In telling my story I shall, for I must, tell it fairly, and to make sure of this I pledge myself to keep to the exact facts as they occurred, not allowing myself to be overawed by their greatness into contracting them, nor to be tempted by their littleness into expanding them. In doing this I know, because of the peculiarity of the subject and my intimate relation to it, no other way than to do it in the first person. As I have already stated, I would prefer to deal with my subject through the principles involved rather than with the men concerned; but as I shall be compelled to call spades spades, I must, of necessity, use the names of men and of institutions fearlessly and without favor.
In the beginning it will be necessary, for that clear understanding of the whole subject which is one of my principal objects, to treat at sufficient length the Bay State Gas intricacies and trickeries, in which in a certain sense Amalgamated had