HG WAR TIERS of \sfoMtreet Price 25 Cents CHARLES' A. COLL.AVAN: THE WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET BY CHARLES A. COLLMAN THE FATHERLAND CORPORATION NEW YORK 1915 v Copyright, 1915, by THE FATHERLAND CORPORATION COXTEXTS CHAPTER PAGE I. YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 7 II. THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 16 III. THE CURTAIN RAISED ON WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD . . 26 IV. WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 37 V. OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OF THE SNOWS" 48 VI. THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 59 VII. THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 68 VIII. RED LIGHTS AHEAD! 78 IX. THE "AMERICAN" PILGRIMS 88 X. THE MEN WHO TOASTED THE CZAR 98 XI. WHO is USING OUR LIFE INSURANCE FUNDS? 105 XII. Is WALL STREET USING SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS IN SECRET LOANS TO RUSSIA, FRANCE AND ENGLAND? .... 119 XIII. THE GREAT NEWS CONSPIRACY — How UNSCRUPULOUS NEWS- PAPER OWNERS, AT THE BEHEST OF WALL STREET, DE- LIBERATELY DECEIVED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE . 131 333432 PREFACE These stories were written under fire, at a time when treason stalked through the land. They are human records of the amaz- ing acts of men who schemed and strove and plotted to blind ninety million people. Then these men, with immense cunning, set themselves to work at a game that is old as history. They coined great fortunes for themselves from the mad passions and blind hatreds they had instilled into their fellow-men. We, who tried to expose these conspirators, were villified, threatened, hounded by the most powerful and unscrupulous band that ever organized itself to ruin a country and its people in the interest of a foreign race. Even to-night, as I write these lines, the plots proceed apace (October 22, 1915) . Wall Street millionaires are calling on Con- gress to expend a billion and a quarter dollars in the coming year, most of it on armament. They have sent the war stocks skyward. Bethlehem Steel the leader, with a gain of 59 points in a single afternoon, for they expect huge dividends to be paid on the hundreds of millions that will flow into their pockets from the ''National Defense." They have announced that they shall elect Elihu Root, the Wall Street corporation lawyer, as their President. England has deserted her ally, the Serb. The Germans are marching on Constantinople. Some plots have miscarried. Other war plots are brewing for the further enrichment of financiers. Shall we let them succeed, these fearful crimes planned by the men who, for a long year, have hoodwinked us, used us as their pawns — THE WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET ? CHARLES A. COLLMAX. WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET i. • YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT One autumn day as I was passing the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, where the new but rather unsightly home of J. P. Morgan & Co. had just been erected, a friend, one of the leading financial writers of the Street, seized me by the arm, and pointing across the way, he exclaimed: "Do you see that stone there, streaked with red in the front wall of Morgan's building? That's the blood of the New Haven." We laughed. It was jestingly said, but in it was the tragedy that lurks behind most jests. The leading men of New England, trusting in the integrity of the Elder Morgan, had invested their family fortunes in New Haven stock. And wrhen the great blow fell, no men knew better than we in Wall Street of the many women, the widows of those men, who had come to interview their bankers on the wrecking of their all. Those strained, tear-stained faces of the New England widows haunted the Street for weeks. It was the bitter story of lost homes, of sons taken from college,, sent to work in the factories their fathers had once owned. The Elder Morgan inflated the costly bubble that disinte- grated the New Haven. Throughout his career he had trusted confidently in the future. And she was kind to him. He died before she could confront him with an accusing finger. The Elder Morgan died and we saw his son step into his place,, into his fortune and the seat in the banking house that heads the Money Trust and controls the finances of our country. Wall Street was breathlessly curious to learn what manner of man was this who now headed the banking world. Young Morgan, as he is still known, bears the same name as his father and possesses the same facial characteristics. He is tall, with a strong, athletic frame, a firm step and a pleasant face. 7 8 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET He is popular among his friends, and no whisper of scandal has been breathed against his moral life. The Elder Morgan had a genius for great financial operations, he built immense corporations, and was an art collector without being a connoisseur. He diverted himself by buying known works of art at the highest possible prices. There was a sort of bluff heartiness about the Elder Morgan even in his despotism. He once scandalized Wall Street by slapping his chief partner in the face. They called him a pirate, and the old joker dubb.ed his yacht the Corsair. When he died, I wrote his four-page obituary in the Herald. In order to get my material, I read about every- thing that had ever been written about Morgan, I questioned his friends and associates and consulted my personal experiences with the banker. When I had completed that obituary, I was struck by a most remarkable fact. Not once by a gratuitous and kindly act, in no incident of his long career had he displayed the slightest sym- pathy for his human kind. No wonder we in Wall Street were curious to learn the man- ner of man Young Morgan should prove to be. I think the first revelation came to us all as a shock. On February 21st of this year Young Morgan testified before the United States Industrial Relations Committee. Chairman Walsh asked him what he considered the proper length of a working day for his employees. "I haven't any opinion on that subject," replied Young Morgan. * ' What do you regard as the proper income for an unskilled workman ? ' ' I 1 There again I have no opinion. ' ' ''Do you consider $10 a week sufficient to support a long- shoreman ? ' ' "I don't know. If that is all he can get and he takes it, I suppose it is enough, ' ' and Morgan laughed. ' ' At what age do you think children should go to work ? ' ' "I haven't any opinion." The spectators at the hearing began to regard the witness with curious interest. ' ' How far do you think stockholders are responsible for labor conditions?" continued the Chairman. YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 9 "I don't think stockholders have any responsibility in that matter, ' ' was the reply. "How about directors?" "None at all." The witness was so indifferent and unresponsive to questions affecting laboring men and the causes of industrial unrest that the members of the Committee gladly let him depart with the remark: "You are permanently excused, Mr. Morgan." Now Young Morgan would tell you that he is a private banker. He has resigned from most directorates of the banks and corporations with which he is connected. Yet he still owns and controls those banks and corporations, steamship lines, steel and iron plants, and the great world-wide financial machinery that his father raised, and for which his father's father laid the foundations. Young Morgan as a result of all this has immense power. It seems to me that there lies a source of uneasiness, if not acute danger to us in that the head of all this industry and banking, which concerns the welfare and personal safety of many millions of our people, should openly profess such unconcern, such a total absence of sympathy with his fellow-men. Of course, a man may think as he likes. But in our day it has become a sort of unwrit- ten duty that the man who makes a great and easy fortune from the labor of others, who controls the public 's money, and earns it from the public by the sale of large security issues, should exhibit some interest at least in those who work for him. I don 't recall a single instance in public life of another man confessing the sentiments that Young Morgan has avowed. We see that the laws of heredity have been observed, and that the son has inherited his father's indifference to his human kind. When the Elder Morgan died, his son at once sold the Chinese porcelains on which his father had spent vast sums gained from "financing" the Erie and New Haven. He sold his father's Fragonard panels. There had been some expectation that the son would bequeath to the public museums his father's art col- lections— an act of expiation, one might say, for past plunderings of the public. But Young Morgan cared nothing for the public's good wishes. He wanted the money. We read in Carl Hovey's life of the Elder Morgan that the banker gained his education at the University of Gottingen. 10 WAR PLOTTERS OP WALL STREET Those early associations in Germany maintained a warm spot in the old corsair's hardened heart. Now we see his son selling1 bayonets and shrapnel that savage Sikhs and Senegal negroes- may ravage the land where his father spent his youth. Young: Morgan has little sentiment for his father's memory. At the beginning of the European war, Young Morgan com- pleted arrangements for making a loan to the Bank of France. This was on August 6, 1914. The Washington administration immediately asked American citizens to observe neutrality, and declared its opposition to the proposed French loan. Young Morgan then abandoned the French loan, to the great satisfaction of the people of this country. Months passed, demand sterling dropped, English credit was affected, and England owed Morgan money. Then one day Young Morgan left this country for England. He landed in London. When the American correspondents there questioned him about his errand, he refused to talk. Young Morgan rarely talks. He went into the country, where he sought security from observation, and remained there for several weeks. In the United States Mr. Morgan's visit to England at such a crucial time was -viewed with many misgivings. That the foremost American banker, noted for his British associations and sympathies, known, in fact, to be completely under the domination of this foreign influence, should be in England, secretly conferring with the heads of the British government, was sufficient to alarm every one of his countrymen. And Morgan was acting thus apparently against the expressed wishes of the Washington administration. What was being plotted in England between Morgan and the heads of the British government ? * ' The danger hid, breeds dreadful doubts. ' ' These dreadful doubts were soon to be verified. Young Mor- gan returned to this country and triumphantly announced that he had been appointed the official agent of the British govern- ment for the purchase of war munitions. An American multi-millionaire had again set himself above the law. He had committed an unneutral act, while his less wealthy fellow-countrymen were besought to remain neutral. It must be confessed that Mr. Morgan 's countrymen received this announcement that he had become a foreign government agent with feelings of grief and shame. It was incomprehensible YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 11 to them that an American citizen, a man of enormous wealth^ driven by no necessity, should deliberately have gone into the business of buying shrapnel for the killing of his human kind. Hatred stalks wide through the land. Lifelong friendships have been disrupted. Wounds have been opened which may never heal again. And Morgan has brought all this upon his- country — the country which has showered upon him and his family all the opportunities, the ease and comfort that an enor- mous fortune brings. But Young Morgan cares nothing for all that. He wants the money. When recently charges were made in the British Parliament that Morgan was asking too high a price for his shrapnel, Lloyd George, Morgan's friend, defended him by saying that Morgan was making only two per cent. The trade in munitions is said to be approximating $2,000,000,000. Two per cent, of two billions is $40,000,000.* That a man, lured even by the spectre of this sum, should go into this bloody trade demands the possession of a- cold and hardened heart. Young Morgan has all that. We remember that the grief and destitution of the widows and orphans of New England left the Elder Morgan as unmoved as the ash on the tip of one of those black cigars from his private Cuban plantation. I do not believe that any reproach or remonstrance would move Young Morgan to abandon his dreadful trade — no, not even though the widows and orphans he has made should plead with him, because, you see, he has no sympathy with his human kind. If the general public was amazed by the act of Young Morgan in becoming the paid agent of a foreign government, what was the emotion of Wall Street? Bankers are the most conservative species of the money-making genera. A banker, as a rule, takes sides on public questions only in the most cautious and deliberate way. He wishes to get everybody's deposits, and sell his bonds and mortgages to the greatest number, as a baker sells his loaves of bread. He enters into no antagonisms, he challenges no en- mities, since such courses are fatal to his trade. • NOTE: — This sum represents only Mr. Morgan's commission as Britain's agent. Immense additional profits are also being made by him and his money trust associates from the companies engaged in the manufacture of munitions in which they are interested. 12 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET To say that the banking element of Wall Street was thunder- struck would be to put it mildly. I have spoken with many bankers on this subject, and the general sentiment can be summed up in the words of an old and conservative member of the f rater- THE TWO MORGANS ' : * ' The Elder Morgan would never have done this thing. His son has left his father's ways. What the future will now have in store for him and the house his father left him no man may foretell." I have before me a copy of the London Daily Chronicle of YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 13 June 24, 1915, containing the speech of Lloyd George, Morgan's friend, before the House of Commons : ' ' In consequence of the great importance of the American and Canadian markets, I have asked Mr. D. A. Thomas — (cheers) — to go over and assist in developing that side of the work. He will exercise control over the production of munitions in Canada and the States, and will be given the fullest authority. Mr. Thomas will act in co-operation with the representatives of the govern- ment in the States and in Canada. There is not the slightest idea of superseding the existing agencies there. These agencies have worked admirably, and, I believe, have saved this country mil- lions of money. He will co-operate with Messrs. Morgan & Co.,. the accredited ag'ents of the British government." Can this boast of the British politician possibly be true ? Has our country reached so low a pass that the representative of the British government exercises control over American industries, acting in co-operation with America's leading banker, the agent of the British government ? Not long ago a demented man went to Young Morgan's home and shot at him. The crack of a pistol smoked out the fact that the British Ambassador was present in Morgan 's home. That the British Ambassador was a visitor at the home of a pro-British banker would not be noteworthy. But what are we to suspect when the British Ambassador is secretly found in con- ference with the agent of the British government ? "What was he doing there ? ' ' The danger hid, breeds dreadful doubts. ' ' If Young Morgan still retains his American citizenship, if he has not abandoned it as a result of his contract with the British government, as so many of his pro-British friends have done — Waldorf Astor and Sir ( ?) Thomas G. Shaughnessy, who spat upon republican principles and renounced his American citizen- ship to swear allegiance to the English throne — if, I say, Mr. Morgan is still one of us, he owes it to his countrymen to take them into his confidence before a Congressional inquiry is made into these grave affairs. Young Morgan should tell the American people with whose consent he became the accredited agent of the British govern- ment, and whether he first consulted the Washington, authorities before he compromised his country in this wise. He should tell us whether, as Lloyd George says, he really is co-operating with 14 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Mr. Thomas in supervising American industries, and how far the financial resources of our people are being used in this contra- band trade with England. Young Morgan should tell us why, after abandoning his loan to France in the summer of 1914, he now makes a French loan in the summer of 1915 ; why he makes a $45,000,000 loan to Canada and is contemplating a loan to the British government of $500,000,000 of the American people 's money, after the Adminis- tration in Washington made him abandon these loans twelve months ago. Clear explanation should allay the dreadful fears that a British plot exists to make this country fight England's war in Europe as the price of $40,000,000 in commissions for the pur- chase of $2,000,000,000 worth of war material. I am sure that the entire country sympathized with Mr. Mor- gan when a crack-brained fool tried to strike him down. It sym- pathized also with his mother and his wife who were prostrated when they learned of the dreadful attempt. One can almost hear the two women pleading with the son and husband : * * Jack, give up this dreadful business. You see what it is leading to." And the man remains unmoved. About the time that deed occurred, there was in one of the Sunday newspapers a halftone picture taken from a Galician battlefield. It was not a pleasant picture. It showed a group of Galician peasant women assembled about a wooden shack, waiting patiently for a. dole of black 'bread and salt. They were barefooted, and some of them, had beastlike faces, torn with suf- fering and grief. I fear that our women also would be barefooted and show beastlike faces, if ever our homes were ravaged by Russian Cossacks. In the same paper Lloyd George was boasting that Britain would win the war, not by the valor of British arms, but by starving women such as these. These ragged Gali- cian peasant women knew that an Austro-German regiment had captured on that spot, from the Russians, boxes of ammuni- tion "Made in America." They knew who had sold