Frenzied Finance Part 15

The low-down treachery and double-dealing characterizing this transaction, the utter callousness to sacred obligations it exhibits in men of presumed high standing and personal honor, may surprise my readers. I a.s.sure them that several such episodes will be told in the forthcoming pages of this history. Indeed, among a certain school of eminent financiers, loyalty is no more than devotion to the opportunity of making the highest profit. If circ.u.mstances s.h.i.+ft this from the side of their enlistment to that of an adversary, their arms and hearts go where their pockets lead. It must be remembered that the Hessian who "down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his veracity after five any evening and all day Sunday, but who considers himself free to engage in any dirty juggle or misrepresentation from 9 A.M. to 4.45 P.M. In office hours you run no risk in calling him a liar, for then he'll laugh at the joke and tell you business is business.

However, the foregoing episode was an experience that left an indelible impression on my mind, and the hatred and disgust it engendered precipitated events out of which in the course of years came the offences and injuries that are responsible for the story of "Frenzied Finance."

The immediate results of my reappearance were not startling. Rogers raved at Add.i.c.ks and especially at Whitney, but he was too old a student of men, and the monkeys Dame Fortune makes of them, to sulk over the facts he could not remedy. He soon resumed his former att.i.tude of waiting for something to turn up, which indeed he had maintained ever since my unsuccessful effort to make terms with him.

Fate had not yet tired, however, of playing shuttlec.o.c.k with our hopes.

The world learned one morning of a new gas called acetylene, clear, brilliant, cheap, and simply made from calcium carbide. It would surely revolutionize gas-making the world over, and the company which could secure the right to it would have those who could not at its mercy.

Add.i.c.ks moved like a flash to gather in the advantage, and the announcement that the new gas had been proved a success was coupled in the press with the news that the Bay State Gas had captured the invention for New England, and was to pay millions for it. This did give a boost to our securities, and for a time it looked as though we had clinched our success with another rivet. What Add.i.c.ks had done was this: He had bought the right, subject to the test of a big public demonstration. For this demonstration a fine flare-up was arranged.

Eminent mayors, counsellors, and gas magnates were to attend in mult.i.tude, and if the invention met its engagements, there would be such a blaze of publicity and congratulations that we felt sure our new stock would go off like hot cakes. The demonstration proved in a most sensational way that acetylene was a failure--a tremendous explosion occurred; three men were killed, many others injured, and next day back went our stock to its old figures.

All this time I had sought most diligently for the real solution of our troubles--a method of purchasing Rogers' companies. A substantial guarantee there must be, not only for the performance of our financial engagements but to insure to Rogers the integrity of his properties while under the domination of Add.i.c.ks. The difficulty was, in the weakened condition of the company, to put together any satisfactory guarantee. Others in our group had wrestled with the problem as strenuously as I had. Suddenly, a few days before May, 1896, the light came to me. All the time the solution had been in our hands, and, beset as we were, it had never occurred to any of us. We absolutely controlled the old Boston gas companies. They were intrinsically among the richest corporations in Ma.s.sachusetts, and although their stocks were pledged for the $12,000,000 of bonds held by the public, they did not owe a dollar. Though the terms of the agreement between the Bay State Company and the Mercantile Trust, which held their shares, precluded them from contracting any debts, they were empowered, through us, their officials, to buy or sell gas, and all their great wealth was behind such contracts. If, then, we agreed on their behalf to buy gas of the Brookline Company for a term of years at such a price and in sufficient quant.i.ties to give the latter concern a profit equal to ten per cent.

dividends on its stock, surely we had complied with the very letter of Rogers' exaction. Testing the idea in one way and another, I found it sound as a bell. The problem after that was to get into shape for the substantial issue of new stock we must make to pay for our purchase. The banks and trust companies were loaded up with our securities pledged for loans, and before there could be any conviction behind our prosperity it behooved us to get all our valuables out of p.a.w.n. I went to Mr. Rogers and frankly told him I had solved our problem and his by a financial invention of my own. I entered into the details of our plan, explaining it would not even be necessary for us to buy any gas of him, because we would turn over a sufficient number of our own customers to the Brookline Company to secure to it the required profit. He saw in an instant the scheme with all its far-reaching possibilities, and a.s.sented. Then I broached the rest of my plan--we would pay him four and a half millions in six months. To do this we must sell stocks and bonds.

