the crash," he said. "They were ready to unload on the public, but the public moved too quickly. Publicity destroyed the one great weapon of the Standard Oil men, which is secrecy. I had been tricked and deceived, and those who were responsible had used my name to deceive and trick the public. I got out into the open and laid the plot bare. I had been working up to that point for many years, always waiting, waiting, waiting for the day when I could begin a work of reformation in behalf of 80,000,000 of people.
"I know my game. I have stood here in Boston for thirty-six years studying man and his ways. I have no false conceptions of my own strength. I know, and I have known all along, that to win against a system backed by billions of dollars working in the dark and controlling largely the law-making powers of the nation, I must have the people with me. My articles in Everybody's Magazine were simply in preparation of the public mind for the practical demonstration which I have made this week, that the whispering manipulators of Wall Street will not buy at $68 a share stock which they were selling to the public at $100 a share.
"The Standard Oil interests came into my world simply because they entered Boston to control gas affairs. They wanted to run their automobile down a particular road, but they found a fellow standing in the middle of the road. They did not dare to run over that fellow, as little as he was, because he warned them that he had in his pocket a stick of dynamite that would blow the machine up if it passed over him. Mr. Rogers is a really big and brainy man. He saw and understood the situation. He offered to take me inside of his secret lines.
HIS INDEPENDENCE
"It is said by my enemies, and