In asking for the serious, earnest consideration of the public, I shall be honest in giving to it my qualifications, my motives, and my desires for writing this narrative. For thirty-four years I have been actively connected with matters financial. As banker, broker, and corporation man, I have, from the vantage-point of one who actually handled the things he studied, studied the causes which created the conditions which made possible the "System" which produced the Amalgamated affair. In my thirty-four years of business experience I have seen the great fortunes, which are the motive power of the "System" referred to, come out of the far West as specks upon the financial horizon and grow and grow as they travelled Eastward, until in their length, breadth, and thickness they obscured the rising sun. At short range I have seen the giant money machine put together; I have touched elbows with the men who made it, as they fitted this wheel and adjusted that gear, while at the same time I broke bread and slept with the every-day people who, with the industry of the ant and the patience of the spider, toiled to pile in the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have kept the "System's" hopper full. At my first meeting with the creators of Amalgamated it was clearly and distinctly understood that under no circumstances would I enlist in that "System's" interests other than for such special services as, after due thought and investigation, I should decide to be such as I could in fairness to myself and my clients work for; and when I give the details of this first meeting in my narrative it will be evident to its readers that in telling the story of Amalgamated I am violating no confidence, nor in any way encroaching upon the niceties of that business code which is, and should be, the foundation of all legitimate financial dealings, nor in any way misusing knowledge which, if acquired under other circumstances, might be sacred. Amalgamated was one service the "System" asked of me. It was created because of my work. It was largely because of my efforts that its foundation was successfully laid. It was very largely because of what I stood for and because of the public's confidence in the fulfilment of the promises I made that the public invested its savings to an extent of over $200,000,000; and it was almost wholly because of the broken promises and trickery of the creators of the "System" that the public lost the enormous sums it did. My motives for writing the story of Amalgamated are manifold: I have unwittingly been made the instrument by which thousands upon thousands of investors in America and Europe have been plundered. I wish them to know my position as to the past that they may acquit me of intentional wrong-doing; as to the present that they may know that I am using all my powers to right the wrongs that have been committed, and as to the future that they may see how I propose to compel restitution.