Before we could do that it was necessary that he help us still further--he must buy of us all the bonds now in pledge and the stock of the Dorchester Gas Company, another Bay State a.s.set up for security, all for the sum of a million and a half dollars. For this amount these securities would at once be released and turned over to him. Then he should resell them to us together with the Brookline Gas Company for six millions of dollars. There would be a formal turning over of the management of his properties so the public should be convinced that we really were the victors in the strife. Mr. Rogers saw my point, quickly ran over the details in his comprehensive way, and closed the trade without further bargaining. That time, thank Heaven, it was not within Add.i.c.ks' power to thwart me.

On May 1st we made our settlement in compliance with the terms I had arranged. The six millions of dollars were to be paid November 1st. As the necessary options and sales could not legally run to our company, they were made to Henry M. Whitney, and he simultaneously transferred them to us, and we elected him a director of our different corporations.

Rogers publicly resigned and turned over to us the control of the Brookline Company, and we elected our own management. To all intents and purposes we had won.

The settlement was the sensation of the day in financial circles, and I was the recipient of many generous congratulations. I had neither time nor inclination to take care of bouquets at that moment, however. I was too keenly aware of the difficulty of raising six millions of dollars in the limited period at our disposal. Times have changed since 1896. Then six millions was quite a large sum, larger than sixty millions now. That was before the halcyon period of "Frenzied Finance."

CHAPTER XXI

BRIBING A LEGISLATURE

That six months between May 1st and November 1st was the most crowded period in all my experience up to that time. Events of consequence tumbled over one another in startling succession. We actually lived on sensations. In exercising the historian's right to choose the order of setting down incidents I am puzzled as to which to give precedence.

Shall I begin with the sensational bribery of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature which occurred within this period, or with the episode that was the exciting climax of that interval of trial? About this time, too, occurred the laying of the foundation of "Coppers" and Amalgamated, but that certainly requires a chapter to itself. However, as all are starry examples of what made "Frenzied Finance" possible, and as any one fits into my story as well ahead as behind the other two, I'll take them in the succession above set down.

The Whitney machine for the manufacture and moulding of legislation was complex but efficient. It achieved its wonders in broad daylight.

Considering all it did and how that all was accomplished, the astonis.h.i.+ng fact is that no outcry to speak of was ever raised at its performances. It was vastly bolder than Tammany and made fewer excuses for its grabbings. It must be remembered, however, that its chief engineer was a leading citizen, and his a.s.sistants all gentlemen of great respectability and admirable antecedents, and, in Boston, social and civic distinctions are s.h.i.+elds behind which much may be concealed.

Corrupting a Legislature is not something a man may do with a fillip of his finger and thumb. However bold the operations, the convenances must be observed. When really large designs are entertained, the manipulator sets to before the preceding election and has his "lawyers" at work throughout the country interviewing candidates and ascertaining their feelings. Thus a certain percentage of votes are signed and sealed in advance, ready for delivery at the proper time. But there is always a crowd of new men who must be taken care of on the spot, and these must be approached with tact. Some amateurs have fanatical notions of honor which interfere with both their own and the interests of franchise-grabbers. To deal with all contingencies, to take care of captured votes and to shape legislative proceedings along safe lines, requires the services of almost an army of men.

