ey are grafters--mean, contemptible grafters."

I gave specific instances of their thieveries.

You replied, not by haling me to court, but by:

Circulating throughout the world documents by the millions, disparaging
my reputation by advertisements and "news" and "editorial" statements
from your subsidized insurance press, denying my charges and attacking
my character, all at the expense of your policy-holders.

You libelled me in thousands of private letters to policy-holders, many
of which came back to me.

You employed James M. Beck, ex-Assistant Attorney-General of the United
States, then and now chief attorney for Henry H. Rogers, the Standard
Oil Company, the "System," and the Mutual Life Insurance Company, to
ridicule my utterances and asperse my honor in addresses in the cities
of Philadelphia and Boston.

You employed James H. Eckels, ex-Comptroller of the Currency of the
United States, now president of the Commercial Bank and representative
of the "System" in the West, to attack my arguments and distort my
motives in Chicago.

You ordered Vice-President Perkins, of the New York Life Insurance
Company, to perform similar service in Philadelphia; and

The burden of all these documents, advertisements, and disguised
advertisements and addresses was: "Lawson is an unmitigated liar and
scoundrel, whose sole reason for attacking the insurance companies is
that we refused him insurance."

I replied by printing your personal letter to me, wherein you importuned
me to accept insurance in your company.

Again you gave me the lie, and pronounced your letter spurious.

I replied to you and your followers by instancing cases of perjury,
bribery, and false statements.

I stated that your claim that your company did not own, nor loan upon,
stocks was false, and that it was made for the purpose of misleading and
imposing upon your policy-holders, banks, trust companies, Government
officials, and investors.

You answered this by writing a letter to one of the great churchmen of
America, and in it you said: "I pledge you my word of honor this company
has never, since 1899, had a dollar's interest, directly or indirectly,
in any stock. Lawson knows this, and deliberately, for his own base
purposes, makes charges to the contrary which he knows to be false."

To-day you and your fellow-plunderers stand convicted in the eyes of the
whole world not only of juggling the moneys of the widow and the orphan
in the stock