n the
New York Life Insurance Company in 1892, and being asked if I had ever
been refused insurance, had replied in the negative. Investigation
showed that I had been refused four years before by two other companies,
whereupon my application was rejected and I was practically
black-listed, and so could not secure life insurance in any American
company. By way of corroborating this plausible story two letters,
purporting to have been written by agents of the two companies to their
head officers without my knowledge, were incorporated in the resolution.
The letters stated that the writers could secure me for a large amount
of insurance if the companies would accept the risk. The virtuous
corporations were alleged to have replied that Mr. Lawson had been
refused life insurance before, and for good reasons was not desired as a
risk. This resolution was then published throughout the press of America
in the news columns, and to all but those initiated in the desperate
practices of the "System" and its votaries, it was conclusive evidence
that an unprincipled man had been convicted, red-handed, of fraud.

You who read this statement of mine doubtless found the resolutions in
your own paper, and thought it ordinary news-matter printed because of
its public interest. This notice was an advertisement disguised as news,
and inserted through the "System's" professional character assassinator,
whose head-quarters are in Boston, a person who will occupy a prominent
part in the chapters of my story wherein I treat of the crimes of
Amalgamated. The publication cost the insurance companies $2.50 per
line of the policy-holders' money, while advertisements that I insert in
the course of my private business cost me but 75 cents per line.

HOW THE "SYSTEM" MAKES ITS PROFITS

It appeared that I had sinned still further, for had I not questioned
the virtue and integrity of the New York Life's securities? To
policy-holder DeRan, Mr. McCall had stated, over his own signature, that
the New York Life did not and could not own stock securities. (See the
DeRan letter on page 428.) I proved from the regular insurance reports
that millions of the New York Life's bonds were no more than disguised
stock securities, created by the new device of depositing stocks with a
trust company at an inflated price and issuing against them a receipt
which is arbitrarily called a "bond." I mentioned, as an illustration,
the Northern Pacific-Great Northern-C., B.