wolf, and I have done worse, for have I not come between the lions of
finance and their willing prey?

It is worth while here to rehearse the steps of this first disturbance,
because it constitutes part of a movement destined to wield a tremendous
influence in this country's history. While my revelations of the methods
of the "System" were circulating throughout these United States, the
"System" was engaged at its old trick of inflating the prices of its
favorite stocks and bonds and spreading its nets for another gigantic
plundering of the people. In the stock-market and in the highways and
by-ways and resting-places of finance nothing was heard for months but
fairy tales of great earnings of railroads and industrials, fairy tales
of new ore in old mines, fairy tales of great financial forces
converging toward colossal combinations.

These are the lures of the "System's" hirelings, the decoy calls of the
market tout and the financial tipster whose part it is to mould opinion
and urge the people to the shambles. Before my eyes, with a blind and
audacious defiance of my warnings, the old, old game was rigged in full
view of the audience and the old players began their venerable antics.
In the meantime the "System" attended to its own role in the
conspiracy--supplying out of its banks and trust companies the public's
money for the gamblers to make the game with. Then began the artful
process of working up the market; stocks gradually climbed higher and
higher. Amalgamated ascended from the forties into the fifties and the
sixties and even into the eighties; steel assumed the appearance of life
and grew from ten slowly upward into the twenties and thirties. Every
day in the Stock Exchange hundreds of thousands of shares changed hands
back and forth among the professionals who lustily played their parts in
this financial melodrama. The good old myths of great fortunes made by
lucky investors began to reappear in the papers. Sales increased; values
jumped rather than climbed. The trap was set; the market made. The wily
manipulators rubbed their hands gleefully. The public began to bite, to
buy. It was then only a matter of sizing up the wool crop before
beginning the shearing.

Before I detail the steps I took to spring its own trap on the "System,"
I should explain that this market was purely an artificial one. The
immense advance of prices was not brought about by any honest methods or
legitimate causes. The "System's" v