Frenzied Finance Part 23

If John Moore had seen "Coppers" as I tried to show them to him that wet morning he could not have made for himself less than three to five millions, for in the operation which hung on his decision I had expected to buy stocks that soon after doubled and trebled in value. Calumet & Hecla then sold at 256, and later as high as 900, while Boston & Montana, then 50, mounted to 520. On the other hand, the stock of which he had sold me $50,000 worth returned at the end of the year but a mere fraction of that amount, and was one of the worst failures of the industrial boom period. It cost John Moore not only an enormous amount of money, but also prestige, and its miscarriage was one of the few bad disappointments of his brilliant career. Afterward, when "Coppers" were the rage and all Wall Street was green with envy at our success and his enterprise was trying to hide itself behind the garbage barrels, John Moore said to me:

"Lawson, we all think we are the masters of our own fortunes, but we are not. We are only working on a schedule laid out by some One who does not take our desires into consideration."

And it is so. The ablest Wall Street man is only like the burglar who, after working for weeks to loot a second story, is astounded to find, while lugging his swag by the police station, that the bag he thought full of dead sealskins contains a live parrot with a l.u.s.ty vocabulary, "Police! Robbers!"

CHAPTER X

ROGERS GRASPS "COPPERS"

The next day our gas business brought me to New York, and after Mr.

Rogers and myself had threshed out the matter I had come about, he said with a smile:

"Well, I've heard from John Moore. Are you satisfied now? Will you drop that copper will-o'-the-wisp?"

"Far from it," I replied. "I'm surer than ever of my position. In going over the ground with Moore I got the whole business in perspective, and now I know I'm right. All his argument amounted to anyway was that it was impossible for so gigantic a thing to have lain out in the travelled highways all these years."

I ran on vigorously for a few moments, in a way I felt might pique his curiosity, if it did not gain my point. Finally he said:

"Well, Lawson, what more can I do?"

"This," I answered: "go over the matter fully with me yourself. I will surely carry it through one way or another; if not with you, with others, and I cannot drop it with you until I have your personal judgment."

Instantly came one of those flash decisions for which H. H. Rogers is noted among his business a.s.sociates, the oft-proved correctness of which goes far toward making him the pre-eminent American financier of the day.

"Lawson," he said, "be in New York next Sunday, and I will listen until you have run the subject out."

That decision changed the face of the copper world.

Sunday is Mr. Rogers' pick of days for a lengthy hearing, and returning from church, he came directly to the "stowaway" rooms at the Murray Hill Hotel, at which we frequently met while the Wall Street world was trying to trace and keep track of our movements. I had been there for some time awaiting him and was keyed for the struggle.

Of my ability to land John Moore I had felt confident, yet I had failed; but this time in advance I knew success was mine. Experience has taught me that in all dollar matters the man to "talk up to" is the actual owner of the dollars you are after, who when he hears your story and weighs your goods can deal out the _yes_ or _no_ which means business. I had discovered some years before that few bull's-eyes are scored shooting at a target by mail or messenger. One's finest word-pictures sound better than they read, and if you would have the next man see them in as vivid colors as they appear on your mind's canvas, you must paint them before his eyes. The enthusiasm of the artist, his love of the subject, the deep or high tones of his voice, the very movements of his hands, are all factors in aiding the other man's vision. When he sees what you do, you have won. Nowadays when I have things to sell, I engage the eyes as well as the ears of my purchaser. When the other fellow would make me his customer, he must first sell his goods to my secretary, who may, if he can, sell them to me. Thus I am always able to dispose of the only merchandise I keep in stock, honest goods, and I seldom buy chromos for oils.

As I waited the coming of my most powerful customer, I could not keep my mind off the momentousness of the interview before me. I knew I was at a fork of the road, at one of those departure points from which coming events must date, and I thought of a dream I had had years before in which I found myself drifting with the grim ferryman across the br.i.m.m.i.n.g flood, the far bank of which is eternity. In my hand was a long staff with strange and irregular notches on it. And these represented the actions of my life. Some were shallow, others deep and wide, and as I ran my fingers up and down, I seemed to remember what each nick commemorated--the good things and the bad things, here a death, there a disappointment, this a victory, that an error. I wondered, as the circ.u.mstances of the dream came to my mind, what kind of marking this day's events would make on my life staff, and I felt a conviction that it would be both deep and wide.

