Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-19
General Sentiment Toward
Grafters One of Envy.
LAWSON TALKS OF MONEY
Says a Fox Terrier Could Make a
Fortune in Wall Street at
Present.


| NEW YORK. October 1s. 1907.
wv ILL New Yorks theological Sum
| w day saffronesque newspapers ever
| w have the chance to print double
page views of any OF these millionaire
traction thieves pursuing their hard-labor
activities at Sing Sing?
| Not a chance. It's the careless old
town. New York. and the forgatful one
| They enjoy the loud alarum of war on
big criminals over here. but that ends 1t.
After the huge jobs are exposed and the
noise made by the exposes all over the
town settles back and laughs-and then
forgets.
| You don't seem to remember that any
| Of those millionaire insurance grafters
went to Sing Sing do you? No. nor does
| ANYBODY else remember that which didn't
eventuate Some of the big insurance
| swindlers died it Is true-died. presu;n-
! ably, Of pure chagrin because the sklds
were pulled from under their operations
| and the possibility of future lootinss more
| or less guarded against. But none OF
them. be pleased to recall, went to any
| such dankly unpleasant place as sing
| Sing That were too much to expect.
| The street-car jobbery brought to light
by the astute WINS, in the progress OF the
!
| commission. makes rawer reading than
| anything of the sort ever uneartned In
| the course of a similar investigation IN
| the United States or any other country.
In essence. a large number OF wea thy
| and influential men, some OF them living,
| others dead some of them always more
| or less suspected, and others hitherto sup
posed to be OF spotless integrity. nave
| been proven to be the vulgafest sort OF
| thieves looters whose work was coarse
| dav burglars. whose
greed seemed to render them indlnerent
| even to exposure.
They've been "caught with the goods.
| They're not saying a word. Ihey nave
| their little old New York finely inquired
| out. They depend upon 1t that the town'l
| forget all about the thing presently They
| know all of the precedents for this sort
| Of forgetfulness. and 50 they merely ne
back and wait. The investigation VIII
| continue and nastier and then more nasty
| facts and figures will be fetched to the
| highland then the whole thing. If former
| experience in such matters be any guoe'
| will be shelved, pigeon-holed ana lorgot-
| ten That Is virtually the only Wind-up
| tn New York investigation of this sort.
| The strangely quiescent Jerome says that
| the thieves have been guilty only OF
| moral turpitude."
The hopeless part Of It all is the attl-
| tude taken by the town itself toward this
| sort of thing. The town jokes about It,
! The town obviously has sort OF turtlve
If not open and expressed. admiration Tor
| the fellows who are able to dip 80 might.
lily into the bank-rolls Of other fellows and
| take their substance away from tnem II ;
| a matter o. humor, you see.
| "Well, I guess those chaps weren't there
| with the graboogy thing, says the town.
admiringly. Maybe they didn't know
how to slip themselves the stuff. And
| then after a pause and little sigh.
.B'gee. some fellers sure do have the
grand chances tossed right in their way.
| adds the town.
Whole Town Envious.
| I haven't heard a New Yorker talk
about this big lootingness who hasn't
looked sort Of dreamy while talking about
the big money the surface car thieves
gave themselves out Of the stockholders
funds Their most noteworthy attitude
toward 1t all Is that they're only sorry
| that they weren't Sin on the big melon
slicings themselves. When something like
| this Is the cynical view OF the average
man on the street, what chance exists for
any of these b'g-scale looters ever being
| punished?
However. the town does admit that the
piratical work Of the big fellows Is becom-
| ing mighty coarse in recent years. The
| high-notch thieves Of a former era were
| infinitely more subtle in their methods.
They knew how to cover their trails, toss
dust into the eyes of investigators. stand
| pat. wriggle out of tight p.nches, do all
| sorts of self-protecting stunts of which
| the modern big-store thieves seem to be
| entirely ignorant. Even Bill Tweed and
Jake Sharp and plunderers of that ilk
| were far more deft and artistic in their
system of personally conducted self-help-
| ings than any of these supposedly clever
and masterful plunderers who are being
unmaSked today.
To be New York millionaire nowadays
is to cringe under general suspicion that
seems justifiable enough. In one of the
current reviews of the town" shows a
player made up like a famous New York
m Hlonalre who came here originally from
Virginia. and strolls into a mixed COM
pany in a cafe
Look out!' yells one of the men lined
aire" ''-''''oii
All hands Immediately clap their hands
over the'r money pockets. and some az
them undo their watch chains from their
Waistcoats and stick them in their from
sers pockets. Others stink under the IA
bles. It's dismal little side-lfght on the
way the moneyed fellows OF this town aro
now regarded, and the still more dismal
renection Is that the common Doint of
view regarding them seems to be a ner-
fectly just one P
The Exuberant Lawson.
The other afternoon 1 met up with
pape here calls him "Tomtom" Person
ally, Mr.. Lawson is one of the most de-
lightfully engaging men in the world
He's great talker. and he knows how to
talk. He's tremendously well informed,
and as frank as schoolboy about him
self and his doings He has vast follow
ing as a sort of dictator of the market
with reference to certain stocks and
from what L can observe, the people
around this town who follow his adver-
tised instructions to what to buy and
what not to buy In the way of stocks are
getting the money in gObs. There are
plenty of chaps over here who profess to
scott at Lawsons advice, but who. for all
their soothing, do what Lawson advises
them to do In his remarkable newspaDer
communications to the public and profit
by it.
To talk with Mr.. Lawson of Boston is IN
derive the impression that it's lust the
most foolshly easy thing in the world to
pick up few millions of dollars. He ali
but says It's almost laughably easy to get
rich, and he succeeds in injecting peoDle
with whom he talks with the same idea.
L came away from that converse
ton OF three-quarters of an hour with
Tomtom' Lawson feeling quite certain
and easy in my own mind that. with
a little delicate playing Of the cards
ought to be worth at least two or three
millions by the time the snow flies In