The Moneychangers was published in 1908, and the author must have done his research. Wonder how much of it went into the subsequent World's End series, with its all encompassing panoramic scope that includes finance and business.
The book begins guilelessly as usual with the author, this time with a pair of friends discussing a young woman newly arrived in NYC whom one of them knew from home, being brought up on the plantation next to hers until she ran off to New Orleans to marry an older man. But it changes from there rapidly enough, via social parties, wolves after young women, and friends whom the said women trust with protection of their social and financial security, to the real subject of the work.
"“They are lively chaps, the Steel crowd,” said the Major, chuckling. “You will have to keep your eyes open when you do business with them.”"
The pace is faster here than in World's End series, while seeming relaxed like the Southerner protagonist, which is completely opposite to that of World's End series where it seemed like a whirl all the time, but things happened at their own pace anyway.
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The end shocks one with not just ruin of a wealthy man by another, more powerful one, for sake of revenge about a woman who had a preference for reasons other than the said power or even wealth, but the quiet sacrifice of the young Lucy Dupree, in complete anonymity so no one who cared for her ever knew what happened to her.
It shocks because it's representative of reality, one suspects, and the author wanted to expose the stark, grim, cruel nature thereof, of Wall Street and its men at the top.
He's exposed a series of pyramids that various industries and their owners form, interconnected randomly via the said men of power who might be involved in more than one, or finance via banks they control, it all ultimately being topped by Wall Street.
Lucy Dupree symbolises not just youth and beauty but innocence and naivete, loving heart and a lack of selfishness that is preyed on by the said men of power who are bestial in their vicious pursuit of acquisitions of not just wealth and objects but of women, of young and innocent women whom they'd bend to their will and destroy if the said woman is an unwilling unattainable person rather than an object.
Lucy Dupree symbolises all this and more - she's the innocence and naivete not only of youth or of women, but in general of humanity, exploited by the hounds and hyenas and other beasts symbolised in men of power, here mostly those of Wall Street.
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Montague is being tutored by the friend he went to for help, having discovered that someone he went to see has sent a detective after him.
“I can introduce you to a man who’s in this room now, who was fighting the Ship-building swindle, and he got hold of a lot of important papers, and he took them to his office, and sat by while his clerks made thirty-two copies of them. And he put the originals and thirty-one of the copies in thirty-two different safe-deposit vaults in the city, and took the other copy to his home in a valise. And that night burglars broke in, and the valise was missing. The next day he wrote to the people he was fighting, ‘I was going to send you a copy of the papers which have come into my possession, but as you already have a copy, I will simply proceed to outline my proposition.’ And that was all. They settled for a million or two.”"
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Montague sees Lucy who's accepted Ryder's invitation.
"“Well,” said she, dubiously, “it’s nice to be noticed.”
"“It is for those who like it,” said he; “and if a woman chooses to set out on a publicity campaign, and run a press bureau, and make herself a public character, why, that’s her privilege. But for heaven’s sake let her drop the sickly pretence that she is only driving beautiful horses, or listening to music, or entertaining her friends. I suppose a Society woman has as much right to advertise her personality as a politician or a manufacturer of pills; all I object to is the sham of it, the everlasting twaddle about her love of privacy. Take Mrs. Winnie Duval, for instance. You would think to hear her that her one ideal in life was to be a simple shepherdess and to raise flowers; but, as a matter of fact, she keeps a scrap-album, and if a week passes that the newspapers do not have some paragraphs about her doings, she begins to get restless.”"
Wonder when Upton Sinclair reconciled himself to the fashionable society women, for they're quite the centre as Lanny's home in first few volumes of the World's End series."
Soon Lucy experienced something she wasn't expecting, in her naivety.
"“He is a monster!” cried Lucy. “I ought to have him put in jail.”
"Montague shook his head. “You couldn’t do that,” he said. “I couldn’t!” exclaimed the other.
"“Why not?”
"“You couldn’t prove it,” said Montague.
"“It would be your word against his, and they would take his every time. You can’t go and have Dan Waterman arrested as you could any ordinary man. And think of the notoriety it would mean!”
"“I would like to expose him,” protested Lucy. “It would serve him right!”
"“It would not do him the least harm in the world,” said Montague. “I can speak quite positively there, for I have seen it tried. You couldn’t get a newspaper in New York to publish that story. All that you could do would be to have yourself blazoned as an adventuress.”
"Lucy was staring, with clenched hands. “Why, I might as well be living in Turkey,” she cried.
