THE BUNCOING OF THE STOCKHOLDERS OF UTAH
This was veritably a period of financial delirium in Boston. No one talked or thought of aught but "Coppers," at least no one with a spare dollar or good credit. The air was full of mysterious yarns and the Stock Exchange was hung with Aladdin lamps. From every nook and corner of State Street, from the chinks between its sedate old cobblestones, came forth copper-mines—mines undreamt of before and unheard of since. Innumerable devices were rigged to take advantage of the prevailing intoxication. The prices of the strong properties leaped up with breath-taking rapidity. The copper epidemic spread over New England and began to extend in constantly widening circles through the rest of the country, while from England, France, and Germany came daily news of symptoms which proved that the infection had crossed the ocean. I, with my hands full, kept two secretaries busy shooing away industrious promoters who came at me in armies with old and new copper properties, which I might have on my own or any old terms.
In the midst of this excitement I had my first real demonstration of the "System's" method of making dollars from nothing. Well as I thought I knew the stock game, I'll admit that I looked on open-mouthed, like the veriest novice, at the magic wrought by the simple use of the name "Standard Oil." Even now I can hear myself as I gasped: "Heaven help the people if this sort of thing can be done in America, for Heaven alone has power to help them."
The Boston and New York brokerage house of Clark, Ward & Co. had promoted the Utah Consolidated Mining Company of Utah. It was less