these arms to the Russians via Archangel. Oh, it is known by this time over the world. They had come from Britain's munitions agent, who thereby was earning his two per cent. But these ragged, wretched Galician peasant women WERE ALSO WIVES AND MOTHERS. THEY ALSO HAD SEEN YOUNG MORGAN, BRITAIN'S MUNITIONS AGENT 15 THEIR SONS AND HUSBANDS STRICKEN DOWN. And these women were primitive natures. They knew how to curse and wail. The old Assyrian kings were conspicuous for a peculiar streak of cruelty. When they captured a town, they proudly record making mounds outside of the city gates of the hands and ears of their captives. "Those whom I spared, I put out their eyes and cut off their noses. ' ' Modern historians explain this peculiar trait of the Assyrians by stating that these people lacked imag- ination— that is, they could not conceive suffering in others as applied to themselves. I think this rule applies to Young Morgan. I fear he fails in imagination. I confess that if I were Britain's munitions agent, I would wake o' nights sweating with fright, my ears ringing with those shrieks and wails from the Galician battle-fields: 1 i Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. What do I fear ? Myself ? there 's none else by : There is no creature loves me ; And if I die, no soul will pity me : Nay, wherefore should they ? Since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself. Methought the souls of all that I had murder 'd Came to my tent." I have never before written a word in criticism of Young Morgan, and what I add now I write with reluctance and regret. But this pro-British banker, this handsome, stalwart man, with his satiate eye, with his lack of human sympathy, with absence of sentiment and imagination, walking to and from his banking house in Wall Street to earn his bloody two per cent., I regard to-day as the man most dangerous to the peace of his country. II. THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS Wall Street has many moods and guises. It dresses them in externals, as an actor does his parts. The other day I strolled into the entrance of the Stock Ex- change, and my eyes met the large placard posted there : — "Gallery Closed for Repairs." No repairs are ever needed for the gallery of the Stock Ex- change. I knew the portents of that sign. I have seen it there before, and know the reason why. It meant that the public had been excluded from the observation stand where it is permitted to watch the brokers' hubbub about the trading posts in the country's greatest money market. It meant FEAR. So I went around to the Wall Street entrance, where I satis- fied the uniformed watchers stationed there as to my good inten- tions. For all entrances to the Stock Exchange are guarded, as are many Wall Street banking houses now, whose partners are kept under secret protection when they go about. I went to the fifth floor of the building to the "Library," where the financial writers congregate. One of them came up to me and whispered: "Collman, do you know they've just put a new steel wire netting over the roof of the Exchange ? ' ' We interchanged significant glances. * ' Why, ' ' I asked, ' ' have they been getting letters again ? ' ' "Yes," he answered, in a lowered tone, "but they asked us not to mention it in the newspapers." In order to verify my friend's statement, I later ascended to the sixteenth floor of the Commercial Cable Building and looked down upon the shaft which opens on the great glass dome over the floor of the Exchange. My friend had not been mistaken. There it spread, a new, glittering steel wire netting, strong and durable, protecting the men, who, far below, were buying and selling war stocks, to the accompaniment of a clamorous din. And I could not refrain from asking myself, Why should men 16 THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 17 be working way down there in secret, screened from the public eye? Now in all this fair land of ours, those who are engaged in honest work do not hide behind steel screens, surrounded by guardsmen to protect them from the public gaze. When we go to see other men at business, wre are accustomed to a bright Amer- ican smile, a hearty handclasp and a cheery response that times are good and trade is booming. When men work in secret hiding places, we are accustomed to associate them with those wretches who make explosives for the slaying of their fellows, or hatch some plot to strip them of their coin. Is it possible that Wall Street can be engaged upon the com- mission of a crime ? Let us see. On the New York Stock Exchange there are 1,100 member- ships. These brokers, as a rule, are handsome, hearty fellows, generous and good natured as are most men who make easy money. They do not produce, but absorb from the surplus pro- vided by those who do the work of the land. Wall Street men know this so well that many of them engage in public movements and philanthropies. Wall Street must be made respectable. Mr. Henry Clews, for instance, who may be termed the Nestor of the brokerage world, is head of the American Peace and Arbi- tration League. To some it might appear an inconsistency that war stocks should be permitted to be posted on the quotation board in his brokerage office. But then that is business. Since the great war started, however, Mr. Clews, both as a publicist and a public speaker, has seen fit to single out for attack one of the many nationalities that go to make up the population of our country, and that is not so well. People who live in glass houses, you know. Mr. Clews and I have known each other for a great many years, and we have always been good friends, although, if he will permit me to say so, he is a foreigner and I am an American. Mr. Clews was born in England and came to this country a poor boy, for his native land had nothing to offer him. We, in our country, have welcomed Mr. Clews, have given him the priv- ilege of making a large fortune and enjoying an easy life. I think we all have rejoiced in seeing Mr. Clews prosper. So far as I know, nobody has ever attacked Mr. Clews because he is of 18 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET English birth, so it does not seem quite just that he should assail another race. Coming from a man of his age and standing, such words as he has uttered are calculated to awaken hatreds and dissensions that might tend to plunge our country into war. I think it is regretful that he should have brought over to us his old-world hatreds. I could probably say to him: "Mr. Clews, if you don't like the views of my country and the people of my country, you had better return to your own." But that is not the American way. I should not like to see Mr. Clews returned to his country. I like him too well. I admire him for his many gifts which have been useful to our people. Besides, I think he has a kindly heart, and is merely subject to an English fault. I mention this attitude of Mr. Clews because I am convinced that it has a direct bearing on the fact that Wall Street to-day conducts its work in secret. This -secretiveness is an admission of the Money Trust that in backing the Allies it is wronging other races in this country, and that it works in guilty fear of them. How much better would it be for Mr. Clews to prove his loyalty to his adopted country by advocating an embargo on the ship- ment of arms and ammunition to the warring nations, thus put- ting to shame his next door neighbor, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, American by birth, but official agent for Great Britain, who, for the sake of the money he makes, brings upon his country crisis after crisis because of his traffic in war material. Throughout the United States millions of men are looking upon Wall Street and its Stock Exchange with eyes red in hatred. They see there disloyalty on every hand, bankers making themselves agents for foreign governments, naturalized citizens eager for war in the interest of the land from which they came, and which they seem to love better than their own. And among such are the War Stock Gamblers. Mr. Noble, you are the President of the New York Stock Exchange, which is the medium through which the Money Trust unloads upon the public the stocks in its war enterprises. You will recall that several years ago, after the public had been lured into Wall Street, plundered and stripped, a great outcry arose to incorporate the Stock Exchange. As at present constituted, the Exchange is a private club. Its members do as they like, subject only to the club's restrictions. "In case of the insolvency of a member, his obligations to THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 19 other members take precedence over even the claims of a cus- tomer who has been defrauded/' The proposal to incorporate the Exchange was greeted with fury by your members. Your predecessor, Mr. Mabon, pro- nounced.it a monstrous injustice, and at a dinner members hissed the name of New York ?s governor and threatened to remove their organization from the state. But when the Pujo" Committee recommended that Congress prohibit the use of the cnails, telegraph and telephone to your association, the Exchange promised to reform. It appointed a press agent, Mr. William C. Van Antwerp, at a salary of $15,000 a year — or is it $25,000? — whose duty it was to make the Ex- change popular again. I received some of these reform prom- ises from the hands of Mr. Van Antwerp, and as I thought they were earnestly meant, I published them. In view of that fact, Mr. Noble, I am entitled to ask you, How have those promises been kept? To-day on the Stock Exchange the old game of swindling the public is in full blast again, but in a form crueller, meaner and more contemptible than ever. You know to what I am referring — the War Stocks. What are war stocks? Since Mr. Morgan the Younger made himself Britain's muni- tions agent, the pro-British Money Trust has jumped in to manu- facture arms and shrapnel for the Allies. They think they will make "fat money" by selling this material for the purpose of arming savage mercenaries, through whom England hopes to wipe out the Germanic races of Central Europe, from which more than one-half of our people have sprung. Well and good. But the Money Trust hopes also to make money in another way, namely by foisting upon the public" at high prices, the stocks issued on»its war plaVts. Among these war stocks I shall pick out a few conspicuous examples. They are Bethlehem Steel, Crucible Steel, Westing- house, American Coal Products and Pressed Steel Car. There are also many others. As I write this, Pressed Steel Car has been manipulated from $25 to $59:?4 a share: Crucible, from $18*4 to $9234; Westing- house, from $64 to $115 ; Coal Products, from $82 to $170*4 and Bethlehem, from $29>i to $311. 20 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Those are huge advances. On what are they supposed to be based ? Large cash dividends looming in sight ? Mr. Noble, you know as well as I do that the members of the Money Trust never share their profits with the people. They will put such profits as they make into plants, and issue more stock against the latter, unloading it ait still higher prices through the members of the Stock Exchange upon the public, which is to be neatly flqeced again. Mr. Noble, did not the Exchange promise us that such repre- hensible manipulations would be prohibited? You know far better than I how the hidden machinery of the stock boomers is being used to stimulate the public appetite for speculation in war stocks. Paid tipsters float about uptown hotels ; marvelous stories appear in venal newspapers of fortunes coined by lucky gamblers. Stories of phenomenal war orders from Russia or Great Britain are impudently invented, such as a $90,000,000 war contract by American Can, or the 400,000,000 cigarettes supposed to have been ordered from the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company. In these two instances, well-meaning direc- tors denied the lying stories. But the rumors augment daily, the faked contracts grow in number and volume, and the gam- bling fever is* whetted sharper by the harpies who prey upon the savings of the foolish and credulous. Now and then a high official of one of the war stock com- panies has the courage to step out to try to stem the rising tide of gambling which always leads to ruin. A member of the Cru- cible Company warned the public the other day that the stock was not worth its selling price. He said that there was out- standing in unpaid scrip and accumulated dividends on pre- ferred stock $7,300,000, that the company is guaranteeing $7,- 800,000 of bonds, and has $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 of bonds out- standing on its subsidiary companies. He pointed out that, with these obligations in sight, and with the large expenditures nec- essary to finish its new plants, the common stock could not be expected to pay dividends for years to come. The shares of the company at once dropped five points, but impudent price boost- ers took up the song of "huge profits" again next day, and the market plungers soon forgot a warning sincerely meant. Let me give you an example from my personal observation, of how the public "makes money" out of war stocks. I met in THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 21 the office of one of the members of your Exchange, a trader who, several days before, had bought 100 shares of Crucible Steel. It went up three points, and he took on 200 shares more. I was talking with him on the morning of Thursday, July 29. Cru- cible had opened with a gain of nearly five points, and this trader had again plunged to the extent of 500 shares. The stock still advanced. Flushed with the sense of coming riches, he turned to me and said: "I've already made $3,000 in Crucible, and that'll pay for the killing of 1,000 Germans. What do I care. Business is biz. I would like to see us get into the war. Crucible would extend its plants and get still bigger war contracts from the government. Why, you'd see it jump to $1,000 a share. " Crucible went to 79 that day. My acquaintance, the trader, became delirious with speculative fever. You know the symp- toms, Mr. Xoble. You are a broker, and make your commission out of such men. When Crucible went to 79, this man bought 500 additional shares. It went to 83, and he bought 1,000. This was at about two o'clock in the afternoon, if my memory serves me right. Then from one of those corrupt sources, which the Exchange manipulators know so well to use, there came a story that Bethlehem had bought the Crucible company. Traders rea- soned that, since the news was out, they had better sell. Cru- cible began to melt until it declined to 66, only a fraction above the price at which it had closed the day before. I met my trader a few days later. In the decline he had lost more than $20,000 and was in debt even to his broker. He was wandering about like a stricken thing. He had thought to make money by following the war stock gamblers. Poor fool ! The Money Trust had made short shrift of him. Do you ever stop to think, Mr. Noble, what a cruel business your members are engaged in? Do you not think that at least it ought to be played fair? Let me call something to your attention. In the last five weeks, as I write this, 130,540 shares of Beth- lehem were traded in upon the Exchange, or nearly as much as the entire outstanding stock in the hands of the public ; in Coal Products, 109,898 shares were traded in, or more than all the outstanding stock ; in Westinghouse, 1,445,490 shares were traded in, or four times the amount of the outstanding stock; in the 22 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET instance of Crucible, 1,135,400 shares were traded in, or five times the amount of the outstanding stock, which aggregates only 245,784 shares. This undoubtedly indicates that these stocks are ' ' cornered. ' ' The war stock gamblers do not sell the stock itself, of which the floating supply is small, but sell contracts to receive and de- liver it. Mr. Noble, was not one of the reforms promised us, a prohi- bition of the ' ' cornering ' ' of stocks ? Is stock ' * cornering ' ' per- mitted under the law ? Into what deep waters have thy rowers led thee ? The old argument that the Exchange has nothing to buy and nothing to sell, and is only a meeting place for its members, will no longer hold. The representatives of the Exchange did not make that plea in Albany, three or four years ago, when they pleaded against incorporation, and promised honest trading methods for the future. One of the members of your Exchange recently said to me : "We may not be doing the right thing, but we hope to get away with it, anyhow.'