four and a half millions in six months. To do this we must sell stocks and bonds.

Before we
could do that it was necessary that he help us still furtherhe must buy of us all the bonds now
in pledge and the stock of the Dorchester Gas Company, another Bay State asset up for security,
all for the sum of a million and a half dollars. For this amount these securities would at once be
released and turned over to him. Then he should resell them to us together with the Brookline
Gas Company for six millions of dollars. There would be a formal turning over of the
management of his properties so the public should be convinced that we really were the victors
in the strife. Mr. Rogers saw my point, quickly ran over the details in his comprehensive way,
and closed the trade without further[148] bargaining. That time, thank Heaven, it was not within
Addicks' power to thwart me.
On May 1st we made our settlement in compliance with the terms I had arranged. The six
millions of dollars were to be paid November 1st. As the necessary options and sales could not
legally run to our company, they were made to Henry M. Whitney, and he simultaneously
transferred them to us, and we elected him a director of our different corporations. Rogers
publicly resigned and turned over to us the control of the Brookline Company, and we elected
our own management. To all intents and purposes we had won.
The settlement was the sensation of the day in financial circles, and I was the recipient of many
generous congratulations. I had neither time nor inclination to take care of bouquets at that
moment, however. I was too keenly aware of the difficulty of raising six millions of dollars in
the limited period at our disposal. Times have changed since 1896. Then six millions was quite a
large sum, larger than sixty millions now. That was before the halcyon period of "Frenzied
Finance."

[149]

CHAPTER XXI
BRIBING A LEGISLATURE
That six months between May 1st and November 1st was the most crowded period in all my
experience up to that time. Events of consequence tumbled over one another in startling
succession. We actually lived on sensations. In exercising the historian's right to choose the order
of setting down incidents I am puzzled as to which to give precedence. Shall I begin with the
sensational bribery of the Massachusetts Legislature which occurred within this period, or with
the episode that was the exciting climax of that interval of trial? About this time, too, occurred
the laying of the foundation of "Coppers" and Amalgamated, but that certainly requires a chapter
to itself. However, as all are starry examples of what made "Frenzied Finance" possible, and as
any one fits into my story as well ahead as behind the other two, I'll take them in the succession
above set down.
The Whitney machine for the manufacture and moulding of legislation was complex but
efficient. It achieved its wonders in broad daylight. Considering all it did and how that all was