"“Very nearly,” said he. “There’s an old man in this town who has spent his lifetime lending money and hoarding it; he has something like eighty or a hundred millions now, I believe, and once every six months or so you will read in the newspapers that some woman has made an attempt to blackmail him. That is because he does to every pretty girl who comes into his office just exactly what old Waterman did to you; and those who are arrested for blackmail are simply the ones who are so unwise as to make a disturbance.”
"“You see, Lucy,” continued Montague, after a pause, “you must realise the situation. This man is a god in New York. He controls all the avenues of wealth; he can make or break any person he chooses. It is really the truth—I believe he could ruin any man in the city whom he chose to set out after. He can have anything that he wants done, so far as the police are concerned. It is simply a matter of paying them. And he is accustomed to rule in everything; his lightest whim is law. If he wants a thing, he buys it, and that is his attitude toward women. He is used to being treated as a master; women seek him, and vie for his favour. If you had been able to hold it, you might have had a million-dollar palace on Riverside Drive, or a cottage with a million-dollar pier at Newport. You might have had carte blanche at all the shops, and all the yachting trips and private trains that you wanted. That is all that other women want, and he could not understand what more you could want.”
"“But, Allan!” protested Lucy. “I can’t help thinking what would have happened to me if you had not come on board! I can’t help thinking about other women who must have been caught in such a trap. Why, Allan, I would have been equally helpless—no matter what he had done!”
"“I am afraid so,” said he, gravely. “Many a woman has discovered it, I imagine. I understand how you feel, but what can you do about it? You can’t punish men like Waterman. You can’t punish them for anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack upon a defenceless woman. There are rich men in this city who make it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls. A stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty positions in one year, and that she had left every one because some man in the office had approached her.”
"He paused for a moment. “You see,” he added, “I have been finding out these things. You thought I was unreasonable, but I know what your dangers are. You are a stranger here; you have no friends and no influence, and so you will always be the one to suffer. I don’t mean merely in a case like this, where it comes to the police and the newspapers; I mean in social matters—where it is a question of your reputation, of the interpretation which people will place upon your actions. They have their wealth and their prestige and their privileges, and they stand at bay. They are perfectly willing to give a stranger a good time, if the stranger has a pretty face and a lively wit to entertain them; but when you come to trespass, or to threaten their power, then you find out how they can hate you, and how mercilessly they will slander and ruin you!”"
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Montague takes Lucy to visit General Prentice.
"“It seems to be such a widespread movement,” said Montague.
"“It seems incredible that any one man could cause such an upset.”
"“It is not one man,” said the General, “it is a group of men. I don’t say that it’s true, mind you. I wouldn’t be at liberty to say it even if I knew it; but there are certain things that I have seen, and I have my suspicions of others. And you must realise that a half-dozen men now control about ninety per cent of the banks of this city.”
"“Things will get worse before they get any better, I believe,” said Curtiss, after a pause.
"“The banking situation in this country at the present moment is simply unendurable; the legitimate banker is practically driven from the field by the speculator. A man finds himself in the position where he has either to submit to the dictation of such men, or else permit himself to be supplanted. It is a new element that has forced itself in. Apparently all a man needs in order to start a bank is credit enough to put up a building with marble columns and bronze gates. I could name you a man who at this moment owns eight banks, and when he started in, three years ago, I don’t believe he owned a million dollars.”
"“You buy a piece of land, with as big a mortgage as you can get, and you put up a million-dollar building and mortgage that. You start a trust company, and you get out imposing advertisements, and promise high rates of interest, and the public comes in. Then you hypothecate your stock in company number one, and you have your dummy directors lend you more money, and you buy another trust company. They call that pyramiding—you have heard the term, no doubt, with regard to stocks; it is a fascinating game to play with banks, because the more of them you get, the more prominent you become in the newspapers, and the more the public trusts you.”
"There was Stewart, the young Lochinvar out of the West. He had tried to buy the Trust Company of the Republic long ago, and so the General knew him and his methods. He had fought the Copper Trust to a standstill in Montana; the Trust had bought up the Legislature and both political machines, but Cummings had appealed to the public in a series of sensational campaigns, and had got his judges into office, and in the end the Trust had been forced to buy him out. And now he had come to New York to play this new game of bank-gambling, which paid even quicker profits than buying courts.—And then there was Holt, a sporting character, a vulgar man-about-town, who was identified with everything that was low and vile in the city; he, too, had turned his millions into banks.—And there was Cummings, the Ice King, who for years had financed the political machine in the city, and, by securing a monopoly of the docking-privileges, had forced all his rivals to the wall. He had set out to monopolise the coastwise steamship trade of the country, and had bought line after line of vessels by this same device of “pyramiding”; and now, finding that he needed still more money to buy out his rivals, he had purchased or started a dozen or so of trust companies and banks."
