movement and expose me as a falsifier. Indeed, notwithstanding the
merits of the plan and the benefit it must confer on all copper
properties, I was assailed as fiercely as though I had advocated anarchy
or had prepared a scheme of wholesale plundering. In stock affairs
innovations are resented and resisted even more fiercely than in other
walks of life, and the Boston money crowd fought me tooth and nail. The
titles I acquired in those days were varied and startling. For one set I
was a "charlatan," "wizard," "fakir," an "unprincipled manipulator"; in
another I was a "copper king" or a "prince of plungers." Feeling ran
high, and prices rose and fell in the most erratic and extravagant
fashion. Certain stocks advanced or receded from five to ten points in
as many hours or minutes. Fortunes were made and lost daily. Many
people, confused by the conflict of opinions and announcements, sold
their holdings, only to repurchase at higher prices as prices continued
to mount. So fiercely was I attacked that it almost seemed at times as
if my enemies might prevail in spite of the great powers at my back.
Indeed, there were tense moments when my fate as well as my plans
trembled in the balance. Several times I was sent for by Rogers and his
colleagues for a war council, and sometimes, as I detailed my lines of
defence and enumerated my resources, I suspected that even these
storm-seasoned warriors were tiring of the fray.

The fiercest fighting at that early period centred round Butte & Boston
and Boston & Montana. Many a spirited engagement we fought on the floor
of the Exchange. Perhaps the fiercest of these began when, after a
strenuous rush one morning, I rapidly carried the price of Butte up.
This exploit so enraged my adversaries that they got together and
organized a powerful combination against me. This included several of
the leading banks and trust companies of Boston that held large amounts
of stocks as collateral for my loans. At a given moment it was arranged
that all these loans, aggregating millions of dollars, should be called;
and further to intensify the complication they expected to bring about,
a great friend in common attempted to scare Mr. Rockefeller and Mr.
Rogers by informing them that the titles to the copper properties were
defective, and that a man, then unknown, named Heinze, who had made
himself very strong with the Montana courts, was about to make a move to
confiscate them. There was a hurry call f