River Falls journal. [volume], March 13, 1913, Image 6

About River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019

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The Root
of Evil
By THOMAS DIXON
Copyright, 1911, by Thomas
Dixon
SYNOPSIS
Stuart, southern lawyer in New York, 13
in love with Nan Primrose. His friend,
Dr. Woodman, who has a young daugh
ter, is threatened with the loss of his
drug business by Bivens, whom he be
friended years before. Stuart visits the
Primroses.
Nan wants Stuart to accept a place with
Bivens’ chemical trust. He dislikes Biv
ens* methods and refuses. Bivens calls
on him.
Bivens is in love with Nan. Stuart re
fuses the offer, and Nan breaks her en
gagement with the lawyer. Bivens asks
Woodman to enter the trust.
Woodman will not yield and sues Bivens’
company. The promoter tells the doctor
he and Nan are engaged. Harriet Wood
man is studying music. Stuart takes Nan
for a day in the country.
Stuart pleads with Nan to give up Biv
ens, but the spell of millions is on her and
she yields to it.
Nan becomes Mrs. Bivens. Harriet
loves Stuart, but he does not know it.
Nine years pass. Stuart becomes district
attorney. He investigates criminal trusts.
Nan asks him to call.
Stuart wants Woodman to end his suit
against Bivens, but the doctor stands
firm. Bivens aids Stuart in his investi
gation of crooked financiers.
CHAPTER VIII.
A Straight Tip.
NAN received the announcement
of Bivens' failure to settle
Woodman’s suit with a grim
resolution to win now, at all
hazards The sensational reports of
Stuart’s action against the big finan
ciers had given her quick mind the
cue to a new line of stratagem. She
began cautiously.
•‘You are not going to give up a thing
I’ve set my heart on merely because
old Woodman’s a fool, are you?” she
asked her husband, with a touch of
scorn. “Jim Stuart is the best friend
you ever had He has become one of
the most famous men in America. I
want him at our next entertainment.”
‘‘The thing that puzzles me.” Bivens
broke in, "is why he will not come to
the house. When I meet him down
town he’s always friendly.”
Nan’s lips quivered with a queer lit
tle smile.
“Will he succeed in this action
against these men?”
“No; he can’t get the facts. If he
could he’d shake the foundations of the
financial world.”
“Why not give the facts to him?”
“1 had thought of that, but it might
bring on a panic.”
“What have you to lose by it?”
“Nothing, but a panic’s a dangerous
thing to monkey with.”
“It couldn't injure Stuart?” his wife
asked cautiously.
“No It couldn’t hurt him On the
other hand. I might make him the un
conscious instrument of a great per
sonal vengeance, double my fortune
and possibly land Jim in the White
House.”
“You must do it. dear!” his wife
cried, trembling with suppressed ex
citement.
“It’s playing with dynamite.”
"It’s worth the risk to double your
fortune. Do it for my sake!"
Nan leaned close and pressed her
husband’s hand while her dark eyes
found their way into his heart
“I’ll do it," he said with firm ac
cent. “I’ll phone him at once.”
When Stuart sat down with Bivens
tn one of the magnificent private din
ing rooms of his millionaire club tw’o
days later he was struck with the per
fection of the financier’s dress and the
easy elegance of his manners.
“Nan has surely done wonders with
some pretty crude material!” he mused.
He recalled Nan’s diary with grim
amusement.
It took two years to thoroughly break
him so that she could always be sure
that his nails were trimmed and his
clothes in perfect style; He had long
since ceased to struggle and had found
much happiness of late years in vying
with her in the perfection of his per
sonal appearance.
When the dinner was finished Bivens
dismissed the waiter, lighted one of
his huge cigars and drew from a mo
rocco case which he had placed beside
his chair a typewritten manuscript. He
turned its leaves thoughtfully a mo
ment and handed them to Stuart.
“There’s a document, Jim. that cost
me SIO,OOO (o prepare; for whose sup
pression $1,000,000 would be paid and
no questions asked.”
“But why this generosity on your
part, Cal?”
“I have anticipated that question 1
answer it fully and frankly. There is
enough dynamite in that document to
blow up half of Wall Street and land
somebody in the White House.”
“And many in the morgue?”
“And some in the penitentiary. I’ve
watched your work the past nine years
with genuine pride, Jim. You’ve said
a lot of hard things about rich malefac
tors, but you’ve never touched me.”
“No, I think you’re too shrewd to be
caught in that class. Cal.”