* He is mistaken. This time you will not get away with it. There is an old saying in the financial district : 1 1 The men who drop their money in Wall Street are good losers. They never squeal." That is true. The man who has been trimmed in the Street slinks away from the district. He has been carefully educated to the fact that it is considered bad form to blow one's brains out in a broker's office. Already the financial district is filling with the stories of the heart-breaks of ruined men, of suicides, of families left penniless through the work of the war stock gamblers. The public is in an ugly temper. It is not the same public that rose against the Stock Exchange in 1912-13. This time you have aroused the anger of a great people. It is an undemonstrative, conservative and industrious race, that forms the bone and sinew of our nation, and when it is deeply wronged, IT NEVER FORGIVES, AND IT NEVER FORGETS. Have you read the official organ of Wall Street ( Commercial and Financial Chronicle, July 31), and the warning it has ad- dressed to you ? It says : — ' ' The war order business will in any event be of short dura- tion. There may be large immediate profits (waiving altogether THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 23 the question of risks) , but these large profits cannot in any event last very long. But the prospect of these large profits, albeit of a very risky nature, is being dangled before the eyes of the public and a gigantic speculation is being carried on, evidently by powerful cliques, with the view of utilizing the situation. "Similar schemes have been worked in the past, but never has the transparent character of the undertaking been so mani- fest as on the present occasion. It is the duty of all who are in position to influence popular sentiment or who have access to the popular thought, to warn the innocent public against allowing themselves to become the prey of the designing band of manipu- lators. ' * Has not the Stock Exchange a duty in the premises which it should not neglect to perform? "The Stock Exchange authorities must proceed as the District Attorney would in ferreting out crime. And after the offending parties have been discovered, further dealings with them or for them must be prohibited." These are pretty strong words, Mr. Noble, but do you know why they have been uttered? All over the country people are withdrawing their money from banks of deposit and demanding gold. They have learned that the Money Trust, which is selling war munitions to the Allies, cannot get gold from the latter, and is now using the people's money to reimburse itself. French, Russian and British securities, received by the Trust from those countries, are being planted in all the banking institutions, which are loaning the public's money upon them. If you do not believe what I say, send to me and I will show you the written admissions of banking officials to that effect. Russia is bankrupt, one-fourth of France is in ruins, and Great Britain has scaled down the principal on the premier se- curity of the British Empire, Consols, which it redeems at only two-thirds of the par value in new securities. These countries will not hesitate to make a partial default on the securities planted by the Money Trust in American banks, on which it has borrowed the people's money. When that day comes, the Wall Street banks will have to call in the loans they are making on the inflated war stocks. And the war stock gamblers will have made another panic. Do you remember the panic of 1907, which was precipitated 24 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET by the Wall Street stock gamblers ? Do you recall how the streets in the financial district were filled with the mob, and the steps of the Sub-Treasury were black with them? Don't provoke them to come like that again, for in the year 1915 the results will be different. In "1907 you relied upon the Elder Morgan to save the dis- trict. But now the Elder Morgan is dead, and can no longer lend Wall Street the millions he obtained from the United States Treasury, and- you have only Britain 's munitions agent to de- pend upon. The other day, Mr. Noble, you issued a defense of the Stock Exchange. Sleek, smug and smiling, you leaned back and blamed the "speculative excitement," and said that ''human nature " could not be curbed. Caveat emptor, eh? Let the buyer be- ware. But you well know that you can regulate the transactions on the Exchange. Does not the Constitution of the State prohibit horse racing and gambling? Did not the Hughes Committee, which investigated the practices of your association, say : 1 1 In its nature it is in the same class with gambling upon the race track or at the roulette table, but is practiced on a vastly larger scale. It involves a practical certainty of loss to those who engage in it." If you do not wish a Federal regulation of the Exchange, which will permit an inspection of the methods used in the manipulation of the war orders, then call a meeting of your Board of Governors and proceed against the war stock gamblers, and strike all the manipulated stocks from the Stock Exchange list. Abolish your useless publicity bureau, and devote the large sums thus needlessly spent toward reimbursing in some measure the miserable victims of the Stock Exchange gamble. You are the responsible head. I urge you most earnestly to take this step. You and I know why you have excluded the public from the gallery of the Stock Exchange, why you have installed your wire netting and posted your guards. You fear that some poor wretch who has lost his all in the war stocks swindle may try to hurl a bomb at the men whom he blames for having despoiled him. Or that some crackbrained foreigner may attempt the act, be- cause his brother was killed abroad by the Money Trust shrapnel. THE WAR STOCK GAMBLERS 25 In that you may be right or wrong. I have no opinion in the matter. But if you do not act quickly, I fear that you are threatened with a much greater danger, from which wire nets and armed guards will fail to save you and your members, and that is the condemnation of the GREAT SILENT MAJORITY. Ill THE CURTAIN RAISED ON WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD It was high noon in Wall Street on August the eleventh, of the Christian year nineteen hundred and fifteen. The Sub- Treasury stretched its gloomy length along the east side of Nassau Street, all the way from Pine to Wall. But at this hour the financial district wears its cheeriest smile. Little typists strolled along, arm in arm, chatting and flirt- ing; messenger boys whistled; brokers' clerks, accountants, bank runners, bond men, all the rout that makes up the workers of the Street, were pouring from their haunts into the thoroughfares of the money market. Then a change flashed over the scene. There was a rush of many feet westward along Wall Street. A body of mounted police, with stern faces, pistols in their holsters, galloped up. From around the Wall Street corner there came slowly up Nassau Street a long parade of motor trucks, its mounted guards on either side. The crowds, that quickly gathered, looked on these guards who had driven them from the eastern sidewalk, with curious and sombre faces. They seemed to view a funeral cortege. And, indeed, something in our public life, something that was very dear to us, was buried there that day. There were twenty-five trucks. The rear end of each was closed with a thick steel wiring. From behind each of these gratings one could distinguish the grim forms and faces of four men, with rifles and automatic pistols in their hands. It was in this wise that King George of England sent to J. Pierpont Morgan, his accredited agent, the gold in payment for bayonets and shrapnel. And as I stood there on the sidewalk the blood welled to my face and rage surged through my heart. For I asked myself, whom do armed men threaten on the open street? At whom do they aim those loaded rifles? Brothers, they were meant for you and me. It was the defiance of Morgan and his Money Trust to the silent wrath of honest men. He said : ' ' Bow to my will, or I shall 26 WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD 27 shoot you down." The pleasing masks these bankers wear had dropped, and there were revealed the hideous males, the primal brutes, cowering over the gold they had earned by the mangling of human flesh, gnashing their tusks in rage at the people whose sympathies they had thwarted, whose ideals they had crushed, by the shameful trade in war munitions. To those who dwell in the vast stretches of our country that spread far west of the Hudson River, the doings of Wall Street are an unsolved mystery. They suspect and fear. They do not know. I shall draw back a corner of this mysterious curtain and disclose the workings of Wall Street's underworld. You shall read here something incredible, unbelievable, — of men who have duped, deceived, dishonored you, and are now bent on plundering you on a scale vaster than has ever before been attempted in the history of our time. Colonel Robert M. Thompson, a high-minded American pa- triot, inaugurated on June 6th the organization of the Navy League of the United States. He advocated an immediate issue by the government of $500,000,000, to be devoted to the construc- tion of a greater army and navy. He then invited a large number of citizens, supposedly imbued with similarly patriotic senti- ments, to attend a luncheon and conference on this important subject. But hold, one moment, Colonel. Why, when you issued those invitations, did you not address them to public-spirited and dis- interested men, who have the peace and welfare of our country at heart? Why, on the contrary, did you invite the members of J. P. Morgan & Co., official agents of the British government in the purchase of war munitions, and financial backers of the Steel Trust, whose products are being turned into bayonets and shrap- nel for the Allies ? Why did you invite to your patriotic luncheon the directors of companies making millions in the manufacture of war material, and bankers who make further millions- from such concerns by selling their securities and acting as their transfer agents ? Why, when you purposed to spend $500,000,000 of the public money, without consulting the people who earn it, did you confer 28 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET with the members of Wall Street's Money Trust, into whose pockets those $500,000,000 would flow 1 Here are some of the gentlemen to whom that ardent patriot, Colonel Thompson, addressed himself : J. Pierpont Morgan W S. H. P. Pell Thomas W. Lament D*^ Cornelius Vanderbilt William H. Porter W Ogden L. Mills Henry P. Davison W" Frederic R. Coudert Charles Steele W Francis L. Hine Paul D. Cravath W Edmund C. Converse Elbert H. Gary BT* Daniel G. Reid Harry Payne Whitney 1*"" Percy Rockefeller Seward Prosser . W Frank A. Vanderlip L. L. Clarke* The luncheon was held. The innocent Colonel, addressing his distinguished and ''disinterested" guests, broached his pet plan of distributing $500,000,000 of American money to America's armament manufacturers. To his gratification, the issue was "enthusiastically advocated," as promptly recorded in the Money Trust's organ, the New York Times. Now let us analyze some of the activities of this assemblage of American patriots : Messrs. Morgan, Lament, Porter, Davison, and Steele are members of the banking house of J. P. Morgan & Co., agents of the British, French, and Russian governments for the purchase of war material, and interested in huge corporations making huger profits from the manufacture of war supplies. The Wall Street Journal on May 6th said that "the United States Steel Corporation has been getting and will get orders for steel from concerns in this country, which have taken orders for shrapnel and other war munitions." And it added on August 3rd that "the United States Steel Corporation has obtained a Russian rail order amounting to $25,000,000." Now Messrs. Morgan, Gary and Converse are members of the Steel Trust board. * NOTE :— This story has been republished throughout this country and Europe. It has put Colonel Thompson on the defensive. He pleads that some of these men did not attend his luncheon. He does not deny having invited them. He does not deny that he read, at his luncheon, the receipt of money subscriptions from them. He does not deny that Morgan sent him money, and that Morgan is the leading member of his Navy League. WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD 29 The Wall Street Journal added that "the Lackawanna Steel Company has been helped in, war orders to the extent of $7,000,- 000 for rails and steel." Two of the invited patriots, Messrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Ogden L. Mills, are directors of this company. The Wall Street Journal further related on May 4th: "The President of the National Surety Company estimates that $1,500,- 000,000 in icar material has been contracted for. The estimate is based on the applications for surety bonds it'hich his company has received." Strange to relate, we find among the directors of the National Surety Company the name of Mr. Frederic R. Cou- dert who, in the public prints, so bitterly denounces Germany every time a delicate diplomatic crisis occurs between that coun- try and our own. Surely, Mr. Coudert does not desire to see this country go to war on behalf of his beloved France, that the National may underwrite more surety bonds? THE COLONEL UNMASKED Again we find that on May 4th the Wall Street Journal in- forms the Street that "the International Nickel Company is enjoying an improvement in its business because of the increase in the consumption of nickel brought about by the war." And what do we find here ? Oh, shame to tell it ! Ohy Colonel, Colonel, is it thus you dupe your countrymen ? Colonel Robert M. Thomp- son is chairman of the board of the International Nickel Com- pany, and among the directors are Messrs. Edmund C. Converse, S. H. P. Pell, and Seward Prosser. The Wall Street Journal further chronicles that "the Ameri- can Locomotive Company's order for shrapnel amounts to ap- proximately $65,000,000," which must be of specific interest to Mr. L. L. Clarke, one of the directors. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing is one of the dead- liest of the "war stocks" on the Stock Exchange, and Mr. Paul D. Cravath is a member of its board. Another "war stock" is General Electric, one of whose direct- ing geniuses is Mr. Charles Steele, of J. P. Morgan & Co. The Farmers' Loan & Trust Company is transfer agent for the General Electric Company, and on the trust company board we locate Messrs. Percy Rockefeller and Frank A. Vanderlip. The Guaranty Trust Company is the transfer agent for the 8 S V/88feKW bO» dW b-P^a QlHO » • * ft* «<&£,& •M-HflJclJ .W >> ,,3-HKd C OH • «.* •com 'V*fl<™rf3*fteAZ!?<*l ' «5.a r» MM.PUS Km ^i O hHf-l bOH •fl-JS>tf«S o«^>5.«g W o omS-45 fei 10 »0) >. C5 I »T5 . M -H 0 rt • •H O H^3SWOH3 Crt-H^JCQ rH *HO \^5^\7^ N ^,W 4>-H4iT)aJa>"rH66T)»3H fl) fl) 4f Q> -H ]O H *» \& 00)S!5 ^iPU-HO >.rH bDCQ HQKMttMMK • • aj •H-HOMM • f-* C • H C -^ Af :5 32 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Westinghouse, American Car & Foundry, Atlas Powder Com- pany, Hercules Powder Company, and other war munitions concerns. Messrs. Daniel G. Reid, Harry Payne Whitney, and Thomas W. Lament are its directors. The Bankers Trust Company is transfer agent for the Bald- win Locomotive Works, and among the directors of this concern are Messrs. Reid, Hine, Davison, and Converse. So there, all the disinterested patriots are accounted for, yea, even the founder of the Navy League. Why then, I ask, should not Colonel Thompson's scheme to spend $500,000,000 of government money have been ''enthusi- astically advocated" by gentlemen so closely affiliated with the war munitions factories ? Why should they not have leaned back in their chairs at the obliging Colonel's luncheon, clinked their glasses and cheered, laughing in their sleeves over the jest they were having at the expense of their simple-minded countrymen, while they slapped their capacious pockets in the hope of soon secreting there the $500,000,000 to be spent on armament. For, you see, the war in Europe some time will be ended, and the Money Trust's war munitions plants must not be idle. No, it is the duty of Wall Street patriots to organize Navy Leagues and National Security Leagues and the like, that the government may be urged by the great patriotic clamor to spend vast sums on war material. Colonel, I have a further word to say to you. You are a per- sonal friend, I believe, of Mr. James Gordon Bennett,* owner of the Herald, who, I see, subscribed several thousand dollars to your singular scheme. Mr. Bennett is an expatriate, who is cabling frantically to this side of the water that the United States must join the war to rescue his adopted country, France. Colonel, if the people of this country wish to have a larger army and navy, they will not consult the chairman of the Inter- national Nickel Company, nor Bennett, the Franco-American, nor your friends, the makers of shrapnel. Their representatives in Congress will attend to that. And the government will build * They are cronies. Both have broken their country's laws. James Gordon Bennett was fined $30,000 in the Federal Court for sending obscene matter through the mails. Colonel Robert M. Thompson was fined $4,000 by Judge Holt in the Federal Court, August 4, 1910, for violating the Sherman Law in cornering cotton. WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD 33 its own armament plants. It will not buy the idle ones of the Money Trust when the war has ended. So much for the Navy League. STILL DRAWING BACK THE CURTAIN Let me draw back this mysterious curtain further and disclose to view the great spider 's web that has been spun in Wall Street : On the first chart you may see a list of names of forty Wall Street men, who are identified with the war munitions concerns, or with companies that profit from their work, or with banking houses engaged in contraband traffic, or with bonding concerns that insure the war contracts, or with banks and trust companies that act as fiscal or transfer agents for the munitions companies. Now Wall Street financiers are far-sighted men. From the very nature of their business they look ahead, yes, ever far ahead. These men, presiding at their board meetings, are authorizing vast extensions to their armament plants. What do they mean to do with these great new plants after Europe 's war is over ? Let us look into this phase of the question for a moment. 11 Bridgeport is making such strides in the manufacture of arms and munitions and war machinery, that predictions are freely heard on all sides that it will grow to a city of half a million population within the next few years. In the transfor- mation of Bridgeport into the American Essen, the Remington Company and the Union Metallic Cartridge Company began to branch out and put up great buildings that dwarf those used in the past." — (Sunday newspaper.) June 18th.