought I perceived a sincere desire to carry out some genuine work of reform in the system of conducting the stock business; then when you began your advertising work last December, I shifted again and felt that your efforts were probably for personal gain.