BIRTH OF "COPPERS"
Active upon the Boston market during my Bay State Gas operations were two copper-mining companies—the Butte & Boston and the Boston & Montana. Their properties were in Montana and both were large producers of the metal, that is, they were old and equipped mines. These two organizations form to-day the most valuable part of the Amalgamated Copper Company—in fact, more than three-quarters of all the real worth owned by that corporation.
Butte & Boston and Boston & Montana were essentially Boston institutions, and were both officered and directed by the same set of men. It had come to my knowledge, in the course of my stock business, that there had been bought for the Butte & Boston, with its money, some very valuable mines; instead of transferring these to that corporation, however, its directors at the last minute had turned the titles over to the Boston & Montana. It is only fair to these men to say that up to the present this alleged fact has not been proven, although set forth in cases still pending in the courts. This curious proceeding was part of a plot the subsequent steps in which would be to run Butte & Boston through the bankruptcy mill, and, by placing it in the hands of a receiver, to drop the stock to a nominal figure, at which it might all be gathered in from the public. I verified my information sufficiently to decide to act, and swung the red danger-signal in a public statement telling the stockholders and people in general of the coming move. At once there arose a chorus of denials and recriminations from the management, and the cry, "He's short of the stock and is working a fake to scare us into throwing over our holdings that he may buy them," from the Stock Exchange, stockholders, and the hireling moulders of opinions, the "News Bureaus."