— Charles M. Schwab, of the Bethlehem Steel Com- pany, will build the third factory for the manufacture of shrap- nel. August 22nd. — Following the recent trip here of Charles M. Schwab, with British and Russian army officers, it is an- nounced that the Bethlehem Steel Company will build a large factory near its shell proving ground at Cape May Point, for the making of powder and shells. August 12th. — The Dupont Powder Company has begun the work of staking out the buildings on the fourth addition to the Dupont plant at Carney's Point. The addition will be larger than any of the other three plants now in operation. When the 34 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET war began, the company had only one plant, the others having been added in quick time as orders increased. August 20th. — The Dupont Company is to distribute $58,000,000 in new stock in a new corporation. August llth. — The plant of the Smith & Wallace Company, manufacturers of electrical supplies, has been leased to an asso- ciation of New York financiers and will immediately be converted into a war munitions factory. August llth. — The Bethlehem Steel Company has purchased the modern plant of the Detrick & Harvey Machine Company. The manufacture of munitions of war will be begun as soon as possible. May 29th. — The Atlas Powder Company has secured control of various powder mills on the Pacific coast. Stockholders of the company have authorized $5,500,000 6% cumulative preferred stock for necessary financing. Here is a faint conception of the tremendous new enterprises of the Money Trust. Now I shall quote the Wall Street Journal of July 19th : 1 1 Will the demand for war material outlast the conflict ? Will the great industry that has been established in so short a time end with the war? It is noticeable that those concerns that are erecting plant extensions or new plants to take care of the war business, are not providing temporary and inexpensive struc- tures. They are building modern and permanent structures of brick or concrete and steel. MORE WARS TO COME "If the war continues or is followed by others, the munition makers would be in a position to reap enormous profits as a result of having the plants ready." Yes, our far-sighted financiers will see to it that this war * ' is followed by others/' And they will "reap enormous profits." But who, at the dictum of the Money Trust, will toil to pay for those untold millions to be spent by our country on armament for the upkeep of the new war plants? Who, at the dictum of the Money Trust, must shed their blood in the wars that are "followed by others"? Brothers, you and I. Yes, and then we, too, shall echo the bitter groans we have WALL STREET'S UNDERWORLD 35 heard emitted by despairing millions, staggering under the mili- tary burdens of Europe's monarchies. And now are we to be the dupes of Wall Street "patriots"? If we investigate the patriotism of the members of the Money Trust we shall find it to be thin-skinned, indeed. Their ambition is to amass great fortunes, and then to seek their homes abroad. They choose new homes in France and England for reasons such as to escape unpleasant public inquiries, or that they may lead lives that would not be approved by their fellow country- men. I refer to expatriates such as James Stillman, one-time presi- dent .of the National City Bank ; James Hazen Hyde, of insurance scandal fame : William E. Corey, of the Steel Trust, and James Gordon Bennett, of unsavory name. I refer to men like Henry James, who renounced his country; to men like Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, who sold his American birthright for a foreign title. But when the day of trouble comes, such fine gentry troop back home, as these have done. And then they read us a lesson in patriotism, and tell us that we must fight for the countries of their adoption. Yes, they say that to us ; we, the millions who stay here and toil and suffer for our country's good; we, who are descended from races other than the English ; we, whose fathers tilled the soil in pioneer days, and shed their blood in all our country's wars. They tell us that we must fight for England, these expatriates, these lip-patriots, their pockets fat with British gold — we must fight for England, the hereditary enemy of our land, for her against whom our fathers fought, for England, our worst enem'y to-day. "If I am asked u'hat I mean by a 'reasonably possible enemy,' I reply — any power except Great Britain." — Former Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, at a meeting of the National Security League in Carnegie Hall on June 15th. I say to you, you Forty Gentlemen of Wall Street's Spider's Web: Gentlemen, many of you were born of gentle blood. Most of you have all the money you require. Gentlemen, you are standing with foreigners against your 36 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET own countrymen. You are defying the sentiments of millions; you are outraging their highest and holiest beliefs. I ask you to arise in your board meetings and protest against this bloody trade. I ask you to help us with your great influence to check this fury-mad pro-British crew that seeks to hurl our country into a foreign war in which it has no share. If men of your type remain quiescent in this hour of danger, then our country has sunk to a low pass indeed. Thousands of years ago men, such as we, founded republics very much like ours, in Greece and Rome. But they succumbed to plutocrats. Gentlemen, are there those among you who have courage and no fear? Some among you I know well. I can see them lean back and sneer: ''Oh, I don't care what is published about me in THE FATHERLAND. THE FATHERLAND is bought with German gold," and then they laugh and wink and jingle in their pockets their British gold made in a shameful trade. Do you know why this is published in THE FATHERLAND ? I shall tell you. I can point out among you and your Wall Street friends the names of men who are part owners of the great New York dailies, who finance them, and dominate them with their advertising. Small wonder that the Money Trust has poisoned the public mind with the tainted syndicate news services sent broadcast throughout our country. The New York newspapers know that what I write about the Money Trust is true, but they do not dare to print the truth. And that is why it is printed in THE FATHERLAND. Brothers, these men have wealth and power, but they are few. We are many, and as Edwin Lawrence Godkin truly said: "In the voice of the majority there is all the majesty of doom." You, who love your country, join us, work with us, for "the dark night cometh when no man can work." IV. WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT I intend to tell an amazing story of a plot engineered by Lon- don bankrupts, with whom miserable men in Wall Street have combined to ruin us — their own fellow-countrymen. I shall describe how all the insidious weapons of the Money Trust are being used to further this traitorous design. It was nearing the end of last June, when the munition makers of Wall Street found themselves in an embarrassing, if not terrible, position. Their trade in guns, bayonets and shrap- nel had swollen to enormous proportions; in fact, far beyond their initial calculations — approximating $2,000,000,000. Two Billion Dollars. And suddenly their customers, the Allies — Eng- land, France and Russia — could no longer pay them ! A series of bond flotations has just failed in London — Cana- dian, Australian and South African loans. A large war loan had just been launched in Threadneedle Street. Private cable advices reached Wall Street, with disquieting rumors concerning the sol- vency of the United Kingdom. Then Mr. Henry P. Davison, the partner of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of "Morgan, Grenfell & Co., London, " departed hastily on the swiftest steamship bound for English shores. Mr. Davison investigated the situation abroad, and returned, accompanied by a bodyguard of private detectives, to protect him from bodily harm. He made his report. Tlie conditions resulting from Britain's great war loan had been found ghastly. The government had placed a minimum price of 65 on Consols, the premier security of the British Em- pire, to prevent their price from dropping to 40. And Consols were unsalable. Then the British government, driven to desperate straits, found itself obliged to scale down its great national debt, by forcing the holders of Consols to exchange them at the ratio of £75 in Consols for £50 in the new war loan. By this autocratic 37 38 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET act Englishmen were compelled to reduce the capital of their fortunes by one-third. A man who had invested £300,000 in Consols had now a fortune of but £200,000, although his income was temporarily higher. Bankers who hold London 's finance in their hands were co- erced and blackmailed by their own government to exchange their securities. Many of them were the heaviest holders of Consols, and the threat, was made that if they did not exchange, the minimum price of Consols would be lowered to 40, and they would be ruined. So England treats her own subjects, the holders of her best security. What will she do to the Americans who have been forced by pro-British bankers to take over already $500,000,000 of her paper f And the proportion of the reserve to liabilities of the Bank of England had dropped during the week ended July 21st to 18.09% ! This reserve in July, 1914, had been 52.4% ; in July, 1913, 53.69% ; in July, 1911, 54.5%. Great Britain's credit was lost! She could send us no more gold in sufficient quantities to pay her debts to us. I am quoting the official figures. No man can dispute them. They are accessible to everyone, but not one of the Money Trust newspapers in New York dared to print the facts. For the Money Trust holds in its bank vaults loans on many of these dailies, or finances them, or would withdraw its immense adver- tising were they to offend. Then there came to a Wall Street banking house this private cable, which struck like a thunderbolt: "A BOLD SCHEME OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE IN LINE WITH THE BRIT- ISH CHANCELLOR'S HANDLING OF THE RECENT WAR LOAN IS TO BE APPLIED TO BRITAIN'S INTERNA- TIONAL OBLIGATIONS." This "bold scheme" was the inauguration of Wall Street's British gold plot. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who planned it, is the friend of Morgan, of "Morgan, Grenfell & Co., of London." England fears bankruptcy. And in this she is now using us as she used Belgium to fight her battles — and deserted her. As she used France to do her fighting — and now fails to aid her. WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 39 As she has used Russia and Italy, and will in turn desert them. And she is using us, to ruin us. But England has promised to "finance" Belgium, France, Russia and Italy. True to her traditions, she has done it in this wise. She has said to the representatives of those four countries, through the Chancellor: "Gentlemen, I have no money to give you, but I shall use Morgan, my agent in Wall Street. I shall get him to force the Yankees to give you credit for your war munitions, and he and his friends will pay themselves by taking the money the Yankees have put in their banks. My financial agents shall take your agents to Wall Street, and there we will close the deal. ' ' And these financial agents are coming to us: Sir Edward Holden, Baron Reading, Sir Henry Babington Smith, and Basil B. Blackett. They bring their French dupes, Octave Homberg and Ernest Mallet. It is a case of "Hands Across the Sea" — but this time the thieving hands are in our pockets. As well may be imagined, there was fear and trembling in the councils of the Money Trust bankers in Wall Street when they learned the orders the British Chancellor had issued to them through his British agent, Morgan. You see, they had ex- pected months before that England would crush Germany, and she had done nothing of the sort. They had expected it, as the Belgian dupes had expected it, as the French dupes had ex- pected it. But how were the Money Trust munition makers to be paid ? England could not pay them; France and Russia could not pay them. THEN THE MONEY TRUST BANKERS DECIDED THAT THEY MUST OBEY THE BRITISH CHANCEL- LOR'S INSTRUCTIONS; THAT THEY WOULD SAVE THEMSELVES BY MAKING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE PAY THEM FOR THE BAYONETS AND SHRAPNEL THEY HAD SOLD TO THE ALLIES. Quickly, secretly, hurriedly the members of the Money Trust began to "plant" the "paper" of England, France and Russia in their banks. And these banks, without the knowledge or con- 40 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET sent of their American depositors, gave the money of their depositors to the members of the Money Trust. When Britain, France and Russia default on their securities, or scale them down, as they have done with their securities at home, the American people will lose their money. It is the same old story over again. The Money Trust has the cash. What does it care for the people ? We have seen that the British Chancellor's bold scheme is to be "in line with his handling of the recent war loan." •^ Britain'* Chancellor of the Exchequer SOHB of the Plotters In the Great Wail street ConeplrMj The 8»Tlng8 of our People are Ming Risked to Aid England In her War. Through his handling of the war loan we have seen that English- men were forced to sacrifice one-third of their fortunes. What proportion of American fortunes are to be sacrificed to the British Chancellor's orders? On July 15th Dr. E. E. Pratt, Chief of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, before the Virginia Bankers' Associa- tion, estimated that the total loans of American money and credit to Europe, so far during the war, amounted to $500,000,- 000. He suggested that these loans were an "economic fallacy." I quote the following letter from one of the leading trust companies in New York : WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 41 New York, July 27, 1915. ' ' We beg to state that this company is not lending its funds to any person, firm or corporation engaged in the manufacture or dealing in arms and ammunition to be used to further the inter- ests of any of the countries now at war. "It is, however, impossible for us to trace the actual amounts of money loaned, and it could happen that funds loaned by this company, to one person, could in turn be loaned by him to an- other, and in this manner the funds might be used for the pur- poses above mentioned. * ' We might add, however, that we hold for investment some of the securities of the French government, and have obligated ourselves to later take over a participation in a loan to the Domin- ion of Canada. "It is the writer's opinion that you will find that all of the important financial institutions in this city own securities of this kind, on account of the safety of the investments and the profit- able character of such business." HALF A BILLION LOANED We have seen then that up to July 15th $500,000,000 of the American people's money had been loaned to countries whose solvency is doubtful, if not altogether gone. And all this had been done, swiftly, secretly by the Money Trust, through its power of holding the whiplash over financial institutions, in order that it might get back its money. But the public had by this time become uneasy. It had made inquiries at its banks and learned the truth. Then the Money Trust adopted the methods it knows so well to use in order to disabuse the public mind of any apprehensions. The people might become alarmed, you see, and withdraw their money from the banks. So reports were carefully spread throughout the country that the finances of England, France and Russia were in excellent shape, and that they were sending us vast sums of gold. Accordingly, on August 10th, the Money Trust, through one of its bankers, "planted" a story with glaring headlines in the New York Times, an organ which it uses for such purposes. The story dwelt on the importance of the shipment of $100,000.000 in English gold to this country, and alleged that it had been sent to this side on a British warship commanded by Admiral Beatty. Through its syndicate news service, which has been 42 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET serviceable to the Money Trust in misleading the public for the last year, the Times sent this story broadcast. Of course, everyone knows that British admirals skulk in British harbors for fear of the German submarine, and that the Bank of England would fear to separate itself from $100,000,000 in gold because of its low reserves. And the next morning the truth could not be concealed, since the Sub-Treasury figures could not be falsified, and' the reluctant official statement was to the effect that the shipment amounted to only about $19,000,000. But the lie had served its purpose in calming the public mind. On June 26th the Times had published a story that the Teu- tonic Allies were bankrupt, that Austria could pay only 11% of her obligations, while Germany might be able to pay 16%. This was done also to bolster up the waning British credit. But this was not sufficient. It was to be impressed upon the unquiet mind of the American people that England was anxious, nay eager, to send here large quantities of gold. The public had to be reassured in order that the Money Trust could take its money from the public banks with impunity. So again, on August 13th, the Money Trust " planted " the following in its organ, the Times: AN INFAMOUS STATEMENT "We don't want gold," said an international banker, who is taking an active part in negotiations with financiers in London and Paris. "The gold is of no use to us, and might better stay in London. The banks in this country have unprecedented cash reserves, which are not doing any good. What is needed is a credit arrangement, under which the money can be paid out on behalf of foreign nations." The subtle infamy of this statement can best be appreciated by the average American merchant who has tried to obtain credit from the Wall Street banks within the last twelve months. Who hides in the underbrush, clinking the coins in his neigh- bor ?s stolen purse, the while whispering: "We don't want gold. The gold is of no use?" I would ask this anonymous Wall Street banker why he skulks in hiding when he sends out a poisoned whisper intended to mis- lead the public mind ? I would ask him to step out in the open and reveal himself. For you see I know this man who hides WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 43 himself behind his anonymity, I have met him, and I know why he spoke those words. I would like to call to the attention of this anonymous banker the fact that eleven great mercantile houses went under in New York City in the last eighteen months, because his banks refused them credit. I would tell him that many of our great railroad systems went bankrupt in the same period because the Money Trust would not lend them money. I would ask this banker why he is so eager to give "foreign nations" the credit which he refuses to the American merchant and the American railroad man ? I would ask this same banker, Was it not you who "inspired" the following lines ? — ' ' The amount of gold that it is proposed to send is stated by some correspondents (from London) to be as high as $250,000,000. Why, under circumstances. that at present exist, this stupendous movement of the precious metal should be insisted upon in London is incomprehensible to large New York; banks and bankers. The gold is neither desired nor required on this side of the Atlantic." (Commercial and Financial Chron- icle, August 28th.) The bullion in the Bank of England last week was only about $335,000,000, so this statement of the financial authority of Wall Street that the English wished to send us $250,000,000 is pal- pably misleading. However, so work the corrupt Money Trust bankers, itching for the gold that England owes them and cannot pay them, while they befool their own countrymen in order that they may seize their countrymen's money to reimburse them- selves. Let us learn the truth of this thing. We shall transpose our- selves across the ocean to London and learn whether London "insists on sending us $250,000,000 gold against our will." WE MUST KEEP OUR GOL/D Sir George Paish, addressing his fellow-countrymen in the Statist, says: "No country can purchase more than its income permits, unless it is able to borrow." Again he says: "We are glad to see that steps are to be taken to mobilize our gold re- serves." And he quotes