Then, as I heard Mr. Rogers' footstep outside my door, I forgot all about dreams and notches and plunged into my argument.

"Mr. Rogers," I began, "you and your a.s.sociates have unlimited money.

You have not always had it. You have obtained it through business projects and you are using it in business projects to get more. There are two ways of adding new dollars to those in your possession: by taking them from others so they are losers and you the gainer, whereby you win at the cost of their happiness; or by expanding the world's wealth so that others gain when you do. You, I know, prefer the latter, that others should make money when you do, rather than that they should lose and suffer when you are benefited."

I did not then know "Standard Oil's" and the "System's" religion as I do now. I had yet to learn the cruelly cynical principles that guide this financial Juggernaut in its relation with men and things. I imputed to it the generosity and freedom which seemed to characterize Henry H.

Rogers' personality, ignorant that the man and the machine he served might stand for different things. The "System's" Big Book says: "A dollar honestly made makes another for some one else; but a dollar taken is two dollars, because it increases our power and diminishes the people's. Between the 'System' and the people must be eternal war, and it is the price of the 'System's' existence that all opportunities of weakening the people are sternly utilized."

"Mr. Rogers," I continued, "I have discovered in 'Coppers' an opportunity whereby you and your a.s.sociates can, by the investment of a hundred millions of dollars, obtain these results: _First_, your money will be as safe as in anything you now have it invested in. _Second_, by indorsing this form of investment with the seal of your business success, you will make it known to all who have money and there will at once arise a tremendous demand for its securities. This demand will drive prices up until dividend returns are in normal proportion to the legitimate value of the security, namely, four to six per cent., which is, as I can prove to you, a little more than can be got from anything else but 'Copper' with the same elements of safety. _Third_, when the advance I foresee occurs, your one hundred millions have doubled, and all those who have joined us in the venture or have held on to their stock will gain in the same proportion. As I estimate that we will have but a third interest in all the good American 'Coppers,' there should be something like $200,000,000 for the people, while we will have made $100,000,000. To bring this about I have planned a campaign which will make what you have done known from one end of the world to the other, and will persuade the people at large to look at 'Standard Oil' in a more favorable light than they do now. And, what is more, all this money can be made and all these benefits rendered without taxing any one a single additional dollar, for there will not be a penny a ton added to the price of copper the metal, nor a reduction of a mill a year taken from the wages of those who mine it or work it."

Here I halted. I had made a beginning, and I was familiar with Mr.

Rogers' system of diagnosis and treatment. Propositions placed on his operating-table are invariably dissected in parts--this is the winner's method; so if, under the probe of his keen mind, one section or limb is found stiff, dead, or unhitchable to that to which it belongs, he at once stops operating and the corpse is removed.

"How is it the situation is as you outline it?"

I drew the picture of copper Boston as I have given it in the early part of this chapter. It astonished him.

"How do you prove that safety in this cla.s.s of investment is more a.s.sured than in others?"

I reeled off the facts: A copper-mine, from the very nature of the business, must be developed years and years ahead before it entered the ranks as a regular producer. The price of the metal being practically fixed within certain limits, the mine's value, present and future, could always be told to a certainty.

He saw it. He put me through a thorough examination about my second claim that the price would advance 100 per cent. I again astonished him by showing him what a market there was and had been for many years for copper stocks, and that it was simply a question of educating investors at large to their merits to advance them to the price my plans called for.

When he came to the question of the amount to be invested and the aggregate amount of profit, he did not attempt to disguise his surprise when I showed him there were 150,000 shares of Boston & Montana which had been selling at 20-odd and were now 50-odd, and could surely be bought between 50 and 100; and 200,000 shares of b.u.t.te & Boston, 100,000 outside of what I and those who had bought with me owned that could be had at an average of 20 or 25; that there were 100,000 shares of Calumet & Hecla, selling at 250, large quant.i.ties of which could be gathered in between that price and 400, and so on through the list. Mine after mine I enumerated to him, all as sure dividend earners in the future as they had been in the past, to an aggregate, without touching any of the uncertain ones, which it would surely take one hundred millions to purchase, and as I called them off, he listened patiently while I gave him a full history of each.

Then I outlined my sensational but never before attempted plan of campaign for educating the public, he vigorously questioning me as to details and particulars the while.

