So the fabulous Damosel of the Dirty Face, rescued from the goat herds who had found and reared her, was clothed in what she should wear, christened in due manner, annointed in the name of order, and presented to the American people. Or, that is to say, the steel industry was bought from the barbars and sold to the public. Auspicated by Bullguard and Company, manipulated by Sabath, advertised by common wonder, the shares of the biggest trust in the world were launched on the New York Stock Exchange. Popular imagination, prepared in suspense, delivered itself headlong to the important task of buying them. A craze to exchange money for steel shares swept the country. That seemed to be only what people got up every morning to do. Such manias, like panics inverted, have often occurred. They have a large displacement in the literature of popular delusions. This one, although of a true type and spontaneous, was fomented in an extraordinary manner by Sabath, who for the first time in his life had all the power and sanction of Wall Street behind him. The hand of the Ishmaelite that everyone feared now strummed the official lyre and the tune it played untied a million purse strings.
The steel people removed their hats and bowed.
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“We were amateurs,” they admitted.
For weeks and weeks they sat behind piles of steel engraved certificates, fresh from the printer, and signed their names until they were weary of making pen strokes at ten thousand dollars each. Before the ink of their signatures was dry the certificates were cast upon the market to be converted into cash,—the market Sabath made. There seemed no bottom or end to it. The capacity of that market was unlimited. The public’s power to buy was greater than anybody knew.
When it was over, when Sabath’s sweet melody ceased, when the public owned the steel industry and the barbars were out, then steel shares began to fall. For several years they fell, disastrously, and the public howled with rage. The trust went near the rocks.
All who had had any part in the making of it faced a storm of wild opprobrium. There is much to be said in reproach. However, given the problem as it was, how else could anyone have solved it? The trust got by the rocks. The steel industry was stabilized. And ultimately the shares were worth much more than the pu............