My readers may recall the wave of indignation which swept over this country when the news came of the kidnapping of Miss Stone, the American missionary, by the bandits of Bulgaria, and how hot we all felt at the capture of Ion Perdicaris by Raissuli, the Morocco rebel. Only in remote and barbarous countries, we reflected, could such outrages occur, and we dwelt with high inward satisfaction on our own splendid American institutions and law-abiding civilization. If only these miscreants were on American soil so American justice could lay hands on them--what stern punishment would be meted out to them! Yet, under the panoply of these noble institutions and just laws of ours, one citizen of our commonwealth was enabled to seize from another millions of money and the ownership of a great enterprise--literally wrench it from the hands of men who had spent their lives in developing it--and the execution of the deed involved neither financial nor physical risk and carried with it no legal nor social consequences. Look on the picture, all ye free Americans rejoicing in vaunted liberty and the right to the pursuit of happiness--this able and successful merchant, head of a great business which it has been his life-work to rear, surrendering the splendid structure at the mere nod of one man, whose "I want it" is more potent, more irresistible, than family pride or Government decree. If Leonard Lewisohn, a millionaire many times over, rich in connections with the strongest financial houses of Europe, meekly submitted to the behest of "Standard Oil," what resistance could the average man oppose to such a power? The logic of the situation is inevitable. Can you free Americans absorb the details of this most extraordinary performance and not see the coming storm as clearly as the mariner does when all along the horizon creep the hosts of Boreas and the barometer drops like lead in a shot tower? At last, in April, 1899, the first section of the much-heralded company was ready to step before the footlights to the plaudits of an awaiting financial world, and it was really a great moment when Mr. Rogers sent me word: "Come over, and be prepared to stay until the consolidation is formed and launched." I was at 26 Broadway next day, and we entered at once on our council of war. It was a momentous sitting and secret, for, until the entire programme was mapped out and decided upon, no one was a party to it or had knowledge of it but Mr. Rogers, his counsel, William Rockefeller, and myself. After we had finished the final details, Mr. Rogers said: