Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated

by Thomas William Lawson

He smiled, said "Thank you!" and continued looking at me as though he awaited something further, a quizzical, expectant smile on his face.

There was an interval of silence. Finally I said to him—and there were neither red lights nor warning intuitions to signal my peril: "Just what do you expect me to do, Mr. Addicks?"

"Whatever you think best," he replied in a mild tone. Then, rousing himself a bit, he went on: "They say in the market that you like a fight and the harder it is the better. Well, I certainly have an uphill fight. Do as you would have the other fellow do to you."

After that I had no further doubts of Addicks' slickness. I said to him: "You are certainly the shrewd man they describe you as. Now continue to be frank long enough to answer this one question: Did you figure this out as the last card to throw at me, knowing that the very desperation of the case might warm me up and tempt me to tackle it for the sake of the fight there's in it?"

Instantly Addicks knew his game was won. He straightened up and was the able, shrewd, and cunning financier who had tricked conservative Boston. His facts chased his figures in marvellously rapid succession, and he showed a knowledge of conditions, relations, and corporation tricks that dazzled me. For an hour he rushed on, and when at last he came to a stop I said to him:

"It's unnecessary to say any more. I see the situation as you would have me see it, and it comes to this: If I refuse to link up with you it means another 'Standard Oil' victory and another wreck for Boston. Rogers' success means that New England speculators and investors will again, for the three hundred and thirty-third time, be robbed of their savings. If I get in, we may either avert all this or I may be ground up at the same time you are. However, it's too good a fight to miss, and so here goes. I'll link up."

At some particularly hazardous halting-place in after-years Addicks and myself have often laughed as we have talked over that August evening on the Now-Then. I was easy, he asserts, and I must admit that he is right—I was easy. Yet no one knew Addicks better than I did then. Looking back along his extraordinary career, one is obliged to allow a certain magic as a factor in his men-and-dollar tussles. We had absolutely nothing in common, Addicks and I. We thought and felt differently about every relationship of life. A dozen other ventures, sure, easy, and promising infinitely greater profits, were ready at my hand—but he appealed to my sense of adventure, he promised me abundant and glorious fighting, and I forgot everything else and went with him.

When the Now-Then touched her pier and I stepped ashore, it was as captain of Addicks' corporation and stock-market forces, with absolute power to wage war, make peace, and use in whatever way I thought best such resources of his as I could lay hands on. I lost no time. Within forty-eight hours of my return to Boston I had mapped out my campaign, reconstructed Addicks' broken lines, and gayly set forth on about as forlorn a hope as ever operator or fighter tackled.

Nothing more desperate could be imagined than the condition of the Delaware financier's affairs when I assumed control. All the resources of his companies were pledged for loans, and the constantly falling prices of his securities, coupled with the discrediting stories Rogers' agents kept in circulation, made it difficult to keep these going. To pay would mean ruin, for Addicks had no further thing of value to pledge. At the same time, Rogers' company, which had now paralleled many of the Bay State Company's pipes, had secured a large slice of that corporation's business, and had a corps of up-to-date solicitors working overtime to secure the balance. Boston, in the meantime, having decided that Addicts' star was of the shooting variety, and on its return trip, was throwing up its hat in the wake of the "Standard Oil" band-wagon. The city government and the Massachusetts Legislature had awakened to the enormity of Addicksism and were boiling over with that brand of virtue which the "System" and "Standard Oil" know so well how to rouse in American breasts by way of American pockets. By this time Rogers' investment in Boston had grown from the half-million he had in the beginning estimated as sufficient to annihilate Addicks to three and a half millions, a million and a half of which represented real property, and the balance, all kinds of expenditures made in the fight to crush the Delaware financier, a large part of it being invested in the votes and favor of State and municipal authorities.

Chief among the enemies of Addicks at this period was the young and brilliant boss of Boston, its reform mayor, the Hon. Nathan Matthews, and thereby hangs a swinging tale. When the Addicks-Rogers gas-fight broke out in Boston this Nathan Matthews was at the zenith of his political career, and was rather a greater man than even reform mayors generally fancy themselves. He was at that state of development in the lives of aspiring persons which compels the average spectator to debate whether the swelling of the cranium should be met by a larger hat-band or by a sweeping haircut. En passant, Addicks' Panama had had its fifth enlargement to accommodate the successive bulges of his brow.