At the head of Whitney's forces was his lawyer, George H. Towle, big of brain, ponderous of frame, and with the strength of an ox. A man of terrific temper, he knew not the meaning of the word fear. Nothing aroused him to such frenzy as to have to do with a legislator who unnecessarily haggled over the price of his vote or influence. On occasions when a lieutenant reported that Senator This or Representative That would not come into camp, Towle, with an oath, would say: "Take me to him, and I'll have his vote in ten minutes or there'll be occasion for a new election in his district to-morrow!"

Second in command was Mr. Patch, Towle's secretary and factotum, his exact opposite in every way. Where Towle was brutally straight to the point, Mr. Patch was as smooth an intriguer as ever connected himself with secrets by way of keyholes and transoms. It is a Beacon Hill tradition that for years Towle on final-payment day would have the members of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature march through his private offices one at a time, and, handing each of them their loot, would proclaim: "Well, you're settled with in full, aren't you? That represents your vote on ---- and on ----." Then he would loudly identify the bill and the particulars of the service, while behind a part.i.tion with a stenographer would be Mr. Patch, who after the notes had been written out would witness the accuracy of the stenographer's report.

When the Legislature a.s.sembled again, old members, the same story goes, would be requested to call on Towle to renew acquaintances.h.i.+p. Then he would allow them to look over his memoranda "just to keep them from being too honest," as he gently phrased it.

Subordinate to Towle and Patch was a long line of eminently respectable lawyers known over the Commonwealth as "Whitney's attorneys." These men a.s.sisted at nominations, orated at elections, and took care of the finer preliminary details. The first line of attack was composed of practical politicians of various grades--ex-senators or representatives, and local bosses, who were known as "Whitney's right-hand men." Below these were the ordinary lobbyists, the detectives, and runners, who kept "tabs" on every move and deed, day and night, of the members of the Legislature.

This was the Whitney machine, and it worked together with that fine solidity and evenness which can be attained only by constant practice and much success. In comparison with this competent organization, an average "Tammany Gang," a "Chicago Combine," or a "St. Louis Syndicate"

would look like a hay-covered snow-plough in August.

It is seldom the public is given an opportunity of seeing a picture, drawn to life, of the Legislature of one of the greatest States in the Union in the act of being bribed to grant the votaries of "Frenzied Finance," for nothing, those things which should and do belong to the people, and for which the "System's" votaries would willingly pay millions of dollars if they were compelled to. I shall dwell on the performance that ensued at this juncture of my story long enough to present an outline of such a proceeding.

Head-quarters for Whitney's Ma.s.sachusetts Pipe Line were opened at Young's Hotel--Parlors 9, 10, and 11, Rooms 6, 7, 8, second story front.

Parlors 9 and 10 were the general reception-room, while 11 was reserved for the commander himself and for important and "touchy" interviews. The rooms 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 were used for educational purposes. In the morning the place was deserted, but at noon the parlors began to fill up with the different officers of the "Machine" and their friends, trustworthy members of the Legislature. A little later an elaborate luncheon would be served, the supernumeraries eating in one room, Towle and his chiefs and the legislators in the other. At table the gossip of the morning session at the State House was exchanged and the work laid out for the afternoon legislative and committee sessions. Another interval of silence and peace until at 5.30 the real business of the day began. Mr.

Patch was generally on the ground first, carrying the books in which the bribery records were kept, for be it remembered that the efficiency of the Whitney machine was largely due to the thoroughly systematic manner in which its operations were conducted. Nothing was left to chance or to any one's memory. In turn, the subordinates presented careful reports of the day's transactions. At 6.30 Mr. Towle would go over these doc.u.ments, "sizing up" the actual results for submission later to the chief himself. Between 7.30 and 8.30 the "Machine" dined; the remains of the feast having been removed, the doors were locked and the books brought out.

If an outsider could possibly have obtained the entry to the head-quarters of the Whitney Ma.s.sachusetts Pipe Line, say at nine o'clock any evening during the session, he might easily have imagined himself at the Madison Square Garden or at Tattersall's on the evening of the first day of an international horse-sale. This is what he would have seen: In Parlor 10, seated at a long table a dozen of Mr. Towle's chiefs, all in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, smoking voluminously; before each a sheet of paper on which is printed a list of the members of the Legislature; against every name a blank s.p.a.ce for memoranda; at the head of the table Towle himself, frowning severely over a similar sheet having broader memoranda-s.p.a.ces. One after another the chiefs call off the names of the legislators, reporting as they go along. The outsider would have heard droned monotonously: "..... from ..... not my man; ..... from ..... my man and .....'s man; seen to-day, stood same as yesterday; ..... from ....., raised price $20, making it $150; agreed; $10 paid on account, total of $90 due; raised because ..... told him that he had got $20 more from ....."

As each man reports the other chiefs and Towle discuss the details, and when a decision on disputed points is arrived at, Towle makes a memorandum on his blank, and the chief concerned records the order in the little note-book which each carries. All reports at last in, Towle retires to Room 11 and speedily returns with the "stuff," consisting of cash, stocks, puts, calls, or transportation tickets, which he deals out to the chiefs to make good their promises for the day. It would have been obvious to the outsider, as soon as he had learned what was being dealt in, that a large proportion of the members of the Great and General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts had bargained with the different members of "the machine" to sell their votes not only in committee but in full session of the Legislature, and that the price was to be paid when the votes were cast, though something was invariably exacted on account, to tie the bargain. Payment was made in cash, calls on Bay State Gas or Dominion Coal, or transportation on any of the railroads in the United States or Canada. The latter appears to be a cla.s.s of remuneration Towle favored, probably because it cost nothing.

The conference seldom closed for the day without Towle admonis.h.i.+ng his subordinates: "The old man's getting dead sore at the way his leg is being pulled, and if you fellows don't get those countrymen to play a more liberal game, they'll just drive the boss out of the business, and then there'll be a slump in prices that'll make them prefer to stay home and farm."

You may ask here, Could such things happen without attracting public attention? Or are the citizens of Boston so habituated to the corruption of their Legislature that they could witness unmoved this wholesale bribing campaign conducted in full daylight from Young's Hotel? Thank Heaven, this is not so. There are in every American community honest, st.u.r.dy souls who can be depended on to come forward in emergencies and cry out aloud against a threatened political crime. Above the brute hubbub of a city's roar their voices are heard like the voice of conscience, and the hurrying throng pauses a second in its mad rush after dollars to listen to their tale of the Commonwealth's wrong. But what's in the air is not on earth. The practical politicians, whose affair it is to heed and counteract these honorable protests, laugh contemptuously at the vanity of any contest between theories and the "stuff." They know the overpowering logic of gold.

There were public meetings in Boston; good-government clubs throughout the State met and "resoluted"; citizens' organizations howled robbery and malfeasance. For a few weeks all Ma.s.sachusetts seemed wrought up.

From the s.p.a.ce the papers gave the protestants one might have imagined that there was a chance for virtue, but the results of the clamor were more apparent than real. Day by day, night by night, the "machine"

ground away at Young's, and as its product fell into the hopper Whitney and Towle only smiled at the clamor and awaited the moment when, as Towle coa.r.s.ely put it, "the reformers would have yawped themselves to a standstill."

That day came at last. One by one, all in a perfectly orderly and methodical manner, the giving-bonds-to-compel-promises clauses, restrictive amendments and other people's safeguards had been voted down and the "Are you ready for the main question?" having been put in both houses, the Ma.s.sachusetts Pipe Line Charter was duly pa.s.sed and sent on to the governor. It required his signature to make the bill a hard-and-fast law, and that once appended, all Towle's "promises to pay"

became due.

