In requisitioning the $300,000 we had stated that we would call for it piecemeal, as had been our custom in the past. The five days' mail had piled up drafts totaling nearly the entire amount. I was absent from Goldfield. Mr. Grant was away, and so was Mr. Sullivan. Employees were running the business. Cashier Lindsey concluded that we were "overboard." On top of it all, Donald Mackenzie, the heaviest depositor of the State Bank & Trust Company, had that very morning drawn out a large sum, said to aggregate $400,000, and had it transferred to San Francisco. Our wires from Goldfield stated he had been frightened by rumors that the Sullivan Trust Company was in trouble and that the State Bank & Trust Company would be involved. That settled it. The enterprise that I had built up from such a meager beginning into a $3,000,000 trust company crumbled in a heap and left us stranded on the financial shoals of an over-boomed mining camp. SOME HINDSIGHT THAT CAME TOO LATE I attribute the destruction of the Sullivan Trust Company to six factors, namely, (1) politics; (2) blackmail; (3) lack of wide distribution of our later promotions, we having sold most of these stocks in large blocks during the exciting boom days through brokers to speculators instead of disposing of them in small lots direct to investors; (4) my lack of knowledge of markets and inexperience in market manipulation; (5) my own stubborn pride and optimism, and (6) the failure of the State Bank & Trust Company to keep its pledge of assistance. It is conceded in Nevada by all honest men that, without exception, all of the properties promoted by the L. M. Sullivan Trust Company had merit, and that money was lavishly provided for mine development as long as the trust company was in existence. The properties were selected with great care. They were very much higher in quality than the average. Those at Manhattan are yielding treasure to this very day, and may make good yet in a handsome way from a mining standpoint. Those at Fairview bid fair to duplicate the performance. Had I kept out of politics, been a good market general, and taken cognizance of the fact that the law of supply and demand is as inexorable in mining-stock markets as in every other line of human endeavor, I could have saved myself and associates from financial ruin.