the tongues of all the world's serpents.
To-day, a simple peasant, humble, gentle, is an insignificant atom in
the great Russian Empire, and Nicholas is the supreme ruler of rulers.
To-morrow, by a simple swing of an arm a bomb is thrown, and the peasant
is the one human being in all the world; the face of Russia is changed,
and Nicholas--is not.

The first crime of Amalgamated is a matter of mathematics. It involved
plain fraud and misrepresentation, the insertion of a bogus subscription
and the disruption of solemn pledges, but the commission of it was
nothing more than a matter of arrangement between two men, one the
master of the greatest of all business organizations, and the other the
head of the strongest bank in the United States. The consequences were
world-wide. That night no bomb was thrown, but a seed was sown for the
cruelest harvest of crime, dishonor, unhappiness, and desolation ever
reaped within the confines of our republic.

NOTE.--The above statement has now been in the hands of the
public, has been printed and commented on in thousands of
the leading journals of the world for twelve months, and no
Government official has taken cognizance of it. The charges
I make constitute one of the gravest business crimes ever
committed by any national bank. If they are true, the
Government at Washington has no more important duty than to
punish the criminals. If they are false, I should be sent to
prison. What a commentary on our boasted freedom and
equality! The National City Bank does business at the old
stand. Rogers, Rockefeller and Stillman walk the streets; so
do I, and since I published the above statement and
submitted the above proof, at least half a dozen poor
national bank clerks and officials who have stolen a few
hundreds or thousands have been sent to prison, or have
committed suicide to avoid being sent there.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE AFTERMATH

It was just past the midnight of May 4th. The last newspaper-man had
taken his departure, my friends had all retired, and I was alone for the
first moment since the news had come from the City Bank. I had not then
stopped to analyze its character, for there had been only time to
announce it. Now, however, I sat down at my desk and with a pencil and a
piece of paper began to cipher out what the "412 millions" meant. As I
figured, cold sweat began to gather on my forehea