Frenzied Finance and the Trust System
By Editor
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, one of the great stock manipulators of the day, who has become specially prominent through his "Frenzied Finance" articles running in Everybody's Magazine, sends out a circular letter to the press, in which he says that in the June number he is up to the great crime of the Amalgamated Copper Trust, the point to which he has been coming for some time. The plague of "frenzied finance," or stock-jobbing robbery, is the progenitor of the trust "system" which is now blighting the country, and Mr. Lawson is exposing its corrupt operations. Whether his details are all true to the letter or not, we do not vouch; but the effect of the "system" on the people at large is sufficient to show that there is ground for several stories fully as blood-curdling as the one he writes. He certainly gives evidence of an inside knowledge of the trust "system" that is, perhaps, second to none, and he impresses his readers with a pretty deep conviction that his story is true. At least, he does not spare himself nor hide his own connection with the schemes which he exposes, nor have any of the wealthy victims of his exposure resented his accusations, only in a general attempt to make light of them and to pass them by as unworthy of attention. This, too, notwithstanding the fact that he is wealthy enough to be made amenable to large damages, if his charges be not true. Dire threats have been hurled against him, but none of them have been carried out as yet.