business and declaring two and a half per cent. dividends
quarterly, when Mr. Lawson stepped in and began to
manipulate the stock. The price of shares rose steadily to
122. Under the influence of speculative excitement the
directors increased the capital stock to $1,000,000, then to
$4,000,000. Mr. Lawson boomed the stock on the basis of a
report, totally destitute of truth, that an English
syndicate was about to purchase a controlling interest in
the company. Having unloaded all the shares at his disposal
on the uproad to 122, Mr. Lawson suddenly one morning awoke
to a realization of the fact that Lamson Store-Service
shares possessed absolutely no value, and he at once took
the public, as is his custom, into his confidence. In
circulars, by advertisements, and by cunningly contrived
"news" items he insistently dinned into the public ear that
Lamson shares were valueless. The result was as well might
be imagined. The stock declined to 30, whereupon Lawson
bought it back and then and there made his first grand
_coup_. It is said that first and last he realized $250,000
from the Lamson shareholders.

I did "Lawsonize" the Lamson Store-Service Company, just as I am at the
present time "Lawsonizing" the "Standard-Oil"-Amalgamated-City-Bank
crowd. The Lamson Store-Service Company, with $4,000,000 capital, was
blunderbussing all who dared oppose it--all who refused to be bulldozed
into consolidating with it. It was the most vicious exponent of the
"Trust" methods I had ever met up to that time. Its arrogance, audacity,
and crimes were the themes of the newspapers and courts of the day. A
most casual investigation of the newspaper files, particularly in Osgood
_vs._ Lamson, and The New York Store-Service Company _vs._ Lamson, will
show a state of corporation assassination equal to that of the "Standard
Oil," only on a smaller scale, of course. Perjury, bribery, and even
murder will be found openly charged and in some cases proved. At the
height of the sensational career of the Lamson Company it ran into one
of my corporations, The Lawson Manufacturing Company, and started in to
"do me up" or compel a consolidation, and--well, I gave it battle. The
following circular to the stockholders will show how the battle
started:

_Dear Sir_: I deem it my duty to say to you, as a
shareholder of the Lamson Store-Service Company, th