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Mrs Billy Alden talking to Montague.
"“I judge you have not many enemies,” added Mrs. Billy, after a pause.
"“No especial ones,” said he.
"“Well,” said she, “you should cultivate some. Enemies are the spice of life. I mean it, really,” she declared, as she saw him smile.
"“I had never thought of it,” said he. “Have you never known what it is to get into a really good fight? You see, you are conventional, and you don’t like to acknowledge it. But what is there that wakes one up more than a good, vigorous hatred? Some day you will realise it—the chief zest in life is to go after somebody who hates you, and to get him down and see him squirm.”
"“But suppose he gets you down?” interposed Montague.
"“Ah!” said she, “you mustn’t let him! That is what you go into the fight for. Get after him, and do him first.”
"“It sounds rather barbarous,” said he.
"“On the contrary,” was the answer, “it’s the highest reach of civilisation. That is what Society is for—the cultivation of the art of hatred. It is the survival of the fittest in a new realm. You study your victim, you find out his weaknesses and his foibles, and you know just where to plant your sting. You learn what he wants, and you take it away from him. You choose your allies carefully, and you surround him and overwhelm him; then when you get through with him, you go after another.”"
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"The steel situation is a peculiar one. Prices are kept at an altogether artificial level, and there is room for large profits to competitors of the Trust. But those who go into the business commonly find themselves unexpectedly handicapped. They cannot get the credit they want; orders overwhelm them in floods, but Wall Street will not put up money to help them. They find all kinds of powerful interests arrayed against them; there are raids upon their securities in the market, and mysterious rumours begin to circulate. They find suits brought against them which tend to injure their credit. And sometimes they will find important papers missing, important witnesses sailing for Europe, and so on. Then their most efficient employees will be bought up; their very bookkeepers and office-boys will be bribed, and all the secrets of their business passed on to their enemies. They will find that the railroads do not treat them squarely; cars will be slow in coming, and all kinds of petty annoyances will be practised. You know what the rebate is, and you can imagine the part which that plays. In these and a hundred other ways, the path of the independent steel manufacturer is made difficult. And now, Mr. Montague, this is a project to extend a railroad which will be of vast service to the chief competitor of the Steel Trust."
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"I think I told you once how Davy paid forty thousand dollars for the nomination, and went to Congress. It was the year of a Democratic landslide, and they could have elected Reggie Mann if they had felt like it. I went to Washington to live the next winter, and Price was there with a whole army of lobbyists, fighting for free silver. That was before the craze, you know, when silver was respectable; and Price was the Silver King. I saw the inside of American government that winter, I can assure you.”
"“The Democratic party had been elected on a low tariff platform,” said Mrs. Billy; “and it sold out bag and baggage to the corporations. Money was as free as water—my brother could have got his forty thousand back three times over. It was the Steel crowd that bossed the job, you know—William Roberts used to come down from Pittsburg every two or three days, and he had a private telephone wire the rest of the time. I have always said it was the Steel Trust that clamped the tariff swindle on the American people, and that’s held it there ever since.”"
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"“It seems to me,” he said, “that we can just as well arrange this matter without mentioning the Northern Mississippi Railroad at all. If the Steel people get wind of this, we are liable to have all sorts of trouble; the Governor is their man, as you know. The thing to do is to pass a blanket bill, providing that any public-service corporation whose charter antedates a certain period may extend its line within certain limits and under certain conditions, and so on. I think that I can draw a bill that will go through before anybody has an idea what it’s about.”
"“I didn’t make the rules,” said Curtiss. “You find you either have to play that way or else get out altogether.” The younger man relapsed into silence for a moment, then laughed to himself. “I know how you feel,” he said. “I remember when I first came out of college, the twinges I used to have. I had my head full of all the beautiful maxims of the old Professor of Ethics. And they took me on in the legal department of the New York and Hudson Railroad, and we had a case—-some kind of a damage suit; and old Henry Corbin—their chief counsel, you know—gave me the papers, and then took out of his desk a typewritten list of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State. ‘Some of them are marked with red,’ he said; ‘you can bring the case before any of them. They are our judges.’ Just fancy, you know! And I as innocent as a spring chicken!”
