Frenzied Finance.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7731, 6 February 1905, Page 2

Frenzied Finance.

(Daily Mail.) Mr Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, is the financial man of the moment. He has successfully raided the American copper market, after publicly announcing his intention to all the world. Me has sent prices down brought strong opponents to the point of disaster, and generally produced tremendous uproar. And he has done all this for the purpose of advertising " Everybody's Magazine," and in order to attack Mr John 1). Rockefeller, lie has not yet succeeded in smashing Mr Rockefeller, but he has brought the circulation of " Everybody's Magazine " jup to 700,000 copies. Incidentally no doubt he has his own financial [purposes to serve.

Who is Mr Lawson ? He makes no secret of his profession. lie is a stock manipulator, and lie gloiies in it. Mr was formerly the financial colleague of Mr Addicks, the " gas king,*' < f New England. Afterwards he uor' ■ d with Mr Henry Rogers, one of the heads of the Standard Oil " combine," and the open foe of Addicks. While with him he took part in the flotation of the Amalgamated Copper Company, | with a capital of £15,000,000. The shares jumped up and down—now up !to UK), now dow nto 33. The

" Amalgamated " came on bad days many were ruined, and Lawson became one of the most execrated men in America.

("p to this point there is little to mark 'him out from others of his class. Ho was a brilliant member of the school of meteoric speculators which had Jay Gould as its chief exemplar, and Mr Hooley in England, in his " boom " years, as a leading member. But now Mr Lawson was to prove his originality.

SPL'R OF REVENGE.

The disaster to Amalgamated Copper left him thirsting for revenge against his old colleagues. He said that he had been '' left out in the cold " in the market movements. He determined to call the .Press to his aid, and for the first [time to tell the inner story of the doings of some of the groat financial groups which rule America. He 'declared, at the beginning, that he Would hold back nothing, and he has gone a long way towards keeping his word. He has told his story in " Everybody's Magazine," and it has, in consequence, became one of the great successes of American journalism. Since last July the people of America have been enters tained and more than a little startled by his story.

Naturally, Mr Lawson paints Mr l.uwson as the hero of his own tale. Ho gives abundant pity to himself for his misfortune in being associated with Mr Addicks, a man (according to him) of extraordinary venality, lie calls on us all to sympathise with his hard luck in being obliged lsy his associates on the " Standard Oil " to sell the copper mines, which had cost only £7,800, 000, to the public for £15,000,000. I!u1 such self-justification is only to be expected from a man who is writing his own apologia. His story of the birth of Amalgamated Copper, in which he took the ; leading public part, is- interesting : " Amalgamate*! Copper, says -he,

" in the first live years of its existence plundered the public to the extent of over one hundred million dollars. " It was a ci-eature of that incubator of trust land corporation fruuds, the State of New Jersey,and was organised ostensibly to mine, manufacture, buy, sell, and» deal in copper, one of the staples, the necessities ol civilisation.

" It has from its birth to present writing been responsible for more hell than any other trust or financial thing since the world began. Because of it the people have sustained incalculable losses, and have suffered untold miseries.

" I laid out the plans upon which Amalg-aniatal was constructed." lie claims, however, that Ills plans wort not followed out, hence ruin.

THE VEIL DRAWN ASIDE,

His revelations have been of sp<v cial interest as affording the first inside view of the Standard Oil Trust made public. Standard Oil has constantly been attacked from without. Never until Lawson spoke has it been betrayed from within. He scoffs at the idea that John D, Rockefeller, the richest man in the world, is really the dominant brains behind the oil " trust." This place he gives to Sit' Henry 11. Rogers, best known, in Kngland as the close friend of Mark Twain. jlow lias the Standard Oil readied its present place as the dominant financial force in the wprld ? Mr Lawson gives its code : liberal rewards to its followers, secrecy, implicit obedience, and the relentless punishment of those who injure it. Here are some of his summaries of its rules :

Keep your mouth closed, as silence is golden, and gold is what we exist

Collect our debts to-day. Pay the other fellow's debts to-uiorro\\\ Today is always here, to-morrow may never come.

Cpndnct all business so that the buyer and seller must come to us. Keep the seller waiting : tho longer ho waits, the less he'll take. Hurry the buyer, as his business brings us interest.

Always do right. Eight makes might, might makes dollars, dollars make right, and we have the dollars Mr Rogers and his lieutenants are accustomed to do things so big that to the rest of the world t hey sound fairy tales. Some Connecticut manufacturers arranged to sell Rogers a mine for over £BOO,OOO. After long -negotiation with subordinates, their chief visited Rogers in his office to close the bargain. Rogers pame in with u smile and a handshake. " Ido liopp you will excuse [nip," he said, " but I am overdue upstairs.'-' Then lie fled, and his place was taken by a secretary, who produced a cheque for four million dollars anjl took over the deeds with os calm nn air as though the transaction were an every-hour affair. Two minutes later the seller found himself in the street, not quite sure if it were not all a rlrenin. The pace was too rapid (op the Connecticut man. If was to these people that Mr. Lawson camp with hjs mining properties ; it was with their great linancial resources that he floated them on tho world for a trifling'jnat tor of Sfivej} oj* e|ght, million pounds more than had been pajd for them. It is on them now that ho is wreaking his revenge.

HIS MORAL.

The chief value of Mr Lawson's revelations has laid in showing the world how dangerous and moving l the foundations of much American finance are. It is not with little men or ljttle things that he deals. He accuses givat Legislatures, like that of Mussaphusetts, of being bough); and sold as are sausage:} find tish at the mafkets and whar|v#st" The leading American banks iflWi insurance coinpanjes conic under his ljish, aiul even though ji) throwing mud at thorn hu dreadfully tamnars himself, some of the nurd certainly sticks,

Mr Lawson's crowning act of his campaign was to lake his attack from tho magazines Into 'the markets. On December 9 he proclaimed fur and wide, •" I advise every holder of Amalgamated Stock to sell his holdings at once, before another crash comes." A few days later ho advertised again, "I am going to strike. agiiin, suddenly, sharply, sensationally,! and in u way that will produce effects upon prices aiul upon markets so much more destructive, tjiat the destruction of last week will appear by comparison as mijk to vitriol-'-'

He coiitjiiues striking, the most CQQspfcuoup and amazing " bear " flf modern times, jt is a mere fnpfc d/ont of tKmck warfarp that, his campaign is" bringing ruin tp 'nirjhy.'