the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. "It is highly important for us to keep and to increase 44 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET our supply of gold. We have already given directions that all these smaller payments which are made to those in our employ, are not to be made in gold, but in the paper currency. " We read nothing here of London's eagerness to send us gold. On the contrary, just before the departure of London's financial agents for Wall Street, there is a concerted move on the part of London 's financial spokesmen to educate the Yankees to the fact that it is their duty to extend a vast credit to England by means of the money stored in American savings banks. They say: "The amount we may need to borrow in the United States is about $500,000,000. We might arrange a $400,000,000 or $500,000,000 issue in New York and Boston, and if necessary, in other American cities. A good deal of the amount we ask for must be what Americans call savings bank investments." Do you see the plot progressing for the spoliation of the American people ? There is first the over-extension of credit by the Wall Street munition makers; the concealment of London's war loan fiasco; the Money Trust's realization that it has been selling goods to bankrupt countries ; then come the British Chan- cellor's instructions to the Money Trust bankers; swiftly ensues the secret seizure of $500,000,000 of the public money; and the Printed Lie is used to delude the people into the belief that Eng- land sends us great stores of gold; the Hidden Voice of the anonymous banker is used to further the belief that we do not want this gold ; then comes the chorus from the financial wolves of London that we must give England credit ; now come the finan- cial agents, hands extended, asking for only half a billion more. Is it not the highest duty of every banker in the land to see that these financial agents are sent back with empty hands ? There is given here a list of seven Wall Street bankers, who possess great power and exercise wide influence. We see, on the one hand, that they officiate as managing di- rectors in the great war munitions companies, such as Bethlehem Steel and Distillers' Securities and Lackawanna Steel. On the other hand, they head large banking institutions, which handle public money and sell issues of securities to the people. Again, these banking institutions they control, act as fiscal agents for the war munitions concerns, such as American Can, Crucible Steel and Railway Steel Spring. z fi 9 ! | 2 A E-i o i ) , 2 o E-i ^ | 1 I * Equitabl Central Farmers' Guaranty £ o M ! £ ^ 4 ( N^1 ~^ I s | 1 0 J5 • « « S S C S i i X ** r. Bannard, President W^reoh, President N.Wallace, President 3. Uarston, President J. Hemphill, Chairman d Prosser, President 4» O S rH 3 «H 1 ' handle the people's i S 0 § G •H rH a G 1 w g rH •s • £ 5 I I >» >> 1 *d5 rH S ^ d « OE> B JS S « 4 46 WAR PLOTTERS OP WALL STREET WHAT BANNAED SAID The list is headed by Mr. Otto T. Bannard, President of the New York Trust Company. Mr. Bannard, about twelve days ago, was responsible for something that must have been deplored by most of his countrymen. On the eve of leaving London, he made a public statement, saying : * ' Great Britain will be able easily to float a loan of $500,000,000 in this country. The President, to uphold the dignity of his position, must take drastic steps. If President Wilson says war we will all be with him — the whole American people would be behind him." That a Wall Street banker, who takes his orders from the Money Trust, should give voice to such expressions, must render him an object of suspicion to his countrymen. Why -should he so readily bestow upon England $500,000,000 of his country's money ? And why should he so light-heartedly breathe such sen- timents of war ? Does Mr. Bannard know what war between this country and Germany would mean? Does he realize that fathers would be torn from their families and sent to detention camps, that sons would fight for their fathers, tl^at mobs would roam the streets, and blood would be shed in every town and city of the land ? It is to be hoped that Mr. Bannard ?s fellow bankers do not echo his sentiments. They are prosperous men. Some of them earn for their stockholders sixty per cent, dividends, and at Christmas time grateful directors present them with $150,000 bonuses. In view of what their country does for them, should they not show their countrymen that Wall Street bankers in re- turn are ready to act for their country 's good ? There are men in Wall Street far more powerful than these seven bankers — the members of the Money Trust, who are plot- ting a great crime against the people. The Money Trust has already given to the Allies a credit of $500,000,000. It now pur- poses to give them $500,000,000 to $750,000,000 more. At a recent meeting of London bankers, Harold Cox, the political economist, said : ' ' The war will not end without England having to borrow two billion pounds. ' ' Two billion pounds — that is ten billion dollars. And from whom will England borrow it ? There is only one lending coun- try left. WALL STREET'S BRITISH GOLD PLOT 47 Men of the Money Trust, if you lend these agents of the Allies one billion dollars, you may have to lend them ten. Then, when they default, we must go to war to save our loans. Men of the Money Trust, if you do this thing you will sow the wrath that reaps the whirlwind that may sweep you from your feet. The fate of men who defy the people is as well known as is human history. It would be lamentable if ever the day should come when the people would descend into Wall Street and swarm angrily about your white stone and marble palaces. I am one of those who believe that all the sins and crimes of men are expiated here on earth. Some members of the Money Trust have already committed crimes. They are already expi- ating them in the horror and loathing of their fellow-countrymen. V. OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OF THE SNOWS" This is a story telling how the cruel British satraps of Canada have brought ruin and misery upon a once fair land. With tempting bonuses and honeyed words, they lured simple and honest men from distant countries, to hew their woods and till the soil. Suddenly there came an order to these satraps from London financiers, the masters of .Canada. And terror followed. Fathers were torn from wives and children and thrown into squalid prison camps, where thousands since have died. Others were forced with threats to go abroad again and fight and die for a foreign king whom they hated, and of whom others had not even heard. History has on its records no blacker crime than this. Three men, all of them "Colonial Knights/' are deeply concerned in these affairs. They are the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Laird Borden, Premier of Canada; Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, born in Milwau- kee, Wis., now president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and "Major General Sir" Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and De- fense. The Canadian Pacific Railway owns Canada, they say. It owns the Dominion's greatest railway lines, its greatest hotels, its greatest steamship companies, and its most expensive land grants. It is owned in London. Thus London financiers own Canada. The concern of these financiers is to fill the land with people. They wish to sell farms from the land which was stolen from the Dominion. They wish to transport the products of farm and forest over the railway that they own. And they used to boast : "The Nineteenth Century belonged to the United States. The Twentieth Century will belong to Canada. ' ' And where is Can- ada to-day ? Canada has a population of 6,200,000 people. But it will not grow. For years agencies in Ireland and England drained those 48 OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OF THE SNOWS" 49 countries of stalwart sons, until whole villages were depopulated. But Canada 's sons and daughters crossed the border and came to live with us. Like Mr.- James J. Hill, they despise the patronage of cheap titles, and can find no future in a land that is ruled by foreign plutocrats. The decline of British immigration and the reluctance of im- migrants to remain in the country, induced the London financiers to seek other fields of propaganda. They extended one of their steamship lines to Austria-Hungary and began a widespread agi- tation in Germany, Austria and Hungary to obtain farmers and artisans from those populous lands. They offered tempting in- ducements, money bonuses, gifts of homesteads to be paid off in installments, and even free passage. How well this movement, begun in 1910, succeeded, may be seen at a glance in the following table : Immigration to Canada 1910 1914 Increase Austro-Hungarians 9,757 28,321 18,564 Germans 1,533 5,537 4,004 DEPORT THEIR COUNTRYMEN But what was the calibre of these immigrants of German and Austro-Hungarian origin, as compared with English immigrants ? Here is another table of the deepest significance. Rejections of Immigrants Deportations, after by Nationalities having- been admitted From 1902 to 1914 From 1902 to 1914 Germans 260 113 Austro-Hungarians 745 279 British 1W 1,411 99* 5,310 The London workman, narrow-chested, incapable, and unruly, was rejected and deported in great numbers, for the English race has become degenerate, while the Teutonic races proved themselves of inestimable value to Canada. When Europe's war began, there was in Canada a hetero- geneous populace, of men who had been persuaded to come to a new land by the fair promises of capitalists who hoped to profit from their labor. These people did not dream of ever returning 50 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET to Europe to fight in England's war. And among them were Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians to the number of 229,147. But the war began, and there came a call to Canada's satrap, Borden, from his London masters: "Intern all alien enemies. Give them no protection. We must terrify the Germans." The servile satrap paled at these instructions, but obeyed them. He sat aside and stayed his hand. In all Canadian towns and countrysides, from British Columbia to Quebec, the Canuck ran riot and typified himself with brutal Cossack deeds. He burned houses, plundered shops, and stoned unoffending men, women and children in city streets and country roads. No one deterred him. German, Austrian and Hungarian men and women were dragged from their homes and slaughtered in the open. Native-born sons who defended foreign-born parents were slain, the daughters were brutalized by the mob. Then these fathers who survived were dragged to desolate detention camps, old sheds, open to winter winds and rains, flung into factory ovens, starved, and left unclad. The mortality among them has been frightful. The permanent illness worse. One-third of these men can never work for themselves again, — and they had been lured into this country, remember, by the soft persuasions of the men who had done them these wrongs. And their wives and children in rags to-day still roam the streets and byways of Canadian cities, butts of the mocking mob, begging in vain for food and shelter. It is very painful to me to recapitulate this sad story, but the reason is manifest. These dreadful deeds were done to a QUARTER OF A MILLION TEUTONIC PEOPLES IN CAN- ADA. If war should come to us, they would be attempted upon THIRTY MILLIONS OF TEUTONIC PEOPLES IN THE UNITED STATES. For that is what J. Pierpont Morgan wished when he made himself Britain's war agent. That is what his associates in the Money Trust wished, and their cringing satellites in Wall Street, who feed upon their crumbs. That is what the war-mad British bankers in Wall Street wished, and the pro-British writers with their poisoned pens. It is what Otto T. Bannard, of the New York Trust Company wished when he went to London and said that the " President must take radical steps"; it was what James Gordon Bennett wished when he cabled from his home in Paris, OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OF THE SNOWS" 51 urging mob attacks upon men of German blood ; it is what Adolph S. Ochs wishes, when he incites race hatred in his evil sheet, ruled by the Money Trust. After the mob and massacre in Canada, the Canuck stopped, breathless, terrified by his own work. Factories had been ruined, farms burned down, and unemployment began to raise its grisly head. The blow was beginning to recoil — upon the mob — upon the capitalist. Shaughnessy, the ' ' American Knight, ' ' crawled cowering into the light in Winnipeg, and feebly said : ' ' The most vital problem confronting the government of the Dominion to-day is the immi- gration question/' And Canada 's Minister of the Interior said : ' ' It was perhaps to be expected that, after the strong light in which Canada has stood during the past few years, the shadow should be corre- spondingly dark." The shadow is now dark indeed. The blow was to recoil dreadfully upon the heads of men who had done evil thoughtlessly, incited thereto by capitalist masters. The dreadful fact was driven home to the plutocrats of Eng- land that English workmen, whom they had ground down to pauperism, would absolutely not go to war for them. They con- ferred in the Order in Council, and sent out instructions to their satraps in many lands: "Drive in the men from the Colonies, and make them fight." Borden, Canada's satrap, trembled, but obeyed. He called in a simple and inexperienced man, Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia, and gave him orders. The war propaganda began, born of English falsehood and fear. Canada must save England. The Germans were but knaves and cowards. They had been defeated by the Belgians. The French and Russians had invaded the German country and crushed the foe. It would be an easy task. The Canadians could march into a defeated country trium- phantly, where there would be plunder and glory galore. Fifty thousand young men of Canada were sent to France and Gallipoli. Sam Hughes came to New York to sail after them. And in the simple way of an ignorant countryman, he OUR BANKRUPT ''LADY OP THE SNOWS" 53 boasted on the pier: "One hundred thousand of my brave boys can conquer Germany alone. " Then were sent away 50,000 more young men of Canada's best. Time passed. Then came the dreadful story from Flanders —not through the press, for that is censored. But truth must out in its thousand ways. It was that Canadians had gone to face brave men who were not afraid to die. And the Canadians, deserted by English regiments, retreated from the field of battle, and they left behind them, on a ridge, 2,000 Montreal Highland- ers, who were unwilling to advance and unable to retreat. Noth- ing has ever been heard from them again. When the fearful news came to Ottawa, there was mourning and weeping throughout the Dominion. Sam Hughes in the meantime had returned. White-faced and pallid-lipped he stut- tered: "They were heroes — that's what they went over for." Hughes later slunk back to England. He was to be rewarded by his masters. But the order from London had been: "Drive in the men from the Colonies, and make them fight." The satrap, Borden, must obey. He called in his henchman, the "American Knight," Shaughnessy. The employers must be mobilized. Canada was tired of the war. The men would not enlist. But the Canadian Pacific Railway, owned by London plutocrats, must save them. On August 1st, this note was placed in the pay envelopes of employees of the Canadian Pacific: "Your King and country need you; we don't." Men, young enough to fight, were notified that they must enlist or quit their jobs. This was done in all companies owned by the railway, its hotels, its factories. It was done in the departments of the Dominion, and it was compelled to be done by all tlie large employers of labor in the cities. The plutocrats were forcing men to war. Irishmen, who hated England, must fight for her, or starve. In Montreal, a mob of 5,000 unmarried men who had been discharged by their employ- ers for failing to enlist, held a meeting at which they denounced the newspapers advocating compulsory service, and they attacked newspaper offices, breaking their windows. Several days later, a soldier, bearing a recruiting placard, was mobbed in the Champ de Mars. Soldiers attacked the mob and arrested its leaders. The Canucks were now turning on their masters. An ugly 54 WAR PLOTTERS OP WALL STREET story had come back to Canada. It was the order of Lieutenant- Colonel Taylor, Adjutant of the Fourth Division of the Third Canadian Infantry Brigade. ' ' During the last battle, several of the division surrendered to the enemy. It is the first and most urgent duty to shoot down every man that tries to surrender, no matter who it may be. If the group is large enough to give promise of success, artillery fire must at once be turned in that direction. ' ' And Canadian newspapers were printing their "must" stories, "All Are Heroes In Princess Pat's Regiment/' and speaking of "courage" and "fortitude" and the "spirit of de- termination that must win. ' ' And they are printing the same stories in Canada to-day, for the censorship is stricter there than in England. But now the Canadian people "know." They know the cost. The cost has ruined them. One hundred and fifty thousand men have been sent abroad by Canada. Few of them will ever return. A year ago, in the first flush of the war fever, artificially stimulated by the corrupt English press, the Dominion boastfully granted the highest pay ever given to soldiers, $1.10 per day. Widows and orphans were liberally provided for — $22 a month for the widow, and $5 a month for each child. Annual pensions for wounded or disabled ran from $264 to $100 for the rank and file, according to the nature of the disability. So whether death came to the soldier, or he were disabled, or left widow or orphans, the $1.10 practically went on for perpetuity. THE RUINOUS CHARGE This was thoughtlessly done. It was kindly meant. But it spells ruin to Canada. It is an annual charge of $60,225,000. And this military burden upon the backs of 6,000,000 people ! Before the war began, Canada had a national debt of $544,- 391,000, and annual interest and other charges of $15,000,000. When the war began, the Dominion expended $20,000,000 in the initial equipment of her men. She made advances to finance purchases made in Canada by British, French, Russian and New Zealand and South African governments, of $25,000,000. When Borden interned the Teutonic farmers, who had, by OUR BANKRUPT "LADY OP THE SNOWS" 55 their labor, enriched the Canadian Pacific Railway, a catastrophe happened to the London plutocrats and to the entire Dominion. The gross earnings