"“But if a certain judge always decided in favour of the railroad—” began Montague. “Oh, pshaw!” said Curtiss. “Leave that to the judge! Sometimes he’ll decide against the railroad, but he’ll make some ruling that the higher courts will be sure to upset, and by that time the other fellow will be tired out, and ready to quit. Or else—here’s another way. I remember one case that I had that old Corbin told me I’d be sure to win, and I took eleven different exceptions, and the judge decided against me on every single one. I thought I was gone sure—but, by thunder, he instructed the jury in my favour! It took me a long time to see the shrewdness of that; you see, it goes to the higher courts, and they see that the judge has given the losing side every advantage, and has decided purely on the evidence. And of course they haven’t the witnesses before them, and don’t feel half so well able to judge of the evidence, and so they let the decision stand. There are more ways than one to skin a cat, you see!”
"“Governor Hannis! It takes my breath away!”
"“Get Davenant to tell you about it,” said Curtiss, with a laugh. “Maybe it’s not so bad as I imagine. Davenant is cynical on the subject of governors, you know. He had an experience a few years ago, when he went up to Albany to try to get the Governor to sign a certain bill. The Governor went out of his office and left him, and Davenant noticed that a drawer of his desk was open, and he looked in, and there was an envelope with fifty brand-new one-thousand-dollar bills in it! He didn’t know what they were there for, but this was a mighty important bill, and he concluded he’d take a chance. He put the envelope in his pocket; and then the Governor came back, and after some talk about the interests of the public, he told him he’d concluded to veto that bill. ‘Very well,’ Mr. Governor,’ said the old man, ‘I have only this to say,’ and he took out the envelope. ‘I have here fifty new one-thousand-dollar bills, which are yours if you sign that measure. On the other hand, if you refuse to sign it, I will take the bills to the newspaper men, and tell them what I know about how you got them.’ And the Governor turned as white as a sheet, and, by God, he signed the bill and sent it off to the Legislature while Davenant waited! So you can see why he is sceptical about governors.”"
"“Your political machines and your offices are in the hands of peanut-politicians and grafters who are looking for what’s coming to them. If you want anything, you have to pay them for it, just the same as in any other business. You face the same situation every hour—‘Pay or quit.’”"
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"In the rooms where the furnaces blazed, Montague could not penetrate at all; he could only stand in the doorway, shading his eyes from the glare. In each of these infernos toiled hundreds of grimy, smoke-stained men, stripped to the waist and streaming with perspiration.
"blast furnaces, great caverns through the cracks of which the molten steel shone like lightning. Here the men who worked had to have buckets of water poured over them continually, and they drank several gallons of beer each day. .... rail-mills, where the flaming white ingots were caught by huge rollers, and tossed about like pancakes, and flattened and squeezed, emerging at the other end in the shape of tortured red snakes of amazing length. At the far end of the mill one could see them laid out in long rows to cool;"
"plate-mill, where giant hammers resounded, and steel plates of several inches’ thickness were chopped and sliced like pieces of cheese. Here the spectator stared about him in bewilderment and clung to his guide for safety; huge travelling cranes groaned overhead, and infernal engines made deafening clatter upon every side. It was a source of never ending wonder that men should be able to work in such confusion, with no sense of danger and no consciousness of all the uproar.
"Across on the other side of the mill was a steel shaft, which turned one of the largest of the rollers. It was high up in the air, and revolving with unimaginable speed, and Montague saw a man with an oil-can in his hand rest the top of a ladder upon this shaft, and proceed to climb up.
"He touched his guide upon the arm and pointed. “Isn’t that dangerous?” he shouted.
"“It’s against orders,” said the man. “But they will do it.”"
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"When Society’s belles and dames had completed a season’s round of dinner-parties and dances, they were more or less near to nervous prostration, and Newport was the place which they had selected to retire to and recuperate. It was an old-fashioned New England town, not far from the entrance to Long Island Sound, and from a village with several grocery shops and a tavern, it had been converted by a magic touch of Society into the most famous and expensive resort in the world. Estates had been sold there for as much as a dollar a square foot, and it was nothing uncommon to pay ten thousand a month for a “cottage.”
"The tradition of vacation and of the country was preserved in such terms as “cottage.” You would be invited to a “lawn-party,” and you would find a blaze of illumination, and potted plants enough to fill a score of green-houses, and costumes and jewelled splendour suggesting the Field of the Cloth of Gold. You would be invited to a “picnic” at Gooseberry Point, and when you went there, you would find gorgeous canopies spread overhead, and velvet carpets under foot, and scores of liveried lackeys in attendance, and every luxury one would have expected in a Fifth Avenue mansion. You would take a cab to drive to this “picnic,” and it would cost you five dollars; yet you must on no account go without a cab. Even if the destination was just around the corner, a stranger would commit a breach of the proprieties if he were to approach the house on foot."
