Krfiew of Iferieicr, i/'-V "j. 



The Book of the Month. 



5-1 



by some areat leader? It i6 quite as mteresUng m its 

 wav as the study of the siege of Toulon, of Vicksburg, or 

 of Port Arthur Mines are run under the man's credit and 

 exploded at the moment when they will cause the most ton- 

 fusipu. abatis are constructed around his markets unni 

 ■wheneTer he would enter them he falls into entanglements 

 which mean retreat or deatli. a system of incessant, deti 

 sharp-shooting is kept up, picking off a bit of raw pro- 

 duct here, delaying a car-load there; securing the counter- 

 mand of an order at tliis point, 

 bullying or wheedling into 

 underselling at that, trumping 

 up law-suits, securing vexatious 

 laws. For fertility of invention 

 in harassing manoeuvres I re- 

 commend the campaign of a 

 modern captain of industry as 

 far superior to the annoyances 

 of the famous guerilla warfare 

 of the Spaniards. 



■■POETS IX THEIi! WAYS.^ 



Miss Tarbell does full jus- 

 tice to the modern Bucca- 

 neers. She says : — 



Our captains of industry are 



poets in tlieir ways — jioeis who 



rhyme in steel and iron and 



coal, whose verses are great 



ships and railways and factories 



and shops. They create that 



the world may have more food 



and light and shelter and joy. 



They create for the joy of it— 



for the sake of feeling them- 

 selves grow, for the sake of 



doing for those the.v love. Tbis, 



to a degree is the vision ot 



them all. These are noble ends, 



but they can only be kept so by 



noble means. Yet, almost im- 



mediatel.v comes the realisation 



that this dream of universal 



emjiire cannot be reached by 



the means which human law and 



justice prescribe. What of it.-' 



The man, hot with his vision, 

 sees his end as greater than 

 truth, than righteousness, than 

 justice. He graduall.y, and per- 

 haps unconsciously at first, 

 works out a modern version of 

 the half-pagan formula of 

 Machiavelli to apply to a mod- 

 ern and Christian situation, and 

 the world, dazzled by the mag- 

 nificence of his achievement, 

 justifies him as he does him- 

 self. 



But, she points out, the re- 

 sults are far from justifying 

 his benevolent aspir.itions. 



THE ETHIC.M, (ODE OF THE 

 PIBATE. 



Miss Tarbtll maintains 

 that it is not unjust to sum 

 up the practical working 

 code of the Princes of 

 American Finance in the fol- 

 lowing condensed summary 

 of Machiavelli's doctrine : 



theory. The first part of '■ Frenzied Finance " is 

 devoted to a minute narrative of the floating of 

 Amalgamated Copper. He floated it for Standard 

 Oil. The mines, originally bought for 39,000.000 

 dols., were placed on the market for 75,000,000 

 dols. The price was run up 

 from 100 to 130, and then 

 when Standard Oil had un- 

 loaded all the stock the mar- 

 ket would bear, the price 

 was slaughtered until they 

 could buy back their own 

 stock at 33. Then they 

 raised prices until they 

 could sell at a handsome 

 profit. When the stock was 

 selling at 82, they discover- 

 ed that it was not worth 45. 

 Mr. Lawson no sooner satis- 

 fied himself that such was 

 the fact than he began a 

 press campaign which tum- 

 bled the price of Amalgam- 

 ated in three days from 82 

 to 66, the panicstricken pub- 

 lic unloading their stock 

 upon the Standard Oil men, 

 who were forced to buy in 

 order to prevent the market 

 going all to pieces. 



Miss Ida M. Tarbell 

 The Historian of 



THE RIGGING OF 

 MARKET. 



THE 



Success is the paramount dut.v. It can be attained in 

 the llighest decree only by force. .\t tinies it rcciuires 

 violence, cruelt.w falsehood, perjury, treacber.i'. Do not 

 hesitate at these practices, only be sure they ,are necessary 

 for the good of the business and be very careful to insist 

 upon tlieni always as wise and kind and t.liat tlic.i' work 

 "together for the greatest good of the greatest number. 



AMALGAMATED COPPER. 

 In Mr. Lawson's book we find a detaili^d drsrrip- 

 ■tion of the practical working out of this ethical 



It is unnecessary to enter 

 into all the details of the 

 story. In its essence it is 

 very simple. The ablest 

 financiers in America, pos- 

 sessing fabulous resouices, 

 use the power which their 

 wealth and their brains give 

 them, first to float stock at 

 double its value, then to run 

 ii up to the maximum prices 

 which they can induce the 

 public to buv it at. Then 

 they use the same machinerv 

 to depreciate the value of 

 the stock they have just sohl 

 until they reach bedrock 

 bottom prices, when th<' , 

 )-iy m. 



prices up, when they again unload. There is ob- 

 \iouslv no end to this kind of roguen, . No horse 

 couper in a Yorkshire fair ever dreamed of so deli- 

 riouslv delightful a method of fleecing the ])ublic-. 

 To buy a horse for a ;£^io note, to sell it for ^£20 ; 

 then to buy it back for ^^5 by pointing out th.it 

 it had the staggers, and then to resell it for ;^i 5 

 111 tile same (Jiirchaser- that in its fssence is tlie 



standard oil." 



Then the same methods are used to r-.ni 



