work of reformation in behalf of 80,000,000 of
people.

"I know my game. I have stood here in Boston for thirty-six
years studying man and his ways. I have no false conceptions
of my own strength. I know, and I have known all along, that
to win against a system backed by billions of dollars
working in the dark and controlling largely the law-making
powers of the nation, I must have the people with me. My
articles in _Everybody's Magazine_ were simply in
preparation of the public mind for the practical
demonstration which I have made this week, that the
whispering manipulators of Wall Street will not buy at $68 a
share stock which they were selling to the public at $100 a
share.

"The Standard Oil interests came into my world simply
because they entered Boston to control gas affairs. They
wanted to run their automobile down a particular road, but
they found a fellow standing in the middle of the road. They
did not dare to run over that fellow, as little as he was,
because he warned them that he had in his pocket a stick of
dynamite that would blow the machine up if it passed over
him. Mr. Rogers is a really big and brainy man. He saw and
understood the situation. He offered to take me inside of
his secret lines.

HIS INDEPENDENCE

"It is said by my enemies, and they are many--and some of
them are crackajacks, I admit--that I am a squealer, that I
have peached on my pals. That is absolutely untrue. From my
boyhood up I have always insisted on being free and
independent. I have punched a head when I thought it needed
punching, without asking whose it was or what the
consequences would be. But I have never consciously told a
lie or violated a confidence. The newspaper files will show
that when I made my deal with the Standard Oil people, I
publicly announced that I had entered into a secret
agreement with them. That brought a hurried call from Mr.
Rogers, who wanted to know what I meant. I told him, as I
had told him before, that I had to work in my own way, that
my methods were open and above board, and that I could not
work successfully unless I was free to do things as I
thought they should be done.

"That was my arrangement with Standard Oil. They had a great
chest, and the whole method of the 'System'