them. The whole scheme collapsed in 1892.
The stockholders lost every dollar of their investment....

In this, his fourth financial venture, Mr. Lawson did but
repeat his former experiences--except, in this case, the
loss sustained by those who reposed confidence in his
promises was heavier than in any of his prior undertakings.

The Kentucky experience is one of the pleasantest memories of my life.
Measured by dollars and cents it was expensive but was well worth it, as
the young man remarked who broke his arm by being thrown from his horse
into the lap of his future wife. It makes a long story, and I shall only
touch on the leading facts concerning it by way of showing the desperate
straits my enemies are put to in their efforts to discredit my career.

My present brokers, Messrs. Brown, Riley & Co., one of the oldest and
largest Boston and New York Stock Exchange houses, had floated the Grand
Rivers enterprise for some of their wealthy clients. It was an iron,
coal, and furnace proposition, and before I ever heard of it, it had
been bought and paid for, and enormous furnaces were under way. It was a
close corporation. After a very large amount of money--in the
millions--had gone into the property, I was induced to take the
executive management, and also I put in a very large amount of my own
money. My work was to be that of business director, for I did not know
an iron or a coal mine from an alabaster ledge in the lunar spheres, and
not half as much about an iron smelter as I did about converting
whiskers into mermaid's tresses. However, one of the greatest iron men
in New England, Aretas Blood, president of the Manchester Locomotive
Works, and of the Nashua Steel and Iron Company, was at the head of the
enterprise, which apparently safeguarded it. Well, it turned out that
there was no iron in the mines--at least not enough to pay for
extraction, and the investment simply disappeared. I lost a very large
amount--at least, a very large amount for me--but I had to show for it
the love and friendship and respect of the inhabitants of one of the
fairest places on the earth--a place where brave men and lovely women
live in peace and comfort in the knowledge of their own fearless, simple
honesty, and their hatred of shams and trickery--in absolute ignorance
of frenzied financiers and the "System's" votaries.

The history of Grand Rivers is an open book. There is no secret about my
connection wit