It was obeyed in typical, corrupt corporation fashion--they
sent my matter, but so garbled that it was unintelligible. I appealed to
the courts. In vain.
To me, it was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be but
one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and the rights
of the people, this public confession of the truth of my charges. I turned
everything salable or mortgageable into cash, locked the cash up in my
private vaults, and waited for the cataclysm.
Thursday--Friday--Saturday. Apparently all was tranquil; apparently the
people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an "exploded sensation."
"The Seven" began to preen themselves; the strain upon them to maintain
prices, if no less than for three months past, was not notably greater; the
crisis would pass, I and my exposures would be forgotten, the routine of
reaping the harvests and leaving only the gleanings for the sowers would
soon be placidly resumed.
Sunday. Roebuck, taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church of
which he was the shining light, died at midnight--a beautiful, peaceful
death, they say, with his daughter reading the Bible aloud, and his lips
moving in prayer.
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