of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1914 amounted to $129,814,000. In the statement issued for 1915, these earnings had shrunk to $97,500,000, 'a loss of $32,300,000. Operating expenses were at once cut by the frightened capitalists. They cut them $22,588,000, which sum had previously been paid out in wages and expenses. The surplus of the great railway has shrunk by $9,600,000. But worse was to come to Canada's railways. Despite the warnings of men who knew, the Canadian government largely took over the charges and responsibilities of two of her lines, the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern railroads. She guaranteed the securities of both. They are not now earning their fixed charges. "The government must step in to avoid disaster/' says Finance Minister White. Canada must now take over the two lines to prevent their bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has overtaken the timber and lumber industries of British Columbia. The great real estate boom that prevailed for years has collapsed. Canada has borrowed capital for muni- cipal and industrial enterprises to such an extent that the annual tax in interest alone is about $140,000,000. Towns are now obliged to ask for time to meet the interest due on their bonds. Cities are threatened with bankruptcy. A receivership is an- nounced in contemplation for the City of Montreal, the bonds of which are held by many banks in the United States. A com- mittee has been formed to consult with the distracted satrap, Borden, to devise some means for meeting the obligations of the city. But the London plutocrats who own Canada have no mercy. They tried to stem the tide of the fall in demand sterling in New York, which is costing untold millions to English capital. They could not send gold from the imperilled gold reserve of the Bank of England, so they ordered their satraps to strip Canada of her gold and send it to New York. And the Dominion, staggering under her financial burdens, which she is no longer able to bear, sent the gold to New York at the behest of her masters, more than $100,000,000. These matters are mostly kept from the newspapers. New censorship regulations have been enforced in Canada. The pub- 56 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET lication of military, naval or financial information is prohibited, as well as criticism of the British government or her Allies. For violations, the offending papers may be seized and sup- pressed. But so many facts can no longer be concealed. Canada has refused any longer to give credit to her master's ally, Russia, for Russia, also, is bankrupt. ' ' We simply cannot do it, ' ' said a Canadian banker months ago. "Even if the government did help by issuing Dominion notes and thereby inflating bank circu- lation, with the evils attendant, banks cannot wisely tie up Canadian money in Russian securities/' Since this man spoke, the evil he feared has conn* over Can- ada, and not through the financing of Russian orders. The Canadian government has issued Dominion notes to an unprece- dented extent, to an extent, indeed, that has ruined her credit and resources — inflation by the reckless issue of paper currency, the stupid subterfuge that always ruins governments, such as Russia under Catherine the Great. The London market, which in past times jealously supplied all Canada's wants, is now closed to her. The Englishmen who ruled Canada are now ruined themselves, and come to us begging for alms. And now Canada has come to us. Morgan, Britain's agent, was instructed by his British employers to lend to Canada, and he obeyed in his char- acteristic way. He could not refuse, much as he might wish to do so, for Canada's gold had been siphoned into his vaults. Morgan lent Canada the money of the American people by forc- ing American banks to participate in Canadian loans. OUR FORCED LOANS TO CANADA From last December, until the end of May, American banks, at the order of the Money Trust, a member of which is the local agency of the Bank of Montreal in Wall Street, took over Cana- dian securities valued at $85,900,000. That value has since shrunk terribly. But since then, other loans have come in swift succession, such as $11,500,000 of Canadian Railway notes, issued by a railway that Finance Minister White cf Canada says "is facing disaster." Our Rock Island, and Missouri Pacific, and other great American lines, remember, could not obtain loans from the pro-British bankers in Wall Street to ' * save them from OUJi BANKRUPT "LADY OP THE SNOWS" 57 disaster.'' But Wall Street is now British soil, dominated by Money Trust plutocrats, who make larger profits by lending the American people's money to the English than they could by lending it to the American merchant or railroad man. Finally Morgan forced Wall Street to take a $45,000,000 Canadian gov- ernment Kan. Canada has placed these loans with the Money Trust at ruinous rates of interest, as all bankrupts must do. For this is the only market in the world in which she can borrow, and we have taken 80 per cent, of her securities. Canada has now obligated herself to annual charges of more than $250,000,000. She has borrowed from us more than $150,000,000 in seven months. She has contracted debts since the war began of $527,- 525,000. She had a national debt before the war began of $544,300,000. Canada now owes more than $1,100,000,000. And all this debt is laid upon the backs of 6,000,000 bankrupt people. Every adult male in Canada owes on behalf of his town, his province or his county more than $1,000. Much of this sum represents an annual tax. None of it includes his private debts. And Canada's factories are closed, her great industries ruined, her cities filled with unemployed and bitter men. All the satrapies of Great Britain have been brought to a similar pass through the German submarine warfare. The Indian government announces that its budget will create a deficit of $15,000,000. England cannot help. Australia, instead of exporting, is importing 12,000,000 bushels of wheat. The Colonial governments have sent frantic pleas to Whitehall for ships to transport their frozen meats. New Zealand is prostrate. All through the United Kingdom the butcher shops are closing; prices of foodstuffs have doubled, and this has caused strikes among industrial workers that cannot be adjusted. And still the hysterical asseverations come from England's public men : "The German submarine warfare has failed." We have taken a mortgage on Canada. She cannot pay us. Shall we foreclose that mortgage? The satrap, Borden, went to England for six weeks to discuss this crisis with his masters. The other day he returned, bringing with him his poor henchman, Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia. These two pitiful figures slunk to an obscure hotel in New York. With lined faces, and downcast spirits, they still spoke of 58 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET "heroes" and "courage" and "fortitude" and the "spirit of determination that must win." This pair had sent to death and disaster more than 100,000 of their countrymen at the behest of cruel masters. They had heaped upon their country a new and crushing debt of more than half a billion. They put an end to immigration. But the Minister of Militia had at last received his "reward." No longer plain "Sam" Hughes. Say now, Major General, Sir Sam Hughes. A commission and a knighthood ! May these cheap favors bring him joy ! VI. THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 In an inclosed garden just east of Madison Avenue, in Thirty- sixth Street, rises a marble building in the museum style. It was built by the Elder Morgan as a storehouse for his works of art. It is known as the Morgan Library. It has been the scene of strange events. It was here that Morgan, in the panic of 1907, loaned to the banks of Wall Street the millions he obtained from the United States Treasury, making great profits for himself on the bor- rowed money of the people. It was here that late one night a whispered word went forth, that struck the next day like a thun- derbolt and caused the tragic run on the Trust Company of America, which bled a $60,000,000 institution dry. The Morgan Library is now ownecl by Morgan's son, the agent of a foreign government. On the night of September llth, 1915, a street crowd had run together at this corner of Murray Hill. These people watched the lighted front of the marble building with uneasy faces. With the dumb instinct of the mot), they had scented the fact that there was being staged here an event that threatened a terrible danger to the future of their country. At intervals vehicles rolled up, the iron gates swung back, and a dull murmur rose from the street throng as it recognized some familiar personage who had alighted. But let us not mix with the rabble. Let us penetrate the marble portal and see the parts that our masters, the plutocrats, are playing. They are giving an ovation to titled personages. And monstrous as it may seem, one finds among the latter Amer- icans, who have renounced republican principles, -accepted foreign " knighthoods/ ' and sworn allegiance to a foreign king. Here, in the spacious apartment, we see J. Pierpont Morgan, the accredited agent of England, France and Russia for the purchase and manufacture of war munitions. Beside him is his partner, Henry P. Davison, just returned from London, where 59 60 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET he has been conferring in secret with the heads of the British government. With that species of adulation that is deserving only to the aristocracy, they bid welcome to* Sir Robert Borden, Premier of Canada, who has won the gratitude of the British government by herding in detention camps the Teutonic farmers of Canada. Then comes Thomas, Lloyd George's representative in the * ' States ' ' in the supervision of American industries in the inter- est of England, soon to be knighted as a reward. The next arrival is "Sir" Thomas Shaughnessy, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, once an American, born in Milwaukee, Wis., now a Colonial Knight. And we see Americans bowing and scraping before this man who has spurned his American citizenship. Now comes a murmur of awe and reverence from the Wall Street bankers assembled here. The lions of the evening have arrived — the foreign bankers sent here by bankrupt Britain to get the use of the American people's gold that Morgan, their agent, has promised them : Baron Reading, once plain Rufus Isaacs; Sir Edward Hopkinson Holden, Sir Henry Babbington Smith and Basil B. Blackett. They have in their train two French bankers, to whom they have promised the Yankees' money, if France will continue to fight England's battles. An hour passes now in Morgan's Library. There is a low hum of voices, of pledges made on foreign soil, now renewed and substantiated in the home of Britain 's agent. What is being concocted here in secret by private bankers ? Our country is being committed, its safety, its fortune, its wealth, its future — and yet we, the people, have nothing to say. We have voiced protests. They have been ignored. We have made pleas. They have been met with cynical laughter. Our destinies are in the hands of plutocratic masters. But the deed is done. The hour has passed. One hears from the outer court that the iron gates are swinging back again. There is the roll of wheels. Another chain of vehicles is arriving. They are bringing other guests. Who are these ? WHO COMES NOW? These are men whose smallest actions concern us deeply, since they involve the safety and happiness of all we hold most dear. THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 61 They are the heads of our largest savings banks, in which are stored the results of our labor ; they are the presidents and man- agers of great life insurance companies, in which our existence is pledged; they are the officials of fire insurance companies, of powerful banks with which we do business. I shall name them, but only as their names have been made known. And that we may know them better, I shall prefix their names with the institutions they represent, in which are deposited the money of the people. Savings Banks: Albany Savings Institution, Director, Charles H. Sabin ; Bow- ery Savings Bank, Second Vice-President, William A. Nash; Bank for Savings, Trustees, August Belmont and Robert Bacon ; Greenwich Savings Bank, Trustee, Albert H. WiggnTpUnion Dime Savings Bank, Trustee, John R. Hegeman. Insurance Companies: Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co., Trustee, Charles A. Peabody ; City of X. Y. Insurance Co., Director, Albert H. Wiggin ; Fidel- ity-Phenix Fire Ins. Co., Directors, Francis L. Hine, Charles H. Sabin and Albert H. Wiggin; Fidelity & Casualty Co., Di- rector, Alex. J. Hemphill; German- American Insurance Co., Director, Samuel McRoberts; Home Insurance Co., Director, Lewis L. Clark ; Home Life Insurance Co., Directors, William A. Xash and Francis L. Hine ; Mutual Life Insurance Co., Trus- tees, George F. Baker and Charles A. Peabody, President ; Metro- politan Life Insurance Co., President, John R. Hegeman; Trus- tees, Otto T. Bannard and Albert H. Wiggin ; N. Y. Title Insurance Co., Director, Lewis L. Clark; Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co., Edward T. Stotesbury; Penn Mutual Life In- surance Co., 'Trustee, Edward T. Stotesbury ; Prudential In- surance Co., President, Forrest F. Dryden; Queen Insurance Co., Director, William A. Nash; Royal Insurance Co., William A. Nash; United States Casualty Company, Director, Forrest F. Dryden. 62 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Banks: American Exchange National Bank, President, Lewis L. Clark; Chase National Bank, President, Albert H. Wiggin; Director, Francis L. Hine; Chatham & Phenix National Bank, August Belmont; First National Bank, President, Francis L. Hine ; Liberty National Bank, Directors, Albert H. Wiggin and Francis L. Hine; Metropolitan Bank, Director, John R. Hege- man; National City Bank, Vice-President, Samuel McRoberts; President, Frank A. Vanderlip; National Bank of Commerce, Directors, Frank A. Vanderlip, Alvin W. Krech, Francis L. Hine, Charles A. Peabody and Albert H. Wiggin ; Riggs National Bank, Director, Frank A. Vanderlip ; Union Exchange National Bank, Directors, Albert H. Wiggin and Charles H. Sabin. Trust Companies: Astor Trust Company, Directors, Francis L. Hine, Albert H. Wiggin, Charles A. Peabody and George F. Baker; Bankers' Trust Company, Directors, Francis L. Hine and Albert H. Wig- gin; Brooklyn Trust Company, Trustee, Francis L. Hine; Farm- ers' Loan & Trust Co., Directors, Charles A. Peabody, Frank A. Vanderlip and George F. Baker; Fidelity Trust Company, Edward T. Stotesbury; Girard Trust Company, Edward T. Stotesbury; Guaranty Trust Company, President, Charles H. Sabin ; Chairman, Alex. J. Hemphill ; Directors, Albert H. Wig- gin, Charles A. Peabody and George F. Baker ; Hamilton Trust Company, Trustee, John R. Hegeman; New York Trust Com- pany, President, Otto T. Bannard ; Title Guarantee & Trust Co., William A. Nash and Charles A. Peabody; United States Trust Company, Lewis Cass Ledyard. Surety Companies: American Surety Company, Trustees, Alex. J. Hemphill, William A. Nash, Francis L. Hine and Albert H. Wiggin ; Amer- ican Security & Trust Co., Frank A. Vanderlip ; First Security Company, President, George F. Baker; National Surety Com- pany, Directors, Samuel McRoberts, Alvin W. Krech and John R, Hegeman. IB e | 1 1 a I ft 00 .*£ .^' - -.„ fi g 8 i B •g 63 64 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET THE AMERICAN PEOPLE UNEASY It is a matter of distinct uneasiness to the American people that the heads and trustees and managing directors of the great institutions in which their fortunes are bound up, should in these days and on a mission such as this, visit the private house of the agent of a foreign government, to confer i£hsecret with emissaries sent by that government to this "country for the purpose of obtaining a huge credit, based "on the moneys lying in savings banks, insurance companies and banks of deposit representing the property of the American people. It instils fear in the public mind when such men associate themselves with the House of Morgan, whose fortunes are com- mitted to foreign lands and foreign interests. This fear of the public is not the fear which, in 1913, caused the appointment of the Pujo Committee to investigate the con- centration of control of money and credit. It is now become a fear more keen and poignant than before. It has caused a sudden growth of radicalism in this country, which is assuming proportions that are alarming. For Morgan is serving a foreign king; he cannot serve two masters. Under his guidance, committed as he is, American interests must suffer. Is it not then a matter of dreadful peril that at Morgan's beck and call, the financiers, controlling our greatest institutions, should lend him their vast influence and proffer him the funds which have been entrusted to them by the people? Was it not thought that by the abolition of the interlocking directorates the Morgan group would be shorn of their illegal power ? Yet here we see that they still exercise their malignant influence. I shall quote from the conclusions of the Pujo Committee, after its investigation of the Money Trust: "It accordingly behooves us to see to it that the bankers who require and are bidding for the money held by our banks, trust companies and life insurance companies to use in their ventures are not per- mitted to control and utilize these funds as though they were their own. "At best it is a dangerous situation, with its boundless temptations and opportunities, no matter how high or lofty THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 65 may be the sense of responsibility of those who hold the power. It is too vast and perilous a power to be safely intrusted to the hands of any man or set of men, be he or they ever so patriotic or unselfish. We have no right to assume that he or they or their successors will never use it in his or their own interest and to the detriment of the public welfare." We see that the day has now come when these successors are using this power in their own interest and to the detriment of the public welfare. These foreign agents are working in secret. They tell us insolently that they are working for our country's good. Can we believe them? No, we cannot take the word of Morgan & Co., who have earned the distrust and condemnation of their fellow countrymen in the management of the New Haven and Erie Railroads and the perpetration of the Cincinnati, Ham- ilton & Dayton scandal. I urge upon all the readers of THE FATHERLAND to write to their Congressmen, demanding a Federal investigation into the recent acts of J. P. Morgan & Co., on behalf of their client, Eng- land. Congress must drag these secret financial transactions — which affect our most vital interests — into the open light of day. But we must go farther. We must safeguard our personal interest from the thieving fingers of the Money Trust. In the insurance investigation of some few years ago, it was vividly impressed upon the managers of such companies that they must not act without the authority of their policyholders. It is to be hoped that they have not forgotten this wise counsel. Let every man or woman who is a policyholder in any of the companies above enumerated; write at once to the responsible heads of such companies, asking ivhether their funds are being used to finance the war munitions of foreign countries. Let every depositor in the savings banks in the above list address a similar request to his official representatives. Let every depositor in the above banks and trust companies take similar action. A PATRIOTIC DUTY Citizens, this is your patriotic duty. It is your right. The banking power exists only in the money of the people. The people have the right under the law to demand that such power be not misused. 