It is a matter of regret that Keene did not leave an accurate record of his greatest exploit--the successful manipulation of the U.S. Steel shares in the spring of 1901. As I understand it, Keene never had an interview with J. P. Morgan about it. Morgan’s firm dealt with or through Talbot J. Taylor & Co., at whose office Keene made his headquarters. Talbot Taylor was Keene’s son-in-law. I am assured that Keene’s fee for his work consisted of the pleasure he derived from the work. That he made millions trading in the market he helped to put up that spring is well known. He told a friend of mine that in the course of a few weeks he sold in the open market for the underwriters’ syndicate more than seven hundred and fifty thousand shares. Not bad when you consider two things: That they were new and untried stocks of a corporation whose capitalization was greater than the entire debt of the United States at that time; and second, that men like D. G. Reid, W. B. Leeds, the Moore brothers, Henry Phipps, H. C. Frick and the other Steel magnates also sold hundreds of thousands of shares to the public at the same time in the same market that Keene helped to create. Of course, general conditions favoured him. Not only actual business but sentiment and his unlimited financial backing made possible his success. What we had was not merely a big bull market but a boom and a state of mind not likely to be seen again. The undigested-securities panic came later, when Steel common, which Keene had marked up to 55 in 1901, sold at 10 in 1903 and at 8⅞ in 1904. We can’t analyse Keene’s manipulative campaigns. His books are not available; the adequately detailed record is nonexistent. For example, it would be interesting to see how he worked in Amalgamated Copper. H. H. Rogers and William Rockefeller had tried to dispose of their surplus stock in the market and had failed. Finally they asked Keene to market their line, and he agreed. Bear in mind that H. H. Rogers was one of the ablest business men of his day in Wall Street and that William Rockefeller was the boldest speculator of the entire Standard Oil coterie. They had practically unlimited resources and vast prestige as well as years of experience in the stock-market game. And yet they had to go to Keene. I mention this to show you that there are some tasks which it requires a specialist to perform. Here was a widely touted stock, sponsored by America’s greatest capitalists, that could not be sold except at a great sacrifice of money and prestige. Rogers and Rockefeller were intelligent enough to decide that Keene alone might help them.