d
attack. Reforms are not matured to accompaniments of incense and
rose-water, and I had made up my mind to disregard the mud and its
slingers. Afterward, if there were any "System" left, I rather looked
forward to smothering it beneath the foulness of its own generating.
There came a time during the year, however, when I deemed it proper to
depart from this resolution and nail some of the lies my enemies were
circulating about me. I debated the subject thoroughly, for the rancor
of these assaults was evident and I could not help feeling that the
general run of my readers would be impatient of the space given these
gutter rakers. The determination to go at them was clinched by a letter
which came to me, with a number of others from clergymen of various
denominations, from a learned Catholic priest, who put the case for a
reply most earnestly. He said:

You owe it, my son, to yourself to clear away, for once and
all, the charges your enemies have made against you. I have
faith you mean all that you say, but there are many, many
sons and daughters who are troubled in heart and harassed in
mind with doubt whether your motives be pure, and if your
deeds in the past have been along the ways of the good. It
is my advice, if you will accept it, that you put aside your
pride and your dignity and frankly and openly tell us
whether these charges that we read are true or false.

BECK VS. LAWSON

I shall deal with the subject as fairly as possible, reminding my
readers, however, that I am at a disadvantage in having to use pen and
ink instead of the implement appropriate for the purpose, a hose
connected with a disinfectant barrel. To begin with, I reproduce the
following from the Toledo _Blade_, December 26, 1904. (I have similar
paragraphs clipped from one hundred other papers.)

JAMES M. BECK FLAYS LAWSON

Calls Boston Author-Broker a Frenzied Fakir.

DEFINES MONEYPHOBIA

Declares He is Victim of New Disease--Compares His Actions to "Crazed
Malay Running Amuck."

PHILADELPHIA, December 26th.--Ex-Assistant Attorney-General
James M. Beck talked on "Moneyphobia" at the thirty-ninth
annual commencement exercises of the Peirce Business
College. He paid his respects to Thomas W. Lawson in such
terms as "frenzied fakir" and "crazed Malay running amuck."
... "There are abundant indications that this epidemic is
now rife