“I pride myself that I am. It’s only
the clumsy fool who gets tangled in
the criminal law. But a lot of them
have done it—big fellows whose names
fill the world with noise I've taken
the pains to put into that typewritten
document the names, the dates, the
places, the deeds, the names of the wit
nesses and all the essential facts Do
what you please with it. If you do
what I think you will, some men who
are wearing purple and fine linen will
be wearing stripes before another year
and yon will be the biggest man in
New York.”
“And your motive?”
“Perhaps 1 wish to get even with
some men who have done me a dirty
brick or two, and perhaps .incidentally
In the excitement which will follow
this exposure of fraud and crime 1
may make an honest penny. Is that
enough 9”
"Quite.”
"And you’ll make the attack at
once?”
Stuart glanced rapidly through the
first page of the document, and his
eyes began to dance with excitement.
“The only favor I ask.” Bivens add
ed. “is twenty-four hours’ notice be
fore you act.”
"I’ll let you know."
Stuart rose quickly, placed the docu
ment in his inside pocket and hurried
home.
The deeper the young lawyer probed
into the mass of corruption Bivens had
placed in his hands the more profound
became his surprise. That men whose
names were the synonyms of honesty
and fair dealing, men intrusted with
the management of companies whose
assets represented the savings of mil
lions of poor men. the sole defense of
millions of helpless women and chll
dren—that these trusted leaders of the
world were habitually prostituting
their trusts for personal gain, stagger
ed belief.
He delayed action and began a care
ful. patient, thorough investigation.
As it proceeded his amazement in
creased. He found that Bivens had
only scratched the surface of the truth.
New York, the financial center of the
nation, had gone mad with the Insane
passion for money at all hazards—by
all means, fair or foul. The nation
was on the tidal wave of the most
wonderful industrial boom in its his
tory. The price of stocks had reached
fabulous figures and still soared to
greater heights. Millionaires were
springing up. like mushrooms, in a
night.
Two months had passed since Bivens
placed in the district attorney’s hands
the document which was destined to
make sad history in the annals of the
metropolis. Stuart felt that the time
had come to act. It was his solemn
duty to the people
He sat in his private office in one of
the great skyscrapers downtown hold
ing in his hand a list of the men he
was about to ask the grand jury to in
dict for crimes which would send them
to prison, exile and dishonored death.
"I’ve got to do it —that’s all. But be
fore 1 do, I’m going to know one or
two things beyond the shadow of a
doubt.”
He seized his telephone and made an
appointment to call at once on Bivens.
The financier extended his delicate
hand and with a cordial smile led Stu
art to a seat beside his desk. The only
sign he betrayed of deep emotion was
the ice like coldness of his slender
fingers.
"Well, Jim. you’ve completed your
very thorough investigation?”
“How did you know I was making a
thorough investigation?”
“I make it my business to know
things which vitally interest me. You
found my facts accurate, and you are
veady to strike?”
“When I have confirmed some state
ments you have made in your story
•*<■•7l IK \
\ \
i -jjgl
'"Lwiv \ I
'MOTthw
Ire
“The Private Lif® of No. 560.”
concerning the private life of these
men. How do you know the accuracy
of the facts you state in a single line,
for instance, about the private life and
habits of the president of a certain
trust company?”
"You don’t suppose I would make a
(statement like that unless I know it to
be true?”
"How did you discover it?”
“Very simply.”
Bivens stepped to one of the great
steel safes and drew out a manuscript
notebook of some 300 pages of type
written matter. On the back of the
morocco cover was printed in plain
gold lettering: “The Private Life of
No. 5G0.”
He handed the volume to Stuart,
closed the safe and resumed his seat.
"You may take that book with you,
Jim,” be said quietly. “I trust to your
honor not to reveal its contents ex
cept in the discharge of your sworn
duty as an officer of the law. You will
find in it the record of the distinguish
ed president's private life for the past
ten years without the omission of a
single event of any importance.”
JStuart glanced through the book with
amazement
“How did you come into possession
of such facts?”
“No trouble at all,” was the easy
answer. “It only requires a little mon
ey and a little patience and a little
care in selecting the right men for the
right job. Any man in the business
world who thinks be can do as he
pleases In this town will wake some
morning with a decided jolt. The war
for financial supremacy has developed
a secret service which approaches per
fection. Not only do I systematically
watch my employees until I know ev
ery crook and turn of their lives, but
I watch with even greater care the
heads of every rival firm in every de
partment of the industrial world where
my interests touch theirs.
