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THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
THE LIGHT OF 
 FOUR CANDLES 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A. 
 
 I908 
 
 -4 
 
Copyright, 1908 
 
 By C. F. KING 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, U. S. A. 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 MURRAY AND EMERY COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
.A. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^t/t^^^ 
 
 TO THE THOUSANDS OF INVESTORS 
 
 whose support made possible the upbuilding in 
 
 seven years of a business aggregating 
 
 millions of dollars, 
 
 and whose confidence and appreciation, even 
 
 after that business was wrecked by the 
 
 Thugs of Finance, 
 
 brought about its speedy rehabilitation, 
 
 thus assuring its renewed 
 
 growth to even greater proportions 
 
 than before, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 L 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IN turning the pages of this book, remember, 
 please, that it is not a novel. It is not 
 fiction. It is not a theoretical treatise. 
 It is not abstract philosophy. It is not a story 
 of things that might have been. 
 
 It is History. 
 
 Between these covers is the story of a war. 
 There is the roar of actual conflict, and the 
 terrible hush that follows the cannonading, 
 while the armies send red-crossed bearers to 
 carry away the dead and wounded. There 
 are attacks and operations of defense — there 
 are pitched battles and thrilling skirmishes — 
 there may be heard the rattle of musketry, the 
 isolated crack of the sharp-shooters' rifles and 
 the muffled hoofbeat of the midnight rider — 
 and in the darkness, skulking, may be seen the 
 masked face of the cowardly assassin. 
 
 This is a story of Men. Men who fight — 
 and men who strike and run away. Men 
 who battle out in the open, without giving 
 ground — and men who drive a dagger in the 
 back. Its scope is as broad as justice, as 
 humanity itself. 
 
 vii 
 
There have gone into the making of these 
 pages the inmost thoughts of a man who has 
 battled against odds and who unhesitatingly 
 rests the judgment as to whether or not he 
 has made a good fight with those who read. 
 Every line represents an earnest endeavor — 
 every word a heart-throb. His every energy, 
 his every ambition, his every ounce of nervous 
 force and every drop of blood have been given 
 to the fight described in this book. He has 
 stood on the battle-field, sometimes with a 
 handful of followers, sometimes with an army, 
 sometimes alone — but always with his face to 
 the foe. 
 
 As you read chapter after chapter perhaps 
 you will pause — perhaps there will come over 
 you a feeling of horror — as the plot unfolds and 
 develops, and you will exclaim, " Can this be 
 possible in America, the land of the free, the 
 home of the brave?" 
 
 Aye, can it be possible — can it be possible ? 
 So thought I before it came to pass — came to 
 pass, not in darkest Africa or bleak Siberia, 
 but in Boston, Massachusetts, United States 
 of America. 
 
 C. F. KING. 
 
 Boston, November, 1908. 
 
 VIII 
 
Chapter 1. 
 Chapter 2. 
 Chapter 3. 
 Chapter 4. 
 Chapter 5. 
 Chapter 6. 
 Chapter 7. 
 Chapter 8. 
 Chapter 9. 
 Chapter 10. 
 Chapter 11. 
 Chapter 12. 
 Chapter 13. 
 Chapter 14. 
 Chapter 15. 
 Chapter 16. 
 Chapter 17. 
 Chapter 18. 
 Chapter 19. 
 Chapter 20. 
 Chapter 21. 
 Chapter 22. 
 Chapter 23. 
 Chapter 24. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Thuggee 
 
 A Mistaken Mercy . 
 Red Hills, Farewell . 
 Bricks without Straw 
 The Silver Tongue of Idaho 
 
 Climbing 
 
 That Is Finance 
 
 Credo . 
 
 The Wolf-Pack and Its Leader 
 In the Day's Work . 
 An Unsavory Boom . 
 A Blow in the Dark 
 Judas and Caiaphas 
 Thirty Pieces of Silver . 
 A Plot that Failed . . . 
 Investigation and Vindication 
 While the City Waited . . 
 A Million-Dollar Bribe . . 
 Hewing Straight to the Line 
 Under False Colors . 
 A Senseless Attack . 
 Died— William W. White . 
 The Power Higher Up . 
 A Conscienceless Campaign 
 ix 
 
 Page 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 19 
 
 23 
 
 32 
 
 37 
 
 47 
 
 68 
 
 73 
 
 95 
 
 104 
 
 115 
 
 126 
 
 138 
 
 152 
 
 164 
 
 173 
 
 181 
 
 202 
 
 216 
 
 229 
 
 233 
 
 240 
 
 248 
 
Chapter 25. 
 Chapter 26. 
 Chapter 27. 
 Chapter 28. 
 Chapter 29. 
 Chapter 30. 
 Chapter 31. 
 Chapter 32. 
 Chapter 33. 
 Chapter 34. 
 Chapter 35. 
 Chapter 36. 
 Chapter 37. 
 Chapter 38. 
 Chapter 39. 
 Chapter 40. 
 Chapter 41. 
 Chapter 42. 
 Chapter 43. 
 Chapter 44. 
 Chapter 45. 
 Chapter 46. 
 Chapter 47. 
 Chapter 48. 
 Chapter 49. 
 Chapter 50. 
 
 Thus Far Shalt Thou Go . 
 Progress — and an Insurrection 
 A Rat in a Trap 
 The Cry for Mercy . 
 
 Peace 
 
 Gathering Thunder Clouds 
 The Tempest Breaks 
 In the Path of the Storm 
 Sounding the Assembly 
 A Convincing Test . 
 Plans — and a Planner . 
 The Whirl of the Market 
 Lawson Redivivus . 
 Enter the District Attorney 
 An Unexpected Stab 
 A Bitter Interview . 
 The Rules of the Game 
 
 Rising Waters 
 
 The Flood . . . 
 
 To Be or Not to Be 
 
 Drifting 
 
 Under the Southern Cross 
 In the Island of Ceylon 
 Homeward Bound . 
 Back to a Wreck 
 " The Light of Four Candles 
 
 x 
 
The Light of Four Candles 
 
 Chapter I 
 THUGGEE 
 
 IN INDIA — land of palaces and hovels, of 
 light and darkness, of high aspirations and 
 low brutalities — sits enthroned the ten- 
 armed goddess Kali. She is spouse of Siva, 
 the creator, and all Hind knows her as the 
 genius of destruction, murder, assassination, 
 and sudden, terrible death. 
 
 Sworn to her service are her devotees, and 
 her service is a service of blood. She demands 
 of men a sacrifice no less than life itself. 
 To placate her insatiable thirst for destruction 
 her priests kill. Secretly, under cover of 
 darkness, they kill. Disguised as pilgrims 
 they mix with those pious Hindus who journey 
 to the sacred Ganges, and in an unguarded 
 moment hurl around the unsuspecting 
 stranger's throat the knotted cord that bears 
 upon its end a weight imaged in the likeness 
 of the horrible goddess. Without a sound 
 he dies. His body goes to the Ganges 
 crocodiles. His soul passes back to the gods 
 
 1 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 — into Nirvana — out of the dream of Brahm. 
 His murderer makes an ablution and offers 
 up thanks that she has strengthened him to 
 give her one more victim. 
 
 In all India there is no more compelling 
 fear than that of the disciples of Kali, for they 
 are without pity, without compassion and 
 without remorse. They are stranglers by 
 religion and trade. In Hindu their practice 
 of secret murder is known as 'Thuggee" 
 and they themselves are called 'Thugs." 
 From this the word has come to America, 
 where it means a rough, a law-breaker, a 
 deceiver, a hired disturber. 
 
 There are comparatively few Thugs in 
 India to-day. It is due to the energy, the 
 courage and the iron hand of one English- 
 man that this is so. He was Lord Bentinck, 
 and it was eighty years ago that he ruled in 
 the land of many gods and determined that 
 Thuggee must go. Until then, horrible as 
 the sacrifice had been, great as had been its 
 toll of innocent and unsuspecting pilgrims, 
 it had been suffered to exist in the much- 
 abused name of religion. Custom was its 
 excuse. It has been practised since the 
 thirteenth century, said the Hindus. To root 
 
 2 
 
THUGGEE 
 
 it out might unsettle the English rule, said 
 the weak and timid. Then came Bentinck. 
 
 For seven years — from 1828 to 1835 — he 
 strove against the Thugs. Through all those 
 interminable months his life hung by a 
 thread. Marked from one end of India to 
 the other for sacrifice, he still did his duty. 
 In those seven years of administration one 
 thousand five hundred and sixty-two Thugs 
 were hanged, transported or imprisoned for 
 life. The sect was almost exterminated. 
 To-day, in India, there are a few devotees of 
 the ten-armed goddess who pursue their 
 deadly trade. But they are far back in the 
 interior of the country, where British rule is 
 more a name than a fact. The stranger in 
 the greater part of the land is free from the 
 terrors of the knotted cord. 
 
 And so it must be written down that the 
 work of Bentinck was good work — that he 
 did well — that he accomplished much in the 
 land where the opportunity was at hand for 
 much good to be accomplished. He did not 
 take into consideration the custom of his day 
 or the custom of days gone by. And yet, 
 perhaps, had Bentinck met the death that 
 for seven years hovered close to him like a 
 
 3 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 great, spreading shadow, there might be some 
 who would say of him to this day that it 
 served him right — that he should have left 
 well enough alone — that he should not have 
 interfered. 
 
 A few, perhaps, would say that, and yet 
 countless thousands of others in India, fol- 
 lowers of all the abundance of gods in that 
 land, have mourned his death and builded 
 to his memory the enduring monument of 
 Fame. 
 
 It is a far cry from distant, benighted India 
 to America, of which we like to sing loudly 
 as "the land of the free and the home of the 
 brave" — although a large percentage of us 
 do not know the words of one entire verse 
 of the song. It is a long month's journey 
 from the temples of Kali to the shrines of 
 Wall and State Streets. You who read may 
 think, at first blush, that only a fanatic can 
 find a fair simile between the half -naked, 
 red-eyed murderer of India, with his knotted 
 cord, and the smooth-jowled, well-groomed 
 devotee of Wall or State Street, with his 
 telephone and stock ticker. 
 
 In this book I shall show to you that there 
 is a system of robbery and ruin in America 
 
 4 
 
THUGGEE 
 
 that takes more toll of lives than does the 
 struggling remnant of Kali's devotees in 
 far-off Hind. I will show to you that he who 
 protests against the scheme of things, as soon 
 as his voice rises loudly enough to be heard 
 above the hum of the street, is a marked man. 
 I will show you that he who has the honesty, 
 the earnestness and the courage to speak for 
 the submerged victims of financial Thuggee 
 is himself picked for the next sacrifice, and 
 fortunate indeed is he who can escape the 
 web woven for him by the Master Thugs. 
 
 I will give you a history of things as they 
 were and are. I will write down, so that all 
 who run may read, and all who read may 
 know, the innermost details of the battle 
 that I have waged for many long, weary years. 
 
 I shall not juggle with the truth. What 
 I know I know. What I have seen I have 
 seen. I am about to set it all down, with 
 the dates of the happenings, the details of the 
 occurrences and the names of the actors. I 
 shall not suppress any of it. 
 
 I shall not, however, write in a spirit of 
 revenge. In the long ago, my good mother 
 taught me, as a child upon her knee, to under- 
 stand that vengeance belongs to God, and 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I am thankful that the early teachings of 
 my mother make it possible for me to remem- 
 ber without bitterness whatever ill, hurt or 
 harm a fellow-man may have attempted to 
 cause me at any time. 
 
 So what I write in this book is written with- 
 out malice, without ill-feeling, without harsh 
 recollections, with peace in my own soul and 
 good- will toward every one. 
 
 When I returned to my home on the evening 
 of the twelfth of June and learned the details 
 of the campaign of damnation and destruction 
 which had been inaugurated against me and 
 the corporations with which I had been 
 affiliated — when the plot was fully unfolded 
 to me and I began to realize the meaning of 
 it all — I do not pretend to say that in my 
 heart there arose a spirit of forgiveness 
 toward the Thugs responsible for the things 
 that had been done and that were scheduled 
 to be done. I wish that it were so. I wish 
 that my mind, my heart and my life were so 
 pure and free from sin that I could on that 
 occasion have followed the example of that 
 Leader of men and said, "I forgive." But 
 I could not. 
 
 This much, however, I did. I sent word 
 
 6 
 
THUGGEE 
 
 by trusted friends to two individuals in 
 Boston — two men who call Boston home, 
 and who have occasion to move about that 
 portion of the city where I am most often 
 to be seen, and this was the message I sent 
 to them: "I do not want to meet you face to 
 face. I hope I shall not rub elbows with 
 you on the sidewalk. I shall endeavor to 
 avoid you at hotels, cafes and clubs. Should 
 you see me at any time I request that you 
 cross to the other side of the street — get out 
 of my way. I do not want to come close to 
 you, and I am very much afraid my feet 
 would not turn the other way should I see you 
 
 first." 
 
 My prayer to high heaven is that I shall 
 be permitted to finish this life without at any 
 time meeting the two men here referred to, 
 and that I may in time be able to close my 
 eyes to the past and forget— just forget! 
 
Chapter II 
 A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 A PICTURE is indelibly imprinted upon 
 my mind — a picture of a moment 
 of triumph. 
 
 Mine had become the greatest individual 
 financial house in America. My offices oc- 
 cupied an entire floor and nearly one-half 
 of another floor in a great office building in 
 the city of Boston. These rooms were filled, 
 at the moment of which I write, with the 
 executives with whom I had surrounded my- 
 self. I had summoned them for a conference. 
 
 There had been many years of struggle, 
 years of up-building, years of hard, unceasing 
 effort. Success had come at last; success 
 moral and success material. I had become 
 a leader of an army numbering thousands of 
 investors who believed the financial gospel I 
 had preached. 
 
 Then came the day when my leadership 
 made inroads into the program of pillage 
 engineered by the Master Thug. He set 
 for himself, as his first and most important 
 
 8 
 
A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 task, my destruction. It was a task that he 
 must accomplish if he would have license 
 to hurl the knotted cord as had been his 
 custom. He spared neither money, toil nor 
 resource. He had influence; he had access 
 to power in high places; greatest of all, he 
 had hundreds of thousands of dollars, taken 
 in toll from those who had trusted him. All 
 these things he pitted against the right that 
 I and my followers stood for. 
 
 The battle had waged long and bitterly. 
 At moments he had seemed to have the best 
 of it. At other moments fortune had seemed 
 to favor the armies of truth. For months 
 the contest was waged. 
 
 Now it was over. 
 
 The balance had turned in my favor. 
 The Master Craftsman, by a tactical mistake, 
 had placed himself in my power. The con- 
 ference in my office was to decide just how 
 and when to administer the coup de grace 
 that should rid the innocent investors of 
 America, for all time, of this man and his 
 methods. 
 
 It was an impressive company that I 
 summoned to meet me that morning in the 
 spring of 1907. 
 
 9 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 There were the executives of my Boston 
 office — office manager and advertising mana- 
 ger and their assistants. There were the 
 more important heads from my New York 
 office, which was then even larger and more 
 ambitious than my home office in Boston. 
 There were the best men from the Boston 
 Daily Tribune, my newspaper — the editors, 
 the financial writers, the artists, the cartoon- 
 ists and the star reporters. There were 
 attorneys, and accountants, and other men 
 in whose judgment and discretion I had 
 confidence. 
 
 As they assembled, one by one, and took 
 seats in my private office until that com- 
 modious room was crowded to the doors, 
 I surveyed them with pride. I believed 
 then — and I believe now — that no more able, 
 energetic and competent staff of lieutenants 
 has ever been assembled by a financial house 
 in this country than that with which I was 
 surrounded. I believed then — and, with one 
 or two exceptions, I believe now — that no 
 more honest, faithful, devoted and loyal staff 
 ever surrounded an employer. 
 
 On the big, square desk in the middle of 
 the room — my private desk — was a pile of 
 
 10 
 
A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 manuscript. There were letters, advertise- 
 ments, affidavits. It contained at least a 
 hundred component parts. It was evidence. 
 
 When the staff was assembled I placed 
 before its members something of the detail 
 of what had been gathered. I asked their 
 advice as to what I should do. From every 
 corner of the room, with hardly a dissenting 
 voice, came the reply: 
 
 " Stop Lawson, once and forever." 
 
 It was pointed out that this last engage- 
 ment in the war that had been waged must 
 be a fight to the death. No quarter could 
 be asked and none could be given. It was 
 pointed out that the arch-enemy of investors, 
 with his back to the wall, might be expected 
 to fight like a rat in a trap, for he has always 
 been a fighter, albeit his telling blows are 
 invariably delivered in the dark and below 
 the belt. It was pointed out that I might 
 expect extravagant suits for damages, that 
 every man present — especially those employed 
 on the Boston Daily Tribune, which would 
 bear the brunt of the initial skirmishing — 
 might expect to be arrested for criminal libel. 
 
 From the desk I took a pile of little oblong 
 slips. They were cashiers' checks, payable 
 
 11 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 to my order, representing nearly all the ready 
 money I possessed. I had withdrawn all 
 cash deposited in banks, for the two-fold 
 purpose of preventing my bank accounts 
 being attached as part of the Lawson retalia- 
 tory campaign and to have a sufficiency of 
 ready money to provide any and all bonds 
 that might be required to protect my property, 
 my person or my employees. 
 
 In that little pile of paper was over four 
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars. As I 
 look back over the dark vista of the past 
 few months, I realize that that vast amount 
 of money, plus such other property as I then 
 possessed, worth at least two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars more — was the price of mercy. 
 
 But one man in all that company advised 
 that I show mercy to the man whom I then 
 had in my power. His name will be found 
 in more than one place in this book. I 
 thought I knew him, then — I was mistaken. 
 
 Every other member of my staff favored 
 immediate and drastic action. Some of them 
 urged it on the ground of right, of justice, 
 of fair and proper retribution for the sins 
 committed against hundreds and thousands 
 of innocent investors. Others, with a less 
 
 12 
 
A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 altruistic spirit, urged it on the ground of 
 business expediency. 
 
 " It is you or Lawson," said one, earnestly. 
 "He has spent thousands of dollars in a 
 fruitless attempt to ruin you. He will spend 
 thousands more, for every day you are in 
 business his profits are hundreds of dollars 
 less than they would be if he were not harried 
 by your exposures of his plans. If he had 
 ever secured anything against you he would 
 not have spared you. It is your duty to 
 yourself, to your family, to us, just as much 
 as to the investors of whom these others 
 speak, to stop Lawson now and for all time." 
 
 For upwards of an hour I listened. Then 
 I gave my decision. 
 
 "You are right, gentlemen," I said. 'We 
 will proceed with the fight. There can be 
 but one end. We will give no quarter." 
 
 I issued definite instructions to the staff 
 of the Boston Daily Tribune, as a result of 
 which there appeared in that newspaper, 
 the following morning, the most complete 
 and detailed exposure of the Master Thug 
 and his methods that ever graced the columns 
 of any American publication. 
 
 In printing this bombardment against 
 
 13 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Thomas W. Lawson, I announced boldly 
 that it was but the beginning of the fight, and 
 that I proposed to carry it to the last ditch. 
 I had in my possession at that time evidence 
 which I believed would bring to a quick end 
 the money -getting of the great charlatan. I 
 announced at that time that the evidence in my 
 possession would be immediately lodged where 
 it would be most effectual, and I proposed 
 to follow it up with all the vigor and earnest- 
 ness at my command. 
 
 When I made that statement, I as firmly 
 intended carrying out that plan as at this 
 moment I intend to write the paragraph 
 that follows this one. 
 
 Why is it that men, ordinarily far-seeing 
 and strong, build up a pyramid of work only 
 to leave the apex unfinished? Why is it that 
 a traveler, coming upon a venomous snake 
 and getting his heel upon the reptile's head, 
 shudders, forbears to stamp upon it and 
 turns away, allowing the wounded monster 
 to crawl off to recover and sink his fangs into 
 a later journeyer — perhaps into the flesh of 
 the very man who spared him ? 
 
 There are great leaders who say that mercy 
 at a critical moment is weakness. Perhaps 
 
 14 
 
A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 it is. Probably the great general, Grant, 
 was right, when he maintained that he was 
 strongest and in the end most humane when 
 he sent his men against the Southern cannon 
 in such multitudes that, although thousands 
 died, the battles were won by sheer force of 
 numbers. 
 
 As I look back upon the days that are 
 gone I cannot think of any other argument 
 that could have induced me to withhold my 
 punishing hand— to lift my heel from the 
 snake's head — to sit supinely by and wait— 
 than the appeal that was made to me soon 
 after this conference. Whether it was mere 
 chance that caused this particular appeal to 
 be made, or whether it was due to Lawson's 
 knowledge of my nature, or whether, perhaps, 
 he did at that moment intend to keep his 
 word and sin no more against the investors 
 of the country, I do not know. But truth 
 it is that the appeal was made to me in the 
 name of ordinary humanity— disassociated 
 from all reference to what had gone before. 
 
 I was ever filled with sympathy for the 
 sick. That man who is suffering bodily ill 
 commands my pity and help, be he good man 
 or bad man, follower of the Christ or disciple 
 
 15 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 of Pluto. I think I can safely leave the 
 judgment as to this to the hundreds of people 
 whose business obligations to me have been 
 interrupted by illness and who have had 
 experience with my attitude toward those 
 who suffer misfortune. 
 
 My hand was stretched out to smite. My 
 mind was closed to mercy. And then came 
 word that Thomas W. Lawson, wearied and 
 ill, wished to spend the summer in Europe 
 in search of health and could not go unless 
 I would agree to cease my campaign against 
 him until his return. 
 
 A truce was asked for. It would have 
 been refused on any other ground. But 
 when the intermediary, no less important a 
 man than the Mayor of Boston, urged me 
 to concede it on the ground that delay meant 
 nothing to my plans, while to refuse would 
 mean that I was fighting a sick man, I yielded. 
 
 Did I do wrong? If so, I have suffered 
 for it more than any one else. Should I have 
 forged ahead, forgetting that "the quality 
 of mercy is not strained"? Perhaps. And 
 yet I did not have it in my heart to kick a 
 sick man while he was down. To be sure, 
 although he had promised me a warning 
 
 16 
 
A MISTAKEN MERCY 
 
 when he was ready to renew the fight, he 
 seized the first opportunity after his recovery 
 to plunge a knife into my back. Yet, even 
 now, I cannot feel that I did entirely wrong. 
 At least it would have been right with any 
 other person — any man with a soul and a 
 capacity for gratitude. 
 
 So I gave the order, "Cease firing!" I 
 gave it against the advice of more than one 
 of my lieutenants, whose prophecies have 
 been woven true in the warp and woof of 
 time. But I was ever arbiter of my own 
 destinies, and I gave the order. 
 
 The battle ceased. There was silence on 
 the firing line. The opposing armies, although 
 they did not fraternize, at least ignored each 
 other as the sentries passed. 
 
 "I shall rest on my arms," I said, "ready 
 to renew the fight whenever the other side 
 is ready. In the meantime it is understood 
 that I reserve all rights of criticism, but will 
 not again attack Lawson on the ground of 
 what is past. If he will cease his former 
 practices, as he promises, I will not interfere 
 with him or use what he has done to prevent 
 him doing a legitimate and proper business. 
 He has until his return from Europe to decide 
 
 17 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 whether the truce, on these terms, shall be 
 permanent or not." 
 
 He returned. He sent word to me that the 
 truce on my terms was to be permanent. 
 I disbanded my army. 
 
 I look about me to-day with sadness. 
 Gone are the great offices. Gone are the 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars that lay 
 upon the desk on that conference day. Gone 
 is the splendor of my home life — all the 
 material things that marked business success. 
 
 I shall have them again, for God reigns 
 and the investors of America know a man 
 from a snake. But what a pity I didn't 
 stamp when the venomous head of the serpent 
 was under my heel! 
 
 18 
 
Chapter III 
 RED HILLS, FAREWELL 
 
 IN STRIKING contrast to that picture 
 of power, and authority, and moving 
 machinery of business life, there comes 
 to my mind another picture. It is an old 
 picture, now, for it was first imprinted on 
 my retina more than thirty years ago. But 
 it is a picture that can no more fade than can 
 the summer sunlight fade forever, departing 
 with the shades of falling night never to come 
 again. 
 
 Look into the frame with me. The view 
 has a place here, for all that I have done and 
 all I shall ever do are influenced by this scene. 
 
 Can you see with me a little Southern 
 mill village, sparkling in the light of a newly 
 risen sun? It is far back in the Red Hills 
 of North Carolina, four miles from any 
 railroad, four miles from the next nearest 
 village or hamlet, four miles from a church. 
 One winding street lies dustily silent, soon 
 to burn in the warm, North Carolina sun- 
 shine. The River Haw. pent up by a dam 
 
 19 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 which seemed to us boys providentially pro- 
 vided to make a "swimmin' hole," twists 
 lazily around the hills above the town and just 
 below the dam roars through a millraee to turn 
 the spindles of a cotton mill. 
 
 Along the street sit the cottages of the mill 
 people, neat, clean and well-cared-for, for 
 Swepsonville, North Carolina, was a model mill 
 town in the late seventies, even as it is to-day. 
 
 You can see my home there. It is the largest 
 of the cottages, larger not from any pomp of 
 circumstances, but because my mother, hus- 
 bandless and with nine children, must fain eke 
 out a livelihood by taking boarders among the 
 mill operatives. And you can see mother, 
 standing at the gate, shading her eyes from the 
 fast-rising sun and watching me as I turn the 
 corner, climb the hill to the high bridge, and 
 pass across to the other side. 
 
 I am going away, out into the world to seek 
 fame and fortune. All my belongings are in an 
 old-fashioned carpet-bag — even to my one pair 
 of shoes. I am barefooted, clad in jeans, a 
 gawky, spindly, mop-haired boy of twelve. 
 Only twelve, and going away to wrest a for- 
 tune from the great world of which I know 
 nothing, not even that it is uniformly cruel. 
 
 20 
 
RED HILLS, FAREWELL 
 
 Mother has just said good-bye at the gate. 
 She tried hard not to cry, I know, although the 
 effort was not very successful. I told her she 
 would hear from me often — that I couldn't 
 help but succeed — and that she should receive 
 every week all the money I could send. She 
 said, " God bless you, boy. Be careful of your- 
 self. Be a good boy. Remember all I've 
 ever taught you. Good-bye. " 
 
 I am leaving the little village, never to return 
 except on a visit. I am not as regretful as I 
 ought to be, for the great, wide world, with all 
 its allurements, stretches out before me. I do 
 not appreciate as well as I might the good 
 friends I am leaving behind — the helpful spirit 
 of the place — the innate kindness of all the 
 people. 
 
 As I pass the old saw-mill through whose 
 doors, of pleasant afternoons, I have watched 
 the great logs being sawn, and in whose roomy 
 depths I have each week attended Sunday 
 school or listened to the texts of some itiner- 
 ant preacher, for there was no church in the 
 village, I think but little of the days that have 
 passed there — the boyhood days that will never 
 come again. Those thoughts are reserved for 
 later years. 
 
 21 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I trudge across the bridge and up the other 
 side of the river by the big dam. The river is 
 roaring as of old, but there is no mill there. 
 No busy clack of spindles will resound across 
 the water to-day, nor for many a day to come, 
 for the big mill lies in a*shes. It is because of 
 that calamity to Swepsonville that our family 
 has been broken up and I must go away to 
 earn my living beyond the home roof. 
 
 Just by the old swimming hole there is a 
 bend in the road and I turn and look across the 
 glistening waves to where our house sits near 
 the river. Mother still stands at the gate. 
 She waves her apron. I wave my hand and 
 turn from her sight. 
 
 Perhaps she calls to me again. I know not. 
 If she does her words are a repetition of those 
 she spoke when I left the door, and which still 
 echo in my ears: "Be a good boy. Remem- 
 ber all I've taught you. Good-bye." 
 
 I have remembered. She taught me to be 
 fair, and just, and honest and true; to fear 
 nothing but wrong and never question the 
 right. Out into a strange and hostile world I 
 went, a barefoot lad of twelve. I have never 
 forgotten. I have never given her cause to be 
 ashamed of me. 
 
 22 
 
Chapter IV 
 BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 
 
 HOW I have lived my life is known of 
 many men. How I have fought up- 
 ward from obscurity to a command- 
 ing place in the world of finance as it has to do 
 with investments, how I have battled for cer- 
 tain distinct and — until I advanced them — 
 unheard of principles, how I have succeeded in 
 the main although not without bitter reverses 
 — not the least of which is my recent one, when 
 I lost fortune and business and narrowly 
 escaped losing reason, life and reputation as 
 well — is history. 
 
 Men do not know, however, how it came 
 about that from my earliest days I was a 
 deadly foe to speculation and market manip- 
 ulation. It has been a personal matter and 
 I have never told it, until now. It seems to me 
 to be so inseparably linked with my later life as 
 to be worth the telling at this time in order to 
 make clearer my life-long position on this 
 matter of stock gambling. 
 
 It is a story that goes back to my babyhood. 
 
 23 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 To tell it it is necessary that I make reference 
 to one or two personal family matters, dating 
 back to the time of the Civil War. 
 
 It is a matter of history in Rockingham 
 County, North Carolina, where I was born, 
 that the families of my father and mother had 
 been among the largest plantation owners in 
 the county before the great conflict. My 
 father owned many slaves. My mother — a 
 widow when he married her — was also a slave- 
 holder of substance. 
 
 Both were wealthy and prosperous, as wealth 
 and prosperity were reckoned in those days, at 
 the time of their union. Then came the war. 
 
 It was my father's oft-repeated boast that no 
 slave of his should ever be freed by cannon. 
 When, some months before the surrender of 
 Lee at Appomattox Court House, he made up 
 his mind that the cause of the Southern Con- 
 federacy was lost, he made his boast good. 
 Marshalling his slaves, men, women and 
 children, into companies — their total was sixty- 
 seven — he marched them to Went worth, the 
 county seat, where he lined them up before the 
 court house and, in the presence of many 
 witnesses, drew up the papers that set them all 
 free. 
 
 24 
 
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 
 
 Then, standing on the court-house steps, he 
 made his former bondmen a speech that is a 
 tradition to-day in the county, in which he 
 related to them the changed conditions and 
 asked them all to return to work for him on the 
 plantation at wages. Therefore it came about 
 that at the end of the war he had workmen on 
 his plantation and, by comparison with some 
 of his impoverished neighbors, was quite com- 
 fortable. He succeeded to a degree in over- 
 coming the effects of the devastations of war 
 and reconstruction and when he died, a few 
 years after Lee's surrender, his mind was 
 peaceful in the assurance that he had left my 
 mother and the nine children not wealthy, to 
 be sure, but very comfortably provided for. 
 
 As administrator of my father's estate was 
 named James W. Reid, a leading citizen of 
 Rockingham County, and an intimate friend of 
 the family. He was a member of Congress 
 from that district. His brother was the 
 Methodist Episcopal presiding elder in that 
 section. He was himself regarded as one of 
 the most brilliant, able, honest and promising 
 lawyers in that part of the state. 
 
 My mother trusted him implicitly in the 
 settlement of my father's estate. Much 
 
 25 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 readjustment was necessary after the waste 
 of the war, and there came a time when Mr. 
 Reid suggested that in order to discharge such 
 obligations as existed and clear certain titles 
 to some of the estates it would be well to sell a 
 portion of the lands. On the whole, he 
 believed it would be well to sell the entire 
 plantation. This, he explained, was largely a 
 matter of form and he showed her how she 
 would benefit from the transaction and be 
 much better off after it had been made than 
 before. 
 
 My mother signed such papers as James W. 
 Reid directed. The plantation was sold and 
 the money turned over to him. He held in his 
 possession every cent of my mother's fortune — 
 every cent that stood between her and penury. 
 And she had nine children. 
 
 Then James W. Reid went away, a de- 
 faulter. He deserted his wife and children. 
 He deserted his seat in Congress. He de- 
 serted his church, of which he was a prominent 
 and respected member. And with him went 
 every dollar my mother had in the world. 
 
 Sixty miles to the eastward was the little 
 town of Swepsonville, in Alamance County — a 
 Southern cotton-mill town. Mother was forced 
 
 26 
 
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 
 
 to go there, that the older children might work. 
 She helped keep the family purse filled by 
 taking boarders. We all worked as soon as we 
 were able. I was a bobbin boy at ten. 
 
 There were four hundred hands in the mill, 
 which was a three-story frame structure, and it 
 ran night and day with two shifts. Its 
 machinery was idle only from midnight Satur- 
 day night to midnight Sunday night. I was 
 in the night shift. As I remember it, it did not 
 seem to be especially unpleasant. I recall but 
 one painful incident — being knocked across 
 the room by a cruel overseer who found me 
 asleep one night when I should have been at 
 work. 
 
 We had religious services every Sunday in 
 the saw-mill, Sunday school and occasional 
 sermons from a Baptist preacher who came 
 from the next town and preached for what he 
 could raise in the collection box. We had 
 singing lessons weekly. This was about the 
 limit of our diversions. 
 
 They were good people in that town. 
 Everybody was kind and generous. Every- 
 body was hard-working. I think everybody 
 was religious. The favorite tune sung or 
 whistled was "In the Sweet Bye-and-Bye. " 
 
 27 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I have sometimes wondered, since I grew up, it 
 that was because they had very little to look 
 forward to in this life. 
 
 Then came Swepsonville's calamity. The 
 entire population, aroused by the loud clang of 
 the bell on the hill, went up one night and stood 
 in horror, watching the mill burn to the ground. 
 
 George W. Swepson, of Raleigh, the owner 
 of the mill, was in town. I knew him quite 
 well, for he boarded at our house when he was 
 in Swepsonville, and I want to depart from the 
 thread of my story just long enough to pay his 
 memory a warm personal tribute. He was a 
 good man, a strong man, a Southern gentle- 
 man. He appreciated the humanity of his 
 employees and was interested in them person- 
 ally. There was none of the soulless magnate 
 about him. The people in his town admired 
 him, respected him and loved him. 
 
 I worked my way through the crowd, at 
 eleven or twelve o'clock that night, and stood 
 beside George W. Swepson. Then and there 
 I received my first lesson in bearing up under 
 adversity, in turning defeat into victory. 
 Standing there in the glare of the burning mill, 
 which meant a terrible loss to him, Mr. Swep- 
 son made a drawing for the new mill which 
 
 28 
 
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 
 
 should be erected upon its ashes, and while the 
 sparks were still shooting heavenward he gave 
 orders to his general superintendent, Monroe 
 Cooke, to order the materials from which the 
 next structure, to be of brick, should be 
 constructed. 
 
 This was on Thursday or Friday, and on 
 Monday morning the brick yard was started. 
 Left without a position by the destruction of 
 the mill, I applied for work at the kilns and was 
 given a place as brick bearer, at twenty-five 
 cents a day. 
 
 For some weeks I bore brick from the 
 molders to the sun-drying places. I earned a 
 dollar and a half a week and turned it over to 
 my mother. Then there came a day when she 
 realized that the family was not earning 
 enough to support itself. Some of us must go 
 away from home, out into the world where 
 wages were higher and opportunities greater. 
 I was one of those to go and with four dollars 
 in my pocket and my shoes in my carpet-bag 
 I crossed the high bridge and struck out for 
 the railroad and that fortune I never doubted 
 I should some day have. 
 
 These days of hardship and toil, my experi- 
 ences as a bobbin boy and later as a brick 
 
 29 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 bearer, my brothers' work in the mill and 
 finally the breaking up of our family and its 
 scattering to the four winds of heaven, were 
 all due to the defalcation and absconding of 
 James W. Reid. 
 
 When I tell you why he absconded you will 
 understand something of my attitude regard- 
 ing gambling in the stock market during all 
 these years. 
 
 James W. Reid fled, a ruined man, because 
 he had lost his own fortune and money en- 
 trusted to him — had lost it by speculating in 
 stocks on margin. 
 
 In those days I did not know what it meant. 
 I could not understand it. I thought that per- 
 haps a highwayman had come upon him in the 
 night and robbed him. It was all such a 
 mystery to me. But throughout the years as 
 I grew from boyhood into manhood the story 
 rang and echoed in my ears: "James W. 
 Reid went away because he lost his own 
 fortune and the fortune of my mother by 
 speculating in stocks on margin." 
 
 Just when I came to realize its full meaning 
 I do not know, and neither do I know when 
 there first came over me a feeling of abhorrence 
 against stock speculation. From the begin- 
 
 30 
 
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 
 
 ning it has been a part of my life, the same as 
 if it were born with me and always mingled 
 with my life-blood. Early I felt its sting. 
 Early I tasted its poison. 
 
 31 
 
Chapter V 
 THE SILVER TONGUE OF IDAHO 
 
 ALTHOUGH, chronologically, it be- 
 longs much farther along in this book, 
 this seems to me a proper time to 
 write of a happening in which I participated 
 fully a quarter of a century after the burning of 
 the Swepsonville cotton mill. 
 
 Eight years ago, in the fall of 1900, I was 
 in the West on a business trip. Matters called 
 me to Payette, in the beautiful Payette Valley, 
 Idaho, and to the office of President Moss of 
 the First National Bank of that city. Our 
 business finished, our talk drifted to politics. 
 
 Mr. Moss informed me that in the preceding 
 year he had been the Republican candidate 
 for governor of Idaho and had been defeated. 
 
 "And there was only one cause for my de- 
 feat," he said. "Early in the campaign my 
 success seemed certain. I should assuredly 
 have won but for the fact that the Democratic 
 party reinforced their candidate by putting on 
 the stump against me the most brilliant orator 
 it has ever been my ill fortune to combat. I 
 
 32 
 
THE SILVER TONGUE OF IDAHO 
 
 was defeated by eloquence. I tell you that man 
 Reid is certainly entitled to the name they give 
 him — 'the silver-tongued orator of Idaho.' 
 
 "Reid, you say his name is?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes. James W. Reid." 
 
 "How long has he lived in Idaho?" I 
 asked, impressed with the similarity in the 
 name. 
 
 "About twenty-five years," replied Mr. 
 Moss. "He came here in the seventies, from 
 somewhere down South." 
 
 Two or three more questions and answers, 
 and what I learned, added to a vague, unde- 
 fined rumor of a score of years before that 
 some one had seen the missing North Carolin- 
 ian in the then territory of Idaho, convinced 
 me that at last there had come to me the 
 opportunity to meet face to face the man to 
 whose going wrong I could lay all those 
 privations and struggles of my early life. 
 
 I closed my conversation with Mr. Moss and 
 returned to my hotel. There I sat down to 
 decide how to approach this man Reid, what to 
 say to him and how to say it. 
 
 For years I had looked forward to this 
 moment, although I never expected to see it. 
 Awake and asleep I had dreamed of what I 
 
 33 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 should say should James W. Reid and I ever 
 meet face to face — and what I should do. 
 
 In the privacy of my room I sat down to 
 think it out. Through my mind there flashed, 
 one after the other, with the clearness of a 
 perfect moving-picture machine, a series of 
 scenes. I saw the broad plantation in Rock- 
 ingham County — the plantation of whose 
 luxuries I remembered but little — its many 
 acres shining in the Southern sun. I saw the 
 little, simple mill village with its humble 
 cottages and its kindly people. I saw my 
 mother, happy and almost carefree on her 
 fair estates, and later I saw her, bowed and 
 weary, struggling to care for the family in 
 Swepsonville, putting her children to work 
 when they should have been imbibing knowl- 
 edge of books, toiling about the house herself 
 when she should have had rest and peace after 
 the trouble she had undergone. 
 
 I saw my brothers, working their twelve- 
 hour shifts in the mill. I saw myself, a little 
 bobbin boy, forced to labor when I should 
 have been at school or at play. I remembered 
 the pain of that night when the harsh overseer 
 cuffed me. I remembered the hours of vain, 
 childish regret that we were poor. 
 
 34 
 
 
THE SILVER TONGUE OF IDAHO 
 
 I saw again on memory's picture screen the 
 burning mill, the glare lighting the heavens 
 for miles around, its reflection falling on the 
 white faces of the hundreds whom the flames 
 were putting out of employment. I saw the 
 new-made brick yard. I renewed, in mind, 
 the toil of those weeks when, for twenty- 
 five cents a day, I bore bricks for the kiln 
 workers. 
 
 The picture changed and I saw myself 
 forced to leave my home and all the loved ones, 
 trudging along the dusty road and across the 
 high bridge to the river bank by the old swim- 
 ming hole. I saw my mother standing there 
 at the door, waving her apron and bidding me 
 God-speed. I reviewed in memory the hard, 
 bitter days that had followed — the long years 
 during which I learned something of the hard- 
 ness of a selfish world. 
 
 More than once I sprang to my feet, deter- 
 mined to go at once to find the man to whom 
 I felt I could credit all the painful portions of 
 these pictures — to accuse him, with overflowing 
 words, of all our wrongs — to wreak a personal 
 and physical vengeance upon him for what we 
 had undergone. 
 
 For hours I battled with myself, and then — 
 
 35 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I left the city and never saw him. For be- 
 neath all the desire for personal revenge, 
 beneath all the loud outcry of my soul for pun- 
 ishment upon this man whose flight had 
 brought ruin to my family, there spoke the 
 sense of justice, which said: 
 
 "This man was but the product of a system. 
 He sinned, not because he was inherently bad, 
 not because he wished to sin, but because he 
 was tempted to speculate and because specu- 
 lation is a plague against which there is no 
 preventive virus. If I punish Reid I but 
 punish an effect and not the cause. I will 
 keep on as I have begun, fighting the broader 
 evil. I will oppose speculation upon margins 
 until I have done at least a man's share toward 
 securing its certain ultimate abolition. The 
 man whom I need to seek is the man who in- 
 duced this silver-tongued orator to risk the 
 money of others in a gambling game. To 
 accuse, browbeat, threaten or assault one man 
 is to lose sight of the breadth and importance 
 of the battle. It is the system that should be 
 fought. And I am more resolved than ever to 
 fight it." 
 
 So far as I am aware, the silver-tongued 
 orator of Idaho never knew that I existed. 
 
 36 
 
Chapter VI 
 CLIMBING 
 
 AND NOW, following that sunny morn- 
 ing when I bade farewell to winding, 
 dusty street, and placid, glistening 
 swimming hole, come twenty years of climb- 
 ing. The memories of that score of years are 
 memories of hard, unceasing effort. They are 
 memories of mingled encouragement and dis- 
 couragement, with the first always a little 
 over-balancing the second. 
 
 Fate, seizing me from the beginning by the 
 hand, led me into the not always smooth paths 
 of being a book agent. 
 
 It was hard work, the hardest kind of hard 
 work. Many a day I have tramped the 
 country roads and lanes from sunrise until 
 sunset without making a solitary sale. Many 
 a time I have wearily walked back and forth 
 across a field, at the elbow of a farmer who 
 followed the plough or harrow, enlarging on 
 the merits of a twenty-five cent hymn book, 
 the profit from whose sale would enrich me by 
 the sum total of six cents. 
 
 37 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I was a book agent until I was seventeen 
 years old. 
 
 In this routine of canvassing, when my daily 
 bread literally depended upon my ability to 
 make sales, I broadened and grew. I learned 
 many things that proved valuable in the later 
 days when I had become a man of affairs. I 
 learned how to sell goods. I learned how to 
 surmount obstacles. I learned the art of 
 stick-to-it-iveness. Most important of all, I 
 became, as all salesmen must, a close student 
 of human nature. 
 
 Early in the work I came to appreciate the 
 fact that the most successful salesman, in the 
 long run, is not the man who forces his cus- 
 tomers to buy something they do not want, 
 but he who studies their requirements, finds 
 out just what they do want, and then sells it to 
 them at a fair price. 
 
 In the drift of time I ceased selling books 
 and became canvasser for a weekly news- 
 paper whose name is now forgotten except 
 by those who worked upon it. Then I was 
 made editor and publisher of a weekly so 
 small and obscure that only a lad unused to 
 steady income, but filled with the desire to 
 advance — to climb upward — to add to his 
 
 38 
 
CLIMBING 
 
 experience — could have been induced to accept 
 the position. From this I graduated into a 
 general news correspondent, covering a con- 
 siderable section of North Carolina for many 
 city newspapers of the North, East and West. 
 
 I began to get my grip. I was a man in 
 stature by this time — almost a man in mind. 
 I became a reporter on a daily newspaper at 
 Charlotte, and from that place graduated into 
 writing industrial reviews for various Southern 
 publications, which included such important 
 newspapers as the Atlanta Constitution and 
 the Atlanta Journal. 
 
 The years passed. The climbing was slow, 
 but it seemed sure. I joined the regular staff 
 of the Atlanta Journal and worked there five 
 years. I went to the St. Louis Republic, where 
 I did special industrial work. From that 
 paper I went to the St. Louis Chronicle. I 
 came to Boston, doing feature work for the 
 Boston Traveler for two years. A syndicate 
 of New England papers was formed, headed by 
 the Traveler, and I did industrial work for it. 
 It was now 1899, twenty years from that bare- 
 footed day of departure from Swepsonville, 
 and I started into business for myself for the 
 first time. 
 
 39 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I organized a syndicate of big Eastern papers, 
 headed by the New York Sun, and under the 
 name of the "Great Eastern Newspaper 
 League" conducted a campaign for Western 
 advertising that paid me a profit of several 
 thousand dollars. This was the first real 
 start — the time I had been w r orking and wait- 
 ing for so many years. With this capital, 
 sufficient to provide against the immediate 
 demands for sustenance, I determined to con- 
 tinue in business for myself — to work no longer 
 for others. 
 
 Looking carefully about me, I came to 
 believe that in the great Lone Star State of 
 Texas was a field for opportunity. I learned 
 of a proven oil territory sufficiently far from a 
 railroad not to have been exploited or de- 
 veloped. After long negotiations I arranged 
 for the purchase of this property if I could 
 organize the necessary syndicate or corpora- 
 tion to provide the money. I began to set be- 
 fore the people of many sections of the country, 
 by extensive advertising, the claims of this 
 Texas property for consideration. I formed a 
 company, selling the stock at a reasonable 
 price. 
 
 The plan was successful, and then and 
 
 40 
 
CLIMBING 
 
 there sprang into being the King-Crowther 
 Corporation. 
 
 No corporation in all the United States, I 
 suppose, has been made the object of more 
 vindictive and continued attacks than this one. 
 For some reason — I suppose because it was 
 the first corporation that I ever organized and 
 the only one that bore my name — my enemies 
 have ever selected it as the target of their most 
 bitter attacks. The answer to those attacks 
 is that it has lived, thrived and is to-day a 
 great, powerful, profitable company. I do 
 not need to defend the King-Crowther Cor- 
 poration here. Its history, and the position it 
 occupies to-day notwithstanding the hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars that have been 
 expended in a vain attempt to injure it, are all 
 the defense that is necessary 
 
 Hardly had the King-Crowther Corporation 
 become fairly organized and its activities begun 
 to attract attention when it came upon days of 
 trouble. In Texas, as in other states of the 
 union, there are politicians, and not all of them 
 — also as in other states — are honest. Also, in 
 my employ, as in the employ of most other 
 men, were individuals whose interests, instead 
 of running harmoniously with mine, were con- 
 
 41 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 fined to that process commonly known as 
 "feathering their own nests." The combina- 
 tion brought difficulties. 
 
 It is not my purpose in this book to go at all 
 into the details of the King-Crowther troubles 
 of 1903. They had nothing to do, as had the 
 later attacks upon the company, with the con- 
 spiracy to put me out of business because I was 
 interfering with the robbery of investors by the 
 conspirators. They were the outgrowth of a 
 sordid desire for loot on the part of petty politi- 
 cal thieves and disreputable blackmailers. 
 
 A wave of anti-corporation feeling in Texas 
 was taken advantage of by certain politicians 
 to inaugurate a system of "holding up" many 
 corporations, the King-Crowther among them. 
 At a moment when everything looked rosy for 
 a smooth and successful path for this company 
 I was confronted with a demand for a vast sum 
 of money to be paid to certain individuals as 
 the price of allowing King-Crowther to do 
 business in Texas. Even had I possessed the 
 amount of money demanded, I should have 
 refused it. I believed that it was beyond the 
 power of the blackmailers to make good their 
 threats. I had at that time less knowledge 
 of ways that are dark than I have now. 
 
 42 
 
CLIMBING 
 
 They gave me several chances to save 
 trouble by paying toll. When I persistently 
 and indignantly refused, King-Crowther met 
 the fate of four hundred and forty-three other 
 Texas corporations in that year — its charter 
 was revoked and the price of the stock, from 
 one dollar a share, dropped to two cents. 
 
 In the fight that ensued I lost a comfortable 
 fortune and went heavily into debt. But when 
 the battle was over, the King-Crowther Cor- 
 poration had been reorganized on a hundred- 
 dollar-a-share (par value) basis, and its stock, 
 from its low price of two dollars, was beginning 
 its giadual and steady increase in value until, 
 at high-water mark before the panic of last 
 year, it stood at par — one hundred dollars per 
 
 share. 
 
 During this struggle I had taken another 
 start. Although my resources were exhausted 
 and 1 was even poorer than on that day when I 
 set out from the North Carolina village to make 
 my fortune, I had learned many things. With- 
 out wasting time in fruitless regrets, I set out — 
 even as I am setting out to-day— to build up 
 
 again. 
 
 I entered into business as a financial agent, 
 offering to my friends and clients securities of 
 
 43 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 whose worth I felt confident, at a price that I 
 believed to be fair and just. Slowly but 
 surely I re-established myself. From one 
 small room my office grew to two, to four, to 
 half a floor, to an entire floor, to a floor and a 
 half of a great office building. From one 
 stenographer my staff grew until it consisted 
 of upwards of a score of people, some of them 
 the highest salaried and most competent 
 in the country. From an almost unknown 
 "promoter" of an unknown corporation I 
 became owner of a business which had upon 
 its books more than five thousand satisfied 
 customers. As these made money by follow- 
 ing my advice and example, I too made 
 money. I became prosperous and was jogging 
 along the road to wealth. 
 
 Had I never ascended to these heights I had 
 not been the target for the vindictive, the 
 jealous and the disappointed. Had 1 never 
 gained success I had not been the shining 
 mark for the shafts of the unsuccessful. 
 
 But the jealous, the disappointed and the 
 unsuccessful could never have seriously 
 affected my progress. It remained for the 
 successful one to do it — the one successful in 
 inducing men to speculate in his schemes under 
 
 44 
 
CLIMBING 
 
 the delusion that they were investing — the one 
 who had become a millionaire by grace of the 
 misguided, blind following of his siren voice on 
 the part of thousands of deceived victims — the 
 one who, wont to lure his victims on the rocks 
 of ruin at his own sweet pleasure, resented the 
 warnings that in the course of my daily duty I 
 sounded against him and all other wreckers. 
 
 I suppose it was natural that he should have 
 set out to encompass my destruction — as 
 natural as for the similar ones who light false 
 beacons to lure ships on the rocks to protest 
 against the setting up of lighthouses on the 
 shoals. It would be too much to expect that 
 he should approve of my frankness in warning 
 the investing public of the shallow water into 
 which, unwarned and unguided, they might 
 have sailed their ships, for 
 
 No man e'er felt the halter draw, 
 With good opinion of the law. 
 
 So after a time I achieved success — real, 
 genuine success. It had been a long, toil- 
 some upward climb, but it was finished. My 
 business was a synonym for enterprise. 
 My name was the equivalent of fair dealing. 
 My house, already large, was growing rapidly. 
 
 45 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 My customers, already numbering thousands, 
 were multiplying. 
 
 Then, like lightning out of a clear sky, 
 lightning whose danger cannot be avoided 
 because one cannot see the cloud that en- 
 genders it, came the beginning of the long 
 series of attacks that in the end, because I 
 withheld my hand in one moment of pity, were 
 temporarily successful. 
 
 46 
 
Chapter VII 
 THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 IN MY early days I had all the country- 
 man's awe of a "banker and broker." 
 The words meant to me everything 
 that was dignified, creditable and 'respect- 
 able." Until I had been for many months out 
 in the world — it was not until I had reached 
 man's estate — I had no comprehension of the 
 ethics, or lack of them, that govern so many 
 whose ground-glass doors bear these words. 
 
 Like the vast majority of,people, I under- 
 stood just a little about markets, and stock, 
 and fluctuations. If ever a little knowledge is 
 a dangerous thing, it is in this connection of 
 finance. I knew that the stock exchange is a 
 place where men buy and sell securities. I 
 presumed that the laws of supply and demand 
 invariably governed the quotations that obtain 
 in this market, and that prices fell because 
 more shares were offered for sale than there 
 were buyers for, and rose because the demand 
 was in excess of the number of shares offered 
 for sale. 
 
 47 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 In my greenness — and I possessed no more 
 distinct a tinge of that color than do four 
 hundred and ninety-nine out of every five 
 hundred men who think they know something 
 about the stock exchange — I supposed that a 
 broker was one who merely took orders to buy 
 or sell certain shares of a commodity, that he 
 bought as cheaply as he could or sold for the 
 highest possible price, and that his profit was 
 invariably a certain small commission, an 
 amount so small as to be inconsequential 
 compared to the gross amount of the purchase 
 or sale. 
 
 I supposed that when a man bought a hun- 
 dred shares of stock he actually received the 
 stock certificate. Of course I knew that he 
 did not get them on the spot, as he would if 
 he were purchasing a barrel of flour or a bushel 
 of potatoes, but I had the impression that the 
 documents were delivered to him as soon after 
 the purchase as was practicable. I had heard 
 of "margins," and knew, in a vague way, that 
 the term referred to a practice of purchasing 
 stock without depositing all the money involved 
 in the transaction. But I had the impression 
 that the "margin" was a sort of payment on 
 account, a deposit to bind the bargain, an 
 
 48 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 entirely legitimate first payment for the goods 
 purchased. 
 
 From time to time I read in the papers of 
 men who were ruined in the stock market, but 
 the stories did not make the impression on me 
 that they would to-day, for I said to myself, 
 'These men made errors of judgment. They 
 purchased when the stock was about to decline 
 in value. Their position is about the same as 
 that of the man who buys a house in a neigh- 
 borhood in which the value of all real estate is 
 depreciating.' ' 
 
 I was, from the beginning, earnestly hostile 
 to "speculation, 5 ' but the term was a vague 
 one to me and had little association in my mind 
 with the great financial leaders. Rather it 
 was connected in my thought with bucket- 
 shops, which I understood to be mere gam- 
 bling places. That the big financiers, the 
 'respectable" bankers and brokers, were con- 
 nected with the stock market in the gambling 
 sense, was a fact that did not reach my con- 
 sciousness for quite a few years— not until I 
 had become a newspaper man and had 
 knocked against the rough edges of the world 
 long enough to gain some perspective as to 
 right and wrong, justice and injustice. 
 
 49 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 When the knowledge began to come to me 
 it brought with it a distinct shock. As I came 
 in touch with "big men" I began to get a new 
 perspective. I found that the most successful 
 leader in the so-called world of finance might be 
 merely the most able pirate; that there was a 
 different standard on this financial plane from 
 that to which I had been accustomed, a stand- 
 ard that gauged a man not by what he had 
 done to help others and make the world better, 
 but by how much money he had been able to 
 take from his fellows, without regard to the 
 honesty of the methods by which he had 
 secured it. 
 
 My awe of : 'big men" vanished when I 
 learned, early in my manhood days, that the 
 souls of many of the "biggest" would be lost 
 on the point of the finest needle. Incidentally 
 my mind readjusted itself and in the process 
 found a brand new definition of the word 
 "respectable." 
 
 When I was graduated from the newspaper 
 to the financial office I had a peep behind the 
 scenes. What I saw there was a greater sur- 
 prise — and shock — than ever was a visit back 
 of the curtain to the novice whose ideas 
 of the stage had been formed from that 
 
 50 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 darkened land out in front of the footlights, 
 where grease-paint passes for wrinkles and 
 powder for fair youth and peachblow com- 
 plexion. 
 
 I had a glimpse into a new country, a country 
 where deceit stands for cleverness, where 
 smirking treachery replaces good-will, where 
 honor is laughed at as a decadent virtue — even 
 the kind of honor that in other piratical com- 
 munities binds one thief to another in their 
 common enmity against the outside world, 
 with its honest men and its policemen. 
 
 It was — and is — a country with a strange 
 people and a strange history. 
 
 A woman came into my office one day. She 
 was middle-aged, pinched, careworn, a typical 
 hard-working, care-taking, close-saving daugh- 
 ter of thrifty New England. She told me her 
 story. 
 
 Out of his fair wages her husband had for 
 many years made her a liberal allowance for 
 the expenses of the household. She had suc- 
 ceeded, by pinching and planning and saving, 
 in setting aside a large portion of that allow- 
 ance, and now she had, unknown to her hus- 
 band, the sum of four thousand dollars. 
 
 "I have read in the papers that the best 
 
 51 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 way to make money is to buy stocks,' ' she 
 told me, "and as I understand you deal in 
 stocks I have come to ask you what to do with 
 this money. I have never had any of it in a 
 bank — I'm afraid of banks. I knew a woman 
 once who put her money in a bank and it broke 
 and she lost everything she had. I've always 
 kept my money in the house. It's worried me 
 a lot, on account of burglars, and whenever I've 
 gone away anywhere I've had to carry it with 
 me, and that's been a lot of trouble and worry. 
 But I've never lost any of it. Here it is." 
 
 She opened a bag which she carried in her 
 hand and laid the money on my desk — four 
 thousand dollars in large bills. 
 
 "Now I want to invest it somewhere," she 
 said, " in something where it will be sure to at 
 least double itself in a few years. I know 
 there are a lot of places like that, because I've 
 read about them You must know some stock 
 that I can buy that will turn this four thousand 
 dollars into ten in five years or so. I don't 
 want my husband to know anything about it 
 until I have ten thousand dollars. Then I'm 
 going to surprise him by turning over the whole 
 amount. It will be a great relief to him, for 
 he's always worrying about what we'll do when 
 
 52 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 we get old. And that," she added pathet- 
 ically, "isn't so many years away." 
 
 " Did you suppose, " I asked her, " that there 
 were investments paying a very high rate of 
 interest which were absolutely secure?" 
 
 "Why, certainly," she repeated. "I've 
 read about them." 
 
 " Without any risk whatever ?" 
 
 The woman gasped at the suggestion. 
 "Oh, I can't take any risk," she said. "I 
 can't take any chance of losing any of this that 
 I've already got saved. Whatever I put this 
 into has got to be absolutely sure. That's 
 why I came to you. I thought you would 
 know of something of that sort and would take 
 the money and invest it for me." 
 
 "But suppose you did lose it," I insisted. 
 
 "I believe it would kill me," replied the 
 woman. "I know I could never look my 
 husband in the face again. But I don't want 
 to lose it. I want something that's sure not to 
 lose." 
 
 "Mrs. Blank," I said seriously (it would be 
 manifestly improper for me to use her name, 
 although she stands ready to bear me out in 
 this story should it ever become advisable or 
 necessary), " if you are wise you will listen to my 
 
 53 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 advice — and take it. You are old enough to 
 be my mother — but listen to me. I recom- 
 mend that when you walk out of this office you 
 go right up School Street to the Five Cent 
 Savings Bank, which I believe to be one of the 
 strongest and most reliable institutions in the 
 city of Boston. It never has closed its doors. 
 I believe it never will. I regard it as an 
 absolutely safe depository for your money — far 
 safer than your house or your person. When 
 you get there give your four thousand dollars 
 to the cashier and take a bankbook for it. 
 Then take the bankbook home, show it to 
 your husband, and receive his praise for your 
 industry and frugality. 
 
 "In this way you will not double your 
 money in four or five years. You will not 
 double it even during your lifetime. But you 
 will see it grow by degrees, and it will never 
 shrink unless you yourself draw it out and 
 spend it. By all means put the money in a 
 strong savings bank." 
 
 "But I wanted to invest it," she said, with a 
 quiver of the lip, "and I thought you would 
 tell me just where I could put it so it would 
 grow to be ten thousand. I don't understand 
 business, but I was sure you would." 
 
 54 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 "It is very evident, whatever you may or 
 mav not know about business," I said, "that 
 you do not understand this matter of stocks. 
 I am speaking plainly to you because you are 
 a woman, and you have trusted me in this 
 matter. There are investments, undoubtedly, 
 which are absolutely and unquestionably safe, 
 but just which they are no living man may say 
 without fear of mistake. Assuredly you do 
 not wish to speculate with your money, for the 
 man or woman who speculates merely gambles, 
 and takes a big chance of losing all for the 
 chance of winning much. And I know so 
 few absolutely non-speculative stocks that in 
 your particular case I advise you not to buy 
 any, but to deposit your money in a savings 
 bank at whatever interest rate is allowed." 
 
 "I'm sure you are mistaken, Mr. King," 
 the woman said, "when you say that there 
 are not a great many stocks which may be 
 bought without any danger of loss. Why, I 
 read in a magazine the other day — " And she 
 proceeded to recount the subject of her read- 
 ing — a promise so impossible, so wild, so 
 incredible as to stand upon the face of it as 
 a sheer bunco scheme. 
 
 Although I was busy, this woman's plight 
 
 55 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 appealed to me. Her pathetic desire to win 
 money, to the end that she and her husband 
 might not suffer in their old age, won my 
 sympathy, and I gave her a good many 
 minutes of my time. I told her some of the 
 things I knew about "the Street" and the 
 ravening wolves that there lay in wait for just 
 such unsuspecting lambs as she. I told her 
 some of my acquaintances' experience with 
 speculation that had been paraded as invest- 
 ment. I emphasized the danger of loss and 
 the percentage of chance for winning. I tried 
 to draw for her a picture of her feelings should 
 the stocks she purchased shrink in market 
 value. But she was stubborn. 
 
 "I know that is true of some stocks," she 
 said. "That is why I came to you. I want 
 you to select for me the other kind of stocks — 
 the kind that is sure to go up. " 
 
 I could have personally sold her securities 
 that I honestly believed would not decline in 
 price. I could have taken her money — she 
 begged me to. But I would not. It would be 
 too terrible a responsibility should I prove to be 
 wrong. 
 
 Finally she went away. I believed I had 
 convinced her, and that she would go to the 
 
 5(y 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 bank, as I had advised, and deposit her savings 
 of years against the impending rainy day. 
 
 I did not see her nor hear from her again for 
 two months. I had forgotten the incident. 
 One afternoon she was announced and shown 
 into my private office. Her appearance 
 shocked me. 
 
 Those two months seemed to have added 
 ten years to her age. Her face was more 
 wrinkled. Her eyes were red with weeping 
 and in their depths was a lasting horror. 
 Bursting into tears, and interrupting the story 
 with self-recriminations, she told me what had 
 come about. 
 
 Not satisfied that I had given her good 
 advice, she had gone to the office of a " finan- 
 cier." 1 quote the word because there are 
 financiers and financiers, and this was one 
 better described by a "shorter and uglier 
 word." She had told him her story even as 
 she had told it to me. Had he advised her to 
 avoid speculation as she would pestilence, to 
 take no chances with the slowly-scraped- 
 together savings? Not he. He had assured 
 her that in what she had heard and believed 
 she had been right — that there were many 
 certain ways of doubling her money in a few 
 
 57 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 years, yes, in a year — that he who placed his 
 money in a bank was foolish and he who 
 " invested'' it in the particular scheme which 
 this "financier" was at that moment touting 
 was wise. 
 
 He was eloquent in promises, and he took 
 the woman's four thousand dollars. 
 
 Now it was gone — every cent of it. Some- 
 thing had happened to the "financier's" 
 scheme, she did not know just what, because 
 she couldn't get at him to ask him to explain. 
 I could have told her what had happened, 
 even as I could have told her two months 
 before what would happen if she gave her 
 money to this particular thief — let's drop the 
 "financier" and call things by their right 
 names — but I did not say "I told you so." 
 The woman's sufferings were intense enough 
 without my adding vinegar to her wounds. 
 
 She begged me to try to get her money back 
 for her. Of course I could not do it, and had 
 to tell her so. 
 
 That old woman had been robbed as cer- 
 tainly and positively as though the robber had 
 filched her roll of bills from the handbag she 
 carried. She had never possessed the slight- 
 est chance to save even her principal. The 
 
 58 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 moment she gave up her money it was gone 
 forever. 
 
 I told the story to an acquaintance asso- 
 ciated with "the Street." I looked for some 
 expression of sorrow, of horror, of sympathy. 
 Instead, he laughed. 
 
 "That is finance," he said. 
 
 I knew a middle-aged man, a school teacher 
 in one of the smaller New England cities. He 
 had scrimped and saved to get an education. 
 The habit, thus fixed in early life, had been 
 continued as the years passed, and he had 
 accumulated a few hundred dollars. 
 
 Over the signature of a man of whom he had 
 heard as a successful leader in finance he read 
 a promise that a certain stock, to be sold for a 
 brief time at a few dollars a share, would in- 
 crease within a month or so to many times its 
 purchase price. The writer promised this, 
 upon his word of honor. He said he had care- 
 fully investigated the property, that it was 
 intrinsically worth much more than even the 
 figure at which he predicted its early quotation, 
 and that he would guarantee to those who 
 followed his advice profits rich and rare. 
 
 He did not advise his readers to buy the 
 stock and take the certificates out of the 
 
 59 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 market, but to purchase on margins — to specu- 
 late — to gamble. He called to their attention 
 that this was not really gambling, because there 
 was no chance but the stock would advance in 
 price. 
 
 The middle-aged school teacher took every 
 cent he had in the world and sent it to a broker 
 for the purchase of this much-touted stock. 
 Filled with the promises of the supposed 
 financial leader he was not satisfied with this, 
 but borrowed a few hundreds more. 
 
 Within two weeks he was penniless and in 
 debt. iVnd in such a vast company of fellow 
 dupes was he that his individual case at- 
 tracted hardly any attention. The so-called 
 financial leader was reckoned in "the Street" 
 to have cleaned up upward of a million dollars 
 in profits from this one advertising campaign — 
 for of course he had unloaded upon the con- 
 fiding public the stock it had actually bought, 
 and so manipulated the market that the money 
 of those who took his advice and bought on 
 margins fell into his outstretched hands. 
 
 "This is absolute robberv," I said. " Abso- 
 lute and undisguised highway robbery." 
 
 "It is finance," was the reply. 
 
 A great "financier" went on a fishing and 
 
 60 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 hunting excursion deep into the woods of 
 Maine. He was one of a party, an invited 
 guest. There were perhaps a dozen men, all 
 together, and they left business behind them 
 in New York and Boston to take a fortnight's 
 outing in the wilds. 
 
 This " financier" had been busily engaged in 
 the manipulation on the stock exchange of a 
 certain mining stock, whose name had filled 
 the market columns of the newspapers for a 
 number of weeks. It was generally recog- 
 nized that he knew what had happened and 
 what was going to happen to that particular 
 stock, because he had more to do with fixing 
 the market price of it than all the other men 
 and all the laws of supply and demand in the 
 world. Among the dozen men there was not 
 one who would not have given a good many 
 dollars to know just what was this manipula- 
 tor's plan regarding the future price of the 
 stock, for with this knowledge he could buy or 
 sell and make a fortune for himself. 
 
 The host of the party owned a fine yacht, and 
 he proposed, after the hunting was at an 
 end, that all his guests go to the nearest port 
 with him, embark in the yacht and leisurely 
 steam down the coast to New York, spending 
 
 61 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 two or three days on the water and avoiding 
 the heat and hardship of summer travel in the 
 trains. They agreed, with the exception of the 
 particular "financier" to whose stock activity 
 I have referred. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said, "I'd like to go with 
 you fellows, but to tell you the truth there are 
 to be important developments in the So-and- 
 So campaign which require my presence in 
 town." 
 
 The host and the other guests pricked up 
 their ears. " I should think you might give 
 us a little tip," said one of them, good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 The "financier" thought seriously for a 
 moment. "Boys," he said, finally, "you're 
 good friends of mine, and we've all had a 
 pleasant time together. I feel as if I owed you 
 something for the two weeks' entertainment — 
 especially our host, here. If you will all 
 pledge yourselves to secrecy and not give warn- 
 ing to a soul, I'll intimate what is going to 
 happen to So-and-So," naming the stock. 
 
 Without exception they eagerly, not to say 
 greedily, agreed. 
 
 "If I give you a tip on this I expect you, as 
 men of honor, not to take an active part in the 
 
 62 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 market," he continued. 'What is to happen 
 will happen within three or four days — before 
 you reach New York in the yacht, I think. I 
 want your promise to stay away from the city 
 as you have planned, and not to participate in 
 any public manner in the campaign. If you 
 do, you see, people who know you have been 
 away with me will suspect that you have an 
 intimation of how the cat is going to jump, and 
 it might prevent things working out as we 
 expect." 
 
 " There is nothing to prevent any of us tak- 
 ing a little flyer, is there ?" asked one. 
 
 "Nothing whatever, so long as you keep 
 away from town and are not known in it. " 
 
 Thereupon they all agreed to the terms. 
 The "financier" looked about him to be 
 certain no one could hear, and dropped his 
 voice. 
 
 "It will be a bull campaign," he said. "I 
 expect to put the stock up at least ten points." 
 
 Before the yacht set sail for New York every 
 man of the dozen had telegraphed or tele- 
 phoned confidential orders to purchase large 
 blocks of the stock on a margin. 
 
 They sailed away. The financier hastened 
 to his office and began his campaign—a bear 
 
 63 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 campaign. The quotations of the stock fell 
 fifteen points. The brokers who had been 
 given the orders by the host and other friends 
 who were on the sea, unable to reach their 
 principals to secure additional margins, sold 
 them out. When the yacht arrived in New 
 York the voyagers found they were hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars poorer than when they 
 set sail from Maine. Their losses had been 
 their companion's gain. 
 
 "But this," I said, "is treachery to one's 
 friends. This man defrauded even his host, 
 and did it under the guise of friendship." 
 
 "That is finance," was the answer. 
 
 "But he had eaten this man's bread and 
 salt. Every obligation of custom, whether 
 civilized or savage, obliged him to play fair 
 with him, at least while he was his guest, and 
 he took advantage of the sacred law of 
 hospitality to steal from a friend." 
 
 The answer was a dogged repetition. "That 
 is finance." 
 
 Boarding a train to visit historic Plymouth, 
 where landed the Pilgrims to find religious 
 freedom, I was whirled down the Massa- 
 chusetts South Shore. At a little station an 
 hour out of Boston the train stopped and there 
 
 64 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 opened out before my eyes a vista almost of 
 fairyland. 
 
 Before me, right beside the track and 
 extending along it for many hundred yards, 
 lay a fair and beautiful estate. Hundreds 
 upon hundreds of acres were under finest cul- 
 tivation. Great barns, magnificently ap- 
 pointed and ornately built — stables far better 
 than the homes of more than half the people of 
 this land — housed the finest horses and live- 
 stock that money could buy. Handsome 
 kennels filled with blooded dogs were cared for 
 by many skillful workmen. 
 
 A race-track, for exercising the trotters that 
 the farm raised, encircled a plot of brilliant 
 green. A wide and welcoming arch covered 
 the gateway to the grounds. Up beyond, back 
 from the railroad, stood a beautiful manor 
 house, its windows giving view upon as fair 
 a stretch of hill and dale and distant ocean as 
 ever God set down in coastwise New England. 
 Topping a hill was a handsome observation 
 tower, and out in front of the great house, a 
 ringer pointing to the deep turquoise of the 
 summer heaven, was a giant flagstaff, from 
 whose top snapped and crackled in the breeze 
 a beautiful new American flag. 
 
 65 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 And everywhere were roses, American beau- 
 ties and climbers. They were set in huge beds 
 in every nook and corner of the great estate. 
 They found foothold upon the walls and roof 
 of every beautiful building. They ran riot 
 over the stone walls and the race-track fences 
 and the arbors and trellises that dotted the 
 landscape. Their intoxicating odor filled the 
 air until the passing train was perfumed with 
 it. Their glorious beauty made the senses 
 drunken with the joy of color. 
 
 Ah, it was beautiful, a nature's paradise 
 enhanced by the hand of man! I know of no 
 more beautiful estate in the world — and I have 
 traveled much. "Whose home is this?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " That is Dreamwold, the home of Thomas 
 W. Lawson," proudly replied a native of the 
 section. " Isn't it great ? It cost three million 
 dollars." 
 
 I turned to my traveling companion. 
 "How can this be?" I asked. "Did we not 
 read but a few weeks ago, over this man's own 
 signature, that he sympathized with the thou- 
 sands of investors who, following his advice, 
 had lost their all in the maelstrom of the 
 market, because he, too, had been a vast 
 
 66 
 
THAT IS FINANCE 
 
 loser? Has he not often said that when his 
 followers lost, he also lost ? And have not his 
 followers invariably lost? How can this be?" 
 
 My companion shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "That is finance," he said. 
 
 67 
 
Chapter VIII 
 CREDO 
 
 THIS was a strange, wild and terrible 
 country into which I was gaining an 
 insight — a country where all the rules 
 of civilization, of morality, of religion, of 
 common humanity, were laid aside to make 
 room for one rule, a new commandment of but 
 two words and nine letters: "Make money." 
 
 I early learned that on one side of the twist- 
 ing paths of that country were these financiers 
 bent upon robbing the earners of their hard- 
 won funds, while on the other side was a band 
 hardly less dangerous. This band called itself 
 "conservative." Early in my days of writing 
 I came to call them "three-per-centers." 
 
 It w T as and is an argument of this last- 
 named band that no investment can be safe 
 which promises a greater return than three, 
 three-and-a-half or four per cent. Investi- 
 gation brings to light the striking fact that a 
 majority of the men who most loudly declare 
 this doctrine are men who receive ten, fifteen 
 and a higher per cent for their own money, 
 
 68 
 
CREDO 
 
 while they pay but three or four per cent for the 
 money of others placed in their hands. Of 
 such are the realms of banking. 
 
 Between the radical who promises him too 
 much and robs him of his savings, and the 
 "conservative" who gives him not enough and 
 
 therebv robs him of the fair return of his sav- 
 
 »/ 
 
 ings, the ordinary man stands confused. On 
 one side is injustice and unfairness; on the 
 other side, unfairness and injustice. It is a 
 strange land. 
 
 I early resolved to become a guide to lead 
 people out of that land, to find paths through 
 the country of finance that should not end in 
 bottomless swamp on the one side or impen- 
 etrable jungle on the other. I resolved, in 
 brief, that honesty in finance was not only 
 possible, but practical. 
 
 I knew that there stalked abroad investment 
 enterprises that offered to the investor a good 
 return upon his invested funds with but a 
 minimum chance of loss. Such enterprises 
 were those in which the very men who urged 
 that three per cent is the highest earnings of 
 safety were investing their spare funds. I 
 appreciated that somewhere between the fabu- 
 lous promises of the radical and the absurd 
 
 69 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 contentions of the "conservative" lay combined 
 safety and profit. I determined to seek such 
 enterprises and offer them to the investing 
 public, to point out the way to safe investment 
 and at the same time sound a clear warning as 
 to the pitfalls that are planned to entrap the 
 unwary. 
 
 This was iconoclastic, but do not under- 
 stand me as saying it was merely a philan- 
 thropic purpose. I believed, as a business 
 man, that such a course would prove profitable, 
 that in the saving and earning of millions by 
 investors I should earn — and should justly be 
 entitled to earn — thousands for myself. I 
 firmly believed that honesty would not only be 
 right and the best policy, but that it would 
 prove reasonably profitable. I expected to 
 receive my fair percentage from the money I 
 made for others, as well as their thanks and 
 appreciation. 
 
 Adopting a distinct plan of campaign, I 
 began to seek publicity for it. On a certain 
 public occasion it became necessary for me to 
 put into words the aims and purposes of my 
 work, and thereafter I many times repeated 
 those words. They are no less my sentiments 
 to-day than they were on the fair morning on 
 
 70 
 
CREDO 
 
 which I penned them, and to understand what 
 I have aimed to do and why I have won for 
 myself the hate and malice of the Thugs with 
 whose sacrifices to Kali I have interfered, I 
 will repeat them here. 
 
 I wrote: 
 
 " To be honest and honorable, just and open- 
 minded, true to myself and all mankind; to be 
 fair in all things; to serve my fellows; to in- 
 crease in wealth only when, in doing so, I add 
 to the wealth of those who are my friends, my 
 associates and my customers; to assist in the 
 productivity of the world, and see to it, so far 
 as in me lies, that there shall be a fair division 
 of the profit among those whose money aids in 
 the production; to eternally raise my voice 
 against the clique-cultivated fallacy that three 
 or four per cent is a fair year's wage for an 
 iVmerican dollar, sent out to work in the markets 
 of the world; to demonstrate this, my con- 
 tention, in the future, as in the past, by the 
 simple operation of seeing to it that those whom 
 I am privileged to serve receive seven per cent 
 and more as the wages of their dollars; to give 
 to every man that 'square deal' which was 
 first expressed in the words, 'As ye would that 
 men should do unto you, do ye even so to 
 
 71 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 them'; to preach everlastingly the principle of 
 an honest, fair and sufficient return upon the 
 dollars of American investment, and ever- 
 lastingly to practise what I preach — these are 
 the business principles upon which I stand 
 and upon which I shall rise or fall, from this 
 day until that one — be it distant or soon — 
 when I go to take my apportioned place in the 
 City of Eternal Silence." 
 
 72 
 
■ 
 
 Chapter IX 
 THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 ALONG the lines laid down by this 
 declaration of faith I conducted my 
 work. In the early days, when my 
 business was of small proportions and my 
 clientele of followers numbered but few, I was 
 to a degree unmolested by the powers that 
 prey. They called me " sensationalist" and 
 affected to hold me in infinite contempt. 
 This apparently gave them pleasure and did 
 not hurt me, who constantly gained in strength 
 and following. 
 
 I was never deceived into believing that this 
 condition would continue always. I had too 
 thorough an understanding of the manner of 
 men who populated this new country that I 
 had entered. I knew that, let me once gain 
 the position I sought — the position where 
 thousands should listen to my spoken and 
 written word and follow my advice — I should 
 have a bitter fight on my hands. Yet I never 
 for a moment appreciated, in those days, the 
 resources of the enemy or the infinite lengths 
 
 73 
 
-/ 
 
 THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 to which he would go to crush out opposition. 
 
 In this country of Finance are many animals 
 that prey. They are not unlike the beasts of 
 the jungle in more ways than one. There are 
 the lions and tigers and panthers. These are 
 strong, self-satisfied creatures, who hunt singly 
 or in pairs. They hunt well within the con- 
 fines of the jungle, seldom killing aught but 
 their own kind or other wild animals. They 
 are brave, powerful fighters. 
 
 Then there are the wolves, who hunt on the 
 edge of the jungle. Occasionally, when 
 enough of them are together and their enemy 
 is injured or sick, they can pull down one of 
 the greater beasts, although they only dare to 
 trv when for some reason the chance of success 
 is multiplied by fortune. More often they 
 hunt in the ploughed fields that border the 
 forests, killing small game. They are man- 
 eaters, those wolves, and the pack's delight 
 is to find a husbandman on the edge of the 
 jungle, too far away from home to reach it, 
 and drag him down to death by sheer force of 
 numbers. 
 
 The lions and tigers and panthers are the 
 "captains of industry" of Wall Street. The 
 wolves are the treacherous, vicious hangers-on 
 
 74 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 about the edges of the forest of Finance, who 
 cannot be satisfied by a more or less fair fight 
 with other beasts of prey, but seek to ravage 
 the villages, enticing men out from their homes 
 into the fields and slaughtering them without 
 mercy. 
 
 The lions and tigers and panthers are the 
 men who "play the game," against each 
 other, with happiness and life-blood as the 
 stakes, in the great stock exchanges. The 
 wolves are the wretches who go up and down 
 the land seeking victims of speculation under 
 the name of "investment," who lure the 
 workers into parting with their hard-earned 
 savings, who pose as protectors of the poor 
 even while they are robbing them of their all. 
 And the wolves, being naturally cowards and 
 closely allied to wild dogs, hunt in packs. 
 
 You have read Kipling's " Jungle Book." 
 Do you remember Akela, the old, gray, lone 
 wolf, who led the Seeonee wolf-pack for more 
 than a dozen years ? Do you remember how 
 he lay upon the council rock and spoke words 
 of wisdom to which all the other wolves lis- 
 tened ? Do you remember how he enforced his 
 interpretations of the jungle law by killing 
 those other wolves who would not do his bid- 
 
 15 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 ding ? And do you remember how he led the 
 pack forth of nights to pull down the victim 
 that had been selected for the hunt? There 
 came a time when his power departed — but 
 that was after he had missed his kill. 
 
 The wolves with whom I have had to deal — 
 and yet shall deal — hunt in a pack, and they 
 have a lone, gray leader. Like Akela he is 
 old and wise in the wisdom of the wolf. Even 
 as Akela he sits on the council rock and gives 
 commands. He ruthlessly slaughters those 
 who do not take his words for gospel. He 
 leads the pack forth of nights to kill all enemies 
 of the pack, be they beast or men. Like 
 Akela, his power will pass when he has missed 
 his kill, for the very wolves who fawn most 
 upon him hate him for his ruthless cruelty and 
 heartlessness. He knows this. Therefore he 
 will spare no effort of tearing tooth and ripping 
 claw to finish every enemy. 
 
 Already, although this book is barely started, 
 I have several times mentioned the name of 
 Lawson. I shall write it many times more 
 before I have finished. I could not do other- 
 wise if I wished. As well endeavor to trans- 
 late the Bible and omit the name of the Deity 
 as to write of Financial Thuggee in America 
 
 76 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 and omit the name of Lawson, its High-Priest. 
 
 And yet, as I look back over the busy years, 
 I can truthfully say that at no moment in my 
 life have I been inspired by enmity of Thomas 
 W. Lawson, the man. It has been my fate to 
 fight him bitterly during the past two years, 
 to give him in the face the hardest blows he has 
 ever received, and to receive from him in the 
 back some well-nigh fatal stabs. And yet I 
 can truthfully say that I have fought him not 
 because he is Lawson the man, but because he 
 is Lawson the leader of the Wolf-Pack. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, I have never to this 
 day personally met Thomas W. Lawson. I 
 have seen him many times. For many months 
 — more than a year — we ate luncheon daily at 
 the same hour, in the same dining-room at 
 Young's Hotel. We have met face to face — 
 have almost collided in the entrance to the 
 dining-room, and scores of diners from the 
 business centres that surround the hotel have 
 stared and caught their breaths, wondering 
 what form our personal encounter might take. 
 But we never spoke, or indicated that we saw 
 each other. He has never in his life spoken 
 one word to me. I have never in my life 
 spoken one word to him. 
 
 77 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Yet I feel that I know Thomas W. Lawson 
 — none better. I have watched him for an 
 aggregate of many hours, with the trained eye 
 of the newspaper man, accustomed to measure 
 men. I have heard his voice, have seen his 
 manner, have analyzed his habit. I know 
 scores of men who know him personally, if not 
 intimately — there is not a soul who has his 
 confidence; his own private secretary may 
 never be certain, such is the Lawson Wolf- 
 suspicion, that he is not being told fictitious 
 confidences for a test of his honesty and sin- 
 cerity. And I am competent to paint some- 
 thing of a picture of the man who possesses 
 the distinction of having conducted the most 
 extensive and successful confidence games the 
 world has seen since the days of Law and the 
 South Sea Bubble. 
 
 You have read of Lawson that he is the most 
 brilliant, the most able, the most resourceful, 
 the most energetic and the most forceful man 
 that ever, in America, chose to ^vin a fortune 
 by preying upon others. Much of this is true, 
 although justice compels the reservation that 
 this brilliancy and ability, so notable when it 
 is Lawson against the ignorant army of specu- 
 lators, are lessened and dimmed to the point of 
 
 78 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 near-extinction when it is Lawson against the 
 truly big men in the field of finance. Lawson 
 has never won a battle against the Morgans, 
 the Rogerses, the Gateses and the Ryans of 
 the financial world. He has made millions 
 from them, it is true, but it has been by doing 
 their jackal work — by acting as "capper" for 
 their games. On the few occasions when he 
 has gone out to beat them in the open market 
 — as occasionally, tempted by his success in 
 buncoing less experienced men, he has done — 
 they have beaten him to the point of imminent 
 ruin. Lawson is a successful operator in his 
 own particular game — but only when he con- 
 fines his energies to what his prototypes in 
 lesser fields of similar finance would call 
 "shaking down the come-ons." 
 
 You have read of Lawson as a man of most 
 magnetic personality. You have read that he 
 shows all the elements of leadership, in that 
 his assistants are filled with a willingness to 
 follow wherever he chooses to lead. You have 
 read that he is loved by those close to him, 
 and that he is regarded as a sort of father-in- 
 finance by those who come in daily contact 
 with the workings of his mind. In reading 
 these things you have read sheer fiction. 
 
 79 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I have no doubt that newspaper reporters 
 and magazine writers, assigned to interview 
 Lawson and to write descriptions of him and of 
 his work, have been pleasantly received. I 
 have no doubt that, in their presence, Lawson 
 has beamed and smiled and pursued a trend of 
 conversation that has impressed them with his 
 open geniality. It is to be remembered that 
 no interviewer reaches Lawson except after 
 miles and miles of red tape have been un- 
 wound, during which unwinding he has had 
 ample time to set the stage for the interview 
 and rehearse the part he outlines for himself. 
 Thus it has come about that many writers, not 
 especially friendly to Lawson or Lawson 
 policies, have gone away from his room in 
 Young's Hotel filled with the idea that Lawson 
 is a pleasant man to meet. And what they 
 have written has brought amusement, not 
 unmixed with scorn, to the hearts of those who 
 know him and come into more or less frequent 
 contact with him. 
 
 In the first place, every man who comes 
 into touch with Lawson in a business way, 
 from his " confidential" men — with whom he is 
 not confidential at all and who all know that he 
 would steal their shoes if they chanced to get 
 
 80 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 the laces untied as quickly as he would juggle 
 the hard-earned savings of an investor out of 
 the investor's pocket into his own- — down to 
 his thirty-fourth assistant secretary, is afraid 
 of him. Not afraid of him in the sense that 
 every man should fear his employer — fearing 
 to do wrong, fearing to displease, fearing to 
 neglect his duty — but personally distrustful 
 and afraid. He cultivates and encourages this 
 fear. He is uniformly harsh in his dealings 
 with them — a harshness that thev tolerate be- 
 cause he pays good salaries. He maintains a 
 constant attitude of impatience. He curses 
 them at the slightest excuse — it is a commonly 
 known fact that Lawson is excessively pro- 
 fane, vulgar and sacrilegious. His orders are 
 couched in abusive language. Therefore it 
 comes about that his assistants cringe when 
 they enter his presence, listen breathlessly to 
 his orders, and execute them without deviation 
 or turning. 
 
 In the second place, Lawson surrounds him- 
 self with all the mystery that he can command. 
 He keeps out of the public view — partially, 
 probably, for the dramatic effect that only 
 occasional public appearances will create, 
 partially because he does not wish the public 
 
 81 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 ever to realize how different is the reality from 
 the ideal he has painted of himself, and par- 
 tially because he fears the personal vengeance 
 of some of the many thousands whose ruin he 
 has caused. Several secretaries are between 
 him and the public. The President of the 
 United States is not so hard to reach as Law- 
 son. Senators who have daily business with 
 the President may gain his presence with a 
 minimum of red tape and delay, but business 
 associates whose dealings with Lawson have 
 extended over years must state their business 
 to at least two men and then wait interminably 
 — if in the end they are not sent away — before 
 they can even kow-tow and say, " Good morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Perhaps you also have read that Lawson is 
 a handsome man — that his face is bright and 
 smiling — that he laughs often and that his 
 eyes twinkle merrily. I have seen Lawson sit 
 at the luncheon table with men whom he 
 wished to impress. I have heard him laugh 
 often and long. I have seen his merriment 
 throw wrinkles about his eyes — but I have 
 never seen those eyes contain one spark of 
 humor, one twinkle of laughter, one flash of 
 human feeling. They are light gray eyes, 
 
 82 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 cold and calculating, without expression and 
 without heart. " The most cold-blooded eyes 
 I ever saw," was the way one acquaintance of 
 mine who had just met Lawson for the first 
 time described them. "What is the matter 
 with them ?" he added. 
 
 Having seen them many times I was able 
 to answer him. 
 
 "They are the eyes of the professional 
 gambler," I said. 
 
 He slapped his knee. " By Jove, you're 
 right," he cried. " That's just it, but I couldn't 
 get it. I've seen just that kind of eyes many 
 a time in the smiling face of the faro-dealer. 
 They're the eyes of the man who is trying to 
 make you think he's a good fellow, while he's 
 planning down in his heart how to get away 
 with your roll." 
 
 Yes, it is true that Lawson, when he is on 
 dress-parade in public, laughs a great deal — 
 with his mouth and the muscles of his face. 
 But his eyes never laugh, because they are the 
 windows of the soul and his soul contains no 
 laughter. 
 
 Is he a handsome man? He is well- 
 groomed — well-tailored — well-dressed. His 
 clothes fit him perfectly. A flower is always 
 
 83 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 on the lapel of his coat. His hair is well- 
 trimmed; his heavy, projecting jaw is clean- 
 shaven; his mustache is oiled and curled. If 
 fine feathers make fine birds, then the answer 
 is, "Yes, he is a handsome man." 
 
 But fine feathers do not make fine birds. 
 And I write it, not because I wish to add to the 
 unpleasant things that I write about' the Leader 
 of the Wolf-Pack — for there are enough un- 
 complimentary things to be said without going 
 out of the way to find a single addition — but 
 because it is time somebody told the truth about 
 things and I might as well tell it all at once, 
 that Lawson is attractive to the eye only so far 
 as his tailor and his barber and his manicurist 
 make him attractive. Cleanliness and the 
 services of a good valet do not make beauty, 
 and I tell you that the face that you see above 
 Lawson's white collar and stylish tie is the face 
 you might expect to see peering over a frayed, 
 grimy neckerchief, in the light of a dark- 
 lantern. 
 
 Did I write that Lawson always sits with his 
 back to the wall ? I could have done so truth- 
 fully. And his seat is over in the corner. And 
 he comes into the dining-room at a door but 
 three steps from the elevator by which he 
 
 84 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 descends from his rooms. And if any one 
 whom he had impoverished should try to get 
 to him at his table, a signal to the waiters who 
 hover around would throw a barrier in the 
 intruder's path. 
 
 Oh, yes. Lawson has his millions, and 
 " Dreamwold," and schemes afoot to make 
 more millions— but he cannot, with all his 
 guards and all his riches, escape punishment. 
 He is afraid. Afraid to walk the streets— he 
 always rides. Afraid to sit in the middle of a 
 dining-room — lest some victim should strike 
 him from behind. Afraid to let visitors get at 
 him— lest he might be asked to give an 
 accounting. Afraid— just afraid. And he 
 cannot laugh with his eyes. 
 
 You and I, with our clear consciences, would 
 not change places with him for all his millions 
 —and his ever-haunting fear. The mills of the 
 gods, which grind slowly but exceeding fine, 
 are beginning to revolve for Lawson. Let no 
 man envy him ! 
 
 I have read that Lawson is a devoted parent. 
 Well, I have seen him at luncheon with his 
 children. He led the way masterfully down 
 the room. A son and a daughter followed 
 him. They sat at his table and he ordered the 
 
 85 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 luncheon. They were not consulted. They 
 did not even handle a menu card. 
 
 He had no part to play on that occasion. 
 Across from him was sitting no financier whose 
 mind Lawson wished to impress with his 
 omnipotence in the markets; no journalist upon 
 whom he was concentrating his powers of 
 acting for the reward of a flattering write-up. 
 So not even the muscles of his face laughed. 
 He sat silent, scowling, as is his natural wont. 
 
 The luncheon that he ordered was served 
 and the trio fell to eating it. There was no 
 badinage to lighten the meal; no conversation 
 to aid digestion. Each ate quickly, silently, 
 solemnly. Once the little girl spoke to her 
 brother. She glanced sidewise, affrighted, at 
 her father, as she did so. The boy replied in 
 a monosyllable. Conversation halted. The 
 little girl looked toward the idle bill-of-fare. 
 I wondered what she wished. Perhaps an ice 
 or some form of dessert. She did not ask for 
 it — Lawson had ordered the meal and it is 
 evidently no part of the Lawson domestic 
 policy to brook interference with his will. 
 She ate what had been ordered for her — 
 silently, solemnly. Then they all filed out. 
 
 Much has been written by and of Lawson. 
 
 86 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 And most of that written about him has been 
 as truly fiction as what he himself writes. 
 
 But let no man underestimate Lawson. 
 Let no man think, because I am moved to 
 write of him as he is — which others have not 
 seemed to dare to do, or else they did not know, 
 — that I do not appreciate his strength. He is, 
 as you have read, one of the most brilliant, able 
 resourceful, energetic and forceful men that 
 ever deliberately set out to win a living by 
 gambling with stacked cards. He is am- 
 bitious — albeit it is an ambition with which 
 honest men can have no sympathy. He has 
 capacity for quick thought and ready action. 
 
 Yes, he is able. Had he chosen to be an 
 earner, instead of one who takes the belongings 
 of others, I believe he would have succeeded 
 as well. He is comparable to a well-built, 
 high-geared, perfectly assembled engine, set 
 on a track and started to running full speed in 
 the wrong direction. What he might have 
 done had he turned his abilities and energies 
 in the direction of right and honesty no man 
 may ever know. I believed, a year ago, that 
 he was going to right-about-face and de- 
 monstrate this, but I was mistaken — or rather, 
 deceived. 
 
 87 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I had learned, early in my days of financial 
 endeavor, that there are many financial 
 advisers, but few honest ones. I learned that 
 men advise their own friends to buy because 
 they themselves wish to sell at a profit; that 
 they tell their friends the market is going off 
 and advise them to sell with the decline because 
 they themselves wish to buy at a lower price. 
 I learned that men usually advocated the pur- 
 chase of this or that security because it was a 
 security which they wished to sell at a price 
 incalculably higher than they paid. I learned, 
 in a word, that the advice of the financier was 
 seldom given on the merits of the issue in- 
 volved. Whereupon I had determined to 
 inaugurate a new era of financial advice, to be 
 in finance but not of it, to build up a clientele 
 upon the foundation of fair and honest counsel. 
 Whether or not I did so my five thousand 
 customers will tell you. 
 
 In carrying out this policy I sought and 
 found publicity. It was natural, with all my 
 years of experience with newspapers, that I 
 should be a firm believer in advertising. I 
 issued circular letters. I published a weekly 
 newspaper — King's Financial Bulletin — and 
 later I published a daily paper. 
 
 88 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 From the beginning, I not only advised my 
 readers as to investments, which in my judg- 
 ment gave promise of good return, but warned 
 them against the evil catch-penny promotions 
 which were set as snares for their feet. I kept 
 in close touch with financial affairs, delving 
 into the reasons for things, going behind the 
 scenes for talks with the actors, and then set- 
 ting down in plain, understandable, United 
 States English the things that I found. As a 
 result I can not only point to the hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars made by investors who 
 were readers of what I wrote, but to millions of 
 dollars saved by them because of the warnings 
 I was able to sound of the pitfalls that were 
 being dug. 
 
 It was inevitable that I should soon reach 
 Lawson. It could not be otherwise. My very 
 policy necessitated that I should write of him, 
 or else be untrue to my friends, my clients and 
 myself. 
 
 I did not go out of my way to attack him; 
 neither did I hesitate when that attack became 
 necessary. It became my duty, in the pro- 
 tection of the investors who had come to look 
 to me for advice, to warn them against him; I 
 did my duty in the same spirit and manner in 
 
 89 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 which I should have warned my readers 
 against William Smith or Thomas Jones, if 
 Smith or Jones had been at that moment 
 arranging a campaign to separate honest in- 
 vestors from their dollars. 
 
 It chanced that as the months passed I had 
 more to say about Lawson than about any 
 other member of the Wolf -Pack. Some, un- 
 thinkingly, have supposed from this that he 
 and I had a personal feud, which is not true. I 
 had to write of Lawson more than of others 
 because he was — and is — the Leader of the 
 Pack. I had to warn against him because he 
 was — and is — the arch-type of the heartless 
 speculator who lures people on to fruitless 
 speculation and hopeless ruin. If I had more 
 to say of him it was because he did more to 
 warrant criticism, because he was the most 
 active, the most transparent, the most brazen 
 representative of the terrible system which, in 
 compliance with my promises to my friends, I 
 must do all I could do to stamp out. 
 
 In considering the past, and realizing what 
 power of Lawson has been exercised in my 
 direction as punishment for my frankness, I 
 cannot plead that I was ignorant of the 
 possible consequences. When I first printed 
 
 90 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 Lawson's name, with a review of a particu- 
 larly stenchful deal which he was at that 
 moment engineering, friends connected with 
 other financial houses began to warn me. 
 They told me I had better confine my shafts 
 to smaller targets and let Lawson alone. 
 They told me he was revengeful and unscrupu- 
 lous — that he would spend a fortune, if need 
 be, to punish any man who interfered with his 
 schemes — that he was as guiltless of fairness 
 in his plans to crush as he was of conscience in 
 his plans to win gold — that he would hesitate 
 at nothing, stoop to anything, and so cover his 
 tracks that it would be an impossibility for me 
 to prove, when the blow fell, that he dealt it, 
 or to even know whence it came. 
 
 " Why do you go out of your way to attack 
 him ?" asked a financial friend. " He is richer 
 than you. He has a greater knowledge of the 
 financial game than you. It will be better 
 policy to leave him alone. Let him make all 
 he can. He is just catching the ' suckers, ' and 
 they deserve to lose for being 'suckers.' " 
 
 Here was an argument I could not 
 understand. It was the argument of the man 
 in finance, inured to the ways of the game as 
 it is played in "the Street." 
 
 91 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "I am not going out of my way to attack 
 Lawson," I replied. "I am squarely in the 
 middle of my road and he is there before me. 
 I have promised to sound a warning whenever 
 I see a scheme rigged to rob investors. If I 
 went out of my way to go around Lawson be- 
 cause he is rich, and powerful, and filled with 
 the arrogance of long success, I would deserve 
 to fail in all my lifework. I know he is catch- 
 ing 'suckers,' as you call them, and it is my 
 duty and work to protect these same ' suckers.' 
 They're not 'suckers' from choice, you know, 
 but because they are deceived by the specious 
 words of Lawson and such men as he, and 
 because no one in all the world of finance 
 seems to have the courage to explain to them 
 just what such schemes as his mean." 
 
 My friend smiled tolerantly. 'There's too 
 much chivalry in you, King," he said. 
 "You're too much of a Don Quixote. When 
 you've run up against the Lawson windmill 
 once or twice you'll learn better." 
 
 " Cervantes, with his Don Quixote and his 
 windmills, put an end to foolish knight- 
 errantry," I retorted. 
 
 "Oh, have your own way," he replied. 
 " It's none of my business. Only if you inter- 
 
 92 
 
THE WOLF-PACK AND ITS LEADER 
 
 fere with Lawson's game, and he and his gang 
 'get you,' don't say that you weren't warned." 
 
 So you see I w T as never ignorant of what it 
 might mean to have Lawson for an enemy. 
 I went into the fray with my eyes wide open. 
 I knew what might be the result of speaking 
 truth about the Wolf-Pack and its Leader. 
 But — and of this I am and always shall be 
 proud — I kept on without deviation, striking 
 blows for truth and honesty in finance without 
 regard to how great, or rich, or powerful, or 
 revengeful, might be the man on whom those 
 blows fell. 
 
 On more than one occasion after the battle 
 had been squarely joined, as shall appear in 
 its proper place in this book, overtures of peace 
 were made to me. Four months after the war 
 began I was offered peace, assistance and great 
 riches, with full right to harry the Wolf-Pack 
 as I chose, if I would but cease to tell the truth 
 about its chief. I refused. The only terms 
 on which I would consider peace were for the 
 gray lone wolf to relinquish the council rock 
 and turn his ways to ways of honesty. After 
 a time those terms were accepted — and the 
 truce that followed broken as I might have 
 known, from my warnings, it would be. 
 
 93 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Yet, with all the results that have followed 
 my refusal to abandon the fight except on my 
 own terms, I am not sorry that I did what I 
 did. Had I the choice to make again between 
 a costly, exhausting battle for the right and a 
 disgraceful peace, I should choose as I chose 
 then. I could not do otherwise. 
 
 94 
 
Chapter X 
 IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 IT WAS in December of 1904 that I 
 first made reference, in the course of 
 my day's work, to Thomas W. Law- 
 son and his plans of promotion. It was on the 
 occasion when he and Colonel " Bill " Greene 
 were engaged in the opera bouffe quarrel, 
 which had for an exciting incident an exchange 
 of notes that threatened gun-play, and ended 
 with a w^ell-advertised conference at the Hotel 
 Touraine at which champagne corks rattled 
 like musketry. 
 
 It was a cleverly managed advertising cam- 
 paign, and the public, enticed by the publicity 
 of the supposed quarrel, was paying a profit- 
 able amount of attention to the tips that 
 Lawson was printing each day. I felt it my 
 duty to sound a note of warning and did so in 
 advertisements printed in the Boston news- 
 papers on December 15 and December 17. 
 A quotation from my words of the latter date, 
 in the light of history, will go far to prove 
 whether or not what I said was good: 
 
 95 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 In the wild, frenzied warfare of this week, the air has 
 been laden with such epithets as "liar," "faker," 
 "charlatan," "blackguard," "squealer," "fraud," 
 "pirate," and other equally uncomplimentary terms, 
 which have been vigorously hurled at each other by 
 the generals, or would-be generals, in command of 
 the unseemly squirmish. I have figured in the fight 
 to a sufficient extent, in length and depth, to know that 
 men go into the battle for personal gain — that friend and 
 foe are alike mowed down, without regard to past, 
 present or future relations or conditions — and I have 
 arrived at the conclusion that there is only one thing 
 that is sure and certain in connection with the whole 
 wild, frenzied stock market, and that one thing is that 
 somewhere in this fair land, between the rising and 
 setting of the sun each day, at least one soul is made to 
 cry out in agony and despair and seek rest in a suicide's 
 grave. I have come to the conclusion that to " play the 
 market" when the red flag of anarchy is unfurled to 
 the breeze is to play with fire. I claim and proclaim 
 boldly that men go into the fight for personal gain and 
 trample beneath their feet both the strong and the weak, 
 without feeling and without pity. 
 
 To those, therefore, who follow my advice, I say: 
 
 " Clear off the field of battle. There is danger even 
 on the outskirts of the wild, frenzied stock market. 
 Invest your money in securities which cannot be 
 reached or affected by the tissue bulletins now being 
 hurled in every direction. Let all speculative securities 
 severely alone. By doing this, you will not be called 
 upon to contribute to the support of the two great armies 
 
 90 
 
IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 now arrayed in battle for whose support somebody must 
 contribute and contribute dearly." 
 
 A little niore than a month later Lawson 
 began one of his periodical campaigns in the 
 stock of the Trinity Copper Company. It is 
 doubtful if one of you who read these words 
 is entirely unfamiliar with the ruin and misery 
 that have been caused by the will-o'-the-wisp 
 of Trinity, flashing across the speculative bogs 
 under the guidance of this Boston manipulator, 
 and yet you have no comprehension of the 
 sum total of horror that may be credited to 
 the periodical touting of this stock. I shall 
 have occasion to refer to Trinity on several 
 occasions before my task of enlightenment is 
 done and to tell of the hundreds and thousands 
 of people who have been ruined and robbed by 
 means of it. 
 
 In the light of subsequent events there is no 
 word that I ever wrote of which I feel the right 
 to be more proud than this warning, which I 
 sent broadcast through the medium of my 
 Bulletin and the big newspapers, over date 
 of January 31, 1905, at a time when, by fair 
 words and promises impossible of fulfillment, 
 Lawson was assembling the lambs for the 
 shearing : 
 
 97 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 TO TRINITY STOCKHOLDERS 
 
 The Trinity Copper Company was incorporated 
 under the laws of the State of New Jersey, for $6,000,000 
 October 18, 1900. 
 
 The company's mining property, smelting plant, and 
 other assets are located in Shasta County, California. 
 
 Since the organization of this company its stock has 
 been a favorite market football. 
 
 There is always something doing in Trinity. Some- 
 times it is up, sometimes it is down, sometimes it is 
 on, sometimes it is off. 
 
 Several hundred investors asked my advice respecting 
 Trinity during the past two months, and the advice I 
 have given one and all has been something like this: 
 
 First: If I did not own any Trinity stock I would not 
 buy any. 
 
 Second: If I did own any Trinity stock I would sell it. 
 
 Six weeks or more passed, during which the 
 shearing of the Trinity lambs was consum- 
 mated with neatness and despatch and other 
 schemes to separate the investing public from 
 its money were developed and put into effect. 
 The rumor factory, inseparable from the 
 campaigns of the market manipulators, began 
 to work overtime in the manufacture of talk 
 that a dividend was likely to be paid upon 
 Steel Common, that there was some inside 
 reason for an increase in the quotations of 
 
 98 
 
IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Amalgamated, and that some mysterious ad- 
 vance was to take place in the value of Copper 
 Range. This last was at that moment a 
 Lawson advertising subject, and I discussed 
 it in advertisements over date of March 11 in 
 combination with the other schemes to entrap 
 regarding which I felt it my duty to give 
 warning. 
 
 My readers will understand that these 
 advertisements which I am quoting were by 
 no means the only ones I was publishing — 
 that these warnings were not the only ones I 
 was giving. They were, to again use the 
 phrase that occurs at the beginning of this 
 chapter, merely in the day's work, which pro- 
 vided for warnings against all pitfalls for the 
 unwary investor. I did not go out of my way 
 to show up the Lawson schemes any more 
 than I went out of my way to show up the 
 schemes of any other of the market manipu- 
 lators whose advice and counsel were likely to 
 work havoc with the savings of the people. 
 From week to week I took up the schemes to 
 prey and exposed or advised against them. 
 
 Lawson has said, I am told, as some pallia- 
 tion of his attempted massacre under a flag of 
 truce, that I had always gone out of my way 
 
 99 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 to "get after" him. It seems to me I have 
 read in the statements of many a criminal that 
 same charge against the policeman who 
 captured him. It is usually not true in 
 the criminal's case; the policeman merely 
 arrests him in the course of duty. It is equally 
 not true in this case; my duty was to warn 
 investors, whether the trap into which they were 
 walking w T as built by the hand of John W. 
 Gates or Bill Smith, Joe Brown or Thomas 
 W. Laws on. 
 
 At any moment when Lawson had ceased to 
 rig up schemes to rob the public I would have 
 ceased all uncomplimentary reference to him. 
 This is proven by the fact that when, as has 
 once been referred to and will appear in detail 
 in its proper place, he begged for a truce, 
 promising to " go and sin no more," I did cease 
 my attacks. 
 
 This was the advertisement referred to, 
 which appeared on March 11, 1905, over my 
 signature : 
 
 UNITED STATES STEEL, COPPER RANGE 
 AND AMALGAMATED 
 
 I am preparing, and shall send to press Tuesday, a 
 special market letter dealing with the present condition 
 
 100 
 
IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 of the stock market, and especially with the notice- 
 able rise in the quotations on United States Steel, 
 Copper Range and Amalgamated. I claim that 
 nothing happened accidentally, but rather, there is a 
 cause for everything that happens, and in my letter 
 I shall point out in a plain, old-fashioned, common- 
 sense way just why, according to my own way of looking 
 at things, the present high prices obtain for certain 
 stocks which were selling only a few weeks ago at prices 
 not far in advance of their real value. 
 
 I believe that I shall be able to make it perfectly 
 clear to all thinking persons that the inspired rumor 
 to the effect that a dividend is likely to be paid soon 
 on Steel Common is the rankest sort of nonsense. 
 
 I shall endeavor to point out, in a clear and con- 
 vincing manner, just why Steel Common has continued 
 to advance in price from week to week for three months, 
 with a regularity and faithfulness akin to that of a good 
 soldier obeying the orders of his general. I shall 
 analyze carefully Amalgamated Copper, and believe 
 that the facts which I shall set down for consideration 
 will prove of interest to investors. 
 
 I shall have much to say about the contradictory 
 advice given to investors during the past six months 
 by Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, in his present 
 contemplated advertising campaign in the interest of 
 Copper Range. I shall quote from his public announce- 
 ment of January 3, wherein he cried aloud that the 
 people "owe to themselves not to invest any more of 
 their savings," because of the awful things that were 
 sure to happen. I shall show that he stated a little 
 
 101 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 more than two months ago, emphatically and with 
 positive assurance, that one of the listed securities 
 would drop in price from $80 to $50 per share in a 
 single day, and that the cause of its decline would bring 
 about a tremendous drop in all other stocks, unless 
 they had previously fallen. I shall show that by 
 printed proclamations he called aloud to investors and 
 speculators throughout the country to clear out of the 
 stock market and not to reinvest their money in " stocks 
 or any bonds of less safety than government, or first- 
 class city or state or other absolutely unassailable bonds." 
 In printed proclamations to-day, in language just 
 as positive and with equal assurance, Mr. Lawson 
 has much to say about Copper Range Consolidated, 
 and unqualifiedly advises its purchase for cash or 
 upon margin. In his proclamation the statement is 
 made that he has picked Copper Range to sell as high 
 as 225 in the immediate future, and he strongly urges 
 all investors and speculators to get aboard the band 
 w T agon. In my letter I shall write down some of the 
 things known to me about Copper Range, and I shall 
 point out, in a thoroughly proper, legal and legitimate 
 manner, the reasons for this sudden sounding of the 
 tom-toms on State Street in its behalf. 
 
 I have been told that as far back as these 
 advertisements Lawson raged and promised 
 his intimates that the time would come when 
 he would get square with me for daring to 
 criticise him and his methods. It was not, 
 
 102 
 
IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 however, until a warning of mine stopped one 
 of his campaigns in which he had anticipated 
 a gigantic "killing" that he set his legions 
 at work to drive me out of business, stop my 
 mouth and pen, and land me, as he said, 
 "either in jail or a suicide's grave." 
 
 103 
 
Chapter XI 
 AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 THESE warnings which I have recounted 
 brought profit to investors. With 
 whether or not they brought discomfort 
 to Lawson I had nothing to do. They 
 were true, justice to investors demanded that 
 the facts be told, and it was in pursuance of 
 my settled policy to do justice to investors 
 that I told them. 
 
 Weeks and months passed and there arose 
 no occasion for me to criticise the master 
 craftsman of speculation. I continued on the 
 even tenor of my way. When I saw a plan to 
 steal I exposed it. When I saw a fair and 
 proper investment I advised it. My clientele 
 grew daily larger and more influential. My 
 financial house, builded on the rock of fair- 
 dealing, flourished. More than a year and a 
 half passed before duty bade me write the 
 article that first really set Lawson and the Pack 
 howling at my heels. It was an article written 
 and published in my King's Financial Bulletin 
 under date of November 24, 1906. 
 
 104 
 
AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 There was afoot a scheme to induce the 
 public to buy stock in the Arcadian Copper 
 Company at from $8.50 to $15 a share. The 
 men behind the scheme had chosen Lawson 
 to handle the publicity. In a series of cleverly 
 worded advertisements he had advised the 
 purchase of x\rcadian, and the public had 
 begun to listen. 
 
 Now if nobodv had been concerned in this 
 
 t/ 
 
 piece of market-rigging but speculators, I 
 should undoubtedly have remained silent. I 
 have never felt it to be my duty to assist 
 speculators, having little sympathy with them 
 or their losses. But in this advertising cam- 
 paign it was being cried loudly that here was a 
 magnificent opportunity for investment — that 
 at approximately $15 a share Arcadian was a 
 great "bargain" — that the investor who did 
 not straightway withdraw his funds from all 
 other places and put them into Arcadian was 
 doing himself an injustice that he would long 
 regret. 
 
 My investigations into the highways and 
 byways of finance had given me something 
 more than a superficial knowledge of what was 
 going on in Arcadian. I knew what this game 
 meant. I could not do otherwise, in pur- 
 
 105 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 suance of my policy, than give voice to my 
 knowledge. 
 
 So I wrote of things as they were, and what 
 here follows is a considerable portion of my 
 article which appeared in King's Financial 
 Bulletin and by saving many an innocent lamb 
 from the shambles won for me the revengeful 
 hate of those who were ready for the kill. 
 
 Within a few days the quotations on Arcad- 
 ian dropped. They have never since risen 
 substantially, and on the day on which I write 
 this chapter — July 30, 1908 — the quotation of 
 Arcadian on the Boston Stock Exchange is 
 $4.25 a share. This furnishes some illumina- 
 tion as to whether my advice was good or bad ; 
 as to whether the Arcadian boom was a great 
 opportunity for investors or a cleverly arranged 
 and well-manipulated confidence game. 
 
 I wrote as follows: 
 
 The warming-over of the colossal Arcadian failure 
 has been the conspicuous feature of the great gambling 
 exchange in State Street, Boston, for the past two weeks. 
 So far-reaching will be the effect of this latest game to 
 separate the public from its money ; so insidious are the 
 elements of the scheme, and so vital a matter is it to 
 those with funds to invest that I deem it far above a 
 matter of local importance and worthy of careful dis- 
 cussion in King's Financial Bulletin. 
 
 106 
 
AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 This Arcadian warming-over is no ordinary financial 
 trick, remember. It is being engineered by some of 
 the cleverest schemers in the United States, and that 
 it will entrap thousands of unsuspecting men and women, 
 especially those who unfortunately have dealings with 
 the stock exchanges, is thoroughly to be expected. But 
 if any words of mine can shed the much needed light 
 in dark places and show investors the folly of ever again 
 trusting the Arcadian bubble, I shall consider that my 
 duty has been well performed. 
 
 The present unsavory boom for this thrice unsavory 
 stock began along in the early part of November. All 
 at once there sprang into the arena of publicity Mr. 
 Thomas W. Lawson, a man who has been connected 
 with Arcadian, at least so far as its speculative fortunes 
 were concerned, ever since the days of its infancy. Mr. 
 Lawson claims to have been defrauded and swindled 
 in Arcadian by powers higher than he. 
 
 Of that I cannot say with authority, but I do know 
 that whether Mr. Lawson or Mr. Burrage, the presi- 
 dent of the company, has been at fault, there have been 
 few such fathomless pits opened up for the money of 
 the people since the days of the South Sea swindle. At 
 any rate, the man who has publicly begun the present 
 attempt to inflate the worthless Arcadian stock so that 
 it may soar higher and higher in the market to the 
 ultimate destruction of those who cling to it, is Mr. 
 Lawson. 
 
 The advertisements set forth by this most aggressive 
 of Boston financiers began with the strenuous plea to 
 "hold Arcadian." Certain reasons were given why 
 
 107 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 this should be done, persuasive, plausible, no doubt, 
 to people who were not acquainted with the stench and 
 rottenness of the former Arcadian delusion. 
 
 I do not know whether Mr. Lawson is a part of the 
 principal of this great scheme to warm-over the un- 
 palatable remains of a former feast, nor do I care. The 
 fact remains, whether he is with or against Mr. Burrage 
 in this particular scheme, that the public is to be 
 milked. There is nothing else under heaven in the 
 extraordinary campaign now being carried on to boost 
 the price of the tottering wreck that has before ruined 
 so many people of moderate means. 
 
 Of course, in this great plot to unload upon the public 
 of New England, there is printed the usual bait. It is 
 hinted in no uncertain terms that the great "Baltic 
 lode" has been discovered underneath some of the 
 Arcadian property, and this notwithstanding the fact 
 that only recently the very best of all the Arcadian 
 holdings were sold to Quincy for $750,000. Thus 
 stripped and denuded of everything of value, the 
 Arcadian mines are still held forth as of glittering and 
 golden promise. If there was ever a worse caricature 
 upon candor and honesty in all this world, I would like 
 to be informed as to its details. 
 
 That this warming-over of the cold Arcadian scraps 
 is merely a bit of culinary stock- jobbing, there are ample 
 proofs. What, for instance, does the enormous activity 
 in the stock as exhibited in the Boston gambling 
 exchange signify ? Does it mean that genuine sales are 
 being made to people with real money to invest ? 
 Scarcely; else how do we account for the fact that in 
 
 108 
 
AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 the week of November 10 to 17, inclusive, 60,088 
 shares of Arcadian stock were dealt in, when there are 
 only 150,000 shares in existence in the whole world? 
 And how do we account for the fact that on Monday, 
 November 19, no less than 36,333 shares more changed 
 hands in that farcical and utterly deceptive manner 
 characteristic of the stock exchange ? 
 
 Even to-day. as I write this, the wild crowds of 
 frenetic gamblers are shouting around the Arcadian 
 pole and bandying back and forth with no pretence 
 whatever of either obtaining or losing actual owner- 
 ship, thousands more of these Arcadian shares. 
 
 What does it all signify? Does it mean honest 
 transactions in an honest stock? Not the slightest in 
 the world. It means "wash sales. " It means frauds 
 and fakes and swindles for the purpose of making 
 Arcadian stand higher in the stock exchange report, 
 and thereby inducing the ever-ready "lambs" to crowd 
 in and receive their part of the shearing. 
 
 And yet you may put this down as gospel truth : that 
 wherever there is a genuine sale of any considerable 
 block of stock, the real seller is an insider who has 
 been loaded up for years with the worthless truck and is 
 now, without a glimmer of conscience or one spark of 
 remorse, endeavoring to make good by throwing the 
 useless rubbish into somebody else's treasury chest, he 
 cares not whose nor where. 
 
 That the artificiality of the boom and its evident 
 intent to inveigle the people are well recognized, the 
 following description of the doings of November 19, 
 from the Boston Advertiser, very clearly shows : 
 
 109 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "The manipulation of Arcadian continued, and the 
 stock advanced to 15, closing at 1434. Trading was 
 very heavy. Floor brokers reported that the same 
 tactics were used as on Saturday, but to a somewhat 
 smaller extent. They reported a considerable demand 
 for the stock from outside sources, which is the strangest 
 feature of the movement. Considering the history of 
 Arcadian, it would not have seemed possible that the 
 public could have been induced to purchase the stock 
 again. No flotation in recent years has cost the public 
 so much money as Arcadian. Those who listen to the 
 bullish talk now current should recall that the same 
 siren talked in the same way some years ago. " 
 
 Ah, yes. The same siren talked and it talked to 
 good advantage for the promoters and the stock-jobbers 
 who foisted worthless Arcadian upon the people. It 
 talked to such advantage that in 1899 the Arcadian 
 stock reached the astounding figures of 9534> almost 
 300 per cent above par, and that, too, when not one 
 dollar of dividends had ever been paid and not one 
 dollar of dividends was in prospect. 
 
 That was the siren talk of those days, and when, in 
 1904, the Arcadian dream had come to a close and its 
 collapsed and worthless stock was not wanted at twenty- 
 five cents a share, then, I say, those people who had 
 listened to the siren knew the bitterness of the song and 
 rued the day they had ever listened to it. 
 
 And now the same old attempt to do the same old 
 thing is enormously in evidence. Promises, predic- 
 tions, mysterious holdings, all the carefully prepared 
 paraphernalia of inflation are to be seen every day. 
 
 110 
 
AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 Mr. Lawson, in his big advertisements does not hesitate 
 to say: "I repeat: I do not see why Arcadian should 
 not sell at 50, 75, 100." 
 
 Does the average man understand what that means ? 
 Does he realize that 100 means 400 (for Arcadian is a 
 $25 par stock) ? Does he stop to think that there is 
 nothing whatever back of such a grossly absurd state- 
 ment as that ? Why, Arcadian must needs be another 
 Calumet & Hecla or a Rio Tinto or a Tamarack to 
 justify any such figures, when the solemn truth is that 
 Arcadian is a stripped and impoverished mine, most of 
 her machinery pawned and gone, all her activities 
 stopped and nothing but the mere cock-and-bull story 
 of the discovery of a great lode to build any hope 
 whatever upon. 
 
 Even if there is a lode, there will be no money in the 
 treasury to work it, and Arcadian must find the cash 
 somewhere, either through more desperate borrowings 
 or a call upon the stockholders. You will not find, I 
 fancy, either Mr. Burrage or Mr. Lawson or any other 
 of the eminent gentlemen engaged in the pleasant game 
 of booming Arcadian — you will not find them going 
 down into their pockets and furnishing the where- 
 withal for the operations of a played-out mine. 
 
 In the mostly fictitious uplift of Arcadian from the 
 time its latest boom began in the stock exchange until 
 this present hour of writing, the total advance in its 
 alleged price has been about nine points; that is to say, 
 the highest figure it reached before Tuesday, November 
 20, was a fraction above fifteen. Think of that; a stock 
 selling for over half its par value and at the same time 
 
 111 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 having absolutely no intrinsic worth back of it to make 
 it even square up with a single dollar bill. 
 
 Regard the colossal effrontery of the manipulators 
 of this discredited stuff in venturing to indicate, even by 
 the untruthful quotations on the Boston stock exchange, 
 that Arcadian was worthy of purchase at any such 
 figure as $15. 
 
 In the creed of honest and honorable men it is always 
 written that there must be something behind a stock to 
 guarantee in some measure the price for which the 
 unsuspecting public is asked to buy it. In the case of 
 Arcadian, there is nothing but deserted mines, ruined 
 machinery and the ever-recurring mysterious hint of 
 the great and wonderful " Baltic lode. " 
 
 And yet, as I have said before, this stock has advanced 
 since the beginning of the warming-over to the amount 
 of about nine dollars per share, and although the vast 
 majority of the sales upon the stock exchange have 
 undoubtedlv been fraudulent and fictitious articles of 
 "wash," yet it is to be feared that, in this carefully 
 nourished advance, hundreds if not thousands of 
 people without special knowledge of the trickery have 
 been involved in the meshes of the Arcadian net and 
 will, ere long, be struggling to free themselves when 
 they find that they are being drawn out of their natural 
 element into a region where they must either give up 
 all they possess or perish. 
 
 That is the saddest phase of the whole campaign of 
 manipulation. If the big men in the market were 
 merely to rend and tear one another I would have no 
 fault to find, nor would the ordinary citizen care a rap 
 
 112 
 
AN UNSAVORY BOOM 
 
 about the whole struggle, but when there is added to 
 the pretended combat of giants the blood of innocent 
 victims who stand between in the fray, then it is time 
 to raise a protest and to utter such words of warning as 
 may best fit the subject. 
 
 With all my heart I trust I have made this Arcadian 
 matter clear, so that what I have written will prevent 
 many from being offered as living sacrifices to an unholy 
 alliance. 
 
 Out into the homes and business places of 
 America went this graphic expose of Arcadian 
 through the medium of King's Financial Bul- 
 letin. The investing public, warned of the pit 
 before it, refused to be decoyed. The unsa- 
 vory Arcadian boom collapsed. And the high 
 priests of Kali, disappointed in the toll of 
 victims they had intended to sacrifice to the 
 ten-armed goddess, put up my name in their 
 temples and straightway came frothing and 
 foaming after my heart's blood. 
 
 From that moment I was a marked man. 
 The cord of the chief Strangler was aimed at 
 my neck. Desperate, he determined that I 
 must be removed. He assembled his dev- 
 otees and his slaves. He gave the necessary 
 orders. The machinery of the craft began 
 to revolve. I did not know it for many days, 
 but the fiat had gone forth. I must be put 
 
 113 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 out of the way by foul means, since fair means 
 could not hope to accomplish the results. 
 
 Since that day they have caused me to 
 suffer almost intolerable pain and sorrow. 
 They caused me losses that, with those not due 
 to them but to the panic that befell at a 
 moment that could not have served them better 
 if they had helped to make it, aggregate nearly 
 a million dollars. They made captive of my 
 health — almost of my reason and of life itself. 
 They came within a breathless margin of 
 winning the fight, of driving me, as the Master 
 Thug promised, to prison or a suicide's grave. 
 They set back the cause of honest-dealing in 
 finance months — perhaps years. And all for 
 speaking words of Truth that stopped them 
 from stealing a few more dollars. 
 
 "Behold, how great a matter a little fire 
 kindleth." 
 
 114 
 
Chapter XII 
 A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 THE issue of Kings Financial Bulletin 
 containing this exposure of the Arcadian 
 bubble was dated Saturday, November 
 24. In order that the paper might be in the 
 hands of its readers by the date of publication, 
 so that people whose work occupied all their 
 week-day time might have Sunday for its 
 perusal, it was the custom to send it to press on 
 each Thursday. Thus this number went to 
 press and the copies began to be run off and 
 delivered on Thursday, November 22. 
 
 On Friday morning, November 23, as I sat 
 at breakfast, the Boston morning papers were 
 brought to me and laid beside my plate. Be- 
 tween sips of coffee I turned to the financial 
 pages. There, in several of them— there were 
 one or two which would not lend their col- 
 umns to this sort of thing and had refused to 
 accept the proffered "copy"— appeared an 
 advertisement, occupying a large space and 
 conspicuously displayed. It read as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 115 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 NOTICE TO HOLDERS OF NORTON OIL, 
 
 DOUGLAS COPPER OR KING- 
 
 CROWTHER STOCK 
 
 All persons who have had dealings in any of the above 
 stocks are requested to write to the undersigned, giving 
 the amount and cost of their shares, the person to whom 
 their money was paid, how they were induced to pur- 
 chase, and particularly if the United States mail in any 
 way entered into the transaction and how. 
 
 COAKLEY, COAKLEY & SHERMAN, 
 
 Counsellors-at-Law, 
 20 Pemberton Square, Boston. 
 
 I gasped with astonishment and, pushing 
 the remainder of my breakfast from me, 
 hastened to my office. There I endeavored 
 to get in touch with persons who might know 
 what it all meant. 
 
 The name of the attorneys signed to the 
 advertisement meant little. The Coakleys, 
 "Dan" and "Tim," are brilliant young men 
 who were once connected with newspapers, 
 read law, became admitted to the bar, and 
 have built up a large practice and become 
 financially independent — principally through 
 the medium of accident cases. They have 
 developed the collecting of such cases to a 
 science, and I have heard that more than two- 
 thirds of all the suits for accident damages 
 
 116 
 
A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 brought against the Boston Elevated Rail- 
 road bear their names on the writs. This, as 
 may be readily seen, must be extremely profit- 
 able, as it places the firm in a position to try 
 some cases, discontinue others and settle 
 others out of court, and so brilliant a pair as 
 the Coakleys may be depended upon not to 
 lose money in the operation. I presume there 
 is a Sherman. It is rather immaterial, because 
 when "Coakley, Coakley & Sherman" are 
 under discussion, it is always brilliant "Dan" 
 or brilliant "Tim" whose personality the 
 talk turns upon. 
 
 Incidentally the Coakleys have been at one 
 time and another active in politics. At the 
 time of which I write "Tim" Coakley had 
 just finished a very strenuous participation in 
 the Massachusetts state campaign, appearing 
 publicly on a number of occasions in behalf 
 of District Attorney John B. Moran, who had 
 made a strikingly energetic fight as the 
 Democratic nominee for Governor. So you 
 see that whoever was back of this advertise- 
 ment had retained the services of a firm of 
 attorneys who could be depended upon to 
 hustle, to use printer's ink to good advantage 
 — and not to be too squeamish about whether 
 
 117 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 what they were doing was ethically right or 
 wrong. 
 
 Every reader at all familiar with my business 
 at that time will appreciate the purpose and 
 deadly import of this advertisement. King- 
 Crowther, Norton Oil and Douglas Copper 
 were three companies with the sale of whose 
 securities I had been especially identified. 
 That they were in a highly sound and satis- 
 factory condition had nothing to do with the 
 possibility of injury in such an advertisement. 
 It would be evident to a child that the intent 
 of whoever was back of the attack was to 
 deceive the public into thinking that I had 
 been defrauding investors in my representa- 
 tions as to this stock. It was the evident hope 
 that I would be seriously injured. The scheme 
 was to cause investors to besiege my office 
 crying for a return of their money, hoping 
 thereby to embarrass me, or to prevent me 
 from selling any more of the securities of the 
 companies named. 
 
 The reference to the United States mail was 
 particularly deadly in intent. Practically 
 everybody knows, in these days, that a great 
 many people who pursue questionable busi- 
 nesses can be stopped only by means of the 
 
 118 
 
A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 safeguards that the government throws about 
 the use of the mails. There is many a scheme 
 to defraud which does not violate any law, 
 either state or national, at least until it has 
 become effective and the damage has been 
 done. To protect its citizens, as well as to 
 punish those who injure them, is a duty of the 
 government, and for this protection it has been 
 provided that whoever uses the mails with 
 intent to defraud may be forbidden further use 
 of them. 
 
 The public knows this. It knows that to 
 secure a fraud order from the Post Office 
 Department is often the only way of stopping 
 swindlers from pursuing their avocation. This 
 Coakley, Coakley & Sherman advertisement, 
 therefore, very evidently had behind it a desire 
 to make its readers think that there was afoot 
 some plan to secure a fraud order against me — 
 and thereby to cause them to loss confidence in 
 me. 
 
 That no such plan was afoot — that no com- 
 plaint had ever been made to the Post Office 
 officials against me or my business by one 
 single investor through my office — had nothing 
 to do with the matter. The seed of distrust, 
 thus sowed, might bring me a harvest of lost 
 
 119 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 confidence. So those who instigated this 
 underhanded blow in the dark fondly hoped. 
 
 It required not more than an hour after 
 reaching my office to learn that the advertise- 
 ment had been offered to newspapers by an 
 advertising agency which had at times placed 
 some of Lawson's business. By the time I had 
 gained this information my reception room was 
 filled with reporters, sent by the city editors of 
 the various newspapers of Boston to ascertain 
 what was in the wind. To them I gave the 
 following statement : 
 
 The advertisements appearing in the newspapers this 
 morning, addressed, "To the Holders of Norton Oil, 
 Douglas Copper and King-Crowther Stock," and 
 signed by Coakley, Coakley & Sherman, Counsellors- 
 at-Law, prove conclusively that I was right in my 
 warning announcement concerning the Arcadian Copper 
 bubble yesterday, when I said that the " warming-over 
 of Arcadian is no ordinary financial trick. It is being 
 engineered by some of the cleverest schemers in the 
 United States." 
 
 The advertisement printed by this firm of attorneys 
 to-day is the most dastardly and cowardly attempt at a 
 stab in the back under cover of darkness, ever made 
 upon an American citizen. In the newspapers of Bos- 
 ton of to-morrow I shall reply to it in full with all the 
 strength and vigor at my command. 
 
 120 
 
A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 Then my investigations were continued. 
 My office was not lacking in machinery to 
 gather information, or connections whence it 
 might be obtained, and by night I had made 
 up my mind as to the purpose of the attack 
 and the personality behind it. 
 
 I realized that the battle against me had 
 begun. I well knew the resources and abili- 
 ties of the man directing it. I knew that he 
 would find plenty of other men willing to 
 assist in putting me out of business if there 
 was a chance of success — men who were in 
 sympathy with him in the desire to stop my 
 pen, because I attacked them as freely as I did 
 him whenever their plans were not such as 
 would stand the light of day. 
 
 Then was the time, if I feared the outcome, 
 for me to make peace. I think to-day that 
 Lawson half believed, after this vindictive 
 advertisement, that I would come crawling to 
 his knees, begging for mercy. It is not usual, 
 in his scheme of things, for men to fight back. 
 I had no idea of begging for peace, or even 
 making it. I foresaw war— and I was ready 
 for it. I welcomed it. And, in defiance of 
 the Master Thug and all his minions, I pub- 
 lished in every Boston newspaper on the 
 
 121 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 folllowing morning a statement which so 
 expresses the situation that every word of it is 
 worthy of reproduction here. It follows: 
 
 MY NAME— MY BUSINESS— MY POLICY 
 
 A firm of Boston lawyers representing individuals 
 or corporations whose identity they decline to disclose, 
 inserted in all the Boston newspapers yesterday that 
 would accept it and print it, an advertisement request- 
 ing that all persons owning shares of Norton Oil, 
 Douglas Copper or King-Crowther, or who have had 
 dealings in any of these stocks, write to them, giving 
 the amount and cost of their shares, the person to whom 
 their money was paid, how they were induced to pur- 
 chase, and particularly if the United States mails in any 
 way entered into the transaction and how. 
 
 I understand the meaning of it all. Every line of it 
 is perfectly plain to me. There is nothing mysterious 
 about it. It simply means that certain individuals — 
 certain cliques — certain syndicates and certain power- 
 ful influences, which the very existence of my business 
 has opposed for several years, have resorted to unusual 
 and hitherto unheard-of tactics, methods of the mid- 
 night assassin, in an effort to do me and the corporations 
 I represent an injury. In all my experience I never 
 knew these tactics applied to finance before. 
 
 I have had the matter thoroughly investigated during 
 the day. I know whom the firm of lawyers represent, 
 and in the open, with the noonday sun streaming in my 
 face, I stand up and issue this challenge, hurl it with all 
 the vehemence and force at my command at this attack 
 
 122 
 
A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 on character and reputation, at this apostle of finance, 
 who finds it convenient and necessary to crouch behind 
 lawyers and conceal his identity while blows are struck 
 under cover of darkness. 
 
 If he will come out in the open like a man — like a 
 man unafraid — and, like a man, make charges against 
 me, I promise him here and now that the fight will be a 
 fair one and that never at any time will I strike in the 
 dark or aim a blow below the belt. 
 
 There is not on the books of my office a single dis- 
 satisfied customer. There is not in the entire list of 
 stockholders of the King-Crowther Corporation a single 
 person who is dissatisfied with his or her investment. 
 The same is true of the Douglas Copper Company. 
 The same is true of the Norton Oil Company. The 
 same is true of all the corporations which I have 
 financed. 
 
 There is no more excuse for the publication of the 
 advertisement given out by the firm of lawyers above 
 referred to than there would be for me to declare that 
 Boston was to be immediately swallowed up by an 
 earthquake — no more excuse for it than there would be 
 for me to proclaim that the strongest financial institu- 
 tions of Boston were insolvent. It was published for no 
 other reason than as an effort to do me and my business 
 an injury. 
 
 I state solemnly and with all the earnestness at my 
 command that if there is in all the world a single indi- 
 vidual who has ever at any time purchased a single 
 share of the stock of the King-Crowther Corporation of* 
 the Norton Oil Company, or a bond of the Douglas 
 
 123 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Copper Company, all of which securities have been sold 
 by me, and is now dissatisfied — I state solemnly and 
 with all the earnestness at my command that I do not 
 know of any such person. I state solemnly that there 
 is not on my books to-day to my personal knowledge, 
 the name of a single individual who is in any manner 
 whatsoever dissatisfied with any investment made on 
 my recommendation. 
 
 I challenge — I defy anybody to give me the name of a 
 single dissatisfied customer of my office — to give me the 
 name of a single person who will stand up and look me 
 in the face and say to me that he has had dealings with 
 me, wherein I did not treat him with the utmost fairness 
 and accord to him every consideration. I challenge — I 
 defy anybody to point to a single statement which I 
 ever made about the King-Crowther Corporation or the 
 Norton Oil Company, or the Douglas Copper Company 
 that was not and is not true in every particular. I 
 challenge — I defy anybody to point to any statement 
 of mine bearing on the value of securities which I have 
 offered for public subscription wherein the statement 
 made is not in every way in accordance with the facts. 
 
 Why didn't this firm of lawyers include the holders of 
 Ehrman Manufacturing Company, the holders of Howe 
 Paint & Color Works, the holders of Erie Preserving 
 Company, the holders of Bradley & Metcalf stock, the 
 securities of all of which corporations I have sold to the 
 public ? 
 
 The reason is this : The factory of the Ehrman Manu- 
 facturing Company is located at Milford, New Hamp- 
 shire, within one and one-half hour's ride from Boston. 
 
 124 
 
A BLOW IN THE DARK 
 
 It is an easy matter for any one to get on a train and see 
 with his own eyes the truth of all I have claimed for the 
 Ehrman stock. The Howe Paint & Color Works are 
 located at Worcester, only one hour's ride from Boston. 
 It is an easy matter for anybody to get on a train and 
 prove the truthfulness of all I have claimed for that 
 stock. The Erie Preserving Company is located at 
 Buffalo, only a night's run from Boston, and it is only 
 necessary to inquire of any well-posted shoe dealer or 
 manufacturer to learn all about the Bradley & Metcalf 
 Company, of Milwaukee. 
 
 The properties of the King-Crowther Corporation 
 are located in Ohio, Indiana and Texas. The property 
 of the Norton Oil Company is located in Indiana, and 
 the property of the Douglas Copper Company is 
 located in the State of Sonora, Mexico, the properties 
 of neither of these three companies being as easily 
 accessible as in the case of the other corporations 
 financed through my office. Therefore, only corpora- 
 tions about which to learn the entire truth at first hand 
 quite a journey is necessary, are mentioned. 
 
 I shall continue in the path I have blazed out. I 
 shall go straight ahead. I shall turn neither to the 
 right nor to the left. I shall give no heed to the growls or 
 groans of bulls or bears; neither shall I listen to the 
 
 siren's song. 
 
 And always I shall be able to stand out in the open 
 and affix my own signature to every printed announce- 
 ment made by me, because I know I am right, and 
 because — I am not afraid. 
 The war was on. 
 
 125 
 
Chapter XIII 
 JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 I DO not know what Lawson had expected 
 would be the effect of the Coakley, Coak- 
 ley & Sherman advertisement ; whether he 
 had expected it to injure my business by turn- 
 ing my customers and clients against me, or 
 had merely expected to frighten me into ceas- 
 ing forever to criticise him and his methods by 
 thus showing me what manner of fight I should 
 have on my hands if I persisted. Whichever 
 was his expectation he was disappointed. 
 
 Those who knew of the companies whose 
 names he had mentioned laughed at the 
 absurdity. Those who knew nothing about 
 them were not, I suppose, interested, and if 
 they were their opinion could have in it no 
 injury to me. So the attack fell flat. It 
 never injured my business to the extent of 
 one dollar. But it warned me of what to 
 expect and put me on my guard. 
 
 And now, to outline the next move in the 
 plot, it is necessary that I should go back nearly 
 a year and recount the pitiful beginning of a 
 
 126 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 tragedy — the blackest, most pitiless, most 
 cruel tragedy of all those in which Thomas W. 
 Lawson has been the principal figure. 
 
 It was in the winter of 1905, early in 
 December, that the doorbell of my home at 
 Winthrop was rung and I was told that Mr. 
 Moses — ex-Governor Franklin J. Moses of 
 South Carolina — wished to see me. 
 
 Perhaps you have heard the earlier history 
 of Moses. It is a sad, harrowing story. 
 Once he was high in position. Then he fell. 
 Before that time when he came seeking my 
 sympathy and aid, he had fallen to the lowest 
 depths. He had become a victim of morphine. 
 He had committed a crime. He had been 
 sentenced to prison and had served a term. 
 He had just been released. 
 
 I can see him to-day as he looked when I 
 went to the door. Although the wintry winds 
 of a New England December were scurrying 
 about the corners of the houses and a damp 
 chilliness was biting in from the sea, he had 
 no overcoat. He still wore a straw hat. His 
 threadbare jacket was buttoned tightly about 
 his neck, to hide the absence of collar and 
 necktie. His wrists were guiltless of cuffs. 
 His cheeks were sunken. His snow-white 
 
 127 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 hair fell about a pale and emaciated face. 
 
 'You are from the South," were the first 
 words he said, "and so am I. In the name 
 of God, can't you help me?" 
 
 He told me his story, while the warmth of the 
 room stopped his shiverings. It was a painful 
 story. 
 
 He acknowledged his slavery to the drug. 
 He admitted that he had committed the 
 forgery for which he had just served a term 
 in prison. He wept weakly and miserably 
 as he recounted the social ostracism that he 
 claimed had driven him to sin. He begged 
 that I help him, not only by means of the few 
 dollars that would get his overcoat out of 
 pawn and buy him a winter hat and a few 
 other necessities, but to get honest employ- 
 ment. 
 
 "The drug is out of my system now," he 
 said. "I can go straight — and I will. For 
 God's sake, can't you do something for 
 me?" 
 
 I pitied him. "Here is some money," I 
 said. "Get what you need. And when you 
 have got fixed up and have kept straight for a 
 few days, to prove that you can, come and see 
 me at my office. I'll talk with you again." 
 
 128 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 He burst into tears of weakness and age. 
 I bade him good night. 
 
 A few days afterward he appeared at my 
 office. He had invested wisely the money I 
 had given him. He evidently had not had re- 
 course to the soothing qualities of morphine. 
 He looked neat and almost man-like. 
 
 I drew him out to talk of himself, and he 
 told me of his still unextinguished ambition 
 to WTite a history of South Carolina, which he 
 felt confident he could sell — a history of the 
 state during the period of reconstruction, when 
 he was its chief executive. 
 
 In this ambition I saw a hope of reclaiming 
 the wreck that had been a man, and I told him 
 I would employ him to write such a history, 
 paying him a living wage on account of what 
 he might some day make from his book. It 
 is perhaps needless to say that I did not 
 believe he would ever finish the book, or that I 
 felt at all confident of a market for it should he 
 do so. But I believed then— and believe now 
 —that there can be no better charity than 
 assisting the fallen and erring brother to feel 
 his own way upward, until he stands, self- 
 risen, upon his feet again. I had it in my 
 mind to give him employment in my office 
 
 129 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 when he should have proven his reformation 
 to be permanent and sincere. 
 
 Two months passed, and Moses seemed to 
 have left the paths of evil for all time. I gave 
 him a light clerical position in my office, and 
 he seemed contented and competent. In 
 those days he would often tell me how he 
 appreciated what I had done for him. I 
 believed him then. I believe now that he 
 meant it, even in the light of what transpired 
 afterward. Poor, weak old man that he was, 
 I do not hold him responsible for the treachery 
 that he showed, but charge every evil bit of 
 it up to the man who bribed him to be a 
 traitor. 
 
 Early in October, 1906, when Moses had 
 been in my employ nearly one year and his 
 reclamation seemed to be complete and sincere, 
 he came to me after office hours one day. 
 
 "I'm afraid my eyesight is failing," he said. 
 "My vision blurs when I have been writing a 
 few hours. Glasses do not seem to remedy 
 the trouble." 
 
 I expressed my sympathy. 
 
 "If you could find some work for me so I 
 would not have to do so much writing — " he 
 suggested. 
 
 130 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 I told him I would try to think of something 
 else for him to do. As a result of this con- 
 versation I made him a sort of messenger. In 
 the course of his new duties he came in touch 
 with a considerable number of my clients. I 
 sent him to a number of cities in New England 
 to deliver securities, answer in person letters 
 that I received, and perform other simple 
 errands. 
 
 It is hard for me to believe that at that 
 moment Moses had entered into the con- 
 spiracy against me of which I soon after 
 learned, but if the seed of treachery had not 
 then been sown in his weak mind it was soon 
 after. In those earliest days of his outside 
 duties he seemed never weary, I was told, of 
 expressing his regard and gratitude for me. 
 He went out of his way to tell customers of my 
 office how much he owed me. To not a few 
 he confessed his old drug habit, which he said 
 was now vanished forever, and added, with 
 tears in his eyes, "Mr. King has saved me 
 from the grave of a morphine fiend." 
 
 Poor old man ! He was really and honestly 
 grateful, I truly believe. Left alone, I cannot 
 think that he would have plotted and planned 
 against me. What kind of a man must it 
 
 131 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 have been who would scheme to get this 
 miserable, tottering wreck in his power, and 
 tempt him with filthy money to be a traitor to 
 the man who had stretched out a hand to save 
 him ? 
 
 How Franklin J. Moses came to change to 
 Judas Iscariot, I do not know. It has never 
 been given me — and probably never will be — 
 to learn the details of his purchase. But I do 
 not believe that he, like that Judas of old, 
 went of himself to the high priests and captains. 
 I feel certain they must have come to him, 
 tempting him with pieces of silver in sufficient 
 quantity to appeal to his wretched, distorted 
 nature. 
 
 I began to hear of the change a few weeks — 
 perhaps a month — before the appearance of 
 the Coakley, Coakley & Sherman advertise- 
 ment. When the word first came to me I 
 could not believe it. x\t that moment I had 
 no suspicion that there was any connection 
 between the stories I heard and Lawson. 
 
 Moses had changed his policy in speaking 
 of me and had begun to intimate, invidiously 
 and deviously, that all w r as not as it should be 
 in my office. He was very mysterious in what 
 he said, and before saying anything he pledged 
 
 132 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 those to whom he spoke to secrecy. They 
 were first asked to promise never to disclose to 
 me what he said. Then they were advised, 
 with an air of importance, to come to my 
 office, tell me they were in urgent need of 
 money and ask me to buy back from them the 
 securities they had purchased through me. 
 
 "You won't have any difficulty in getting 
 your money back," he told them. "Just go 
 and ask for it. You'd better. I can't tell 
 you why — but you will be glad if you do." 
 
 When pressed by customers to tell them 
 more, Moses declined in the same mysterious 
 manner, but urged them to "go and get their 
 money back, as soon as possible." 
 
 You know what the spirit of panic will do — 
 what effect comes from a seed of suspicion 
 sown thus in the mind of a man. Quite a few 
 to whom he went took his advice. They 
 found he had told the truth as to getting their 
 money, for when they told me they could not 
 afford to keep the stocks, having urgent 
 need for ready cash, I bought their securities. 
 Most of them returned after a short time and 
 purchased them back, but that is another 
 storv. 
 
 One man held securities sold to him by me 
 
 133 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 for which he had paid one thousand dollars. 
 He came to me with the story of needing money 
 and I bought the stocks from him for just 
 what he had paid me — one thousand dollars. 
 Within a day or two Moses called upon him, 
 congratulated him upon the ease with which 
 he had "recovered" his money, and borrowed 
 four hundred dollars. Within a week there- 
 after, reminding him how his advice had helped 
 him to gain back his money, Moses also 
 borrowed from him a diamond ring, a watch 
 and a satchel. Sometime later the man wrote 
 me a letter recounting the whole incident. 
 The remaining six hundred dollars, represent- 
 ing practically the whole of his savings, he 
 used in wild-cat speculation, acting entirely 
 on the advice of Moses — and lost absolutely. 
 I noticed the peculiarity of so many people 
 seeming suddenly to need ready cash and ask- 
 ing me to buy their securities, but it was some 
 time before I knew the cause. When one of 
 those whose mind Moses had attempted to 
 poison came straight to me with the story I 
 could not believe my ears. That night, as I 
 went to my home, I was depressed — saddened. 
 Almost, for a few hours, I believed that there 
 was no such thing as human gratitude — that it 
 
 134 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 were better never to stretch out a helping 
 hand to the fallen or whisper wise counsels 
 into the ear of the erring. I had assisted in 
 this man's reclamation. I had saved him 
 from the horrors of habit and a criminal life. 
 And this was my payment. 
 
 Even then I did not suspect the cause of 
 the treachery. I could see no reason for it. 
 It seemed like the act of an insane man. I 
 determined to say nothing and make a quiet, 
 careful investigation. 
 
 Imagine my astonishment, my sorrow and 
 my horror w T hen it was reported to me that 
 Moses had been in conference with Thomas 
 W. Lawson. Twice, to my knowledge, Judas 
 called on Caiaphas the High-priest. One of 
 the conferences was at Lawson's home in the 
 Back Bay. It was soon after eleven o'clock 
 at night that Moses entered the house. He did 
 not come out until nearly midnight — fitting 
 hour for such a visit on such an errand. The 
 other conference was held at Lawson's room 
 in Young's Hotel, very early one morning, 
 before many people were about. 
 
 In the light of later events, what took place 
 at those conferences is as clear as though we 
 had a stenographic report of the conversation. 
 
 135 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 The weak old man was tempted — tempted by 
 offers of gold and perhaps of a high-salaried 
 place in the Lawson employ after his unclean 
 work had been consummated. His deformed 
 brain and his broken will made him a not 
 difficult victim. His work was laid out for 
 him — to "get busy" among such customers 
 of my office as he knew, disturbing their peace 
 of mind by intimating that something was 
 about to happen to my business, urging them 
 to ask me to buy back the securities I had sold 
 them, poisoning their hearts against me so 
 that they would cease to be my clients; per- 
 haps, at the proper psychological moment, to 
 urge them to so gamble with their funds 
 that their dollars would roll into the Lawson 
 pocket. 
 
 The report that gave me the last needed 
 evidence as to the existence of a conspiracy 
 of which Lawson was the head and Moses the 
 tool came to me on the day after the appear- 
 ance of the Coakley, Coakley & Sherman ad- 
 vertisement. For several days Moses had not 
 been at my office. He had been ostensibly ill. 
 I waited for him to come in until November 
 27, on which day I wrote him the following 
 letter : 
 
 136 
 
JUDAS AND CAIAPHAS 
 
 Journal Building, Boston. 
 
 November 27, 1906. 
 Mr. Franklin J. Moses, 
 
 Winthrop Beach, Massachusetts. 
 My dear Mr. Moses: 
 
 Please come in and see me early Wednesday morning 
 about a matter of considerable importance. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 C. F. KING. 
 
 On Wednesday, early, I was told that the old 
 man was in my reception room. Before hav- 
 ing him sent in I thought long and earnestly. 
 My mind reviewed his history — his vice — his 
 crime — his weakness — his age — his moral irre- 
 sponsibility, naturally due to the drug habit 
 that had gripped him. I could not respect 
 him, but I could respect his white hairs, for 
 he was old enough to be my father. I deter- 
 mined to be as kind to him as circumstances 
 would allow. 
 
 187 
 
Chapter XIV 
 THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 MOSES came in with a smile, but his 
 hands were trembling. He was en- 
 deavoring to act at ease. At my 
 request he took a seat across the desk from 
 me. I asked him about his health, espe- 
 cially in regard to his eyesight. I talked to 
 him pleasantly for a moment, until his fears — 
 the natural fears of the guilty that haunt him 
 every moment of the day and night — had sub- 
 sided. Then I broached the subject as gently 
 as I could. 
 
 "I've sent for you, Mr. Moses," I said, "to 
 say some things that I'm afraid will prove very 
 distressing." 
 
 His trembling started in afresh. He wet 
 his lips with his tongue. He drew a long 
 breath and became very pale. 
 
 "Yes," he said, after a moment, during 
 which he tried pitiably to get a grip upon 
 himself. 
 
 "I have some unpleasant things to say," 
 I went on, " but I want you to feel that they are 
 
 138 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 said in the kindliest possible spirit. Have I 
 been a friend to you ?" 
 
 He swallowed hard and the tears came into 
 his eyes, for, after all, he was but a weak old 
 man. "You have, Mr. King. You have," 
 he said, huskily. 
 
 I paused a moment. " You have committed 
 another crime," I said, "and this time it is a 
 crime against a friend." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," he pro- 
 tested, hesitatingly. 
 
 "You have gone back on me." 
 
 "Oh, no, "he cried. 
 
 "You are planning something underhanded, 
 to injure me. You are planning it this very day." 
 
 "You — you are mistaken," he said, faintly. 
 "Somebody has been lying about me. I 
 haven't done anything to injure you. I 
 wouldn't." 
 
 "I have the proof." 
 
 "Don't say that!" he cried. "Don't say 
 that. I'd lose my right arm before I'd injure 
 you. Don't you believe me?" 
 1 can t. 
 
 "You must. Why — you have been the best 
 friend I ever had. You have — " 
 
 I interrupted him. 
 
 139 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "Now, Mr. Moses," I said, "I know what 
 has been going on. I know what is afoot. 
 But I want you to tell me about it yourself." 
 
 " There is nothing. I don't know what you 
 mean." He was trembling all over, now, like 
 a man with the ague. 
 
 I looked him full in the face and his eyes 
 fell. 
 
 "If you don't know what I am talking 
 about, " I said, " tell me why you had two inter- 
 views with Thomas W. Lawson." 
 
 "Two interviews — with Mr. Lawson?" he 
 stammered. 
 
 "One at his house in Back Bay and the 
 other at Young's Hotel," I said. 
 
 Moses looked about him wildly. His eyes 
 were staring. He opened his mouth to speak 
 two or three times, but no words came. He 
 swallowed hard, breathed deeply, and then, 
 throwing his head down upon his arms on the 
 desk before him, burst into tears. " Wait a 
 minute," he moaned. "Just a minute, and 
 I'll tell you." 
 
 It was a pathetic scene. His sin had found 
 him out. 
 
 As I waited for his grief and incoherent self- 
 reproaches to subside, we were interrupted. 
 
 140 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 Over the interior telephone I was informed 
 of a pressing need of niy presence in one of the 
 office departments. I arose to go into the 
 other room. 
 
 "I'll be back in a moment/' I said to the 
 bowed man at the desk. "Wait until I 
 return." 
 
 When, a few minutes later, I again entered 
 my private office, Moses was gone. A clerk in 
 the reception room told me he had hurried out, 
 seemingly quite excited and shaken, and that 
 as he passed her he had said, " Tell Mr. King 
 I'll be right back." 
 
 He did not return. 
 
 Forewarned is forearmed. I now knew of 
 the existence of a plot to injure my business by 
 disturbing the confidence of my customers, 
 but with Moses aware of my knowledge and 
 no longer in a position to dare to approach my 
 clients as representing my house I felt that it 
 was not necessary for me to take further 
 action. In truth, my feelings now were more 
 of sorrow at the man's ingratitude and pity 
 for his weakness than indignation, for I felt 
 that he had done all the harm he could — and 
 that had amounted to naught. 
 
 On the second day of December, however, I 
 
 141 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 saw things from a different point of view, for 
 on that day the real seriousness of the plot was 
 for the first time made clear to me. 
 
 A gentleman who knows me well called at 
 the office. His reputation is above reproach 
 and he is a man of discretion and business 
 ability. Because of the manner in which he 
 learned what he told me, and the injury that 
 becoming mixed in the matter might do him 
 in a business way, he placed me under the ban 
 of secrecy as to his identity — a secrecy that 
 must still be maintained, unless it becomes 
 necessary, at some time, for him to give his 
 testimony in a court of law. 
 
 "I have called, Mr. King," he said, "to 
 tell you of something that I have accidentally 
 learned." Pledging me to confidence he 
 went on to give me the details of a plot against 
 me so vile, so terrible, and so vindictive that I 
 could not believe my ears and interrupted him 
 more than once to tell him that he could not 
 be in earnest — that things like this could not 
 be true in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 This was the substance of what he had 
 learned : 
 
 A conspiracy had been planned which had 
 
 142 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 for its purpose involving me by means of a 
 forgery. Moses, whose cleverness at this sort 
 of thing had already been made apparent in 
 the crime for which he had served a sentence 
 just previous to my befriending him, was to 
 commit the forgery, and the papers that were 
 to be prepared were to be of a character that 
 would convict me of crime — unless I could 
 prove that they were forged. The conspira- 
 tors had so arranged matters that they felt 
 certain I could not prove this, and they were 
 depending upon Moses to do his work so well 
 that even handwriting experts would differ 
 as to whether I was or was not guilty. 
 
 The gentleman who called to inform me of 
 what he had overheard was very excited about 
 it. He could not be sure, from what he had 
 heard, that the forgery had not already been 
 committed, and the machinery set in motion 
 which should lay a crime at my door. 
 
 "But even if this is done," I said, "your 
 evidence as to this matter that you have over- 
 heard would prove my innocence." 
 
 "I doubt it," he replied. "What jury 
 would believe such a tale? It would look as 
 though you had arranged such a defense, and 
 it would pass as a flimsy one. People would 
 
 143 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 say you got the idea out of a novel. Why, 
 man alive, nobody would believe a thing like 
 that in these days! Besides," he added, 
 ingenuously, "I don't want it to come to trial. 
 I don't want to get mixed up in it. It might 
 cost me thousands of dollars." 
 
 The next mail bore the following letter: 
 
 Journal Building, Boston, 
 
 December 3, 1906. 
 Mr. F. J. Moses, 
 
 Winthrop Beach, Massachusetts. 
 Dear Mr. Moses: 
 
 I am very anxious to see you long enough to finish the 
 interview which was interrupted some days ago when 
 you were in the office. I feel that in justice to both you 
 and myself, you should come to the office for that pur- 
 pose, just as soon as you possibly can. I hope your 
 eyes are better, and that you may find it convenient to 
 call on me some time to-morrow. 
 With best wishes, I am, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 C. F. KING. 
 
 No response was received to this com- 
 munication and under date of December 6 I 
 again wrote Moses, urging him to call at my 
 office. This letter was a final warning. It 
 read as follows: 
 
 144 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 Journal Building, Boston, 
 
 December 6, 1906. 
 
 Mr. Franklin J. Moses, 
 
 Winthrop Beach, Massachusetts. 
 Dear Mr. Moses: 
 
 I am surprised that you have not called in to see me 
 in response to my letter of the third instant. I now 
 insist that you come to see me immediately, and I must 
 say to you plainly, that, unless you can explain to my 
 satisfaction certain charges which have been lodged 
 with me against you, I shall be compelled to do some- 
 thing to protect my interests. 
 
 I will say to you that your actions during the past two 
 months have been such as to cause me to have your 
 movements shadowed from day to day, and I am fully 
 aware of the conferences which you have had under 
 cover of darkness with a certain unscrupulous financier, 
 and I am prepared to meet any game which you may 
 have been prevailed upon to cook up. 
 
 I still have respect for your gray hairs, and if you will 
 come in and confess all, like an honest man, I will for- 
 give and forget. 
 
 Yours very truh T , 
 
 C. F. KING. 
 
 This letter was written and mailed on Thurs- 
 day, December 6. You may well imagine the 
 anxiety with which I awaited a reply, a call 
 from him or some other development in the 
 net of circumstance that I knew was being 
 skillfully woven to entrap me. 
 
 145 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Moses must have received the letter on 
 Friday. He did not reply to it; neither did he 
 call at my office. On Saturday, I learned, he 
 displayed to a friend seven one-hundred- 
 dollar bills. He said they had been paid him 
 to do something — what or when or by whom he 
 did not say — and that the service which he was 
 to render for the money was not difficult. 
 Sunday passed, and Monday, with no develop- 
 ments. 
 
 On Tuesday morning, December 11, Frank- 
 lin J. Moses was found dead in his room at 
 Winthrop. The gas was turned on. He had 
 been asphyxiated. 
 
 No note or letter had been left to give an 
 explanation of the reasons for the suicide. 
 There was nothing to indicate to the world 
 what had driven this old man, who but two 
 days before had possessed seven hundred 
 dollars, to take his own life. Yet I, with my 
 knowledge of what had gone before, could 
 build the scene that preceded his self-murder, 
 and understand how it had come about. 
 
 Moses had fallen until his strength of will 
 and character had well-nigh vanished — but 
 once he had been a man. He had been 
 tempted to do me a great wrong, and he had 
 
 U6 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 yielded to the temptation so far as to take the 
 price that was to be paid — or at least a portion 
 of it — and agree to perform his part of the 
 crime. Realizing that I knew much, if not all, 
 of what he had done, he had been filled with 
 fear. Even more, remembering what I had 
 done for him — how I had stretched out my 
 hand when he most needed the uplift — how I 
 had been his friend when he had no others — 
 he had been overcome with remorse. 
 
 I believe that when Moses received that 
 money, whether it was paid to him directly by 
 Thomas W. Lawson or by lawyers in the 
 employ of Thomas W. Lawson, he bargained 
 to complete the act that was to ruin me — to 
 make me out a criminal. He had probably 
 received money from the same source before, 
 but this last and largest payment was to have 
 been the final one before the "delivery of the 
 goods." I have no doubt, when the Judas- 
 price passed into his hands, that he fully 
 intended to carry out his promise. He went 
 out of the presence with the blood-money in his 
 pocket. To him at that time seven hundred 
 dollars seemed like a fortune. He was re- 
 solved not to turn back — to do what he had 
 sold himself to do. And then — 
 
 147 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 He went to his home and was alone. Into 
 his mind came a realization of what he had 
 done, what he was doing and what he was 
 about to do. All day Sunday he thought of 
 it, and all day Monday. In the bright hours 
 of the day and the silent watches of the night 
 the scheme passed through his mind, over and 
 over and over again. 
 
 I can imagine that he took from his pocket 
 the seven one-hundred-dollar bills and counted 
 them, and that then he sat in thought, his 
 mind on the power of gold and what a man 
 with nearly a thousand dollars might do. I 
 can imagine that he planned ways to spend 
 the money, and that it seemed a large sum — 
 perhaps not so large as it seemed when he was 
 offered it, but large. 
 
 And then I seem to see him taking my letter 
 from an inner pocket and reading it for the 
 tenth or twentieth time. His hands, palsied 
 with emotion, fall into his lap and his 
 watery eyes fix on space as he thinks of what 
 has been. His mind runs over his own 
 checkered history. He remembers how friends 
 fell away from him and he was an outcast in a 
 great and cruel world. He recalls his crime — 
 and the penalty. In memory rises the picture 
 
 148 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 of how horrible was that term in prison. 
 "And I was guilty," he thinks, "while this 
 man whom I would send there on a similar 
 charge is innocent. It will be much worse for 
 him." Then there breaks through his mind 
 the thought of what I have done for him— of 
 my kindnesses when he had no other friend— 
 of the helping hand that I stretched down to 
 the depths to raise him to the level of men. 
 "This man," he thinks, M saved me from my- 
 self — f rom the grave of a morphine fiend — and 
 I am about to sell his blood for thirty pieces 
 
 of silver." 
 
 I can believe, too, that with remorse was 
 mixed fear. He knew that I had evidence 
 against him, but could not know how much. 
 He might have to face exposure and perhaps 
 the crime would be traced to him, after all, 
 and he would serve his few declining days be- 
 hind the drear, gray walls of a prison. And 
 he pictured my denunciation of him, and of 
 how the world would point to him as a man 
 who had committed one of the deadliest of 
 sins — ingratitude to a benefactor. 
 
 Then I can imagine that there came into 
 his heart a flash of his old-time manliness, 
 that he threw his white head back and that 
 
 149 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 his weak eyes snapped with something of 
 their old fire, as he mentally cried: "I will not 
 injure this just man." And then came the 
 recollection that already he had taken the 
 money — perhaps he had spent some of it — and 
 that he must either go ahead and commit the 
 crime that was to ruin me, or face ruin at the 
 hands of the man who had bought him. 
 
 He was between two fires. There seemed 
 to be no way out of it but to forge the papers 
 and trust to his latest patron to protect him. 
 Perhaps he tried to be released of his blood- 
 bargain — and failed. Then, like an inspira- 
 tion, came the solution of it all. He could 
 refuse to commit the crime without having to 
 listen to reproaches or stand the consequences 
 of his failure to earn his pay. He could 
 expiate the wrong he had done me and the 
 greater wrong he had promised to do me. 
 
 He could die. 
 
 How long he considered this way out of his 
 troubles no man knows, and no one but God 
 ever will know. Perhaps he meditated upon it 
 through all the dark hours of that Monday 
 night; perhaps it came to him almost as an 
 inspiration and he carried it out at once, with- 
 out waiting. Perhaps he went about it in 
 
 150 
 
THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER 
 
 horrible fear; perhaps — and this is what I like 
 to believe — the poor, broken, forlorn, sin- 
 weary old man fell upon his knees, made his 
 peace with his Maker, and then, confident of 
 the justice of his expiation and forgiveness for 
 the manner of it, made his last preparations 
 ' like one who wraps the draperies of his couch 
 about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 Poor, hopeless old wreck of a man ! I would 
 that I could waft a message to his soul, wher- 
 ever he is. It would be a message to make his 
 rest more peaceful, for I should tell him that 
 I long ago forgave him. 
 
 " Then Judas, . . . repented himself, and brought 
 again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and 
 the elders, 
 
 " Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the 
 innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us ? 
 see thou to that. 
 
 " And he cast down the pieces of silver in the 
 temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." 
 
 151 
 
Chapter XV 
 A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 LONG after the death of Moses, evidence 
 of his treachery and of whence it 
 sprang came to my ears. Even to-day 
 I occasionally come in contact with some 
 additional evidence of what was afoot. And 
 I now know that the beginning of the plot 
 was long before the culmination of it in so 
 tragic a manner. 
 
 It was on the fifth of July, 1906, that I sailed 
 for a brief respite from the cares of my office, in 
 Europe. Amid the friends who gathered on 
 the deck of the Arabic to wish me a pleasant 
 voyage was Moses. In his hands he bore a 
 large basket of flowers, brought for my state- 
 room. On his face was a smile. His words 
 were honeyed. He grasped my hand, when 
 the call came for those who were not sailing to 
 go ashore, and whispered into my ear, " God 
 bless you, my friend and benefactor. " 
 
 As the Arabic steamed majestically down 
 Boston harbor and out across the Atlantic 
 there was no thought more often in my mind 
 
 152 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 than the remembrance of the farewell of this 
 old man whom I had helped to save. 
 
 I know now that before the Arabic passed 
 Boston lightship and began to breast the rollers 
 of the ocean, Moses was aboard a train for 
 Lawrence, where he spent the late afternoon 
 and early evening in carrying out a piece of 
 Lawson's unclean work. 
 
 Undoubtedly I have never learned the full 
 extent of the plot — and never shall. I know, 
 however, enough of it. I know that in the 
 early weeks and months of his employment by 
 Lawson his work was to reach all the customers 
 of my office whom he could without attracting 
 attention and to endeavor to make them dis- 
 satisfied with the investments they had made 
 upon my advice. His work was done well. 
 Had he possessed the courage to perform the 
 last act for which he was hired, and had it 
 been successful, he would have been in a 
 position to remind these people that he had 
 warned them — and to induce them, I suppose, 
 to put such other funds as they had into some 
 Lawson speculative scheme, which means into 
 Lawson's pocket. Thus the man who bribed 
 Moses would have regained the hundreds that 
 the old man's treachery cost him. 
 
 153 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 When Moses died, friendless and alone, 
 the usual formalities of the law were carried 
 out. The Medical Examiner, called to view 
 the remains, gave his verdict that death was 
 due to asphyxiation — without going into 
 whether or not it was suicide — and took 
 possession of all the papers that were found in 
 the room. These papers he turned over to the 
 State Police. And right here Lawson made 
 a mistake — one of those mistakes that are 
 likely to be made by the participants in any 
 complicated plot — a mistake that made for- 
 ever clear, even if any one had reason to doubt 
 it, his connection with the death of this 
 unhappy man. 
 
 Lawson knew T that the plot had been made. 
 He knew that Judas had taken his pieces of 
 silver. He knew that he had promised to 
 commit the forgery that should, Lawson hoped, 
 forever close my mouth as to his schemes to 
 milk the speculating public. He did not know 
 whether or not the goods had been delivered. 
 
 He could not be certain but Moses had died 
 accidentally. He didn't know but that the 
 old man had committed the forgery for which 
 he had been paid, and then, perhaps during a 
 reversion to his morphine habit, had gone to 
 
 154 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 sleep leaving the gas-cock open accidentally. 
 He naturally hoped this had happened, and 
 he took steps to see to it that these forged 
 papers, whatever they were, might come into 
 the hands of the authorities and that as much 
 publicity as possible might arise from it. 
 
 No sooner was Moses dead than Lawson 
 appeared on the scene like the vulture that 
 awaits the death. 
 
 From sources close to Lawson appeared a 
 swarm of rumors, connecting my name with 
 certain documents supposed to have been 
 found by the State Police. In every news- 
 paper office in Boston the stories appeared 
 simultaneously. I have been told by news- 
 paper men that their journals had a 'tip" 
 to the effect that there were in Moses' papers 
 evidence that would incriminate me, before 
 these papers were even examined by the 
 
 authorities. 
 
 The newspapers of Boston know Lawson. 
 Only one of them cared to go out of its way 
 to give wing to the rumors. That paper said 
 in part— and the voice was the voice of Jacob 
 but the hands were the hands of Esau: 
 
 "Moses has left as his legacy the evidence which is 
 calculated to cause trouble and disgrace for another 
 
 155 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 man, who has enjoyed comfort, luxury and the respect 
 of his associates. " 
 
 The whole article showed a remarkable 
 familiarity with the affairs of Moses. It was 
 displayed in two columns. By innuendo it 
 intimated that Moses had been the tool of 
 somebody or other, and that evidence would 
 be found in his belongings to prove dishonesty. 
 The inspiration of this story and the harm that 
 it might do are clear when you realize that 
 Moses was known to have worked for me. 
 
 It appeared within a day or so that the State 
 Police had turned the satchel over to District 
 Attorney John B. Moran, and that he would 
 have its contents examined. 
 
 Now the stage setting was all ready for the 
 climax. The lights had been turned on. The 
 calciums were working. I had been placed 
 in the limelight and the officers of the law had 
 the papers. 
 
 Can you imagine what must have been 
 Lawson's rage and disappointment when he 
 found that nothing was in the satchel which 
 might do me injury? Then, for the first 
 time, he realized that Moses had died without 
 performing his part of the conspiracy. Then 
 he realized that the money he had spent had 
 
 156 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 been in vain — that he must begin again and 
 seek another tool if he hoped to make me out 
 a criminal — and human tools with experience 
 as forgers and opportunity to make their 
 forgery count are hard to find. Then, too, he 
 realized that the miserable old man had killed 
 himself and that he was responsible. Per- 
 haps he, too, suffered a little from remorse — 
 although I fear that one suicide, more or less, 
 to Lawson's credit, is not likely to affect 
 him. 
 
 I can readily believe that he stormed and 
 raged and foamed. I can believe that he 
 cursed his retainers more volubly and fluently 
 than usual, on that day. I can believe that 
 those who came into his clutches were squeezed 
 even harder than is his custom. 
 
 All the papers printed the fact that nothing 
 incriminating had been found in Moses' 
 satchel. All the articles, emanating, as they 
 did, from police headquarters, were sub- 
 stantially the same. The following is one of 
 them: 
 
 Chief Inspector Watts said yesterday that an exam- 
 ination of the papers in the grip of the late Franklin J. 
 Moses, ex-Governor of South Carolina, whose death 
 occurred December 11, at Winthrop, did not reveal 
 
 157 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 anything that would lead the police to take action 
 against any one. 
 
 Moses was employed before his death by a Wash- 
 ington Street financial concern. 
 
 Medical Examiner Harris was called into the case 
 because Moses died from gas poison and the gas jet was 
 found open. Dr. Harris found the grip, which con- 
 tained a lot of papers, that apparently referred to 
 the business affairs of ex-Governor Moses. Captain 
 Proctor of the State Police took the grip and turned it 
 over to District Attorney Moran at the latter 's request. 
 Mr. Moran ordered Inspector Armstrong of the city 
 force to go through the papers and see if they contained 
 anything that the police might be required to take 
 action on. 
 
 "Inspector Armstrong," said Chief Watts yesterday, 
 " has found nothing whatever that will give us a basis 
 for action." 
 
 What was in the satchel ? I do not know. 
 But long afterward — six months surely — I 
 heard something that leads me to hazard what 
 I believe to be a shrewd guess. 
 
 A mutual friend of mine and of District 
 Attorney Moran was talking to the District 
 Attorney. Apropos of something or other that 
 came up in their conversation — some reference 
 to something that had appeared in my news- 
 paper, as I remember it — our friend said: 
 
 ' By the way — it's long past now — can you 
 
 158 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 tell me what was in that satchel that old 
 Governor Moses left? The satchel that they 
 said contained evidence that would incriminate 
 King?" 
 
 The District Attorney smiled grimly, and 
 replied : 
 
 " Nothing to prove that King was a criminal 
 — but enough to prove that Moses was!" 
 
 I wonder if that satchel, by some dis- 
 pensation of Providence, contained the evi- 
 dence that Moses w r as in the employ of Lawson. 
 I wonder. 
 
 You would naturally suppose, after it had 
 been demonstrated that Moses had not com- 
 mitted the forgery, and that the expected 
 incriminating papers had not been found, that 
 Lawson would have been glad to let the 
 matter drop. But no. He had sown some 
 seed of suspicion at the time of Moses' death. 
 He referred to the matter thereafter at every 
 opportunity. Despite the official denial, he 
 made a frequent effort to resurrect the story 
 for his own ends. He knew that what he 
 printed from time to time was a lie — but he 
 printed it. It was a characteristic action. 
 
 I must go ahead several months to best 
 illustrate how he did it — to March, when Law- 
 
 150 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 son was at bay. Of his assumption of the 
 "William W. White" alias to boost his waning 
 influence, and of how he was exposed, and 
 how the Post Office authorities commanded 
 him to cease the use of this fictitious name in 
 his advertisements, and of many other interest- 
 ing developments of that time, I shall write at 
 the proper moment. I refer to it now merely 
 as explaining the form of a Lawson reference 
 to Moses' death, published as late as March, 
 1907, months after the old man had paid his 
 last debt to nature. It was just after the 
 government had ordered Lawson not to 
 advertise again under the " William W. WTiite" 
 alias, that the following advertisement 
 appeared in such Boston papers as would 
 accept it: 
 
 $5000 REWARD 
 
 Ex-Governor Moses of South Carolina died sud- 
 denly at Winthrop, Mass., on December 11, 1906. A 
 few hours before his dead body was discovered he had 
 hastily packed a satchel of incriminating evidence and 
 had refused to part with it to those involved. Medical 
 Examiner Harris seized the satchel, looked at its con- 
 tents and called in the State Police. Both the Medical 
 Examiner and the State Police were forthwith sum- 
 moned before the District Attorney of Suffolk County. 
 
 For a long time previous to his death Moses was the 
 
 160 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 instrument of a band of crooks. Between the time of 
 his death and an attempt to bring to justice the band 
 whose tool he had been, many of those who had been 
 swindled were " settled with. " 
 
 It is my purpose, at any cost of time, money and 
 effort, to publicly clear up the death of Moses, to unravel 
 the events which lead up to it and away from it, and to 
 bring to justice the guilty parties. To that end I will 
 pay over to any one who will furnish me with con- 
 victing evidence the sum of $5000. All persons who 
 had dealings with Moses are requested to write to me, 
 giving particulars. 
 
 Since my yesterday's advertisements I have received 
 a large amount of evidence for which I will pay fair 
 prices. 
 
 Address WILLIAM W. WHITE, 
 Care of THOMAS W. LAWSON. 
 
 To Whom It May Concern: 
 
 My attention having been called to an attempt upon 
 the part of a band of professional crooks to impugn the 
 motives of Willie White, I herewith give notice to all 
 interested parties, including the United States Post 
 Office authorities, that I assume full responsibility, 
 legal and other, for all acts of said Willie White, past, 
 present and future, including offers of rewards. 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON. 
 
 Boston, March 5, 1907. 
 
 On the day when Lawson penned this 
 advertisement, three sessions of the Grand 
 
 161 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Jury had been held since first the satchel 
 came into the possession of the District Attorney 
 and his reference to "incriminating evidence," 
 in the face of the fact that no indictment had 
 ever been found, was a direct and vicious 
 reflection on the attention to duty of District 
 Attorney Moran, who he has often claimed 
 is his friend. I credit him, however, with not 
 thinking of this. Maddened by the toils 
 which at that date were gathering more and 
 more closely about him, he simply struck out 
 like a cornered snake, without thought of who 
 might be injured by his poisoned fangs. 
 
 To such depths had Lawson on that fifth of 
 March fallen, that not a soul paid any atten- 
 tion to his words, other than to grin at his 
 tacit admission that he — he, the lofty adviser 
 of investors, who had often written that no 
 words of his should ever appear over any 
 other name but his — was the mysterious and 
 Lawson-touting "William W. White." 
 
 I have never been able to understand Law- 
 son's reviving of the Moses story. It seems 
 to me that he would want never again to be 
 reminded of it. In the chill silence of the 
 grave, where sins and the men who commit 
 them are forgotten, are the bones of his 
 
 162 
 
A PLOT THAT FAILED 
 
 victim. I should think he would be content 
 to let them lie there until the tombs give up 
 their dead. If he had a conscience he would 
 not speak of Moses. He would pray not to 
 think of him. He would hope to forget. 
 
 1(i3 
 
Chapter XVI 
 INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION 
 
 IF ANY reader should pause and say 
 to himself, "I supposed I was reading 
 a history of Financial Thuggee in 
 America, but it seems I am reading a review of 
 the war between King and Lawson, " let me 
 answer him right here. 
 
 You are reading a review of the battle be- 
 tween the forces led by Lawson and those led 
 by me, albeit you are being told many inside 
 details which before have never come to light; 
 but in reading of that war you are perusing a 
 history of Financial Thuggee and its methods. 
 A hi tory of the campaigns of Alexander, or 
 Julius Caesar, or Napoleon, or Washington, 
 or Grant, or Lee, or McClellan, or Jackson, 
 must of necessity be made up largely of the 
 operations of the generals in charge of the 
 forces on either side. And here was the 
 beginning of a campaign involving tens of 
 thousands of American investors on the one 
 hand, and all the powers that prey upon them 
 on the other. Because I represented the inves- 
 
 164 
 
INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION 
 
 tors and Lawson the enemy, it is true history 
 to recount how I endeavored to protect those 
 whose interests I served and how he perfected 
 his campaigns to defeat my army— the first 
 and most logical move in those campaigns 
 being to defeat or discredit me. With the 
 general killed, wounded or made prisoner, 
 the battle would be more than half won. 
 
 It was at about this time that Lawson, in 
 his usual indirect way, began to attempt to 
 reach me through the Post Office Department, 
 and I write of what was done and of the out- 
 come not because of any desire to boom any 
 company with whose fortunes I was connected, 
 but because it is part of the history of that 
 memorable campaign. 
 
 Letters were written to the Post Office 
 Department intimating- that I was defrauding 
 the public in the sale of stock of the King- 
 Crowther Corporation. They were vague let- 
 ters, making no direct charges but filled with 
 insinuations. After a number of them had 
 been received the authorities assigned an 
 inspector to look into the matter. 
 
 They selected for this duty Inspector 
 William B. Snow, an old and tried govern- 
 ment employee, whose ability had been 
 
 165 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 shown in many of the biggest cases the govern- 
 ment had ever had under investigation, whose 
 probity had stood the test of countless tempta- 
 tions, whose fidelity to duty in the face of 
 difficulties had won commendations from 
 superiors even to the White House itself. 
 Inspector Snow, for a number of years, had 
 been detailed principally to investigate cases 
 of a financial nature — the efforts of "get-rich- 
 quick" concerns to defraud by using the mails 
 — the airy, factless promises of unscrupulous 
 promoters. 
 
 In the course of his investigations of King- 
 Crowther, Mr. Snow came to me. I answered 
 the charges in the best manner I could think of 
 — by placing before him all the books and 
 papers of the King-Crowther Corporation, by 
 giving him all the information in my power 
 regarding the company, its history, its stock- 
 holders and its properties, and by inviting, in 
 every possible way, a complete and thorough 
 investigation of its activities and of my policy 
 and methods in acting as financial agent for 
 its securities. 
 
 Although I am ignorant of the details of how 
 he performed his duties, this being a matter 
 that has remained locked in his breast, as 
 
 166 
 
INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION 
 
 becomes an official of the government, I 
 know the result. He violated no confidence 
 in telling me that. It was my due, and the 
 due of the investing public, and he made to 
 the newspapers a public statement as to the 
 net results of his investigations. 
 
 He investigated earnestly and assiduously. 
 The results of his labors w T ere surprising, in 
 that he discovered that not one of those who 
 had made vague complaints was a stockholder 
 of the King-Crow r ther Corporation or a cus- 
 tomer of mv office or ever had been. He went 
 further and interviewed a great many stock- 
 holders. They had no complaints to make. 
 Then he looked into the properties them- 
 selves. They were all that they were repre- 
 sented to be. 
 
 As a result Mr. Snow made a report to his 
 superiors, based upon the facts, which headed 
 off the Lawson activities in this direction — for 
 it was strikingly evident that Lawson was at 
 the bottom of the fake complaints — and in a 
 statement to newspaper reporters who sought 
 him for information regarding the matter, he 
 said (I quote from a newspaper clipping) : 
 
 "I feel that I am violating no confidence in saying 
 that in all the years I have been in the Post Office 
 
 167 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 department not a single customer of C. F. King has 
 complained to the department regarding any stock sold 
 by Mr. King or in regard to any of Mr. King's business 
 methods." 
 
 Although, in later days, I came to know Mr. 
 Snow very well indeed, he has never told me 
 the details of his investigation of those fictitious 
 complaints. That is a matter between him- 
 self and the government. 
 
 In my weekly newspaper, King's Financial 
 Bulletin, I conducted a " Bureau of Investiga- 
 tion," in which, without charge for the service, 
 I replied to queries from correspondents re- 
 garding any and all securities offered for sale, 
 giving advice as to whether or not they were 
 or promised to be a good investment. As my 
 business increased in size and in its demands 
 upon my time, I naturally became unable to 
 give the necessary hours to conducting the 
 thorough investigation necessary if this depart- 
 ment was to maintain its standard of accurary. 
 
 I looked about for some one to whom I 
 could delegate this important duty; some one 
 whom I could trust to endorse the good and 
 condemn the bad, without fear or favor, whose 
 standing would give his words weight, and 
 whose experience would fit him to conduct a 
 
 168 
 
INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION 
 
 fair and thorough investigation. I knew of no 
 man so able to relieve me of these duties as 
 Inspector Snow, and I sent for him and of- 
 fered him a position on my staff of lieutenants. 
 
 Immediately after accepting his new 7 position 
 Inspector Snow made, at my request, a tour 
 of the United States, visiting the properties 
 of the various corporations whose securities I 
 offered for sale. His journey took him to 
 Indiana and Ohio, where he inspected the 
 large oil and natural gas properties of the 
 King-Crow r ther Corporation — with a total of 
 more than five hundred wells — and to Southern 
 Texas, where he carefully went over the prop- 
 erties of the same corporation, there in a less 
 thoroughly developed state but possessing 
 great value and greater possibilities. He 
 visited industrial concerns whose securities I 
 had sold and was at that time offering for 
 subscription. He made an investigation as 
 thorough as though he were making it for the 
 government. 
 
 Mr. Snow's duties, while in my employ, also 
 included investigation into the merits of all 
 propositions which I was invited to finance. 
 At that time, so successful had I been in secur- 
 ing subscriptions to the stock of the corpora- 
 
 169 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 tions with whose activities I had identified 
 myself, hundreds of corporations with securi- 
 ties to sell were seeking my aid. There were 
 few days when at least five or six did not come 
 to my office, seeking personal interviews. 
 Most of these were schemes which, upon brief 
 investigation, were at once dismissed. Others, 
 whose plans sounded fair and equitable at first 
 hearing, proved upon careful investigation to 
 have some "out" that precluded me from 
 further negotiations. Before agreeing to offer 
 the securities of a corporation for sale, I had to 
 be assured that the capitalization was fair, 
 that the history was clean, that the manage- 
 ment was competent enough and honest 
 enough to work for the interest of all investors. 
 How few stood up under my requirements is 
 evidenced by the really small number of 
 corporations whose stock I have ever offered. 
 In delegating to another this work of investi- 
 gation, you may readily believe that I must 
 have been assured of his ability to delve deep 
 into things that are hidden, in his sagacity of 
 judgment and unclouded clarity of view, and 
 in his absolute and unflinching honesty — for 
 I doubt not that the man in that position for 
 my house would collide with many a tempta- 
 
 170 
 
INVESTIGATION AND VINDICATION 
 
 tion to make more than his salary. That I 
 selected Mr. Snow for this position was a 
 tribute to the ability, sagacity and honesty 
 which I observed when he was sent to probe 
 deep into my affairs. A dishonest inspector — 
 if such there be — might have either damned 
 me with faint praise or filed a cleverly con- 
 ceived report that would have reflected upon 
 me, and enriched his pocket-book by many 
 thousands of dollars — which Lawson would 
 have temporarily charged to profit and loss 
 and taken out of the public on the occasion 
 of his first unexposed advertising campaign. 
 
 It has always impressed me as a really 
 wonderful thing, that out of all the thousands 
 of customers of my office not one had ever 
 made a complaint against me. In so tre- 
 mendous a business, it was surprising that not 
 a single client had ever had cause for dis- 
 satisfaction. I doubt if this could have been 
 true of any other financial house in the country 
 of half the size and scope of mine. I have 
 always regarded it as one of the finest tributes 
 my methods and policies have ever received. 
 So, by means of a thorough and complete 
 investigation, this attempt of Lawson to 
 injure my business went the way of the 
 
 171 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Coakley, Coakley & Sherman advertisement 
 and his bribery of poor old Moses — into 
 ignominious failure. 
 
 I continued, steadily, to expose his investor- 
 mulcting campaigns. From what I heard, I 
 gathered that his ill-gotten income shrank. 
 
 Then, unable to kill or wound, he changed 
 his tactics and set out to capture me. 
 
 172 
 
Chapter XVII 
 WHILE THE CITY WAITED 
 
 I WAS told, one afternoon, that Mayor 
 John F. Fitzgerald wanted to speak to 
 me on the telephone. 
 
 "Hello, King!" he called, when I had 
 picked up the receiver. "How are you this 
 beautiful day?" 
 
 " As fine as the weather, " I replied. "What 
 can I do for the Lord Mayor of Boston ?" 
 
 "I want to see you for a few moments." 
 
 "All right. Come right over." 
 
 "I can't do it, just now. I'm tremen- 
 dously busy. Can't you see me after working 
 hours ?" 
 
 ' Certainly. Come over at your own con- 
 venience. I'll wait." 
 
 "No," said the Mayor, "I'd rather not 
 come over to your office. You know how the 
 reporters are all the time watching where I go 
 and making stories about it. Can't I see you 
 somewhere else?" 
 
 I thought a moment. "How about mv 
 room at Young's Hotel ?" I asked. 
 
 173 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "That's all right. Will you be there at six 
 o'clock to-night?" 
 ies. 
 
 "I'll be there. Health's good, I suppose?" 
 
 "Never better." 
 
 "Family well?" 
 
 "First rate." 
 
 "Glad to hear it. Well, see you at six. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 Although not all readers of this book are 
 residents of Boston, I am sure all have heard 
 of, and know by reputation, John F. Fitz- 
 gerald, the hustling little man who came up 
 from the North End of Boston to be member 
 of Congress and later Mayor of the city, by 
 virtue of his own pluck, energy and perse- 
 verance. "A Bigger, Busier and Better Bos- 
 ton" was the battle-cry on which he conducted 
 his mayoralty campaign, and as chief executive 
 of the city he was certainly a hustler. He 
 and I had met a number of times. I was 
 on the same terms of friendly acquaintance 
 with him that several hundred other Boston- 
 ians were. 
 
 I knew, from what I had read in the papers 
 that morning, that this was a particularly 
 busy day for the Mayor. It was customary 
 
 174 
 
WHILE THE CITY WAITED 
 
 for him to keep his office hours, hold con- 
 ferences with dozens of politicians, watch a 
 meeting or two of city bodies, attend a ban- 
 quet, lead the grand march at a ball some- 
 where within the city limits, and sandwich 
 three or four speeches in between, on almost 
 any day — and this day, even in the face of 
 that steady diet, was a busy one. What had 
 happened, I wondered, that had led him to 
 want to give up some of his time to me. I 
 wondered still more when I chanced to read, 
 in an evening paper, that an important meet- 
 ing of the Common Council was to take place 
 that evening, and that prior to the meeting 
 the Mayor was expected to discuss certain 
 matters of business due for action with his 
 representatives in that branch of the city 
 government. 
 
 A few minutes before six o'clock I was in 
 my suite of rooms at Young's, when Mayor 
 Fitzgerald arrived, promptly at the hour set. 
 
 The Mayor knocked and, at my call of 
 "Come," entered hurriedly. Nobody ever 
 saw John F. Fitzgerald dawdle, and, as I have 
 said, this was his especially busy day. He 
 shook hands with me in his usual brisk manner 
 and looked about the room. He crossed to 
 
 175 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the window and drew down the curtains. 
 Then he looked about again, noticed that the 
 transom over the door into the hall was open, 
 and closed it. 
 
 "I was down to the ball game at New 
 Haven, King," he began, "and on the train 
 I had a conversation that resulted in my com- 
 ing to you." 
 
 I was all ears. 
 
 "Tim Coakley was on the train," the 
 Mayor continued, " and he and I got to talking. 
 In the course of our conversation I said, 
 ' Tim, why are you getting after C. F. King ?' 
 
 " ' We aren't getting after him — that's just 
 a little by-play in this finance game,' said Tim. 
 
 "1 replied, 'Of course I understand that. 
 Everybody knows that it's Lawson that's 
 getting after King. I wish, Tim, you'd tell 
 Tom to saw off on that. King's a friend of 
 mine, and I don't like to see you get after him 
 like that.' 
 
 'Why, to tell you the truth, I don't know 
 much about it,' said Tim. 'Dan is handling 
 the thing. But I'll look into it. Of course we 
 don't want to get after any friend of yours if 
 we can help it. I'll do what I can to stop it. ' 
 'I wish you would,' said I. 'It won't do 
 
 176 
 
WHILE THE CITY WAITED 
 
 any good to keep this fight up. King's a 
 good fellow, and besides, he'll come back at 
 Lawson and at you anyway, and you won't 
 any of you make anything out of it. ' 
 
 " ' All right, ' said Tim. ' I'll do what I can. 
 I'll talk to Dan about it just as soon as I get 
 back to Boston.' 
 
 "Now you may think I'm 'butting in' on 
 your business," continued the Mayor, "but 
 I don't like to see you and Tom Lawson 
 fighting. It isn't good for either one of you, 
 and it isn't a good thing for the city. You'll 
 keep on fighting and calling each other names, 
 and the first thing you know the public will 
 believe you're the pot and the kettle, and that 
 both of you are black. There isn't any use 
 in all this stirring up of trouble. I want to 
 get you two men together." 
 
 "How?" I asked. "What can we get 
 together on? We have no methods in 
 common. I'm ever so much obliged to you 
 for taking an interest in the matter, and I'm 
 particularly glad to hear that Coakley admits 
 it is Lawson that is back of those advertise- 
 ments, for I've been trying to find out for 
 certain. But I don't see how Lawson and I 
 can ever 'get together' on anything." 
 
 177 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 'Well, if you can't do that, at least stop 
 fighting," urged Fitzgerald. "Let it pass 
 this time. Stop getting after him on account 
 of that advertisement. I'll see that there's 
 no more of it. Forget it, and pass it up. I'd 
 like to see you two fellows friendly, but if 
 you can't be friendly, at least quit scrapping 
 all the time. Now the Coaklevs are friends 
 of mine, and Tom Lawson's a friend of mine, 
 and if you'll stop, they will." 
 
 "I'd like to do anything I could for you," 
 I replied, 'but I'm afraid what you have 
 outlined is much more easily said than done." 
 
 At this moment there was a soft tap on the 
 door and when I opened it one of the Mayor's 
 secretaries stood in the hallway. 
 
 " What is it ?" asked the Mayor. 
 
 "We're all ready," said the secretary. 
 
 "All right. Tell 'em to wait. I'll be there 
 soon," said Fitzgerald, sharply, and the sec- 
 retary withdrew. 
 
 "It isn't so hard," persisted the Mayor. 
 "Just quit. That's all. Just stop hammer- 
 ing Lawson and he'll stop hammering you." 
 
 "Tell me straight, Mayor," I said. "Are 
 you directly representing Lawson in this con- 
 versation ?" 
 
 178 
 
WHILE THE CITY WAITED 
 
 "I'm a friend of everybody concerned/' 
 said the Mayor. "I want to see the fight 
 stop." 
 
 "Does Lawson want it to stop, too?" 
 
 "It's a bad thing for both of you, and it's a 
 bad thing for the city of Boston. You 
 fellows call each other names and the impres- 
 sion goes abroad that Boston financiers are 
 that sort. That's another reason I would 
 like to see it stop," said the Mayor. 
 
 "I'm sorry," I said. "But I'm afraid it 
 can't be done. The only thing that will 
 cause me to let up on Lawson is for him to do 
 his business differently, and it's pretty hard 
 for the leopard to change his spots — and too 
 much to expect, I suppose." 
 
 "Will you let up on this present attack?" 
 asked the Mayor. " I'll see that Lawson calls 
 Tim and Dan Coakley off, if you will." 
 
 "I can't promise," I said. 'It depends so 
 much on what Lawson does himself that I 
 can't agree to anything. I'll do anything I 
 properly can for you, and I appreciate what 
 you are doing for me, and the trouble and time 
 you are taking, but you will see yourself that 
 I can't promise to stop criticising Lawson." 
 
 "Well, you won't go out of your way to 
 
 179 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 get after him if he lets up on his fight against 
 you ? 
 
 "I won't go out of my way to get after 
 him at any time," I said. 
 
 With that the Mayor seemed content. He 
 looked at his watch with an exclamation as to 
 the lateness of the hour, and, shaking hands 
 hurriedly, hustled down the hallway. 
 
 The machinery of the city had halted for 
 fifteen minutes while he labored with me. I 
 have always marveled a little at this. 
 
 The Coakley, Coakley & Sherman activi- 
 ties ceased on the following day. 
 
 180 
 
Chapter XVIII 
 A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 AT ABOUT this time I was very busy. 
 Not only were there many activ- 
 ities in the corporations with whose 
 affairs I was connected, but I was about to 
 start a daily newspaper, and the assembling 
 of a staff for it was taking up a great deal of my 
 time and attention. I continued, without 
 deviation, my usual policy of endorsing the 
 good and condemning the bad in finance. 
 
 One day an especially glaring scheme to 
 entrap, backed by some of Boston's most 
 eminent financiers, called for exposure and 
 condemnation. A day or so later word came 
 to me that a syndicate was being formed in 
 State Street whose purpose was to put me for- 
 ever out of business. 
 
 At first I paid no attention to the rumor, 
 having heard similar ones before, but it was 
 repeated, and finally I was told that Kidder, 
 Peabody & Company, the strongest financial 
 house in Boston, was a subscriber to the fund. 
 
 I called Mayor Fitzgerald on the telephone 
 
 181 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 and asked him if he would do me the favor of 
 calling on his friend Robert Winsor, an im- 
 portant member of the house of Kidder, 
 Peabody & Company, and learning for me 
 whether it was true that that company was 
 interested in the syndicate. 
 
 "You can tell him you come at my request 
 if you want to," I said. "And you can tell 
 him further that I don't give a tinker's dam for 
 any combination that may be formed to put 
 me out of business, but I'd just like to know 
 whether a house like Kidder, Peabody & Com- 
 pany will participate in such a scheme. I've 
 got so used to having a fight on my hands that I 
 rather like it, and if Winsor says they are in it I 
 wish you would tell him that I'll fight all the 
 syndicates they can form — that I had just as 
 leave fight them all in a bunch as singly." 
 " I'll do it," promised the Mayor. 
 Two or three days passed and Mayor Fitz- 
 gerald called me on the 'phone to say that he 
 had seen Winsor, who had told him that Kid- 
 der, Peabody & Company were not in the 
 syndicate. Soon after this I heard that the 
 scheme had fallen through, probably in the 
 usual manner — the various parties to it being 
 unwilling to trust one another. 
 
 182 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 And now, in the course of my day's work, it 
 became again necessary for me to mention 
 Lawson. Of course I did not hesitate to do 
 so. A few days thereafter I heard, indirectly, 
 that he had said I was unjust to him in that 
 I blamed him for the Coakley, Coakley & 
 Sherman advertisement, with which he had 
 no connection whatever. This report came to 
 me from such a source that I felt, even in the 
 face of my conversation some time before with 
 Mayor Fitzgerald, and his report of what 'Tim' 
 Coakley said, that there might be a possibility 
 —a very slight possibility— that I had made an 
 error. I felt willing to give Lawson the 
 benefit of the doubt, and on the day after 
 Christmas I sent him the following letter: 
 
 PERSONAL 
 
 Boston, December 26, 1906. 
 
 Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, 
 
 Room 74, Young's Hotel, 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 First, let me say to you that this letter is being 
 written without consultation with my attorney or any- 
 body whomsoever. 
 
 I wish mainly to ask you as man to man 
 and without the intermediary of a third person whether 
 or not you were in any manner whatever responsible 
 
 183 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 or interested, either directly or indirectly, in the adver- 
 tisement printed in some of the Boston newspapers a 
 few weeks ago, addressed "To the Holders of King- 
 Crowther, Norton Oil, and Douglas Stock," and signed 
 by Messrs. Coakley, Coakley & Sherman, Counsellors- 
 at-Law. 
 
 I have a very strong personal reason for wishing to 
 ascertain this information from you at first hand; if I 
 did not, you may rest assured I would not trouble you 
 in the matter at all. 
 
 I would thank you to send to my office some time 
 during Thursday a personal letter giving clearly and 
 definitely your answer to this inquiry, and will state in 
 advance that such a communication from you will be 
 treated in strict confidence by me. 
 
 Yours very trulv, 
 
 C. F. KING. 
 
 The reply, which was written on the follow- 
 ing day, came from one of Lawson's assistant 
 secretaries — one Richard J. Burton. We shall 
 hear more of him — considerably more — before 
 this book is finished. 
 
 It is a rather remarkable communication in 
 more ways than one, and I perused it with 
 mingled feelings. It read: 
 
 Boston, December 27, 1906. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Yours of the 26th inst., to Mr. Lawson received by 
 me owing to the absence of Mr. Lawson's secretary. 
 
 184 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 I regret it is impossible to lay the same before him 
 without further explanation from you to accompany my 
 report in placing your request before him. 
 
 Under Mr. Lawson's office rules all mail is opened by 
 his secretary or his assistant, and all matters pertaining 
 to new business are attended to by the office unless in 
 the opinion of his secretary they require Mr. Lawson's 
 personal attention. I feel quite sure the subject matter 
 of your letter would not require Mr. Lawson's personal 
 attention, and unless I have additional reasons for bring- 
 ing it to his attention I will not do so. 
 
 I give you the following explanations that you may 
 understand why what seems to be an urgent matter to 
 you should be delayed in getting to Mr. Lawson. 
 
 First, Mr. Lawson never receives confidential com- 
 munications from any one. 
 
 Second, all of Mr. Lawson's advertisements appear 
 over his signature. 
 
 Third, Mr. Lawson would consider his office derelict 
 in their' duty in presuming to ask for information in 
 regard to a subject he considered personal. 
 
 Assuring you that if in an additional communication 
 you show why your request should be laid before Mr. 
 Lawson, I will see that it is forthwith. Believe me. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 R. J. BURTON, 
 Asst. Secretary to Thomas W. Lawson. 
 
 Mr. C. F. King, 
 
 Journal Building, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 185 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Lawson having instructed his secretary to 
 attend to the matter, I followed the same 
 course, and the following letter went back to 
 the Lawson headquarters: 
 
 Journal Building, Boston, December 27. 
 Mr. R. J. Burton, 
 
 Assistant Secretary to Thomas W. Lawson, 
 Room 74, Young's Hotel, 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your letter of December 27, addressed to Mr. King, 
 has been received. I am instructed by Mr. King to 
 say to you that his reasons for addressing his letter of 
 yesterday to Mr. Lawson are set forth in the sentence 
 of that letter, which reads as follows: 
 
 "7 have a very strong personal reason for wishing to 
 ascertain this information from you at first hand; if I did 
 not, you may rest assured that I would not trouble you in 
 the matter at a//." 
 
 Mr. King wishes me to say to you that if you do not 
 consider the matter of sufficient importance to bring to 
 Mr. Lawson 's attention you may throw the letter into 
 the waste basket and think nothing more about it. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 L. L. LEWIS, 
 
 Private Secretary. 
 
 Lawson did not throw the letter into the 
 waste basket. Neither did he ignore it. 
 
 On the following day a tall, light-haired, 
 
 186 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 shrewd-looking young man called at my office. 
 "I am Mr. McSweeney, private secretary to 
 Mr. Thomas W. Lawson," he said to the 
 young woman who rose to ask his business in 
 the reception room, " and I would like to see 
 Mr. King." 
 
 I instructed her to show him in at once, and 
 received him with courtesy. 
 
 Edward A. McSweeney is an able young 
 man. Prior to filling the most confidential 
 position that Lawson has in his establishment, 
 he was a New York newspaper man, and a 
 successful one. He has been with Lawson 
 several years and is a faithful and very high- 
 salaried employee. This must be so, for if 
 he were not faithful Lawson would not keep 
 him, and if he were not high-salaried he would 
 not work for Lawson. 
 
 Mr. McSweeney was suave and business- 
 like. He said that he came representing Mr 
 Lawson, to correct an impression that I 
 seemed, by my letter, to have regarding the 
 advertisement published over the name of 
 Coakley, Coakley & Sherman. 
 
 "Mr. Lawson had nothing whatever to do 
 with that advertisement, Mr. King," he said. 
 "On the contrary, Mr. Lawson feels very 
 
 187 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 friendly toward you, and hopes you are doing 
 well." 
 
 " I am doing quite well, thank you," I said. 
 
 "Mr. Lawson is pleased at that," said Mr. 
 Mc£weeney. "But he does feel, Mr. King, 
 that you ought not to bother his campaigns in 
 Trinity." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 "Because he is trying to make a success of 
 Trinity, and he feels that you are standing in 
 the way of that success. He feels about 
 Trinity just as you undoubtedly feel about 
 the King-Crowther Corporation. He wants 
 it to be a monument to his energy." 
 
 "I certainly hope he'll succeed," I replied. 
 " I hope he'll make the stock of Trinity worth 
 two hundred dollars a share. But the stock 
 isn't worth that figure now, and I'm afraid Mr. 
 Lawson has a lot of work cut out for him to 
 make it worth that or even one-tenth of that. " 
 
 "But that wasn't what I came over to say," 
 continued Mr. McSweenev. "I merelv 
 
 t/ V 
 
 dropped in to correct the false impression 
 that you seem to have about that advertise- 
 ment signed by Coakley, Coakley & Sher- 
 man. Mr. Lawson did not have anything 
 whatever to do with it." 
 
 188 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it," I said. "But I've 
 gathered quite a lot of evidence to the effect 
 that he did, and in view of that I naturally feel 
 that Mr. Lawson should not expect me to 
 believe a mere verbal denial, and that through 
 a second party. I should appreciate it, Mr. 
 McSweeney, if you would ask Mr. Lawson 
 to write me a letter over his signature, assuring 
 me that he was in no way responsible for the 
 Coakley, Coakley & Sherman advertisement. 
 He certainly cannot object to that— if it is true 
 that he had nothing to do with it." 
 
 "I can assure you he didn't," said Mr. 
 McSweeney. 
 
 "You'll pardon me," I replied, "if I say 
 I'd rather he would say so himself." 
 
 " I want to do what I can to smooth out the 
 misunderstanding," said Mr. McSweeney, 
 "and I shall endeavor to see Mr. Lawson at 
 once and take up the matter with him. Per- 
 haps I shall return with his answer." 
 
 "You needn't bother to do that, Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney, " I said. " Tell him just to drop the 
 letter in the mail and it will be all right." 
 
 "Very well," replied Mr. McSweeney, and 
 rose. "I'm very sorry, Mr. King, that you 
 have this feeling about Mr. Lawson, because 
 
 189 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Mr. Lawson is a mighty good fellow." 
 
 "I don't doubt it," I said. "That is one 
 reason why I think he will be very glad to 
 clear my mind of the feeling that he was 
 responsible for the advertisement." 
 
 "He isn't that kind of a man at all," 
 earnestly said Mr. McSweeney. "Mr. Law- 
 son is a fighter, and he fights out in the open. 
 You remember when he went after Rogers 
 and Rockefeller. There was nothing under- 
 handed or underground in that. He just went 
 right after them, in the open. That's the way 
 he fights." 
 
 "That is certainly the way to fight," I 
 agreed. 
 
 "You fight that way," urged Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney, "and it seems to me you ought to 
 give Mr. Lawson credit for doing the same." 
 
 I smiled. " At the same time I'd like to have 
 his assurance that he had nothing to do with 
 the Coakley, Coakley & Sherman advertise- 
 ment, in writing," I persisted. 
 
 "I shall try to see him at once," concluded 
 Mr. McSweeney, and left the office. 
 
 The natural thought in my mind was that 
 Lawson had sent his secretary to me because 
 he did not want to place in my possession any 
 
 190 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 documentary evidence. I firmly believed that 
 Lawson had been back of the hostile advertis- 
 ing. If he had not, however, I wanted to 
 know who had been, in order to keep track 
 of my enemies. If Lawson had absolutely 
 denied, over his signature, that he was re- 
 sponsible, I should have felt that perhaps he 
 was not alone to blame ; it seemed incredible to 
 me that he would take the chance of having me 
 prove the act in the face of his disavowal of it. 
 
 Not an hour had passed before Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney again appeared at my office and sent 
 in his name. 
 
 Now Lawson has a large establishment, 
 with a number of private secretaries, a small 
 army of clerks and bookkeepers and stenog- 
 raphers, and plenty of messengers. Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney is popularly believed to be the highest- 
 salaried employee in the lot, and the first 
 thought that occurred to me when he was 
 announced for the second time was that it 
 was rather unusual for him to be performing 
 the duties of a five-dollar-a-week messenger 
 boy. I had the clerk show him in immediately. 
 He came in briskly. 
 
 "Back again, Mr. King," he said, with a 
 smile. 
 
 191 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "Really, you're taking too much trouble," 
 I protested. "It wasn't necessary to come 
 back. You could have dropped the letter in 
 the mail chute and it would have been de- 
 livered in an hour or two." 
 
 Mr. McSweeney went right at business. 
 "I laid that matter before Mr. Lawson," he 
 said, " and he does not want to write the letter 
 you request. He does not feel that it should 
 be necessary for him to write about that 
 matter. In fact, Mr. King, he was very pro- 
 voked at me for having interrupted him to 
 suggest it — said I ought not to make such a 
 suggestion. I would not have done so if you 
 hadn't been so insistent about it, as I explained 
 to him. Mr. Lawson said he didn't have any- 
 thing to do with those advertisements, but 
 there was no reason why he should write any 
 letters denying it, as there was no reason for 
 you or anybody else to believe that he did it. 
 That was all he had to say about it. He 
 passed it up just like that." 
 
 "All right, Mr. McSweeney," I said. "I 
 thank you for coming over." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. McSweeney, "I'm sorry, 
 but he passed it up just like that." 
 
 "All right," I repeated, using the same 
 
 192 
 
it 
 
 A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 phrase. "If that's the way he passed it up, 
 all right." 
 
 I was smiling broadly, and very evidently 
 there showed in my face the certainty I now 
 had that my proof of Lawson' s responsibility 
 for the attacks had not been incorrect. Mr. 
 McSweeney hastened to add: 
 
 I want you to feel right about it." 
 Oh, I feel all right toward you, Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney," I said. "You have done your 
 best." 
 
 "I want you to feel right about Mr. Law- 
 son's connection with it, too," he said. "I 
 want you to feel that he had nothing to do 
 with those advertisements." 
 
 "As to that," said I, "I stand where I stood 
 before. If he writes a letter stating over his 
 signature that he was not responsible I may 
 feel differently." 
 
 There was a pause. Mr. McSweeney 
 seemed to be thinking of a way to say some- 
 thing: that was on his mind. Then he said, 
 abruptly, "Why don't you and Mr. Lawson 
 get together?" 
 
 "Get together?" I repeated. "In what 
 way r 
 
 "Mr. Lawson isn't bothering any of your 
 
 193 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 stocks. Why don't you let him alone?" 
 "Mr. Lawson's affairs and mine are dif- 
 ferent," I said, "very much different. His 
 stocks are manipulated — he manipulates them 
 — and mine are not manipulated. I have 
 nothing whatever against Mr. Lawson per- 
 sonally, but so far as the policy of my office is 
 concerned I must continue to advise those 
 who write me for advice according to what I 
 believe to be true. I must do this whether the 
 stock under discussion is Big Steel and Union 
 Pacific or Trinity and Arcadian — which Mr. 
 Lawson says offer such wonderful investment 
 opportunities. I have to do it. I cannot do 
 business in any other way." 
 
 Mr. McSweeney nodded as in agreement. 
 Then he went on, earnestly: 
 
 "Mr. King, I want to tell you that Mr. 
 Lawson hasn't anything against you, any 
 more than you have anything against him — 
 nothing at all. You may think he has been 
 fighting you — that he has been doing this or 
 doing; that — but whether he has or not he has 
 nothing whatever against you personally. And 
 you and Lawson are not so far apart in your 
 ideas. Lawson has fought some of the big 
 ones, and you have fought some of the big 
 
 194 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 ones. He is older at it, and more powerful 
 than you are — or can hope to be." 
 
 I nodded. "I grant you that," I said. 
 
 " Why wouldn't it be a good idea for you to 
 meet him some day?" he asked, as though it 
 were a sudden and original thought. 
 
 "I have never dodged meeting him; I prob- 
 ably never shall," I said. "I am not seeking 
 an interview with Mr. Lawson. I shall not 
 seek one. I suppose if I were standing in a 
 room and he chanced to be present, and some- 
 one introduced us, I should shake hands with 
 him and say ' Glad to meet you, Mr. Lawson. 
 I've heard of you often.' " 
 
 Mr. McSweeney considered for a moment. 
 
 "Well," he said, weighing his words, "I 
 can say to you, Mr. King — I would not say 
 that it comes from Mr. Lawson — " 
 
 Foreseeing the trend of the sentence I inter- 
 rupted him sharply. "Will you say it does 
 not come from Mr. Lawson ? Because if so 
 you need not say it." 
 
 " I would not say that it does not," said Mr. 
 McSweeney, still weighing his words with the 
 air of one intrusted with an important errand, 
 "and I would not say that it does." He 
 hesitated — then added: 
 
 195 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 " You can make a great deal of money by 
 understanding Lawson better." 
 
 " Just what do you mean by that ?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh," he replied, glancing quickly at me 
 to see, I suppose, what impression was being 
 made, " Mr. Lawson might give you some 
 information, sometime, that would do you a 
 lot of good." 
 
 "I'm afraid any information Mr. Lawson 
 gave me wouldn't help me much," I said. 
 "You see, I do not speculate." I paused. 
 "Look here, Mr. McSweeney," I continued, 
 with some insistence, " you don't say that that 
 message comes from Mr. Lawson." 
 
 "I don't say that it does or doesn't," he 
 agreed. 
 
 I wanted to get at the bottom of the matter. 
 
 "If you have a business proposition to sub- 
 mit to me," I said, "you may submit it, but 
 let's have it from 'the old man' himself. If 
 you've got one to make from him, let's have 
 it. If you haven't, and he has, then go back 
 and get it. And if it is one that I can handle, 
 I'll listen to it. But I'm pretty busy — I'm 
 going to start a newspaper in a few days — " 
 
 'We are very much interested in the new 
 paper," interrupted Mr. McSweeney. 
 
 196 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 "Is that so?" I said, as an idea struck me. 
 "Well, if Mr. Lawson is really not unfriendly 
 to me, as you say, and is interested in my new 
 paper, tell him I'd be glad to print an article 
 from him in the first issue. He's a clever man 
 with his pen, and we can use about a half- 
 column from him." 
 
 "I'll see what he says," said Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney, rising to go. "And I'll take up that 
 other matter with him right away." 
 
 Not long afterward he was back again. 
 
 "Mr. Lawson is sorry," he said, "but he is 
 too busy to write that article for the Boston 
 Daily Tribune. He is going down to Dream- 
 wold pretty soon and has a lot of appoint- 
 ments and other business, and he doesn't see 
 how he can get around to it in time for the first 
 issue." 
 
 "All right," I said. 
 
 Mr. McSweeney came near to me and 
 lowered his voice. 
 
 "As to the other matter," he said, "if you 
 will come to a better understanding with Mr. 
 Lawson you can make a million dollars in the 
 next six months." 
 
 "Is that a direct message from Mr. Law- 
 son?" I asked. 
 
 197 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "That I cannot say," replied Mr. Mc- 
 Sweeney. "But it will be to your advantage 
 to have an understanding with him." 
 
 I gathered that Mr. McSweeney had now 
 gone as far as Lawson's instructions would 
 allow. So I hastened to close the interview. 
 
 "Mr. McSweeney," I said, "you say that 
 Mr. Lawson will not write an article for the 
 first issue of the Boston Daily Tribune?" 
 
 "He hasn't time." 
 
 " And Mr. Lawson will not write a letter say- 
 ing that he was not responsible for the Coakley, 
 Coakley & Sherman advertisements?" 
 
 "He doesn't think you ought to expect him 
 to do that." 
 
 " And he won't authorize you to say that he 
 is responsible for the suggestion that I can 
 make a large sum of money ' by understanding 
 him better ' ?" 
 
 Mr. McSweeney was silent. 
 
 I rose to terminate the interview. "I 
 thank you for coming here, Mr. McSweeney, 
 and for all the time you have given me. But 
 we cannot do any business together." 
 
 Mr. McSweeney bowed, murmured the 
 usual polite things about being glad to have 
 met me, and hurried away. 
 
 198 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 A million dollars in six months! A million 
 dollars! Almost twice as much money as I 
 then possessed and a larger sum than I had 
 ever seen at one time! A million dollars! A 
 massive, magnificent fortune! And the only 
 service to be rendered to win this million was 
 to quit exposing the games of Lawson. All 
 I had to do to pocket the bribe was to reverse 
 my policy — be false to my friends and dis- 
 loyal to my clients. Merely to play the game 
 in the Lawson way, that was all. 
 
 I wondered what plan was afoot in the Law- 
 son headquarters to inaugurate a campaign so 
 vast that a million dollars would be a small 
 share of the spoils. Within less than three 
 months I knew, for first came a quick, sharp, 
 heart-breaking and purse-breaking Trinity 
 boom, and then the cruel, vicious Nevada- 
 Utah swindle. In these two campaigns, even 
 in the face of my exposures and warnings, 
 Lawson is said to have cleaned up more than 
 three million dollars. Had I remained quies- 
 cent and allowed the lambs to go to the 
 slaughter without a word of warning, the 
 profit would have been ten millions. And a 
 million dollars would have been mine, merely 
 for saying, on that day: 
 
 199 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "All right, Mr. McSweeney. Mr. Lawson 
 and I will get acquainted. We will 'know 
 each other better.' We will pull together." 
 
 We read and hear much, in these muck- 
 raking days, of bribes, bribers and bribe-takers. 
 How many million-dollar bribes have ever 
 been declined with thanks, I wonder. 
 
 I append the following affidavit, in corrob- 
 oration of the story I have told in this chapter : 
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 County of Suffolk, ss. 
 
 Personally appeared before me Marie A. Ross, who, 
 on oath, says: That she is employed in the office of C. 
 F. King, in Boston, in the capacity of reception room 
 clerk, and that on the 28th day of December, 1906, a 
 gentleman called at Mr. King's office and announced 
 that he desired to see Mr. King personally, and that he 
 gave his name as "Mr. McSweeney, private secretary 
 to Mr. Thomas W. Lawson." I announced his pres- 
 ence to Mr. King, who admitted him to his private 
 office, where a conference was held lasting nearly half 
 an hour, after which Mr. McSweeney passed out through 
 the reception room. 
 
 Within less than one hour thereafter he again ap- 
 peared and requested that I say to Mr. King, as before, 
 that " Mr. McSweeney, private secretary to Mr. Thomas 
 W. Lawson, desires to see him." On being announced 
 he was again admitted to Mr. King's private office and 
 
 200 
 
A MILLION-DOLLAR BRIBE 
 
 after something like half an hour he again passed out 
 through the reception room. 
 
 Within about one hour thereafter he appeared for a 
 third time and again requested that I say to Mr. King 
 that " Mr. McSweeney, private secretary to Mr. Thomas 
 W. Lawson, desires to see him personally," and for a 
 third time he was admitted into Mr. King's private 
 office, where, as before, he remained for about half an 
 hour when again he passed out through the reception 
 room. 
 
 MARIE A. ROSS. 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to before me this ninth day of 
 March, one thousand nine hundred and seven. 
 
 GUY E. CLIFFORD, 
 
 Notary Public. 
 (Seal) 
 
 201 
 
Chapter XIX 
 HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 THE opportunity to lay hands upon a 
 million dollars by the mere operation of 
 treacherously conniving at Lawson's 
 plans for plunder was behind me; before me 
 lay stretched, as straight and clear as it had 
 ever lain, the path of duty. 
 
 Since that momentous visit of McSweeney 
 with his guarded offer of a fortune for 
 immunity, I have often wondered by just what 
 mental process Lawson came to make it. It 
 seems plain to me in the light of the events that 
 followed. 
 
 Lawson was about to inaugurate another 
 campaign in Trinity — his favorite stock by 
 means of which he has filched so many hard- 
 earned dollars. Trinity never would stand 
 the light of day. He could not hope to be 
 fully successful in his scheme unless my 
 silence could be bought. After Trinity he 
 was planning his Nevada-Utah boom. Prob- 
 ably he had already bought secretly the 
 hundreds of thousands of shares at from two 
 
 202 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 to four dollars a share which in February and 
 March he was to unload upon the public at 
 from five to ten and then — "going short" of 
 the stock and smashing the boom with a 
 heartless, cold-blooded advertisement — was to 
 purchase to "cover his shorts" all the way 
 down to three dollars again. 
 
 He had been singularly unsuccessful in his 
 attempts to stop my just criticism. Three 
 times, now, he had thrust at me — and failed. 
 He had laid the plot that made Franklin J. 
 Moses first a traitor and then a suicide — and 
 it had failed. He had planned and put into 
 execution the Coakley, Coakley & Sherman 
 attack upon the securities sold through my 
 office — and it had failed. He had cautiously 
 and circuitously arranged for the complaints 
 against King-Crowther made with the Post 
 Office Department — and that scheme, also, 
 had failed. 
 
 Perhaps there was something of superstition 
 in his new attitude — a feeling that after three 
 such attempts it was useless to fly in the face 
 of Fate. Perhaps — and I regard this as the 
 more likely supposition — he had for the first 
 time come to realize my real strength. It had 
 at last filtered through his brain that my 
 
 203 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 influence had been growing — that I was a 
 strong man with the investing public — that 
 my conduct and the business methods I had 
 employed were too straight to be injured by 
 his attacks. 
 
 I suppose that when a man is utterly 
 unscrupulous himself, and possesses neither 
 mercy, pity nor conscience, it is impossible 
 for him to realize that all other men are not of 
 the same moral calibre as he. I suppose he 
 thinks those who differ from his ways of think- 
 ing are hypocrites — that, down in their inmost 
 hearts, they, too, are without mercy, pity, or 
 conscience. If Money is his god, and Money 
 alone, he thinks Money must be the real god 
 of every other man. 
 
 So it may have been with Lawson at that 
 time. He may have fancied that I, in my 
 inner soul, was as conscienceless as he, as 
 unscrupulous, as willing to sell my soul for 
 gold. He may have reasoned it out that my 
 attacks upon him had been a sort of black- 
 mail — that I was only waiting to get my share 
 — that I would, for a division of the spoils, be 
 his jackal in just the same manner that he has 
 so often served as the jackal for the really big 
 men in finance. He may have thought I 
 
 204 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 would not be averse to secretly joining hands 
 with him — and he had learned, by experience, 
 that I was strong enough to be of material 
 assistance if I would become a silent partner. 
 
 Well, he had found out. He had learned 
 that threats and attacks would not turn me 
 aside, and now had been added the knowledge 
 that I was not to be bought. 
 
 I had not much time to think this out 
 immediately, for I was extremely busy with 
 the starting of my new newspaper, the first 
 issue of which appeared on New Year's Day, 
 1907. For this paper I assembled what I am 
 firmly convinced was not only the best staff 
 ever employed by a Boston daily newspaper, 
 but one of the best ever assembled in the pro- 
 duction of any kind of a newspaper whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 To the able newspaper men whom I had 
 engaged for all the departments I gave but 
 one general order. "Tell the truth," I said, 
 "about every movement in finance. Tell 
 it unflinchingly. Tell it fearlessly. 'Hew 
 to the line; let the chips fall where they may.' 
 How they obeyed, and the epoch-making 
 financial newspaper which I published, are 
 matters of history. 
 
 205 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 It was apparent from the first that there was 
 little hope that such a newspaper would be 
 financially successful. The expenses of pub- 
 lication, with such a staff as I had, were 
 enormous. The field of circulation was cir- 
 cumscribed. The returns from advertising 
 were and of necessity must continue small, for 
 this good and sufficient reason: The con- 
 servative and eminent financial houses, whose 
 whited sepulchres of pretense I exposed with- 
 out fear or favor, would not advertise; the 
 unsavory and public-milking swindlers — and 
 I think about every get-rich-quick concern 
 in the land tried to advertise in the Boston 
 Daily Tribune — could not. I had made an 
 iron-clad rule, from the beginning, that no 
 advertisement of a questionable stock would 
 be accepted. 
 
 This probability of financial failure, did not, 
 at that moment, worry me. As I had never 
 expected the Boston Daily Tribune to be a 
 money-maker, I was not doomed to dis- 
 appointment. I did believe, however, that 
 such a newspaper would nearly pay expenses 
 — that the ledger ought not to show a deficit of 
 more than fifty thousand dollars a year — and 
 I was content with this. How I finally sank 
 
 206 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 nearly three hundred thousand dollars in the 
 Boston Daily Tribune just before the panic 
 and the culmination of the plot that finally 
 cost me my last penny will be told in its 
 proper place. 
 
 The Boston Daily Tribune, from its first 
 number, hewed to the line. Was a particu- 
 larly evil flotation premeditated on stock 
 exchange or curb — it denounced it. Was a 
 stock company being organized whose pro- 
 portion of water was greater than that of the 
 earth's surface — it described it. Did eminent 
 and "respectable" financiers plan a scheme 
 to fleece investors and line their own pockets, 
 and was there a " nigger in the woodpile" that 
 the conservative journals could not or would 
 not see — the Boston Daily Tribune pointed 
 it out. In its day's routine report of the stock 
 exchange or curb it did not content itself with 
 saying that so many thousand shares of So-and- 
 So stock were "sold" — but pointed out how 
 many were really sold and how many were 
 "washed." 
 
 From its first day of publication the Boston 
 Daily Tribune was absolutely fair and un- 
 biased toward Thomas W. Lawson. It was 
 fairer than many of the other Boston daily 
 
 207 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 papers, whose owners had not the grounds 
 I had to pick him out as a target. On no 
 occasion did it go out of its way to injure him. 
 When he became the centre of financial news, 
 it printed the truth about him — as it did about 
 every other financial matter. I recall that on 
 one occasion, when an especially uncalled-for 
 and unfair attack was made on Lawson, the 
 Boston Daily Tribune editorially deplored it. 
 It was my desire — and my staff endeavored 
 successfully to carry out that desire — that 
 Lawson should be treated with especial fair- 
 ness. I had no debts to pay with my new 
 paper, and no enemies to punish. 
 
 But hardly a week had passed before it 
 became necessary for the Boston Daily Tri- 
 bune, unless it should be absolutely untrue to 
 its purpose and mission, to tell a story about 
 Lawson which must, if the truth were adhered 
 to, be coldly critical. For Lawson began his 
 Trinity campaign, and carried it out with a 
 heartlessness and recklessness which, were it 
 not for the Nevada-Utah campaign that 
 followed within a month or two, would be set 
 down as the most pitiless of all his booms. 
 
 The stock of the Trinity Copper Company — 
 which Lawson is said to have bought for 
 
 208 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 $20,000 and manipulated to the fictitious value 
 of $8,800,000 — was selling at its normal figure, 
 which is somewhere around ten dollars a share. 
 At this price there was no demand for it except 
 from the "traders," who buy or sell merely as 
 a gamble, and have no interest in the actual 
 value of the stock in which they trade. 
 
 The investing public generally knows 
 Trinity — that it is merely a speculative propo- 
 sition without real value — that its possessions 
 are a mine which has never been demon- 
 strated to contain any mineral, and three 
 salaried officials, two of them being watchmen. 
 Trinity is never active except when Lawson 
 starts a campaign in it. Then it usually be- 
 comes the most lively gamble on the exchange. 
 Speculators, expecting that Lawson is about 
 to put the price up and then let it fall again, 
 in his usual manner, buy large quantities of 
 the stock and trust to selling before the usual 
 slump — sometimes winning and sometimes 
 losing. With their losses nobody is concerned 
 — they are gamblers and know what chance 
 they are taking. It is upon the poor investors, 
 hypnotized by Lawson 's fairy-tale advertise- 
 ments into believing that there is some genuine 
 worth to the stock, that the blow falls. A 
 
 209 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Trinity campaign usually impoverishes hun- 
 dreds and thousands of these. 
 
 And that particular Trinity campaign which 
 began early in January was the most cruel of 
 all. 
 
 The details of the boom and its collapse 
 were not different from the details of all the 
 Lawson movements. Lawson advised in- 
 vestors to buy the stock, declaring that it was 
 going to $60, $75, $100 a share. The lambs 
 flocked to the shearing. The suckers swam 
 into the net. The stock went above $40, 
 Lawson selling at prices up to that figure the 
 stock he had bought on the last slump at not 
 far from $10. 
 
 Then he got out from under. In five 
 minutes the quotations went crashing down to 
 $26. Men and women, old and young, 
 screamed and struggled in the brokerage 
 offices trying to sell their holdings before they 
 w r ere ruined — and could not. There was a 
 panic about the Trinity pole on the Boston 
 Stock Exchange. There were pathetic scenes 
 on State Street. Workingmen who had saved 
 a few hundreds saw them wiped out in five 
 minutes. Aged men and women who had 
 listened to Lawson's siren voice and taken 
 
 210 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 their accumulations of years out of the savings 
 banks to follow his will-o'-the-wisp found 
 themselves paupers. School teachers, who 
 seemed to have been especially selected for 
 this particular slaughter, found themselves 
 suddenly penniless, and were dazed by the 
 blow. 
 
 It was cruel. It was pitiless. It was — 
 Lawsonian. 
 
 From the Boston Daily Tribune office came 
 a message. "Lawson is 'trimming' the 
 Trinity speculators. What shall we do?" 
 
 My reply was short. "Print the exact 
 truth, without exaggeration either in favor of 
 Lawson or against him." 
 
 The story was printed, neither stronger than 
 the facts demanded, nor weaker. I have been 
 told that until that narrative appeared, Law- 
 son seemed to be of the opinion that he had 
 nothing to fear from me; that when it did 
 appear, he raged bitterly. From this it would 
 seem that he had hoped, even though I had 
 declined the promise of a million, that I would 
 change my mind. It may be that he thought 
 my "no" meant "yes." 
 
 Immediately following the notorious Trinity 
 slump of January 7, Lawson began to bolster 
 
 211 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the stock for another killing. The stock, at 
 the time of the crash, had not fallen below 
 $20. He argued, in his public advertisements, 
 that he had held the market there and that he 
 was about to put it up as he had promised. 
 Strange as it may seem — and it is a tribute to 
 his eloquence as well as to the lack of wisdom 
 of the army of lambs who were reading his 
 words — his writings bore some fruit from a 
 new crop of dupes. The old could not have 
 participated, except with rare exceptions, for 
 they had been left penniless. 
 
 I have never been able to understand just 
 why Lawson piled his second Trinity campaign 
 of that year directly on top of his first, unless 
 there was some grain of truth in the rumor that 
 persistently floated about State Street in those 
 days, and had its starting point in the houses 
 with which Lawson principally dealt, that he 
 had been himself gambling on the wrong side of 
 the stock market and was in a bad way 
 financially. Usually Lawson separates his 
 campaigns by a sufficient margin of time for 
 people to forget, in some degree, how the last 
 dose tasted. This time he had not stopped 
 banking the money made in the first boom 
 before he was inaugurating the second. 
 
 212 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 The newspapers, in those days, were filled 
 with the advertisements signed by Lawson. 
 Each of them closed with the same words: " I 
 repeat; I reiterate; I advise unqualifiedly the 
 purchase of Trinity at any figure under 65." 
 
 Many of the most influential journals and 
 magazines in the land, which ordinarily had 
 pursued toward Lawson an attitude of silent 
 contempt, were spurred by his audacity in thus 
 following a shameful collapse with another 
 boom, into noticing him. One of the refer- 
 ences to him I quote. It is from the editorial 
 column of Collier s Weekly for February 9, and 
 not only shows what was the intelligent opinion 
 of Lawson and his scheme to defraud at that 
 time, but proves the falsity of any charge that 
 might be made that my newspaper, in telling 
 the truth about the Trinity bubble, was "going 
 out of its way" to attack Lawson. The 
 editorial from Collier's reads as follows: 
 
 "I repeat," squeals Lawson, "I reiterate," "I 
 advise unqualifiedly," "as president of Trinity and as 
 an individual" — I, the man who exposed life insurance, 
 the confounder and confuser of the System, I, Lawson — 
 "I advise unqualifiedly the purchase of Trinity at any 
 figure under 65." And hundreds of persons have 
 drawn their accumulation from the savings bank and 
 bought. Lawson is the prince of advertising. The 
 
 213 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 widely exploited philanthropy of "frenzied finance" 
 is reaping its harvest. 
 
 Certain laws of nature say that where there is a buyer 
 there must also be a seller. These savings banks 
 lambs know not who is the man they bought from. 
 Their purchase was made through a broker on an im- 
 personal exchange invented to conceal such details. 
 They do not know, and never think to inquire, who is 
 the sceptic so disdainful of Lawson's frenzied advice as 
 to sell his Trinity before it reaches 65, before, indeed, it 
 reaches 40. Could the seller be Tom himself ? Perish 
 the thought! Yet the fact that Lawson is the president 
 and chief stockholder of Trinity sticks unpleasingly in 
 the most lofty and unsuspecting mind. 
 
 Also, Trinity is a copper mine that does not produce 
 copper; and its entire staff of employees is a ten-thousand- 
 dollar-a-year superintendent and two three-dollar-a-day 
 watchmen, one by day and one by night, faithful and 
 vigilant in the duty of keeping people out of the mine, 
 the while Tom waves them grandly in — to the stock. 
 
 Stock market intricacies are not for minds so guileless 
 as ours; but even our brain lingers over Lawson's 
 further proclamation: "Buy Amalgamated. Buy it 
 quick. It's on its way to 150. Buy it. Buy it quick. " 
 How long ago is it since these flaming advertisements 
 read: "Sell your stock now before it is too late. Bear 
 in mind, when Amalgamated sells at 33, I have warned 
 you." Which time were you telling the truth, Tom? 
 and whom are you working for now ? There would be 
 more humor in this narrative if there were less tragedy. 
 
 Those advertisements would not have been printed 
 
 214 
 
HEWING STRAIGHT TO THE LINE 
 
 if they were not profitable ; and they would not be profit- 
 able unless there were many of simple faith who believed 
 "frenzied finance," utterly, and look upon the author as 
 a deliverer. 
 
 Lawson has generous emotions ? Does he ever 
 recall this letter that came to him in the mails one morn- 
 ing? — "You will observe by the postmark . . . my 
 present . . . residence. You probably knew that be- 
 fore, as the press has had much to say about me of 
 late. I trust you . . . are satisfied . . . when you 
 observe the hell you have caused others. . . When I 
 first wrote you about the Amalgamated stock, I was an 
 honest, prosperous man. . . I had never committed a 
 crime. . . Relying upon what you said publicly . . . 
 I committed acts which I now know to my everlasting 
 sorrow I should not have committed. . . The rest is 
 the old story. My wife and children are disgraced and 
 oppressed with poverty, and I am serving a five-years 
 sentence buoyed up only with the hope that I may live 
 to face you . . .That you may see the wreck you 
 have wrought." 
 
 It is a desperate game you play, old friend, with 
 human hearts and souls as counters, with credulity and 
 misery as twin necessities in the show. You big gam- 
 blers have fun and make money, but, oh, gentlemen, the 
 wretchedness you cause! 
 
 The above is not from my pen, remember, 
 but an editorial in Collier s, of which Mr. Nor- 
 man Hapgood, able publicist and reputed per- 
 sonally friendly to Lawson, the Man, is editor. 
 
 215 
 
Chapter XX 
 UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 AND NOW, although I did not realize 
 it at the time, and I suppose Lawson 
 did not realize it, either, began to be 
 forged the chain that eventually defeated Law- 
 son, discredited him, and made him send to 
 me, suing for peace. 
 
 It was a new thing for the methods of 
 frenzied finance — either that brand which 
 Lawson, after having served, went out of his 
 path to vilify, or the other and more deadly 
 variety of which he himself was the first 
 apostle — to attract critical attention in maga- 
 zines and newspapers. For years I had stood 
 practically alone in my opposition to stock 
 market gambling and gamblers, and it had 
 been a popular reply to my arguments to call 
 me a "sensationalist." 
 
 At last, however, others were rising to assist 
 in the conflict. I had unsought aid on every 
 side. Lawson, for once in his life, had gone 
 too far. 
 
 The Boston Daily Tribune continued to 
 
 216 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 "hew to the line." The chips of that hewing 
 fell in a way to put an effectual clog under the 
 wheels of that second Trinity campaign. 
 
 In full-page, half-page and quarter-page 
 advertisements Lawson called upon the inves- 
 tors of the country to come and share in the 
 glorious profits that were to accrue from the 
 buying of Trinity. He urged, begged, pleaded 
 and promised. They did not come as in the 
 good old days. The memory of the recent 
 massacre was too fresh in their minds. 
 
 Then, in the struggle and turmoil, were born 
 a number of weird characters, the like of whom 
 have never before nor since been seen in the 
 world of high or low finance. Their names 
 were "William W. White," "Mortimer Ken- 
 sington Queen," and "A. B. Coe, Esq." The 
 mention of any of those names will to this day 
 bring a grin to the face of any anti-Lawson 
 operator on State Street. To Lawson's face 
 it will bring a frown, and to his soul bitter 
 remembrance, for had he not, in desperation, 
 conceived the foolhardy plan of using these 
 aliases in his advertising, his adventurous 
 career might not have been checked until many 
 months after it was. 
 
 Lawson has made some big mistakes in his 
 
 217 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 life, but none will compare with the invention 
 of these interesting characters of fiction. 
 
 Before reading further, I would suggest that 
 you turn back two chapters and read the letter 
 written to me by Lawson's assistant secretary 
 — one Burton — especially this sentence: 
 
 "Second — All of Mr. Lawson's advertise- 
 ments appear over his signature.' 1 
 
 After you have completed this chapter go 
 back and read that phrase — undoubtedly dic- 
 tated to Burton by Lawson — again. It will 
 serve to add a touch of humor to a book con- 
 taining but little that is not serious and grim. 
 
 It was at the beginning of the second Trinity 
 campaign of 1907 that the first of the fictitious 
 characters made his appearance in the news- 
 papers of Boston through the medium of the 
 following advertisement : 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Was furnished with proof on Friday morning that 
 Copper Range is to go into the new combination at $125 
 per share and that the $125 stock will probably go to 
 $175. He bought 30,000 shares on Friday and Satur- 
 day through Hayden, Stone & Company, Hornblowcr 
 & Weeks and Towle & Fitzgerald. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 218 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 This appeared on January 14, on the same 
 page as Lawson's advertisement but not in 
 an adjoining column. When those interested 
 in things financial read it they united in one 
 question : 
 
 "Who is William W. White?" 
 
 And the answer usually was : 
 
 " Some new broker, I suppose, who is trying 
 to make a little on the side out of Lawson's 
 campaign, or is engaged by him to help things 
 along." 
 
 The following day Mr. White had another 
 advertisement. It was conceived with re- 
 markable cleverness, for it is to be noted that 
 it devotes sixty-six words to what appears to be 
 general information and but nine words to the 
 Trinity campaign, but every line of it might 
 be expected to have a tendency to cause hesi- 
 tating investors and speculators to rush out 
 and buy Trinity. This advertisement reads 
 as follows, the italics being mine : 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Sold 30,000 Copper Range at 115 and 500 Tamarack 
 at 500 to-day at private sale. J liave advance knowl- 
 edge of some of his movements. I do not pretend to have 
 them all. Those who' co-operate with me are securing 
 large and quick profits. I told you in yesterday's adver- 
 
 219 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 tisement what Mr. Lawson would do to Copper Range 
 to-day. You saw him do it. He is now about to lift 
 Trinity 20 points. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Remembering that every one of these 
 William W. White advertisements was penned 
 by Lawson himself, the reader will be chilled 
 by the cold hypocrisy of the whole thing. " I 
 have advance knowledge of some of his 
 movements. I do not pretend to have them 
 all." What a bait for guileless fish hastening 
 toward the net ! 
 
 Lawson in the meantime was announcing 
 that he intended to send Trinity to some figure 
 approximating 50. But contrary to expecta- 
 tions the fish did not bite as they had been 
 expected to, and that day Trinity advanced 
 but five points — all on " washed" sales, which 
 is to say, fictitious transactions. On January 
 16 "White" explained this, as follows: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Has two surprises for State and Wall Streets. Trinity, 
 in two jumps, probably, will strike G9. His brokers had 
 the "let it go to 49" orders to-day. General weakness 
 changed the orders to " 5 points up." Trinity lawyers 
 are preparing suits against eleven stock exchange 
 houses, which, in refusing buy orders, slandered the 
 
 220 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 corporation. The company will attach for large 
 amounts, which will compel a quick hearing, at which 
 Trinity will show upon what the movement is based. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Within a few days I have read in a statement 
 issued by Thomas W. Lawson — for during 
 the very week in which I am writing these 
 words he is assembling a new flock of lambs for 
 a "National Stock" shearing — that he has 
 never yet been guilty of making false state- 
 ments in his advertisements. If that is so, 
 how about the suits against the eleven stock 
 exchange houses which had enough self- 
 respect to advise their clients not to fatten 
 the Lawson pocket-book by buying the worth- 
 less Trinity? There is the statement, direct 
 from Lawson's pen. He confessed full re- 
 sponsibility for the William W. White adver- 
 tisements — confessed it to the public after hav- 
 ing privately confessed it to the officers of the 
 United States government. 
 
 On the following day — January 17 — 
 appeared another advertisement, as follows: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Telegraphed a prominent Pennsylvanian to-day, "You 
 say Blank (naming one of the best known houses on 
 
 221 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 State Street) says Trinity is worthless. I herewith agree 
 to purchase from you the 3,000 shares you ordered of 
 them at $1,000 per share if I cannot present you with 
 proof Trinity is worth to-day 75, and I further agree if 
 I do not present you with proof that this house has 
 caused investors a loss through the fraudulent stocks it 
 has floated upon them of a large portion of the hundred 
 millions I have made for them in Coppers, to buy your 
 3,000 shares at $2,000 per share. Confidential calumny 
 is the weapon of the scoundrel. What I say you are at 
 liberty to wire them." The prominent Pennsylvanian 
 will arrive in Boston to-morrow. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Whether the prominent Pennsylvanian ever 
 arrived in Boston does not appear. The pur- 
 pose of the advertisement was very evidently 
 to show the investors that "William W. 
 White" not only "had advance knowledge of 
 some of his movements," but that he was so 
 close to Lawson as even to gain access to his 
 private telegrams. 
 
 Now Trinity had been "washed" up to 30, 
 or thereabouts, and still the "suckers" failed 
 to bite in any numbers. A new tack was 
 taken, and the following advertisement ap- 
 peared on January 18: 
 
 222 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Held Trinity at 30 to 33 until all small investors had 
 secured their stock. He is now holding it at 37-39, and 
 he will lift it to 47-49 or I don't know his hand. 
 
 WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Boston. 
 
 As Trinity was not "lifted to 47-49" it is to 
 be presumed that Mr. Lawson, alias White, 
 did not know the hand of Mr. Lawson, without 
 an alias. Or else the explanation is, to use an 
 old saying, "The boy lied." 
 
 When the lift for which the public was 
 supposed to be breathlessly waiting did not 
 come, this advertisement appeared, on Jan- 
 uary 19: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Must have chuckled to-day at the sturdy strength of 
 Trinity, when all the rest of the Coppers were going like 
 water through a broken spout. His orders to his 
 brokers were to suspend the lift until Amalgamated 
 straightened out, which would be as soon as a certain 
 independent Copper company's controllers had been 
 disciplined. 
 
 WILLIAM W r . WHITE. 
 Boston. 
 
 Then came this, on January 21 : 
 
 223 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Floated Trinity in 1901. He said publicly: "I think it 
 is good. I don't know, the experts say it is, and I am 
 willing to put my money in it, but it is only a speculation 
 now." He owned 160,000 shares of Trinity then. He 
 had every incentive to boom it but did not. The Boston 
 News Bureau states it has proved that Mr. Lawson was 
 compelled to sell all but a small amount of his Trinity 
 stock, that it examined the books at the American Loan 
 & Trust Company, where the stock is transferred, and 
 found Mr. Lawson 's stock was owned by the pub- 
 lic 2200 strong. Yet at this time, with practically no 
 money incentive, Mr. Lawson says : " I know — 
 unqualifiedly as an individual, and as President of the 
 Company, I state it is an investment — it is worth 75; it 
 will be 100 and over." 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 The next day, on January 22, came this: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Before starting the present unprecedented Trinity 
 movement not only knew that Trinity was at last ripe 
 on all sides, but that the Copper boom was coming. He 
 probably was one of the very few who knew that 
 Amalgamated was to be sent flving over 150 after he had 
 gotten fairly on record with his Trinity campaign, but 
 the public has not yet had the real good things on 
 Trinity. When they get them, enthusiasm will cut out a 
 new pace or Thomas W. Lawson 's hand is not known to 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 224 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 Before reading the next instalment of the 
 "William W. White" literature, with its 
 reference to the letters and checks that were 
 pouring in upon him by every mail, the reader 
 should pause to remember that "White" was 
 merely an alias, that such mail as had been 
 addressed to him was at that moment being 
 held up by the Post Office Department, and 
 that the receipt of one check, by a real 
 William W. White, who neither knew Lawson 
 nor wanted to know him, was the cause of 
 Lawson being warned by the Post Office 
 Department to cease using false pretenses. It 
 was in this advertisement, printed January 25, 
 that Lawson stumbled the most in this un- 
 fortunate campaign: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Has created in this Trinity movement something new to 
 the stock world. One of the tangible evidences of it is 
 the tremendous quantity of letters containing buy 
 orders and checks pouring in to me in every mail. My 
 orders to-day, it is safe to say, are more than all the mail 
 orders of all the stock exchange houses for any stock but 
 Trinity. I do not seek orders, but, on the contrary, 
 return checks and refer all buyers to the well-known 
 firm of Towle & Fitzgerald, members of the New York 
 and Boston Stock Exchanges, 98 Milk Street. 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 225 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 In his next advertisement, appearing Janu- 
 ary 26, "White" showed that in finance, as in 
 charity, it is possible for the left hand not to 
 know what the right hand does, by cleverly 
 disagreeing with an advertisement which had 
 been printed by Lawson over his own signa- 
 ture. He said (the italics are mine) : 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Through public notice to-day says he would have it 
 understood that he favors no particular stock exchange 
 house, but advises all buyers of Trinity to send to any 
 one of the full list of stock exchange houses. / do not 
 agree with all Mr. Lawson's broad, turn-the-other-cheek 
 methods. Some stock exchange houses, when asked to 
 buy Trinity, take occasion to slip in the knife in the 
 interest of other Coppers they are promoting. For this 
 reason I recommend all buyers to a well-known, active 
 New York and Boston stock exchange house which 
 makes a specialty of Coppers, Towle & Fitzgerald, 98 
 Milk Street, Boston, Telephone 6940. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Three days elapsed, during which Trinity 
 slowly rose, the bait having taken to some 
 extent. The published quotations on the 
 stock reached 40. On January 29 appeared 
 
 the following: 
 
 226 
 
UNDER FALSE COLORS 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Has frequently said: "A stock is worth what it will 
 bring in a legitimate, recognized market, no more, no 
 less; that the legitimate market is the stock exchange, 
 and in some cases the curb; that any crooked promoter 
 can put any price on his wildcats ; but that the real price 
 of a stock is what the man who owns it can sell it for. " 
 If a man owned Trinity to-day he could have secured 
 the top price, 39 to 40, for one share or ten thousand 
 shares, and he could have done so in the midst of 
 general market demoralization. As a matter of fact, it 
 sold all day the most active stock on the list at from 
 39-40 (and closed 39^.) What a lesson to fakirs. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Then came a sudden slump. Enough of 
 the lambs had wandered into the Trinity pen 
 to make a shearing profitable — and Lawson 
 stood ready with the shears. " William W. 
 White" explained it on January 30, as follows: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 As Trinity halts in a bad market spot to get its breath, 
 points to Amalgamated and other good things in Coppers 
 and Wall Street yells : " He has gone back on the people. 
 He's back with the system." Poor Wall Street! It 
 knows as little of its own game as he knows much of its 
 game and his own. Once let the market get untangled, 
 and we will see how quickly he will forget these market 
 moles and get busy in a way that will make the public 
 
 227 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 forget he ever heard the hounds. In the meantime he 
 keeps the public occupied and Trinity the only strong 
 stock on the list. If this is not good judgment I miss 
 my guess. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 Four days elapsed — four long, unhappy 
 days for those investors who held Trinity — for 
 the stock did not advance in price as they had 
 been promised. Indeed, for all that appeared 
 in the public prints, Lawson seemed to have 
 forgotten it. Then came this: 
 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON 
 
 Laughed to-day when he was asked if he had let up on 
 the copper boom. He said : " In all the really big horse 
 races the winner is taken to the stable and cooled out 
 and rubbed down for the next heat. It usually takes 
 three heats to win. Trinity has raced its first one, 11 to 
 40. Its second will be from 40 to 75. Then will come 
 the finish, 75 to — , " and he pointed to the great blue. 
 
 Boston. WILLIAM W. WHITE. 
 
 228 
 
Chapter XXI 
 A SENSELESS ATTACK 
 
 A WEEK or so after the appearance of 
 the first "William W. White" ad- 
 vertisement "the Street" was busy 
 talking about the strange collection of 
 announcements. It was the consensus of 
 opinion that Lawson was responsible for the 
 advertisements, but what is everybody's busi- 
 ness is nobody's business, and nothing was 
 done to definitely determine this until the 
 Boston Daily Tribune started a careful and 
 exhaustive investigation. 
 
 This inquiry developed the fact that there 
 was but one William W. White in the city of 
 Boston, and that he had nothing to do with the 
 stock market and knew nothing about the use 
 of his name. There were several William 
 Whites, with various middle initials. None 
 of these was responsible. Further investigation 
 traced the advertisements to an advertising 
 agency which did work for Lawson. 
 
 The Boston Daily Tribune gave to the public 
 the results of its investigation. 
 
 229 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 It is easy to believe that Lawson was des- 
 perate. His second Trinity campaign had 
 been a comparative failure. His authorship 
 of the deceptive William W. White advertise- 
 ments had been traced home to him. He saw 
 his prestige gone and his dollars shrinking. 
 He determined to retaliate by again attacking 
 the stock of the King- C row ther Corpora- 
 tion, which was selling readily through my 
 office at $70 a share. I suppose he thought if 
 he could prevent me from selling that stock I 
 would be more ready to make terms with him. 
 
 To undertake this plan of retaliation he 
 resorted to a new alias. On Monday morn- 
 ing, January 28, 1907, there appeared in one 
 or two newspapers in Boston (it was offered 
 to the others, but refused, as they did not care 
 to accept an advertisement so plainly intended 
 to deceive) the following, in large type: 
 
 KING-CROWTHER 
 
 $14,000 REWARD 
 
 I have for sale 14,000 shares of King-Crowther at 30. 
 The highest offer I have received is on* dollar and a 
 quarter. I will pay to any one who will buy the same 
 at 30 the sum of $1 per share, or $14,000. Corre- 
 spondence solicited with any one who can use all or any 
 part of the above amount even at a lower price than 30, 
 
 230 
 
A SENSELESS ATTACK 
 
 as my desire is to sell at some price above the only offer 
 I have so far, one dollar and a quarter. 
 
 MORTIMER KENSINGTON QUEEN. 
 
 Address letters care of my solicitor, A. B. COE, 
 Esquire. 
 
 This advertisement fell absolutely flat. Had 
 Lawson announced that $50, or $40, was the 
 best offer per share he was able to secure, it 
 might have had an effect upon prospective 
 investors in the stock and frightened them into 
 lack of confidence in me and my office. But 
 the one dollar and a quarter was so palpably 
 absurd that it overreached its purpose and, so 
 far as I have ever been able to learn, did not 
 make a penny's difference in the King- 
 Crowther subscriptions. 
 
 A considerable number of stockholders, 
 being desirous of adding to their holdings if 
 they could do so at thirty or any price like that, 
 or else feeling a desire to "call the bluff," 
 addressed letters to "Mortimer Kensington 
 Queen, care of A. B. Coe, Esquire, Boston," 
 offering various sums from $30 to $65 for the 
 stock. 
 
 These letters remained for several days in 
 the general delivery department of the Boston 
 
 231 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 post office and were then (so Boston Daily 
 Tribune reporters learned at the post office) 
 delivered to Lawson, who declined to accept 
 them, saying he had no knowledge of either 
 the mysterious "Queen" or the equally mys- 
 terious " Coe. " Thereupon the missives went, 
 in the regular course of events, to the Dead 
 Letter Office at Washington, where they were 
 opened and returned to the senders. 
 
 It did not require the services of Pinkerton 
 detectives to learn that the advertisement was 
 offered to all the Boston morning papers 
 except the Boston Daily Tribune by Lawson's 
 regular advertising agent. 
 
 Thus began and ended the most absurd and 
 senseless of all the attacks made upon me by 
 Lawson. Its effect was absolutely nil. It is 
 only worthy of mention in these pages as an 
 evidence of the desperate straits to which 
 Lawson had come, and an illustration of the 
 methods he was driven to taking in his 
 endeavor to extricate himself. 
 
 232 
 
Chapter XXII 
 DIED— WILLIAM W. WHITE 
 
 IT IS the most dangerous factor in the 
 transactions of such market manip- 
 ulators as Lawson that they seldom 
 sell any securities except through the stock 
 exchange and the curb. Therefore, however 
 brazenly they may swindle the public, it is 
 almost impossible for the law to get its 
 clutches upon them. 
 
 "Buy Trinity; buy Nevada-Utah; buy Bay 
 State Gas; they are going up!" advertises 
 Lawson. "I reiterate, they are going up. 
 You may take my word for it; I assure you 
 they are going up. I say it on my own 
 responsibility. They are going up." 
 
 The foolish, trusting investor buys. He 
 buys to the extent of hundreds or thousands of 
 shares. The stock goes down. He is ruined. 
 
 "I have been deceived!" he cries. "You 
 promised me this stock was going up. I put 
 my all into it. It has gone down. I am 
 swindled!" 
 
 "I am sorry," says Lawson. "I made a 
 
 233 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 mistake. And you are not half as great a loser 
 as I, because I myself bought, the same as you. 
 You have lost hundreds. I have lost millions." 
 
 Is that true ? Certainly not. The investor 
 bought of Lawson, when the stock was at its 
 top quotation. When the falling market made 
 him sell, he sold to Lawson. But he both 
 bought and sold in the market, where he can- 
 not see of whom he buys or to whom he sells. 
 He cannot prove what all men in close touch 
 with finance know to be true. If Lawson 
 frankly told the investors, when he promised 
 that one of his wild-cat stocks was going up, 
 that he himself was offering it for sale, the 
 investor, after the crash, could prosecute him 
 for obtaining money under false pretenses. 
 But he says: "I'm sorry I was mistaken. I, 
 too, was buying." 
 
 About the only way to stop the nefarious 
 career of such a man is through the Post Office 
 Department, which attempts to see to it that 
 swindles are not perpetrated by means of the 
 mails. And, in advertising under aliases and 
 allowing mail containing money to be sent to 
 those aliases, Lawson came under the defini- 
 tion of fraudulent practices, as they are con- 
 sidered by the Post Office Department. His 
 
 234 
 
DIED— WILLIAM W. WHITE 
 
 "William W. White" and "Mortimer Ken- 
 sington Queen" advertisements were the 
 greatest mistakes he ever made, for they made 
 him amenable to the law. 
 
 At first, when the " William W. White" 
 advertisements appeared, the government 
 officials took no notice. But soon that hap- 
 pened which forced them to look into the 
 matter, speedily and authoritatively. 
 
 There is a William W. White in Boston, a 
 reputable business man of No. 70 Pearl Street. 
 About the first of February he received a letter 
 from a woman who wanted to know what had 
 become of a check for two hundred dollars 
 which she had sent him with instructions to buy 
 Trinity. 
 
 Mr. White had seen the advertisements and 
 had paid no attention to them, supposing them 
 to be signed by another man of the same name. 
 But he had^not seen the woman's two hundred 
 dollars, and it instantly struck him as a 
 becoming thing to do to notify the Post Office 
 authorities. This he did. 
 
 Other letters addressed in the same way 
 were awaiting delivery at the post office. A 
 Boston Daily Tribune reporter who had heard 
 Mr. White's story from him endeavored to 
 
 235 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 learn what had been done with them and was 
 informed by a subordinate that an attempt 
 having been made to deliver them to Mr. 
 Lawson and he having declined to take them, 
 saying he knew nothing about them or the 
 mysterious White, they would be advertised, 
 sent to the Dead Letter Office, and presumably 
 returned to the senders. 
 
 The authorities, however, deemed that the 
 matter had gone far enough. They sent in- 
 spectors to see Lawson. He first denied all 
 knowledge of the White advertisements. They 
 convinced him they had proof that he was at 
 the bottom of it, and warned him plainly that 
 if there was any more of this advertising under 
 an alias a fraud order would be issued against 
 him and all his mail would be returned to the 
 senders. 
 
 Confronted by this proof, Lawson confessed 
 and begged for mercy. He promised not to 
 repeat the offense — nor has he until this day. 
 The Post Office authorities told him that, in 
 the absence of further complaints, they would 
 not prosecute him if he stopped the practice. 
 
 "William W. White," touter of Thomas W. 
 Lawson, thereupon died a sudden and igno- 
 minious death. Lawson used the name but 
 
 236 
 
DIED— WILLIAM W. WHITE 
 
 once more, and that was in connection with 
 his own signature, which he had the legal right 
 to do. That advertisement, which is printed 
 in full in Chapter XV of this book, com- 
 bined with a resurrection of the old, outworn 
 Franklin J. Moses innuendo the following 
 confession of the government's action and 
 laughable explanation of it: 
 
 Having my attention called to the fact that a story 
 was put afloat to-day that I had ceased advertising be- 
 cause of a notification from the Post Office authorities 
 that I must do so, I desire to state : 
 
 The Post Office authorities did say that my enormous 
 mail ivas clogging up the Post Office, and that they 
 hoped, if convenient, that I would make it as light as 
 possible. I agreed to the request on the assurance that 
 all things connected with it were confidential. 
 
 This remarkable advertisement was signed 
 "W r illiam W. White, care of Thomas W. 
 Lawson." 
 
 I felt justified in replying to this, and did so 
 in the following published words : 
 
 I brand this statement as false, and as published with 
 intent to deceive and mislead the public, as were prac- 
 tically all the other statements in the same advertise- 
 ment, and I hereby agree to pay to Thomas W. Lawson, 
 to "William W. White," or to any charity either of 
 them may name, the sum of ten thousand dollars 
 
 237 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 ($10,000) on receipt of proof that the statements in any 
 of the sentences I have quoted from the joint advertise- 
 ment of " William W. White" and Thomas W. Lawson 
 are not absolute falsehoods, published simply and solely 
 to deceive. 
 
 That reward has not been claimed to this 
 day — nor has "William W. White" ever again 
 come to life. As to the prediction made by 
 "White" in his last advertisement, that is 
 worthy of comment. 
 
 " 'It usually takes three heats to win,' " he 
 quoted Lawson as saying. 'Trinity has 
 raced its first one, 11 to 40. Its second will be 
 from 40 to 75. Then will come the finish, 
 75 to — ' and he pointed to the great blue." 
 
 Those words were written by Lawson, under 
 an alias, more than eighteen months ago. 
 Trinity was then selling in the thirties. Soon 
 after, it went below 20. It has hovered be- 
 tween 20 and 10 ever since. Yesterday (I am 
 writing these words on August 10, 1908) it sold 
 at Uh 
 
 Whose prediction was good, his or mine ? 
 
 In this morning's newspapers I read a 
 Lawson advertisement (over his own name) 
 urging the public to participate in a vast, 
 blind, discretionary pool, which he calls " Na- 
 
 238 
 
DIED— WILLIAM W. WHITE 
 
 tional Stock," but which is really the stock of 
 the old, worthless, discredited Bay State Gas 
 Company. I find these words, the italics being 
 mine: 
 
 "There can be no risk in buying 'National Stock' at 
 $2, no risk because you know that all the money I take 
 in through the sale of stock is as safe as a Government 
 bond until I begin to operate with it. . . . Every one 
 who owns a share of * National Stock ' is going to get all 
 that is coming to him. " 
 
 If I were to make a prediction, I should 
 make the same one made by the late, unla- 
 mented "William W. White": "And he 
 pointed to the great blue." 
 
 For "National Stock," like Trinity, cannot 
 go in any direction except, to use a slang phrase 
 that, like most slang, is tremendously expres- 
 sive, "up in the air." 
 
 239 
 
Chapter XXIII 
 THE POWER HIGHER UP 
 
 FOR the first time in his life, Thomas 
 W. Lawson had been placed upon 
 the defensive. 
 
 In all the many battles which he had waged 
 he had pursued the policy of attacking others. 
 He had been aggressive. At the moment when 
 he was at the point of being accused he had 
 distracted attention by accusing somebody 
 else. Always he had pursued the policy of the 
 pickpocket who, seeing that his victim is about 
 to give an alarm, cries, "Stop, thief!" and 
 dashes wildly after some distant and dis- 
 appearing stranger, mingling with the throng 
 of pursuers and escaping during the excite- 
 ment of the chase. 
 
 By a cleverly written book, part distorted 
 fact, part confession, part accusation, and 
 mostly fiction, he had secured extensive adver- 
 tising and drawn away attention from his own 
 methods by attacking the big men in finance 
 whose patronage had originally enabled him to 
 acquire riches. This policy, so successful to 
 
 240 
 
THE POWER HIGHER UP 
 
 his ends, he had kept up. He had never 
 directly denied a charge. Confronted with 
 accusation, his reply had ever been an attack 
 upon the accuser. His plan had been the plan 
 of the general who follows the enemy so hotly 
 as to give him no opportunity to attack. 
 
 Now the plan would work no longer. The 
 power of publicity had been thrown on the 
 ravenings of the Wolf-Pack, and its old, gray 
 leader had come to the point where he could no 
 longer distract attention by crying that it was 
 the lions and tigers who were responsible for 
 the ravages of the Pack. At last he was 
 backed up in a corner, fighting for existence. 
 
 All attempts to throw mud at the securities 
 sold through my office had failed. All attempts 
 to bend me, or break me, or buy me, had 
 failed. The investing public was looking 
 suspiciously at each new Lawson flotation and 
 his revenues were shrinking. For a week or 
 more he fell back upon the old Moses talk, but 
 he had to print the stuff over his own name, 
 and his own name no longer had the power to 
 convince. He was desperate. He realized 
 that he must secure some reputable ally or he 
 was lost. 
 
 In the successful spreading out of my 
 
 241 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 business I opened a new office in New York 
 City — a commodious and handsome suite in 
 the St. James' Building, at the corner of 
 Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street. I held 
 a reception on the opening day, and five 
 thousand investors called on me there, shook 
 my hand, and almost without exception con- 
 gratulated me and themselves on the progress 
 that was being made in the protection of the 
 country's investors from Lawson. 
 
 Exactly how Lawson managed to secure the 
 support of the New York Sun in his campaign 
 I have never learned. The Sun was, and is, 
 a great newspaper. Once the independent 
 mouthpiece of Charles A. Dana, it has, since 
 his death, been controlled by a syndicate. 
 Common repute has it that J. Pierpont Morgan 
 is the power in or behind the syndicate, yet 
 I cannot and do not believe that it was through 
 any connivance of Mr. Morgan, or even with 
 his knowledge, that this newspaper became 
 temporarily a weapon in the hands of my 
 enemies. 
 
 Mr. Morgan is a great financier — one of the 
 greatest the world has ever known. He is a 
 broad man — too broad to cherish any of the 
 petty feelings of dissatisfaction over the success 
 
 242 
 
THE POWER HIGHER UP 
 
 of my methods that marked some other 
 entirely honest men. He is not of the calibre 
 to be influenced by Lawson in any manner. 
 I do not believe his was the voice that gave the 
 order, or that he ever even knew of it. Who 
 was great enough to command the Sun and 
 yet small enough to be used for Lawson's dirty 
 work I cannot say, for I do not know. 
 
 However it was arranged, the Sun saw fit to 
 attack me very viciously on the occasion of the 
 opening of my New York offices. Written in 
 the characteristic Sun vein, the article was of a 
 sort to prejudice against me any reader who 
 did not know me or my methods. It com- 
 bined fact and fancy most cleverly. It referred 
 to the dark days of the King-Crowther Cor- 
 poration, when that company had been well- 
 nigh wrecked by the anti-corporation wave in 
 Texas, and stated that King-Crowther stock 
 had never been heard of from that day of its 
 difficulties until this occasion of the opening of 
 the new office. From beginning to end it was 
 unfair, unjust and mostly untrue. 
 
 Without a day's delay I dictated a reply to 
 the Suns insinuations, which appeared in all 
 the large newspapers of New York except the 
 Sun, which refused to print it. On Friday, 
 
 243 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 March 8, the Sun renewed its attack upon me 
 in an article occupying three full columns. 
 This time the deus ex machina was clear, for 
 not only were the vindictive statements regard- 
 ing the King-Crowther Corporation and me 
 repeated, but now the Sun essayed to tell 
 the Governor Moses story — and in doing so, 
 told it as no one but Lawson would or could 
 tell it. The insinuations regarding the death 
 of Moses were not only highly libellous, but 
 they were palpably inspired, and inspired by 
 Lawson. 
 
 On Saturday this article was reprinted in the 
 Sun as an advertisement signed by Lawson. 
 It was also printed as a two-page advertise- 
 ment in the Boston Herald on the same day, 
 and it was offered to the other Boston news- 
 papers. Not another one, however, would 
 publish it. In that week, alone, Lawson spent 
 thousands of dollars in his attempt to in- 
 jure me. 
 
 I went to New York and sought Mr. Chester 
 S. Lord, managing editor of the Sun. I knew 
 Mr. Lord — had known him for many years. 
 In my early days, as a newspaper corre- 
 spondent, I had done much work for the Sun, 
 and the biggest and best "beat" I had ever 
 
 244 
 
THE POWER HIGHER UP 
 
 scored against the other newspapers had been 
 when I held the only wire and sent to the Sun 
 an exclusive story of the great Bostain Bridge 
 railroad disaster in North Carolina. I knew 
 Mr. Lord, and Mr. Lord knew me. I felt, 
 therefore, no compunctions in going frankly 
 and freely to him and asking him why the great 
 newspaper whose news department is sup- 
 posed to be absolutely under his control had 
 used its valuable space to the extent of three 
 columns to print malicious and wicked un- 
 truths against me. 
 
 Chester S. Lord is the man of authority and 
 power on the Sun. It was to be presumed 
 that he, and he alone, could order such a story 
 printed or thrown out from the Sun columns. 
 
 He greeted me pleasantly. It was apparent 
 from the first moment of our meeting that he 
 had no personal feeling of any sort against me. 
 
 " I came in, Mr. Lord, to ask you something 
 about the story the Sun printed about me," I 
 
 said. 
 
 "Yes?" said Mr. Lord. 
 
 " I want to ask you how it came about that 
 such a story could ' get by ' in this paper. You 
 have known me a good many years." 
 
 " That's right, Mr. King. I have." 
 
 245 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "And you know me well enough to know 
 that such a story could not be true." 
 
 Mr. Lord nodded gravely. 
 
 'Then why — if you will excuse me for ask- 
 ing that question — why did you pass it?" 
 
 The great managing editor considered for a 
 moment, seriously, making little marks on a 
 sheet of paper before him as he thought. 
 Then: 
 
 "I didn't," he said. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," I exclaimed, 
 astonished, "that important articles like that 
 can appear in the Sun without your orders, or 
 even your consent?" 
 
 " Not usually." 
 
 "But in this case?" 
 
 " I didn't pass the story. " 
 
 Perhaps something of grave concern was 
 passing through Mr. Lord's mind as I hesi- 
 tated. He was still making marks on the pad 
 of paper when I spoke again. ' Will you tell 
 me who ordered that story to be printed, and 
 why my letter of correction could not appear?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "I do not think you should ask me that 
 question, Mr. King." 
 
 " Then it was— " 
 
 246 
 
THE POWER HIGHER UP 
 
 Mr. Lord nodded. "The orders came from 
 'higher up,' " he said. 
 
 "It would be useless, then, for me to prove 
 to you that there was no truth in the story, and 
 to ask for a correction?" 
 
 "I'm sorry, Mr. King, but I think you 
 should not ask me that question, either." 
 
 I arose. "Good day, Mr. Lord," I said. 
 
 He offered his hand cordially. "Good 
 day," he said. "And good luck to you." 
 
 I made no further attempt to secure a cor- 
 rection from the Sun, the more as it soon 
 developed that the article in that paper, re- 
 printed in Lawson advertisements, had not 
 injured me. 
 
 It was now, however, that, urged by 
 hundreds of investors, and seeing the time ripe 
 for the act, I determined to proceed against 
 Lawson with every energy at my command. 
 This became the more needful as Lawson at 
 that moment was concluding the Nevada-Utah 
 campaign — the greatest swindle in all his list 
 of monumental enterprises, unless it shall be 
 excelled by the Bay State Gas bubble, which 
 is being blown as I write these words. 
 
 247 
 
Chapter XXIV 
 A CONSCIENCELESS CAMPAIGN 
 
 OF ALL the outrageous schemes ever 
 invented for deluding ignorant people 
 into parting with their money under 
 the guise of "investment" the Nevada-Utah 
 campaign, which Lawson inaugurated in 
 the closing days of February, 1907, is about 
 the worst. It was cruel, conscienceless and 
 pitiless. It left a trail of blighted lives, of 
 blasted hopes, of suicides and failures. It is 
 said to have enriched Lawson over two 
 million and a quarter dollars. Had I agreed 
 to his proposition to assist in the robbery (or 
 perhaps he would have been satisfied if I 
 had merely stood by and refrained from show- 
 ing up his game) he would have cleared at least 
 ten millions, for the scheme was well planned 
 and cleverly executed. 
 
 Nevada-Utah was selling on the Boston and 
 New York Curb at two to three dollars a share. 
 It is alleged that Lawson secured an option on 
 350,000 shares at $2 and then quietly pur- 
 chased all there was to be had in the open 
 
 248 
 
A CONSCIENCELESS CAMPAIGN 
 
 market. Under the influence of his buying, 
 which extended over two or three months, the 
 stock rose to four or thereabouts. When he 
 had become possessed of practically all the 
 stock that was for sale, he made the following 
 announcement, in the papers of February 27: 
 
 At last it looks as if I had found a good copper — an 
 exceptionally good one, one of the kind that is worth 
 $40,000,000 to $100,000,000, one of the kind whose 
 million shares of stock, now selling at around 6, might 
 jump to 40, and then work towards 100. I now have 
 my experts in the mines. 
 
 He announced that the property in question 
 was the Nevada-Utah. He did not say that he 
 recommended the purchase of the stock, in so 
 many words, but every line was so phrased that 
 it practically advised immediate purchase. 
 
 On that day 140,000 shares of Nevada- 
 Utah were sold on the New York Curb and 
 66,000 shares on the Boston Curb. 
 
 "Don't buy in too much of a hurry," said 
 Lawson. "Wait until I give the word." 
 
 Poor, blind dupes! They fell over them- 
 selves trying to get in before he gave the word, 
 which the advertisement intimated was sure to 
 come. Thus each thought he was buying at a 
 lower price than his neighbor would later pay. 
 
 249 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Up went the price, and Lawson sold to them 
 all at a tremendous profit. 
 
 On February 28, the next day, Lawson said: 
 
 I have made a preliminary investigation of the 
 Nevada-Utah, that is, I have examined so far as could 
 have been done, other than by my own experts, into the 
 condition of the mines, the different stages of develop- 
 ment and the finances and past history of the company. 
 I have been told by those connected with and respon- 
 sible for the management of the property what has been 
 done, what is being done and what will be done. 
 
 Again he warned everybody not to buy until 
 he gave the word. Again every word of the 
 advertisement was carefully planned to make 
 them buy. Lawson announced that he him- 
 self had bought 200,000 shares and had options 
 on 350,000 more. 
 
 They bought at seven, at eight. Lawson 
 sold to them. 
 
 On March 5 the Lawson advertisement was 
 entitled "The Smiling Fates." In it he said: 
 
 To all who are impatient to receive my report I will 
 say: The proper investigation of Nevada-Utah is a 
 gigantic task, involving, as it does, a vast amount of 
 details, maps, analyses, shipments, etc. Even if my 
 experts finish their work this week — the reports on a 
 matter so important would be useless until finished — 
 
 250 
 
A CONSCIENCELESS CAMPAIGN 
 
 they will have done it in one-third the time ordinary 
 experts would consume. 
 
 It was very clear from the tone of the 
 advertisement that Lawson had no doubt of 
 the outcome. The stock went to nine. The 
 public bought. Lawson sold. 
 
 At this time, as near as could be gathered 
 by the trained watchers in "the Street," 
 Lawson completed selling the long line of 
 Nevada-Utah stock which he had accumu- 
 lated at from two to four dollars a share. It is 
 said he continued to "sell short." In other 
 words he sold hundreds of thousands of shares 
 which he didn't have — sold them at eight and 
 nine dollars a share. 
 
 It is a dangerous matter to sell stock short 
 under some circumstances. In this case, how- 
 ever, there was no risk. Lawson controlled 
 the market for Nevada-Utah. He had made 
 it by his advertisements; he could unmake it 
 in the same manner. He was betting that 
 the price would tumble — and he was betting 
 upon an absolutely sure thing. 
 
 On March 6 he made a brief announcement, 
 of which the following is the major part: 
 
 I received word late this afternoon that my reports 
 would arrive to-night, and I have held this space until 
 
 251 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the last moment to give my decision. I now have the 
 reports, but it is too late to properly digest their contents 
 and arrive at a conclusion before morning. My adver- 
 tisement of to-morrow will contain my conclusion and 
 probably the vital parts of the reports. 
 
 On the next day he evidently had not sold as 
 many shares as he hoped to. So he said: 
 
 I regret being compelled to say that, after going 
 over the experts' reports of the different Nevada 
 properties, I must postpone my decision until I can con- 
 sult in a way their contents. 
 
 No word came on March 8 or 9. The 
 market began to sag under the absence of 
 encouraging reports and the enormous volume 
 of Lawson's sales, which he kept up. 
 
 On the morning of March 12 the blow was 
 struck. Lawson, in a big advertisement, 
 announced that he had decided not to advise the 
 purchase of Nevada-Utah. Adding insult to 
 injury, he congratulated his friends and ad- 
 herents upon waiting for the word and thereby 
 not being losers. 
 
 It was a terrible shock to the dupes. At the 
 opening of the market they were in a frenzy to 
 sell. They threw their stock in by the thou- 
 sand shares. There was no one to buy — but 
 Lawson. And he was careful to buy a little 
 
 252 
 
A CONSCIENCELESS CAMPAIGN 
 
 less than was offered for sale, so that the price 
 went down, and down, and down. 
 
 It went to four or thereabouts, at which time 
 and figure Lawson is said to have completed 
 his purchases to "cover his shorts" and the 
 campaign was over. 
 
 Lawson is said to have made more than one 
 million dollars as he put the price up with his 
 deceptive advertisements. He is said to have 
 made more than another million as he coldly 
 and cruelly battered it down. Both millions 
 he made from would-be investors whom he 
 called his friends and followers. 
 
 There has been nothing in the whole history 
 of market manipulation to equal this cam- 
 paign for vicious cold-bloodedness. I ex- 
 posed it in all its nakedness from beginning to 
 end in the Boston Daily Tribune and King's 
 Financial Bulletin, thereby laying up for myself 
 an added harvest of hate. Had it not been 
 for my words of warning, the price would have 
 been put to fifteen or twenty and Lawson's 
 winnings (if that is the word for money 
 obtained in so sure a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose 
 fashion) would have been many millions more. 
 
 When Lawson was intimating that Nevada- 
 Utah might be expected to "jump to 40, and 
 
 253 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 then work towards 100" I announced to all 
 investors who looked to me for advice that it 
 was not worth the four or five it was then 
 quoted at. 
 
 Nevada-Utah is to-day selling under three 
 dollars. Was Lawson right, or was I ? 
 
 254 
 
Chapter XXV 
 THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 THE Nevada-Utah swindle, following so 
 closely on the heels of the two Trinity 
 campaigns, each of which had left its 
 trail of bruised and bleeding victims, was the 
 last straw that broke the camel's back. It 
 was time to call a final halt. 
 
 From every corner of the country, but 
 especially from New York and New England, 
 where the Lawson campaigns had been most 
 notorious, I received hundreds of letters. The 
 writers, poor investors who had suffered, 
 recounted their wrongs and asked if something 
 could not be done to protect them and others. 
 
 Until then Lawson had conducted his 
 schemes with what may be called, for lack of a 
 better description, decent intervals between. 
 Now he had engineered three within less than 
 two months, and out of the three, one had been 
 partially successful — indeed, a campaign that 
 brought forth a profit of more than two millions 
 of dollars would be called entirely successful 
 but for the fact that it would have been five 
 
 255 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 times as profitable had I not exposed it from its 
 first announcement. My mail was filled with 
 appeals that rivaled the cry of old: "Come 
 over into Macedonia and help us." 
 
 For several months I had been gather- 
 ing evidence against Lawson — evidence that 
 proved indisputably how his victims had been 
 wronged. But, owing to the indirect manner 
 by which he works, it was hard to bring him 
 legally to book. There is a crime on the 
 Massachusetts statute books called " Obtain- 
 ing money under false pretenses." This was 
 the natural statute under which he should be 
 reached and punished, but owing to the fact 
 that he did not directly offer his stocks to the 
 public for sale it was difficult to gain the 
 evidence that might result in a conviction. 
 
 In other words, it was an easy matter to 
 prove the false pretenses — the Lawson career 
 has a trail of them as long as a comet's tail — - 
 but very hard to prove that Lawson himself 
 had secured the money. Hard to prove it in a 
 legal sense, I mean. Ordinary common sense 
 proved it, popularly speaking. 
 
 In the beginning I had set about gathering 
 evidence without any idea of using it in a court 
 of law. I merely expected it to add to the 
 
 256 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 weight of the warnings I should print in my 
 newspapers and write in letters to my cus- 
 tomers. As the weeks went by and Lawson 
 became more daring and desperate it began to 
 look as though the only protection for the 
 investors of the country was to stop him. 
 
 Lawson himself provided the necessary am- 
 munition with which to do this, and in a most 
 unexpected way. To a man of his style of 
 craft it would be as effective a prevention of 
 future swindles to secure the issuance of a 
 fraud order against him by authority of the 
 Post Office as to have him arraigned at the 
 bar of justice. Until January, 1907, he had 
 carefully refrained from doing anything that 
 would allow the officials of that department to 
 proceed against him. Now, in his rage, hate 
 and desperation, he had taken to using 
 aliases. In doing this, he had himself manu- 
 factured the weapon which might best be used 
 against him. In "William W. White" and 
 "Mortimer Kensington Queen" he had built 
 up Frankenstein monsters which might be 
 depended upon to turn and rend him. 
 
 On every side, my customers, clients and 
 friends were begging, urging and advising 
 that I go to extreme lengths with Lawson. It 
 
 257 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 was the consensus of opinion that patience 
 had ceased to be a virtue; that the time for 
 mere warnings against him was past ; that only 
 by actual legal proceedings could he be halted 
 in his career of ruin and devastation. 
 
 "You alone can do this," they said. "It is 
 your duty — your duty to us and to yourself." 
 
 Then it was that I called a meeting of all the 
 executives of my business. So important a 
 move should not be taken without the best 
 advice that could be obtained. The meeting 
 was held in my private office in the forenoon 
 of March 10, 1907. Every important member 
 of my staff in Boston and New York was 
 present. 
 
 In the second chapter of my book I have 
 described that gathering. I have told of the 
 pile of evidence that lay upon my desk, and 
 the marshaling of my immediate resources 
 represented by cashiers' checks, aggregating 
 nearly one-half million of dollars, that lay 
 beside it. I have told how I submitted the 
 evidence and asked each lieutenant's advice, 
 and how each agreed that there was but one 
 thing to do — for the protection of investors, of 
 myself, of my employees — and that was to 
 proceed aggressively against Lawson. 
 
 258 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 Did I say every member of the staff advised 
 this ? I should have written all but one. 
 
 There was one who was lukewarm — who 
 hedged and haggled, and hummed and hawed, 
 and suggested this and that, and did not meet 
 the question squarely, but whose attitude was 
 not in sympathy with the general concord of 
 opinion. He was the manager of my clerical 
 force — one Henry Hovey Love. Of him I 
 shall write more as this book progresses. Not 
 much, perhaps, for although he has done his 
 best — or worst — to assist Lawson and bring 
 about my discomfiture he is, after all, but a 
 very small person and not worthy of a large 
 expenditure of printer's ink. 
 
 His opposition was swallowed in the general 
 unanimity of opinion, and, as I have hitherto 
 written, it was definitely decided that no mercy 
 should be shown — that the war with Lawson 
 should be a war of extermination, with no 
 quarter asked and none given. 
 
 The conference adjourned, and each mem- 
 ber went his way. I spent the remainder of 
 the day dictating a long and comprehensive 
 article for the following morning's Boston 
 Daily Tribune, an article reviewing Lawson's 
 career and laying his character bare to the 
 
 259 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 world — an article so true and striking that over 
 four hundred thousand copies of that issue of 
 the Boston Daily Tribune were sold, and in 
 Wall Street, New York, two days later, copies 
 were in demand at fifty cents apiece. 
 
 Within one hour from the adjournment of 
 that conference, Thomas W. Lawson knew of 
 it. Within three hours his attorneys were 
 threatening to secure an injunction from the 
 courts to prevent the Boston Daily Tribune 
 being published on the following morning. 
 
 I do not know — that is to say, I cannot 
 prove — who bore the news post haste to Law- 
 son. Suffice it to say that some one did. 
 
 The courts of Massachusetts, and their 
 judges, are not to be easily moved. Although 
 the attorney whom Lawson sent on this 
 injunction-seeking errand was a leading light 
 of the Massachusetts bar, his errand was fruit- 
 less. The Massachusetts courts are slow to 
 enjoin the issuing of a newspaper, for Massa- 
 chusetts has always been, more than any other 
 state in the Union, the home of free speech. 
 What the honorable justice to whom Lawson's 
 attorney applied said to him, according to the 
 report that came to me, was something like 
 this: 
 
 260 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 "An injunction may issue only to prevent 
 something from being done which could 
 legally be done in the absence of the injunction. 
 You tell me that it is the purpose of this paper 
 to publish an article that is libellous and 
 injurious to your client. If it is libellous it is 
 an illegal thing to print, and its publication 
 cannot be enjoined. You will have your re- 
 course in law after its publication. If the 
 article is not libellous, then the newspaper has 
 a legal right to print it, and there is no public 
 end to be served which makes an injunction 
 either necessary or proper." 
 
 So the request was refused and the Boston 
 Daily Tribune, with the most earnest, em- 
 phatic and truthful story of Thomas W. Law- 
 son that has ever appeared, either before or 
 since, appeared on the streets as usual on the 
 morning of March 11. 
 
 On the editorial page appeared a statement 
 of my position, over my personal signature. 
 As I read it to-day, I feel that I cannot set 
 forth any more clearly than I did then, the 
 aims which actuated me and the objects I 
 had in view. It bore this title: "Unmask- 
 ing a Hypocrite and Deceiver," and was as 
 follows : 
 
 261 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 In this editorial bearing my signature I rise to a 
 question of personal privilege, at the same time justi- 
 fying my individual defense and vindication on the 
 basis of the broadest public policy. 
 
 As a responsible public journalist, and a public 
 financier, acknowledging in both spheres and capacities 
 the full measure of his public trust, I submit that an 
 occasion has arisen of so extraordinary character that, 
 while it pivots upon my personality, transcends in its 
 full significance the mere limitations of my name, 
 identity and individual interests, and becomes above all 
 else an issue of the greatest public concern. 
 
 It is in no spirit of egotism, for it is with a feeling of 
 absolute self-renunciation and effacement superinduced 
 by an overshadowing sense of public duty, of civic 
 demands — of the interests of decent American man- 
 hood and womanhood — that I approach this subject 
 and proceed to the arraignment, the denunciation and 
 the exposure that lie at the point of my pen. 
 
 As a newspaper publisher and a financier, my public 
 utterances are of daily occurrence. In this way I 
 realize that my name, my individuality and my affairs 
 become matters of much and wide public scrutiny. 
 Numerous and extensive, however, as are my methods 
 of getting before the public as a devotee of "publicity" 
 for public men and corporations in all my business 
 activities, these appearances in the public prints are 
 still of a modified impersonal nature, for I share the dis- 
 taste of all right-thinking men for discussing my purely 
 personal affairs in public, save under the duress of an 
 imputation of my character that compels me to speak 
 
 262 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 in my own behalf and in the possible behalf of all good 
 men and women who may be called on to rest at some 
 time in their lives under the shadow of an undeserved 
 stigma. 
 
 I have been as a journalist, financier and publisher in 
 business in Boston for a number of years, during which 
 period, and for many years previous, this city has been 
 the residence and the usual base of operations of Thomas 
 W. Lawson. 
 
 As a financier, the announcements of my campaigns 
 and policies in the public prints have conflicted more 
 or less with those of Thomas W. Lawson, but, notwith- 
 standing that my business differed from that of Thomas 
 W. Lawson in that I have been engaged in the captain- 
 ing of industries of production — industries whose claims 
 to recognition and existence rest fundamentally on the 
 assurance of their present or future capacity for earnings 
 and profit-sharing — those of Thomas W. Lawson are 
 conspicuous for the absence of such essential or even 
 special pretense thereto — notwithstanding we traveled 
 different and widely divergent paths, there was, on my 
 part, absolute acquiescence to an agreement to disagree 
 with him. 
 
 Up to six months ago, though never in the slightest 
 agreement with the business or methods of Thomas W. 
 Lawson, I had for the man a certain respect, un- 
 submitted to the process of analysis, of the kind which 
 honest men, obeying the promptings of some primal 
 instinct, frequently admit for fair and courageous 
 fighters, regardless of the merit of their cause. 
 
 I yielded him a measure of qualified respect, because 
 
 263 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I recognized in him the chief exponent and representa- 
 tive of that contingent of the population which looks on 
 gambling in margins and the manipulation of the shares 
 of corporations on the stock market as a necessary and 
 not unmixed evil. 
 
 That respect, tempered up to six months ago with a 
 refusal to accept the man in more than partial serious- 
 ness, often moved me to refer to him and his work, from 
 time to time, in a half jesting and considerate mood, 
 treating with no little amused indifference the result 
 of his wayward vagaries and vaporings as they might 
 affect my business. 
 
 I was doomed to a rude and unpleasant awaken- 
 ing, however, about six months ago, when I discovered, 
 to my astonishment, by the employment of the usual 
 methods of my business, that Thomas W. Lawson had 
 been at work for some time past through an under- 
 ground system in the effort to destroy me and my 
 business. 
 
 This systematic and surreptitious campaign for 
 the accomplishment of my business ruin and personal 
 undoing, has just culminated in the daily press of New 
 York and Boston, in an attack upon me, my business 
 and the corporations I represent that is so vile, so 
 dastardly, so maliciously false, that I can quite under- 
 stand now that it could have emanated from no other 
 man in America than Thomas W. Lawson. 
 
 For months that campaign of attempted midnight 
 assassination has been waged by this social and financial 
 parasite and pariah under the cloak of dark mystery. 
 By contemptible insinuation, by the subterfuge of 
 
 264 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 fictitious names, by all the foul methods of which the 
 man is a past-master, he has endeavored to discredit my 
 honorably earned position as financial agent and pro- 
 moter of large enterprises, until, brought to bay by the 
 authorities of the United States, he was compelled to 
 throw down the coward's mask of anonymity and drag 
 himself into the open, where he has constitutional 
 objections to fighting. 
 
 Nothing loth, as I am ever, to discussing in my 
 publication and my business announcements matters 
 of assumed measurable public concern over my sig- 
 nature or upon my sole and distinct personal respon- 
 sibility, I consider such a practice as in no wise in- 
 compatible with my habitual aversion to discussing in 
 public matters of a purely personal and private nature. 
 I am likewise averse to the public discussion in any 
 adverse manner of the records of those who have passed 
 beyond the pale of human jurisdiction to their final 
 account before the tribunal of the Most High. 
 
 I adhere to the teachings of my childhood, — to the 
 simple faith that I learned at my mother's knee, and as 
 the result of my old-fashioned instruction, I own to the 
 choice of undergoing in silence all the injury and mis- 
 understanding that a self-respecting man can possibly 
 endure rather than inflict my personal grievances and 
 rather than defy the time-honored injunction "of the 
 dead say nothing but good." 
 
 But there are times when one must speak — when en- 
 durance can no longer be exercised in justification as 
 a virtue — when even the stealth that the right hand im- 
 poses upon the left hand in the ministrations to the 
 
 265 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 fallen and the unfortunate must be ruthlessly exposed to 
 the world — when all that has been done and left untold 
 "for sweet charity's sake" must be brought to light in 
 obedience to the stern, inexorable decree of justice — 
 when justice must be done though the heavens fall and 
 though unsodded graves yawn and belch forth even the 
 unshriven dead — when the rights of the living must be 
 recognized and the truth of history established even at 
 the expense of the dead, whose memory our pitying, 
 perishing mortality should prompt us to leave as 
 inviolate, ever-deepening shadows of a merciful obscur- 
 ity. 
 
 That I am forced to speak of myself — that I am forced 
 to speak of my relations to the dead — is due to the per- 
 secution of Thomas W. Lawson — due to Thomas W. 
 Lawson, who corrupted the man whom I befriended — 
 who employed in secret, treasonable and pernicious 
 activity against me the man whom I had rescued from 
 pauperism and crime — who pushed back into the muck 
 depths and the slough of despair the man whom I stepped 
 aside into the gutter and stooped down to lift and save — 
 who destroyed the miserable creature it was my purpose 
 and effort to reclaim — who made of him what Thomas 
 W. Lawson of all men in all the world can tempt a poor 
 human worm of the dust into — an unspeakable, incor- 
 rigible ingrate. 
 
 And I say deliberately and solemnly — holding in mind 
 the deathbed declaration of Daniel Webster, that the 
 greatest thought of his life was ever that of his individual 
 responsibility to his Maker — that I believe that aged, 
 decrepit and senile man, his power of resistance partially 
 
 266 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 destroyed under the weight of his weakness and curse- 
 that white-haired old man, enfeebled and perverted be- 
 yond measure through vice, crime, dissipation and 
 imprisonment— would be living to-day in the com- 
 petency and peace of mind I had provided him, doubt- 
 less befitting his soul for an eternal peace with its God, 
 but for the unholy bargain he entered into with Thomas 
 W. Lawson for the accomplishment of the destruction of 
 his patron, employer and benefactor. 
 
 I say— and I pause here to measure every word, 
 syllable and letter— that I believe the deep damnation 
 of Franklin J. Moses' taking off is constructively due to 
 Thomas W. Lawson. I believe that the remains of 
 Franklin J. Moses lie in a suicide's grave in the little 
 old cemetery of Winthrop because the nature that ever 
 since the days of reconstruction in South Carolina had 
 been unable to resist the power of money and of evil 
 influence, had succumbed to the superior blandish- 
 ments of Thomas W. Lawson— had yielded and had 
 shown the pieces of silver only a few days before like 
 Judas, indicating what we are now morally certain to 
 have been the price of his crime, and had afterward, 
 through possible fear of the disclosure of the full enor- 
 mity of his betrayal— the partial discovery of which he 
 was quickly confronted with— or through a sense of 
 overwhelming remorse, shame, and, perhaps, returning 
 decency, followed the example of Judas and put an end 
 to his checkered life. 
 
 The time for soft words has passed. The time has 
 come to remove kid gloves. The time has come for me 
 to put in print words of accusation and denunciation 
 
 267 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 that I would prefer to pass my life acquitted of having 
 employed against any human being. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with taking up a 
 degenerate and derelict, whom I had partially succeeded 
 in reclaiming, and debauching him to bring about my 
 undoing. 
 
 I charge him with putting, by the exercise of his 
 superior villainy and cunning, this unfortunate in his 
 power for the purpose of poisoning my springs — of 
 sowing tares among my wheat — of unearthing informa- 
 tion which he could torture to his own end. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with being directly 
 responsible for bringing this miserable tool of his to a 
 violent and untimely death. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with not only stooping 
 thus to conquer, but of stopping not even there — of 
 employing purchasable and disreputable pettifoggers 
 and shysters to do his dirty bidding of discrediting me, 
 and corporations with which I am identified, by means 
 of public advertising and otherwise. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with hiring, inspiring 
 and conspiring with a scurvy ruck of scrubs, gathered 
 from curbs, sewers, bucket-shops and brokerage houses, 
 to conduct an irresponsible and vilely outrageous 
 campaign through public advertising and otherwise for 
 the gratuitous purpose of depressing the stock of the 
 King-Crowther Corporation and discrediting the cor- 
 poration. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with the employ- 
 ment of aliases enough to cover the itinerary of a safe- 
 cracker from Boston Harbor to Devil's Island in his 
 
 268 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 career of anonymous advertising, much of which was 
 used in a fruitless effort to destroy the King-Crowther 
 Corporation. 
 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with deliberate falsi- 
 fication a°nd fabrication in his public announcements- 
 with statements made with deliberate intent to deceive, 
 defraud and despoil-with a lawless defiance and con- 
 tempt for authority-with false representation of an 
 alien and seditious tendency against the government 
 postal authorities^ a desperation in his desire to save 
 his pelt and hide from being nailed to the fence by 
 public sentiment and constituted authority, which 
 amounts to anarchy-cowardly, selfish anarchy, and 
 not the brand which is sublimated through the self- 
 abnegation and sacrifice of its philosophical disciples. 
 I charge Thomas W. Lawson with being an enemy to 
 society, with having forfeited the confidence of his 
 countrymen, with having become a hissing and a by- 
 word in the mouths and ears of honest men, of having 
 paused at nothing in his unscrupulousness to carry his 
 point and obtain his ends. 
 
 Macchiavelli, loyal to his prince, and desirous of ends 
 that may have befitted the age and condition ot 
 society in which he lived, regardless of the means 
 employed, was without the truculence of Thomas W. 
 
 Lawson. - 
 
 Horace Walpole, who believed, in his suave way, that 
 
 every man had his price, thinking his philosophy bes 
 
 suited to the public ends of his period, was not the equal 
 
 in virulence of Thomas W. Lawson. 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu employed his finesse with king 
 
 269 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 and court to less selfish ends than those which engage 
 the effort of Thomas W. Lawson. 
 
 Aaron Burr may be classed as a soldier of fortune and 
 a premature empire-builder, compared with Thomas 
 W. Lawson. 
 
 The language I have directed at Thomas W. Lawson 
 is plain United States — not Volapuk — not Esperanto — 
 not Simian — not the gibberish of the monkey-house — not 
 the slang of the street — not the billingsgate of the fish- 
 wharves. It is a language that, paradox though he may 
 be, he cannot help but understand. 
 
 Now that I have dispelled the shadows in which 
 this financial bravo was so fond of lurking, the 
 battle will be waged to my liking. And I give notice to 
 Thomas W. Lawson here and now — as it is given for me 
 in other portions of this newspaper, one of whose mis- 
 sions is to destroy the public influence of stock gamblers 
 like him, who play the people false — that I shall spare 
 no legal means and none of the resources with which I 
 am amply supplied to put out of his iniquitous game for- 
 ever, this creature, whose highest impulses centre about 
 the stock ticker, and whose chiefest joy is in plundering 
 a deluded constituency. 
 
 I will not follow the example of this man, who has 
 seen fit to assail me, in divesting myself of financial 
 responsibility; for what I say, and for what this news- 
 paper shall say, I assume full and complete liability. 
 No search parties of Pinkerton men will be necessary 
 for the discovery of my property. And, with the full 
 realization of all this, I repeat to Thomas W. Lawson 
 that, from this moment, his career of hypocritical fleec- 
 
 270 
 
THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO 
 
 ing of the public, his pastime of assaulting better 
 men's reputations, is not to go on unchecked as in the 
 past. 
 
 It is the duty of every honest man with the weapons at 
 his command to stop the depredations of an enemy to 
 society. It is all the more insistent when that enemy 
 so sinks his manhood and his primal instincts of truth, 
 if he ever had any, as to pose as society's ally and 
 defender. 
 
 For years Thomas W. Lawson has waxed fat upon 
 the losses of others. The millions that have come into 
 his hands and passed out again in the mad desire for 
 luxury, for ostentation, for unattainable social position, 
 have been wet with the tears of the ruined who have 
 trusted him. How many pistol-shots in the hands of 
 suicides, how many foreclosures of mortgages, how many 
 despairing prayers of widows and orphans have been 
 the direct result of his methods may never be known. 
 
 And, finally, I say that I will cling to my ideals 
 unshaken and unchanged. I will go forward without 
 variableness or shadow of turning. In the language and 
 spirit of Garrison himself, I say that I will not lie — I 
 will not recant — I will not equivocate — and / will be 
 heard. I will not be browbeaten. I will turn on the 
 light. I will cry out and spare not. I will not cease 
 firing while there is a shot in the locker. 
 
 As long as I command a dollar that I can sacrifice in 
 this righteous crusade against crooked and unscrupulous 
 financiers, it matters not what flag they fly, the Tribune 
 will be published — continued on its present lines — and 
 will carry this war on to the knife and from the knife to 
 
 271 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the hilt, giving no quarter and expecting none from the 
 enemies of truth, — of right — of fair play. 
 
 And always the fight will be in the open, with my face 
 to the foe. 
 
 The investors of America had spoken to 
 Thomas W. Lawson. Goaded beyond en- 
 durance they had cried — and I had voiced 
 their cry: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
 farther." 
 
 272 
 
Chapter XXVI 
 PROGRESS— AND AN INSURRECTION 
 
 I PROCEEDED to make good my promise 
 to the public, with the result that Law- 
 son's public activity stopped like a shot. 
 He had no time these days to formulate 
 plans for additional fleecing. He was too 
 busy striving to ward off the impending 
 punishment his years of market-rigging had 
 so well earned. 
 
 I retained as special attorney, in addition to 
 my own personal counsel, one of the ablest 
 and most respected lawyers at the Massa- 
 chusetts bar, and placing in his hands the 
 evidence I had secured, instructed him to take 
 the necessary measures to carry out the end I 
 had promised — -the ridding of the investors of 
 the country, for all time, of the Leader of the 
 Wolf-Pack. Had the plan been carried out, 
 the boon to the American public would have 
 been one never to be forgotten, for with the 
 old, gray leader gone, the Pack would have 
 scattered and fled for cover, never to appear 
 again. 
 
 273 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 It is no violation of confidence, I feel sure, to 
 say that the attorney whom I had engaged 
 took up his task with enthusiasm. No lawyer 
 in all the Commonwealth is of higher standing 
 than he — none has a reputation for greater 
 probity — therefore none could be more pleased 
 at the opportunity that now came about to 
 assist in doing a good deed for mankind. 
 
 In the Boston Daily Tribune I called upon 
 all investors who had been victimized by Law- 
 son to send me the evidence. The result was 
 a very Niagara of letters. All the evidence 
 that I had secured was placed before my 
 attorney. As a result of several conferences, 
 it was determined to proceed along the lines 
 of least resistance — in other words, where 
 Lawson had made himself most vulnerable, by 
 means of the Post Office Department and an 
 application for a fraud order. 
 
 While this matter was being planned, and 
 evidence was being piled upon evidence, an 
 occurrence came about which would be almost 
 laughable were it not for its sinister significance. 
 In my absence from Boston on business, an 
 insurrection was planned and almost carried 
 out in my own office. 
 
 It was impossible that I should devote all, 
 
 274 
 
PROGRESS— AND AN INSURRECTION 
 
 or even a major part, of my time, to the in- 
 vestors' fight against Lawson. My own busi- 
 ness was of large proportions. I had extensive 
 offices in Boston and New York. It was 
 necessary that I work from early morning 
 until late at night to attend to the duties that 
 the management of such an organization 
 involved. It was while I was at my New 
 York office for a week or ten days that treachery 
 developed in my home camp. It was so 
 smoothly plotted that not until long afterward 
 did I definitely connect Lawson with it. 
 
 I have once referred to Henry Hovey Love. 
 He now appears as the manager of my clerical 
 force in the Boston office. Later he will 
 appear as Lawson' s sixteenth assistant. 
 
 Love was in Rochester, New York, when I 
 first knew him. He was a stock salesman, 
 showing promise of ability under proper train- 
 ing, and making a bare living. He applied to 
 me for a position and I engaged him and 
 taught him the science of salesmanship. I 
 have always believed in paying good salaries — 
 in so rewarding the good workman that he will 
 be happy and contented. " The laborer is 
 worthy of his hire . ' ' Eventually I placed him in 
 charge of my clerical force and gave him a 
 
 275 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 contract by which his earnings were based 
 upon the amount of business done by my office. 
 Under this contract, as the business grew, he 
 was enabled to earn upward of ten thousand 
 dollars a year — an increase of more than eight 
 thousand dollars over what he had earned 
 before I took him up. 
 
 I state these rather personal matters merely 
 as a sidelight on human gratitude — of some 
 men. 
 
 Love is a big, good-looking fellow, with a 
 hearty manner that would be bluff and attract- 
 ive but for an effeminate voice. He was a 
 hustler, when he wanted to be, and I trusted 
 him. I have no apologies to make for that — 
 it is an unusual man who is never fooled, and 
 he is but one of hundreds whom I have 
 employed. 
 
 I was in New York, as I said, when Love 
 began an insidious campaign among my 
 lieutenants. One by one he took them aside — 
 out to lunch, or to the theatre, or down on an 
 inspection trip of some of the properties. To 
 each, guardedly and smoothly, he broached 
 his subject. 
 
 It was too bad that I had to work so hard, 
 after having built up so successful a business. 
 
 276 
 
PROGRESS— AND AN INSURRECTION 
 
 Undoubtedly I would like to practically retire, 
 if I could be assured of a continuance of a large 
 income. The men who could arrange it so 
 that I could do so would be true friends of 
 mine. Thus the conversation began. If there 
 was encouragement, it continued along some- 
 what different lines. It was unfortunate that 
 I paid such high salaries. He (Love), if he 
 were placed in charge of the business, could 
 reduce them one-half and still secure the same 
 results. Again, it was too bad that I would 
 insist on quarreling with Lawson, when there 
 was money enough in the world for Lawson 
 and me to get all we needed without fighting. 
 
 After a time, the plan came out. All the 
 heads of departments were to unite and repre- 
 sent to me that the time had come for me to 
 take a rest. They were to insist that I turn 
 over my business to a board of governors with 
 Love at the head, and take a trip to Europe or 
 anywhere else I wished, at a salary of some- 
 thing like ten or twenty thousand dollars a 
 year. They would guarantee to make the 
 business pay me good dividends. All I had 
 to do was to let them run it. 
 
 It struck me when I learned of it as the 
 craziest scheme I had ever heard of, and I 
 
 277 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 cannot see it any differently now. How Love 
 ever expected to make me believe that it would 
 be for my advantage to allow somebody else to 
 control my business I cannot understand. 
 His plan involved getting every lieutenant into 
 the scheme and informing me, when the news 
 was broken, that unless I accepted the idea 
 every man would instantly leave my service, 
 but this was even sillier than the rest of the 
 scheme, for he should have known me well 
 enough to realize that under such a threat I 
 certainly should not have acceded to his 
 suggestion. 
 
 It is clear to me now that Lawson's mind 
 was back of the plan, and that it was a rather 
 bright piece of tactics, for if by any chance I 
 accepted the suggestion he would have me out 
 of the way — and have his own representative 
 in charge of the business in my place — while if 1 
 refused it he would at least have made me a 
 lot of trouble and taken my mind off his 
 prosecution. 
 
 But Mr. Love's brilliant scheme never came 
 to a head. He had secured two or three 
 adherents and several others had agreed with 
 him that, while they would not promise to 
 come in, they at least would not make the 
 
 278 
 
PROGRESS— AND AN INSURRECTION 
 
 matter public, when he made the mistake of 
 proposing it to an executive who was abso- 
 lutely loyal to my interests. 
 
 When the news of this proposed insurrection 
 reached me in New York, I returned to Boston 
 on the next train. One hour after my arrival 
 in the city I demanded Love's resignation, and 
 on his refusal made him a stock salesman in 
 the territory west of Buffalo, and instructed 
 him to begin his new duties on the following 
 morning. I could not discharge him, for he 
 held a contract. 
 
 After a few weeks he asked for a vacation 
 without pay, which was granted. He spent 
 the time in Europe. On his return he 
 resumed his old desk, but with no authority. 
 Even the cashier and bookkeeper had been 
 instructed by me to give him no information 
 regarding the business. This went on for a 
 month or so. Then, one day, he inadvertently 
 tendered his resignation. I instantly accepted 
 the resignation and filled his place before he 
 had a chance to take back the words. 
 
 The following week he was in business on 
 State Street, devoting all his energies to injur- 
 ing my business. A fortnight later he tried 
 to get one of my employees to meet Mr. Lav/son, 
 
 279 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 whom he said he was acting for. He had 
 his share, in a small and rather disgraceful 
 way, in the business troubles that I have 
 passed through. 
 
 So much for Mr. Love. 
 
 280 
 
Chapter XXVII 
 A RAT IN A TRAP 
 
 THIS insurrection did not make a ripple 
 on the surface of my office affairs. 
 Not all of my employees knew of it; 
 the public has never heard of it until this 
 
 moment. 
 
 The work of gathering evidence against 
 Lawson and preparing the case which was to 
 be made against him went steadily on. And 
 as the days passed, it became more and more 
 apparent that he was caught like a rat in a 
 trap — and that he knew it. 
 
 We made haste slowly in the preparation of 
 the legal case. We intended to have no mis- 
 carriage of justice. Slowly and surely the 
 evidence was pieced together— the missing 
 links in the chain supplied— the hearsay run 
 down and made first-hand— the documents 
 authenticated and added one to the other .^ 
 
 Lawson had stopped all his campaigns 
 against the investing public. He had no time 
 to plot. At last he was squarely on the defen- 
 sive, with not an ounce of attack left. 
 
 281 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Wall and State Streets, which, although they 
 occasionally use him when it suits their pur- 
 pose, really hate him, saw their opportunity, 
 and went after him tooth and nail. In two 
 weeks after the close of the Nevada-Utah cam- 
 paign, they had robbed him of two million dol- 
 lars as neatly as he had stolen it from the pub- 
 lic, and he was financially in a bad way. There 
 was one day in that market battle when they 
 had him wrecked at one o'clock, and by wild, 
 desperate "selling" — he had been "buying" 
 all the morning — he succeeded in wriggling 
 out of their clutches before closing time. 
 Three State Street houses kept their clerks at 
 work all that night to figure out the Lawson 
 balances, and it was not until day was break- 
 ing that they knew for certain whether or not 
 he was a beggar. 
 
 His word had ceased to have any weight with 
 the public. He was despised and discredited. 
 None was so poor as to do him honor. 
 
 The magazines, the newspapers — even the 
 pulpit — were outspoken in execration of him 
 and his methods. 
 
 As an illustration of the pulpit's attitude 
 I quote a few words from a sermon 
 preached by the Rev. Herbert S. Johnson at 
 
 282 
 
A RAT IN A TRAP 
 
 the Warren Avenue Baptist Church, Boston, 
 on Sunday, March 17: 
 
 Here in Boston — or in Philadelphia or New York — I 
 do not want to be too accurate — there is a man who fre- 
 quently uses the public press for his advertisements in 
 which he tells the people to speculate in certain stocks. 
 
 Through these advertisements, men, women and even 
 young girls, are induced to part with their money. He 
 tells them that the stocks are going higher and higher 
 and induces them to buy. He is the one who sells, and 
 the money which these deluded ones lose falls by the 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars into his coffers. 
 
 Later it is different. The women who lose cry — 
 women always cry. But the man with a wife and 
 family, who has perhaps lost his all, does not cry. He 
 takes a walk down to the wharf, instead, and ends it all. 
 
 After that his wife takes in washing to pay the bills 
 of the undertaker, while Mr. Somebody who has made 
 his thousands lives in luxury on his ill-gotten gains. 
 
 Lawson sought for sympathy and found it 
 not. Baffled, beaten, with no friend to even 
 speak a kind word, he had come to the end of 
 the way. Behind him was the trail of broken 
 hearts and blasted hopes; in the present was 
 exposure and the contempt of all mankind; 
 before him stretched defeat and disgrace. 
 
 Law r son was vanquished. And, at last, he 
 knew it. 
 
 283 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 But one move remained to be made — the 
 final presentation of the case against him 
 which should stamp him and his actions as 
 fraudulent before all the world — and the 
 weapon was in my hands. 
 
 The public enemy was down in the dust 
 of the arena. The sword of retribution was 
 at his throat. His desperate, imploring, 
 frightened eyes were fixed on the rows of 
 spectators filling the seats in the world's 
 amphitheatre, while he held up his hand for 
 pity. From not one gazing eye did he receive 
 a glance of sympathy. Every man in all the 
 vast body of deluded investors scowled back at 
 him and held his right arm rigidly before him 
 with the thumb down. 
 
 God knows I should have thrust then and 
 there. I have suffered bitterly in purse, 
 body and mind because I withheld the blade. 
 And worse than my sufferings have been those 
 of the investors who have since suffered by 
 other schemes — and will suffer over and 
 over until he has been again vanquished in the 
 arena and the last blow struck, while the 
 investing world joyously cries, " Habet!" 
 
 284 
 
Chapter XXVIII 
 THE CRY FOR MERCY 
 
 WHAT is done, is done, and there is 
 no use in crying over spilled milk. 
 If I had been accustomed to 
 "play the game" as they play it in the gam- 
 bling stock exchanges, I should have had 
 neither oity or mercy. I should have removed 
 Lawson as heartlessly as he would have 
 removed me had he had the chance. But 
 I have not had that training. I am naturally 
 soft-hearted and humane. And when Lawson 
 pleaded for pity because he was sick I pitied 
 him — and later paid the penalty. 
 
 Twice I have suffered from being merciful. 
 The second time was during the Boston-Ely 
 publicity campaign, which I shall reach in its 
 due place in this book. Perhaps I shall suffer 
 a third time — but it will not be in dealing with 
 Lawson, or any of his minions. 
 
 The proceedings against Lawson were on 
 the eve of being brought. There could be no 
 doubt of their success. Then, one morning 
 early, when I had been in my office but ten or 
 
 285 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 fifteen minutes, the private secretary to the 
 Mayor was announced. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. King," he said. 
 16 Mayor Fitzgerald asked me to step over and 
 give you a message.' ' 
 
 I motioned toward a seat. 
 
 "I have no time, thank you," he said. 
 "The Mayor has just this morning returned 
 from New York and is now at his home, having 
 his breakfast. He telephoned me and asked 
 me to come over here right away and make 
 an appointment for him to see you on a matter 
 of great importance. He would like to see 
 you at once, with as little ceremony as possible." 
 
 "Tell him I'll be glad to see him at any 
 time," 1 said. "If he will come here I will 
 leave orders for him to be shown right in." 
 
 "Thank you," said the secretary. "I'll 
 telephone when he is coming. I think he will 
 be over as soon as he arrives at City Hall." 
 
 The secretary had scarcely left — he could 
 not have been out of the building — when a 
 clerk informed me that Mayor Fitzgerald 
 wished to speak to me on the telephone. 
 
 "Hello, King," said the Mayor's voice. "I 
 want to see you — right away — on a matter 
 of importance." 
 
 286 
 
THE CRY FOR MERCY 
 
 It must be of importance, I thought, to call 
 for so much haste and for the efforts of both 
 the Mayor and his secretary. 'Your secre- 
 tary just called," I said, "and I told him I 
 would be glad to see you at any time." 
 
 "All right," replied the Mayor. "I'll be 
 right there. See that I get in without waiting, 
 will you?" 
 
 "Certainly," I said. "How long before 
 you'll be here?" 
 
 "Just as soon as I can get there." 
 
 Mayor Fitzgerald arrived in less than a half 
 hour. His manner was grave and earnest. 
 It was instantly apparent that what he had to 
 communicate was either very important or he 
 believed it to be so. 
 
 Taking a seat, he went at his subject with- 
 out preliminaries. 
 
 "I was over in Young's Hotel, King," he 
 said, " and I happened to run into Tom Law- 
 son. We got to talking and the talk turned on 
 his fight with you. I told him he was a fool to 
 attack you the way he has — that he must 
 expect to lose more than he could gain. 
 Lawson said many of his friends had told him 
 the same thing — that maybe he was a fool. " 
 
 The Mayor leaned over my desk earnestly. 
 
 287 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "Now, King," he said, "I'm the bearer of an 
 olive branch. Let's patch up a truce between 
 you and Laws on. Boston is a big city — big 
 enough for both of you to live in. I'm a 
 friend of both of you, and I want to see you 
 both get along. I want to see you prosperous 
 and I want to see Lawson prosperous. Your 
 fight has gone far enough. You ought to be 
 satisfied. You've got all the best of it now." 
 
 "It isn't a personal fight between Lawson 
 and me, " I said. "You know that." 
 
 "Whatever it is, it has hurt you both." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that. I don't believe it 
 has hurt me, except that it has taken my mind 
 off my business at times when the business 
 needed all my attention." 
 
 "That's bad enough," urged Fitzgerald. 
 "That's bad for any business." 
 
 "I'm sorry, but it's too late," I said. "I 
 can't make peace with Lawson on any terms." 
 
 "Don't say that," pleaded the Mayor. 
 "Now look here. I tried to get you two 
 together once before, and I thought I had got 
 somewhere, but it broke out again. To-day 
 things are different. Then Lawson was get- 
 ting after you and your stocks hard. He isn't 
 saying a word now." 
 
 288 
 

 THE CRY FOR MERCY 
 
 "That isn't because he doesn't want to," 
 I laughed. " It's because, as you say he told 
 you, he knows he's been a fool and is danger- 
 ously near paying the penalty." 
 Did you know Lawson is sick?" 
 Why, no." 
 
 "He is. He's a sick man. Nothing or- 
 ganic, or anything of that sort, but worn out. 
 He wants a rest. He wants to go abroad. He 
 needs the vacation. And he can't stir so long 
 as you have these proceedings of yours hanging 
 over him. People would think he was running 
 away. Besides, he needs to stay to look out 
 for his fences. He doesn't dare go away, 
 naturally, and leave you in a position to take a 
 crack at him whenever you feel like it." 
 
 I persisted that I could not come to any 
 understanding. The Mayor as earnestly per- 
 sisted that I could afford, holding the whip 
 hand, to make a truce that would last until 
 Lawson returned from Europe. "And if it 
 lasts that long there isn't any reason why it 
 shouldn't last forever," he added. "Let it 
 stand until he gives you notice that it is over." 
 
 Mayor Fitzgerald was eloquent in por- 
 traying Lawson' s need for rest and recreation 
 abroad — he believed Lawson was tired of 
 
 289 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "the game" and would not lay himself open to 
 criticism after he came home. For twenty 
 minutes or a half -hour we argued. Finally I 
 said : 
 
 " Mr. Mayor, I'm going to take your advice 
 to this extent: I've had the last say. I've 
 rolled Tom Lawson from Dan to Beersheba. 
 I have put in cold type just what I think of him 
 and his methods to the tune of seven pages of 
 the Boston Daily Tribune and King's Finan- 
 cial Bulletin. If he's got enough, and you give 
 me your personal word that he will make no 
 more sewer-pipe manoeuvres, you can say to him 
 that I'll hold my hands and not do anything 
 further to him — with the understanding that 
 if he ever desires to renew the fight he'll give 
 me good and sufficient notice." 
 
 "I can promise that, King," said the Mayor. 
 
 "You must understand clearly that I reserve 
 the right to criticise anything he does that I 
 regard as illegitimate. The only way Lawson 
 can maintain a permanent truce with me is to 
 go straight." 
 
 "I think you can be assured that he won't 
 do anything of that sort any more." 
 
 I showed Mayor Fitzgerald a whole drawer- 
 ful of evidence. "That," I said, "is on the 
 
 290 
 
THE CRY FOR MERCY 
 
 eve of going before the proper authorities. 
 You came just in time.'' 
 
 "I'm glad of that," said the Mayor, "for 
 you and Lawson are both good fellows, and I 
 don't want to see either of you injured." 
 
 "It is understood, then," I recapitulated, 
 "that I am to do nothing to Lawson while he 
 is in Europe, getting his health back, and that 
 when he returns, if he wishes any more fight 
 with me he will give me notice before he makes 
 a move, while I reserve the right to criticise 
 him if he makes any more crooked pro- 
 motions." 
 
 "Right," replied Fitzgerald. "But you 
 may rest assured that there will be no more 
 of that on his part." 
 
 The Mayor left my office to tell Lawson the 
 result of his appeal. 
 
 291 
 
Chapter XXIX 
 PEACE 
 
 I AT once called a halt on the pro- 
 ceedings against Lawson, much to the 
 disgust of those having them in charge, 
 and against the advice of a number of my 
 best lieutenants, who were not aware of the 
 Fitzgerald interview but knew I had been 
 assured by some one or other that Lawson 
 intended to go and sin no more. Lawson 
 sailed for Europe. 
 
 In every respect I kept absolute faith with 
 Mayor Fitzgerald. I made no mention of 
 Lawson or his properties in his absence. I 
 did not attack them in my newspapers. I did 
 not refer to them in my letters to investors. 
 
 As an evidence to Lawson of my changed 
 attitude and as some explanation to the public 
 of the sudden cessation of criticism of him in 
 the columns of the Boston Daily Tribune, I 
 wrote the following editorial for that paper 
 under the caption, "A Word with Mr. Law- 
 son." It appeared in the issue of April 5, 
 1907. 
 
 292 
 
PEACE 
 
 Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, has announced in 
 the advertising columns of the newspapers of Boston 
 that he proposes at a very early date to sail the ocean 
 blue. He is going to Europe. 
 
 He states in his public advertisements that he is going 
 for the purpose of personally looking over the foreign 
 copper situation. However that may be, he is going 
 away. The Tribune accepts as a fact his statement in 
 the matter and takes this occasion to bid him bon 
 voyage. 
 
 Other men from time to time have paused 'mid the 
 pressing activities of daily toil and sailed away to 
 Europe, and so why not Mr. Lawson ? Other men have 
 let fall the reins from their financial steeds and per- 
 mitted the animals to go out to pasture alone and un- 
 attended, while they themselves have sojourned under 
 foreign skies. Why not Mr. Lawson ? 
 
 True, it may be said of him that he has many irons in 
 the fire which perhaps need a muscular hand at the 
 bellows to keep them at proper heat, but, after all, when 
 a man once believes that he can cut loose from his work, 
 he can generally do it with little or no damage to that 
 work and with infinite benefit to himself. 
 
 And so the Tribune takes this occasion to extend to 
 Mr. Lawson renewed assurances of its most distin- 
 guished consideration, and to wish for him a smooth 
 sailing to the shores of the old world. 
 
 In spite of all that may have been said and printed 
 to the contrary, the Tribune entertains a special, peculiar 
 admiration for Mr. Lawson. It may not entertain for 
 him the fondness from which the eternal spring of 
 
 293 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 never-dying love flows, but it has an admiration for him 
 nevertheless. It finds in him many qualities that go to 
 the making of a man. He is tireless, energetic and of 
 keen abilities; shrewd in his judgment of human beings. 
 He is a man of action, a man who has done things, not 
 the things that the Tribune would have done or that it 
 can endorse — but when all has been said it must be 
 admitted he has done things — that he is a doer of things. 
 
 There have been times when the Tribune has failed to 
 agree with Mr. Lawson in the things which he has done, 
 and in its own way has pointed out where it felt that the 
 things done should not have been done. In other words, 
 on occasion, the Tribune has differed with Mr. Lawson. 
 Despite, however, the elements of error that have crept 
 into his accomplishments, he has within him, it must be 
 admitted, the making of a powerful factor in the financial 
 world. And behold, the opportunity for his trans- 
 formation is now at hand. 
 
 Therefore, realizing that this opportunity is upon him, 
 the Tribune desires to invite Mr. Lawson to sit down 
 calmly in his chimney corner and commune as brother 
 to brother, from heart to heart. 
 
 In extending to Mr. Lawson this invitation to sit by 
 and listen while we talk, and to commune with us, we 
 cast aside all bitterness and rancor as a result of any- 
 thing which has been heretofore written or said. We 
 ask Mr. Lawson to accept our intent to bestow upon him 
 that kindly portion of salutary advice that shall turn the 
 current of his life into better channels and bring him at 
 last into that blessed state where he may say, " I have 
 fought a good fight — I have kept the faith. " 
 
 294 
 
PEACE 
 
 Old ocean is a wonderful leveler of men, Mr. Lawson 
 — a marvelous tonic for a wearied soul — an unequaled 
 teacher of the mind that will dwell upon its vast impress- 
 iveness. Countless men have found in the majesty of 
 its teachings the true value of the better things of life. 
 
 So, when in a few days the gangplank has been 
 withdrawn and the great ship upon which you are to be 
 such a tiny speck of humanity swings down the channel 
 and on into the mighty expanse of waters ; when the deck 
 chairs have been arranged; when your greatcoat, lined 
 with the fleece of so many lambs, has been wrapped 
 around you, your cap pulled down over your head and 
 your steamer rug affixed where it will do the most good, 
 then, Mr. Lawson, is the time for the great awakening. 
 
 You will find wonderful opportunities to commune 
 with your own soul and mind aboard ship. It is a great 
 chance. As days succeed one another and you sit 
 entranced 'mid the vast deep and the Great Power that 
 keeps it forever in place, take from your pocket pad and 
 pencil, and, as tli3 ship glides on over the ocean, write 
 down your new inspirations and the finer thoughts which 
 are sure to come to you. Look back, if you will, over 
 the tossing waters to this restless, growing country of the 
 new world, and reflect that in this land there still 
 seethes the hot activity of speculation and manipulation 
 of corporation securities. Reflect that in Boston and 
 New York there still rage wrangling, nervous men 
 around the poles in stock exchanges. 
 
 Then heave a sigh and thank Providence that for 
 a brief period at least you are no longer of that 
 feverish throng of men, ever intent upon the financial 
 
 295 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 slaughter of their fellows, and ask yourself out there 
 under the canopy of God's blue sky what it is all worth. 
 
 When you reach the other side, Mr. Lawson, and 
 travel through the leafy lanes of verdant England; 
 when you see the picturesque chalets of beautiful 
 France; when you glide down the historic and entranc- 
 ing Rhine; when you gaze with rapture upon the Alps, 
 the lofty peaks of which, in the language of the late and 
 lamented William W. White, "point to the great blue," 
 you will be impressed as you have never perhaps been 
 impressed before. The peaks of the Alps you will re- 
 gard as fingers of the Creator pointing the way to a loftier 
 and higher conception of life, its ideals and respon- 
 sibilities. 
 
 'Mid the shady lanes and restful valleys and wooded 
 dales of England and France, 'mid the old windmills of 
 Holland, you will find the nooks and corners in which 
 to hide away for a season and commune uninterruptedly 
 with your own soul and mind. You will be free from 
 telephone calls, from anxious inquirers about the doings 
 of the stock market. You will find opportunities to 
 steal away and sit down all by yourself where you can 
 listen to the rustle of the leaves of the trees, to the sing- 
 ing of birds — and you can figure it all out. You can 
 go upon the stand and be your own cross-examiner. 
 You can ask yourself questions and figure out for your- 
 self the correct answer. 
 
 In such scenes of beauty and suggestiveness, cut 
 yourself away from all knowledge and all thought of the 
 busy world of stocks in far distant Boston, and again 
 ask your own heart and soul if the struggle to acquire 
 
 £96 
 
PEACE 
 
 wealth with which to build and incorporate "Dream- 
 wold" at the expense of conscience and the public is 
 really worth while. 
 
 Then, when your day of mingled play and self- 
 examination is over come back to us once more, Mr. 
 Lawson. Retrace your steps and again sail the seas. 
 Come back to Boston town. Come back a new Lawson 
 — the Lawson of old. Come back with new color in 
 your cheeks, with red blood in your veins. Come back 
 with your faculties refreshed, with new life, new am- 
 bition, new ideals, new hopes. Come back the Lawson 
 that was. Come back the Lawson that should be. 
 Come back with a God -given determination that no 
 more shall your name be lent to things of which it can- 
 not be said, "All is fair and square." Come back to 
 uplift and upbuild, determined to apply your splendid 
 talents to constructive rather than destructive work. 
 
 Should you come back to us, Mr. Lawson, a changed 
 and better man, you will be appreciated, of that have no 
 fear. The Tribune will hold it as its solemn duty to be 
 the first to discover and proclaim loudly the trans- 
 formation which may come over you. 
 
 This is what your European trip may accomplish for 
 you, Mr. Lawson, and by all the powers of earth and 
 water the Tribune hopes and trusts that the result may be 
 what our fancy paints. 
 
 The experiment is really worth making. 
 
 Lawson sailed for Europe. I filed away 
 the masses of evidence against him. Peace 
 reigned. 
 
 297 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 On Lawson's return I naturally wished to 
 learn at once what were his intentions. Mayor 
 Fitzgerald was ill. I therefore called on the 
 telephone Mr. Henry B. Humphrey, Lawson's 
 advertising agent and therefore his closest 
 lieutenant in his publicity campaigns. I asked 
 Mr. Humphrey to call at my office and he came 
 at once. He and I are old acquaintances. 
 
 I recounted to him the substance of the 
 agreement that I had made, and requested 
 that he get in immediate touch with Lawson 
 and ascertain what he wished to do. 
 
 "You know — you have been here all the 
 time — that I have kept my end of the agree- 
 ment to the letter, " I said. " It is now due me, 
 according to the terms of the understanding, 
 that Mr. Lawson tell me whether or not he 
 wants any further argument. He can have 
 his choice. Either the truce is off, and I shall 
 get busy at once along the lines that were inter- 
 rupted when he wished to go away, or it con- 
 tinues and I shall say nothing against him un- 
 less he does something new to call for criti- 
 cism. I am ready for either. If it is fight, I 
 am prepared to go to the last ditch; if it is 
 peace, it depends on him alone whether the 
 peace shall ever be broken." 
 
 298 
 
PEACE 
 
 A day or so later Mr. Humphrey called on 
 me. 
 
 "I saw Mr. Lawson," he said, "and gave 
 him your message. He asked me to assure 
 you that he appreciates your position in wish- 
 ing to know whether or not the old difficulty 
 is to be kept up. He wishes me to say that he 
 has no desire to renew the trouble of last 
 spring. As evidence of that, he asked me to 
 remind you that he has neither said nor done 
 anything, publicly or privately, to injure you 
 since his return. And he authorizes me to 
 assure you that he will not." 
 
 " Then you may say to him that I shall keep 
 my word and do nothing to injure him on 
 account of what is past. The future is in his 
 hands." 
 
 "I'll do so the next time I see him," said 
 Mr. Humphrey. 
 
 I kept my word. Lawson also kept his — 
 for two or three months. Then, when I had 
 suffered severe losses due to the financial 
 panic and had been obliged to cease the publi- 
 cation of my daily newspaper, he broke it as 
 coldly, heartlessly and brutally as — as I might 
 have known he would. 
 
 In war the spy, although he is hanged, is 
 
 299 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 respected as the agent of the enemy taking 
 desperate chances for his flag. But he who 
 violates the flag of truce is killed without 
 benefit of clergy, for he is rightfully deemed the 
 most despicable of cowards. 
 
 300 
 
Chapter XXX 
 GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 I KNOW now that all through that 
 summer Lawson was quietly laying his 
 plans to attack me should he ever be- 
 come strong enough and I weak enough, again, 
 to give him any prospect of success. . I know 
 now that among the mistakes I have made in 
 the course of a busy life — and who has not 
 made mistakes who has done things at all ? — 
 none was so fatal as showing mercy to Lawson 
 when I had it in my power to crush him. 
 
 Yet, looking back across the sixteen months 
 that have passed since that momentous agree- 
 ment made with Mayor Fitzgerald, it does not 
 seem at all strange to me that I did it. My 
 action was in no moment of weakness. My 
 mistake was not in the judgment of a situation, 
 but in my judgment of a man. 
 
 I believed Lawson's word, at such a time, 
 could be depended upon. I believed he was 
 sincere when he said he would go and sin no 
 more. I believed he had really become 
 wearied of his life of brutal market-rigging and 
 
 301 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 was ready to cease his vicious campaigns 
 against the public. I believed, in a word, that 
 the investors of the country were now safe from 
 him — they had won their fight at last. And 
 as I had nothing personal against Lawson — as 
 I had so strenuously fought not Lawson the 
 man, but the wicked practices of which Lawson 
 the speculator was the incarnation — as my 
 duty was finished when the danger from him 
 was past — so I was willing to allow him to go 
 his way, if only it was an honest way, without 
 further punishment or molestation. 
 
 I had triumphed. There can be no question 
 about that in the mind of any investor who con- 
 siders the facts. Lawson's campaigns ceased, 
 and did not begin again until he had succeeded 
 in so crippling me financially that I was unable 
 to raise my voice against him as effectively as 
 of old. The lesser fry of the Wolf-Pack, awed 
 at the sight of their Leader vanquished and 
 silent, also ceased their depredations. 
 
 From one end of the country to the other 
 there was a noticeable lessening of swindling 
 operations in the stock markets. The crooks 
 and thugs, stunned and frightened, dared not 
 carry on their operations boldly — and there 
 is little danger to the public when they carry 
 
 302 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 them on in secret. The investors of the coun- 
 try enjoyed a degree of security which for 
 years they had not possessed. It was peace, 
 but it was the peace of victory — a peace with 
 honor. 
 
 Summer came and went — a peaceful 
 summer. Toward the end of it, however, 
 there began to gather on the business horizon 
 angry clouds that portended a coming storm. 
 As the autumn days came on, the cloud grew 
 and spread, but it still seemed low down on the 
 horizon, and many a business man either did 
 not see it or affected not to consider it dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 For years I had been giving voice with all 
 the energy of which I was capable to warnings 
 of just this storm. I had pointed out that 
 nothing less than panic, depression and bitter 
 trouble could logically follow the practices 
 that had come to be regarded as proper in the 
 stock market and the world of speculation. 
 For a long time no one had seemed to listen. 
 Then had come the period when my words 
 found listeners and believers. I am glad to- 
 day that millions upon millions of dollars were 
 undoubtedly saved to the investors who had 
 listened to my warnings and at the moment 
 
 303 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 of the crash were free and clear of danger. 
 
 Among the leaders of finance, however, 
 there were few who credited me or agreed with 
 me. After the smash had come it was a 
 melancholy pleasure to me to read the words 
 of many who in times gone by had called me a 
 "sensationalist," repeating my own words of 
 long before in explaining the causes of the 
 panic. 
 
 "Due to bad methods by bad men," said 
 the great J. Pierpont Morgan, after the panic 
 had come. Many a time I had used those 
 identical words in predicting the panic as 
 unavoidable. Differing from Mr. Morgan, I 
 said it months before the panic. 
 
 I had not been free from business cares 
 during this summer. On the contrary, I had 
 suffered a serious shrinkage of my resources in 
 connection with my newspaper, the Boston 
 Daily Tribune, which had cost me, up to the 
 middle of October, a sum approximating a 
 quarter of a million dollars. This had not 
 caused me serious w r orry, for a great expense 
 is inseparable from the inauguration of a big 
 daily newspaper. I had the best staff in the 
 city of Boston — I was publishing a newspaper 
 that was attracting attention and gaining in 
 
 304 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 circulation by leaps and bounds — I felt certain 
 that a few months more would see a balance 
 on the right side of the ledger. This would 
 have been the case, I am sure, had it not been 
 for the panic and the resulting falling off of all 
 business. For, although I had predicted a 
 crash in the stock market as inevitable, I 
 neither expected it so soon, nor did I believe it 
 would have the far-reaching effect upon the 
 country's business that it did have. 
 
 On October 18 I left Boston for New York, 
 accompanied by one of my executives, with 
 the purpose of devoting a day or two to busi- 
 ness in that city and two or three days to 
 relaxation and recreation. 
 
 Some time before I had donated to St. 
 John's Military School, at Manlius, New York, 
 the necessary funds for a building to be known 
 as "The C. F. King Lyceum." This I had 
 done in appreciation of the admirable school 
 itself and its able and conscientious heads. 
 My two eldest boys were students at the school 
 and I was familiar with the high character of 
 the institution and interested in its progress. 
 This building — a handsome structure devoted 
 to recreation — was now finished. It was to be 
 informally dedicated on Monday evening, 
 
 305 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 October 21, and I had been invited to be 
 present. 
 
 Arriving in New York City on Friday 
 evening, I devoted the early hours of Saturday 
 to business. The clouds were still in the sky, 
 but they seemed no more portentous than they 
 had been for a month or more. There was no 
 indication to me that the tempest was im- 
 minent. I entered my automobile at a little 
 before noon on Saturday with a feeling of 
 relief at leaving the cares of business behind for 
 a day or so. 
 
 The annual football game between West 
 Point and Yale was scheduled for that after- 
 noon at West Point, and a number of the cadet 
 officers from St. John's School — including my 
 oldest son, C. F. King, Jr. — were guests at the 
 National Military Academy on the Hudson. 
 With a beautiful autumn day, a fast touring 
 car and a good chauffeur, we enjoyed every 
 minute of the trip from New York City to West 
 Point. We arrived in time for the game, 
 which was a remarkably good one, and were 
 entertained delightfully by West Point gradu- 
 ates of my acquaintances. As the shades of 
 night were falling we entered the car again and 
 resumed our journey. 
 
 306 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 On Sunday we were in Syracuse. The 
 New York morning papers contained a piece 
 of disquieting news — the difficulties of the 
 Thomases of New York, and the possibility 
 that banks in which they had an interest 
 might eventually be affected. Yet, even 
 then, nobody realized how near the panic 
 was. I must confess that I was nearly as 
 much interested at reading, in the Boston 
 morning papers, the account of a political 
 rally in Boston at which Joseph A. Dennison, 
 ex-assistant District Attorney of Suffolk County 
 and now a candidate for District Attorney 
 against John B. Moran, had made reference 
 to Thomas W. Lawson in a most interesting- 
 way. 
 
 I read the reports of the speech with a great 
 deal of interest. I had no personal acquaint- 
 ance with either Mr. Moran or Mr. Dennison 
 — or, for that matter, with Lawson — but to one 
 who had concentrated his thoughts on Lawson 
 and his methods as much as I this matter could 
 not but be absorbing. I smiled and made a 
 joking remark about the matter. I little 
 thought how far removed from jocularity would 
 be my thoughts the next time the coupling of 
 these names should be brought to my attention. 
 
 307 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 The incident which gave rise to columns of 
 type in the Boston newspapers on that Sunday 
 morning will, I believe, interest every reader 
 of this book. 
 
 To understand it, the reader unfamiliar 
 with Massachusetts politics should be told 
 that in 1906 Mr. Moran was the Democratic 
 candidate for Governor. He was then District 
 Attorney of Suffolk County, which office he 
 continued to hold through the campaign and 
 after his defeat. In the following fall — 1907 — 
 he ran for re-election as District Attorney. 
 Mr. Dennison, who had formerly been his 
 assistant but had quarreled with him, was his 
 opponent. 
 
 On October 1, 1907, about three weeks be- 
 fore my visit to Syracuse, Mr. Moran had 
 printed in the Boston newspapers an advertise- 
 ment in the form of an open letter to Henry M. 
 Whitney, the Democratic candidate for Gov- 
 ernor, in which he had referred to his own 
 campaign the year before, and his claim that he 
 had not accepted money from any source 
 whatever with which to prosecute it. In the 
 course of this advertisement Mr. Moran said: 
 
 "Some six or seven days before election day, which 
 took place in November, 1906, Mr. Lawson called on 
 
 308 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 ine at my room in the Quincy House, found me in bed, 
 and seating himself upon the side of the bed, he said, 
 1 Moran, I have heard that your campaign committee is 
 short of money. I have three or four thousand dollars 
 in cash in my pocket which I will be glad to give to 
 your committee now if you will allow me to.' I 
 thanked him for his willingness but told him that I must 
 adhere to the position which I took in my published 
 letter of October 14." 
 
 On Friday, October 18, before I left Boston 
 for my brief combination of business trip and 
 holiday, I read in the morning papers a speech 
 made the night before by Mr. Dennison, in 
 the course of which, holding in his hand the 
 advertisement just quoted, he said: 
 
 " Here is a newspaper advertisement in which Moran 
 cites that Lawson came to him and offered him several 
 thousand dollars toward his campaign. Moran de- 
 ceived the public, or tried to, by proclaiming that he 
 refused to accept any pecuniary assistance from Lawson 
 or anybody else, but I stand ready to offer proof when- 
 ever it is demanded that he not only accepted thousands 
 of dollars from Lawson, but from others as well." 
 
 On the following day — so it appeared from 
 the Boston newspapers which I read with 
 interest there in Syracuse — Mr. Moran an- 
 swered Mr. Dennison's charge as follows: 
 
 309 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 " I am charged with having received money from Mr. 
 Lawson and others as campaign contributions. This 
 charge is false. I never received or accepted any 
 campaign contributions; I have, however, when I 
 needed money for any purpose, borrowed from my 
 friends and from insurance companies in which my life 
 is insured. Some of this I have repaid and some I still 
 owe. Timothy W. Coakley is one of those from whom 
 I accepted a loan. Mr. Lawson is one of those friends, 
 and I experience no sense of humiliation in so stating. 
 When he offered me contributions for campaign pur- 
 poses I declined to accept them. When I asked him to 
 lend me money he never refused to lend it to me." 
 
 On Saturday night, at a big rally, Mr. 
 Dennison had replied to this statement in the 
 following words : 
 
 "I have made against the present District Attorney 
 the most grave and serious charge which can be brought 
 against a public servant. 
 
 "For years Massachusetts has struggled to put her- 
 self in the forefront of those commonwealths which have 
 led the way to pure elections. She has passed statutes, 
 scrupulous in detail, making it a crime to receive money 
 for use in elections or to expend money in elections 
 except under rigorous rules of publicity. 
 
 " She obliges every candidate to make a sworn return 
 to the Secretary of State or to the city or towm clerk of 
 monies received by him to aid in his nomination or 
 election, of monies expended by him for such purpose. 
 
 310 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 She has passed statutes obliging every treasurer of a 
 political committee to make a similar return similarly 
 sworn to by him. 
 
 "The Legislature has gone further. It has antici- 
 pated the possibility that some cunning, subtle-minded, 
 tricky candidate might seek to evade the law, and in 
 order that the public might surely know what monies 
 were used in behalf of a candidate and judge whether or 
 not there was corrupt use made of such money, it has 
 decreed that where any man who is not a candidate and 
 who is not a treasurer of a political committee receives 
 or disburses money for the purpose of aiding in a nom- 
 ination or election, such person must under penalty of 
 the law file a similar sworn return. 
 
 "I have charged that the chief law officer of this 
 county, to whom you citizens of Boston have confided 
 the enforcement of this law and whose duty it is to pros- 
 ecute those who violate it, has himself violated this law. 
 
 " I have charged and I reiterate, that by an oath which 
 he does not respect, calling upon the sacred name of 
 God, he has sworn that he received nothing and 
 expended nothing as a candidate for election, when, 
 as a matter of fact and in truth, he had received thou- 
 sands of dollars from Thomas W. Lawson for no other 
 purpose except his political advancement in the cam- 
 paign which he has waged for office. 
 
 "I never would have made the charge had I not 
 possessed the proofs of its truth. I knew when I made 
 it that he could not deny it. On a public platform last 
 night I predicted that within forty-eight hours he would 
 be forced to admit it. What was the reason of the 
 
 311 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 assurance on my part? I will tell you, my friends. 
 That assurance came from the knowledge that the proofs 
 were in my hands. 
 
 " John B. Moran has admitted the truth of the charge 
 which I have brought against him. . . . 
 
 "Think of it, fellow citizens of Boston. This man 
 who is sworn to enforce the law says that he received 
 money from Thomas W. Lawson. 
 
 " Mr. Lawson is a man interested in the political 
 battles which are waged within the commonwealth and 
 the nation. He is a man reputed to be worth millions 
 and to be interested in matters where thousands of 
 millions of dollars are involved. How did it happen, 
 Mr. Moran, that you asked him for money? Did he 
 give you hundreds or thousands of dollars ? Did he 
 give you money in your campaign for District Attorney 
 when you went about Boston alone upon the platform 
 and told the people that you were fighting the million- 
 aires and championing the cause of the toiling masses ? 
 When you said you were fighting the battle of the man 
 against the dollar, how many of Lawson 's dollars were 
 jingling in your pocket? . . . 
 
 " How much money did you get from Mr. Lawson in 
 your District Attorney fight ? How much money did you 
 get from Mr. Lawson in your campaign for Governor, 
 at the very time that you were issuing letters to the 
 public telling them that you would not take a cent from 
 any human being ? 
 
 "Your words were: f I shall accept pecuniary assist- 
 ance from no man.' Those are the words which you 
 published under date of October 14, 1906, in a letter 
 
 312 
 
GATHERING THUNDER CLOUDS 
 
 addressed to no other person than the same Mr. Thomas 
 W. Lawson. That letter was written for publication 
 and intended to deceive the public." 
 
 I laid down the paper. "I wouldn't have 
 believed it," I said. 
 
 "It's hard lines when old friends fall out 
 and begin to tell what they know about each 
 other," said my companion, smiling. 
 
 Although interested — surprised — perhaps 
 somewhat shocked — the matter soon passed 
 out of my mind. When it returned to haunt 
 me was three months later, in the middle of a 
 campaign to advertise Boston-Ely stock — the 
 campaign which marked well-nigh the last 
 activities of my financial house for many long 
 months. 
 
 313 
 
Chapter XXXI 
 THE TEMPEST BREAKS 
 
 THESE things passed out of my mind 
 for a day — a day given up to recrea- 
 tion and contemplation of the system 
 of an admirable educational institution. We 
 went to Manlius, which is but a short ride from 
 Syracuse, on Monday morning, and spent the 
 remainder of that day at St. John's School. 
 
 Admirably situated is this great military 
 academy, where air and view are magnificent, 
 with spacious grounds, handsome and ade- 
 quate buildings, and rolling hills all about. 
 Several hundred boys and young men are 
 students at the institution, under the direction 
 of Colonel William Verbeck, who, I believe, 
 understands boys better and is able to hold 
 their interest and esteem more ingeniously than 
 any man I have ever met. 
 
 During the day we observed the routine of 
 school life, varied with military drills, exhibi- 
 tions of horsemanship and a dress parade and 
 "retreat" at sunset. After this I took dinner 
 at Colonel Verbeck's delightful home, with 
 
 314 
 
THE TEMPEST BREAKS 
 
 a number of army and navy officers, to- 
 gether with the executives of the school, who 
 had been invited to participate in the informal 
 dedication of the Lyceum building. 
 
 After coffee we bade our delightful hostess, 
 Mrs. Verbeck, good evening, and retraced our 
 steps to the group of big school buildings, in 
 the assembly hall of which had been gathered 
 all the students, in uniform. Colonel Verbeck 
 talked sympathetically and interestingly to the 
 cadets and I said a few brief words. Then 
 " The C. F. King Lyceum'' was thrown open to 
 the school and all the boys inspected it — it 
 was the first time any o? them had been allowed 
 in the interior — and after this the school band 
 gave a concert. 
 
 It was a delightful occasion. I enjoyed 
 every moment of the day. Every detail of the 
 school's routine was interesting to me. I saw 
 hundreds of bright, energetic American boys 
 learning discipline in connection with their 
 other studies. I met the heads of the school, 
 most of whom were old acquaintances. At 
 dinner I came in contact with new friends — 
 men who, in the army and navy of this great 
 nation, in distant parts of our own country and 
 far away in tropical islands, had done their 
 
 315 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 modest share toward establishing and main- 
 taining the prestige of our flag. I saw my own 
 two eldest sons, and I beheld no reason to feel 
 ashamed of them amid all the others. 
 
 For a day business was in the background. 
 The storm clouds had sunk below the horizon. 
 The barometer readings were not watched. 
 I rested, drew in great breaths of the clear 
 autumn air, and forgot for the moment that 
 I had large offices in two cities and hundreds 
 of men whose work depended upon my just 
 management of affairs. I forgot the affairs of 
 the Thomases, whose names were on the first 
 page of every newspaper. I forgot alike the 
 captains of industry and the gamblers of Wall 
 and State Streets. "It is a 'day off,' ' I 
 thought. 'To-morrow I will drill down to 
 business again. To-day is my holiday." 
 
 It was late that night when I said good- 
 night to my boys and to all the good friends at 
 the school, and started for Syracuse, whence I 
 went by train to New York. Arriving in the 
 metropolis at seven o'clock on Tuesday morn- 
 ing, I entered a cab and drove at once to my 
 office. Newspapers purchased on the train 
 told me that the cloud had risen high and black 
 during the day I had been away. There were 
 
THE TEMPEST BREAKS 
 
 stories about the financial situation that looked 
 unpleasant. Ugly rumors connected the name 
 of more than one banking official with the 
 Thomas difficulties. 
 
 The articles were veiled. Even the most 
 sensational newspaper will think long before 
 it gives space to rumors that may cause bank 
 panics and irretrievable loss to depositors. 
 Many readers of the papers that morning did 
 not appreciate at all what a serious situation 
 had suddenly developed as a result of the 
 gambling that had gone on unstopped in the 
 marts of exchange. My knowledge of finance 
 — of the situation that might be supposed to 
 exist — of the sand upon which many a structure 
 of business had been builded during the " good 
 times" — made it easy for me to read between 
 the lines and see that the writers, in many 
 cases, felt certain of serious impending trouble. 
 
 " I'm afraid some of the weak banks will be 
 in trouble within a day or so," I said to my 
 business associate, who was still with me, as 
 we rode down to the office. 
 
 "Serious trouble?" he asked. 
 
 "That nobody knows. There have been 
 dangerous practices. If things should get to 
 going — ." I shook my head. I felt worried 
 
 317 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 — distrustful of the situation. Yet I had no 
 suspicion of how serious and far-reaching 
 would be that one day's developments. 
 
 A number of business men, officers of a cor- 
 poration whose affairs and prospects I had 
 been investigating with a view to perhaps 
 offering some of their securities for public sub- 
 scription, called upon me that morning. After 
 them came a procession of investors having 
 personal business. It was a busy forenoon. I 
 had no time for gossip. No rumor came into 
 my inner office of the condition that was devel- 
 oping with a speed of lightning in the financial 
 world. 
 
 At about noon, in an interval between 
 callers, my New York office manager tapped 
 on the door of my room. He had a news 
 bulletin of some sort in his hand. His face 
 was grave. Behind him there was a hum of 
 voices pitched in a different key than usual. 
 The office force was discussing the news that 
 had just come in so unexpectedly. The 
 manager held out the bulletin toward me. 
 
 "The Knickerbocker Trust Company has 
 suspended," he said, tersely. 
 
 The tempest had broken. 
 
 318 
 
Chapter XXXII 
 IN THE PATH OF THE STORM 
 
 THE Knickerbocker Trust Company! I 
 could not believe my ears. 
 
 Where were the millions of dollars it 
 should have had behind its barred windows and 
 under the protection of its massive time locks ? 
 Where were the powerful financiers whose 
 interests were co-ordinate with it ? What had 
 happened? How had it happened? How 
 could it have happened ? 
 
 No one could answer my questions. The 
 newspapers were still struggling with the de- 
 scription of the run on the bank and as yet had 
 no time for causes. Financial houses who 
 might know the whys and wherefores were in a 
 shrieking panic and no information could be 
 gained from them. 
 
 I had no personal deposit in the Knicker- 
 bocker, but I had clients who kept large sums 
 there — and beyond any interest of personal 
 deposits loomed the meaning of it all. When 
 such an institution could go to the wall, what 
 might not happen to others ? Whom could the 
 
 319 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 people trust ? Whom would they trust ? And 
 the answer to these questions spelled Panic — 
 Panic far-reaching, unreasoning and blind. 
 
 Ordering a cab I drove to the corner of 
 Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, where 
 stands on one corner the gilded Waldorf- 
 Astoria and on another the magnificent build- 
 ing of the Knickerbocker Trust. 
 
 Both streets were filled with carriages, auto- 
 mobiles and people afoot. A squad of police- 
 men was busy keeping the cross-walks clear 
 and the crowd in motion. Telling my cabman 
 to wait, I alighted and joined the moving 
 swarm of people. 
 
 Slowly I worked myself through the crowd 
 to the massive granite doors of the institution, 
 now closed. Attached to one of them, on a 
 bit of white paper altogether too small to be in 
 proportion with the dire news it bore, was a 
 brief notice to the effect that the company had 
 suspended payment. Two policemen, with 
 their backs against the door, were forced over 
 and over again to tell pleading depositors that 
 no exception could be made of any case — 
 that the doors were closed and would not be 
 opened — that there was no hope of withdraw- 
 ing any deposits on that day. 
 
 320 
 
IN THE PATH OF THE STORM 
 
 I have seen, previously, runs on banks. I 
 have read descriptions of many others. Yet 
 never, in fact or fancy, had I seen such a run 
 
 as this. 
 
 There was no line of white-faced working- 
 men and workingwomen clutching in their 
 hands the passbooks that each marked a few 
 hundred dollars of savings. There were no 
 shouts and threats of vengeance. There were 
 no depositors whose faces showed them to be 
 
 of the poor. 
 
 These people were well-to-do— in many 
 cases rich. They drove up to the curb 
 hurriedly in carriages, cabs and automobiles. 
 Their clothing was fashionable and expensive. 
 They wore upon their fingers diamonds and 
 emeralds and rubies. They were prosperous- 
 looking and well-fed. But, like those I had 
 seen in the depositors' lines at other bank sus- 
 pensions, there was fear in the eyes. Some of 
 them had their all deposited in this great insti- 
 tution; to them ruin was as imminent as though 
 they possessed only hundreds instead of 
 scores and hundreds of thousands. 
 
 Women whose knowledge of banking had 
 been confined to depositing money and check- 
 ing it out drove up in haste, wormed their way 
 
 321 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 through the crowd, and begged the policemen 
 to make an exception in their case — as though 
 the officers could open those heavy doors. 
 Men, refusing to believe what they had heard 
 and read, tore madly up, pushed their way to 
 the doors, read the notice, and slowly went 
 away. 
 
 I saw an old, old man and a young woman 
 — apparently his daughter — alight from an 
 automobile that bore a crest on its side. She 
 supported him through the mass of people 
 and read the notice to him. He was richly 
 dressed, yet there were tears in his eyes. 
 
 "It is all in there," he said to her. "All in 
 there." And slowly they went back to their 
 car and drove away. 
 
 I saw a young man in immaculate clothes 
 turn from the sign with white face. An 
 acquaintance hailed him. 
 
 " Got much in there ?" he asked. 
 
 "Four hundred thousand dollars," replied 
 the other, with an attempt at ease. "I won- 
 der" — there was a little break in his voice — 
 "I wonder if I'll get any of it out." 
 
 Up in Harlem and down town, where the 
 Knickerbocker had branch banks, I read that 
 afternoon that there were poor people whose 
 
 322 
 
IN THE PATH OF THE STORM 
 
 small savings were made inaccessible by the 
 suspension. I did not see them. At the main 
 bank were the rich and the near- rich, and they 
 made a scene unique in all the panics of 
 history. It was this peculiarity that made a 
 passing business man say, in my hearing: 
 
 "This won't do any real harm. It's only a 
 rich men's panic." 
 
 Ah, if it only were! But in my heart I 
 knew the speaker was wrong. 
 
 I knew that panic is a blind thing, and the 
 stone dropped into the water here in Fifth 
 Avenue, under the very shadow of the osten- 
 tatious Waldorf-Astoria, was bound to send its 
 waves in concentric circles, wider and wider, 
 until the farthest financial institution in the 
 land would feel at least the smallest of its 
 ripples. 
 
 For a half hour, moving about slowly so as 
 to avoid the orders of the policemen, I remained 
 in the vicinity of the Knickerbocker. Then 
 I returned to my office. 
 
 I did not eat lunch that day. 
 
 Shut into my inner office I sat down to face 
 the situation squarely, and make up my mind 
 just what it meant to me, and to those asso- 
 ciated with me. I was not so foolish as to 
 
 323 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 believe, because I had no funds deposited in 
 the Knickerbocker Trust, that I would come 
 unscathed out of the difficulty. I knew that 
 clients and customers of mine had money in 
 the Knickerbocker and in other banks which 
 might expect to be affected more or less 
 directly by the suspension. I knew that there 
 was impending a general period of depression 
 — and that the time before it would be felt was 
 not weeks nor months distant, nor even days, 
 but hours. I knew that there were due me 
 scores of thousands of dollars on notes, and I 
 realized — as it turned out — that I could not 
 depend upon prompt payments, if, indeed, I 
 did not suffer loss of the entire amounts. 
 
 I foresaw that there would be a stock market 
 depression which would make opportunities 
 for investors in listed stocks, and that it would 
 become my duty — in accordance with my 
 established policy of giving the best advice 
 regarding the stock market of which I was 
 capable — to advise my customers to buy these 
 stocks. This would mean that I would cease 
 to receive subscriptions for those unlisted 
 stocks which were handled by my office, and 
 my own income would stop. I foresaw, too, 
 that industry would be affected by the financial 
 
 324 
 
IN THE PATH OF THE STORM 
 
 depression — that mills would shut down, or go 
 upon short time — -that workingmen would lose 
 their employment — that with a tightening of 
 credit and shortening of business activities, 
 with "hard times," the corporations with 
 whose fortunes my name was identified might 
 suffer reflex effects that would remove them, 
 temporarily, from the list of dividend-payers. 
 
 I foresaw, continuing my own personal 
 analysis, that the progress of my newspaper 
 would be halted, that advertisers would curtail 
 and retrench, and that under the new out- 
 look I could not hope to place the Boston 
 Daily Tribune upon anything like a paying 
 basis without the investment of at least one 
 million dollars. 
 
 I viewed the situation carefully, coldly, 
 calmly. I saw what must be. The facts, 
 within a very few days, bore out my reasoning. 
 
 With the suspension of the Knickerbocker 
 Trust Company as a foundation, was erected a 
 pyramid of business trouble. The financial 
 stringency came without a moment's delay. 
 Call money from three per cent went to one 
 hundred and twenty. The banks called in 
 their paper, refusing to renew old loans or 
 make new ones. Every financial institution in 
 
 325 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the country, fearing a run such as actually 
 started in many places, gathered in every 
 dollar it could and locked the store of gold up 
 in its strong boxes, against the day of trouble. 
 The country's cash was withdrawn from cir- 
 culation. Credit, which is the life of business, 
 drooped and nearly died. 
 
 Every business man was suspicious of his 
 neighbor and selfishly looking out for Number 
 One. Strange and unusual schemes to delay 
 payments of small accounts were invented. 
 For illustration, one of the greatest newspapers 
 in New York — a newspaper whose credit, 
 under ordinary circumstances, is good for 
 millions — was compelled to pay its employees 
 by check payable only through the New York 
 Clearing House, so that it was impossible for 
 employees to take the paper to the bank against 
 which it was issued and receive the cash ; in this 
 manner gaining a day or two in the actual 
 payment. 
 
 These things I foresaw. Canceling a num- 
 ber of business engagements that would have 
 kept me in New York another day or two, I 
 left for Boston on the Merchants' Limited 
 Express that night. 
 
 My first move upon reaching home was to 
 
 326 
 
IN THE PATH OF THE STORM 
 
 suspend the Boston Daily Tribune, which went 
 out of existence on Friday, October 25. 
 
 My next was to order the indefinite closing 
 of my New York office. 
 
 327 
 
Chapter XXXIII 
 SOUNDING THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 HAVING thus taken measures to pro- 
 vide against the business depression 
 that I knew must last to a greater 
 or less extent for a long time, I set about doing 
 what I could to enable my friends and clients 
 — and all those who made a practice of hearing 
 and heeding my advice — to benefit by the 
 situation. 
 
 At the first crash of the storm the stock 
 market had tottered. Quotations had gone 
 hurtling down, point after point, under the 
 influence of a frenzied attempt to realize on 
 securities. 
 
 For a long time the prices of most of the good 
 listed stocks — those which have intrinsic worth 
 and are not merely the pawns of gamblers — 
 had been too high. (The others are too high 
 at all times and at any price.) Months be- 
 fore the panic I had advised investors whose 
 money was in these stocks to sell, depending 
 upon coming lower prices to buy again if they 
 desired to hold these particular securities. 
 
 328 
 
SOUNDING THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 Those who had followed my advice now found 
 themselves in a position to make great profits. 
 
 Although there was no possibility of profit 
 for me personally, while on the other hand it 
 cost me thousands of dollars a week, I began 
 a careful and elaborate advertising campaign, 
 advising the purchase of good listed stocks. I 
 did this just as soon as my information con- 
 vinced me that the real panic was over and 
 that the stock market had reached its greatest 
 depression. 
 
 I look back with pride upon that advertising 
 campaign. Among all the financial voices in 
 the country, mine was the first to announce 
 that the panic was over, and that prices would 
 not go any lower. This statement appeared 
 in broadcast advertisements on October 30, 
 but little more than one week after the Knick- 
 erbocker suspension. 
 
 I told investors that there was a possibility 
 of sympathetic business slowness for a con- 
 siderable time, but that the causes of the panic 
 had been removed, and that the real panic had 
 gone. I told them that good listed stocks 
 would not go lower. They had fallen, then, 
 to such prices that many of them represented 
 investments of from ten to twenty-five per cent. 
 
 329 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I advised investors to buy good listed stocks — 
 stocks in corporations whose management, 
 dividend-history and disassociation from gam- 
 blers made it probable that they would prove 
 profitable. 
 
 From all the stocks listed on the New York 
 and Boston stock exchanges I carefully pre- 
 pared a list of forty-five — fifteen railroad 
 stocks, fifteen industrial stocks and fifteen 
 mining stocks. I advised the customers of my 
 office to buy them without delay at the current 
 market prices. Beginning on November 11 
 I advised all investors publicly as to these 
 stocks. I went further and offered to pur- 
 chase any and all of these stocks for investors 
 without commission of any sort for the service. 
 
 Why did I do this when I could not possibly 
 make a cent by doing it and the advertising 
 cost me thousands of dollars ? 
 
 There were two reasons. 
 
 I had set out, years before, with the fixed 
 policy of advising investors for their profit, 
 whether or not by this advice I made money 
 for myself. I had advised them to sell listed 
 stocks when the prices of listed stocks were too 
 high. It was my duty now to advise them to 
 buy listed stocks, when the prices were too low. 
 
 330 
 
SOUNDING THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 That was one reason. The other one was 
 neither philanthropic nor altruistic. It was 
 this — that it was good business for me to do 
 so. In the long run honesty is always not 
 only the best policy but the best paying policy. 
 It was to my business interest to maintain the 
 reputation I had gained of advising investors 
 wisely, even if, in doing so, I had to advise 
 them to buy securities from whose sale I 
 could not make a cent of profit instead of those 
 which were sold through my office. 
 
 So I advised the purchase of forty-five listed 
 stocks, and thousands of investors listened to 
 my advice to their great profit. 
 
 It would be dry reading if I were to repeat 
 that list of forty-five stocks on these pages. 
 But for that I would print here the names of 
 those securities, with the prices at which they 
 were selling when I advised their purchase, 
 and the prices at which they are selling as I 
 write these words. Suffice it for me to say 
 that there is not one of them which has not 
 advanced in price many dollars a share — that 
 the investor who followed my advice in those 
 days and goes to-day into the market to sell 
 his securities finds himself many hundreds of 
 dollars ahead as the result of taking my advice. 
 
 331 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Those who purchased for investment, pure 
 and simple, find themselves the possessors of 
 securities which are paying and will pay them 
 a high rate of interest on their investment. 
 
 Merely in passing let me mention two of 
 the forty-five stocks whose purchase I advised 
 in those dark days. One was Union Pacific, 
 which was selling at $100 per share when I 
 advised its purchase on November 11. It 
 has advanced to $165 per share. Another is 
 Wolverine Copper Mining Company. I ad- 
 vised investors to buy it at $105 per share. 
 It has advanced to $146 per share. 
 
 I may be excused, I know, for referring to 
 this matter of the value of the advice I gave 
 when so many others were predicting a still 
 lower market and many financial writers were 
 joining in the cry that the time was not yet 
 ripe for buying. When I was forced on the 
 20th day of February, 1908, to make an assign- 
 ment and went away in search of health, and 
 my enemies held what they fondly believed 
 was the post mortem examination of me and 
 my business, much publicity was given my 
 affairs. Of all the newspapers which printed 
 columns about me in those days — and many 
 of them should have known it, for the adver- 
 
 332 
 
SOUNDING THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 tisements giving the advice appeared in their 
 columns — I have not found one which referred 
 to this expensive campaign in behalf of 
 investors, conducted without money and with- 
 out price, whose results had been so profitable 
 to those that gave heed. 
 
 When financial writers said that Sugar was 
 going to $75, I loudly advised its purchase 
 at $93.50. Before Christmas it went to $100, 
 and afterwards to $136. When the pessimists 
 said Steel Preferred would go to $60, I pro- 
 claimed my belief that it was a bargain at 
 $84.38. It has since advanced in price to 
 
 $112. 
 
 Is it not a striking commentary on weak 
 human nature that when, during my absence, 
 the newspapers were printing columns about 
 my career as a financial agent, not one of 
 them chanced to mention this and scores of 
 similar instances? Especially in view of the 
 fact that this was true— while most of the 
 printed stories with which Lawson and his 
 assistants and his dupes provided them were 
 
 false. 
 
 The weeks passed. My office was busy 
 carrvino* out orders for these listed stocks, 
 which contained not a cent of profit for me. 
 
 333 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 My expenses ran on, at the rate of many 
 thousand dollars weekly. My creditors were 
 paid promptly. My debtors, for the most 
 part because of the money stringency, asked 
 for additional time. My resources shrank, 
 as I had foreseen they would from that bitter 
 hour of meditation on the day of the Knicker- 
 bocker suspension. 
 
 I began to work harder and to sleep less of 
 nights. There were periods of discourage- 
 ment new to me, and severe headaches that 
 left me nervous and exhausted. 
 
 I had no fear, as yet, that my business would 
 not weather the storm. My assets were so 
 vastly larger than my liabilities that I believed 
 I could continue at a loss for a year or more, 
 if necessary — and I felt positive that the 
 stringency would not last more than a few 
 months. I had no fear of personal difficulties. 
 
 Nor would I have had cause for fear but for 
 the sudden and treacherous outbreak of the 
 old attacks on me — this time carefully planned, 
 well carried out and insidious in their nature. 
 
 There was no just reason why my house 
 should ever have fallen into difficulties. On 
 the contrary, it should have made it stronger 
 than ever that in those days when panic raged 
 
 334 
 
SOUNDING THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 up and down the land I had been the first to 
 sound the bugle call to investors to assemble 
 around my standard and pluck the fruits of the 
 situation by buying good listed stocks when 
 they were selling at prices as absurdly low as 
 some of the former quotations had been 
 absurdly high. 
 
 335 
 
Chapter XXXIV 
 A CONVINCING TEST 
 
 THE first mutterings of the outbreak 
 came in the beginning of November, 
 immediately after the suspension of the 
 Boston Daily Tribune. For some time I was 
 unable to trace the cause, or even to be certain 
 that there was one definite cause for the vari- 
 ous attacks that centred on all the companies 
 whose securities I had offered for sale, but 
 most especially upon the King-Crowther Cor- 
 poration. 
 
 Rumors flew thick and fast about the King- 
 Crowther and my connection with it. It was 
 in business difficulties — it was about to go into 
 the hands of a receiver — the Post Office 
 authorities were investigating it — lawyers were 
 getting ready to file suits against it — it was a 
 well-known fact that the King-Crowther prop- 
 erties existed only on paper and that it 
 possessed no operating oil wells and owned no 
 lands either in Texas, Ohio or Indiana — these 
 were a few of the scores of yarns that, appar- 
 ently coming from nowhere, found themselves 
 
 336 
 
A CONVINCING TEST 
 
 being repeated in the mouths of thousands of 
 people. 
 
 Some of the stories were outrageous. All 
 of them were absurd. When the rumor 
 factory was working its hardest along these 
 lines, one of the young men in my advertising 
 department wrote a little jingle for circulation 
 merely about my office, where its humor would 
 be appreciated. I found a copy of it the 
 other day. It is still as good as it was then, 
 and I reprint it : 
 
 King-Crowther has no land or soil, 
 
 She never owned a well; 
 She never struck a flow of oil, 
 
 She has no goods to sell. 
 King-Crowther 's nothing but a bluff — 
 
 And yet it's quite complex 
 Why Standard Oil, which buys the stuff, 
 
 Should keep a-sending checks. 
 
 My friends, dropping into my office on 
 business or for a moment's chat, repeated the 
 rumors they had heard until I was fain to cry 
 out, begging them to desist. For it has been 
 well said that the truth may chase a lie "way 
 around the world and never catch it," and 
 there was no use in my denying the stories. 
 
 After a few days of this sort of thing I 
 
 337 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 determined that where there was so much 
 smoke there must be a fireman — that some- 
 body must be furnishing the coal to get up so 
 much steam. 
 
 I was unable to trace the stories absolutely. 
 Some of them seemed to emanate from Henry 
 Hovey Love, of whom I have written. Others 
 had their inception in various small brokerage 
 houses in State Street. I did not believe at 
 that moment that Lawson was behind them, 
 and I knew that Love did not have influence 
 enough to start them. What I did not know 
 until long afterward was that Love, in endeav- 
 oring to enlist the treacherous assistance of 
 one of my employees, had said he was employed 
 by Lawson, so far as the campaign against me 
 went. 
 
 As was intended, these industriously circu- 
 lated stories reached the ears of King-Crowther 
 stockholders, and I received letters asking 
 what foundation existed for this and that yarn. 
 Nearly every one closed his or her letter with 
 the query: "I hear that King-Crowther is not 
 worth ten dollars a share. What foundation 
 is there for this?" 
 
 iVn especially irritating letter along this line 
 came in one of the mails on November 21, and 
 
 338 
 
A CONVINCING TEST 
 
 on the spur of the moment I dictated an adver- 
 tisement which appeared in all the Boston 
 newspapers on November 22, in which I 
 settled, once and for all, the foundation for 
 these rumors. 
 
 I made a test, and a test whose conclusions 
 no one could question. I offered to buy all 
 the King-Crowther that should be offered me 
 during the following day at fifty-three dollars 
 per share, and to sell it at fifty-four dollars per 
 share. 
 
 In offering to do this I demonstrated my 
 confidence in the securitv as I could have done 
 in no other way. There was held in New Eng- 
 land alone — and therefore within reach of my 
 advertising of that day — stock which, sold at 
 that price, would net an enormous profit to 
 the holders and would cost me more than a 
 half- million dollars, had the holders seen fit to 
 offer it to me. In making the test, I was bank- 
 ing upon my knowledge of the worth of the 
 security and of the stockholders' general con- 
 fidence in it. 
 
 When the day's market had closed I sur- 
 veyed the result with conscious and justifiable 
 pride. 
 
 There had been offered me at fifty-three 
 
 339 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 dollars a total of one hundred and three shares, 
 which I had taken, paying cash. 
 
 Orders for three hundred and thirty-eight 
 shares at fifty-four dollars had been received. 
 
 In a word, the number of investors who 
 wished to buy King-Crowther at fifty-four was 
 more than three times as large as the number 
 of stockholders who desired to sell at fifty- 
 three. 
 
 With the publication of the facts regarding 
 this unique day's market, rumor seemed to 
 die. But malice was not dead, as events 
 proved; only temporarily baffled. 
 
 Then followed a month or more when my 
 enemies remained quiescent, at least appar- 
 ently. I continued to advise investment in 
 good listed stocks at the "bargain prices" that 
 obtained in the markets, and lent my services 
 and the services of my office to investors with- 
 out charge. I also continued, to a degree, my 
 personal King-Crowther market, clearing the 
 stock through my office at whatever price 
 could be agreed upon between buyers and 
 sellers, receiving bids and offers and publishing 
 them each day in the newspapers. 
 
 In connection with my purchases of listed 
 stocks for investors, at this time, I had exten- 
 
 340 
 
A CONVINCING TEST 
 
 sive dealings with a number of important stock 
 exchange houses in Boston. It was through 
 the associations thus formed that I came to 
 enter upon a campaign which, owing to 
 treachery and double-dealing on the part of 
 men whom I had supposed to be above such 
 practices, gave Thuggism and its High Priest 
 a chance to strike me a terrific blow. 
 
 341 
 
Chapter XXXV 
 PLANS— AND A PLANNER 
 
 IT WAS early in January, 1908, that 
 William D. Elwell, member of the Boston 
 Stock Exchange house of Wiggin & 
 Elwell, approached me with a suggestion that 
 I participate in a campaign which should 
 have as its purpose the advancing of the price 
 of stock of the Boston-Ely Mining Company 
 to the figure that he said he believed it was 
 worth. 
 
 During the month or two previous I had had 
 large transactions with Wiggin & Elwell, and I 
 had come to have great confidence in Elwell, 
 the member of the firm with whom I personally 
 dealt. He is a big, fine-looking young man, 
 of good family, clean reputation and straight- 
 forward, honest ways. 
 
 I had come to trust him, and he had come to 
 trust me. Each found in the other, apparently, 
 a man whose word was the equal of most men's 
 bond. 
 
 No better illustration of this can be shown 
 than in the fact that within a period of a few 
 
 342 
 
PLANS— AND A PLANNER 
 
 days we had dealings involving nearly two 
 hundred thousand dollars without the passing 
 of a single scrap of paper to bind either. 
 
 Therefore, when he called, soon after the 
 New Year, with a proposition that I under- 
 take an advertising campaign in behalf of the 
 Boston-Ely Mining Company, I listened to 
 him with attention, respect and confidence. 
 Whatever might be the outcome of my own 
 investigations, I felt that he believed what he 
 was saying to be truth. 
 
 The Boston-Ely Mining Company, whose 
 property is located at Ely, Nevada, had 
 recently passed through a reorganization, and 
 a directorate had been chosen which seemed 
 representative of the best and most con- 
 servative business management. Elwell was 
 one of the directors, and was the sales member 
 of the board — the company official authorized 
 to conduct the marketing of its securities. 
 His associates were men of note in New En&'- 
 land and the country. Read their names — it 
 will be a revelation to you in connection with 
 what I have to tell: 
 
 Charles H. Farnsworth, vice-president of the Quincy 
 Market Cold Storage Company of Boston, and a 
 director of the Fourth National Bank of Boston. 
 
 343 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 George E. Keith, president of the George E. Keith 
 Shoe Company of Brockton, a director of the City 
 Trust Company of Boston, and a director of the United 
 Shoe Machinery Corporation. 
 
 Arthur L. Robinson, head of the big house of Hosmer, 
 Robinson & Company, the largest grain dealers in 
 Boston. 
 
 Joseph M. Smith, president of the Boston Woven 
 Hose and Rubber Company. 
 
 S. Herbert Williams, a prominent mining engineer. 
 
 Jerome C. Smith, former secretary of the Boston 
 Suburban Street Railroad Company. 
 
 The Boston-Ely Mining Company was 
 incorporated for $2,000,000, divided into 
 200,000 shares of a par value of ten dollars. 
 There had been issued 165,000 shares, and the 
 stockholders, as Elwell told me and showed 
 me, numbered more than seven hundred. 
 
 The stock, which was traded in on the 
 Boston Curb Exchange, had been quoted as 
 high as $5.50 a share some time before. The 
 reorganization — and especially an assessment 
 that had been levied — had caused the price to 
 fall until, at the time when Elwell asked me to 
 interest myself in the company's securities, the 
 stock was selling on the market at $1.50 a 
 share. Elwell maintained — I believed then 
 and still believe with honest conviction — that 
 
 344 
 
PLANS— AND A PLANNER 
 
 the stock was actually worth at least five 
 dollars a share. He sought to enlist my sup- 
 port to place the merit of the security before 
 the public. He was very earnest, and he came 
 to see me several times about it. 
 
 "There is no man in touch with the invest- 
 ing public so well fitted to take up this matter 
 as you," he said to me on the occasion of our 
 first talk about Boston-Ely. "The investors 
 have confidence in you — justly, I believe. 
 You have their ear. If you tell them Boston- 
 Ely is worthy of their support, they will believe 
 you. The price of the stock, now but $1.50 — 
 will go to $5 and more. Once there, it will 
 stay there." 
 
 "You understand I would not advise this 
 unless I were assured it represented a good 
 investment," I said. 
 
 "I do — and you may be assured it does," 
 he replied. "The properties at Ely, Nevada, 
 are extremely valuable. In fact," he lowered 
 his voice, " their actual value is known to but 
 very few men. I am one of them. " 
 
 " Why do you say the price will remain up 
 if it is advanced?" 
 
 "Because the stock is worth the higher 
 price. Listen, Mr. King. The stock is down 
 
 345 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 now because an assessment has been levied. 
 The assessment has been paid. The company, 
 which was heavily in debt, is now out of its 
 difficulties. It has a large working capital 
 free and clear in the treasury. Competent 
 and trustworthy engineers, engaged for that 
 purpose by careful and cautious business men 
 of Boston and New England, have been to Ely 
 and have made a painstaking and expert 
 inspection of the property. As a result of their 
 report such men as George E. Keith, Charles 
 H. Farnsworth, Arthur Robinson, Joseph 
 Smith and Jerome C. Smith have put their 
 money in." 
 
 "How much?" I asked. 
 
 "Large amounts. They bought their stock 
 at from $2.50 to $3 a share. There isn't a 
 director that could sell at the present market 
 except at a great loss — nor one that would sell 
 at any price under seven or eight dollars if he 
 could." 
 
 " I'll look into the matter, " I told him. 
 
 I made a careful investigation. It appeared 
 that all the things he had told me were true, 
 so far as investigation could determine. Of 
 course I could not ascertain the truth of his 
 information that a few men knew the proper- 
 
 346 
 
PLANS— AND A PLANNER 
 
 ties to be worth much more than the public 
 believed. I had to accept his word for it. I 
 asked him about that during a later interview. 
 
 "The fact is this," he said. "During the 
 past few days certain confidential reports from 
 the superintendent at the mine have indicated 
 that we are about to open a rich vein. If this 
 is true — and I have no reason to doubt it — 
 the stock will become worth six or seven, per- 
 haps ten, dollars a share, as soon as the news 
 gets out." 
 
 "That would be a pretty big jump from a 
 dollar and a half," I said. 
 
 "It has sold for five and a half," he argued. 
 "It would never have gone much below that 
 but for the reorganization and the necessary 
 levying of an assessment." 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 "See here, Mr. King," said Elwell. "No 
 one else but you outside the board of direc- 
 tors has this information that I have given 
 you. If you will take hold and advise 
 investors to buy Boston-Ely — if you will boost 
 the market — it will redound to your credit 
 more in the days to come than any advice you 
 ever gave." 
 
 My investigations continued to bear fruit 
 
 347 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 in good reports. Finally I became convinced 
 that Elwell was right. I gave careful con- 
 sideration to his proposition, which was this: 
 
 An original stockholder, who had paid 
 seventy-five cents a share for his stock, had 
 been unable to meet the assessment and had 
 offered Elwell his fifty thousand shares at 
 seventy-five cents. Elwell had bought the 
 stock at that figure and had himself paid fifteen 
 cents assessment on each share. He offered to 
 give me a thirty days " call" on thirty thousand 
 shares at seventy-five cents — in other words, 
 to allow me to purchase the shares at that 
 price at any time within thirty days — if I 
 would conduct an advertising campaign in the 
 stock, all expenses of the campaign to be paid 
 by me. 
 
 When I had completed my investigation of 
 the property, the officers and the condition of 
 the company, I agreed with Elwell to conduct 
 the campaign. 
 
 As I have written, I had on many occasions 
 had extensive dealings with Elwell, where 
 transactions involving hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars had been carried out without the 
 scratch of a pen between us. I therefore did 
 not feel it necessary to call in my attorney to 
 
 348 
 
PLANS— AND A PLANNER 
 
 have a complicated legal agreement signed, 
 sealed and witnessed. 
 
 We definitely came to an understanding 
 that I should advertise extensively, advising 
 the purchase of Boston-Ely at the market. 
 He assured me that the directors had no desire 
 to sell their own stock, that they would be 
 glad to see a price more commensurate with 
 the value of the security — that they would 
 welcome such a boom. 
 
 He gave me, in writing, the "call" he had 
 promised — an agreement to deliver to me, on 
 demand, at any time within thirty days, the 
 whole or any part of thirty thousand shares 
 of stock of the Boston-Ely Mining Company 
 at seventy-five cents a share. 
 
 I believed the stock of the Boston-Ely would 
 go to five dollars, and stay there. I had no 
 intention — and told Elwell so — of taking ad- 
 vantage of his "call" until the stock had gone 
 to five dollars or higher. 
 
 You can see what this meant to me. I had 
 the privilege of buying the stock for $22,500. 
 If I sold it at five dollars my receipts would be 
 $150,000, a gross profit of $127,500. It was 
 reasonable to suppose, after my advertising 
 bills had been deducted, that I would have 
 
 349 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 made a net profit upon the transaction of at 
 least $115,000. At the same time the invest- 
 ors who had taken my advice would have 
 made money, viewed from either an invest- 
 ment or speculative standpoint. 
 
 Here was the first opportunity that had come 
 to me to add to my own resources since the 
 panic. In accepting it I believed I was aiding 
 investors to buy a good security at an extremely 
 low price. 
 
 I put the "call" in my pocket and fired the 
 first gun in the Boston-Ely campaign on the 
 morning of Saturday, January 11. 
 
 350 
 
Chapter XXXVI 
 THE WHIRL OF THE MARKET 
 
 IT WAS originally planned to begin the 
 campaign in the first part or middle 
 of the week of January 12, but on 
 Friday, toward the close of the market, 
 there developed a slight upward swing in the 
 stock which made me think that some talk of 
 the arrangements might have leaked. It 
 could not have been from my office, for at that 
 moment I had not taken even my advertising 
 manager into my confidence. 
 
 However, I called Elwell on the telephone, 
 summoned him to my office, and told him I 
 had decided to start the advertising the follow- 
 ing morning, as I wished investors who fol- 
 lowed my advice to have opportunity to buy 
 at the very lowest possible price. 
 
 On Saturday morning, January 11, there 
 appeared in all the Boston papers, over my 
 signature, the advice to buy Boston-Ely at any 
 price under five dollars. On that day and 
 the two following, I took the public into my 
 confidence — told them what I had learned 
 
 351 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 about the company, the properties and the 
 stock — and assured them of my belief that the 
 stock would go to at least five dollars and 
 would not thereafter decline in price. 
 
 As was my custom in those days in all listed 
 stock transactions which I advised, I offered 
 to handle orders through my office without 
 commission for the service. The result was 
 that, at the opening of business, I had in hand 
 a great number of buying orders. 
 
 The campaign was a great surprise to me. 
 I had never before advised the purchase of a 
 curb stock. I had no knowledge of how the 
 public would follow my advice. Therefore, 
 as I say, I was surprised when, soon after the 
 opening of the market, word came to me that 
 the scenes on the curb rivaled any that had 
 ever been witnessed there. Brokers were 
 shouting and struggling in their endeavor to 
 fill the orders that were coming in by mail, 
 telephone and telegraph. The price climbed 
 steadily and surely upward. 
 
 I had my own broker on the curb to execute 
 the orders that were sent through my office. 
 He bought at the lowest possible price the 
 shares I received orders for. He did not buy 
 or sell a single share for me, nor did I buy 
 
 352 
 
THE WHIRL OF THE MARKET 
 
 or sell a single share through any broker. 
 
 During that day 39,995 shares of Boston- 
 Ely were bought and sold on the Boston Curb. 
 The lowest price at which the stock sold 
 was $2.25 per share. The highest was $2.88. 
 This price was reached about half an hour 
 before the closing time. Immediately after- 
 ward there was a rush of selling orders, and 
 the price went down to $2.75. A great many 
 of these orders came from speculators who had 
 bought in the morning and wished to take their 
 profits rather than carry the stock over Sunday. 
 
 Saturday is a short day on the stock ex- 
 change and curb. The market closed at noon, 
 with the price $1.25 higher than at closing 
 time the day before and sales aggregating 
 practically forty thousand shares — in two 
 hours. 
 
 As I dictated my Sunday advertisement, I 
 felt that the campaign was a success. 
 
 353 
 
Chapter XXXVII 
 LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 I WENT to my office on Sunday, con- 
 trary to my usual custom, and while there 
 was called on the telephone by a friend. 
 He wanted to see me in a hurry, and came 
 immediately to the office. 
 
 "Look out for Lawson," he said, the 
 moment he entered the door. "He's after 
 
 you." 
 
 "After me?" I replied, incredulously. 
 "What makes you think that?" 
 
 "I don't think it. I know it. He's crazy. 
 He's got all his lines out and he's going to come 
 down on you hard. I've got it straight." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "I can't tell you. But it's authentic. He's 
 after you." 
 
 "What if he is?" I laughed. "It don't 
 strike me he can hurt anybody. What is he 
 going to do ? Advise people not to buy Boston- 
 Ely ? Because if he does he'll get his trouble 
 for his pains. The public has ceased taking 
 his advice — long ago." 
 
 354 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 " Something worse than that. I don't know 
 what it is, but it's bad. He's fairly tearing 
 his hair because you have gone into the curb 
 market just at this time." 
 
 "Why just now?" 
 
 " I don't know for sure, but I think he had 
 a campaign of some sort coming on this week, 
 and you have got in ahead of him. " 
 
 I refused to take the matter seriously in my 
 friend's presence, but I got in touch with 
 Elwell at the earliest possible moment to learn 
 if he knew anything about it. He was ignorant 
 of any plan to stop our campaign, nor did 
 he believe any scheme could be successful, 
 whether it were worked by Lawson or any- 
 body else. 
 
 "It is all right, I'm sure, Mr. King," he 
 said. "It was a short day, yesterday, and 
 your advertising did not get all over New 
 England. Unless I have misjudged the follow- 
 ing you have, Boston-Ely will go above three 
 dollars to-morrow, in spite of all anybody can 
 do. Of course, Lawson or any other specu- 
 lator may attempt to hammer the stock down, 
 but they can't do that except by selling. And 
 they have got to buy at the market or else 
 sell short — and if any of your enemies sell 
 
 355 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 short they'll play into your hands, for the 
 holders won't sell them the stock to deliver 
 except at the market price." 
 
 I had received no warning from Lawson 
 that he wanted to renew our old difficulty, 
 but I could not disabuse my mind of the idea 
 that my friend might be right, for I knew 
 Lawson of old. 
 
 Therefore I cannot say I was tremendously 
 surprised, on taking up my newspaper on 
 Monday morning, to read, directly across the 
 page from my own advertisement calling 
 attention to the Boston-Ely boom, the follow- 
 ing " open letter," with Lawson 's name in big 
 type at the bottom of it : 
 
 John B. Moran, Esq., 
 
 District Attorney for Suffolk County. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Herewith I call your attention to a glaring and 
 extensive swindle which is being pulled off within your 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 Certain persons secure all the capital stock of a cor- 
 poration. 
 
 They then enter into agreement with certain other 
 persons to advertise false and misleading statements 
 concerning this stock; amongst others, the statement 
 that all who purchase will be enabled immediately after 
 
 356 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 such purchase to resell at from 300 to 1000 times the 
 price paid. The pay of the second party is the money 
 spent in advertising and a portion of the swag resulting 
 from the fraud. 
 
 After the advertising appears, reputable Curb brokers 
 are employed to " buy" and " sell" large amounts of the 
 stock. Such purchases and sales are all fictitious, 
 although not known to be so by the brokers making 
 them, as the brokers are not informed that other 
 brokers have been employed to sell what they buy. 
 These fictitious purchases and sales are made at advanc- 
 ing prices. This part of the swindle is of easy accom- 
 plishment, because no one can prevent the increase of 
 price, as no one but the conspirators has any stock to 
 offer for sale. 
 
 After a few days of such fraud-made activity and 
 advance of price, to which the second party, in advertise- 
 ment, calls the attention of the public as proof that the 
 public are really buying and advancing the price, the 
 first party unloads great quantities of the stock upon 
 innocent investors at any price obtainable. The stock 
 then disappears from the market, and all the money 
 invested in it is lost to those who have been thus 
 tricked into believing they were engaged in a legitimate 
 business transaction. 
 
 Investigation by your office will show that the people 
 of New England have been defrauded during the past 
 few months of over $3,000,000. In one stock alone they 
 have been parted from $1,200,000 at from $65 to $100 
 per share. This stock yesterday sold at $4 per share, 
 and after such sale could not be sold at any price. This 
 
 357 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 stock is worthless. It was known to be worthless at the 
 time it was unloaded upon innocent investors. 
 
 Saturday, January 11, a new stock was selected. 
 
 The records of the Curb transactions will show you 
 that previous to the appearance of the advertisement 
 on this stock there had been no transactions. 
 
 Saturday's record will show you there were over 
 38,000 shares "bought" and "sold" and that the price 
 "advanced" nearly 100 per cent. Yesterday's news- 
 papers contained large advertisements stating that this 
 activity is proof of the public's great interest in the stock 
 and proof that it is to further advance 500 to 800 per 
 cent. 
 
 I will, if you desire, furnish your office with evidence 
 of the following facts : 
 
 Upon the appearance of this new fraud, and for the 
 purpose of supplying your office with proof of the 
 fraudulent nature of this new attempt, I instructed rep- 
 utable Stock Exchange and Curb brokers to buy and 
 sell this stock. They went through the form of buying 
 and selling for me over 30,000 shares of the 38,000; 
 the balance of the transactions, with the exception of a 
 few shares, were likewise fictitious, that is, no money 
 really passed in the transactions other than that paid to 
 the brokers as their commission. In my own transac- 
 tions not a dollar other than the brokers' commission 
 was involved. 
 
 I respectfully ask you to investigate this outrageous 
 swindle and others which have preceded it and others 
 now being formulated. I assure you, if you will do 
 this, I will supply you with all the evidence necessary, 
 
 358 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 even to the proposition made to me by the parties 
 interested, to the effect that if I would allow the scheme 
 to proceed I could have my price. 
 
 In making this request I would call your attention to 
 these facts: 
 
 There is in Boston at the present time a horde of pro- 
 fessional crooks who have already swindled the public 
 out of vast sums ; 
 
 The money losses yearly through these swindles in 
 Boston alone are hundreds of times greater than the 
 aggregate municipal graft, even if it is all rumor tells of. 
 
 The suffering resulting from this class of fraud is 
 many, many times more terrible than municipal graft 
 or even bucket-shop swindling, for the victims are largely 
 workmen and workwomen, clerks, servants, widows and 
 orphans, who are enticed into risking their little all in 
 the hope of securing the additional income promised, 
 which, it should be unnecessary for me to say to you, 
 has never in a single instance materialized. 
 
 The misery and suffering which has resulted from this 
 class of fraud in 1907 is many times greater than the 
 combined misery and suffering arising from all the 
 abortion, social evil, gambling, bucket shops and 
 money sharkeries in Suffolk County. 
 
 In passing upon my request bear in mind: It is not 
 made by one who must depend upon rumor or guess for 
 his facts, but by one who knows the whole miserable 
 business in all of its despicable workings as well as all 
 those engaged in it, so that he can lay complete personal 
 knowledge evidence before you. 
 
 P. S. — I would suggest that you have your plain 
 
 359 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 clothes men in the crowd at the opening of trading on 
 the Curb at 10 o'clock this morning, January 13. If 
 you decide to do this and will notify me before 9.30 I 
 will have a corps of active Curb brokers to assist your 
 officers in securing evidence. 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 THOMAS W. LAWSON. 
 Boston, January 13, 1908. 
 
 I started to read the advertisement with some 
 perturbation, remembering Lawson's old skill 
 at market-rigging and realizing that he might 
 be able to injure the campaign. I continued 
 to read it with growing amusement. I finished 
 it with real delight. Even to-day it impresses 
 me as a most grotesque bit of humor. That 
 is why I republish every word of it — not only 
 that the reader may see how Lawson broke his 
 truce, but that he may enjoy the quaint, naive 
 statements contained in the open letter, even 
 as I did that morning. 
 
 Leaving aside the bare misstatements of 
 fact regarding the Boston-Ely campaign which 
 permeated the advertisement from beginning 
 to end, the most striking thing about the letter 
 was that the methods it described as being pur- 
 sued are the exact methods used by Lawson 
 
 360 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 himself in his own campaigns. The next 
 thing that will impress the reader is that Law- 
 son claimed that the 38,000 shares sold were 
 "wash sales" and as such were fraudulent — 
 and in the next breath declared that he him- 
 self had been responsible for 30,000 shares, 
 and that all his were "washed." 
 
 It was as though he had said: "A terrible 
 crime has been committed. I committed 
 the greater part of it. Therefore I am com- 
 petent to give you evidence regarding those 
 who committed the remainder." 
 
 In the fourth paragraph of his letter, Law- 
 son cries out against "wash" sales in which 
 brokers have not been informed that one has 
 been ordered to sell and another to buy. By 
 a peculiar coincidence, there appears in 
 to-day's Boston newspapers (August 31, 1908), 
 just as I am writing this chapter, a statement 
 signed by Lawson in excuse of the manipula- 
 tion of which he has just been guilty in con- 
 nection with his "National Stock" blind pool. 
 Read the following, and compare it with what 
 he wrote to District Attorney Moran in that 
 second paragraph: 
 
 "I have never, as is public knowledge in Wall and 
 State Streets, done business with any man or house who 
 
 361 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 offered to break Stock Exchange rules. I have given 
 manipulative orders to Stock Exchange brokers to the 
 extent of millions upon millions of shares, but never in a 
 single case have I asked or countenanced the proposition 
 that we ' wash ' stock. 
 
 " My manipulation has been the giving of an order to 
 one broker to buy and without his knowledge to another 
 broker to sell, paying full commissions both for selling 
 and buying and taking all the chances of either losing 
 the stock I offered through the selling broker or buying 
 all the stock bid for by my buying broker. If all manip- 
 ulative Stock Exchange business was done in this way 
 there would be no scandal." 
 
 It was a weak letter — a laughable letter. I 
 smiled at its humor, even while I felt hot 
 waves of indignation at the treachery with 
 w T hich Lawson, after my daily newspaper had 
 been suspended, after my resources had 
 shrunk, after I was in a less advantageous 
 position to prosecute him as I had before been 
 about to do, had fired upon me under a flag of 
 truce. 
 
 I knew that such a letter could have no 
 effect upon the market, for several reasons. 
 First, it was so glaringly mendacious that its 
 words could not affect any investors who 
 had been reading my advertisements — and its 
 effect on others was unimportant. Second, 
 
 362 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 Lawson was so thoroughly discredited in the 
 eyes of the public that his letters, whether to 
 the District Attorney or some other, aroused no 
 feelings other than curiosity and amusement. 
 
 As reports began to come in from "the 
 Street," that morning, I found that the open 
 letter had made the same impression upon 
 brokers throughout the city that it had upon 
 me. They regarded it as a huge joke. 
 
 None of them expected it to affect the market 
 to any degree; not one of them was advising 
 his customers to sell on account of it; all were 
 preparing for a big buying day in Boston-Ely. 
 As they gathered, prior to the opening of the 
 Curb at ten o'clock, jokes were hurled back 
 and forth. "Look out for the plain clothes 
 men!" " Has Lawson got his corps of brokers 
 here yet?" "Who's going to wash 30,000 
 shares for Lawson to-day?" 
 
 By telephone from Boston and surrounding 
 cities orders came into my office, and into the 
 offices of brokers throughout the city, to buy 
 Boston-Ely. By letter and by telegraph from 
 distant parts of New England came similar 
 orders. The market opened about where it 
 closed the Saturday before, and soon advanced 
 to $3.25. 
 
 363 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Something like ten thousand shares had 
 been traded in when, at about noon, Elwell 
 called me on the telephone. His voice was 
 excited. 
 
 " Have you any objection to my loaning Tom 
 Lawson ten thousand shares of Boston-Ely?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "What!" I cried. I could not believe my 
 ears. 
 
 "Tom Lawson wants to borrow ten thou- 
 sand shares of Boston-Ely. May I loan them 
 to him?" 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "He will pay well for the accommodation." 
 
 "And batter the market with it. No. You 
 tell Mr. Lawson if he wants any Boston-Ely 
 stock that he can buy it in the open market at 
 the market price. I'm surprised you asked 
 me such a question, Mr. Elwell." 
 
 "Oh, I didn't think you would agree. I 
 merely passed the request along." 
 
 "How is it looking?" 
 
 "All right. There's a big line of selling 
 just beginning, though." 
 Who is doing it?" 
 
 I don't know. Not the old stockholders, 
 I'm sure. They're satisfied to hold their stock 
 
 364 
 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 for a big advance. I think it must be short 
 selling." 
 
 "If it is, whoever is doing it is a certain 
 candidate for the 'in bad' club, isn't he?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I should think so," was Elwell's reply. 
 
 Ten minutes later the price began to sag. 
 My own curb broker talked hurriedly to me 
 on the 'phone. 
 
 "Lawson's brokers are selling Boston-Ely 
 in blocks of hundreds, " he said. " Shall I buy 
 any more than we have office orders for?" 
 
 "Not a share more," I said. "When they 
 get through selling let's see them get the stock 
 to deliver." 
 
 "That sounds good to me," said the broker, 
 and hurried back to his place on the curb. 
 
 Somebody sold close to ten thousand shares 
 between then and the close of the market, at 
 three o'clock. Under the pressure of this 
 heavy selling the price went to $2.50 and then 
 slowly rose, despite the frantic efforts of the 
 Lawson coterie of brokers to keep it down, 
 to $2.81, at which price the market closed. 
 
 Elwell appeared at my office soon after 
 three o'clock. He was showing the strain of 
 the day, and appeared to be worried. 
 
 365 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "I don't just like the attitude of one or two 
 of our directors," he said, "and I'm afraid 
 I'll have to ask you not to mention the names 
 of the directorate in to-morrow's advertise- 
 ment." 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, nothing. Merely ultra-conservatism, 
 I gather. But several of them feel uneasy 
 about so much publicity. I think it would be 
 a good idea to leave their names out of it." 
 
 "Very well. I shall not use their names 
 again. Who was selling in the market this 
 afternoon?" 
 
 "Some of it may have been traders, and 
 some of it profit-taking on the part of old stock- 
 holders. Most of it, though, was Lawson, 
 I think." 
 
 "Did he get that loan of ten thousand 
 shares ?" 
 
 "Not from me, and I don't know anybody 
 else that could loan it to him." 
 
 "Then you think he sold short." 
 
 "I don't know. If he did he is in trouble, 
 for I believe there will be a rebound to-morrow. 
 He can't keep selling short forever." 
 
 The returns for the day came in. There 
 had been bought and sold 21,091 shares of 
 
 366 
 
LAWSON REDIVIVUS 
 
 Boston-Ely at from $2.50 to $3.25. I felt that 
 the stock had withstood the battering very 
 creditably, and as I firmly believed in the 
 intrinsic worth of the security I had no 
 uneasiness regarding the outcome. 
 
 My peace of mind was added to when news 
 came in that the official low price for the day 
 had been decided to be $2.81— the $2.50 
 quotation having been merely a "wash" trans- 
 action between two Lawson brokers. 
 
 367 
 
Chapter XXXVIII 
 ENTER THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY 
 
 THAT evening a friend who was in close 
 touch with things in the business world 
 brought me some very disquieting in- 
 formation. 
 
 "I happen to know," he said, "that all 
 kinds of pressure are being put upon the 
 directors of the Boston-Ely to get them to 
 throw you overboard." 
 
 "I have no agreement with the directors," 
 I replied. 
 
 "Well, I don't know anything about that, 
 but I'm told they have had no peace of mind 
 to-day — that their 'phones have been ringing 
 from morning until night and they have been 
 asked why they allowed you, a sensational 
 advertiser, to handle a campaign for their 
 company." 
 
 "That's annoying, undoubtedly," I agreed, 
 " but I fail to see just what effect it will 
 have — particularly as I have to-day agreed 
 not to print their names any more." 
 
 " Wait until I tell you who has been working 
 
 368 
 
ENTER THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY 
 
 the telephone scheme,' ' said my friend. "It 
 is Burton — Dick Burton — the chap who used 
 to be Lawson's secretary and who is now — 
 nominally at least — in business for himself." 
 
 "That's no more than was to be expected." 
 
 "I'm told he has succeeded in getting one 
 or two of the directors uneasy, " said my friend. 
 
 I became impatient. "What of it?" I 
 demanded. " What could they do ? " 
 
 'They could disclaim any responsibility for 
 your statements." 
 
 "I haven't credited them with any respon- 
 sibility for anything I've said." 
 
 ' Well, I don't know. But remember, King, 
 Lawson is fighting you again. His advertise- 
 ment this morning fell flat. He is in a rage — 
 the whole Street knows that. He won't stop 
 anywhere." 
 
 The morning brought forth another move 
 in the campaign. It was the most unexpected 
 — the most astounding — that I have ever 
 heard of in connection with an attempt to 
 "bear" the price of a stock. 
 
 The District Attorney replied to Lawson. 
 
 This was a development that the wildest 
 scare-monger could not have expected. On 
 the face of it, Lawson's advertisement had 
 
 369 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 been merely a move, and a desperate one, in 
 an attempt to batter down the price of a stock 
 and discredit me and my office with investors. 
 It had been glaringly false, as well as absurd. 
 No one had taken it seriously; it was the last 
 thing to be expected that an attorney astute 
 enough to hold the position of chief pros- 
 ecuting officer of Suffolk County would pay 
 attention to it. Furthermore, it was common 
 knowledge that all the practices of which Law- 
 son falsely accused me in his letter were 
 practices of which he himself was a past-master. 
 Even had I been guilty of all the things he 
 charged me with it would have been merely a 
 case of the pot — ebony-hued in the sight of 
 all men — calling the kettle black. 
 
 In common with the rest of business 
 Boston, I had not expected District Attorney 
 Moran to pay any attention to the Lawson 
 letter, other, perhaps, than to grin sardonically 
 and appreciate it as a choice bit of humor. 
 I was therefore dumbfounded when he re- 
 plied, and allowed Lawson to print his letter 
 in a big advertisement. He addressed him as 
 "Honorable Thomas W. Lawson" — Heaven 
 save the mark! — and he thanked him for 
 " exposing offenses. " 
 
 370 
 
ENTER THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY 
 
 Lawson headed his advertisement, that 
 Tuesday morning, in great, black type, " Stock 
 Swindling." Here is the District Attorney's 
 letter, which appeared in Lawson's space and 
 for the publication of which Lawson paid. 
 The italics are mine: 
 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
 Office of District Attorney, 
 
 Boston. 
 
 January 13, 1908. 
 
 Hon. Thomas W. Lawson, 
 
 Dear Sir: Your communication, a copy of which is 
 printed in the morning papers, at hand. 
 
 I have arranged to leave Boston for a month or two 
 to-morrow or the next day. My assistants, Mr. Mc- 
 Gettrick and Mr. Dwyer, are at present engaged in pre- 
 paring a Chinese murder case which goes to trial on the 
 20th of this month and will take probably three or four 
 weeks' time. My other assistant, Mr. Isaacs, is con- 
 ducting routine cases in the regular session, and will 
 continue to do so during the month. 
 
 Because of the importance of the information conveyed 
 by your communication to me, I have personally 
 retained Mr. Grenville S. MacFarland, attorney-at-law, 
 and directed him to confer with your attorney and you 
 to-day and from time to time henceforth, and under 
 the direction of Mr. Dwyer, my assistant, to take such 
 action as may be necessary to secure complete evidence of 
 the offenses exposed by you and to prepare the case for 
 
 371 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 presentation by Mr. Dwyer to the grand jury when it 
 next sits. 
 
 Regretting exceedingly that the condition of my health 
 necessitates my immediate departure from Boston, and 
 that I am thus deprived of devoting personal attention 
 to the subject matter of your communication, I am 
 
 Most sincerelv yours, 
 (Signed) JOHN B. MORAN, 
 
 District Attorney. 
 
 In the face of this letter, the most remark- 
 able, I believe, that ever issued from the office 
 of a District Attorney under similar circum- 
 stances, the stock of the Boston-Ely Mining 
 Company opened that morning at $3 a share, 
 and notwithstanding desperate hammering 
 on the part of the Lawson brokers, advanced 
 to $3.50 within less than an hour. 
 
 372 
 
Chapter XXXIX 
 AN UNEXPECTED STAB 
 
 LAWSON'S grotesque letter to Moran 
 had failed to arouse any feeling except 
 merriment. His frenzied short selling 
 had failed to hammer down the price of the 
 stock. Even this letter from the District At- 
 torney, taking his charges as seriously as 
 though they had been made by an honest man 
 in good faith and in the interest of public pol- 
 icy, did not affect the price. 
 
 Early that forenoon I learned that Richard 
 J. Burton and other Lawson assistants were 
 laboring with the directors of the Boston-Ely 
 Company. They were working principally 
 by indirection, naturally — it was not probable 
 that the directors would pay attention had 
 they done otherwise. I was told that every 
 business friend of Lawson who could be im- 
 pressed into the service was calling up the 
 directors and asking them about the campaign. 
 
 Soon after eleven o'clock I heard a rumor 
 that the Boston-Ely directors were about to 
 meet, and that there was a plan on foot 
 
 373 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 whereby they were to depress the price of the 
 stock. This seemed inconceivable, but I 
 hastened to call Elwell on the telephone at his 
 office. They said he was absent, but gave me 
 another telephone number, and on calling it I 
 got him to the 'phone. I quickly told him 
 what I had heard. His voice was shaking. 
 
 " We are in session now, " he said. " I don't 
 know what will be done, but I'm afraid some 
 statement will be issued which will injure the 
 campaign." 
 
 "Do you mean that the directors of your 
 company will deliberately ' bear ' their own 
 stock?" I demanded. 
 
 "I'm afraid so," he replied. "I'm doing 
 the best I can to head it off. ,, 
 
 "What is the matter?" I asked. "Isn't 
 the stock all that you claimed for it ? Haven't 
 the discoveries been made that you told me 
 of? Are there not more than seven hundred 
 stockholders on your books, many of whom 
 paid more than $5 a share for their stock?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. That's all true." 
 
 "Don't the other directors know it?" 
 
 "Yes. They know it." 
 
 " Then how can they honestly take part in a 
 scheme to depress their own stock?" 
 
 374 
 
AN UNEXPECTED STAB 
 
 "I'm doing the best I can to stop it." 
 
 I exploded with indignation. " Doing the 
 best you can!" I exclaimed. " If you do what 
 you should you will not only protest against 
 any such action, but you will tell them that 
 your resignation as a director takes effect upon 
 the issuing of any letter by them to 'bear' the 
 stock, and you will further tell them that you 
 will at once join hands with me in exposing the 
 whole dirty business." 
 
 " I'll do all I can. I've got to go back now, " 
 said El well. 
 
 While this meeting was in progress, and just 
 before the directors voted to issue a statement, 
 my curb broker purchased, for customers of 
 my office, several large blocks of Boston-Ely 
 stock at from $3 to $3.25. To guard against 
 Lawson's short selling, he insisted that de- 
 livery of the certificates should be made before 
 the close of the business day and the broker 
 of whom he bought agreed to this. Bear this 
 fact in mind. 
 
 At noon the Boston-Ely directors adjourned 
 and issued a statement, signed by the secretary, 
 which was at once published in the financial 
 newspapers and sent out on the curb ticker. 
 It was as unique a statement in its way as had 
 
 375 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 been the District Attorney's letter, printed 
 
 in the morning papers. It read, the italics 
 
 being mine: 
 
 The directors of the Boston-Ely Mining Company 
 greatly deplore the unwarranted and unfortunate manip- 
 ulation to which the stock of the company has recently 
 been subjected. We regret that the stock has been 
 made the target of so much spectacular notoriety. 
 There have been no recent developments of consequence at 
 the mine, and we hope that the unusual activity in the 
 stock may cease and that no further attempt to advance 
 its price may be made until better warranted by actual 
 results at the property. 
 
 I at once telephoned El well. 'I wash my 
 hands absolutely of the Boston-Ely stock," 
 I said. "And when the market has closed 
 to-day I want you to come to see me. I've 
 got a number of things to say to you." 
 
 I instructed my curb broker to buy no more 
 Boston-Ely. Other brokers followed my 
 example. Before the market closed that day 
 Boston-Ely, which had been at $3.50 in the 
 morning, sold at $1.50. 
 
 It was just before five o'clock that the large 
 blocks of stock bought through my personal 
 curb broker while the Boston-Ely directors 
 were in session formulating their ''bear" 
 letter were delivered at my office. 
 
 376 
 
AN UNEXPECTED STAB 
 
 My assistant office manager receipted for 
 the package of certificates and idly turned 
 them over to see if they were properly endorsed. 
 The name that he read on the backs was such 
 as to send him up from his chair as though on a 
 spring, and he did not stop to rap upon my 
 door as he rushed into my office and laid the 
 certificates on the desk. 
 
 "Look at that name! There's the story!" 
 He cried. 
 
 I stared at the autograph, which appeared 
 over and over again on many of the certificates. 
 It was a name I had heard many times in the 
 last few days. 
 
 The certificates were issued in the name of and 
 endorsed by Charles H. Farnsworth. 
 
 377 
 
Chapter XL 
 A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 WHILE I still stared incredulously at the 
 name, one of my clerks entered, saying: 
 "Mr. Elwell to see you, Mr. King." 
 
 "Show him in," I said, and my assistant 
 office manager withdrew. Elwell came in 
 hurriedly. His face was white. There were 
 lines about his eyes. He looked as though he, 
 too, had passed a bad day. 
 
 Neither of us smiled or wasted time in per- 
 functory greetings. 'Well?" I said, I fear 
 without much courtesy. 
 
 "I did the best I could, Mr. King," he said, 
 nervously. "I couldn't stop the directors 
 from passing that resolution." 
 
 " Did you protest as strongly as you could ?" 
 
 "I certainly did. I did everything in my 
 power to prevent that resolution being passed. " 
 
 "Did you tell them you would not be a 
 party to any such dirty work — that you would 
 resign if they passed the resolution — that you 
 would leave them and join hands with me in 
 exposing the whole tricky deal?" 
 
 378 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 "No, I didn't go quite as far as that." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Now, see here, Mr. King," said Elwell. 
 "I've acted in good faith in this whole matter. 
 I believed when we went into it that it would be 
 a successful campaign. I believed the stock 
 would go to over five dollars, and stay there. 
 You know why I believed it — because of the 
 inside information I had as to conditions at 
 the mine. I had no idea the other directors 
 would take this attitude." 
 
 "Why did they?" 
 
 "From reasons of ultra-conservatism, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "They knew all the facts about the value 
 of the property that you told me?" 
 
 "Yes. Certainly." 
 
 "And in the face of that they issued this 
 statement to-day to deliberately 'bear' their 
 own stock — the stock that they, as directors, 
 should do their best to hold at a fair and 
 proper price — the stock that they themselves 
 paid more than $2.50 a share for. They de- 
 liberately lied over their signatures as directors 
 as to the developments at the mines, did they ? 
 They said they hoped the unusual activity 
 might cease. Why? Why? Was their 
 
 379 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 scheme to keep the price down until they could 
 shake out the very stockholders who bought 
 on their recommendation? Or did they sell 
 their own stock and then 'bear' the market 
 with that outrageous official statement so that 
 they could buy in again at the depreciated 
 price r 
 
 "Now, Mr. King," protested Elwell. 
 'That's going too far. I feel certain none of 
 our directors would do that." 
 
 "You do, eh? How about Mr. Charles H. 
 Farnsworth, director of Boston-Ely, and also 
 a director of the Fourth National Bank?" 
 
 "His reasons for opposing the advertising 
 campaign were undoubtedly that he didn't 
 wish, as a conservative banker, to have his 
 name mixed in such a matter. He said so." 
 
 "He said so, did he? Well, what would 
 you say if I told you that your conservative 
 banker, Mr. Charles H. Farnsworth of the 
 Fourth National Bank, sold blocks of his own 
 stock to-day at the highest 'price before he 
 helped in the issuing of the letter that sent the 
 price down to where it was before the boom?" 
 
 "I couldn't believe it." 
 
 I threw one of the certificates bearing Farns- 
 worth's name on the desk before Elwell. 
 
 380 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 " Read the endorsement on the back of that 
 certificate," I said. "And the name on this 
 one. And on this one. And on this one." 
 I threw down the whole lot. "And, further 
 than that, it is entirely improbable that my 
 broker happened to buy all that he sold, or 
 even a slight proportion of what he sold." 
 
 Elwell read the name. He turned the cer- 
 tificates over and over in his hands, which 
 trembled. 
 
 "I wouldn't have believed it," he said. "I 
 wouldn't have believed it." 
 
 He seemed dazed. "How did you get 
 possession of these?" he finally asked. 
 
 " They came to me in the ordinary course of 
 business. In order to prevent short selling 
 my curb broker demanded immediate delivery 
 on a block of stock, and these were delivered. 
 When your precious conservative banker Farns- 
 worth sent those certificates to the curb to be 
 sold he didn't think the actual certificates 
 bearing his name would be delivered. He 
 thought, of course, that they would be first 
 transferred to some other name. Least of all 
 did he suppose the evidence of his double- 
 dealing would come directly into my office." 
 
 "That is strange," murmured Elwell. 
 
 381 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "Strange! It's providential!" I cried. 
 "The evidence has been placed right in my 
 hands that enables me to show up the whole, 
 dirty, rascally scheme." 
 
 "You wouldn't do that?" 
 
 " I wouldn't ? Watch to-morrow morning's 
 papers and you'll see whether I will nor not." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "I'm going to print the whole story. I'm 
 going to give your fine, conservative board of 
 directors something to think about — and to 
 explain." 
 
 "Don't do that," pleaded Elwell. "We 
 can probably arrange the matter somehow so 
 you won't be a loser by the transaction." 
 
 " So I won't be a loser ? How about the in- 
 vestors that have followed my advice and 
 bought Boston-Ely at from $2 to $3.50 a 
 share ? Can you arrange it so they won't be 
 losers ? How about the profit I would have 
 made from this transaction if it hadn't been for 
 your conservative bankers and manufacturers, 
 who think it sensational to advertise the truth 
 about their mine, but not dishonest to sell 
 stock at the top and then 'bear' it to a lower 
 price, where they can buy in at a profit of 
 thousands of dollars ? How are you going to 
 
 382 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 pay my customers back the thirty or fifty 
 thousand dollars they have invested through 
 my office? How are you going to square the 
 thousands of other investors who followed my 
 advice but bought through other brokers ? 
 How are you going to pay me the six or seven 
 thousand dollars I have expended in advertis- 
 ing ? How are you going to reimburse me the 
 hundred thousand or more dollars that I 
 would have made personally but for this vile, 
 underhanded treachery ? " 
 
 I was walking the floor as I talked, and I 
 said other things along the same line. Elwell's 
 face worked with emotion. Finally he broke 
 in: 
 
 "Mr. King, I beg that you won't tell the 
 whole story in the papers to-morrow." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Think of the trouble it will make." 
 
 "Think of the trouble that has been made 
 me!" I retorted. 
 
 "Good heavens! I'll lose my seat on the 
 stock exchange if this ever gets out." 
 
 "I suppose that's a reason why I should sit 
 quietly and take all the blame, " I said. 
 
 "And think what it will do to the Fourth 
 National Bank. No bank is very strong these 
 
 383 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 days. There is a panicky feeling everywhere. 
 It won't take but a word to start a run, and if 
 you let it get out that Farns worth — " 
 
 Elwell hesitated. I supplied the remainder 
 of the sentence. 
 
 "If I print the fact that Farnsworth, a 
 director of the Fourth National Bank, engi- 
 neered the manipulation of stock in a company 
 of which he was director, to the extent of selling 
 his own holdings and then issuing a ' bear' state- 
 ment, thereby causing a loss of thousands of 
 dollars to investors and making a comfortable 
 little sum himself — if I print that, you think 
 it will cause a run on the Fourth National, 
 with all kinds of consequences to the bank — 
 and your good friend Farnsworth." 
 
 Elwell nodded. 
 
 'What do I care for Farnsworth or his 
 bank ?" I exclaimed. " What do I care for all 
 the rest of the directors? As much as they 
 cared for me." 
 
 "I had no knowledge of this," pleaded 
 Elwell. 'I have acted honestly with you. 
 Think of my position. I am not a rich man. 
 I have a family that would feel very badly if I 
 became mixed in a scandal of this sort. I 
 cannot afford to lose my stock exchange seat. 
 
 384 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 You believe I have been honest, don't you?" 
 "Yes," I admitted. "I believe you have 
 intended to be honest. I believe you, too, are 
 something of a victim in this matter. But I 
 do not believe you were firm enough to-day. 
 You should have stopped the issuing of that 
 statement or tendered your own resignaion 
 and told the truth." 
 
 " I didn't know about this Farnsworth stock 
 then, " said Elwell. " I didn't know of it until 
 just now, when you showed it to me. If I 
 had, I could have acted differently. I really 
 thought it was conservative pressure that was 
 influencing the directors." 
 
 "They ' double-crossed' you, too, eh?" 
 "It looks so." Elwell broke out on a new 
 line. "Let us put off action on this matter 
 until to-morrow. Let's hold on. I'm not 
 sure the campaign is broken. Perhaps the 
 price can still be advanced to what it should be 
 — and you and all your customers come out 
 all right." 
 
 "If I knew it could I wouldn't have any- 
 thing to do with the stock now," I replied. 
 "I wash my hands of the whole matter from 
 this minute. I cease to have any connection 
 with the Boston-Ely Company from this hour. 
 
 385 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Hold on? Why, I wouldn't trust your direc- 
 torate across the street. I don't care what 
 banks or companies they are officers of, I 
 wouldn't have any dealings with them under 
 any circumstances. Hold on ? If you en- 
 countered a bed of diamonds in your mine, or a 
 vein of solid gold a foot thick, I believe your 
 directors would cover up the discovery and 
 'bear' the market until they could buy in all 
 the stock themselves. With a board of directors 
 like that, what show has the public ?" 
 
 "You are interested in the stock, person- 
 ally," said Elwell. "You hold a 'call' for 
 thirty thousand shares at seventy-five cents." 
 
 " You are welcome to it — when I get through 
 with my publicity," I said. "Thank God I 
 did not sell a share of it when the price was 
 high." 
 
 "I — I sold a little of it for your account," 
 stammered Elwell. 
 
 "You— what?" 
 
 "I sold a little of it for your account." 
 
 " If you made any money for me, that money 
 shall go toward paying back the losses of the 
 investors," I said. "I don't understand how 
 you came to do it. I have not bought a single 
 share under the call." 
 
 386 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 "There wasn't any profit," El well added. 
 1 When the market went off I supported it with 
 some buying orders. As I figure it, your 
 account is about square.' ' 
 
 "As / figure it," I said, "I hold a 'call' for 
 thirty thousand shares of which I have not 
 bought a share. You are welcome to it — 
 after I am through with it." 
 
 Darkness had fallen and the afternoon was 
 merging into evening. Elwell continued to 
 plead with me not to make the details of the 
 transaction public. For a long time I was 
 obdurate. He wanted me to see Farns worth. 
 I said I did not want to see Farnsworth — that 
 I did not believe I could keep my temper if he 
 and I should meet face to face. Finally, after 
 much urging, I said I would be at my office if 
 Farnsworth came, that evening. Still I said 
 that I should publish the full story of the 
 deal. 
 
 Elwell begged me not to do this. He 
 actually wept. After a time he spoke of his 
 domestic relations — of his family — of how 
 they would feel if he was ruined, if he lost his 
 stock exchange seat. He offered to do any- 
 thing in his power to avoid this. 
 
 "Of course you understand, Elwell, that 
 
 387 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 every customer of my office must have his 
 money back," I said. 'That I have to do, 
 anyway. I have never led investors into a 
 trap in my life; I am too old to begin now. I 
 shall have my bookkeepers figure up, to-night, 
 how many people bought stock through me, 
 and shall buv their stock back of them at the 
 price they actually paid, including brokerage 
 commissions on the curb. No living soul shall 
 be able to say that he or she has lost by follow- 
 ing my advice under circumstances like this. 
 I shall announce this decision to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 'That will cost you thousands of dollars," 
 said Elwell. "It isn't necessary to do that. 
 Others don't." 
 
 "I'm different from the others," I said. 
 
 Then I acceded partially to his pleadings. 
 I was tired and worn, and one of the bitter, 
 blind headaches which had been troubling me 
 greatly of late was coming on. "I shall 
 announce that every purchaser through my 
 office will receive his money back," I said, 
 'but I will wait until to-morrow before 
 deciding what to do about making the whole 
 deal public. You may come to see me in the 
 morning." 
 
 388 
 
A BITTER INTERVIEW 
 
 "And Mr. Farnsworth?" 
 
 " If Farnsworth wants to see me he will find 
 me here to-night. I don't know what good 
 it will do. I shall probably only say things to 
 him he will not want to hear. My temper 
 isn't as good as it was this morning, and it isn't 
 improving as the hours go by." 
 
 El well rose and went out. In my outer 
 office were several of my lieutenants, who were 
 awaiting the result of the protracted interview. 
 They said he was gray about the lips and that 
 he staggered a little as he passed through the 
 room. 
 
 389 
 
Chapter XLI 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 WITH two of my trusted assistants I 
 went to dinner at Young's. There 
 I told them what had happened, 
 showed them the "call" bearing Elwell's 
 name, and asked their opinion. 
 
 "You can't do anything legally, I suppose," 
 said one, "but you can make things most 
 tremendously unpleasant for one Elwell and one 
 Farnsworth — and, by inference, for all the 
 other directors. That won't get you your 
 money back, however." 
 
 I turned to the other. He pondered for 
 several moments. 
 
 " The stock exchange game is a cruel game, " 
 he said. " I don't believe in it any more than 
 you do, but you seem to have got into it, and 
 my advice is to play it out — to quote a favorite 
 Lawson expression — * according to the rules.' 
 Mr. Elwell undoubtedly is a very nice young 
 man. I'm inclined to think he's honest in this 
 matter. Mr. Farnsworth stands very high in 
 the community, but it's impossible to think he 
 
 390 
 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 has acted squarely. You have got up against 
 a stock exchange game, and it has been played 
 as it always is played by professionals — without 
 heart, soul or conscience. It seems to me the 
 question now is, ' What would they do if they 
 had you in the same place that you have 
 them?' I'll tell you what they would do. 
 They would take every penny you had. They 
 would make you pay them every penny they 
 had lost, and every penny you had prevented 
 them from making. They would come out to 
 your home at Brookline and take the paper 
 off the wall, and the furniture, and the beds — 
 and let you go out and sleep on the grass. 
 And if you asked them for mercy they would 
 ask you if you thought you were playing a 
 children's game, and remind vou that when 
 they gambled it was always 'for keeps.' 
 That's what they'd do to you. And if you 
 want my advice, it is that you do to them as 
 they would do to you." 
 
 "What is that?" I asked. 
 
 "If I were you I should say to Mr. Elwell 
 and Mr. Farnsworth : ' G entlemen, we have no 
 quarrel. I will concede that you are honest 
 men. Unfortunately, however, we have had a 
 little misunderstanding in our business rela- 
 
 391 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 tions. Here, Mr. Farnsworth, is a big block 
 of your stock, sold at the highest price while 
 you were in a directors' meeting getting ready 
 to 'bear' the stock so you could buy in at a 
 much cheaper price and clean up a big profit 
 at the cost of innocent investors. We appre- 
 ciate, you and I, that if I were to make the 
 details of this transaction public at this time, 
 when the banks are shaky, it would probably 
 cause a run on the Fourth National. Undoubt- 
 edly your bank would weather the storm — 
 but you wouldn't. That stock, and the infor- 
 mation regarding the circumstances under 
 which I bought it, is for sale to you — at a fair 
 price. 
 
 "'Here, Mr. Elwell, is a little "call" for 
 thirty thousand shares of Boston-Ely stock at 
 seventy-five cents. It bears your signature, and 
 you are the member of the board of directors of 
 the Boston-Ely Mining Company authorized to 
 market the stock. It will undoubtedly be very 
 painful for you to have the details of this trans- 
 action reach the ears of the business public. 
 It will also be painful to Messrs. Keith, Robin- 
 son, Smith, Williams and Smith, who are all 
 highly conservative and honorable business 
 men, and who will be grieved to have the 
 
 392 
 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 public think they, too, were in on the scheme. 
 Of course we understand they were not, but 
 that is unfortunate for them. This " call, " and 
 all the details of how I came to possess it, are 
 for sale to you — at a fair price.' 
 
 " I would then, in a friendly manner, take up 
 the question of price with them. I would say, 
 'Investors who bought Boston-Ely on my 
 advice have lost something like forty thousand 
 dollars. I have repaid it to them. I feel it is 
 necessary to get that back. From inside infor- 
 mation possessed by you gentlemen you are 
 aware that Boston-Ely is worth more than 
 five dollars a share — therefore I think you 
 should be willing to purchase that " call" from 
 me for, say, $150,000. To put it in simple 
 language I ask you, as a matter of fairness and 
 justice, to pay all those who have lost by your 
 action their money back, and to pay me the 
 profits I should have made had you not taken 
 the action you did. You have twelve hours 
 to decide.' " 
 
 "That sounds something like blackmail," 
 I said. 
 
 "It is nothing of the sort," protested my 
 assistant, warmly. "It is exactly what they 
 would do to you. It is what is always done in 
 
 393 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the stock market game when a man is caught 
 'short.' " 
 
 "It would ruin Elwell." 
 
 "That's unfortunate for Elwell. The only 
 consolation would be knowing that he wouldn't 
 hesitate to ruin you, under the same circum- 
 stances — and may have come dangerously near 
 doing it, as it is." 
 
 "I don't like that way of doing business," 
 I said. " I have always carried on my fighting 
 in the open." 
 
 My lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. 
 " You asked for my advice, " he said. " I have 
 given it. 
 
 His companion agreed with every word he 
 had said. 
 
 "Well," I said. "I'll decide to-morrow. 
 To-night I must get out my advertisement 
 announcing that all investors who bought 
 Boston-Ely through my office will receive their 
 money back. To-morrow I'll take up the 
 matter of Elwell and Farnsworth." 
 
 I went back to the office, where I received a 
 telephone message from Elwell announcing 
 that Farnsworth had some engagement with 
 his family and could not come to see me that 
 night. 
 
 394 
 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 In the morning appeared my advertisement 
 notifying all investors that I would re-purchase 
 their stock at what they paid for it— an adver- 
 tisement and an action unprecedented in the 
 history of America's financial houses. 
 
 Early in the forenoon came El well again. 
 Our conversation was largely a repetition of 
 that which had taken place the night before. 
 In the end, convinced of his personal honesty 
 in the matter, realizing the ruin that would 
 befall him should I dictate any such terms as I 
 had been advised to lay down, and sick of the 
 whole disgraceful business, I tore up his 
 "call," refrained from publishing the facts and 
 let the whole matter drop. I did not see 
 Farns worth at all. 
 
 What the real cause of the other directors' 
 action in issuing the "bear" statement was I 
 do not know to this day. I believe that Farns- 
 worth, who seems to have been the most active 
 in securing the issuing of the letter, learned in 
 some manner that I had become possessed of 
 the large block of stock, that he realized the 
 tremendous profits that would some day accrue 
 from it, and that he felt he had to do some- 
 thing to keep those profits "in the family." 
 His selling of his own stock at the high price— 
 
 395 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 and presumable purchase of an equivalent 
 number of shares when the market slumped — 
 was, I imagine, merely incidental. 
 
 At any rate, the campaign was a failure. I 
 lost thousands of dollars and much prestige, 
 although my customers did not suffer. Un- 
 doubtedly I could have made those concerned 
 pay me scores of thousands of dollars — per- 
 haps hundreds — as my assistant had outlined. 
 But my spirit rebelled at that way of doing 
 business. So I sat still and "stood for the 
 double-cross." 
 
 From that moment I can trace the feeling of 
 depression, of uncertainty as to action, of vague 
 fears and tremblings, which were the fore- 
 runners of the complete physical and mental 
 breakdown that finally made it necessary for 
 me to make an assignment and to go away 
 for a complete rest and recreation. 
 
 I have written down the story of this cam- 
 paign in no feeling of revenge. It is long past, 
 now. Had I wished for revenge, I should have 
 taken it at the time. 
 
 No. I am merely writing history, and in 
 writing history I am trying to set down all the 
 occurrences just as they were. 
 
 I was just and merciful to El well, and Farns- 
 
 396 
 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 worth, and to the rest of the directors of the 
 Boston-Ely Mining Company. They well 
 know that I am an honest and upright man. 
 To my withholding of my hand when I might 
 have struck, William D. Elwell probably owes 
 his seat on the stock exchange. To my 
 refusal to extract the pound of flesh that was 
 mine according to the "rules of the game," 
 Charles H. Farnsworth owes his continued 
 high position in the world of banking and 
 business. While I was away, seeking strength 
 
 yes, life itself— on the other side of the world, 
 
 these men had an opportunity to speak the 
 word of truth about me which they so well 
 knew. Let us see how they did it. 
 
 When I was thousands of miles from home 
 and ignorant of all that had been done to 
 injure me and mine in my absence — when my 
 name was being cried through the streets of 
 Boston by newspapers as the name of a dis- 
 honest man — some rumor of this Boston-Ely 
 transaction came to the ears of newspaper 
 reporters who sought for facts and were willing 
 to listen to both sides. 
 
 Reporters of at least two papers, going to 
 former lieutenants of mine who knew all the 
 details of the transaction, ascertained the 
 
 307 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 truth, although it is with bitter sorrow — being 
 myself a newspaper man — that I have to 
 recount that neither newspaper published a 
 word of what was learned. It was popular to 
 publish only evil regarding me in those days. 
 
 These reporters, when they had secured the 
 facts, asked both Elwell and Farnsworth as to 
 their dealings with me. Both could have said 
 a friendly word for the man who was merciful 
 to them when they implored mercy. They 
 could have spoken a sentence that would have 
 had the effect of easing the tempest that was 
 beating about my name. Each of them, I am 
 informed by the newspaper men themselves, 
 denied me absolutely. 
 
 Elwell said: "I may have bought or sold 
 some stock in the market for King;. Further 
 than that I never had any dealings with him. 
 Ours is a conservative house, you know." 
 
 Farnsworth said: "King? I do not know 
 the man. Sell my own stock during King's 
 advertising campaign? Certainly not. Not 
 a single share." 
 
 Both Elwell and Farnsworth, I am told, 
 threatened to sue the newspapers for libel if 
 they even intimated that either had ever had 
 any business connection with me. 
 
 398 
 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 Thus they repaid me for my consideration. 
 Had I taken that lieutenant's advice, given me 
 at dinner at Young's on the evening of the 
 Boston-Ely smash, I should probably have 
 weathered the financial storm, and perhaps 
 escaped the illness that came with it. No one 
 thing had more to do with my breakdown, I 
 feel certain, than the Boston-Ely campaign 
 and its outcome. 
 
 399 
 
Chapter XLII 
 RISING WATERS 
 
 IN the newspapers of Wednesday morning 
 appeared my offer to restore to every 
 investor in Boston-Ely through my office 
 the money he had lost. On the same page in 
 every paper, prominently displayed directly 
 across from my announcement, was a large 
 advertisement signed by Thomas W. Lawson 
 and headed : 
 
 Buy — Nevada-Utah — Now 
 
 The Lawson advertisement stated that this 
 was a fortuitous time to purchase Nevada- 
 Utah, and predicted that the price of the stock 
 was about to advance to ten dollars a share. 
 
 The campaign which that advertisement 
 inaugurated was a failure, as were one or two 
 successors. Lawson had seriously injured me 
 — he believed he had so crippled my resources 
 that I was no longer in a position to prosecute 
 him — he flaunted his belief in my face with 
 this advertisement — but the seed of warning to 
 investors that I had already sown had sprouted 
 in the soil. Since that day he has never been 
 
 400 
 
RISING WATERS 
 
 able to warm over the Nevada-Utah pro- 
 motion, nor repeat, even to the slightest degree, 
 the 1907 swindle in that stock. Nevada-Utah 
 is to-day quoted at about two dollars a share, 
 and even at that price there is no demand for 
 it except among the stock speculators who 
 gamble upon whether the price will rise or 
 fall a fraction of a point. 
 
 But I had little time to watch this campaign, 
 or to devote to Lawson or any one else but my- 
 self, for there began a procession of attacks, 
 most of them indirect, that were not only 
 annoying but serious in their aggregate effect 
 upon me and my business. 
 
 The amount of time and thought that Law- 
 son had devoted to planning this campaign 
 against me can only be judged by its breadth 
 and the energy with which it was carried out. 
 It lasted for more than six weeks, and in all 
 that time there was hardly a move in the con- 
 tinuous succession of events aimed at my office 
 that the public could have recognized as 
 emanating from Lawson. In this he had 
 planned well; at last he had come to realize 
 that no attack on me would be successful in 
 which the investing public could see his hand. 
 
 This campaign was based on one correct 
 
 401 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 supposition — that the tremendous expenses of 
 the Boston Daily Tribune had greatly lowered 
 my ready resources, and that the panic and 
 my subsequent policy of advising the purchase 
 of listed stocks had reduced my income to a 
 point far below the expenses of my business. 
 The policy, then, was to prevent me from sell- 
 ing any securities upon which I could make a 
 commission — to wear me down by causing me 
 to lose money. Law r son hoped that he could 
 cause me to fail — to "break" me — and in this 
 manner to remove the only thorn that had ever 
 seriously rankled in his side. 
 
 The first move was made by my former 
 employee, Love, who now had an office in State 
 Street. 
 
 Letters were written, offering to sell blocks 
 of certain stocks at certain prices. Peculiarly 
 enough — as it would seem to one not under- 
 standing the purpose of the circulars — the 
 stocks named were only the stocks for which I 
 was the financial agent, and the list included all 
 the stocks offered by my office. The prices at 
 which these securities were offered were from 
 one-fifth to one-third the price obtaining at 
 that time. And, again peculiarly enough, 
 the letters offering these securities at these 
 
 402 
 
RISING WATERS 
 
 impossible prices were mailed to my entire list of 
 customers. 
 
 It will strike the reader as somewhat odd 
 that the complete list of thousands of customers 
 of my office should be in the possession of 
 Love or any other person outside my office. 
 Without attempting to explain the matter, 
 I will merely say that I never either sold, gave 
 away or loaned a list of my customers. The 
 names of his customers are sacredly con- 
 fidential with a business man. Whoever took 
 them out of my office did so without my con- 
 sent or knowledge. In other words, they 
 were stolen. 
 
 Of course a great many persons who received 
 the letters attempted to buy the stocks offered, 
 at the absurdly low prices quoted. And of 
 course they received courteous replies in which 
 the writer regretted to be obliged to state that 
 all the stock of that company had been sold 
 just prior to the receipt of their letters, but 
 adding that these were fair prices for the 
 securities and that if they would wait they 
 could undoubtedly purchase at those figures. 
 
 Thus, while they bought no stock from 
 Love, they were prevented from buying any 
 through my house. And what was of greater 
 
 403 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 injury, they deluged me with letters asking how 
 it happened that these stocks could be sold at 
 such prices. This kept me busy informing 
 them that the securities were not selling at 
 the quotations Love gave, which statement 
 some undoubtedly did not believe, and took up 
 a great deal of my time that I might have 
 given to other things. 
 
 It was during this campaign, or just prior to 
 it, that one of my employees reported to his 
 direct chief that Love, attempting to secure 
 his assistance in some manner, had said that he 
 was working with Lawson and had volunteered 
 to introduce the employee to Lawson and make 
 it worth his while to cast his lot away from me. 
 
 Coincident with the letters sent out by Love 
 there appeared in the daily newspapers of 
 Boston advertisements signed by several small 
 and irresponsible brokers, offering King- 
 Crowther and other stocks with which my 
 name was identified, at impossibly low prices. 
 The result, when readers attempted to buy, 
 was the same as in Love's case — they were 
 informed that they were too late, and that a 
 previous purchaser had secured the bargains. 
 
 I will give one illustration, which might be 
 multiplied by scores. 
 
 404 
 
RISING WATERS 
 
 One Sunday a small broker named Wilson 
 W. Fay offered for sale twenty shares of pre- 
 ferred stock of the Erie Preserving Company 
 at $50 a share. This stock, which had paid 
 seven per cent dividends for thirty-five years, 
 had not sold for less than $100 in more than a 
 generation. 
 
 When Fay's office opened on Monday morn- 
 ing, before the stock could possibly have been 
 sold, a representative of my office who was 
 personally unknown to Fay made inquiries re- 
 garding the stock, first stating that he did not 
 have the money with him with which to make the 
 purchase. Fay then said the stock had not 
 been sold— that it was for sale to the highest 
 bidder— and that under no circumstances 
 would it be sold until the close of business that 
 day, when the person offering the most money 
 would get it, provided that offer was $50 or 
 
 higher. 
 
 Immediately— before Fay had an oppor- 
 tunity to see another customer— there entered 
 another representative of my office as a witness. 
 Then the first representative, producing Fay's 
 advertisement, which said nothing about 
 "bids," but offered the stock for sale at a flat 
 price of $50, and laying beside it ten one- 
 
 405 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 hundred dollar bills, demanded that Fay either 
 produce the stock or admit that he had none 
 at that price. 
 
 Fay lost his temper — as might naturally be 
 expected — and became very abusive. My 
 representative kept his, laughed at the broker 
 and requested that he produce the stock or 
 admit he didn't have it and couldn't get it. 
 After considerable talk, Fay said he would 
 produce it within fifteen minutes, sent a clerk 
 out to get it from "his client," and my 
 representative sat down to wait. Ten minutes 
 later the clerk returned and said that the client 
 had already sold it at private sale. 
 
 After a time most of the Boston newspapers, 
 discovering what kind of a game they were 
 being made parties to, refused to accept these 
 advertisements. But the harm had been done. 
 The offers were not made wholly for those who 
 might want to accept them, but also to be read 
 and considered by holders of the securities 
 who would thus be led to think that the price 
 they had paid me was excessive — to destroy 
 confidence in me. 
 
 My King-Crowther market, to which I have 
 previously referred, continued to be conducted 
 through my office. In the daily papers I 
 
 406 
 
RISING WATERS 
 
 announced the prices bid and asked for the 
 stock. On January 25 appeared an advertise- 
 ment signed by Richard J. Burton — you will 
 remember him as the Lawson former secretary 
 who was reported as being so active in the 
 Boston-Ely telephone campaign when the 
 honest portion of the directorate was being 
 egged on to put a stop to my advertising — in 
 which he not only announced that he had three 
 hundred shares of King-Crowther to sell at one- 
 third the market price, but that eight thousand 
 more were on the way. He quoted from what 
 purported to be a statement by me regarding 
 King-Crowther that was false on its face. 
 
 First I tried to buy the three hundred shares 
 he had advertised — without success, of course. 
 Then I asked him to produce the statement he 
 had quoted as being made by me. Then I 
 brought suit for libel against him for $25,000. 
 
 The newspaper which had printed Burton's 
 advertisement, after investigation, disclaimed 
 all responsibility and expressed its regret at the 
 occurrence, on January 28. But the cor- 
 rection naturally did not reach one-half the 
 people who had read the original advertisement 
 — corrections never do. 
 
 This programme of annoyance and injury 
 
 407 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 continued day after day. Lawson pulled the 
 strings. Burton, Love, the not too scrupulous 
 little brokers and the rest of the marionettes 
 danced. My expenses ran on at the rate of 
 thousands of dollars a week, while the receipts 
 were small. 
 
 It was at about this time that there came 
 to me a piece of information that caused me 
 much mental distress. 
 
 The information was to the effect that Law- 
 son had accurate knowledge, each day, as to 
 the amount of my bank balance in the Beacon 
 Trust Company. 
 
 All particulars as to a depositor's account in a 
 bank are supposed to be sacredly guarded by 
 the officials of the institution. And only from 
 the bank, in this instance, could the informa- 
 tion come, for even my own cashiers did not 
 know the amount of my balance, as that is a 
 matter which I have always guarded as my own 
 personal business. An expert accountant 
 could not figure, from my books, just what my 
 balance in one bank was on any particular 
 day — yet Lawson knew my Beacon Trust 
 Company balance daily. 
 
 President Charles B. Jopp of the Beacon 
 Trust Company, in those days, posed as being 
 
 408 
 
RISING WATERS 
 
 at least partially in sympathy with me in my 
 fight against the forces of Thuggee. He had 
 led me to believe that I had his good- will. On 
 one or two occasions when I had considered 
 changing my bank he had gone over the matter 
 with me in a manner to cause me to look upon 
 him as a friend. 
 
 I do not know who, in that bank, beside 
 President Jopp knew the extent of my daily 
 balances. It is immaterial, for it was his duty 
 to protect the confidence of his customers. 
 The fact remains that Lawson knew every day 
 what progress he was making in wearing down 
 my cash resources. 
 
 Not only as an illustration of the far-flung 
 line which Lawson had at last thrown out do I 
 tell this minor incident of the bank treachery — 
 but as indicative of the wearing, nerve-racking 
 minor things that were piling one upon the 
 other to destroy my mental balance as well as 
 my personal fortune. 
 
 It was about this time that insomnia began 
 to add to my other troubles — that my head- 
 aches became almost constant — and that I 
 became vacillating in my plans where there- 
 tofore I had been steadfast. 
 
 Still I tried to be optimistic. I tried to 
 
 409 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 believe that all would come out well. It 
 seemed impossible to me that wrong could win 
 from right or dishonesty triumph over justice. 
 Yet the way began to look dark. 
 
 One night, as I lay sleepless, the thought 
 came to me: " Can this be the beginning of the 
 end?" I shuddered, but I put the idea from 
 me. "No, no," I said. "It cannot, must 
 not. It is impossible — for I am right. 9 ' 
 
 The waters of the deluge continued to rise. 
 
 410 
 
Chapter XLIII 
 THE FLOOD 
 
 ONE night President Charles T. Bar- 
 ney of the Knickerbocker Trust Com- 
 pany of New York committed suicide. 
 Within a few hours a reporter from the Boston 
 Journal was sent to inform me that it was 
 rumored all over town that Barney had exten- 
 sive dealings with me, and that it was through 
 me that he had been driven to end his own 
 life. 
 
 Now I never had the slightest dealings with 
 Barney, had never seen him, do not know that 
 he ever heard of me except as the whole 
 financial public has heard of me, and so far as 
 I know I had never even had business relations 
 with any financiers with whom he dealt. 
 
 This story of my connection with Barney's 
 suicide, I found, had been carefully "planted" 
 in every newspaper office in Boston. I sup- 
 pose Lawson hoped, owing to the extreme 
 lateness of the hour, that some paper might not 
 take the trouble to look it up, or that I might 
 chance to be out of town and so could not be 
 
 411 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 interviewed, in which event some paper, fear- 
 ing that it would otherwise be "scooped," 
 might take the chance of giving publicity to 
 the rumor. 
 
 This was one of the most sensational of the 
 many tales that Lawson and his satellites 
 kept me busy denying. Few of the stories 
 were printed; but the effect of the continued 
 necessity of denying absurdities was like the 
 effect of dripping water upon a stone. It wore 
 my nerves down — as perhaps was the intention. 
 
 Rumors were rife then that the Post Office 
 authorities were investigating my business — 
 that a fraud order was about to be issued 
 against me and against the King-Crowther 
 Corporation. The ancient Moses story was 
 revived from time to time and sent traveling 
 its old, worn path about the city. There were 
 incessant reports that I was on the verge of 
 financial ruin. 
 
 About once in three or four days some friend 
 or acquaintance would tell me of rumors he had 
 heard in "the Street" as to what MacFarland 
 was doing — Attorney Grenville S. MacFarland, 
 who had been appointed by District Attorney 
 Moran to collaborate with Lawson and Law- 
 son's attorneys in preparing the "evidence" 
 
 412 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 against me and presenting it to the Grand 
 Jury. 
 
 Lawson had turned over to MacFarland 
 more than a thousand pieces of evidence, any 
 one of which would convict me. 
 
 Lawson's lawyers and MacFarland had 
 sorted out the worst of the incriminating stuff 
 and were on the point of presenting it to the 
 Grand Jury. 
 
 MacFarland, asked what were the chances 
 of securing a conviction against me, had 
 shaken his head, looked unutterably wise, and 
 said, "Things look black for King." 
 
 Lawson's detectives — sent up and down the 
 world as His Satanic Majesty is traditionally 
 supposed to travel, seeking souls — had ascer- 
 tained by actual investigation that King- 
 Crowther was a fraud — that it possessed 
 neither properties nor oil — that every state- 
 ment I had ever made regarding the corpora- 
 tion was sufficient to convict me of obtaining 
 money under false pretenses. 
 
 These were rumors that started almost 
 daily, spread up and down " the Street," and 
 eventually reached me. 
 
 I knew that neither Lawson nor any other 
 man had any such evidence as rumor credited 
 
 413 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 him with having, for the good and sufficient 
 reason that it did not and could not exist. 
 
 I knew that Lawson's detectives, a year 
 before, had exhausted their ingenuity and vast 
 sums of Lawson's money in personal investi- 
 gations of the King-Crowther properties — 
 that they had visited the town of Crowther, 
 Texas — that they had traversed the Ohio and 
 Indiana properties of the corporation and 
 counted the more than six hundred producing 
 oil wells belonging to King-Crowther — that 
 they had sought high and low for dissatisfied 
 stockholders — and that they had been obliged to 
 report that the corporation was sound and strong 
 and that my representations regarding it and its 
 securities had been conservative and truthful. 
 
 I knew that Lawson could not have turned 
 over to MacFarland any evidence against me 
 that was truthful — and I doubted if even he 
 would dare to actually manufacture evidence. 
 
 I very much doubted that MacFarland had 
 ever said that things looked black for me, for 
 while I do not know the young man, he is 
 reputed seldom to express decided opinions — 
 contenting himself, as I heard an associate of 
 his once say, "with looking wiser than any 
 living man ever could be." 
 
 414 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 MacFarland is quite well known in Massa- 
 chusetts, although people have heard of him 
 as a politician rather than as an attorney. He 
 was one of the managers of District Attorney 
 Moran's campaign for Governor, and prior to 
 that was identified with other campaigns. 
 His natural manner, I have always been told, 
 is mysterious. "If he wanted to go across the 
 street, and the easiest and most natural way 
 was to pass out of the front door, walk directly 
 across, and enter the front door opposite, he 
 would climb out of the back window and go 
 around the square, for fear somebody would 
 know exactly what he was doing," is the way 
 I heard a politician once describe him. With 
 this in mind, I discounted the story that he had 
 said "Things look black for King." In 
 fact, as nearly a year has passed, and nothing 
 has come of the evidence which was to have 
 been prepared for the next Grand Jury, it is 
 very apparent that things did not " look black." 
 
 But the stories kept traveling. The rumor 
 mill was working overtime. And every lie 
 that started in circulation reached its hundreds 
 of thousands and injured my business. 
 
 One story came to me so directly that I 
 could not doubt its truth. A few months 
 
 415 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 before I would have laughed at the idea. Now 
 I was worn down sufficiently for it to make an 
 impression. 
 
 Lawson, in one of his rages, had cursed me 
 with all the practised volubility at his command 
 and had ended : 
 
 "I shall never let up on King until he is 
 either in stripes or in a suicide's grave!" 
 
 The stripes I did not fear, for only fictitious 
 evidence could ever procure them for me. 
 But the grave of a suicide! The words 
 haunted me in the long, sleepless nights. 
 
 As part of his work, Love, now a full- 
 fledged sixteenth assistant to Lawson, got a 
 number of people to bring suit against me. 
 
 When he sent out his circulars offering at im- 
 possible prices the stocks with which my name 
 was connected, he naturally received inquiries 
 in reply. With these as a basis, he succeeded 
 in getting a few of my old customers to believ- 
 ing that they had been imposed upon. He told 
 them they could get their money back if they 
 would send their claims to Whipple, Sears & 
 Ogden, attorneys-at-law. 
 
 Whipple, Sears & Ogden are rated as a 
 highly reputable law firm. Sherman L. 
 Whipple, the head of the firm, is supposed to 
 
 416 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 be one of the most eminent attorneys in Boston. 
 Therefore it is to be presumed, in the absence 
 of evidence to the contrary, that Whipple, 
 Sears & Ogden acted in good faith in adding 
 their weight to the conspiracy against me. 
 Presumably they were — and are, for they still 
 are participants — absolutely ignorant of the 
 fact that there was a conspiracy, and that Love, 
 who interested them and advised them, was 
 working for Lawson to bring about my down- 
 fall by foul means, since fair means would not 
 accomplish it. 
 
 These former customers whom Love secured 
 to assist in the campaign naturally did not come 
 to me with whatever complaints they had or 
 thought they had. My first formal knowledge 
 of the matter came in the nature of a letter 
 from Whipple, Sears & Ogden, dictated by 
 Mr. Sherman L. Whipple, which, after stating 
 that he was acting for a certain customer whom 
 I will call "Mrs. Blank," and that she held a 
 certificate "for 'King-Crowther' stock, so- 
 called," contained the following most remark- 
 able language: 
 
 In order intelligently to advise Mrs. Blank we desire, 
 in her behalf, pretty full information with regard to the 
 "King-Crowther Company" and the "Norton Oil 
 
 417 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Company." We wish to know whether the dividends 
 which have been paid in the name of these companies, 
 on the basis of which, in part, she was induced to make 
 her purchase and subsequently her exchange of stock, 
 were actually earned. We also desire to know what 
 became of the money which she invested. It was repre- 
 sented to her that she was purchasing the stock of the 
 "Norton Oil Company" from the corporation itself, so 
 that the money which she paid went directly to the 
 treasurer of that corporation. We desire particularly 
 to ascertain whether this actually was the fact or whether 
 she purchased stock belonging to yourself, the money 
 for which went into your own bank account. 
 
 As a stockholder of the " King-Crowther Company" 
 of course she is entitled to examine the books of the 
 corporation and hereby makes a request that she be 
 permitted immediately to do so. While perhaps she has 
 not the legal right to examine your books to see what 
 became of her money, we assume that you will be glad 
 to permit her to examine them so far as may be necessary 
 to satisfy her that your representations were correct. 
 
 We should like to make the examination of the 
 books of the "King-Crowther Company," in Mrs. 
 Blank's behalf, to-morrow forenoon. Will you be 
 good enough to inform us by the messenger who will 
 bring you this letter, whether that will be a convenient 
 time ? If not, please tell us when it will be convenient 
 to have such examination made. 
 
 When I had swallowed my natural indigna- 
 tion at the insulting tone of the letter, and 
 calmed down sufficiently to reconsider my 
 
 418 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 first idea of replying in kind, I notified 
 Whipple, Sears & Ogden merely that I had 
 referred the matter to my attorney. I wrote 
 Mrs. Blank, endeavoring to ascertain what she 
 believed to be her grievance, and was unsuc- 
 cessful in arranging an interview with her. 
 
 My attorney, as a result of conferences with 
 Whipple, Sears & Ogden, and with me, wrote 
 Mr. W r hipple that the books could be seen and 
 copied from at the main office of the cor- 
 poration, " in reference to pertinent matters in 
 which your client has any right to information 
 fairly." 
 
 "I see no reason," wrote my lawyer, "why 
 the examination of the books should not be 
 made, knowing that the results could only 
 be entirely favorable to the corporation, its 
 affairs, and its dealing with my client, and 
 should like to have the matter definitely ended 
 one way or the other." 
 
 Mr. W T hipple replied briefly, intimating that 
 he would immediately avail himself of the 
 privilege of examining the books. So far as I 
 am aware, the examination has not been made 
 to this day. 
 
 The scheme then took the form of accumu- 
 lating as many suits as possible against me, 
 
 419 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 and it was planned to bring them all at once, in 
 order to embarrass me in the matter of furnish- 
 ing bonds to prevent or dissolve attachments. 
 It appears to have made little difference what 
 foundation there was for the proposed suits. 
 Some of them (they were brought, a dozen or 
 more of them, soon after I was forced to assign) 
 were on grounds that would be laughable if the 
 matter were not so serious. The aggregate of 
 the suits was approximately $75,000. 
 
 Other suits were also prepared, through 
 other attorneys. One man to whom I had sold 
 some stock in 1904, four years previously, was 
 induced to bring suit for $9,000, and he 
 secured, with all possible publicity, an injunc- 
 tion to prevent me from withdrawing money 
 from banks where I had funds on deposit 
 and to prevent me from selling any of my 
 personal holdings of stock of the King- 
 Crowther Corporation. This had the in- 
 tended effect, for several newspapers "bit," as 
 it had been hoped they would, and announced 
 that I was enjoined from selling any more 
 King-Crowther stock — which was an entirely 
 different matter. 
 
 Immediately following this, other suits were 
 begun. Nearly a year previous I had bought 
 
 420 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 an automobile, and a portion of the bill was in 
 dispute — less than five hundred dollars. This 
 was traced, and the man who sold me the car 
 was induced to bring suit for the disputed 
 amount and attach my bank account. 
 
 From every side I was subjected to these 
 annoyances, which not only tied up my ready 
 money in litigation and had their intended 
 effect of injuring me in the public eye — but 
 worried me to the point of distraction. 
 
 If Lawson knew my mental condition in 
 those days — and I doubt not he had 
 some inkling of it — "a suicide's grave" must 
 have loomed large in his mind as the possible 
 outcome of his campaign. How pleased he 
 must have been at the prospect! 
 
 Amid these troubles and annoyances, my 
 time was so taken up at my office by those 
 who had heard the rumors that I had little time 
 to consider new business plans, even had I 
 been mentally fit to do so. It was not an 
 unusual thing for some person to take a half 
 day of my time on business that might have 
 been transacted in a few minutes. 
 
 One instance of this comes to my mind. 
 
 An investor bought through my office three 
 shares of Sugar Common. Before I had se- 
 
 421 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 cured the transfer of the stock, he ordered 
 three shares more and requested that the six 
 shares be in one certificate. Then, before this 
 had been accomplished, he decided to buy 
 eight additional shares, and said he wished 
 one certificate to cover the whole fourteen 
 shares. 
 
 Dealing in listed stocks was a new matter to 
 me. Not only was there not one penny of profit 
 in the transactions to me, but my office was 
 unable to carry out the business with the same 
 promptness and speed as a regular stock 
 exchange house. My clerical force was not 
 familiar with this kind of business, any more 
 than I. My books were not adapted to keep- 
 ing track of these transactions as completely 
 and quickly as the books of a stock exchange 
 house. I had not installed stock exchange 
 systems of bookkeeping, nor had I engaged 
 new bookkeepers familiar with this form of 
 work, for I was buying and selling listed stocks 
 for my customers merely as a matter of accom- 
 modation, and had no intention — as I 
 announced — of continuing to do so except 
 during the panic, while listed securities were 
 selling at low prices. 
 
 Therefore there were delays that perhaps 
 
 422 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 would not have happened in the business of a 
 stock exchange house. There had been a 
 delay in this case of which I write — due, how- 
 ever, more to the customer's changes of mind 
 as to how many shares he wished in one 
 certificate than to any lack of facility in my 
 office. Finally, just as he had made his final 
 decision, the transfer books of the Sugar 
 Corporation closed for two weeks, and it was 
 impossible for me to secure his transfer. 
 
 One day, just after noon, a clerk brought in 
 the name of Mr. Samuel Ward. Mr. Samuel 
 Ward himself followed. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Ward is a big man physically, as 
 well as in the business world of Boston. He is 
 the head of the Samuel Ward Company, 
 stationers. I knew him by sight, although 
 we had never met. 
 
 There was fire in his eye and bluster in his 
 voice. "I have come," he announced, with- 
 out preliminaries, "to get the fourteen shares 
 of Sugar Common that you bought for Mr. 
 Blank." 
 
 I asked an explanation, and it appeared that 
 Mr. Blank was a relative of Mr. Samuel Ward, 
 and that Mr. Samuel Ward had promised him 
 to get his delayed certificates. 
 
 423 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "I have come for that stock and I'm going 
 to stay until I get it," he said. 
 
 I explained how the delay was due, first to 
 his relative's fluctuation of mind, and second to 
 the closing of the transfer books. He would 
 not listen. 
 
 "I don't want explanations. I want the 
 stock," he said. 
 
 "Did you expect me to have it in my 
 pocket?" I asked. 
 
 "I want it. You know who I am. I'm 
 Samuel Ward. And I'm going to stay right 
 here until I get it." 
 
 I attempted to prove my assertions by means 
 of my cashier. "I am not interested in your 
 cashiers," he said, "I merely want the stock." 
 
 "My dear sir," I said. "There is not a 
 fourteen-share certificate at this moment in 
 the office." 
 
 "Then get it," he replied. "I shall remain 
 here until you do." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Right here." And he plumped himself 
 down in a chair in my private office. 
 
 "Would you mind waiting in the reception 
 room?" I asked. "I will endeavor to secure 
 the stock for you. In the meantime there are 
 
 424 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 a dozen or so people who wish to see me." 
 
 "I'll wait right here," he said, belligerently. 
 " I'm Samuel Ward, and when I say a thing I 
 mean it. When I say I'll wait here I mean I'll 
 wait here — right here." 
 
 I looked Mr. Samuel Ward over. I am a 
 pretty big man, physically, but he is bigger. 
 I concluded that it would not be an easy matter 
 to put Mr. Ward out — beside which I had no 
 especial desire for the quarrel he seemed to 
 seek. If it were possible to get Mr. Samuel 
 Ward's relative's stock I naturally wanted to 
 do it. 
 
 "All right," I said. "How do you suggest 
 that I get it?" 
 
 "I don't care how you get it — but you're 
 going to get it before I go out of this room. " 
 
 Worried as I had been for many days, and in 
 no condition to enjoy a joke, the thought 
 flashed through my mind that if I didn't get 
 the stock instantly as demanded perhaps Mr. 
 Samuel Ward would throw a bomb — as Nor- 
 cross did at Russell Sage when his demand 
 for money was refused, some years ago. " His 
 overcoat," I thought, "is big enough to con- 
 ceal it." Then I dismissed this conceit with 
 an inward smile, and returned to the subject. 
 
 425 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 'You ask me to perform a rather difficult 
 feat," I said. "You want me to instantly 
 deliver to you a certificate for exactly fourteen 
 shares of Sugar Common. I have plenty of 
 Sugar Common in the office, but no certificate 
 of just fourteen shares. And you say you 
 want the stock in Mr. Blank's name." 
 
 "I'll waive that," said Mr. Samuel Ward, 
 most generously, considering that otherwise he 
 would have had to sit in my office something 
 like two weeks, until the transfer books were 
 reopened. "You can give me a Street 
 delivery." 
 
 'Thank you," I said, as courteously as I 
 could under the circumstances. " Now I will 
 try to get you fourteen shares. I presume you 
 have no objection to my telephoning a few 
 brokers, to see if they can accommodate you ?" 
 
 My gentle sarcasm seemed lost on Mr. 
 Samuel Ward. "I don't care what you do," 
 he said. "I'm going to stay here until I get 
 the stock." 
 
 "Has it occurred to you," I remarked, as I 
 reached for the telephone book, "that you 
 haven't yet presented an order from Mr. 
 Blank asking me to deliver you his stock?" 
 
 " I don't have to, " replied Mr. Samuel Ward 
 
 426 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 promptly. "I'll sign his name and my own 
 to the receipt." 
 
 I turned to the name of a firm of brokers in 
 the book and called Mr. Samuel's Ward's 
 attention to the page, the name and the 
 number. Otherwise so suspicious a gentle- 
 man might fear I was merely conversing with 
 one of my own employees, in some distant 
 corner of my offices. Then I called the number. 
 
 Yes, the brokers told me, they would be glad 
 to let me have fourteen shares of Sugar 
 Common, if they had it. They would look. 
 No, they didn't have fourteen shares and could 
 not get just that amount until the transfer 
 books — . Certainly, they would try to get it 
 if I wished. They would endeavor to borrow 
 it on the floor of the exchange and would let me 
 know if they were successful. 
 
 Again calling Mr. Samuel Ward's attention, 
 in each case, to the name and telephone 
 number, I called three more brokerage houses 
 and the same conversation ensued. Within 
 ten minutes four brokers were scouring the 
 floor of the stock exchange, endeavoring to 
 borrow exactly fourteen shares of Sugar 
 Common. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Ward waited in my private 
 
 427 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 office. A dozen people anxious to see me 
 waited in the reception room. 
 
 Just before closing time on the exchange I 
 received word from one of the brokerage 
 houses that they had secured a certificate for 
 fifteen shares. It was impossible, they said, 
 to get one for fourteen. I turned from the 
 telephone and asked Mr. Samuel Ward if he 
 would take the fifteen-share certificate and 
 buy the extra share at the quotation of that 
 moment. He said he would. I instructed 
 the broker to send the certificate up. 
 
 When it arrived Mr. Samuel Ward was still 
 sitting in my office. I turned it over to him 
 and took his receipt. He drew out a check 
 book to pay me for the extra share. 
 
 "That isn't necessary, " I said. "I would 
 not put you to so much inconvenience. You 
 may send it from your office to-morrow, in the 
 ordinary course of business." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Ward had the grace, at that 
 moment, to apologize for the trouble he had 
 caused me. He sent the check the following 
 dav. 
 
 Now this is what Mr. Samuel Ward, acting 
 in all honesty if with less courtesy than is 
 customary in business transactions, had done: 
 
 428 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 He had lost me practically a whole after- 
 noon from my business. 
 
 He had caused waiting customers to either 
 leave with their business unattended to or to 
 feel aggrieved because I could not see them. 
 
 He had forced me to buy fourteen shares of 
 Sugar Common for delivery to his relative 
 at a higher price than the undivided stock 
 already in my office had cost Mr. Blank. 
 
 And after all was said and done, there 
 was not a cent of profit to me in the transaction 
 even at the price Mr. Blank had paid. 
 
 I tell this one instance in full. It is but one 
 of many. It illustrates how honest men were 
 unintentionally assisting Lawson and his crew 
 in the campaign to ruin me. 
 
 A suicide's grave ? They were all bringing 
 it nearer. 
 
 429 
 
Chapter XLIV 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE 
 
 EARLY in February I made arrangements 
 to undertake the financing of a New York 
 corporation whose future gave promise of 
 great brilliancy. With that in view I made 
 several trips to New T York and finally deter- 
 mined to reopen my New York office, which had 
 been closed since the beginning of the panic. 
 
 Some time before this, I had learned that 
 the affairs of the National Mercantile Com- 
 pany, a corporation whose securities I had 
 sold several years before, were apparently not 
 being managed in the interest of the stock- 
 holders. I issued a letter to those who had 
 purchased its securities through my office, 
 stating that if they chose to send me proxies 
 for their stock I would, at my own expense, 
 take measures to ascertain what was being done 
 with the company. In response to this I 
 received proxies representing a majority of the 
 stock of the company. 
 
 Now, in February, although my resources 
 were becoming very limited, it became neces- 
 
 430 
 
TO BE OR NOT TO BE 
 
 sary for me to perform this duty — or break a 
 promise. I therefore engaged attorneys, se- 
 cured the appointment of a receiver for the 
 company in the courts of Maine, and the 
 receiver took possession of the company's 
 assets in Connecticut and began proceedings 
 to recover for the stockholders, if possible, 
 what was left of a once highly successful 
 enterprise. 
 
 This proceeding cost me a number of 
 thousand dollars in cash and the necessary 
 bonds to guarantee the prosecution of the suits. 
 My ready funds were getting low, but I 
 reflected that I was carrying on my books 
 large accounts for customers and that notes 
 aggregating nearly $50,000 would mature and 
 be payable to me in a few days. 
 
 Early in the week of February 16 I was in 
 New York arranging for the reopening of the 
 office there. I planned this event, without 
 blare of trumpets, for Monday, February 24. 
 I left New York Monday evening, intending 
 to return on Thursday. 
 
 On my arrival in Boston I was met by two 
 pieces of news that stunned me. 
 
 Attorneys for the Douglas Copper Company, 
 whose vice president I had talked to on terms 
 
 431 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 of greatest friendliness but the day before, and 
 with whom I had enjoyed business relations to 
 an amount exceeding $1,000,000, had begun 
 a suit against me. The claim was later made 
 that this was due to a misunderstanding on 
 the part of the Massachusetts attorneys of the 
 company, and the suit was withdrawn, not, 
 however, until I had felt its damaging effect. 
 
 One of my debtors whose notes amounting 
 to $20,000 had matured, and who owed me 
 additional sums of many thousand dollars, 
 had been prevailed upon to join the Lawson 
 forces — through the Love- Whipple, Sears & 
 Ogden alliance — and had refused to meet his 
 notes, which had gone to protest. 
 
 That night and the next day I had to con- 
 sider how seriously I was involved. For more 
 than twenty-four hours consecutively I con- 
 sidered, for I did not sleep that night. I care- 
 fully listed my assets. They totalled nearly 
 $200,000, but they were unavailable. My 
 cash was tied up. Notes due me could be 
 collected only by means of long and probably 
 expensive lawsuits. 
 
 I surveyed my liabilities. Justly they 
 amounted to about $40,000, but there were 
 many alleged liabilities, such as had been 
 
 432 
 
TO BE OR NOT TO BE 
 
 trumped up in the suits brought and about to 
 be brought, that could only be disproved by 
 more long and costly litigation. 
 
 A crisis had come. 
 
 That night I shut myself into my library 
 and thought — and thought — and thought. 
 Every nerve in me was jangling. My head 
 ached miserably. My body and my brain 
 were sick — and my heart. 
 
 Had I been defeated at last? It looked it. 
 I could see nothing ahead but an assignment 
 to gain time — although I had no doubt in that 
 moment that time would pay my creditors 
 dollar for dollar and still leave me with a 
 fortune. 
 
 My reason told me that other men had been 
 worse crippled financially and had come out 
 with flying colors. It was only a temporary 
 embarrassment — I knew that. But over and 
 beyond all consideration of the business 
 troubles was the thought of the Wolf-Pack and 
 its Leader, rejoicing in the prey they had over- 
 come and pulled down. How the wolves 
 would lick their bloody jaws! How their 
 fangs would glisten as they grinned fiercely at 
 their success ! 
 
 Temporarily Lawson had won. There 
 
 433 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 could be no doubt of that. Nothing could 
 change that array of figures that stared at me 
 from the library table. I had not the money 
 with which to meet my impending liabilities. 
 I must gain time. I must make an assign- 
 ment. 
 
 In the moment when I definitely decided to 
 do this, I determined to go away. I could not 
 stand it to remain in Boston and see my great 
 business conducted by others — I never for a 
 moment foresaw its being absolutely wrecked. 
 I could not stand it to read in the newspapers 
 that I had made an assignment. I seemed to 
 see the bulletin boards in front of the offices on 
 Newspaper Row, with the words in big, blue 
 letters: " C. F. King Fails" 
 
 "Failure!" I couldn't stand it. 
 
 "He's won. That's what they'll all say. 
 Lawson's won." I repeated this to myself. 
 "He's got part of his wish." And then: 
 " ' Stripes or a suicide's grave,' he said." 
 
 Shocked, I halted, and there ran through my 
 mind, as clearly as though some great actor 
 was speaking the lines upon the stage, those 
 immortal words of Shakespeare: 
 
 To be, or not to be, that is the question: 
 Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
 
 434 
 
TO BE OR NOT TO BE 
 
 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
 And, by opposing, end them ? 
 
 How many men, situated as I was at that 
 moment, have remembered those words ! And 
 how many, shrinking from the injustice and 
 heartlessness of cruel fate, have turned their 
 faces out toward the Great Unknown! 
 
 To die, — to sleep, — 
 No more; — and by a sleep, to say we end 
 The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 
 That flesh is heir to; — 'tis a consummation 
 Devoutly to be wish'd. 
 
 Still it went on, until, by sheer force of 
 some remaining will, I stopped it. 
 
 "No!" I said. "Not that! It would be 
 the easiest way, but I won't do it! I'll go 
 away for a little time — until my head stops 
 aching — until I can sleep — until I gain my 
 strength. Then I'll come back and win." 
 
 On the following morning, pale, haggard, 
 my hand shaking so I could hardly hold the 
 pen, I made an assignment of my business to 
 two trustees, and took a train for New York. 
 
 The flood had overwhelmed me — at last. 
 
 435 
 
Chapter XLV 
 DRIFTING 
 
 A life like a shuttlecock may be toss'd, 
 With the hand of Fate for a battledore. 
 
 I REMAINED that night at a hotel far 
 up town, where I had never stopped 
 before and was entirely unknown. In 
 the privacy of my room I continued to struggle 
 with the problem of what I should do — where 
 I should go — how I should set out to recover 
 the physical strength and mental poise that 
 had deserted me. 
 
 I wrote several letters. To my wife I wrote 
 that I thought I should go South, and this 
 intention I adhered to long enough to write 
 an old friend in North Carolina that he might 
 expect me on a visit within a day or two. 
 Hardly were these letters mailed than I de- 
 cided that it would be better for me to enter a 
 sanatorium for a time, and I wrote another 
 friend asking him regarding sanatoriums in the 
 Piney Woods. I have friends who conduct 
 hotels at Southern health resorts, and before I 
 went to bed I had again changed my mind and 
 
 436 
 
DRIFTING 
 
 about decided to go to one of these on the 
 morrow. 
 
 Just before dawn I caught a little sleep, and 
 in the forenoon a little more. I arose in time 
 for lunch and wandered out of the hotel, with 
 no more definite purpose than to get a little 
 exercise and fresh air. At a corner news stand 
 I bought an early edition of the Evening Sun. 
 There on the street I turned its pages. An 
 article confronted me, under the heading: 
 
 C. F. King Makes an Assignment. 
 
 Until that moment I had not realized what 
 the actuality would be. In cold type the fact 
 stung me with a great, heartsick pang of 
 agony. I had made an assignment. The 
 whole world knew it. My business was in the 
 hands of assignees, empowered to act for the 
 benefit of my creditors. The effect of it all 
 was cruelly crushing. 
 
 I have to-day no knowledge of what the 
 article said, beyond the first few lines. I am 
 sure I did not read the entire article. As well 
 as I can remember, I dropped the paper and 
 walked on, deep in thought. 
 
 There is a station of the subway at One 
 Hundred and Third Street. I entered its 
 
 437 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 door, descended the stairs and boarded the 
 first train that came along. After it had 
 started I noted, with vague interest, that it was 
 bound downtown. Until that moment I had 
 not known, nor cared, whether I had entered 
 the downtown or uptown entrance. 
 
 The train roared on through that great 
 black inferno of noise and malodorous air that 
 is New York's solution of its rapid-transit 
 problem. From time to time it stopped. 
 People left the car and others came aboard. 
 After a time I noticed that every one was leav- 
 ing. I arose and went with the others. When 
 I had climbed to the surface of the earth and 
 looked about me I saw I was at the Battery. 
 I set out to walk. 
 
 I encircled a square in which sits a great 
 building, but did not notice what building it 
 was. I continued around that square, per- 
 haps three or four times. Then I walked 
 toward the water. There was no conscious 
 purpose in my actions. It was as though my 
 acts had been separated from my will; I had 
 no volition. I felt stunned and at a loss what 
 to do. Also I felt weak and ill and, I confess, 
 a little frightened at my unwonted physical 
 and mental distress. 
 
 438 
 
DRIFTING 
 
 If, at that moment, I had met some old 
 friend, and he had said, "I am going to San 
 Francisco on the next train and I think the 
 trip across the Rockies will do you good," I 
 have no doubt I should have gone with him 
 unhesitatingly. But Fate, acting through a 
 great sign that loomed large before me, dis- 
 posed of me differently. 
 
 I had been looking at the sign for some 
 minutes, I think, when I became actually con- 
 scious of what it said. It bore the name of 
 the Cunard Line of European steamships. 
 
 An ocean voyage! The thought had no 
 sooner occurred than I was on my way to the 
 office of the company, under the sign, for I 
 have traveled much by sea and have never 
 failed to gain rest and health from my voyag- 
 ing. When would there be a sailing? On 
 the next morning at eight o'clock. The ship ? 
 The Etruria. Was there a good room? 
 There was. Five minutes later I was again on 
 the street, with a passage ticket to Liverpool 
 in my pocket. 
 
 It was in my mind at that moment to go to 
 Europe and return on the same steamer or 
 perhaps the following one. My plans were 
 not very clear. Even then I have no doubt 
 
 439 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I would have changed them had any one sug- 
 gested it. I returned to my hotel, packed my 
 suit case — the only luggage I carried — and on 
 the following morning was one of the ship's 
 company to stand and watch the Goddess of 
 Liberty give place to the Highland Lights, and 
 these, in turn, sink into the sea as the Etruria 
 struck out boldly across the three thousand 
 miles of broad Atlantic. 
 
 Some years ago I read the newspaper 
 accounts of an accident that befell a great 
 Cunarder — I think it was the Etruria. She 
 became disabled by the breaking of the rudder, 
 or the tail-shaft, or some other vital piece 
 of machinery or architecture, and drifted for 
 days, while relatives and friends of the pas- 
 sengers frantically telegraphed for the news 
 of her whereabouts that the ship's owners could 
 not give. After a time her wireless telegraph 
 apparatus — then in its infancy and unable to 
 communicate more than a hundred miles or 
 so — made its vibrations heard on another ship, 
 and assistance was secured. 
 
 As I lay in my stateroom, that first night out, 
 and felt the measured throb of the engines and 
 the heaving and pitching of the great liner, this 
 incident of the helpless, drifting ship came 
 
 440 
 
DRIFTING 
 
 unsummoned out of the recesses of memory. 
 
 How like that ship I was at this moment! 
 I was drifting — drifting somehow, somewhere 
 — without rudder or compass, at the mercy of 
 every ebb and flow of tide, every deviation of 
 current, every roll and chop of wave, every 
 breath of the winds that blew. I had no 
 definite intention, other than to regain as 
 speedily as might be the mental health I felt 
 rather than knew was in jeopardy. To- 
 morrow, and to-morrow, and yet for more 
 to-morrows, I should be upon the sea. I 
 vaguely put off until it should be near landing 
 time any plan for the future. I felt I should 
 feel better, sounder, clearer-headed by then. 
 
 It was not an eventful passage. The first 
 day or two were fairly pleasant, for February, 
 and after that there were some severe storms. 
 These did not trouble me, for I am a good 
 sailor, and I was up and about most of the 
 time. I did not participate in the games of 
 the passengers or the diversions that are 
 arranged to relieve the tedium of a long voyage, 
 but I remained out on deck as much as 
 possible, met my fellows and endeavored to get 
 all the rest and relaxation and deeply breathed 
 ozone that I could. But when we reached 
 
 441 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 England I was surprised to realize that I did 
 not feel any better, mentally, than when I left 
 New York. 
 
 I remained in London a few days, wrote 
 some letters and cablegrams, and then I went 
 to Paris. A cable to Boston asking informa- 
 tion as to the condition of business was un- 
 answered. Still drifting, without coherent plan 
 or reason, I returned to London, was op- 
 pressed by the fog that hung heavy over the 
 city and went to Richmond, a suburb, where 
 I stayed for a brief time at the Star and 
 Garter, a famous English hostelry. Then 
 the wanderlust returned, and again I crossed 
 the English channel and visited Paris. 
 
 It was here that I first came to a realization 
 of my real mental condition. Good American 
 friends recommended me to a physician, 
 famed in France for his ability to diagnose 
 and minister to a mind diseased. Now 
 thoroughly alarmed at my failure to recover 
 the poise and balance I had expected would 
 follow my week on the sea, I consulted him. 
 
 He heard my story and looked grave. He 
 proceeded to make certain tests whose purport 
 even I, unskilled in the lore of alienists, could 
 understand. Then he gave me the verdict. 
 
 442 
 
DRIFTING 
 
 I was on the verge of a complete mental 
 breakdown — so close to the precipice that he 
 could not promise that I would not at any 
 moment pitch forward into its dark depths. 
 If I wished to retain my reason — aye, if I 
 wished to retain life itself— I must undertake 
 to put out of my mind all thought of business, 
 all worries as to the outcome of my affairs, and 
 I must take a long sea voyage— the longer, 
 the better. The specialist recommended Aus- 
 tralia, as the farthest point for which direct 
 steamers could be secured. I promised to take 
 his advice, at least to the extent of going to 
 Ceylon, where the Australian steamers call. 
 He shook my hand and gravely wished me a 
 return to health. I felt he did not expect so 
 happy an outcome. 
 
 I wished to think, to consider, to appreciate 
 this news that, although feared and to some 
 extent discounted, had nevertheless shaken me 
 seriously. I hailed a taxicab and drove in the 
 Champs Elysee. As the car threaded that 
 crowded thoroughfare, alive with the bustle 
 and gaiety of the French capital, I had time 
 for introspection and decision. 
 
 Reason and life itself in the balance! Most 
 horrible of all horrible thoughts! You who 
 
 443 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 read cannot imagine the condition of my mind 
 — you cannot understand my feelings on that 
 fair morning — when the horror of my condition 
 was at last brought home to me in all its force- 
 fulness by the words of the eminent physician. 
 From the dark closet of my memory there 
 came to me a verse that I had read in the long, 
 long ago. It echoed in my ears as I drove in 
 the midst of the gay throng: 
 
 I have done forever with all these things — 
 Deeds that were joyous to knights and kings, 
 
 In days that with songs were cherish 'd. 
 The songs are ended, the deeds are done, 
 There shall none of them gladden me now, not one; 
 There is nothing good for me under the sun 
 
 But to perish as those things perish 'd. 
 
 And then, as I rode there through the 
 brightest highway of the fairest city in the 
 world, I resolved that if will and stamina, and 
 firm determination could win the battle, I 
 would turn defeat into victory. At least I 
 would never surrender. 
 
 The Gneisenhau, of the North German 
 Lloyd line, sailed from Southampton three 
 days later, bound for Australia. I was a 
 first-cabin passenger. 
 
 On that very day — although I did not know 
 
 444 
 
DRIFTING 
 
 it until three months after — my magnificent 
 office in Boston was closed, and ten days later 
 I was adjudged an involuntary bankrupt and 
 a trustee appointed for my estate by the 
 United States District Court in Boston. 
 
 It is well that I did not know it. It is well 
 that I followed the advice of the eminent 
 French specialist, and instructed that no news 
 of my affairs be communicated to me. 
 
 Realizing as I do to-day the condition of my 
 mind and body as I went aboard that German 
 steamship and set out on a long voyage, I 
 know that had news of things that were hap- 
 pening in Boston reached me at that time, I 
 would long since have taken my place before 
 the final court of last resort, where justice, and 
 only justice, is meted out to all children of 
 men. 
 
 445 
 
Chapter XLVI 
 UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 THE Gneisenhau had barely passed Spit- 
 head when I retired to the smoking 
 room and began a letter to wife and 
 children, to be mailed at the first port of call, 
 which was Genoa, Italy. 
 
 I am sure there is not a human being in 
 all the world who can understand and appre- 
 ciate fully the anguish of body and mind, as 
 I wrote that letter to my loved ones far away. 
 I pray God that I may never again have to 
 write such a letter or suffer so much in the 
 writing, and I would not ask that my bitterest 
 enemy be called upon to do battle with his 
 soul as I was called upon to battle on that day. 
 
 The waves dashed against the ship. Storm 
 clouds gathered on the horizon. The ship 
 rolled and tossed. It all appeared to me to be 
 in perfect harmony and rhythm with the hot 
 flashes passing through my brain, as I seated 
 myself in the smoking room and began writing. 
 
 I said in that letter, and I repeat now, that 
 I would rather that my right arm fall palsied 
 
 446 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 at my side than to have written the letter that 
 I felt called upon to write to wife and children 
 on that day. 
 
 I wrote as gently as it was given me to write 
 at that time. I explained to wife and children 
 that I had come face to face with an awful 
 crisis in my life, and that under advice, which 
 had been given to me more in the nature of 
 a command, I must go on a long voyage. 
 And in the going I must put behind me all 
 recollection of business and affairs at home. 
 I pointed out that not only reason but life itself 
 depended upon my hearing nothing, seeing 
 nothing, learning nothing as to my business. 
 I was anxious to know what was being done 
 — whether or not the trustees whom I had ap- 
 pointed were succeeding in the task which I 
 had outlined for them — but explained that no 
 word or message as to the condition of affairs, 
 whether good or bad, must reach me. 
 
 I wanted to know all these things, but I 
 must not know. I explained that I was writing 
 aboard ship — that in a few days we would put 
 in at a port of call and at that point the letter 
 would be mailed, and while the letter would 
 be making its journey to my home, I would be 
 journeying still farther away. 
 
