"Somebody's word ought to be good," he commented.
"Only two men's words would be of any avail," I interrupted—"yours and Addicks', and you have just made it clear that in this case neither would be worth the breath expended in pledging it."
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Since the above was published the American people have become aroused, and as this book is going to press, scores of the greatest financiers in America are having under oath confessions squeezed from them in a life-insurance investigation conducted by the State of New York—confessions which reveal such a condition of perjury, bribery, and habitual sequestration of funds, as to make my statement seem mild.
CHAPTER XXIV
BUYING A BUNCH OF STATES
I left Braman and went down to Mr. Rogers. After a careful canvas of the situation it was settled that the only way out was for Rogers to furnish the money to release the receivership, in consideration of which accommodation Addicks should forfeit the old Boston companies to him through Bay State's failure to comply with the terms of the May contract which matured the following Monday. Rogers would administer these companies in trust, applying their earnings to the liquidation of the bonds, and after these latter had been paid off, would turn them back to the Bay State Company for the benefit of its stock; or he would release the companies to us whenever we could raise the money to redeem them. Thus Rogers would make sure of the amount of his original investment, the million dollars profit the May 1st deal permitted him, while I should have secured for my friends and the public the amount of their investment in the property and a good profit for the stockholders to boot. To secure Addicks' consent to this arrangement would be the difficulty; but there was one consideration that would probably induce him to give way—his terrible plight in case the receivership became permanent.
Having reached this point, the next problem was how to get the money. Rogers refused absolutely to be a party to any payment that could be traced back to him. He pointed out the sources of hazard; first, through treachery on the part of Foster, Braman, or Addicks, he might be accused of bribing a court officer, the receiver; Addicks might blackmail him by charging him with conspiracy, or a conspiracy charge might be brought by Bay State stockholders, and he be held for tremendous damages. He refused to put himself into any such trap. I put forward a dozen ways to meet the emergency, but he would have none of them. Finally he suggested a method which was certainly perfect of its kind. He began by letting me into the secret that the chances of a McKinley victory in the election the following week looked pretty bad, and that the latest canvass of the State showed that unless something radical were done, Bryan would surely win. Hanna had called into consultation half a dozen of the biggest financiers in Wall Street, and it was decided to turn at least five of the doubtful States. For this purpose a fund of $5,000,000 had been raised under Rogers' direction,[13] to be turned over to Mark Hanna and McKinley's cousin, Osborne, through John Moore, the Wall Street broker, who was acting as Rogers' representative in collecting the money. It would be legitimate for the National Committee to pay out money to carry Delaware, and he, Rogers, would arrange it that the coin to satisfy Braman and Foster should come through this channel. Thus he would be completely protected.