XXX. BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE
For what I proceeded to do, all sorts of motives, from the highest to thebasest, have been attributed to me. Here is the truth: I had already pushedthe medicine of hard work to its limit. It was as powerless against thisnew development as water against a drunkard's thirst. I must find some new,some compelling drug--some frenzy of activity that would swallow up my selfas the battle makes the soldier forget his toothache. This confession maychagrin many who have believed in me. My enemies will hasten to say: "Aha,his motive was even more selfish and petty than we alleged." But those wholook at human nature honestly, and from the inside, will understand how Ican concede that a selfish reason moved me to draw my sword, and stillcan claim a higher motive. In such straits as were mine, some men of myall-or-none temperament debauch themselves; others thresh about blindly,reckless whether they strike innocent or guilty. I did neither.
Probably many will recall that long before the "securities" of thereorganized coal combine were issued, I had in my daily letter to investorsbeen preparing the public to give them a fitting reception. A few daysafter my whole being burst into flames of resentment against Anita, outcame the new array of new stocks and bonds. Roebuck and Langdon arrangedwith the under writers for a "fake" four times over-subscription, indorsedby the two greatest banking houses in the Street. Despite this often-triedand always-good trick, the public refused to buy. I felt I had not beenoverestimating my power. But I made no move until the "securities" began togo up, and the financial reporters--under the influence where not actuallyin the pay of the Roebuck-Langdon clique--shouted that, "in spite of themalicious attacks from the gambling element, the new securities are beingabsorbed by the public at prices approximating their value." Then--But Ishall quote my investors' letter the following morning:
"At half-past nine yesterday--nine-twenty-eight, to be exact--PresidentMelville, of the National Industrial Bank, loaned six hundred thousanddollars. He loaned it to Bill Van Nest, an ex-gambler and proprietor ofpool rooms, now silent partner in Hoe & Wittekind, brokers, on the New YorkStock Exchange, and also in Filbert & Jonas, curb brokers. He loaned it toVan Nest without security.
"Van Nest used the money yesterday to push up the price of the new coalsecurities by 'wash sales'--which means, by making false purchases andsales of the stock in order to give the public the impression of eagerbuying. Van Nest sold to himself and bought from himself 347,060 of the352,681 shares traded in.
"Melville, in addition to being president of one of the largest banks inthe world, is a director in no less than seventy-three great industrialenterprises, including railways, telegraph companies, _savings-banks andlife-insurance companies_. Bill Van Nest has done time in the NevadaState Penitentiary for horse-stealing."
* * * * *
That was all. And it was enough--quite enough. I was a national figure,as much so as if I had tried to assassinate the president. Indeed, I hadexploded a bomb under a greater than the president--under the chiefs of thereal government of the United States, the government that levied daily uponevery citizen, and that had state and national and the principal municipalgovernments in its strong box.
I confess I was as much astounded at the effect of my bomb as old Melvillemust have been. I felt that I had been obscure, as I looked at thenewspapers, with Matthew Blacklock appropriating almost the entire frontpage of each. I was the isolated, the conspicuous figure, standing aloneupon the steps of the temple of Mammon, where mankind daily and devoutlycomes to offer worship.
Not that the newspapers praised me. I recall none that spoke well of me.The nearest approach to praise was the "Blacklock squeals on the WallStreet gang" in one of the sensational penny sheets that strengthenthe plutocracy by lying about it. Some of the papers insinuated thatI had gone mad; others that I had been bought up by a rival gang tothe Roebuck-Langdon clique; still others thought I was simply huntingnotoriety. All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of mycharges Melville's dignified refusal "to notice any attack from a quarterso discredited."
As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of theTextile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amidcheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands withme--and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and inspired! Justwhy a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as individuals,should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, is hard tounderstand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; they couldfool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn'tone in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respecthad he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers andthose worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," Ifelt that I was a man with a mission!
Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men--reportersfrom morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreignpapers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: "My letter speaks for me,gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me. I have nothing to say exceptthrough it."
"But the public--" urged one.
"It doesn't interest me," said I, on my guard against the temptation tocant. "I am a banker and investment broker. I am interested only in mycustomers."
And I shut myself in, giving strict orders to Joe that there was to be notalking about me or my campaign. "I don't purpose to let the newspapersmake us cheap and notorious," said I. "We must profit by the warning inthe fate of all the other fellows who have sprung into notice by attackingthese bandits."
The first news I got was that Bill Van Nest had disappeared. As soon asthe Stock Exchange opened, National Coal became the feature. But, insteadof "wash sales," Roebuck, Langdon and Melville were themselves, throughvarious brokers, buying the stocks in large quantities to keep the pricesup. My next letter was as brief as my first philippic:
"Bill Van Nest is at the Hotel Frankfort, Newark, under the name of ThomasLowry. He was in telephonic communication with President Melville, of theNational Industrial Bank, twice yesterday.
"The underwriters of the National Coal Company's new issues, frightened byyesterday's exposure, have compelled Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Mowbray Langdon andMr. Melville themselves to buy. So, yesterday, those three gentlemen boughtwith real money, with their own money, large quantities of stocks which areworth less than half what they paid for them.
"They will continue to buy these stocks so long as the public holds aloof.They dare not let the prices slump. They hope that this storm will blowover, and that then the investing public will forget and will relieve themof their load."
I had added: "But this storm won't blow over. It will become a cyclone." Istruck that out. "No prophecy," said I to myself. "Your rule, iron-clad,must be--facts, always facts; only facts."
The gambling section of the public took my hint and rushed into the market;the burden of protecting the underwriters was doubled, and more and more ofthe hoarded loot was disgorged. That must have been a costly day--for, tenminutes after the Stock Exchange closed, Roebuck sent for me.