"I not only watch the heads of firms;
I watch their trusted assistants and
confidential men. In that big safe a
thousand secrets lie locked whose rev-
elation would furnish matter enough to
run the yellow journals for the next
five years. Modern business is war,
the fiercest and most cruel the world
has ever known. It is of greater im
portance to a modern captain of in
dustry to know the plans of his enemy
than it ever was to the commanding
general of an opposing army.”
“I see,” Stuart responded thought
fully.
“There are men down there in the
street now,” Bivens went on dreamily,
“who are wearing silk hats today for
whom the prison tailor is cutting a suit
I have their records in that silent little
steel clad room. It’s a pitiful thing,
but it’s life.
“The scarcest thing in New York to
day. Jim, is the man who can’t be
bought, and sold. The thing that’s be
yond price in the business world is
character combined with brains.
That’s why I made you the offer I did
once upon a time to come in with me.
There are positions today in New York
with a salary of half a million a year
waiting for men who can fill them. If
I could find one man of the highest or
der of creative and executive ability
who would stand by me in my enter
prises 1 could be the richest man in
the world in ten years.”
Stuart lifted his eyes from the rec
ord he was casually scanning and
smiled Into Bivens’ dark, serious face
The look silenced the speaker. The
little man knew instinctively that Stu
art was at that moment weighing bis
own life and character by the merciless
standard he had set up for others,
fudged by conventional laws, he had
nothing to fear. He was a faithful
member of bis*church. He gave lib
erally to its work and gave generous
ly to a hundred worthy charities. He
loved his wife with old fashioned loy
alty and tenderness and grieved that
she was childless. He stood by his
friends and fought his enemies, asking
no quarter and giving none.
Yet in his heart of hearts be knew
that, however loftily he might dis
course at present about “character,”
“honor,” “integrity” and “fair deal
ing.” he had stolen the formula from
his big hearted employer, Woodman,
with which he had laid the foundation
of his fortune. It was the first half
million that came hard. It was this
first half million that bore the stain of
shame.
His other questionable acts on which
the fate of millions had often hung he
had no difficulty in justifying. Busi
ness was war.
Bivens waited for Stuart to speak.
The moment was one big with fate.
Stuart was about to reach a decision
that would make history. No one
knew so well its importance as the
keen intellect that gleamed behind the
little black eyes watching with tire
less patience. Below he could hear
the roar of the city’s life. Men bought
and sold with no fear of tomorrow.
Yet a single word from the lips of the
tall, clean shaved young officer of the
law and a storm would break which
might tear from the foundations insti
tutions on whose solidity modern civ
ilization seemed to rest.
“Well, Jim,” Bivens said at length,
“you are going to act?”
Stuart rose abruptly, his reply sharp
and clear:
“Yes, I’m going to act.”
“At once?”
“It’s my duty.”
Bivens grasped his hand.
“I congratulate you, Jim. You are
going to do a big thing, one of the
biggest things in our history. You are
going to teach the mighty that the la w
is mightier. It ought to land you at
the very top in politics or any other
old place you’d like to climb.”
“That’s something which doesn’t in
terest me yet. Cal. The thing that
stuns me is that I’ve got to do so pain
ful a thing. But my business la the
enforcement of justice. There’s one
thing I still can’t understand— why
you of all men on earth should have
put this Information in my hands. The
honor of the achievement, if good shall
come to the country, is really yours,
not mine.”
“And you can’t conceive of my act
ing for the country’s good?”
Bivens’ black eyes twinkled.
“Not by the wildest leap of my imag
ination.”
The twinkle broadened into a smile
as the lawyer continued:
“Your code is simple. Cal. There’s
no provision in it for disinterested ef
fort for others. This time you’ve got
me up a tree. You have rendered the
people a great sendee. You have placed
me under personal obligations. But
how you are going to get anything out.
of it is beyond me.”
“Oh, I’ll have my reward, my boy,”
Bivens answered jovially, as his dainty
fingers again stroked his beard, press
ing bis mustache back from the thin
lips, “and I assure you it will not be
purely spiritual.” %
The door had scarcely closed on Stu
art when Bivens pressed the button
which called his confidential secretary.
In a moment the man stood at his el
bow with the tense erect bearing of an
orderly on the field of battle. The
quick nervous touch of the master’s
hand on that button had told to his
sensitive ears the story of a coming
life and death struggle. His words
came with sharp, nervous energy:
“Yes, sir?”
“A meeting of the Allied Bankers
here in thirty minutes. No telephone
messages. A personal summons to
each. They enter one at a time that
no one on the outside sees them come.”
Continued on page 10
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