 447 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I explained that it might be two months, 
 three months, or even four months before they 
 would hear from me. But some day, I wrote, 
 you will hear. Some day I will come back, 
 and when I come it will be a new man, because 
 my coming will mean that I have won the fight. 
 
 That the awful suspense which a letter of 
 this character would naturally create, might 
 be at least bearable, I assured wife and children 
 that in the event of my death in a foreign land 
 they would be immediately informed, for I was 
 carrying a specially printed card in my pocket- 
 book bearing a perfect identification. I came 
 across that card among my papers at home the 
 other day. Thank heaven, its use never 
 became necessary. It read as follows : 
 
 "MY NAME IS C. F. KING. I AM A CITIZEN 
 OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. IN THE 
 EVENT OF SERIOUS ILLNESS, ACCIDENT OR IN- 
 JURY, PLEASE COMMUNICATE FACTS BY CABLE 
 TO MY HOME ADDRESS, 60 POWELL STREET, 
 BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES 
 OF AMERICA. ASK FOR INSTRUCTIONS, BEING 
 ASSURED THAT ALL EXPENSES WHICH MAY BE 
 INCURRED WILL BE PROMPTLY PAID." 
 
 I gave some specific information as to my 
 life insurance, the number of policies which I 
 
 448 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 was carrying at that time amounting to 
 $75,000, and requested in the event of my 
 death that my body be brought home and 
 buried in America. I sent the most affection- 
 ate message at my pen's command to every one 
 at home. And then I said good-bye! 
 
 I walked out on the promenade deck, and 
 passing the ship's mail box, I dropped the 
 letter inside. 
 
 Can you believe me when I tell you that 
 from that very moment I was a new man — 
 that new blood coursed through my veins — 
 that I walked with a lighter step — that my 
 eyes instantly grew brighter ? 
 
 I started for a walk around the ship, saying 
 to myself as I began, "It will be a five-mile 
 walk when I have finished. " And as I walked 
 there came to my side an invisible companion 
 who constantly whispered in my ear: 'You 
 will win the fight! You will win the fight!" 
 
 I ceased to brood. I pushed dull care to one 
 side. I made myself believe I was on a holi- 
 day. I began at once to participate with the 
 ship's passengers in their sports and games. 
 My appetite, which had forsaken me, returned. 
 I tried hard to find, and did find, much to 
 interest me from day to day. I studied the sea 
 
 449 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 from a seaman's point of view. I sought out 
 the captain, a genial German, and in a day or 
 two we were fast friends. I spent many hours 
 with him on the ship's bridge and in his room, 
 and listened with intense interest as he 
 explained the mysteries of navigation, and 
 told of his experiences and battles with the 
 ocean's power. I actually hypnotized myself 
 into a belief that I was simply sailing the ocean 
 blue on holiday bent. 
 
 A day or two later the Gneisenhau was 
 smashing into the mountainous seas of the 
 Bay of Biscay, and then passing through the 
 Straits of Gibraltar we came upon the calmer 
 waters of the beautiful Mediterranean. It was 
 while nearing Malta that I stood upon the 
 captain's bridge at night and picked out in the 
 blue heavens above the familiar constellations. 
 Then I thought how this brief portion of my 
 voyage had been in harmony with my mind. 
 First there had been violent storms. Now 
 there was a measure of smoother sailing. 
 Soon, I knew, would come a perfect calm in a 
 sheltered harbor, and then unruffled peace. 
 
 These thoughts forced themselves upon me 
 as I stood upon the captain's bridge on the 
 night of March 26. Had I known the things 
 
 450 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 afoot in Boston at that time I should not have 
 slept that night as I did. For on that day, 
 March 26, it was announced in all the news- 
 papers of Boston that the District Attorney's 
 office would bring any complaints which might 
 be filed against me to the attention of the 
 Suffolk County Grand Jury, which would 
 convene the first Monday in April. 
 
 In the ignorance of all this and with the 
 light, cheery heart of a schoolboy, I sailed down 
 the Mediterranean with occasional stops at 
 ports of call. I carried out my resolutions 
 to put all trouble and cares behind me. I 
 mingled with the passengers — participated in 
 their diversions — made merry, and at all times 
 maintained a holiday spirit. 
 
 I could indite a volume describing the 
 strange new sights of this voyage, all of which 
 proved interesting and even fascinating to me, 
 but they have little to do with the history I am 
 writing. Suffice it to say that we steamed on 
 to Port Said in Egypt, and after a stop of ten 
 or twelve hours, entered the Suez Canal, and 
 passed out into the Red Sea, thence to Aden, 
 and then on into the Gulf of Arabia and the 
 Indian Ocean. 
 
 It was while we were steaming out of Port 
 
 451 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Said that my spirits sagged on account of 
 a fellow-passenger's unconscious suggestions. 
 On either side of the canal stretched the sands 
 of a continent. On the one hand, mysterious 
 Egypt. On the other hand, storied Arabia. 
 
 My companion, pointing shoreward, said to 
 me: " Over there, just three hours' ride on an 
 Egyptian railway, are the great pyramid of 
 Cheops and the sphinx. Over in this other 
 direction, only ten hours' sail up the Arabian 
 coast, is Joppa, the port of Jerusalem." 
 
 My mind went roving back more than thirty 
 years. I saw again the little old saw-mill in 
 my fair Southland. I saw the little Sunday 
 school class, where I sat with other boys 
 around a teacher, and I heard again a story 
 of Bible times. All this, the teacher had said, 
 took place in Jerusalem, and Moses, of whom 
 I studied much in my childhood, was born in 
 Egypt. I recall the faint smile of my Sunday 
 school teacher of thirty years ago, when I 
 exclaimed, " Some day I shall see Jerusalem — 
 some day I shall visit Egypt!" As the years 
 passed this ambition was ever in my mind. 
 To this day I have it. 
 
 I wish to go again to Port Said and 
 take the train there to Cairo, only three hours 
 
 452 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 away. I wish to go again to Port Said and 
 sail up the coast of Arabia to Joppa, the port 
 of Jerusalem. I wish sometime in the future 
 to wander at will through the land of the 
 Pharaohs and round about Palestine. I wish 
 to see the pyramids, and the sphinx, and the 
 bazaars of Cairo, and the cataracts of the Nile. 
 
 Only three hours from one and ten hours 
 from the other! I was sad and disappointed. 
 
 In the Red Sea there was pointed out what 
 is said to be the actual place where the waters 
 separated to allow Moses and his followers 
 to pass, closing afterward upon Pharaoh and 
 his pursuing host. 
 
 I read again the Bible account of the incident 
 and marveled greatly at the miracle, while the 
 ship ploughed her way through the calm blue 
 waters of the Red Sea. 
 
 At Aden, in Arabia, there was Asiatic 
 cholera, and the agile little natives who 
 swarmed about the boat in their peculiar little 
 craft, offering feathers, fans and trinkets of 
 jewelry for sale, were not allowed to come 
 aboard. They were, however, an energetic 
 and persistent lot and finally it became 
 necessary for the ship's officers to play the 
 hose on them to drive them away. 
 
 453 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 A day later we were swinging down the 
 Indian Ocean, approaching the equator with 
 every knot the ship logged, and the weather 
 became unbearably hot. Despite the fact that 
 I had not provided myself with clothing suited 
 to the tropics, I stood the oppressive heat 
 remarkably well. 
 
 There was always something to amuse going 
 on aboard the ship. On a long sea voyage all 
 passengers become as one great family. The 
 ship's officers were constantly arranging some 
 new and interesting form of amusement. On 
 several occasions the captain ordered tables 
 for breakfast, luncheon and dinner set upon 
 the hurricane deck. The effect at night, 
 with colored electric lights and Japanese 
 lanterns hung here and there, was exceedingly 
 beautiful. 
 
 The ship's band furnished lively music, and 
 was always willing and ready when a dance 
 was suggested. On one occasion the captain 
 introduced a unique diversion by permitting 
 half the crew T to rig themselves out as pirates, 
 climb aboard from the outside and "capture" 
 the ship in the midst of a merry waltz. On 
 this occasion the pirates not only "captured" 
 the ship, but took as prisoners the musicians 
 
 454 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 and then introduced their own pirate band. 
 
 The long, hot days wore on. Sometimes 
 there would be a brief respite from the intense 
 heat, brought about by the suggestion of a 
 breeze. Then it would die out, and again the 
 dead, lifeless calm of the Indian Ocean would 
 be upon us. There was an abundance of 
 electric fans throughout the ship, and these 
 were kept running at full speed day and night. 
 
 Only once on the trip did I feel seriously 
 concerned. Perhaps it was the change of 
 water, although I know the heat had much to 
 do with it. I did not feel able one morning 
 to get up. I was not sea-sick. My pulse was 
 beating fast, and I had a feeling of oncoming 
 fever. I sent for the ship's physician. He 
 was grave and non-committal, and immedi- 
 ately a fear gained foothold in my mind that 
 perhaps I was suffering from cholera, to which 
 all passengers had been indirectly exposed at 
 Aden. However, after a day or two I was 
 able to appear on deck and arrived at Colombo 
 in fairly good condition, although scarcely 
 strong enough to continue the voyage. 
 
 Colombo, the principal city of Ceylon, it 
 might be remarked, is no place for a white 
 man in early March, or any other time of the 
 
 455 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 year for that matter, except possibly December 
 and January. It is said to be one of the 
 hottest places in all the world. It has a popu- 
 lation of 165,000, of which number, however, 
 there are scarcely two thousand whites, and 
 these spend most of their time in the moun- 
 tains, back of the coast. 
 
 Should I remain with the ship there were four 
 or five days of intense heat ahead of me. The 
 captain said I could count on that to a cer- 
 tainty. Within seven days we would touch 
 the coast of Australia, and then the heat would 
 be over. 
 
 The ship's doctor was in a quandary, and 
 he and the captain left it to me to say whether 
 I should go ashore or continue on to Australia. 
 
 Should I leave the ship at Colombo it was 
 pointed out to me that I took a considerable 
 chance of finding my illness aggravated by the 
 heat, unless I immediately went to the moun- 
 tains, and every one assured me that at that 
 season of the year it would be impossible to 
 secure accommodations at any of the English 
 hotels in the mountains, unless the accom- 
 modations had been arranged for long in 
 advance. 
 
 I did not, however, feel equal to voyaging 
 
 456 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 further in the intense heat, and so I went 
 ashore at Colombo. 
 
 I was so fortunate as to establish a friendship 
 with the manager of the Galle Face Hotel, 
 where I became a guest. He was a clever 
 young German, and I saw much of him while 
 in Ceylon. Through his kindness and court- 
 esy to me I secured accommodations at one 
 of the best resort hotels far up in the mountains 
 eight thousand feet above the sea level. He 
 was anxious to take a vacation himself, and 
 not only arranged accommodations for me, 
 but accompanied me on the trip and we became 
 close friends and companions. 
 
 He told me much of life in Ceylon and the 
 peculiar characteristics of the Cingalese and 
 Tamils. He made me perfectly comfortable at 
 the Galle Face Hotel — introduced me to a 
 Cingalese tailor, who fitted me out with the 
 kind of tropical clothing I needed. I gained 
 much strength and after a few days I was in 
 shape to travel. 
 
 The night before we started for the hills 
 there was a ball given at the Galle Face Hotel, 
 and it was a revelation to me. All the guests 
 appeared in evening dress, some of the ladies 
 wearing magnificent Parisian-made gowns. 
 
 457 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 A Cingalese band of thirty-six pieces occupied 
 an elevated stand, 'mid the palm and cocoanut 
 trees and banana plants in the hotel gardens. 
 
 Immediately after dinner I called for a 'rick- 
 shaw, and, being drawn by a native, enjoyed a 
 ride through the tropical park and the cinna- 
 mon gardens. On my return the ball was in 
 full swing. The Cingalese band was playing 
 a waltz, while one hundred couples kept time 
 to the music on the ballroom floor. 
 
 I walked into the garden and took a seat near 
 the band stand. I became much interested in 
 the musicians. They all looked so strange to 
 me. Their uniform is best described by say- 
 ing that it looked very much like a belted night- 
 gown. Upon their heads were towering 
 turbans, apparently made from several towels 
 twisted and knotted together. 
 
 After a time these peculiar-looking musicians 
 began a melody that had a resemblance to 
 something I had heard before. When the 
 selection was finished I called a servant and 
 asked him to tell me what it was the band had 
 been playing. 'They call it the 'New York 
 Cake Walk,' master," was his reply. 
 
 I went to the band stand and complimented 
 the leader upon his playing of that familiar 
 
 458 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 American air, and assured him that it had 
 given me great pleasure. He bowed low. 
 
 " Do you speak English ?" I inquired of him. 
 "Just a little, master," was his answer. 
 
 " Can you play ' The Stars and Stripes For- 
 ever ' ?" With profound apology he made it 
 clear that he had never heard of that famous 
 march. 
 
 "Can you play the 'Star Spangled 
 Banner ' ?" I then asked. His regrets were 
 profuse, but the name was as Greek to him. 
 
 I had an inspiration. I recalled that Cey- 
 lon was an English possession. 
 
 "Can you play ' God Save the King '?" I 
 asked. "Oh, yes, master," he replied, "it 
 would give us much pleasure to play 'God Save 
 the King.' " Then he again bowed low, and I 
 walked slowly back to my seat 'mid the palms, 
 and there in that far-off land, under the rus- 
 tling leaves of the palm and banana trees, I 
 stood with head bared, while thirty-six dusky 
 musicians blared forth the strains of Great 
 Britain's national anthem. And although it 
 has not been given me to sing I did the best I 
 could, and with melody in my heart I followed 
 those chords given out by the band. My 
 words were not, however, the words of Great 
 
 459 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Britain's national anthem. Down in my heart 
 I was singing in harmony with the music that 
 I heard 
 
 My country! 'tis of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 Of thee I sing ! 
 
 My eyes were wet when I resumed my seat 
 — wet from the thoughts of that far-away home, 
 which I might never see again. Wet from a 
 desire that I might soon be able to voyage back 
 to my loved ones — back to the land of liberty, 
 freedom and justice for all men. 
 
 And even as my heart sang that night the 
 papers of Boston and New York were filled 
 with news, under great black-type headlines, 
 boldly proclaiming that the Grand Jury of 
 Suffolk County had returned an indictment 
 against me, alleging larceny on thirty-one 
 counts. 
 
 Of this, thank heaven, it was not given me 
 to know until I had regained fully my health 
 and strength and returned to Boston several 
 weeks thereafter. I had nothing of this ter- 
 rible news to mar the feeling of peace that 
 was coming over me. 
 
 The subjects of King Edward had all risen 
 
 460 
 
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS 
 
 at the playing of the national anthem, and 
 when it was finished and we were all seated 
 again, I sat for a long time, silently gazing 
 at the marvellous beauties of a tropical night. 
 The purplish sky was studded with brilliant 
 stars, twinkling like diamonds in the crown of 
 darkness. 
 
 Most beautiful of all, in the far south, hung 
 that great constellation that has guided the 
 journeys of many a voyager — that mag- 
 nificent combination of stars unknown to man 
 of northern latitudes, that has turned the 
 thoughts of many a heart-sick soul to Him 
 whose sufferings it typifies. 
 
 As I looked out upon this magnificent 
 picture of nature, my mind ran back uncon- 
 sciously and fixed itself upon those grand words 
 of the Psalmist: "The heavens declare the 
 glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his 
 handy work." 
 
 For a long time I was silent. The band 
 played another air, and again the music ceased. 
 
 I had not turned my head, for my eyes were 
 fixed in admiration and reverence upon the 
 Southern Cross. 
 
 461 
 
Chapter XLVII 
 IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 I AROSE early the following morning 
 and after enjoying a six o'clock break- 
 fast, my German friend and I took 'rick- 
 shaws to the railway station and started for 
 the hills. 
 
 The railroad in Ceylon was a surprise to me. 
 The cars, or carriages, as they are called, are 
 every whit as good and comfortable as those of 
 England or France, and the road-bed is well 
 ballasted. The building of this railroad sev- 
 eral years ago by the government of Ceylon 
 was a splendid piece of engineering work. 
 The road winds and twines about the mountain 
 sides in a most daring fashion. It is said that 
 more than a dozen natives were killed in the 
 construction of every mile of this railroad. 
 The train crew is made up exclusively of 
 Cingalese, with the exception of the engineer, 
 who is white. He, however, has a Cingalese 
 assistant, who does all the work, the white 
 engineer merely taking upon himself the 
 responsibility for the movement of the train. 
 
 462 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 Past the humble bungalows, along the out- 
 skirts of the city, through the swamps and 
 jungles that creep close to the clearings of civili- 
 zation, then straight for the foothills and the 
 towering mountains beyond, our train bore us. 
 
 We passed many magnificent plantations, 
 rice fields and great groves of rubber plants. 
 The heat grew less oppressive — the air became 
 balmy. Finally our train stopped at Kandy, 
 the old capital of Ceylon, where the last Kandy 
 king was vanquished by the conquering Eng- 
 lish in the same year that witnessed the defeat 
 of Napoleon at Waterloo. 
 
 Here, at an altitude of about thirty-five 
 hundred feet above the sea, my friend and I 
 secured good accommodations at the Queen's 
 Hotel, and spent several days in rest, recreation 
 and sight-seeing. 
 
 Kandy is a city of perhaps twenty thousand 
 population, beautifully situated upon the 
 shores of an artificial lake, more than three 
 miles in circumference, from whose waters on 
 every side rise the hills, like the ascending 
 tiers of a natural amphitheatre. 
 
 The lover of the picturesque cannot stir from 
 his hotel without seeing something new to 
 arouse him to exclamations of enthusiastic 
 
 463 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 delight. Nature was indeed lavish when she 
 spread out and equipped this capital of the 
 ancient Kandy kings. 
 
 Old, time-worn stone buildings, built in the 
 florid architecture that marks all parts of 
 India and Ceylon, and is a monument to the 
 ambition of the ancient chiefs and the cheap- 
 ness of slave labor, are to be seen on every 
 hand. 
 
 Of all these the Temple of the Sacred 
 Tooth is assuredly the most interesting. 
 Devotees of the Buddhist faith all over the 
 world look with reverence toward this Temple, 
 where reposes what they believe to be the 
 left eyetooth of Buddha, taken from the ashes 
 of his funeral pyre more than twenty-five 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 It is not given to many travelers, even of the 
 faithful, who journey to this holy shrine, to 
 look upon this sacred relic, but most tourists 
 by the judicious use of a small coin may gaze 
 upon a replica of it. 
 
 If it was truly a tooth of Buddha, the great 
 teacher must have been constructed on mar- 
 vellous lines, for the object is fully two inches 
 long and nearly one inch in thickness. 
 
 Investigators who are not followers of 
 
 464 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 Buddha have given it as their opinion that the 
 relic is a piece of ivory from an elephant's 
 tusk. However this may be, the sacred object 
 is magnificently housed and its Temple has a 
 retinue of priests and high priests who attend 
 the duties of guarding it and conducting an 
 evening service daily. 
 
 Once a year there is a great street pro- 
 cession in Kandy, in which all the dignitaries 
 of the Buddhist religion participate, and on 
 this occasion a jeweled box containing the 
 sacred relic is carried through the streets, while 
 thousands bow low as the elephant upon whose 
 back the box is made fast passes along. 
 
 They were building an addition to the 
 Queen's Hotel, at Kandy, while I was there, 
 and one of the most interesting sights I wit- 
 nessed was the bringing into town of granite 
 for this structure from the quarry, some ten 
 or twelve miles away. The work was per- 
 formed entirely by elephants, whose strength 
 and skill were marvellous. The elephant be- 
 came a very familiar figure to me during my 
 stay in Ceylon. He is, in fact, one of the 
 principal products of the island, and I saw him 
 on every side, yet I never tired of watching 
 him and admiring the wonderful combination 
 
 465 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 of strength, skill and intelligence which he 
 shows under the direction of his mahout. 
 
 I saw elephants working in the quarries, 
 handling great blocks of granite with super- 
 human strength and almost human intelligence. 
 I saw them laboring in the forest, sorting out 
 and piling lumber into regular heaps, with an 
 evenness and accuracy that seemed to indicate 
 absolute powers of reasoning. I saw them, 
 after their day's work was over, taken to the 
 river for a bath, whereupon they disported for 
 all the world like great, overgrown, lubbering 
 schoolboys, released for play. 
 
 I saw one elephant of the herd, in a fit of bad 
 temper, leave the others in the stream, and 
 make alone for the opposite bank. His 
 master called to him without avail. The 
 moment he started, however, all the other 
 elephants of the herd looked up and mani- 
 fested uneasiness at his action. Their masters 
 gave them the word, and with one accord a 
 dozen of those big, intelligent brutes went after 
 the truant, followed him on the farther side, 
 surrounded him and forced him to return. 
 When he resisted arrest, as it were, they 
 pounded him with their trunks, prodded him 
 with their tusks and gradually forced him 
 
 466 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 along, until he was back across the stream, 
 and his mahout could reach him with an 
 elephant hook. The others acted as though 
 they knew they had performed a meritorious 
 deed in thus returning the sulky one to his 
 master. I was told that they would be 
 rewarded with rice cakes when they reached 
 their quarters. 
 
 One old elephant filled me with admiration. 
 He was the biggest one. I am sure he was 
 bigger than Jumbo or Bollivar of circus fame, 
 and he was ninety-one years old, which is a 
 good age even for an elephant. He is known 
 as the king of all the herds in Ceylon, and 
 because of this distinction is required to do no 
 work, but is permitted to enjoy himself as 
 becomes a leader among elephants, and serves 
 man but one day in the year, and that is when 
 he appears in the midst of the great pro- 
 cession in Kandy, with the jeweled box con- 
 taining the sacred tooth of Buddha made fast 
 upon his back. 
 
 I was informed that Hagenback, the great 
 menagerie man, had offered a very large sum 
 for the old king, but it had been refused, for 
 the owners look upon his position as a holy 
 one, and they have a fear that should they sell 
 
 467 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 him, some dire calamity would befall them. 
 
 Often at the circus I have admired the ease 
 with which elephant trainers put these huge 
 beasts through their paces. I shall never again 
 enjoy such a performance, for the tricks that I 
 have seen in the circus ring pale into insig- 
 nificance before some of the feats I saw per- 
 formed by elephants upon their native heath 
 in Ceylon. 
 
 I looked upon the tombs of many ancient 
 Kandy kings, who reigned over the island and 
 maintained courts of Oriental splendor two 
 thousand years before America was discovered. 
 I wandered amid the Buddhist temples of an 
 almost forgotten age. I took an automobile 
 trip far into the jungle and surveyed with 
 wonder the tropical vegetation which every- 
 where abounds. 
 
 One evening I attended a church enter- 
 tainment at the Christian Misson. My Ger- 
 man friend, from Colombo, and the proprietor 
 of the Queen's Hotel, a Frenchman, were my 
 companions. I witnessed a program which, 
 but for the dusky faces, the bare feet, and the 
 peculiar costumes of those participating, might 
 have been a Sunday school concert in a small 
 city of Massachusetts or New York. There 
 
 468 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 were recitations, solos and concert singing. 
 It was all very interesting. Most of all was I 
 impressed by the singing of a boys' choir of 
 about thirty — lads of from nine to a dozen 
 years. Their unshod feet pattered on the 
 steps as they ascended the platform. Their 
 appearance was singularly incongruous, as 
 they turned to take the time of their singing 
 from their white teacher. 
 
 I had expected to hear them sing in their 
 native tongue, and the air I felt sure would be 
 weird and strange. Therefore, it was but 
 natural that I should bend forward with amaze- 
 ment as I heard the familiar words and air, as 
 sung by that choir of Cingalese and Tamil 
 boys — the words and air the same as I have 
 heard many times before: 
 
 "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war." 
 
 I was surprised at the clearness of their 
 English expression — surprised at the melody 
 which their young, tender voices gave forth — 
 but surprised more than ever when they sang 
 the second number, which carried me back 
 to the days when I attended a Sunday school 
 at the old saw-mill in North Carolina. The 
 song so familiar to me and which sounded 
 strangely sweet in that far-off land was : 
 
 469 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 " Shall we gather at the River, 
 The beautiful, the beautiful River?'* 
 
 As I listened to the singing by this choir, 
 under the very shadow of that great Buddhist 
 Temple, in the very heart of the land where 
 Buddhism is strongest, I recalled that the 
 Cingalese and Tamil boys were the product 
 of years of labor on the part of Christian 
 missionaries, and I marveled at the success of 
 their work. 
 
 Three or four days we spent at Kandy, and 
 then receiving word that our accommodations 
 were ready at the Grand Hotel at Nuwara 
 Eliya, we started for that beautiful moun- 
 tain resort, famous the world over as the 
 natural sanatorium of the Far East. Some 
 seventy miles, far up into the mountains 
 from Kandy, Nuwara Eliya — pronounced as 
 though it were spelled Nu-wah-ra-lia — is one 
 of the most beautiful spots on God's footstool. 
 
 I do not recall having ever visited a place in 
 all my travels so lovely to behold as this 
 mountain resort in Ceylon. It is easy to 
 understand why the natives who profess 
 Christianity believe Ceylon to have been the 
 Garden of Eden, while the followers of Buddha 
 maintain that it is the spot chosen of all others 
 
 470 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 by the great teacher for his departure to 
 Paradise. 
 
 Adam's Peak, a high mountain not far from 
 Nuwara Eliya, bears upon its summit a depres- 
 sion that a good imagination can make 
 resemble a gigantic human footprint. There 
 is a legend that this is the footprint left by 
 Adam when he stepped into the Garden of 
 Eden. Another legend is that Gautama 
 Buddha left this mark as he bade farewell to 
 his followers of earth and bounded from the 
 mountain's summit into heaven. 
 
 On leaving the train at Nuwara Eliya, after 
 the journey in which we had been climbing 
 higher and higher into the mountain fastnesses 
 all day, we were greeted by a porter from the 
 hotel — a native Cingalese — barefooted, but 
 wearing a regalia that would dim in splendor 
 the uniform of a general in some barbaric 
 army. We handed over our luggage to him, 
 but I would not ride to the hotel, which we 
 could see less than a mile away. "Ride!" I 
 exclaimed. "No, sir. Just breathe this air. 
 I am going to walk." 
 
 Unless you have gone from the torrid heat 
 to temperate weather in a few days, as I had, 
 you cannot imagine the delight of breathing 
 
 471 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 such air as that on the heights of Nuwara 
 Eliya, and the delight of living grew appre- 
 ciably as the time passed in this garden spot of 
 the Far East. 
 
 The Grand Hotel, while not a large structure 
 in comparison with the great resorts of the 
 world, is commodious and above all things 
 comfortable; broad lawns surround it; com- 
 fortable chairs and swings are scattered about; 
 sheltered tents upon the broad lawns protect 
 the guests from the noonday sun. The water 
 is good. The food is good. The fruits and 
 vegetables are the best I have ever eaten. The 
 guests may wander but a short distance from 
 the hotel and pick the largest, most luscious 
 pineapples I have ever seen. 
 
 For ten days I rested mind and body 'mid 
 these marvellous surroundings at Nuwara 
 Eliya. I consulted a Cingalese physician 
 who encouraged and helped me by his advice 
 and admonition. I took long walks and reg- 
 ular exercise. I climbed the surrounding 
 hills. I visited the great tea plantations and 
 watched the half-naked natives gather the 
 leaves from the tea plants. I walked far into 
 the jungle and came upon strange people who 
 lived in rude bungalows made of bamboo and 
 
 472 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 mud. I breathed the pure mountain air and 
 kept my mind filled with the things about me. 
 For ten days. 
 
 One morning at an unusually early hour I 
 was awakened from sleep by the sound of 
 singing. The words were foreign and the 
 strain was weird and strange. The singers 
 were not far from my window and by sitting 
 up in bed I was able to see them. An old 
 native woman, a man and a boy had come to 
 the vicinity of the hotel to sell vegetables. 
 They had spread out their stock beside the 
 road and were singing to attract the attention 
 of possible customers. I lay back in bed and 
 listened to the strange song, and then I thought 
 of home and I thought of the great distance 
 and the rolling waves of many oceans which 
 lay between me and my home at that moment. 
 I could not return to sleep. It was too early 
 to rise. I lay thinking. 
 
 For the first time since my arrival in Ceylon 
 I deliberately and with intention allowed my 
 mind to roll back to the days of my business, 
 to the cruel, almost crushing days of February 
 when I closed my eyes and affixed my signature 
 to a paper which meant that all I possessed in 
 the world was assigned to trustees. I thought 
 
 473 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 slowly and carefully of all that had gone 
 before. I saw it all in a new and clearer 
 perspective. I took an inventory of myself 
 and then I realized that I was a new man; that 
 my old self had returned; that I was a well 
 man, a man strong enough to again take up 
 the fight where I had perforce laid it down — 
 strong enough to take charge of my business 
 again and handle it successfully. I arose and 
 dressed. 
 
 Up to that moment there had not crossed my 
 mind a single thought or suggestion as to when 
 I should return home. When I walked down 
 the single flight of stairs to the hotel office, 
 the clerk was apparently surprised to have me 
 address an inquiry to him as to the sailing from 
 Colombo of the next steamship for Europe — 
 and home. From that moment I had no 
 desire to remain longer in Ceylon. I as- 
 certained on inquiry that the Gneisenhau, the 
 ship on which I had journeyed from South- 
 ampton to Colombo, would be returning on 
 May 20, and it would have been a source of 
 great pleasure for me to return aboard that 
 ship, renewing again the pleasant acquaint- 
 ances I had made on the outward passage. 
 Another ship, however, was scheduled to sail 
 
 474 
 
IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON 
 
 ten days ahead of the Gneisenhau. It was the 
 Roon, also of the North German Lloyd. I could 
 not wait for the Gneisenhau but immediately 
 booked passage aboard the Roon, which was to 
 sail for Southampton on May 10. I returned 
 to Colombo two days before the Roon was to 
 sail, and on arriving there I despatched a cable 
 to America. It was the first message I had 
 sent since leaving Europe and was addressed 
 to my brother in New York. The cablegram 
 was a bare inquiry as to the health of my 
 family. Ah, the joy of receiving the reply, 
 " All well. " I then sent another cable instruct- 
 ing that mail be forwarded to me at 
 Southampton, and boarded the Roon, which 
 lay at anchor off the Colombo water-front. 
 
 The boatswain's whistle sounded shrilly. 
 Somewhere down in the bowels of the ship a 
 gong clanged. The ship indicator pointed to 
 "slow speed ahead." The anchor came up 
 and was lashed in position. The Roon slowly 
 gained headway, nosing into the calm waters of 
 the Indian Ocean. From the afterdeck as we 
 rapidly increased the distance between the ship 
 and shore, I stood waving a handkerchief at a 
 passenger in a small steam launch. It was a 
 launch owned by the manager of the Galle 
 
 475 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 Face Hotel, and he stood waving to me with his 
 broad Oriental hat a cheerful farewell. 
 
 I have referred to this hotel manager several 
 times. He is Herr Conrad Peter, a German. 
 I was of a different nationality than he. I was 
 a stranger in a strange land. Yet his courtesy, 
 his attention, his helpfulness were such that he 
 will always fill a warm spot in my heart. He 
 is an able and intelligent hotel manager — and 
 more. He is a genial companion, an inborn 
 gentleman and a good friend. 
 
 I waved my handkerchief until the launch 
 and its occupant had become a mere blur upon 
 the water. Then I squared my shoulders, 
 turned, and set my face toward where the sun 
 was falling with tropic speed behind the hori- 
 zon. Already it had risen on the other side of 
 the world; its rays were beginning to warm 
 and awaken mv own native land. And I was 
 following it toward the west as fast as steam 
 would take me. 
 
 The homeward voyage had begun. 
 
 476 
 
Chapter XLVIII 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 THE mighty engines throbbed, the pro- 
 pellers turned, and up from the equator 
 the Roon pushed her prow through the 
 rolling seas toward home. Home! I was 
 going home ! No one can appreciate the feel- 
 ing of lightness, of buoyancy, of satisfaction 
 and happiness and triumph that possessed 
 me. At last, health restored, with a vigorous 
 body and a clear mind, I was going home. 
 
 I was a different man from the one that 
 voyaged east on the Gneisenhau a month 
 before. That traveler was endeavoring to 
 appear interested, and happy, and light- 
 hearted. This one was interested and light- 
 hearted. 
 
 I suppose the heat was as great in the Indian 
 Ocean on the return trip as when I went to 
 Ceylon. I suppose the discomforts of travel 
 were not less. But nothing seemed unpleas- 
 ant; there were no drawbacks. I was home- 
 ward bound, and I was well. 
 
 Again we passed through the Gulf of Arabia 
 
 477 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 and the Red Sea. Again I saw the agile little 
 swimmers at Aden and the place where Moses 
 was led by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire 
 by night, toward the promised land. Again 
 we steamed slowly through the great Suez 
 Canal. 
 
 Before we reached Port Said I had made up 
 my mind not to go to Southampton. There 
 was now but one thought in my mind — to get 
 home at the earliest possible moment. And as 
 it appeared that we would probably connect 
 with a boat for New York at Naples, it was 
 evident that I could gain time on the return 
 voyage by making transhipment at that city 
 rather than at the English port. So at Port 
 Said I cabled my brother Robert not to send 
 any more mail to Southampton. 
 
 As a result of this decision it was long 
 after I reached America before I received the 
 letters and papers that he had expected would 
 greet me on my arrival in England. 
 
 A story of the happenings of that trip from 
 Colombo to Naples would not differ materially 
 from the story of the voyage in the opposite 
 direction, except in so far as I was able to 
 enjoy this journey more. It was a pleasant 
 voyage. The officers of the ship succeeded in 
 
 478 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 entertaining their passengers well. There was 
 much calm weather, and on several occasions 
 the captain had the tables for dinner set on the 
 hurricane deck and the ship decorated with 
 colored lights for the occasion, as had been 
 done on the outward voyage. There were 
 concerts, and dances, and informal parties. 
 
 It was with genuine regret that I parted 
 from my acquaintances when the Roon arrived 
 at Naples. 
 
 I learned that the Princess Irene of the North 
 German Lloyd line was to sail for New York 
 within two days. I made the most of that 
 forty-eight hours in Naples, seeing as much of 
 the city as my limited time would allow, and 
 taking a brief trip through the vineyards and 
 fields in the direction of Vesuvius. 
 
 On the second day I stood by the ship's rail 
 as the engines started and the last lap of my 
 journey to America began. My eyes were 
 fixed across the deep blue waters of the 
 beautiful bay on the towering mountain whose 
 eruptions have spelled tragedy for nearly two 
 thousand years. Beside me stood a quiet, 
 prosperous-looking gentleman who was appar- 
 ently about fifty-five or sixty years old. His 
 field-glasses were focused on the mountain. 
 
 479 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 "There is some smoke, but no lava," he 
 said, turning: to me. ' Would vou like to use 
 my glasses?" 
 
 I thanked him, viewed Vesuvius through 
 the powerful lenses, and courteously returned 
 the glasses to their owner. He again looked 
 through them, then turned to me with the 
 freedom of one on an ocean voyage. 
 
 " The first time I saw that mountain the cone 
 was much higher," he said. Then, reminis- 
 cently, "There was no railroad up the 
 mountain sides in those days and I was ven- 
 turesome enough to climb the mountain and 
 look down into the crater. That was in 1854." 
 
 I could not repress my astonishment. " You 
 climbed it in 1854!" I exclaimed. 'You will 
 excuse me, but you do not look as if that were 
 possible. That was more than fifty years 
 ago." 
 
 He smiled. "I am seventy-five years of 
 age," he said, simply. 
 
 From that beginning conversation broad- 
 ened. We exchanged names and cards and a 
 warm acquaintance began that lasted until we 
 had landed in New York City. 
 
 My new friend was the Hon. Andrew D. 
 White, one of the most famous of American 
 
 480 
 
HOMEWxVRD BOUND 
 
 diplomats. I do not recall that I have ever 
 enjoyed a chance acquaintance so much as I 
 did that with this distinguished gentleman. 
 The countries of Europe, the personality of 
 their rulers and the policies of their govern- 
 ments were to this man as the streets of New 
 York or Boston to me. 
 
 For many days we were on the water 
 together and as the ship logged off the knots 
 up the Mediterranean, through the Straits of 
 Gibraltar and out across the tossing Atlantic, 
 we sat wrapped in steamer rugs in our deck 
 chairs and talked. Andrew D. White is one 
 of the most interesting talkers I have ever met. 
 His memory is a mine of incidents great and 
 small, of absorbing interest. He is highly 
 educated and has read broadly and traveled 
 widely, and as we walked the decks, of pleasant, 
 sunny days, or sat in the smoking room when 
 the weather was inclement, his recollection 
 proved a treasure house of interesting and 
 valuable information. 
 
 For twenty years the president of Cornell 
 University, and for many years one of the best- 
 known of all the diplomats of the American 
 corps, he had met great men of the earth on 
 terms that enabled him to discuss them as the 
 
 481 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 average man discusses his business and social 
 friends and acquaintances. 
 
 He had been the highest representative of 
 the American government at the court of 
 St. Petersburg, and enjoyed the acquaintance 
 of Czar Nicholas III, and his comments upon 
 that young man's personality and surroundings 
 were highly interesting. Later he was Ameri- 
 can Ambassador at Berlin and spoke of 
 Emperor William as one would speak of a 
 personal friend. 
 
 I had somewhere gained the impression that 
 the late Czar Alexander was gracious, easy to 
 control and pliable, and that Nicholas was a 
 real autocrat, jealous of all the prerogatives of 
 his rank and willing to stop at nothing so that 
 he ruled with a hand of iron. It was Mr. 
 White who corrected this long-standing error. 
 
 "You have things exactly transposed," he 
 said. "Nicholas is a pleasant, open-minded, 
 good-hearted young man, who would much 
 rather live quietly at one of his country places, 
 with his wife, his children and his horses and 
 dogs than to mix in the complexities of state- 
 craft. Alexander, on the other hand, was 
 autocratic. It is possible that Nicholas, in the 
 privacy of his closet, may sometimes wonder 
 
 482 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 if it be really true that God, in His wisdom, 
 has selected the Romanoffs to represent Him 
 in Holy Russia; you may be sure that not only 
 did Alexander never question the Divine right 
 of kings, and especially of Russian emperors, 
 but that it never occurred to him even to debate 
 the question in his mind." 
 
 Mr. White talked often and at length regard- 
 ing the great contrasts in Russia — the mag- 
 nificence and splendor of the royal court and 
 the terrible poverty and suffering on the part 
 of the poor. 
 
 "There is no such contrast even in India," 
 he said one day. " There in Bombay, Calcutta 
 and other capitals, the native Maharajahs and 
 princes maintain magnificent courts, while out 
 in the country the peasantry are dying of 
 famine. But their courts are not so gorgeous 
 as that at St. Petersburg, and their peasants do 
 not have to combat a terrible cold in addition 
 to hunger." 
 
 Mr. White believed that the present move- 
 ments in Russia looking toward freedom could 
 never become successful until Russia, as a 
 whole, gains more education. The illiteracy 
 of the masses he described as appalling. 
 
 A story told me by Mr. White made a strik- 
 
 483 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 ing impression upon me. I am going to repeat 
 it, believing it may prove as entertaining to my 
 readers as it was to me. 
 
 A magnificent banquet was tendered the 
 court and all foreign officialdom one January 
 day at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. 
 Mr. White was among the invited guests. 
 Through a blinding snow storm he made his 
 way to the palace in good season and after the 
 usual red tape by which the Russian officials 
 guard against the presence of enemies of the 
 Czar, reached the great banquet hall where 
 tables had been spread for twenty-five hundred 
 guests. 
 
 I should like to tell you of the magnificence 
 of that banquet — of the rare foods and wines — 
 of the brilliant people present — of the orange 
 trees, brought at enormous expense from the 
 far south of Europe, whose blossoms scented 
 the air and whose fruit was detached and 
 served to guests — of the emperor's courtesy 
 and conduct in acting the genial host. I 
 should like to tell you this as Mr. White told it 
 to me, for it would prove both interesting and 
 instructive. But I must pass to the point of 
 the story. 
 
 When the guests are all present, at one of 
 
 484 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 these state dinners, the band plays the national 
 anthem and His Majesty enters through a wide 
 door which all the guests face. He is preceded 
 by his personal guard, which always marches 
 ahead of him on such an occasion, and per- 
 forms such menial services as opening doors 
 and surrounding him as he passes through. 
 This guard is made up of gigantic black men, 
 attired in magnificent uniforms. Not one of 
 them is less than six feet, six inches in height, 
 and all are magnificent examples of muscular 
 manhood. 
 
 There has been much controversy as to the 
 exact nationality of these blacks. It is sup- 
 posed that they come from Abyssinia, and that 
 the Czar's officials have a number of similar 
 men in training in that country at all times to 
 take the place of those who may sicken or die. 
 There are six or eight negroes in the guard. 
 They never speak — so says rumor — and it is 
 presumed that they know no other language 
 than the rude dialect of their African home. 
 
 " When the Czar left the room, after dinner," 
 said Mr. White, telling me the story, "every 
 person present was on his or her feet, facing 
 the door. Etiquette does not allow any guest 
 to depart before His Majesty, but immediately 
 
 485 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 after his exit there is a mad rush to get away, 
 as the crowd is so great that it takes two or 
 three hours for the last of the guests to call 
 their carriages. 
 
 "As is the custom, the six or eight blacks of 
 the guard ranged themselves across the door 
 through which the Czar had just disappeared, 
 to make sure that no one followed. There 
 was some confusion and I was buffeted about 
 a little and suddenly found myself pushed 
 against this line of ebony giants. I was 
 endeavoring to make my way along when one 
 of them seized me by the arm. He leaned over 
 and whispered in my ear — this Abyssinian who 
 could speak only the dialect of his country — 
 and said: 
 
 'If yo' Excellency'll stan' still fo' a 
 minute, Ah'll let you out by de side do.' 
 
 "'As I live,' I exclaimed, 'I do believe 
 you're a Washington darky.' He repressed a 
 grin with difficulty. ' Yassuh,' he said. And, 
 at what must have been considerable risk to 
 himself, he assisted me to get out at the side, 
 thereby saving me at least two hours." 
 
 The talk drifted, one day, to Berlin and the 
 Emperor William. Mr. White spoke in high 
 terms of that ruler, saying that he is one of the 
 
 486 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 hardest-working men in the world. The 
 David Jayne Hill incident was uppermost in 
 the public mind at that time, and Mr. White 
 spoke freely of it, saying that from his knowK 
 edge of the court at Berlin, and of the Emperor 
 himself, he felt sure that the slight opposition 
 which the newspapers said he had shown to 
 Mr. Hill as ambassador had been entirely 
 misinterpreted. 
 
 "The Emperor is earnest, quick to think, 
 and quick to speak," he said. " I believe that 
 what happened was this. Some one informed 
 him — some American who was returning home 
 — informed him of the President's intention to 
 succeed Charlemagne Tower by Mr. Hill. 
 The Emperor, who likes Mr. Tower, very 
 likely replied, ' Oh, dear, no. That won't do 
 at all. Tell the President I don't like that.' 
 He would say it in just that way if it came into 
 his head that he wanted Mr. Tower to remain. 
 It would not mean anything more than a matter 
 of personal liking for the old ambassador. 
 And I feel certain that this is just about what 
 happened." 
 
 With this and other friendships the days 
 passed pleasantly and rapidly. Every day we 
 were so many miles nearer home. I recount 
 
 487 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 these anecdotes of my acquaintance with 
 Mr. White because they are the things that 
 stand out strongest in my memory of that 
 voyage. My mind was not concerned with 
 more serious things than the happenings of the 
 day. I was nearly home. I was well. I 
 was happy. 
 
 On the night before we entered New York 
 harbor I chanced to mention to Mr. White my 
 four sons. I talked of my hope that at least 
 one of them would have a university education. 
 We spoke of Cornell, and Mr. White told me 
 if I should send the lad to that University he 
 w r ould be pleased to have him call upon him 
 upon arriving at the college. Also he kindly 
 invited me to visit him at his home in Ithaca — 
 an invitation w T hich I hope some day to 
 accept. 
 
 In the early morning we steamed slowly up 
 the bay, past quarantine, past the Statue of 
 Liberty on Bedloe's Island, past the uneven 
 building line of the downtown district, and up 
 to the company's docks at Hoboken. On the 
 pier I bade good-bye to my acquaintances of 
 the trip, shaking hands last with my friend, the 
 former ambassador, and took a ferry for New T 
 York City. 
 
 488 
 
Chapter XLIX 
 BACK TO A WRECK 
 
 FROM the New York end of the 
 Twenty-third Street Ferry I took a 
 taxicab to an uptown hotel, where I 
 secured a room just before noon and proceeded 
 to enjoy the luxury of a shower bath. When I 
 had done this and changed my clothing I 
 called my brother Robert on the telephone. 
 He was not at his office, whereupon I left my 
 name and number and requested that he call 
 me up as soon as he came in. 
 
 My brother did not call me on the 'phone; 
 he came to the hotel as fast as electricity could 
 bring him. From his lips I then learned, 
 for the first time, what had befallen during my 
 absence. He gave many exclamations of sur- 
 prise that I had landed from an ocean steam- 
 ship, come unmolested across the North River 
 and through the city's streets and called him 
 openly on the telephone without finding myself 
 in custody. I then learned for the first time 
 that a warrant for my arrest had been issued 
 two months before and that all the police 
 
 480 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 officials of New York, Boston and every other 
 large city in the country were supposed to be 
 watching for me. 
 
 For an hour we talked confusedly, incoher- 
 ently. There was so much I wished to know. 
 There was so much he wished to tell me. 
 Then we became calmer and I was able to put 
 together the incredible information that he 
 gave me. 
 
 He told me how the trustees to whom I had 
 made an assignment on the day before I left 
 Boston had done their best to carry out my 
 plans, without success. He explained that 
 they had not been permitted to carry on 
 the business as was intended, but immediately 
 following my departure a receiver had been 
 appointed, and soon thereafter, on petition of 
 some of my creditors, I had been adjudged an 
 involuntary bankrupt by the United States 
 District Court at Boston, and a trustee had 
 been appointed by the Court who had taken 
 charge of all my property. 
 
 The newspapers had given great publicity 
 to all these things. An indictment had been 
 returned against me by the Suffolk County 
 Grand Jury, which convened in April. 
 
 "Why, man alive!" he exclaimed, "the 
 
 490 
 
BACK TO A WRECK 
 
 police have sent out circulars all over the 
 world containing your picture and asking for 
 your arrest." 
 
 I listened calmly as this terrible story was 
 told to me. "Very well," I said. "Tell 
 me about my family." When assured that 
 wife and children were well, I arose, lit a cigar, 
 and began to walk the floor of my room. 
 
 "I can stand it all," I said. "I am strong 
 enough to meet it and I will meet it." 
 
 I telephoned for the former manager of my 
 New York office, and he too came to my room 
 and assisted my brother in making clear to me 
 all that had happened — so much of it, at least, 
 as could be told within the limitation of a few 
 hours. 
 
 They showed me clippings from newspapers 
 — -I have them now and shall always keep them 
 as an evidence of the lengths to which a passion 
 for the sensational can lead the editorial and the 
 reportorial mind, or rather some editorial and 
 reportorial minds. I found myself charac- 
 terized in big type as an absconder, a deceiver 
 of the poor, and a fugitive from justice. 
 
 Not all the newspapers had in this manner — 
 intentionally or unconsciously — done their part 
 to assist in the Lawson campaign, else I would 
 
 491 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 be ashamed to-day of the fact that I ever 
 worked in a newspaper office. Many of them 
 had been fair and just, and had refused to take 
 part in the campaign to injure a man who was 
 not present to defend himself. I give honor 
 where honor is due. 
 
 " Then my Boston offices are closed, " I said, 
 early in the conversation with my brother. 
 
 "Closed?" he repeated. "They're gone. 
 The business is gone. Everything is gone. 
 The business has been absolutely smashed. 
 There is nothing but the wreck left. Your 
 automobiles have been sold and at this minute 
 an auctioneer is selling your magnificent 
 library, and on next Thursday every piece of 
 furniture — every picture frame and chair in 
 your Brookline home is scheduled to ' go under 
 the hammer.' " 
 
 I had come back to find a wreck! 
 
 "It's high time I was home," I said. "I'm 
 going to-night." 
 
 "To-night?" 
 
 "Certainly. On the boat." 
 
 "You mustn't do that. You'll be arrested 
 if you show your face in Boston. It's a 
 miracle you have not been taken into custody 
 here in New York." 
 
 492 
 
BACK TO A WRECK 
 
 "Very well. I propose to face things at the 
 first possible minute. I certainly don't want 
 to be arrested in New York. It would look as 
 if I didn't intend to return. I am going to 
 Boston to-night." 
 
 "You'd better wait until we can make ar- 
 rangements for you to get bail, and then go over 
 and give yourself up." 
 
 "No," I said. "I'll not have any one say 
 that I would not return to Boston until things 
 had been arranged for me. I'm going at 
 once." 
 
 But here Fate determined differently. It 
 was a very hot night, and I did not wish to take 
 the long train ride. And, although I tele- 
 phoned to every boat line between New York 
 and Boston, I could not find one which had a 
 satisfactory stateroom for that night. I was 
 therefore forced to postpone my departure 
 from New York for one day. 
 
 I learned upon inquiry that my wife was 
 visiting at my brother's New York home, and 
 my first suggestion was that I go there at once 
 and see her. My brother talked me out of 
 this, pointing out to me that it was very 
 possible that the police had been instructed to 
 watch his house for my appearance, and that 
 
 493 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 such action on my part might result in instant 
 arrest. It was therefore arranged that I 
 should purchase two adjoining staterooms on 
 the Providence Line boat for the following 
 night, and that Mrs. King and I should not 
 meet until I boarded the boat, and then in the 
 privacy of our rooms. 
 
 Of the twenty-four hours that elapsed before 
 it came time for me to take the Providence 
 Line boat there is little to say. I had begun to 
 get used to the new aspect of things, so 
 unexpected and shocking. I utilized most of 
 the time writing a statement to the papers, 
 which was given out the next day. I slept well 
 that night, for I realized I had an ordeal 
 ahead of me. As I awoke on the following 
 morning, refreshed and feeling fit for any fight, 
 I thought of the last night spent in New York, 
 just before my departure for Europe. It 
 seemed like a nightmare, that former occasion. 
 I was not the same man that four months be- 
 fore wandered aimlessly down into the subway 
 and into the Cunard offices, willing to buy a 
 ticket for Europe or Kamtchatka, China or 
 Cape Town, so long as he could go away and 
 find rest and peace. 
 
 They suggested that I take a closed cab to 
 
 494 
 
BACK TO A WRECK 
 
 the steamboat that afternoon. I laughed at 
 them. 
 
 "I am going down town in the elevated 
 train," I said. " If it is my fate to be arrested 
 before I leave New York no one shall say that 
 I was trying to keep out of sight." 
 
 I walked down the gangplank of the Provi- 
 dence openly, without attempt at concealment, 
 twenty minutes before the boat sailed. I 
 entered my stateroom and unlocked the door 
 to the adjoining room. My wife was there. 
 
 We sat up until a very late hour. We had 
 so much to tell, so much to ask, so much to 
 repeat. 
 
 I overslept a little at Providence, and did not 
 get the boat train for Boston. It was neces- 
 sary to go across the city to the Union Station 
 and wait there an hour for a regular train. 
 I was surprised that no police inspector came 
 to me and informed me that I was wanted in 
 Boston. I was surprised when we rode from 
 Providence in a day coach filled with people 
 that nobody seemed to recognize me. 
 
 My wife left the train at the Back Bay 
 Station. I told her I was going to endeavor 
 to get to police headquarters without being 
 apprehended on the way, but that it was too 
 
 495 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 much to hope for, and that I much preferred 
 she would not be with me when any unpleasant- 
 ness occurred. I assured her I should soon 
 call her on the telephone. 
 
 Alighting from the train at the South 
 Terminal Station I crossed to the carriage 
 entrance, passing hundreds of people. I en- 
 tered a cab and gave directions to the driver: 
 
 "Police headquarters, Pemberton Square." 
 
 "Yes, sir," he replied. "Police headquar- 
 ters. Yes, sir." 
 
 Threading the jam of vehicles in Federal, 
 Devonshire and Court Streets, the cab slowly 
 approached Pemberton Square. Twice, from 
 the window, I saw policemen whose faces were 
 familiar to me and who were probably equally 
 familiar with my appearance. They chanced 
 to look in the opposite direction. 
 
 I alighted from the cab, paid the driver and 
 walked into headquarters. The door-keeper, 
 when I asked who was in charge, did not 
 recognize me. 
 
 "Well, what can I do for you?" asked an 
 officer, sharply. 
 
 "I am C. F. King," I said, as quietly as I 
 could, although my heart was exulting at 
 having actually reached the station without 
 
 496 
 
BACK TO A WRECK 
 
 discovery. "I understand you have been 
 looking for me." 
 
 The officer stared at me. "C. F. King?" 
 he repeated, as though he could not believe his 
 ears. 
 
 'I am C. F. King," was my reply. 
 
 He continued to stare. "Won't you step 
 inside and wait a few moments?" he said. 
 "I'll send for the captain." 
 
 That official came. He, in common with 
 all the others whom I met at headquarters, 
 was courteous. He asked me where I had 
 been and what I had been doing. Especially 
 he seemed interested to learn how I had 
 reached police headquarters without being 
 arrested. That reminded him of something. 
 
 "Oh, by the way, Mr. King," he said, 
 touching me lightly on the shoulder. "You 
 are now under arrest." 
 
 497 
 
Chapter L 
 -THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 THE daily newspapers gave many col- 
 umns of space to the news of my home- 
 coming that day. I spent the fore- 
 noon and afternoon in an ante-room adjoining 
 the inspectors' offices at police headquarters 
 and was visited by a score or more of loyal 
 friends, who expressed delight at my improved 
 appearance and entire confidence in my ability 
 to successfully meet all the charges that had 
 been made against me in my absence. 
 
 I gave out to the newspapers the long state- 
 ment which I had prepared in New York dur- 
 ing my enforced wait, the day before. The old 
 newspaper friends who called on me all 
 directed attention in their papers to the fact 
 that I was calm and collected, and gave no 
 indication of worry over the outcome of my 
 troubles. Why should I? I was at home, 
 ready to meet my accusers face to face, and a 
 clear conscience needs fear no man. 
 
 It was hardly to be expected that I could 
 secure a large bail bond within the limits of a 
 
 498 
 
-THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 single day, and I did not expect to do so. 
 Friends set out as soon as they heard that I was 
 back in Boston to secure the necessary sureties, 
 but without notice of my home-coming and in 
 view of all that had been printed about me 
 during my absence, I should not have been sur- 
 prised if it had been a day or two before they 
 could find bondsmen able to give surety for so 
 large an amount as was requisite. 
 
 When I bade my wife good-bye at the Back 
 Bay Station I told her not to be worried if I 
 was unable to come home for a day or so. I 
 told her that I expected I would have to remain 
 in custody at least one night, and perhaps two. 
 Indeed, it is surprising, under the circum- 
 stances, that this was not the result — and a 
 tribute to the confidence of old friends. 
 
 The officials of the police department were 
 extremely courteous and accommodating. I 
 told them, late in the afternoon, that I did not 
 ask at their hands any favors that would not be 
 accorded any other prisoner, and that I was 
 ready to go to the Charles Street Jail — where 
 persons awaiting bondsmen are confined — at 
 any hour. They waited until six o'clock. 
 Then, bonds not having been secured, I went 
 with officers to the jail. 
 
 499 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 The usual routine examination was con- 
 ducted there, and penknife, cigar-cutter and 
 other sharp instruments with which a prisoner 
 might attempt suicide were taken from me. 
 I was required to answer the customary 
 questions and was then assigned to a cell on 
 the ground floor, in a main corridor. When 
 the key was handed to the officer who was to 
 conduct me to the cell the warden gave him 
 the number. I do not remember now what 
 number it was, but I recall smiling at the 
 thought that this was not a dissimilar experi- 
 ence to registering at a hotel and having a bell- 
 boy called to take the guest to his room. They 
 are a little more careful what the guest takes 
 to his room, at Charles Street, and he cannot 
 leave the hostelry by merely announcing his 
 intention and calling for his bill. 
 
 The cell whose door rattled open at my 
 approach and clanged shut behind me was 
 convenient, clean and cool. Its contents were 
 not many nor luxurious. They included a cot, 
 a wooden-bottomed chair, a wooden bucket 
 with a cover, a shelf on which lay a Bible, a 
 printed copy of the rules and regulations of 
 the jail fastened to the wall — and that was all. 
 
 I was informed pleasantly that I would be 
 
 500 
 
-THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 allowed to send outside the building for any- 
 thing I wished to eat or any books or papers I 
 wished to read. I at once ordered supper, 
 which was brought in soon afterward. 
 
 Before leaving police headquarters I had 
 provided myself with a bundle of newspapers, 
 and it was my intention to spend the evening 
 reading them. When I had eaten and was 
 preparing to make myself comfortable and 
 peruse these papers at my leisure, I realized 
 that the shades of evening were falling, and 
 that it would soon be too dark to read com- 
 fortably. 
 
 Out in the corridor a gas jet was burning, 
 but it w T as some distance away from my 
 cell aud its rays did not give sufficient light. 
 
 A guard approached the door. 
 
 "You are allowed to buy candles, if you wish 
 to get more light," he said. "Five cents 
 
 apiece." 
 
 " Can I have more than one ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes. All you want. " 
 
 "Give me four." 
 
 He passed the candles in through the bars 
 and I gave him twenty cents. Then I set 
 about arranging them so that I could read most 
 comfortably with a maximum of light. 
 
 501 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 I moved the wooden-bottomed chair to the 
 head of the cot and set the covered pail upon it. 
 On the pail I arranged my four candles in a 
 row and lit them all. 
 
 The result was good. I could sit or recline 
 upon the cot and read with comfort. In the 
 small cell the illumination, after the shadows 
 that were marking the declining day, seemed 
 almost magnificent. 
 
 As I sat upon the edge of the cot and 
 surveyed the scene, for the first time it 
 came over me that here was the end of my 
 fourteen-thousand-mile dash across the earth 
 — that at last I was home, and this was my wel- 
 come. I looked about the room as though it 
 were new to me. I saw the whitewashed 
 walls, the cheap, serviceable chair and cot, the 
 gray blanket. I looked through the bars at 
 the circumscribed view of the corridor. I saw 
 the rules and regulations posted on the wall 
 and realized that these were for the guidance 
 of prisoners — and that I was a prisoner. I 
 saw the little shelf, and the Bible that lay upon 
 it. 
 
 Forgotten were the evening papers, with 
 their great black headlines: "C. F. King re- 
 turns unannounced and surrenders at police 
 
 502 
 
"THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 headquarters." Forgotten were the plans to 
 spend the evening hours reading the columns 
 upon columns of comment upon my un- 
 expected and what was termed dramatic 
 entrance into the headquarters of the police 
 who had been searching for me throughout the 
 country. Forgotten were the events of the 
 day, with their excitement and suspense. For- 
 gotten were the true friends who at that mo- 
 ment were finding bondsmen and arranging 
 for them to give sureties in the sum of $25,000 
 for my appearance before the court whenever 
 my presence should be required by my 
 accusers. 
 
 I sat there on the edge of my cot, with my 
 eyes fixed on the opposite wall, whose newly 
 whitewashed surface glistened brightly in the 
 candle-light. My hands rested idly on my 
 knees. My mind, knowing no boundaries of 
 bolts and bars and dungeon walls, went sally- 
 ing forth into the world, back into the distant 
 past. 
 
 I saw again the old mill in the Sunny South, 
 and the dusty main street, and the swimming 
 hole beyond the bridge. I saw the saw-mill 
 where the great logs lay, and where the visiting 
 preachers spoke on Sundays. I saw the great 
 
 503 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 fire, and the brick-yards that came after, and 
 my mother waving to me as I went barefooted 
 out into an unsympathetic, uncaring world. 
 
 Again, in the twinkling of an eye, I lived the 
 years that passed between those childhood 
 hours and the days when I became an adviser 
 in finance. I saw myself climbing, ever 
 climbing, fighting for the recognition among 
 investors that came slowly but surely. I lived 
 again in the months of unalloyed success. I 
 saw myself gaining a commanding position in 
 the world of investments and adding to the 
 world's goods that such progress gained. 
 
 Again I was confronted, in memory, by 
 the problem of whether I should work with 
 an eye single to the honest profit of investors 
 or turn aside to be unfaithful at the instance 
 of the Powers that Prey. I recalled all the 
 happenings of those days when I must fight or 
 fall. I remembered the struggle for victory, 
 for existence itself, with the gnashing teeth of 
 the Wolf -Pack ever at my shoulders. I 
 thought of the bribe I had refused, of the 
 defiance I had ever hurled at the leader of the 
 wolves. I recalled the victorv that I had lost 
 by agreeing to a mistaken truce, and I lived 
 again, in memory, those heart-breaking days 
 
 504 
 
"THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 when the truce was broken and I was too weak 
 to defend myself against the attacks of the 
 enemy. 
 
 My mind went back to the terrible, sleepless 
 nights that directly preceded my assignment 
 and departure in search of health — to the 
 mental agony I suffered in those days when I 
 drifted to and fro like a rudderless ship on a 
 tossing sea. I recalled the more recent events 
 of my victorious fight for health and for life 
 itself, my triumphant return to my own 
 country, and my shock at finding my business 
 wrecked and my enemies apparently in full 
 control of the battle-field. 
 
 I reached out my hand, almost mechanically, 
 as I sat there in the midst of all these thoughts 
 tumbling one over the other in confusion, and 
 took from its shelf the copy of the Bible I had 
 before noted. It opened to the ninety-second 
 Psalm, and I read: 
 
 " When the wicked spring as the grass, and 
 when all the workers of iniquity do flourish ; it 
 is that they shall be destroyed forever." 
 
 It was a word of encouragement when I 
 most needed it — a word from a never-untruth- 
 ful source. Back again went my mind, in this 
 moment of inaction and searching thought, to 
 
 505 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 the days of the Sunday school in the old saw- 
 mill — to a chapter of prophecy in the Book of 
 Isaiah that had ever been a favorite of mine. 
 I turned to it and read. There was comfort 
 in the words for me, as there has been for 
 countless thousands before and will be for 
 countless thousands, generations after I have 
 become dust. If these words could be written 
 of Him who was greater than all — if this could 
 be true of perfection, of Divinity itself — why 
 should I, a poor, weak worm of the earth, 
 repine at the temporarily successful machina- 
 tions of traducers ? I read from the Book of 
 Gold: 
 
 "He is despised and rejected of men; a 
 man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: 
 and we hid as it were our faces from him; he 
 was despised, and we esteemed him not." 
 
 These and all the other sonorous sentences 
 of the chapter I read, with some appreciation 
 of their meaning. I returned the book to its 
 shelf and my mind, recalled from the turmoil of 
 the past, went on an expedition into the realms 
 of the future. 
 
 In this flickering and primitive candle-light I 
 outlined mentally my plans for the days to 
 come. Within one day — two days — three at 
 
 506 
 
"THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 the latest, I should be free to come and go as 
 I pleased. My first effort should be to write 
 down, so that every investor in the country 
 might read and understand, the history of the 
 days that had gone and those things which 
 had brought about my present unfortunate 
 state. This should be done simply, truth- 
 fully, without malice, injustice or thought of 
 revenge. Then I should begin the process 
 of rehabilitation. 
 
 As I planned the renewed upbuilding of my 
 business, my imagination went out beyond 
 the whitewashed walls and I beheld pictures 
 of the future, drawn in sure, true lines upon 
 the easel of passing time. 
 
 I saw my business, now shrunken to ex- 
 tinction, grown again to its former magnitude 
 — and more. I saw the great army of in- 
 vestors, now on the point of being scattered 
 before the onslaughts of the enemy, again 
 rallying around the standard of "A Square 
 Deal," and, with shoulder to shoulder, turning 
 a rout into a victory. I saw my old spacious 
 offices, now closed and empty, again filled with 
 busy employees and interested clients. I saw 
 within their doors the faces of all the old 
 friends — and hundreds of new ones. I saw a 
 
 507 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 corporation, with my name as its name, grow- 
 ing to great proportions and returning to its 
 stockholders welcome and satisfactory divi- 
 dends. I saw my name cleared of all the 
 imputations that my enemies had heaped upon 
 it, and my reputation emerging clear and 
 unsullied from the slanders and malicious 
 falsehoods of evil men. I saw a day approach- 
 ing, and coming swiftly, when Financial 
 Thuggee should sink to well-earned and 
 ignominious defeat; when the Wolf-Pack 
 should be scattered and its leader find his 
 proper place in the minds of all men; when 
 financial honesty should triumph over dis- 
 honesty, justice over injustice and right over 
 wrong. 
 
 These things were in my mind as a vision. 
 In that environment of locks and walls that 
 would be disgraceful did not conscious inno- 
 cence of guilt remove the stigma, I renewed 
 the resolution made so many years ago: 
 
 "I will never admit defeat; I will fight as 
 long as there is a breath left in my body, and 
 if I go down to death and destruction I will 
 approach the end with the knowledge that I 
 have fought a good fight — that I have kept the 
 faith — that I have done my honest best to put 
 
 508 
 
"THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES" 
 
 an end to wrong and wickedness in finance. 
 
 A rattle of bolts down the corridor, and the 
 succeeding tramp of footsteps roused me with 
 a start from my reverie. I looked across the 
 improvised candelabra at the face of a guard 
 peering in through the bars. 
 
 "Put on your coat and come on," he said, 
 not ungently. "Your bail has been secured 
 and your friends are waiting for you in the 
 office." 
 
 Almost as one in a daze I brought myself 
 back to the present. Putting on my coat and 
 taking one last look at my surroundings I 
 stepped through the now opened door and 
 followed him toward the outer walls and 
 freedom. It was exactly nine o'clock. 
 
 Once more, as I neared the end of the 
 corridor, I turned to look at that barred room 
 which had been my habitation for three hours. 
 
 It was as I had found it, but for the slight 
 moving of the furniture, and awaited the 
 arrival of its next occupant — perhaps one less 
 fortunate or less innocent than I. Its cot, its 
 chair, its rules against the wall, its Bible on the 
 shelf, all were stamped ineradicably on my 
 memory. 
 
 Through the bars, in full sight from the 
 
 509 
 
THE LIGHT OF FOUR CANDLES 
 
 corridor and twinkling after me as though it 
 would cry, "Bo not forget! Be faithful and 
 unfaltering in the right! Remember!" shone 
 a beam of brighter light than was vouchsafed 
 the rest of the barred rooms and their occu- 
 pants. It followed me as I passed out of the 
 place — out of prison into the gorgeous summer 
 night — out of detention into the joy of a happy 
 home-coming, surrounded by my wife and 
 children. I see the brightness now. I shall 
 never cease to see it. And until I forget that 
 June evening I shall never give up the fight. 
 It was the Light of Four Candles! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 510 
 
EVERY INVESTOR 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 Should read King's Financial Bulletin, 
 
 "published by the C. F. King Company, 
 
 and personally edited by C. F. King. 
 
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A BOY'S 
 VACATION ABROAD 
 
 By C. F. KING, JR. 
 
 A true diary as kept by a seventeen-year- 
 old boy, covering a six weeks' 
 junket in Europe 
 
 1R The book is handsomely bound in red 
 silk, with title stamped in gold. Pro- 
 fusely illustrated with photographic repro- 
 ductions from actual snapshots made by 
 the author. 
 
 ^ Life aboard ship and on the railway 
 carriages of England and Continental 
 Europe graphically and entertainingly 
 described, with the light and cheerful, 
 bubbling spirits of a seventeen-year-old 
 school boy. This book has been read and 
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