66 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Protest against this commission of an unneutral act ! Protest against the illegal use of the American people's savings for the furtherance of a war on behalf of Russian Cossacks. Protest against the use of our money for the arming of African and Asiatic savages by their decadent French and English masters, who wage war by bringing blacks into a white man 's country. We, in the East, are doing our share. Do you, in the West, do yours? And it is with deep gratification that we see the sturdy West responding. We are Americans still — not the helots of pro-British plutocrats. The action of Dr. Charles Hexamer, of Philadelphia, head of the National German- American Alliance, in his open protest, urging citizens to thwart the loan, has brought dismay to the English bankers of Wall Street. Mr. Jeremiah O'Leary, President of the American Truth Society, has demanded of Baron Reading, the head of the foreign banking delegation, what assurance American investors would have, when the Anglo-French notes fall due, that Great Britain will not tender Confederate bonds in payments. Our logic is unanswerable. For an entire year, the Morgan group have been our pluto- cratic rulers. They have had their own way. Now is coming the reaction. The public has awakened to its peril. This morn- ing was announced the resignation of one of the Morgan partners, Mr. Willard Straight. The panic of fear and rage reigns in the Morgan camp. On September 15th, through one of their organs, they issued a WARNING to those who opposed them. They applied an epithet to those who worked against the loan to their foreign clients, and their warning ended in these words: THE THREAT OF REPRISAL "The potentialities of retaliation are not the exclusive pos- session of any body or organization in the United States. This fact is not without a definite present significance. The weapons that hyphenated Americans are now urged to raise against their neighbors are not the subject of monopoly, and it would be lamentable in the last degree if patience and forbearan.ce should take the form of reprisal," THE CRIME OF THE YEAR 1915 67 The following day they sent a man to James J. Hill to enlist his support, with the suggestion that "reprisals be tried upon pro-German interests by withholding American money. " Mr. Hill shook his head. "That gun would kick harder than it would shoot," he said. When the man was sent to Mr. Hill in the endeavor to foment discord and stifle opposition to the Morgan loan, he was not sent aright. Again the same organ came out with a threat from the Morgan group. Sections were quoted from the Penal Law of New York State, in the false efforts to intimidate opponents to the Morgan loan. To this THE FATHERLAND must respond by the following quotation from Section 5281 of the Revised Statutes of the United States: THE LAW IN THE CASE "Section 5281. Accepting a foreign commission. 1 ' Every citizen of the United States who, within the territory or jurisdiction thereof, accepts and exercises a commission to serve a foreign Prince, State, colony, or people, in war, by land or by sea, against any Prince, State, colony, district or people with whom the United States are at peace, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor and shall be fined not more than $2,000 and imprisoned not more than three years. " Let the partners of J. P. Morgan & Co., ponder this. Does it apply to them ? As yet the Republic exists. As yet the plutocrats have not exercised the power to crush free speech and freedom of opinion. Since that memorable meeting in the Morgan Library, many other gatherings have been held by Wall Street bankers with the financial emissaries from England. But the subsequent meetings have always been held in different places, and in secret. We see them meet at the Hotel Biltmore at midnight. Why? We learn that these Wall Street bankers leave their institutions and secretly board Morgan's yacht, the Corsair, in the East River, to hold their conferences for the disposition of the public's funds. Why do these men work in fear and secret? How do they purpose to work in the dark after time, when a crime against their own countrymen has been committed ? VII. THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES I was walking on Seventh Ave., New York, one "Winter's night, some four short years ago — it was in December, 1911, if memory serves me right — when my attention was called to the movement of great numbers of people. I saw them pouring into an auditorium. I am always interested in the guiding spirit of a throng, so I made myself a part of this concourse. I entered the auditorium. It was filled to the galleries. I seated myself, and, turning to my neighbor, asked for the purpose of the gathering. "It's a peace meeting/' he replied. I turned my attention to the stage. I saw there the conven- tional semi-circle of three rows of chairs. Seven men were seated in the foremost row.- I can see their faces as plainly to-day as on that Winter's night, four years ago: — Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clews, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas W. Lamont, George F. Baker, Frederic R. Coudert and Dr. Lyman Abbott. Now I knew the origin and histories of these men, and I wondered what had brought them together there. I listened to some of the speakers, and gathered that they were making an appeal to the audience to give their support to some arbitration treaties which these seven men wished to make between our country, England and France. Then I understood. Suddenly, at the conclusion of one of the addresses, a man arose from a chair in the semi-circle on the stage, and advanced to the footlights. He was a mild appearing man, slender of fig- ure, and wearing long mustaches. He began to speak. All in that large audience listened breathlessly, for it was evident that this speech was not on the prepared programme. The man at the footlights spoke : — ' ' I wish to offer as a substitute that this meeting approve the resolution already adopted by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in oppo- sition to the treaties between Great Britain and France, such treaties being breeders of war. This arbitration movement is 68 THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 69 aimed not in the interest of peace, but in that of war with another power, — Germany." The audience sat stunned for a moment. Then came a burst of cheers from the galleries, followed by others from the orchestra chairs: — "How about Germany? This is all aimed at Ger- many ! ' ' A great uproar ensued. The chairman was compelled to dismiss the gathering. The audience had not given its approval to the plan cherished by the seven men seated there on the public stage. Now this meeting became historic in the annals of the peace agitations of that day. I remember my surprise at the upshot of the morrow. For certain newspapers controlled by Wall Street bankers tried, for some secret reason, to heap obloquy on the heads of the men who had objected to the proposed treaties. They called them "ruffians" and "hoodlums." Why was that done ? Here was an American citizen who had spoken in support of the wishes of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, of the Congress of the. United States. That was certainly a patriotic duty. And free speech is not prohibited in America, nor is liberty of thought. The man who had so spoken was a New York lawyer. Yet Adolph S. Ochs, in his newspaper, assailed him in these words: — "He is a bad American. In fact, he is not an American at all. We mean that he is not an American citizen. For all we know, he may have been born here, but he must be reborn." There seemed a sinister purpose in all three attacks, and dreadful doubts succeeded in the public mind concerning these "peace" negotiations. It was felt instinctively that foreign influences were at work to compromise the future of our country. Time passed. But the foreign agitation kept secretly at work. THOSE SEVEN MEN- In the meantime, keep in mind, indelibly, the names of those seven men ivhom I noted on the stage front of Carnegie Hall, that troubled Winter's night. Men who nurse shameful ends know neither haste nor rest. The schemes of these seven men had been frustrated at the 70 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Carnegie Hall meeting. But the result of that meeting was the formation of two "peace" societies, the American Peace and Arbitration League and the New York Peace Society. How strange to note that the presidents of both were Englishmen, Henry Clews and Andrew Carnegie. Wall Street's English bankers are far-sighted men. They have resources and cunning. They had made a shade of differ- entiation between these two organizations, in the hope that they might meet the objections of suspicious or unsuspecting Amer- icans. It was on January 25th, 1913, that we find the " peace" friends meeting again. And it is again in Carnegie Hall. There we find two members of this Group of Seven, the two English- men, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clews. By this time they had enlisted the services of Dr. Charles W. Eliot, once of Har- vard. They expressed their extreme disappointment at the failure of the peace treaties they had planned to make between England, France and the United States. Mr. Carnegie, however, asserted his conviction that the end of all war was in sight, and said that he believed that the doctrine of the exemption of private property on the seas was soon to be a reality, since it had been approved by eight of the nations and needed only the sanction of Great Britain.* Six days later, Mr. Carnegie gathered a meeting of his (American) New York Peace Society, and appealed to the American people to force the repeal by Congress of its legislation governing the Panama Canal tolls, which was detrimental to England's interests. Not like the "hoodlum" who had sup- ported the cause of the American Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Carnegie appealed to the American people to destroy an act of Congress. But the Wall Street newspapers did not call Mr. Carnegie a "hoodlum" or a "ruffian." Mr. Adolph S. Ochs treated him most tenderly. At this meeting, Robert Underwood Johnson, vice-president of the "Peace" Society, declared: "For the first time in their lives, as they have confessed to me, Americans ( ?) could not look Englishmen fair in the face because of the interpretation put by our Congress upon our treaty obligations." * Who has confiscated $15,000,000 worth of American meat cargoes, and hundreds of millions of American cotton cargoes? THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 71 Twenty-three days later (still in 1913, remember) Henry Clews, the English President of the American (?) Peace and Arbitration League, called a gathering of his people, among the members of the committee being Andrew Carnegie, Dr. Lyman Abbott, Dr. Charles W. Eliot and FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON. Mr. Carnegie predicted that the day of universal peace was not far distant, and expressed the hope that the differ- ences ivith England might be arbitrated. Then came the great war in Europe. When had the English plotters expected it? Before this, at Agadir? "Who can sound the secrets of human thought ? Now it was found necessary to bring about an alteration in this English plot. There was no longer a question of " peace." Now the secret agitation of Wall Street's English bankers was to be on behalf of the "patriotic" duty of national defense. Patriotism, they say, is the last refuge of scoundrels. The world's history always shows how plutocrats play upon the sincere patriotic instincts of their countrymen, that they may make money out of the intoxication of the heedless rabble. We shall see Roman history now repeat itself. THE PATRIOTS MEET One hundred and fifty "American patriots" assembled at the Hotel Belmont in December, 1914, and organized the National Security League. It is necessary, of course, that somebody must advance the funds for any public movement. Among the com- mittee chosen were Mr. Frederic R. Coudert, counsel for the French government, and Mr. Herbert L. Satterlee, the brother- in-law of J. Pierpont Morgan. The committee demanded that the government at once spend $100,000,000 on armament. At this meeting, Mr. George Haven Putnam, an Englishman, London born, spoke as follows: "Suppose England is crushingly defeated in this war, and her enemies wish to invade Canada. A big fleet and expedi- tionary force appears off New York and asks permission to march an invading army up the Hudson Valley. We refuse. You can see all the towns along the Hudson River in ruins. "A military authority in Berlin recently said that when Germany had obtained a coaling station on the American coast, there would be no difficulty in smashing the American coast cities and crushing the Republic." 72 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET Of course we all know that no Berlin authority ever made such a statement, and that no army intending to invade Canada would be so idiotic as to wish to march up the Hudson Valley. But this statement was made by this English agitator simply in the interest of the English propaganda in order to create fear in the minds of the ignorant and feeble-minded. The English, you see, feared the thirty millions of American citizens of German blood, whose fathers had fought in all our country's wars. It was necessary for their plot to cow and discredit all Americans of German descent. For this, the National Security League was not enough, as the American (?) Peace and Arbitration League and the New York Peace Society had not been sufficient. There must be a monopoly on the part of the English bankers of Wall Street, of all " patriotic " and "defense" movements, so that real Amer- icans should not have liberty of action in such organizations. Now we reach the culminating step in the plans of the Group of Seven men, whom we recall as having been seated on the front of the stage at that meeting in Carnegie Hall four years before. J. Pierpont Morgan had appointed himself the official war agent of England in this country. He had made contracts with all the munitions factories, so that all their output would 'be assured to the country that he loves better than his own. He had organized other great munitions factories, for the manufacture of shells and shrapnel while England 's war should last. But he is a far-sighted man. When the war ends, he intends that these factories shall be sold to the United States government. To accomplish this purpose, the American public must be educated to the fact that "national defense" is a great and patriotic duty. The National Security League had asked an immediate appro- priation of $100,000,000 for the national defense. That was only a feeler to "educate the public." The sum must be made much higher. Colonel Robert M. Thompson, chairman of the board of directors of one of the war munitions companies, was selected as the stalking horse in this development. As a one-time graduate of Annapolis, he had organized a Navy League. This moribund society was now to be used in the furtherance of the Morgan plan. Colonel Thompson inaugurated a "defense" luncheon, and in- vited to it the members of the Group of Seven. Invitations were THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 73 extended by him to the heads of all the war munitions companies and the Wall Street bankers who do business with them. Among the gathering invited we note : — J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas W. Lament, George F. Baker, Frederic R. Coudert, Dr. Lyman Abbott, as also most of the other partners of Morgan, and his brother-in-law, Herbert L. Satterlee. At this meeting, Colonel Thompson proposed that the govern- ment immediately expend not $100,000,000, but $500,000,000 on armament. The method in educating the public was the same later adopted in the'machinations of this same group for a billion- dollar loan to the Allies. This $500,000,000 was to flow, of course, right back into the pockets of the men invited to Colonel Thompson 's luncheon. STIFLING THE PUBLIC CONSCIENCE But these people had something else to fear, and that was that the conscience of the American people would be awakened, and they might have an embargo placed on the exportation of war material. That, of course, would be fatal to the Morgan group of munitions makers, who were expecting to make their millions out of a world catastrophe. But they cleverly executed their campaign for the stifling of the public conscience. College professors were hired to write articles, informing us that it would be "unneutral" to place an embargo on arms shipments. That weak nations would be unable to protect themselves against strong nations if we did so. That German militarism must be crushed. And they did not call attention, of course, to the fact that the "weak nations " to whom Morgan was supplying arms were the great empires of Russia and Great Britain, and that so far from suppressing militarism, the Morgans were trying to impose mili- tarism upon the country by the expenditure of a half billion on armament. In the meantime a movement was begun in Carnegie's New York Peace Society for an embargo on the shipment of arms. Morgan had provided means to oppose that. His men, Lyman Abbott and his counsel, the corporation lawyer, Francis Lynde Stetson, of the Steel Trust, and the Englishman, George Haven Putnam, hastily formed a committee and issued a statement 74 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET September 6th, protesting against any interruption to the