"Mr. Rogers," I continued, "I have discovered in 'Coppers' an opportunity whereby you and your associates can, by the investment of a hundred millions of dollars, obtain these results: First, your money will be as safe as in anything you now have it invested in. Second, by indorsing this form of investment with the seal of your business success, you will make it known to all who have money and there will at once arise a tremendous demand for its securities. This demand will drive prices up until dividend returns are in normal proportion to the legitimate value of the security, namely, four to six per cent., which is, as I can prove to you, a little more than can be got from anything else but 'Copper' with the same elements of safety. Third, when the advance I foresee occurs, your one hundred millions have doubled, and all those who have joined us in the venture or have held on to their stock will gain in the same proportion. As I estimate that we will have but a third interest in all the good American 'Coppers,' there should be something like $200,000,000 for the people, while we will have made $100,000,000. To bring this about I have planned a campaign which will make what you have done known from one end of the world to the other, and will persuade the people at large to look at 'Standard Oil' in a more favorable light than they do now. And, what is more, all this money can be made and all these benefits rendered without taxing any one a single additional dollar, for there will not be a penny a ton added to the price of copper the metal, nor a reduction of a mill a year taken from the wages of those who mine it or work it."
Here I halted. I had made a beginning, and I was familiar with Mr. Rogers' system of diagnosis and treatment. Propositions placed on his operating-table are invariably dissected in parts—this is the winner's method; so if, under the probe of his keen mind, one section or limb is found stiff, dead, or unhitchable to that to which it belongs, he at once stops operating and the corpse is removed.
"How is it the situation is as you outline it?"