THE COPPER CAMPAIGN OPENS
My plans for the great copper campaign
were most carefully diagrammed, then spread before
Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockefeller, who, before approving,
tested every detail of them. The formal scope
of our action decided on, it was agreed that I should
be free to work in my own way, and it was understood
that I should, as far as possible, carry the campaign
on my own shoulders, using to the limit my personal
capital and credit. “Coppers” was
to be a Lawson operation on the face of it, and I
was determined, for many reasons, to avail myself of
“Standard Oil’s” aid only in taking
care of completed transactions and not at all in the
preliminary negotiations. This was not always
possible, but my attitude in the matter and my desire
to make a brilliant showing explain the straits I
was sometimes put to in conducting some of my deals.
From the start I had a big personal stake in the success
of my campaign, for at the time I first showed Mr.
Rogers my hand I had 46,000 shares of Butte & Boston,
and my following among the public owned as many more.
They had agreed that the profits on this stock, when
it was taken into the consolidation, should be mine
entirely in payment of my own work and risk.
There was another transaction I had
in mind which also fairly belonged to me. As
I have stated, I had undertaken to dispose of Bay State
Gas stock, and by this time I had succeeded in placing
a large number of the shares. The proceeds, $2,300,000,
were in the treasury of the company. Now the
charter of Addicks’ company permitted it to buy,
sell, and deal in anything and everything, and I saw
here a good opportunity to enable Bay State to earn
the balance of the money necessary to relieve its
indebtedness to Mr. Rogers between four
and six millions of dollars. So I explained to
Mr. Rogers that as soon as our copper deal had progressed
to a point where there was absolutely no risk, and
a large gain was assured, I would make a bargain with
Bay State whereby for a part of the profits I would
pilot the investment of the company’s cash in
Butte & Boston. This proposition he considered
fair, and he agreed that neither he nor Mr. Rockefeller
would consider themselves “in” on that
bargain, save as indirectly profiting by it through
the successful winding up of their Boston gas investments.
It is impossible for any great move
to be begun in the stock-market without some suggestion
getting into the air which notifies “the Street"
that “something is up.” Not long after
my alliance with Rogers had been formally arranged,
the atmosphere of State Street grew thick with rumors
about “Coppers.” Some of these announced
that I had hitched up with “Standard Oil”;
others denied it; between them all a movement was
created, and the leading stocks became very active
and increased rapidly in price.
We had agreed that the first companies
to go into our consolidation should be Butte & Boston,
Boston & Montana, Calumet & Hecla, Osceola, Quincy,
Tamarack, and any other of the long-established properties
of which we could get hold. It would be difficult,
we knew, to purchase the control of the Calumet &
Hecla, for its owners thought too highly of their
investment to part with it, but it was safe to buy
whatever was offered, and if we accumulated less than
a majority of the shares we could easily resell at
a large profit. I began my operation with Boston
& Montana stock, buying cautiously and obtaining it
at fair prices, and this transaction, though conducted
quietly, added fresh fuel to the rumor blaze.
Finally Boston became so excited over the situation
that I came out with a public statement in which I
frankly showed what I was trying to do. In all
such affairs, however, the explanations of any man
known in his business as a stock speculator or manipulator
are never accepted as true. It is assumed that
such announcements are merely blinds to disguise his
real purpose; that they are feints or manoeuvres in
his campaign. So when I declared that I was working
out plans for the consolidation of all good Boston
“Coppers,” and that associated with me
were the strongest capitalists in the world, a laugh
went up from a goodly portion of “the Street.”
The hireling news bureaus shrieked at my presumption
and the absurdity of my combination, and when after
a hot day’s operations I was quoted in the financial
press as telling my followers that it was “Standard
Oil” money which was to back “Coppers,”
Barron, whose News Bureau moulded opinion for the opposing
copper magnates, came out with a statement:
“Lawson is spreading in his peculiar
underground ways that the Standard Oil crowd
is looking into Coppers. Just enough countrymen
swallowed his yarns to enable him to boost prices
over six points to-day, but by to-morrow, when
the Rockefellers or Rogers of Standard Oil
put their foot down on his transparent lies,
those who were foolish enough to listen to his
ridiculous fakes will find they must sell at a loss.
We can say, on a high authority in Standard Oil, that
they have never bought nor contemplate buying
a share of any copper stock.”