"My compliments to him," said I to his messenger, "but I am too busy. I'llbe glad to see him here, however."
"You know he dares not come to you," said the messenger, Schilling,president of the National Manufactured Food Company, sometimes called thePoison Trust. "If he did, and it were to get out, there'd be a panic."
"Probably," replied I with a shrug. "That's no affair of mine. I'm notresponsible for the rotten conditions which these so-called financiers haveproduced, and I shall not be disturbed by the crash which must come."
Schilling gave me a genuine look of mingled pity and admiration. "I supposeyou know what you're about," said he, "but I think you're making amistake."
"Thanks, Ned," said I--he had been my head clerk a few years before, and Ihad got him the chance with Roebuck which he had improved so well. "I'mgoing to have some fun. Can't live but once."
"I know some people," said he sig
nificantly, "who would go to _any_lengths to get an enemy out of the way." He had lived close enough toRoebuck to peer into the black shadows of that satanic mind, and dimly tosee the dread shapes that lurked there.
"I'm the safest man on Manhattan Island for the present," said I.
"You remember Woodrow? I've always believed that he was murdered, and thatthe pistol they found beside him was a 'plant.'"
"You'd kill me yourself, if you got the orders, wouldn't you?" said Igood-humoredly.
"Not personally," replied he in the same spirit, yet serious, too, atbottom. "Inspector Bradlaugh was telling me, the other night, that therewere easily a thousand men in the slums of the East Side who could be hiredto kill a man for five hundred dollars."
I suppose Schilling, as the directing spirit of a corporation thathid poison by the hogshead in low-priced foods of various kinds,was responsible for hundreds of deaths annually, and for misery ofsickness beyond calculation among the poor of the tenements and cheapboarding-houses. Yet a better husband, father and friend never lived. He,personally, wouldn't have harmed a fly; but he was a wholesale poisoner fordividends.
Murder for dividends. Poison for dividends. Starve and freeze and maim fordividends. Drive parents to suicide, and sons and daughters to crime andprostitution--for dividends. Not fair competition, in which the strongerand better would survive, but cheating and swindling, lying and pilferingand bribing, so that the honest and the decent go down before the dishonestand the depraved. And the custom of doing these things so "respectable,"the applause for "success" so undiscriminating, and men so unthinking inthe rush of business activity, that criticism is regarded as a mixture ofenvy and idealism. And it usually is, I must admit.
Schilling lingered. "I hope you won't blame me for lining up against you,Matt," said he. "I don't want to, but I've got to."
"Why?"
"You know what'd become of me if I didn't."
"You might become an honest man and get self-respect," I suggested withfriendly satire.
"That's all very well for you to say," was his laughing retort. "You'vemade yourself tight and tidy for the blow. But I've a family, and a damnedexpensive one, too. And if I didn't stand by this gang, they'd takeeverything I've got away from me. No, Matt, each of us to his own game.What _is_ your game, anyhow?"
"Fun--just fun. Playing the pipe to see the big fellows dance."
But he didn't believe it. And no one has believed it--not even my mostdevoted followers. To this day Joe Ball more than half suspects that myreal objective was huge personal gain. That any rich man should do anythingexcept for the purpose of growing richer seems incredible. That any richman should retain or regain the sympathies and viewpoint of the class fromwhich he sprang, and should become a "traitor" to the class to which hebelongs, seems preposterous. I confess I don't fully understand my owncase. Who ever does?
My "daily letters" had now ceased to be advertisements, had become news,sought by all the newspapers of this country and of the big cities in GreatBritain. I could have made a large saving by no longer paying my sixty-oddregular papers for inserting them. But I was looking too far ahead toblunder into that fatal mistake. Instead, I signed a year's contractwith each of my papers, they guaranteeing to print my advertisements, Iguaranteeing to protect them against loss on libel suits. I organizeda dummy news bureau, and through it got contracts with the telegraphcompanies. Thus insured against the cutting of my communications with thepublic, I was ready for the real campaign.
It began with my "History of the National Coal Company." I need not repeatthat famous history here. I need recall only the main points--how I provedthat the common stock was actually worth less than two dollars a share,that the bonds were worth less than twenty-five dollars in the hundred,that both stock and bonds were illegal; my detailed recital of the crimesof Roebuck, Melville and Langdon in wrecking mining properties, in wreckingcoal railways, in ejecting American labor and substituting helots fromeastern Europe; how they had swindled and lied and bribed; how they hadtwisted the books of the companies, how they were planning to unload themass of almost worthless securities at high prices, then to get from underthe market and let the bonds and stocks drop down to where they could buythem in on terms that would yield them more than two hundred and fifty percent, on the actual capital invested. Less and dearer coal; lower wages andmore ignorant laborers; enormous profits absorbed without mercy into a fewpockets.
On the day the seventh chapter of this history appeared, the telegraphcompanies notified me that they would transmit no more of my matter. Theyfeared the consequences in libel suits, explained Moseby, general managerof one of the companies.
"But I guarantee to protect you," said I. "I will give bond in any amountyou ask."
"We can't take the risk, Mr. Blacklock," replied he. The twinkle in his eyetold me why, and also that he, like every one else in the country exceptthe clique, was in sympathy with me.
My lawyers found an honest judge, and I got an injunction that compelledthe companies to transmit under my contracts. I suspended the "History" forone day, and sent out in place of it an account of this attempt to shutme off from the public. "Hereafter," said I, in the last paragraph in myletter, "I shall end each day's chapter with a forecast of what the nextday's chapter is to be. If for any reason it fails to appear, the publicwill know that somebody has been coerced by Roebuck, Melville & Co."
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