"with every glance that he cast at the magnificence about him, he thought of the men who were toiling in the blinding heat of the blast-furnaces."
"Here was the palace of the Wymans, upon the laying out of the grounds of which a half million dollars had been spent; the stone wall which surrounded it was famous upon two continents, because it had cost a hundred thousand dollars. And it was to make steel rails for the Wymans that the slaves of the mills were toiling!
"Here was the palace of the Eldridge Devons, with a greenhouse which had cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and which merely supplied the daily needs of its owners. Here was the famous tulip tree, which had been dug up and brought a distance of fifty miles, at a cost of a thousand dollars. And Montague had seen in the making the steel for one of the great hotels of the Eldridge Devons!
"And here was the Walling establishment, the “three-million-dollar palace on a desert,” as Mrs. Billy Alden had described it. Montague had read of the famous mantel in its entrance hall, made from Pompeiian marble, and costing seventy-five thousand dollars. And the Wallings were the railroad kings who transported Mississippi Steel!"
"And from that his thoughts roamed on to the slaves of other mills, to the men and women and little children shut up to toil in shops and factories and mines for these people who flaunted their luxury about him. They had come here from every part of the country, with their millions drawn from every kind of labour. Here was the great white marble palace of the Johnsons—the ceilings, floors, and walls of its state apartments had all been made in France; its fences and gates, even its locks and hinges, had been made from special designs by famous artists. The Johnsons were lords of railroads and coal, and ruled the state of West Virginia with a terrible hand. The courts and the legislature were but branches of old Johnson’s office, and Montague knew of mining villages which were owned outright by the Company, and were like stockaded forts; the wretched toilers could not buy so much as a pint of milk outside of the Company store, and even the country doctor could not enter the gates without a pass.
"And beyond that was the home of the Warfields, whose fortune came from great department stores, in which young girls worked for two dollars and a half a week, and eked out their existence by prostitution. And this was the summer that Warfield’s youngest daughter was launched, and for her debutante dance they built a ballroom which cost thirty thousand dollars—and was torn down the day afterwards!
"And beyond this, upon the cliffs, was the castle of the Mayers, whose fortunes came from coal.—Montague thought of the young man who had invented the device for the automatic weighing of coal as it was loaded upon steam-ships. Major Venable had hinted to him that the reason the Coal Trust would not consider it, was because they were selling short weight; and since then he had investigated the story, and learned that this was true, and that it was old Mayer himself who had devised the system. And here was his palace, and here were his sons and daughters—among the most haughty and exclusive of Society’s entertainers!
"It was estimated just at this time that there was thirty millions’ worth of steam and sailing pleasure-craft in Newport harbour, and the bay was a wonderful sight that afternoon.
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"Every concern they bought was overcapitalised to begin with; I doubt if two hundred million dollars’ worth of honest dollars was ever put into the Steel Trust properties, and they capitalised it at a billion, and now they’ve raised it to a billion and a half! The men who pulled it off made hundreds of millions, and the poor public that bought the common stock saw it go down to six! They gave old Harrison a four-hundred-million-dollar mortgage on the property, and he sits back and grins, and wonders why a man can’t die poor!”"
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"“We are told that our ships are going to the Pacific, and any hour the safety of the nation may depend upon them! And they are covered with rotten armour plate that was made by old Harrison, and sold to the Government for four or five times what it cost. Take one case that I know about—the Oregon. I’ve got a brother on board her to-day. During the Spanish War the whole country was watching her and praying for her. And I could go on board that battleship and put my finger on the spot in her conning-tower that has a series of blow-holes straight through the middle of it—holes that old Harrison had drilled through and plugged up with an iron bar. If ever that plate was struck by a shell, it would splinter like so much glass.”
"“You see,” continued the Lieutenant, after a pause, “the Government’s specifications required that each plate should undergo an elaborate set of treatments; and the shop records of each plate were kept. But, of course, it cost enormous sums to get these treatments right, and even then hundreds of the plates would be bad. So when the shop records came up to the office, young Ingham and Davidson would go over them and edit them and bring them up to standard—that’s the way those brilliant young fellows made all the money that they are spending on chorus girls and actresses to-day. They would have these shop records recopied, but they did not always tear up the old ones, and somebody in the office hid them, and that was how the Government got hold of the story.”"