My enemies were numerous and powerful,
and there were many other announcements of the same
character as Barron’s tending to cast ridicule
on my movement and expose me as a falsifier. Indeed,
notwithstanding the merits of the plan and the benefit
it must confer on all copper properties, I was assailed
as fiercely as though I had advocated anarchy or had
prepared a scheme of wholesale plundering. In
stock affairs innovations are resented and resisted
even more fiercely than in other walks of life, and
the Boston money crowd fought me tooth and nail.
The titles I acquired in those days were varied and
startling. For one set I was a “charlatan,”
“wizard,” “fakir,” an “unprincipled
manipulator”; in another I was a “copper
king” or a “prince of plungers.”
Feeling ran high, and prices rose and fell in the
most erratic and extravagant fashion. Certain
stocks advanced or receded from five to ten points
in as many hours or minutes. Fortunes were made
and lost daily. Many people, confused by the
conflict of opinions and announcements, sold their
holdings, only to repurchase at higher prices as prices
continued to mount. So fiercely was I attacked
that it almost seemed at times as if my enemies might
prevail in spite of the great powers at my back.
Indeed, there were tense moments when my fate as well
as my plans trembled in the balance. Several
times I was sent for by Rogers and his colleagues
for a war council, and sometimes, as I detailed my
lines of defence and enumerated my resources, I suspected
that even these storm-seasoned warriors were tiring
of the fray.
The fiercest fighting at that early
period centred round Butte & Boston and Boston & Montana.
Many a spirited engagement we fought on the floor
of the Exchange. Perhaps the fiercest of these
began when, after a strenuous rush one morning, I
rapidly carried the price of Butte up. This exploit
so enraged my adversaries that they got together and
organized a powerful combination against me. This
included several of the leading banks and trust companies
of Boston that held large amounts of stocks as collateral
for my loans. At a given moment it was arranged
that all these loans, aggregating millions of dollars,
should be called; and further to intensify the complication
they expected to bring about, a great friend in common
attempted to scare Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Rogers
by informing them that the titles to the copper properties
were defective, and that a man, then unknown, named
Heinze, who had made himself very strong with the
Montana courts, was about to make a move to confiscate
them. There was a hurry call for me from New York,
and this time the explanations had to be very full,
for “Standard Oil” had an impression that
while my general plan might be meritorious, it was
possible that I had the details “skewed.”
However, I satisfied them as to the facts and then
hurried back to tackle my own problem, for these individual
engagements I handled myself, using my own personal
resources to take care of them. The emergency
that had developed thus suddenly was so serious as
to be alarming, and it devolved on me to act, and at
once. Blows in finance are like those at sea the
most dangerous are the quick-come-quick-go kind.
I recalled one I had run into a short time before
on my sailing yacht. We were broad-reaching down
the New England coast, close in, with a 20-knot sou’wester
blowing. Suddenly, without apparent reason, my
skipper put the wheel hard down and brought the craft
up standing. A second later a “twister”
from the hills hit us, and adroitly he headed her
into it.
“How in the world did you know that was coming?”
I asked.
“I smelt her, sir,” the old sea-dog replied,
“just smelt her.”
For those unacquainted with the freaky
ways of our New England coast winds it may be explained
that when a “twister” off the hills gets
ready to do business in a 20-knot sou’wester
it sends no messenger boys ahead to distribute its
itinerary handbills. You hear one shriek and the
blow is upon you; and woe betide the unthinking skipper
who attempts holding his craft to her course or paying
her off till she catches it full. He is likely
to have mourners at home if a married man, and “cussing”
owners if the craft is not his own. As my old
sea-dog afterward wisely observed: “When
you smell a land ‘twister,’ act first and
think atterwards, or your widow ’ill get blear-eyed
watching for you to make harbor.”
In the stock-market it was decidedly
a case of “act first and think atterwards.”
The “twister” was a fierce one, for not
only were my stocks assailed, but the rumor machines
were turning out all sorts of yarns affecting my credit,
as the knowledge gradually filtered through the market
that my loans had been called. My stocks broke
badly, and when the market closed it really seemed
as though I might have to verify the report that they
would wind me up the next day.
It was at this particular stage that
the Bay State was let into the deal. I had a
long consultation with Addicks that night and showed
him my hand. He agreed that with what I already
had of the stock and “Standard Oil’s”
backing, the venture came as near being an absolutely
sure thing as could ever be found in stocks. My
proposition was that I should secure for the Bay State
Company 50,000 shares of Butte at an average of 20
to 25, and that I should have half the profits of the
venture provided they aggregated over two millions
of dollars. Coming to Addicks in this emergency
was cold-blooded business on my part, and, it goes
without saying, was frozen-blooded business on his,
for he evidently saw then what I did not until later,
that there was an excellent opportunity to practise
his pet game make money and double-cross
his partner while doing so. We clinched the deal
that night, and next day in the market I turned the
tables, for I took every share my opponents offered
for sale, and the stock, instead of dropping out of
sight, became firm, then began to mount, and never
after fell again.
