The Heview of Reviews. 



June I, ISM. 



of being an honest man and a respectable trader. 

 He founds universities, he subscribes to missionary 

 societies, he poses as a public benefactor. It is true 

 rhat his gifts to public purpose are seldom a tithe 

 of the sums which he extorts from the public by his 

 piracy. But they serve as " ransom '' and conscience- 

 mone\. For the modern Pirate has a conscience. 

 So had his ancient prototype, who hung up the Ten 

 Commandments in his cabin, erasing only ■' Thou 

 - alt not steal " as being under the circumstances a 

 M-ie too personal to be pleasant. 



Mr. Lawson, the author of •' Frenzied Finance," 

 which originally appeared in Everybody's Magazine, 

 divides the honour with Miss Ida M. Tarbell, the 

 ' Istorian of " Standard Oil " in McClure's, as e.x- 



nents of the Financial Buccaneering which our 

 -.nerican cousins have developed into an art and 



Xeir Turk World.} 



The Jolly ■• Rogers.' 



a science. Mr. Lawson writes as an insider. He was 

 for nine years in the inner circle of Standard Oil. 

 He is now attempting to make reparation for the 

 losses which he helped — he declares unwittingly — 

 to inflict upon the public. Miss Tarbell is an out- 

 sider. She is a painstaking, conscientious historian, 

 whose chronicles place her in the first rank of the 

 capable women of our time. In the current number 

 of McClure she draws a very suggestive parallel be- 

 tween the Italian despots whose ambitions and 

 methods Machiavelli embalmed for all time in his 

 '• Prince," and the great freebooters of the West: — 



THE KINGDOMS OF FINANCE. 

 Four hundred rears ago it was a state which the Prince 

 aspired to control, to-day it is a. great bnsiness — a natural 

 product like iron or coal or oil; a great food product 

 like beef, a great interstate transportation line like the 

 railroad, a great deposit for the savings of the poor like 

 a life insurance company. These are the kingdoms for 

 which the modern man eig-hs. 



Now we will all admit that under the competitive system, 

 in a sense, business is war; that is. men are eacii right- 

 fully seeking to make his own venture as big and as 

 powerful as bis ability and energy permit, out in all war, 

 even that of four hundred years ago, there are rules. 

 Compare the use of the ancient battering-ram with the 

 use of the modern one — the rebate. The former was recog- 

 nised as a legitimate instrument, and tf.e latter has always 

 been declared illegitimate. That is, when an Italian 

 Despot sallied forth to knock down the walls of a city 

 he wanted to add to his domain r.e used au instrument 

 which the laws allowed; but our mocern captain uses 

 as his principal weapon of conquest an instrument for- 

 bidden by all the laws of the game. As far as weapons 

 of war are concerned, he really gees the Italian Despot 

 one better. Not only that; he equals him easily in these 

 practices which have always been suppcsetl to be an 

 Italian specialty, and which, as has already been pointed 

 out, form the backbone of Machiavellianism us it is. 



TKE METHODS OF THE BEEF TEUST. 



Miss Tarbell in the following luminous passage 

 shows how close is the parallel between " Standard 

 Oil" and Italian Machiavellianism: — 



This commercial warfare has been developed by . our 

 modern captains to a science as perfect a3 the militarism 

 of the nations. Its tactics are as admirable, its plans of 

 campaign as clear and able. You want to control beef, 

 for instance— an excellent kingdom to master, so steady 

 and sure are its resources in a prosperous land. But how 

 ciui you do it? It is an industry as old as the nation. 

 Ic h;is been built up apd is owned and managed by ten 

 tUousand cattlemen on a thousand hills and plains, by 

 hundreds upon hundreds of dealers in the numberless 

 cities and villages and country-sides of the land, by scores 

 upon scores of railroads and steamship lines which com- 

 pete to carry its products. Where is the central position 

 wbich, controlled, will bring them all, cattle-raiser, trans- 

 porter marketman, under your dire<-tion or, if you prefer, 

 drive them from the industry? Any modern captain will 

 tell vou it is transportation. If you can, by any means, 

 so control the railroads and steamships which ship the 

 cattle ftrst and the dressed meat later as to obtain better 

 rates than anvbodv else, you can control ranchmen and 

 dealers. For if yoit can ship what you buy cheaper than 

 vour competitors, von can afford to sell cheaper. The 

 "world buvs where it can buy cheapest. In time the world > 

 market is vours. and when it is yours you can pay the 

 r;uichman your own price for cattle. There is nobody to 

 offer him another. You can make your own rate for the 

 transportation; vou are the only shipper. You can de- 

 mand of the consumer the highest price. There is nobody 

 to offer him one lower. 



HOW THE WAE IS WAGED. 

 Secure the special favour of the railroad then and the 

 rest will be easv, as it is in all great military campaigns, 

 where tlie key to the position has been found and where 

 all lesourceshave been concentrated on its capture. And 

 this favour secured, go after the dealer. It you are a, 

 courageous and plausible person, tell him frankly that 

 his business belongs to you. and he had better sell at 

 once But he does not wish to sell. He has queer ideas 

 about the business being his. He stands on wh;it he calls 

 his rights, and a fight is as inevitable as it was iQ 

 Machiavellis time, when some little Italian town accos- 

 tomed to governing itself refused to turn over its keys 

 to a big neighbour. And it is beautifully clear from the 

 revelations ot, our captains of industry during the laJl 

 thirty years of investigation on what plans the fight will 

 be fdugbt. Cut off his supply ot me,->t. If he has none he 

 sells none. But cattlemen cannot be prevented from sell- 

 in-' No but if it costs the obstinate dealer more t<> get 

 th'it ineat to his market than it does you to get it to 

 vours. he cannot sell at the price at which you sell And 

 here enters the railroad rebate-the modern battering-ram 

 for crushing those who fight to save their own. Crushing 

 them bv preventing them getting tte . s"PPlf_^ o" ,7l"ch 

 thev feed at livable rates of transportation. We al under- 

 staiid it. For nearly forty years we have had it illu^ 

 trafed constantly before our eyes, Kecently we have had 

 it od nauieam. Small dealers in oil . and c.oal. and Ittmber 

 and salt, and a hundred other things forced into, com- 

 Mnation into bankruptcy, or into new '•"!« «/ b"?,'"!^^ 

 because they could not get a rate which enabled them to 

 sMp the Mg shipper forcing the discrimination nntH 1>« 

 Hval succumbed like a wall weakened by incessant batter- 

 ing. „ 



THE MODEKN SIEGE. 



But the besieging captain of to-day l>as other 'weapons 

 th^n his formidable special rate. Have yoa ever watched, 

 month after liont.h. .an attack on a recalcitrant bue.neis 