It does not take Henry H. Rogers months, weeks, nor even days to grasp any plan, however vast, nor many minutes to come to a decision after he has grasped it. I believe he would, if the world were going to be auctioned off next week, be the first man on earth to decide upon a limit price that he would take it at, and three minutes after it was knocked down to him he would be selling stock in it at 150 per cent.

profit.

Just before lunch-time I saw that the effect of my arguments on Mr.

Rogers was the exact opposite to that they had made on John Moore. When I had come to a finish, Mr. Rogers simply said: "It's curious, Lawson, why I have not listened to you before. I'll talk with William Rockefeller to-morrow. No--I'll make it this afternoon if I can get at him."

And his eyes snapped a bit when, as I was helping him on with his coat, he said, "We must not lose a minute in getting to work."

As he left the hotel and before I crossed the street to the Grand Central to take my train back to Boston--I suppose I should not say it, but I shook my own hand in self-congratulation. How many times since I have thought that had old Dame Fate but hung out a danger-signal for this faithful servitor of her behests, or had but given him a glimpse ahead through the years 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904, instead of using his hands in cordial self-clasping he would have employed his feet in the more fitting task of kicking himself.

If Henry H. Rogers had been slow at getting started on "Coppers," once in he made up for his early tardiness. After our Sunday interview things moved swiftly forward. Before noon next day he called me up on the telephone to say that both he and William Rockefeller were impatient to have my facts and figures verified, and would I at once send my data to start his experts on? I mailed him a bale of "pointers," and from that hour until the flotation of Amalgamated Mr. Rogers' enthusiasm on "Coppers" constantly grew until there actually came a time when it went beyond my own. It took him months to complete that rounding-up of the situation which is the absolutely necessary preliminary to the making of final decisions on any far-reaching and important project to which the magic name of "Standard Oil" is to be permanently attached.

This period of waiting I duly improved by continuing my fight on b.u.t.te & Boston, and by way of intensifying the campaign I included Boston & Montana in the tussle, and led a fierce attack into the stronghold of my opponents. While this war was at its bitter height I received word from 26 Broadway that at last reports were all in, and that they were ready to talk business. Next day I was in New York.

"Lawson," said Mr. Rogers, "our experts have examined your plans step by step and have verified your conclusions. It is an exceptional situation, and one we are equipped to handle."

Then and there we had a "to-a-finish-sit-down," and while I had in my time gone pretty thoroughly into the general subject of "Coppers," and thought myself well informed thereon, I was surprised at the completeness and detail of the reports that had been prepared for the "System's" master. In beautiful shape, concise, clear, comprehensive, the entire copper industry of the world was spread out before me. Every mine had its place and its history--not merely the mines of America, but those of Europe as well; and fully set forth were the extent and cost of the product of each, the profit it made, the men who owned it, and--miraculous "Standard Oil"--the standing, financial and otherwise, of the men who might have to be dealt with in our prospective trades.

Rogers smiled watching my growing surprise as I ran over the extraordinary budget of facts he had collected. I said to him:

"This is wonderful. You have here all there's to be known about the subject, and I marvel how you got hold of so much inside information."

"'Standard Oil' has its own way of doing things," he replied. "You told us your copper plans would mean an investment of $100,000,000 of our money, and now's the time, not after we have parted with it, to find just what we are to get for it."

The world has never yet heard of "Standard Oil" locking its barn door after some one has stolen its mule; for that matter, it is not of record that any one ever locked the gate after his barn had been visited by "Standard Oil." The reason is that, with the thoroughness characteristic of this great reaping-machine, it never fails to take the barn with the mule.

At this meeting it was agreed that Henry H. Rogers, William Rockefeller, and myself should become partners in my plan of "Coppers," they to furnish the capital and to have three-quarters of the profit, I to have the remaining quarter. The campaign for the execution of the enterprise I agreed to work out and submit as soon as possible, and we parted.

As I bade them good-by Mr. Rogers said to me:

"Your baby is born, Lawson, and if you put the same kind of work on raising it you have in bringing it into the world, it will be a giant."

From that day it was understood that we were together, and that all my dealings in "Coppers" outside b.u.t.te & Boston were for the joint account--that is, they were to have the right to come into all my operations. Those they did not care to join in I had the right to put through alone. On the other hand, I must not undertake anything on their behalf without a specific understanding with them.