The Bay State’s venture showed
a profit afterward of four millions of dollars, but
of my share of this large sum I was deprived, as I
will detail later.
At this juncture there occurred one
of those strange and sad fatalities which with its
attendant circumstances helps to explain why those
of us who play with stock-markets grow superstitious.
I have spoken of my secretary, Mr. Vinal, a man of
admirable discretion and absolute loyalty, who was
my right hand in executing the minutiae of the various
operations I then was engaged in. In such affairs
the fidelity of one’s aides must be beyond all
question, for if the merest detail of one’s
plans leaks out at the critical moment, one is undone
beyond recovery. After my talk with Addicks I
had laid out the campaign for the next day’s
engagement and called in Vinal to explain to him his
own part. He was to attend to taking up and transferring
the loans that had been called, and I armed him with
my power of attorney and blank checks, instructing
him to put these matters through without further consultation
with me, for my entire time must belong to my brokers
during the battle of prices which I knew must inevitably
come with the stroke of the gong that opened the Exchange
next morning at ten, and which would rage until its
close at three. As I had anticipated, the assault
was fierce. It was give and take, charge and retreat,
all day. A few minutes after twelve, Vinal pushed
through a crowd of brokers to me and said: “I’m
about half through my shifting, but a telephone has
just come from Mrs. Lawson saying that something has
happened at the school and will I at once get a carriage
and bring your daughters home. It will take half
an hour. Shall I go?” I replied: “You
had better, but get back as quickly as possible.”
A minute later a thought occurred to me, and I sent
a boy to call Vinal back. He reported that my
secretary had jumped into “Ben’s”
cab ("Ben” was a cabman whose stand had been
in front of my office, 33 State Street, since my boyhood
days). I returned to the fray. Fifteen minutes
later the appalling message that startled all Boston
at the time came over the ticker tape: “Terrible
Explosion! Boston Gas Company’s pipes in
the Subway have blown scores to death.”
Then there floated in to me a rumor, vague, indefinite,
that Vinal was a victim. I jumped into a cab
and in a few moments was at the undertaker’s
to whose place the corpses were being removed.
The undertaker stepped up to me and said: “Poor
Vinal! Don’t look at him, for it is frightful.
He was on the very apex of the explosion, and he and
‘Ben’ were both instantly killed and are
frightfully burned. The only thing recognizable
is this envelope, which I found among the rags that
were left of his coat.” He handed me over
the large envelope in which I had seen Vinal that very
morning depositing the various documents, checks, and
securities which he required for his day’s operations.
It was burned around the edges, but the contents were
uninjured, and among the papers was a carefully prepared
memorandum showing to a dot where my secretary had
left off in his exchanges. He had evidently just
finished making notes, for so carefully arranged were
the contents of the envelope that all that was necessary
to complete the business was to turn it over to Vinal’s
assistant. No further explanation was required.
That envelope represented two millions of money and
securities.
Poor Vinal! Another victim of
that soulless corporation hag, Boston Gas, to prolong
whose life he had spent some of the best years of his
own. Vinal was very dear to me. He had filled
my canteen, held my ammunition, and carried my knapsack
through many a hard-fought battle, willingly allowing
others to do the cheering in victory, but reserving
to himself the right to suggest and console when the
clouds lowered and we were left alone on the field
of defeat or the dusty road of retreat. Poor
Vinal! He was worth a hundred copper deals or
corporation hags.
Between death and life, success and
failure, what a hair’s-breadth after all.
If Vinal had stubbed his toe, or had been able to take
the first cab he found; if he had heard my call which
would have brought him back; if he had tarried a moment
longer in the Young Men’s Christian Association
where he had stopped to deliver a message, he would
have escaped. The thought did not occur to me
at the moment, for Vinal’s death was too keen
a personal sorrow to allow me to estimate my own narrow
escape, but if that envelope, so miraculously preserved,
had been burned as were the other papers in my secretary’s
pocket, there might have been no Amalgamated.
“Coppers” must have dropped back to the
lowly place from which Rogers had lifted them, for
I should have been financially ruined.
To show the marvelous workings of
Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb: At
the same moment that I was called away from my guns,
the commanding general of the opposing forces received
the same call. The aged mother of the President
of the Boston & Montana and Butte & Boston, while
riding in her carriage, had been a victim of the same
explosion.