erished plans of the
gamesters was due to their truth. If the things I stated about
Amalgamated were not true, how easy to prove them false, and how
completely then should I have been discredited. But what has the
"System" in its blind rage done? Well may the American people who read
what is printed below say to themselves, "'Whom the gods would slay,
they first make mad.' What is Thomas W. Lawson in this transaction that
his personality need enter into a controversy wherein the issue is of
facts alone?" Suppose I were all that my enemies say of me, the question
is not of my guilt, but of the truth of my charges. I was not surprised
to read on the morning of Tuesday, the 13th of December, the diatribe
printed below. It was published in the leading papers of the country in
the form of an advertisement, in great type covering half a page.

THOMAS W. LAWSON--READ THIS PICTURE

NEW YORK, December 12, 1904.

THOMAS W. LAWSON, Boston, Mass.

For six months I have read with close attention your story
of "Frenzied Finance," in _Everybody's Magazine_, and have
paid close attention to the manner in which, by pandering to
the worst prejudices of the American people, you have
endeavored by misstatement of facts to distort the
conditions actually existing through what you call the
workings of the "System."

What is the conclusion to be deducted from your own
statements? What is the "System" to which you have so often
referred?

From the standpoint of honest, unprejudiced men no other
conclusion can be derived but from your own statements you
have endeavored personally and through subornation of others
to debauch legislation, to distort facts, to create in the
minds of investors a lack of confidence in men whom the
public for many years have looked up to as the leaders in
the industrial world.

By every foul vilification and every statement which
distorted imagination is capable of producing, you have
endeavored to show that the so-called leaders of finance of
the United States are in league to rob and defraud the
investing public.

Taking all your statements and analyzing them, what do they
amount to? That certain men, amongst whom you yourself was
one of the leaders, have bought out certain corporations
which were capitalized at a price which you state was far
above their