2. Had I been able to keep 700,000 shares in the hands of Rogers and Rockefeller with but 50,000 in the hands of the public, Rogers and Rockefeller would never have permitted the stock to go down, because they would have lost $700,000 at every point drop and by "bearing" they could make only $50,000 a point drop. Stock schemers never "bear" a stock of which they own a large majority and the public a small minority.
3. It would have been no crime if Rogers and Rockefeller had subscribed honestly—that is, according to the advertised terms—for enough to secure the stipulated 700,000 shares, because there was nothing in the conditions which excluded them or any one from subscribing. The crime was in the way they obtained the amount thus retained and in their "intentions" subsequently executed, also in the selling of $27,000,000 worth of the stock when they had pledged their word solemnly to me in my capacity as protector of the people that they would sell but $5,000,000.
4. Yes.
5. The office-boys, equipped with the check of $75,000,000 provided by the National City Bank, were organized into a corporation and turned over to the treasurer of the new corporation the $75,000,000 check in payment for the capital stock of the company. The company then turned this same check over to Rogers and Rockefeller for the mining properties comprising the consolidation, for which Rogers and Rockefeller had paid thirty-nine millions of dollars; then Rogers and Rockefeller paid back to the office-boys the seventy-five-million check and received from them the seventy-five-million stock. The check was returned to the bank by the office-boys, who stood where they stood at the beginning of the transaction, and canceled. Thus Rogers and Rockefeller at the close of the transaction had in their possession the entire capital stock of the Amalgamated Company.
Another correspondent had even greater difficulties with the problem:
May 29, 1905.
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson,
Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir: The writer of this letter has had much experience in literary matters, but does not remember ever reading after any one who could hold his interest as you can. He is an author himself (though not so well known as you), and feels some little ability to measure and appreciate not only literary worth, but the intentions of the author in hand. From the "internal evidences" alone he has a settled conviction that you are perfectly honest in this crusade, and from the bottom of his heart wishes you Godspeed.
A few points are certainly not clear to the ordinary reader. Closely as I have followed you I cannot see some things as you think they should be seen. For instance: