nish the capital and to have three-quarters of the profit, I to have
the remaining quarter. The campaign for the execution of the enterprise
I agreed to work out and submit as soon as possible, and we parted.

As I bade them good-by Mr. Rogers said to me:

"Your baby is born, Lawson, and if you put the same kind of work on
raising it you have in bringing it into the world, it will be a giant."

From that day it was understood that we were together, and that all my
dealings in "Coppers" outside Butte & Boston were for the joint
account--that is, they were to have the right to come into all my
operations. Those they did not care to join in I had the right to put
through alone. On the other hand, I must not undertake anything on their
behalf without a specific understanding with them.

Thus began Amalgamated, that extraordinary dollar-thing which shot up in
a night and grew as grows the whirlwind, until even its creators
wondered at its mightiness. It waxed greater and stronger while the
world watched and waited, until finally there came that tremendous and
unprecedented culmination when lines of investors fought round the
portals of the greatest money mart in America, the National City Bank,
for a chance to obtain the $100 shares of this $75,000,000 institution.
And the world wondered indeed when it was announced that Amalgamated had
been oversubscribed over $300,000,000.

Thus began Amalgamated. It might have brought to all the world good-will
and happiness, and to the men who made it much glory and the great
regard of their fellows. Instead, it has wrought havoc and desolation,
and its Apache-like trail is strewn with the scalped and mutilated
corpses of its victims. The very name _Amalgamated_ conjures up visions
of hatred and betrayal, of ambush, pitfalls, and assassination. It
stands forth the Judas of corporations, a monument to greed and a
warning to rapacity. May the story that I am to tell so set forth its
infamies and horrors that never again shall such a monster be suffered
to violate and defile our civilization.

CHAPTER XI

THE COPPER CAMPAIGN OPENS

My plans for the great copper campaign were most carefully diagrammed,
then spread before Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rockefeller, who, before
approving, tested every detail of them. The formal scope of our action
decided on, it was agreed that I should be free to work in my own way,
and it was understood that I should, as far as possible, carry the
campa