"“The board of officers awarded six hundred thousand dollars’ damages to the Government; and the case was appealed to the President of the United States, and he sold out the Navy!”
"“That’s what I call it,” he said. “One day old Harrison startled the country by making a speech in support of the President’s policy of tariff reform; and the next day the lawyer got word that the award was to be scaled down about seventy-five per cent!”
"“William Roberts came down from Pittsburg, and bought up the Democratic party in Congress; and so the country got neither the damages nor the tariff reform. And then a few years later old Harrison sold out to the Steel Trust, and got off with a four-hundred-million-dollar mortgage on the American people!”"
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Someone telling Montague about NYC banks and Wall Street
" ... there’s more graft in it than you’d find in Russia.”"
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When it comes to Price and Ryder putting up Montagu as a front for their ownership of the railroad, and getting contracts for their own companies, Montague lets them know he intends to run it honestly. Thereupon he hears he's to be dropped.
It's not the different from Waterman using his yacht and money to lure Lucy. Montague intends to fight back, forgetting he's as short of power in fighting back as he told Lucy she was.
It's not the different from Waterman using his yacht and money to lure Lucy. Montague intends to fight back, forgetting he's as short of power in fighting back as he told Lucy she was.
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"“Mind you,” Bates added, “I am only speaking about Price himself. I don’t know about any people he may have been with. He may have been deceiving them—he may have been leading them into a trap—”
"And suddenly Montague clutched the arms of his chair. He sat staring ahead of him, struck dumb by the thought which the other’s words had brought to him. “My God,” he gasped; and again, and yet again, “My God!”
"It seemed to unroll before him, in vista after vista. Price deceiving Ryder! leading him into that Northern Mississippi deal; getting him to lend money upon the stock of the Mississippi Steel Company; promising, perhaps, to support the stock in the market, and helping to smash it instead! Twisting Ryder around his finger, crushing him—and why? And why?
"Montague’s thoughts stopped still. It was as if he had found himself suddenly confronted by a bottomless abyss. He shrank back from it. He could not face the thought in his own mind. Waterman! It was Dan Waterman! It was something which he had planned! It was the vengeance that he had threatened! He had been all this time plotting it, setting his nets about Ryder’s feet!
"It was an idea so wild and so horrible that Montague fought it off. He pushed it away from him, again and again. No, no, it could not be!
"And yet, why not? He had always felt certain in his own mind that that detective had come from Waterman. The old man had set to work to find out about Lucy and her affairs, the first time that he had ever laid eyes on her. And then suddenly Montague saw the face of volcanic fury that had flashed past him on board the Brünnhilde. “You will hear from me again,” the old man had said; and now, all these months of silence—and at last he heard!
"Why not? Why not? Montague kept asking himself. After all, what did he know about the Mississippi Steel Company? What had he ever seen to prove that it was actually competing with the Trust? What had he even heard, except what Stanley Ryder had told him; and what more likely than that Ryder was simply repeating what Price had said?
“What object would there be,” he asked, “in keeping the fact a secret—I mean that Price was Waterman’s agent?” “Object!” exclaimed Bates. “Good Heavens, and with the public half crazy about monopolies, and the President making such a fight! If it were known that the Steel Trust had gathered in its last big competitor, you can’t tell what the Government might do!”
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"“Too late,” said Bates; “the scoundrels—they never even let me know!” He poured out his rage in a string of curses. Then he told Montague the story.
"“I was in here at half-past ten,” he said, “and I reported to the managing editor. He was crazy with delight, and told me to go ahead—front page, double column, and all the rest. So Rodney and I set to work. He did the interview, and I did all the embroidery—oh, my God, but it was a story! And it was read, and went through; and then an hour or two ago, just when the forms were ready, in comes old Hodges—he’s one of the owners, you know—and begins nosing round. ‘What’s this?’ he cries, and reads the story; and then he goes to the managing editor. They almost had a fight over it. ‘No paper that I am interested in shall ever print a story like that!’ says Hodges; and the managing editor threatens to resign, but he can’t budge him. The first thing I knew of it was when I got this copy; and the paper had already gone to press.”
"“What do you suppose was the reason for it?” asked Montague, in wonder.
"“Reason?” echoed Bates. “The reason is Hodges; he’s a crook. ‘If we publish that story,’ he said, ‘the directors of the bank will never meet, and we’ll bear the onus of having wrecked the Gotham Trust Company.’ But that’s all a bluff, and he knew it; we could prove that that conference took place, if it ever came to a fight.”
"“You were quite safe, it seems to me,” said Montague.