ship- ment of arms, since that might curtail the profits of Morgan and the Steel Trust. Similarly, when John Wanamaker, in Phil- adelphia, advocated an embargo on arms, Morgan's men in the National Security League made him resign at once as chairman. When some women in Baltimore issued posters, calling on Americans to protest against the arms shipments, Ochs, the Money Trust tool in New York, did not spare American woman- hood to serve his Wall Street masters. Absolutely, this man Ochs attacked American women, assailing them as doing a shameful thing in protesting against arms shipments, since that might curtail Morgan's profits. Corporation lawyers all flew to the rescue of Morgan profits, in which most of them always share. A Baltimore corporation lawyer, Charles Jerome Bonaparte, once an attorney general, in agitating for the National Security League, said at Carnegie Hall: — "If I am asked what I mean by a reasonably possible enemy, I reply — any power except Great Britain. " And more recently he wrote to the American Defense Society: — "I am in cordial sympathy with prompt provision for the national defense. We have become involved in controversies with powerful nations. When the war shall end, those whom we have offended may be victorious." I think a child could detect a false ring to these words. They brought something to my mind, and impelled me to look up Mr. Bonaparte in "Who's Who in America," where I found that he had .given his lineage as follows: — "Charles Jerome Bonaparte, grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, King of West- phalia." That's enough! I think that if we revert to that stormy Winter night in 1911, when our countrymen experienced misgivings that all was not well with the sham peace propaganda, and that it was in reality a movement to ally this country on the side of England in her coming war, we have found THAT THEIR FEARS WERE JUSTIFIED. WHO THEY ARE Let us analyze the affiliations of the seven men who sat on the stage in Carnegie Hall that memorable night. There was Andrew. Carnegie, born in Great Britain, with a THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 75 home on Fifth Avenue, and one in Scotland; casting his vote in both countries ; holder of $300,000,000— odd Steel Sinkers,— five per cent, bonds of the Steel Trust, which now earns its income from the manufacture and sale of shells and bayonets, used to arm Russian Cossacks and Senegal negroes for the destruction of a white race. Should an Englishman, so conscienceless as this, head an American peace society? There was Henry Clews, born in England ; for years a pro- British agitator; who derives his income from a score of little branch brokerage offices, where men speculate in war stocks on margin. One of the leading brokers in Wall Street told me one day that, at the end of the year, when he balanced his books, there was rarely a customer who had not lost his all in the stock market gamble. Is an Englishman such as this qualified to head an American peace society ? There was J. Pierpont Morgan, war agent of England, whose record in ' ' Who 's Who ' ' is gi ven thus : — J. Pierpont Morgan — Homes : — Offices : — 231 Madison Ave., N. Y. 23 Wall St., N. Y. 12 Grosvenor Sq., London, W. 22 Old Broad St., London. Clubs: — White's, St. James Club and the City of London Club. Is this English banker qualified to lead an American peace or defense movement ? There was Thomas W. Lamont, the partner of Morgan, Eng- land 's war agent. There was George F. Baker, one of Wall Street's Big Four, and a leader of the Money Trust, investigated and censured by the Pujo Committee. There was Frederic R. Coudert, son of a French father and counsel for the French government, director of a company doing a business of billions with the war munitions concerns, and a bitter anti-German agitator. There was Dr. Lyman Abbott, of the Outlook, whose venom- ous pen has worn itself dull in the last shameful year in pro- British agitations. And now it is these men, the inflamers of public sentiment, who laughed at us when we opposed an arms embargo, who now 76 WAR PLOTTERS OP WALL STREET tell us that ' ' we have offended ' ' powerful nations by the shipment of arms to their enemies. They instruct us we must arm in our own defense, and that the government must buy Morgan's war plants, and slip $500,000,000 into the pockets of this multi- millionaire. Why not let us ape England, and tax the munitions makers for the national defense? They are the only ones who have made money in this country during the year that is dead and gone. But these Englishmen new evidently fear the 120 millions of Germans in Central Europe, whom they "have offended" by their sale of arms to England. I would call to their attention that there are others nearer home whom they have cause to fear, — that is, the thirty millions of Americans of German blood, upon whom they have tried to heap infamy during the last twelve months. How do they purpose to defend themselves against these enemies? These thirty millions are now welded together as one, they think as one, and they are strong enough to bring to a stern accounting the English crew who, for the last year, have singled them out of the social body for attack. Is it not clearly proved that Morgan, years ago, .took care to monopolize the sham "peace'7 movements and the "fake" de- fense movements? His father and his partners organized the "arbitration treaties" in favor of England. Morgan and his lawyers and creatures were instrumental in founding and con- trolling the New York Peace Society and the American Peace and Arbitration League, the Navy League and the National Security League. Morgan's hand has been in all this. He is the evil genius of his race. Is this disloyalty, or treason ? Morgan is restless and untiring to swing this country into England's maw. He is dogged and determined in his actions. Congress has a stern duty to perform. It must check this dangerous man. If Congress does not act, then the people will. It is dangerous to goad the people into action. Morgan's wrath is bitter in this hour of the miscarriage of his plans. He has been unable to force this country into war on THE SHAM PEACE SOCIETIES 77 England's side. His loan to the Allies was cut in half. What is he plotting now? When the people objected to Morgan's billion-dollar loan, his organ, the Sun, came out and said: — "Should the loan be withheld, and the war thus cut short, to whose advantage would it be ? How much of Russia would Germany annex? What would become of Morocco? What would become of Egypt ? What would Germany do to British commerce? What would Germany do to Britain's natural de- fense, her navy?" In this, Morgan at last unmasked himself. He has not been working for America. What do Americans care how much of Russia Germany annexes ? What do they care what becomes of British commerce, or whether she remains in Egypt, which she has stolen from the Turk ? What care have we to maintain the French in the filched country of Morocco ? But that is Morgan's will. He would have us fight for England and France: — he would have us lend our billions to them for the purposes of their war, regardless of the conse- quences to our welfare. Is Morgan now seeking to precipitate a panic in this country? The thing is by no means improbable. Morgan's father is said to have doubled the family fortune in the panic days of 1907. He was enabled then to get the Tennessee Coal & Iron Co. for his Steel Trust without the expenditure of a dollar, and merely by the printing of a few bond certificates. When a Morgan railroad goes into receivership, Morgan makes a million dollars commission in reorganization. Wall Street does not fear panics. It thrives on the misfor- tunes of the people. VIII. RED LIGHTS AHEAD! "Red lights ahead!" In this picturesque railroad phrase, grown famous in financial annals, James J. Hill, then chairman of the Great Northern Railroad, predicted the oncoming panic of 1907. I was reminded of this prediction, made by Mr. Hill, a man whom I greatly admire, as I walked through Wall Street a few days ago. These panics, which the public fears so justly, come for some strange reason upon us every seven or eight years. Panics are not wholly man-made. They are often made unwit- tingly, through the madness of men. I remember the panic of '93, when I had just "struck" New York City from Ohio, a poor lad. And another one came later, in 1901, made solely by Wall Street gamblers. Six years later came the ' ' rich man 's panic. ' ' What reminded me of " Jim ' ' Hill 's fine phrase as I strolled through Wall Street this late September day ? There was much to contemplate. To the left hand, at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets, topping the new white structure of the House of English Morgan, a great steel screen had been placed above the court that opens on the glass roof covering the ground floor of his banking house. A cordon of armed detectives was stationed about his office doors. From the right hand there came to me the subdued uproar of shouting, shrieking voices — voices of maddened brokers on the guarded floor of the New York Stock Exchange, also still topped with a steel wire screen. And at the entrance of the Exchange, the greatest money 'market of our country, there still hung the sign "Gallery Closed for Repairs." Wall Street brokers still refuse the public admittance to the scene of their operations. And I felt downcast and depressed as I thought back on those long-gone years when I had come to this city, a poor boy from Ohio. How the days had changed ! Then there was public spirit 78 RED LIGHTS AHEAD! 79 and free thought. Newspapers like the World and Sun would have had electrifying stories of the fear in which Morgan and his creatures dwelt, of the -manner in wrhich they had screened themselves from public vengeance. And our country would not have been unwarned. But to-day the word of a powerful English banker is sufficient to still the columns of newspapers, which in the past thought it their best endeavor to strive for the public good. "Red lights ahead!" Races become decadent through cor- ruption— yes, those races that we love the best. When we were boys we all read Plutarch, and loved him for the knowledge of human nature he displayed. You remember old Timon of Athens, and the words he spoke to Alcibiades, when he saw him driving his countrymen to madness? "Go on, my brave boy, and prosper, for your prosperity will bring ruin on all this crowd ! ' ' And I thought of Young Morgan and his English banking friends of Wall Street. Here are bankers, mad with race hatred, throwing all conservatism and caution to the winds. They try to fling away the public's billion, as though it were so much chaff. It is hard to earn a billion dollars. No man has ever done so. The slender savings of the people, always hard earned, are a mere bauble in the hands of thoughtless bankers. Read the columns of Ochs, the tool of the Money Trust, and he will blabbingly tell you of the "millionaires made by war stocks." Yes, there are men in Wall Street who have made millions in war stocks. They are making them by juggling the money of the people, which blind confidence and honest faith had entrusted to their care. Then comes the great Day of Reckoning — as it came in '93, in 1901, in 1907. And then who has won out? The men who do not care for panic days — the men of Wall Street. They will lean back and laugh at you then, glutted with their millions, and you and I shall have to pay their bills. WARNING VOICES IGNORED "Red lights ahead !" Back in those days the voices of warn- ing were ignored. They were spoken by Hill and Jacob Schiff. But in 1906-07 there were the same conditions that prevail to-day. 80 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET The mad market, the million-share days. The inflation, the banks loaning the people's money on mushroom stocks, while happy brokers laughed and made their coin. The same conditions prevail to-day — the clerks working overtime in .the gambling houses of Wall Street, sleeping on improvised cots, working day and night, in the fever and furor, trying to keep track of the accounts of the poor dupes who are misled by the intoxicating' songs of corrupt newspapers of "fortunes made in stocks." The Day of Reckoning is as sure as the tides and the floods and the setting of the moon. It is the world old story of human credulity, of human faith in the lying tongues of scheming men. "Red lights ahead!" It is now October, in the year 1915. Clip out this story and file it away for the future day — the great Day of Reckoning, when men must pay for the sins of others, when factories will close their gates, and the store and the ware- house will ring to empty footfalls. And far away, in Europe, perhaps, you may see the faces of mocking English bankers, the expatriates of the Money Trust, who have coined their swag and made their homes abroad, and who now laugh at their foolish dupes, whom they hoodwinked with false tales and lying profits, living lives of ease on stolen money. The Wall Street-owned newspapers, with their powerful and unscrupulous news syndicates, which ferret out the ignorant and unsuspecting in every hamlet in the land, are regaling the public to-day with their stories, "Wall Street is a street of gold," "millionaires are being made daily," "there are fortunes to be made in war stocks." Poor, foolish human frailty ! Will that day ever come when men will listen to those who wish them well? When the honest and unsuspecting will no longer heed the voices of plutocratic tempters ? "Wall Street is paved with gold!" And the poor fellow, wrorkless and worrying, who walks the streets, is tempted to take his money from the savings bank and put it in war stocks. If there are those who are willing to listen, let them pay heed to this. Do you know that only a week ago the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad went into a receiver *s hands ? The Missouri Pacific is bankrupt. What has become of the Rock Island? Have you seen the dreadful loss in the earnings of the Union Pacific? RED LIGHTS AHEAD! 81 Those are our great properties on which our fortunes and our wealth depend. In those roads, the arteries of the business life of the country, the money of the savings banks is invested. Are they prospering? No. Who prospers ? ' The munitions makers ? Perhaps. But from what source do their profits come ? From France, from England, from Russia ? From countries devastated by the greatest war in history? No, England, Russia, France are not sending gold to our country to enrich the munitions makers. Those English bankers of Wall Street have paid themselves for the debts the bankrupt countries of Europe owe by taking the millions of savings of the American people, which are deposited in savings banks, in life and fire insurance companies, and these men, who love foreigners better than their own countrymen, have placed in these companies the notes of their bankrupt friends, whom they toasted and flattered in New York at their Pilgrim dinners and their bankers* feasts, at which they drank the healths of King George of England, the Russian Czar, the King of Italy and the assassin rulers of Servia. But business is bad in the United States. We all know that. The Money Trust newspapers of Wall Street, drunk with the advertising profits that now fill their columns, do not tell you such facts as these. The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, of September 25th, says : ' ' England has huge resources to draw upon, no matter what may happen, and she has never in her entire history undertaken to place one of her Government loans in a foreign country. Even if we take an extreme view of the case and contemplate the possibility of partial insolvency as the result of the putting out of huge additional masses of debt with the continuation of the war, it is inconceivable that this $500,- 000,000 or $600,000,000 foreign loan will ever be in danger." THE BANKRUPT'S TOLL This is the still and silent voice of a financial organ, which few will read. It does not say that England has had to pay the bankrupt's toll of six per cent, for her money by placing a first mortgage on the Empire. It does not call attention to the fact that her premier security, Consols, is selling at a "minimum ' price of 65. This minimum means that the British Government 32 WAR PLOTTERS OF WALL STREET dares not let a free market prevail in her chief security, that if the minimum price were removed, it would drop to a panic figure. The figure is easily calculated. Consols bear interest at 2 1/2 per cent. The British loan forced upon the American people by the publicity campaign of the Morgan group pays 5 per cent., but sells at 96%. Then a security paying one-half that interest is worth only one-half the price — or 48J/8. That figure is the price of British Consols to-day — no, it is not the price, for the loan imposed upon America is a first mortgage upon the taxing power of the British Empire, and Consols take the rank of a second mortgage, and can be worth only 40 or thereabouts. I shall quote a warning issued at the Investment Bankers' Association of America, at Denver last week, which your Money Trust newspaper did not dare to print and which was uttered by Mr. A. B. Leach, the President of the Association, who said : "Gentlemen, I have presented three pictures, which perhaps have a somewhat gloomy atmosphere, three pictures which be- speak possible disaster even. 1 i As investment bankers we face the problem that the capital, which has been expended for the development of this country, derived in the past from Europe, will not be available. "I have heard it prophesied by the very wise that at the end of the war we would face a financial catastrophe, that wreckage and repudiation would be worldwide." 1 ' The capital which has been expended for the development of this country, derived in the past from Europe, will not be avail- able." And at the siren voice of Morgan, the credulous Amer- ican people have been tempted to give of their own capital $500,000,000 to France, England and Russia, to the accompani- ment of the enthusiastic cheers of English bankers. And thus, while Wall Street bankers throw away one-half billion of the people's money, what is being done with the reserves of Wall Street banks ? Let us see. In the chart that is given below, we can clearly see what game the conscienceless houses of Wall Street are perpetrating. In the last seven weeks, ended with October 2nd, in only twenty of the war stocks, and there are perhaps as many more, thirteen million five hundred and eleven thousand shares were traded in, and in this gamble, solely in these twenty stocks, remember, the CO 3tj OlOlOOiC^OCDlOOCVjCDCVjCO^COCNj^OCDlD ? WALL STREE ONE BILLION fl^ HHOW CO 03iH 0 03 a ^wsc c o COCOO-PO 000000 •H -H -H -H .H -H 03