Part 37 (1/2)
Third, I had offers from all but three of ”The Seven” to ”peach” on the others in return for immunity. There may be honor among some thieves, but not among ”respectable” thieves. Hypocrisy and honor will be found in the same character when the sun s.h.i.+nes at night--not before.
It was the sardonic humor of fate that Langdon, for all his desire to keep out of my way, should have compelled me to center my fire upon him; that I, who wished to spare him, if possible, should have been compelled to make of him my first ”awful example.”
I had decided to concentrate upon Roebuck, because he was the richest and most powerful of ”The Seven.” For, in my pictures of the three main phases of ”finance”--the industrial, the life-insurance and the banking--he, as arch plotter in every kind of respectable skulduggery, was necessarily in the foreground. My original intention was to demolish the Power Trust--or, at least, to compel him to buy back all of its stock which he had worked off on the public. I had collected many interesting facts about it, facts typical of the conditions that ”finance” has established in so many of our industries.
For instance, I was prepared to show that the actual earnings of the Power Trust were two and a half times what its reports to stock-holders alleged; that the concealed profits were diverted into the pockets of Roebuck, his sons, eleven other relatives and four of ”The Seven,” the lion's share going, of course, to the lion. Like almost all the great industrial enterprises, too strong for the law and too remote for the supervision of their stock-holders, it gathered in enormous revenues to disburse them chiefly in salaries and commissions and rake-offs on contracts to favorites. I had proof that in one year it had ”written off” twelve millions of profit and loss, ten millions of which had found its way to Roebuck's pocket. That pocket! That ”treasury of the Lord”!
Dishonest? Roebuck and most of the other leaders of the various gangs, comprising, with all their ramifications, the princ.i.p.al figures in religious, philanthropic, fas.h.i.+onable society, did not for an instant think their doings dishonest. They had no sense of trustees.h.i.+p for this money intrusted to them as captains of industry bankers, life-insurance directors. They felt that it was theirs to do with as they pleased.
And they felt that their superiority in rank and in brains ent.i.tled them to whatever remuneration they could a.s.sign to themselves without rousing the wrath of a public too envious to admit the just claims of the ”upper cla.s.ses.” They convinced themselves that without them crops would cease to grow, sellers and buyers would be unable to find their way to market, barbarism would spread its rank and choking weeds over the whole garden of civilization. And, so brainless is the parrot public, they have succeeded in creating a very widespread conviction that their own high opinion of their services is not too high, and that some dire calamity would come if they were swept from between producer and consumer! True, thieves are found only where there is property; but who but a chucklebrain would think the thieves made the property?
Roebuck was the keystone of the arch that sustained the structure of chicane. To dislodge him was the direct way to collapse it. I was about to set to work when Langdon, feeling that he ought to have a large supply of cash in the troublous times I was creating, increased the capital stock of his already enormously overcapitalized Textile Trust and offered the new issue to the public. As the Textile Trust was even better bulwarked, politically, than the Power Trust, it was easily able to declare tempting dividends out of its lootings. So the new stock could not be attacked in the one way that would make the public instantly shun it--I could not truthfully charge that it would not pay the promised dividends. Yet attack I must--for that issue was, in effect, a bold challenge of my charges against ”The Seven.” From all parts of the country inquiries poured in upon me: ”What do you think of the new Textile issue? Shall we invest? Is the Textile Company sound?”
I had no choice. I must turn aside from Roebuck; I must first show that, while Textile was, in a sense, sound just at that time, it had been unsound, and would be unsound again as soon as Langdon had gathered in a sufficient number of lambs to make a battue worth the while of a man dealing in nothing less than seven figures. I proceeded to do so.
The market yielded slowly. Under my first day's attack Textile preferred fell six points, Textile common three. While I was in the midst of dictating my letter for the second day's attack, I suddenly came to a full stop. I found across my way this thought: ”Isn't it strange that Langdon, after humbling himself to you, should make this bold challenge? It's a trap!”
”No more at present,” said I, to my stenographer. ”And don't write out what I've already dictated.”
I shut myself in and busied myself at the telephone. Half an hour after I set my secret machinery in motion, a messenger brought me an envelop, the address type-written. It contained a sheet of paper on which appeared, in type-writing; these words, and nothing more:
”He is heavily short of Textiles.”
It was indeed a trap. The new issue was a blind. He had challenged me to attack his stock, and as soon as I did, he had begun secretly to sell it for a fall. I worked at this new situation until midnight, trying to get together the proofs. At that hour--for I could delay no longer, and my proofs were not quite complete--I sent my newspapers two sentences:
”To-morrow I shall make a disclosure that will send Textiles up. Do not sell Textiles!”
x.x.xIII. MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL.
Next day Langdon's stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a little, closing at practically the same figures at which they had opened. Then I sprang my sensation--that Langdon and his particular clique, though they controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much as one-fiftieth of its voting stock. True ”captains of industry” that they were, they made their profits not out of dividends, but out of side schemes that absorbed about two-thirds of the earnings of the Trust, and out of gambling in its bonds and stocks. I said in conclusion:
”The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago--an honest man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the Textile Company away from those now plundering it.”
As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon and his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to Chicago to reason with Edmunds--that is, to try to find out at what figure he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully reporting to the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The Langdon attempt to regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and his allies made what must have been to them appalling sacrifices; but even at the high prices they offered, comparatively little of the stock appeared.
”I've caught them,” said I to Joe--the first time, and the last, during that campaign that I indulged in a boast.
”If Edmunds sticks to you,” replied cautious Joe.
But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself. Probably it was pitifully small; cupidity usually s.n.a.t.c.hes the instant bait tickles its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature got its severest shock.
”You are down this morning,” said Thornley, when I looked in on him at his bank. ”I don't think I ever before saw you show that you were in low spirits.”
”I've found out a man with whom I'd have trusted my life,” said I.
”Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I've tried to be an optimist like you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or ninety-five per cent. of the business couldn't be done on credit as it is.”
Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster. ”That proves nothing as to honesty,” said he. ”It simply shows that men can be counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The truth is--and a fine truth, too--most men wish and try to be honest. Give 'em a chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don't trust them. Trust--that's the making of false friends and the filling of jails.”