"“Safe?” echoed Bates. “We had the greatest scoop that a newspaper ever had in this country—if only the Express were a newspaper. But Hodges isn’t publishing the news, you see; he’s serving his masters, whoever they are. I knew that it meant trouble when he bought into the Express. He used to be managing editor of the Gazette, you know; and he made his fortune selling the policy of that paper—its financial news is edited to this very hour in the offices of Wyman’s bankers, and I can prove it to anybody who wants me to. That’s the sort of proposition a man’s up against; and what’s the use of gathering the news?”"
"“Mind you,” Bates added, “I am only speaking about Price himself. I don’t know about any people he may have been with. He may have been deceiving them—he may have been leading them into a trap—”
"And suddenly Montague clutched the arms of his chair. He sat staring ahead of him, struck dumb by the thought which the other’s words had brought to him. “My God,” he gasped; and again, and yet again, “My God!”
"It seemed to unroll before him, in vista after vista. Price deceiving Ryder! leading him into that Northern Mississippi deal; getting him to lend money upon the stock of the Mississippi Steel Company; promising, perhaps, to support the stock in the market, and helping to smash it instead! Twisting Ryder around his finger, crushing him—and why? And why?
"Montague’s thoughts stopped still. It was as if he had found himself suddenly confronted by a bottomless abyss. He shrank back from it. He could not face the thought in his own mind. Waterman! It was Dan Waterman! It was something which he had planned! It was the vengeance that he had threatened! He had been all this time plotting it, setting his nets about Ryder’s feet!
"It was an idea so wild and so horrible that Montague fought it off. He pushed it away from him, again and again. No, no, it could not be!
"And yet, why not? He had always felt certain in his own mind that that detective had come from Waterman. The old man had set to work to find out about Lucy and her affairs, the first time that he had ever laid eyes on her. And then suddenly Montague saw the face of volcanic fury that had flashed past him on board the Brünnhilde. “You will hear from me again,” the old man had said; and now, all these months of silence—and at last he heard!
"Why not? Why not? Montague kept asking himself. After all, what did he know about the Mississippi Steel Company? What had he ever seen to prove that it was actually competing with the Trust? What had he even heard, except what Stanley Ryder had told him; and what more likely than that Ryder was simply repeating what Price had said?
“What object would there be,” he asked, “in keeping the fact a secret—I mean that Price was Waterman’s agent?” “Object!” exclaimed Bates. “Good Heavens, and with the public half crazy about monopolies, and the President making such a fight! If it were known that the Steel Trust had gathered in its last big competitor, you can’t tell what the Government might do!”
................................................................................................
"“Too late,” said Bates; “the scoundrels—they never even let me know!” He poured out his rage in a string of curses. Then he told Montague the story.
"“I was in here at half-past ten,” he said, “and I reported to the managing editor. He was crazy with delight, and told me to go ahead—front page, double column, and all the rest. So Rodney and I set to work. He did the interview, and I did all the embroidery—oh, my God, but it was a story! And it was read, and went through; and then an hour or two ago, just when the forms were ready, in comes old Hodges—he’s one of the owners, you know—and begins nosing round. ‘What’s this?’ he cries, and reads the story; and then he goes to the managing editor. They almost had a fight over it. ‘No paper that I am interested in shall ever print a story like that!’ says Hodges; and the managing editor threatens to resign, but he can’t budge him. The first thing I knew of it was when I got this copy; and the paper had already gone to press.”
"“What do you suppose was the reason for it?” asked Montague, in wonder.
"“Reason?” echoed Bates. “The reason is Hodges; he’s a crook. ‘If we publish that story,’ he said, ‘the directors of the bank will never meet, and we’ll bear the onus of having wrecked the Gotham Trust Company.’ But that’s all a bluff, and he knew it; we could prove that that conference took place, if it ever came to a fight.”
"“You were quite safe, it seems to me,” said Montague.
"“Safe?” echoed Bates. “We had the greatest scoop that a newspaper ever had in this country—if only the Express were a newspaper. But Hodges isn’t publishing the news, you see; he’s serving his masters, whoever they are. I knew that it meant trouble when he bought into the Express. He used to be managing editor of the Gazette, you know; and he made his fortune selling the policy of that paper—its financial news is edited to this very hour in the offices of Wyman’s bankers, and I can prove it to anybody who wants me to. That’s the sort of proposition a man’s up against; and what’s the use of gathering the news?”"
................................................................................................
