In the meantime Utah kept booming. A week before the expiration of our option, the price being then forty-five, I heard from Mr. Rogers again. He gave me the most mysterious order of all: "Sell 50,000 more." Up to that time I should have declared to any one that I was up in all the quirks and kinks of the stock game, but this move puzzled me. However, I sold, and at the very top. We had now "out" 150,000 shares of Utah, had sold that number "short," in fact. Clark, Ward & Co. were bound to deliver us 100,000 shares when we called for them. These 100,000 shares had been contributed by the large stockholders to Clark, Ward & Co. at the price we had agreed to pay. Assuming that "Standard Oil" control of Utah would immensely enhance its value, the stockholders naturally desired to replace the holdings of stock they had contributed, and instructed Clark, Ward & Co. and other brokers to buy them back in the market. So Clark, Ward & Co. were carrying all one end and much of the other end of the deal, paying for the actual stock which our option called for as it came in, and carrying their customers for the new stock purchased for them at vastly higher prices. But, as we had not taken up our option and paid Clark, Ward & Co. for our stock, the money necessary to finance the whole transaction had to be borrowed from the banks. It is evident that, at this phase of the game, Clark, Ward & Co. must have been, as the phrase goes, "extended."
While the operation had been in process, during the life of the option in fact, money at the "banks" became as "easy" as an old haircloth rocker for whoever desired to borrow on Utah Copper collateral. The fact was much commented on at the time by the "Street," and Clark, Ward & Co. often gratefully remarked to their customers: "After all, 'Standard Oil' is good to its associates."
The day before the option matured, Mr. Rogers briefly said to me: "Lawson, I've been thinking that Utah matter over and have made up my mind that it is not safe to go ahead unless we have the actual control of the company, 151,000 shares. Tell them so, and that we must have 51,000 shares in addition to our 100,000."