the 'Standard Oil' crowd I have this big advantage--I
am only one man, a small target, and it needs a mighty good
aim to hit me, whereas they present a large surface and I
have only to heave a brick in any direction to break a
window. The contest is unequal. Everything favors me. My
ammunition is the truth."

There is cheerful courage for you--more particularly in the
case of a man who proclaims from the housetop that there is
no limit to the villainy of his adversaries.

"Mr. Lawson," I said, "there are few who would care to be in
your shoes--a rich man waging a war of this sort. The
chances are altogether in favor of their smashing you
financially."

"Let them, if they can. There are worse things in this life
than being smashed financially."

Mr. Lawson's smile was sunny and confident. He is fearless.

* * * * *

LAWSON, THE MAN

BY JAMES CREELMAN

From the New York _World_, December 12, 1904.

BOSTON, December 10th.

All through the critical business hours of Friday, when
Thomas W. Lawson, master spirit in the present extraordinary
war against Standard Oil finance in Wall Street, was
reported to be locked up with H. H. Rogers, generalissimo of
Standard Oil, perfecting the details of a settlement for
$6,000,000--all through that anxious time, when the
stock-tickers and newspapers of the country were trying to
guess the meaning of Mr. Lawson's sudden silence and
inaccessibility, he was standing in his quiet room in
Young's Hotel, explaining the situation to the public
through the _World_.

Although I sat in the room with him almost from the time
that the stock-market opened until long after it closed, not
once did Mr. Lawson show the slightest sign of excitement
over market affairs. Strong as an ox, clear-eyed, tranquil,
smiling, the man who had moved the financial market downward
against the will of the greatest combination of capital the
world has ever seen, bore himself like one absolutely
confident of success. The bunch of blue corn-flowers in his
button-hole was not fresher than he, although on the
previous day he had fought through one of the greatest
battles in the history of speculation, had made an
hour-and-a-half speech at a night banquet, had gone to bed