subscribed for, the subscriber had a right to think he knew that the total subscription to the stock had been five times 375,000,000—or five times 750,000 shares—3,750,000 shares; and that before noon, May 4th, the National City Bank had in hand certified checks to the amount of $18,750,000. The public, including the shrewdest Wall Streeters, has, since the subscription closed, believed that the subscription totalled the figures given above. Indeed no one has ever suspected anything to the contrary, because it was clear that if the allotment was conducted under conditions other than those contracted for in the advertisement, the National City Bank had laid itself open to a charge of fraud and was liable to each subscriber for the proportion of shares of which he had been deprived.
The actual amount of the subscriptions received on or before noon, May 4, 1899, at the National City Bank was but $132,067,500, and the amount of the five per cent. certified checks received in the institution up to noon was only $6,603,375, or $5 per share on a total of 1,320,675 shares.
The meaning of this is that every legitimate subscriber—and I except the millions of subscriptions which the bank decided were illegitimate and rejected, as they had a perfect right to do under their contract with the public—was defrauded of two shares of each three to which he was entitled. Before me as I write is the original allotment of the National City Bank to the subscribers, which I propose to print in my second volume as part of this indictment, showing that the figures are exactly as I have stated.
From the beginning of my narrative I have claimed that the frauds committed in connection with Amalgamated could be completely demonstrated from records outside any evidence of mine. The list of subscribers and the most cursory examination by the Government national bank authorities at Washington will furnish all the proof necessary to substantiate the accuracy of my statement here. At this