"But there was one factor in the problem upon which few had reckoned, and that was the vast public which furnished all the money for the game—the people to whom dollars were not simply gamblers’ chips, but to whom they stood for the necessities of life; business men who must have them to pay their clerks on Saturday afternoon; working-men who needed them for rent and food; helpless widows and orphans to whom they meant safety from starvation. These unhappy people had no means of knowing that financial institutions, which were perfectly sound and able to pay their depositors, might be wrecked deliberately in a gamblers’ game. When they heard that banks were tottering, and were being besieged for money, they concluded that there must be real danger—that the long-predicted crash must be at hand. They descended upon Wall Street in hordes—the whole financial district was packed with terrified crowds, and squads of policemen rode through upon horseback in order to keep open the streets."
"“Somebody asked for a dollar,” was the way one banker phrased it. Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid."
"The fight centred around the imperilled Trust Company of the Republic. It was recognised by everyone that if Prentice’s institution went down, it would mean defeat. Longer and longer grew the line of waiting depositors; the vaults were nearly empty. The cashiers adopted the expedient of paying very slowly—they would take half an hour or more to investigate a single check; and thus they kept going until more money arrived. The savings banks of the city agreed unanimously to close their doors, availing themselves of their legal right to demand sixty days before paying. The national banks resorted to the expedient of paying with clearing-house certificates. The newspapers preached confidence and cheered the public—even the newsboys were silenced, so that their shrill cries might no longer increase the public excitement. Groups of mounted policemen swept up and down the streets, keeping the crowds upon the move.
"All this time the funds of the Government had been withheld from the Exchange. The Government must not help the gamblers, everyone insisted. But now had come the moment when it seemed that the Exchange must be closed. Thousands of firms would be ruined, the business of the country would be paralysed. There came word that the Pittsburg Exchange had closed. So once more the terrified magnates crowded into Waterman’s office. Once more the funds of the Government were poured into the banks; and from the banks they came to Waterman; and within a few minutes after the crisis had developed, the announcement was made that Dan Waterman would lend twenty-five million dollars at ten per cent.
"In other countries the people had banks where they could put their money with absolute certainty; for no one had ever known such a thing as a run upon a postal bank."
................................................................................................
"“What are you going to do?” she asked.
"He replied: “I am going into politics. I am going to try to teach the people.”"
................................................................................................
"But there was one factor in the problem upon which few had reckoned, and that was the vast public which furnished all the money for the game—the people to whom dollars were not simply gamblers’ chips, but to whom they stood for the necessities of life; business men who must have them to pay their clerks on Saturday afternoon; working-men who needed them for rent and food; helpless widows and orphans to whom they meant safety from starvation. These unhappy people had no means of knowing that financial institutions, which were perfectly sound and able to pay their depositors, might be wrecked deliberately in a gamblers’ game. When they heard that banks were tottering, and were being besieged for money, they concluded that there must be real danger—that the long-predicted crash must be at hand. They descended upon Wall Street in hordes—the whole financial district was packed with terrified crowds, and squads of policemen rode through upon horseback in order to keep open the streets."
"“Somebody asked for a dollar,” was the way one banker phrased it. Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid."
"The fight centred around the imperilled Trust Company of the Republic. It was recognised by everyone that if Prentice’s institution went down, it would mean defeat. Longer and longer grew the line of waiting depositors; the vaults were nearly empty. The cashiers adopted the expedient of paying very slowly—they would take half an hour or more to investigate a single check; and thus they kept going until more money arrived. The savings banks of the city agreed unanimously to close their doors, availing themselves of their legal right to demand sixty days before paying. The national banks resorted to the expedient of paying with clearing-house certificates. The newspapers preached confidence and cheered the public—even the newsboys were silenced, so that their shrill cries might no longer increase the public excitement. Groups of mounted policemen swept up and down the streets, keeping the crowds upon the move.
"All this time the funds of the Government had been withheld from the Exchange. The Government must not help the gamblers, everyone insisted. But now had come the moment when it seemed that the Exchange must be closed. Thousands of firms would be ruined, the business of the country would be paralysed. There came word that the Pittsburg Exchange had closed. So once more the terrified magnates crowded into Waterman’s office. Once more the funds of the Government were poured into the banks; and from the banks they came to Waterman; and within a few minutes after the crisis had developed, the announcement was made that Dan Waterman would lend twenty-five million dollars at ten per cent.
"In other countries the people had banks where they could put their money with absolute certainty; for no one had ever known such a thing as a run upon a postal bank."
................................................................................................
"“What are you going to do?” she asked.
"He replied: “I am going into politics. I am going to try to teach the people.”"
................................................................................................
