es as a public duty.

I stated positively in the Foreword of my story, and have reiterated
many times since, that in making these revelations I am actuated first
and mainly by a desire to benefit the people of this country, not only
by informing them how they are being plundered, but how they can in the
future guard themselves, and that if it were necessary to accomplish my
purpose I would spend every dollar I possess; but mixed with this desire
is a hatred of the "System" as deadly as a man can have for anything
human. I have also reiterated that at such stage of this revelation as
is possible I shall secure from the "System" every dollar I can wring
from it to be used in my fight against it, provided always I can get its
dollars in legal, fair, and above-board fighting ways--I mean, in the
open market.

Mr. Lawson appears before the bar of public opinion as a
volunteer witness for the commonwealth--"state's
evidence"--as the lawyers phrase it--and hence his
reputation, his motives, his character, his every act,
become at once fit subjects for the closest scrutiny and
examination.

Whoever says that in telling my story I am revealing anything which it
is not fair or just to tell, or that I have not a perfect right to
state, says that which is false. I am confining myself to explaining how
the "System" gets its money. I do not touch upon how it spends it. If in
an honorable way I could write the things that have come to me
confidentially, the "System" might well tremble. I confess that at times
I have been tempted to depart from my code--when, for instance, soon
after the first Donohoe chapter, a man came to me and showed that he had
been offered $5,000 to vouch for the statement--which Denis Donohoe, H.
H. Rogers's right-hand man, had printed, and the insurance companies had
spread broadcast--that the first ten years of Thomas W. Lawson's
business life were spent as an employee of Richard Canfield, the
Providence and New York gambler, and afterward as his partner. "Give us
an affidavit to that effect and we will pay you $5,000." To this man I
said: "I have never in my life been connected with any gambling-place in
any way, nor had to do with gambling in any form, and only once in my
life have I set eyes on Richard Canfield. He was in the Waldorf Cafe one
day when I was passing through. However, if I did know him I should not
be ashamed to admit it, for I consider Canfield, from what I h