As the campaign neared a finish Whitney had, a number of times, informed his chiefs, and they the members of the Legislature, that the governor had given personal a.s.surance that if the bill pa.s.sed both houses, he would sign it. On this score all interested had been relieved of doubt, and immediately upon the Senate's favorable action Bay State and Dominion Coal shares advanced in price. During the period the governor had the bill under consideration there was an active and rising market and a great volume of transactions on the Stock Exchange. Apparently the day of our peace and prosperity had dawned at last. But we were not yet out of a gnarled Fate's clutches.

In the midst of a strenuous forenoon of trading, suddenly, without the slightest warning, both stocks began to sink in price like pigs of lead from a capsized boat. At once I was on the defensive. To prevent a wild market panic during the few minutes consumed in getting telephone connection with the State House, I had to purchase thousands of shares.

I knew that something disastrous had happened, but was not prepared for the startling information that came over the wire: "The governor has vetoed the Whitney bill with a savage message." My informant told me that Towle and his men were making for head-quarters on a run. As I hung up the receiver, the bell rang again. In a second my telephone with Whitney's office was in the middle of a spasm.

"Have you got the news, Lawson?"

"Have I got it? The tape is screaming it.[9] Bay State and your stock are racing for the bottom," I replied.

"What shall we do? This is a thunderbolt."

"Do?" I replied. "It's for you to say what to do. That's your end, not mine, but from now until three o'clock one thing you must do, or there'll be no further thinking on the subject--protect Dominion Coal--have your brokers on the floor every second and tell them to buy all that's offered. Beat a slow retreat if you must, but prevent a wild break. Things at the Exchange are bad now. I'll take care of Bay State.

Look out for Dominion at once, and when you are through I must see you--where?"

"At Young's in ten minutes."

"I'll be there."

Ten minutes later I was in Whitney's head-quarters. There pandemonium reigned; all the c.o.c.ksureness and bl.u.s.ter of the "machine" had vanished, and it was a horde of clamorous and excited men I found struggling round Towle and Whitney, who vainly sought to stay the panic. It was not disappointment at the governor's message that had so stirred these hardened pract.i.tioners of politics, but the terror of impending loss.

The majority of the Whitney band, lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers had bought one stock or both on margin, and had a.s.sured their friends it was safe to plunge to the limit.

On earth there is no more pitiable sight than the panic of a herd of novice stock-speculators suddenly awakened to a realization of their ruin. The ticker clicks a sort of death-watch as the merciless tape, without hitch or let up, reels off destruction. To such desperate beings the stock operator--the market-maker--is the straw to save them from drowning, and to him they turn as the one possible source of aid and hope. I only knew these men at sight's end, but they knew me and were sure in their abject plight that I could help them--by what wizardry they never stopped to think. They were terribly certain that unless the market turned, their brokers must have additional margin or their stock would be thrown overboard, sinking prices still lower and bringing down their friends' stock, and so on, like a row of falling bricks.

From their comfortable viewpoint of out-of-temptation virtue, my readers may regard these lawyers, lieutenants, and water-carriers of Whitney as bad men, deserving of no sympathy, meeting here a righteous punishment; but, my word for it--and I know the world and the human ants and spiders who inhabit it--while they bore no marks of immorality, they were the average men one meets in one's journey over the bridge between the two unknowns.

My talk with Whitney and Towle was brief and pointed. It was no time for pow-wow. It was the moment for action. Men who do things in stock-markets never waste time over milk that is in the gutter. How to get new milk to replace that spilt is their care.

"What are you going to do, Mr. Whitney?" I asked.

George Towle started to explain. I stopped him.

"The market is bad," I said, talking quickly. "If time is dribbled, it will be worse, and--and Boston will be a warm place for you, Towle. It would not surprise me if it got warm even for Mr. Whitney, when the desperate men who are filling the brokerage shops and the corridors outside demand a reason why they were egged on to buy stocks on Mr.

Whitney's word that the governor would sign. No excuses now; I want to know from Mr. Whitney just what he proposes to do. You both told me the legislative end was none of my business, and, thank Heaven, it was not.

You said it was your business. Now, how about it?"