The Daily News. FRIDAY, MARCH 27. A REFORMER'S CHAGRIN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 83, 27 March 1908, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, MARCH 27. A REFORMER'S CHAGRIN.

Most- people have heard of Thomas ft", Unvson and "Frenzied Finance," and many have read the sensational story in which this American linancier exposal the enormities perpetrated by Ills brother magnates. Thomas W. Law-son i» not the lirst man to lind that the path of tile moral reformer is strewn with thorns and disappointments, and jr. is not surprising now to lind hiui pu iI -11 i njjf a renunciation and an expression of his determination to go buck to the old wayward track. With lluent pon -\lr. Law -on described the wickedness of' Wall Street and the depredations committed against " the common people by the millionaire financiers, who were openly named and savagely hung, drawn and c|uartcred before the multitude. In a style that conformed with the best American ideas of sensationalism the public were invited to join a crusade for the overthrow of the monarchs of i grasping commercialism, and vario.is schemes were organised by the reforming millionaire under which the pub'ic would get even with the plunderers and regain some of their own. The public, however, with studied indifference, failed to dance to the piping of Thomas ,\\. l.awson. They—to use bis own words- - "stood oil the curb" throughout bis onslaught, and while he was getting more kicks than he gave, just listen-'il and looked—and grinned. They grinned l hiiu out of the rinjr, and back to hb •r«ryilay millionaire job; ami "begin ■ ning January Ist, he writes to Everv

body's Magazine (in which he first pu. iislied his liixaitoio 1 exposures) "I sha allow tho public to do their own reforu ing. and J shall devote my time an capital exclusively to inv own of stock gambling in Wall and Stat Streets.'' Mr. Lawson then proceeds t slash out with ironic shafts against th public for their ingratitude. "Th people/' lie cries. " what do I owe t. the gelatiue-spined shrimps?" The ver name suggest* to Jiiui '* myriads of far tactically-apparelled marionettes whos solemn graphophoniug of 'Our right our privileges/ whose bold fronting o mirror shields and savage circling o candy swords make me almost die a laughing." "Blowsy crimes and sniftian thuggeries untold, even in in; exposure of Standard Oil and the rai. roads were laid bare to the entire worl I and yet the American people, like meg* phone-footed centipedes have chase* themselves round in a circle, glutenisi'.ij the atmosphere with their what-we'll-do to-'wms. but never doing anything t punish a single one of the maste thieves of the system. . . To-day th people are preparing to hustle to th town pump the man (President Roose velt) who has done more for them an< more to their enemies than any othe since Lincoln paid for his efforts tor tn people with his life, and all because th system's slime-brained press has told t U yeliow-llushed spaniels that the tempor ary absence ot pie and sherbet from th peoples dinner-pail is due to Roosevelt* pursuit of the scabbiest pack of he wolfs that ever harried a civilise* people. . . . When in all hislon •uieient, modern, or budding, have th people done aught but rail or stau shivering by, like the fearsome Gobbo they are. while their enemies truciliethose who battled for their benefit? He recounts what his tight against " th system"—as personified, say, in Mi Rogers and represented in the Amalga mated Copper raid—cost him. Bough newspapers attacked him. "Not i month went by but 1 received mystcri ous little clockworks, powder and poi« on packages, threats, assaults, an> worse." He lost his fortuue, up )i which he could have lived in luxuriou leisure. He saw "the dearest of a I my possessions go to the grave befor her time"; eut off his friends, and ">li rected upon myselt and upon those dear est to me the cursed machinations o the most vicious of human wolves. Sow, disillusioned but not regenerate, he declares that lie is going back in* Wall Street, to recoup himself—ccrtai'j ly because, as he savs. every dollar h takes will proportionately weaken th system, but also "free from any ei tanglenient or restraining promise ; the people, there to skin, pickle, an crucify the system." He does no coldly propose, aftw all. to only "dro this public work and go back to m easy job of fiddling the system froii their ill-gotten wealth." - hut to uTiT'i' entiate between "the people's hearth ! stones and the of the *v stem." And in his new field he promise' "the public will hear from me. ami n ways tliat will cause it to mistake ii eardrums for army practice targets. This is all very lurid, but not ver;. impressive. Mr. Lawson in writing failure over his efforts is doing himself t.> Korne extent an injustice. As one cittie of his article points out. upon him*°lf and immediately he has not done perceptible good, perhaps, but ultimately it will Ik* seen. The public, short-niemorie I as it is, must have sustained an electrifying jog hy his disclosures and can scarcely have forgotten with what sinister .iceuracy he foretold both tho insurance -candals and the recent tiuancial crisis His book. " Frenzied Finance; has been described as the novel of its year, and even taking it on that estimation it is a significant description of the huge >piders with their far-spun wel>s whom the American llics must avoid if they observe "the first law of nature." Novels have compelled reforms before now, and why should not this one io the sameV' • Mr. Lawson Hints pretty broadly that lie and his work have had l .he hearty approval of President Roosevelt. Why not? Unless it was one of the biggest and cleverest swindles ever >erpetrated, the Lawson campaign cvilenwd human sympathy and revutaio'.i gainst predatory finance dictated by a emperanient generous if eccentric, the mpetuosity of which would plausiblv .(.•count for its pranner abandoning tho ght because he could not win in three r four rounds.