A definite accusation of misrepresentation was presented in a letter that came to me early in the year in criticism of Steel facts and figures I had used in illustrating the artificial advance and depression of stocks:
Cincinnati, O., January 24, 1905.
Thomas W. Lawson.
Sir: Lawson, you are both a fakir and a fool. A fakir because you misrepresent, and a fool because you do not begin to understand the people.
When you said the stockholders of the Steel Corporation lost $500,000,000, you knew that you lied. Because the difference in price of the stock to-day and when it was quoted on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in 1901 does not approach that amount. I say that you knew this when you made that statement, but you thought and hoped that the general public would not be posted in the matter.
The whole substance of your magazine articles has been nothing but half-truths, and a half-truth is worse than a lie. You know that it is to gratify your personal spite, and not to help the general public, that you have engaged in your frenzied writings. The public is wiser than you think, although your conceit has blinded you to that fact.
Respectfully,
F. F. Methven.
This frenzied nincompoop is evidently ignorant of the fact that 360,281,000 shares of Steel Preferred were sold to the public at over $100 per share, and that 5,500,000 shares of Steel Common were sold at over $50 per share, or nearly $300,000,000, and that months later, when the people were compelled to resell to the "System," they could get only $50 for this preferred stock and $10 for the common, while the $551,000,000 of bonds depreciated in value over $100,000,000 more. What this critic desired to say was that, at the present price of Steel stocks, no such loss as $500,000,000 is shown, which proves my oft-repeated contention—the "System," having "shaken out" the public and acquired their holdings at fifty and ten respectively, is now engaged in putting the price back to the old figure, intending to repeat the robbery process later. A votary of the "System," whom I know quite well, said to me a few weeks ago:
"Lawson, you keep chasing 'Frenzied Finance' will-o'-the-wisps while the rest of us are pulling in the dollars, and see where you will come out in the end. Look what I've done: I sold 200,000 shares of Steel Common for $8,000,000. It cost me $3,000,000. I made $5,000,000. I then 'shorted' 100,000 at $50 and bought it back at $12. I made $3,800,000. I then bought 300,000 at 10. It's now 30. When I sell out at 40, I shall have $9,000,000 more, making $18,000,000, without turning a hair or risking a dollar. With prizes such as these a man can stand a lot of frenzied hard names, can't he?"