The Deluge | Page 2

write. But I shall by no
means confine my narrative to business and finance. Take a
cross-section of life anywhere, and you have a tangled interweaving of
the action and reaction of men upon men, of women upon women, of
men and women upon one another. And this shall be a cross-section out
of the very heart of our life to-day, with its big and bold energies and
passions--the swiftest and intensest life ever lived by the human race.
To begin:

II
IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS
Imagine yourself back two years and a half before Wild Week, back at
the time when the kings of finance had just completed their apparently
final conquest of the industries of the country, when they were seating
themselves upon thrones encircled by vast armies of capital and brains,
when all the governments of the nation--national, state and city--were
prostrate under their iron heels.
You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all
their financial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them,
the most believed in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices
in the building that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed
me also, and Chicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San
Francisco, in the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities,
thousands spoke of Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of
finance. My enemies--and I had them, numerous and venomous enough
to prove me a man worth while--my enemies spoke of me as the
"biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world."
Gambler I was--like all the other manipulators of the markets. But
"bucket-shop" I never kept. As the kings of finance were the
representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so
was I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small
savings properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded
upon wealth and the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its
service; my power was founded upon the hearts and homes of the
people, upon faith in my frank honesty.
How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of

publicity, the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and
magazines put within the reach of the individual man to impress
himself upon the whole country, upon the whole civilized world. The
kings of finance relied upon the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid
agents, operating through the stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels
for the exercise of power. I relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no
fallible, perhaps traitorous, understrappers; through the megaphone of
the press I spoke directly to the people.
My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest.
So? Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and
blare of publicity?
It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myself
into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used
for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have
shrewdly appropriated, because by those means the public can be most
widely and most quickly reached. Does good become evil because
hypocrites use it as a cloak? It is also true that I have been
"undignified." Let the stupid cover their stupidity with "dignity." Let
the swindler hide his schemings under "dignity." I am a man of the
people, not afraid to be seen as the human being that I am. I laugh when
I feel like it. I have no sense of jar when people call me "Matt." I have a
good time, and I shall stay young as long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't
made me a solemn ass, fenced in and unapproachable. The custom of
receiving obedience and flattery and admiration has not made me a
turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when the joke's on me, I laugh as
heartily as when it's on the other fellow.
It is half-past three o'clock on a May afternoon; a dismal, dreary rain is
being whirled through the streets by as nasty a wind as ever blew out of
the east. You are in the private office of that "king of kings," Henry J.
Roebuck, philanthropist, eminent churchman, leading citizen and--in
business--as corrupt a creature as ever used the domino of
respectability. That office is on the twelfth floor of the Power Trust
Building--and the Power Trust is Roebuck, and Roebuck is the Power
Trust. He is seated at his desk and, thinking I do not see him, is looking
at me with an expression of benevolent and melancholy pity--the look
with which he always regarded any one whom the Roebuck God
Almighty had commanded Roebuck to destroy. He and his God were