of the most astute of campaign managers. He is
never in doubt about who will win the election. Before the contest is
under way he has picked his winner and is beside him with generous
offers of war expenses.

When labor would howl its anathemas at Standard Oil, and the
Rockefellers and other stout-hearted generals and captains of this band
of merry money-makers would fall to discussing conciliation and retreat,
it was always Henry H. Rogers who fired at his associates his now famous
panacea for all Standard Oil opposition: "We'll see Standard Oil in hell
before we will allow any body of men on earth to dictate how we shall
conduct our business!" And the fact that "Standard Oil" still does its
business in the Elysian fields of success, where is neither sulphur nor
the fumes of sulphur, is additional evidence of whose will it is that
sways its destinies.

An impression of the despotic character of the man and of his manner of
despatching the infinite details of the multitudinous business he must
deal with daily may be gained by a glimpse of Henry H. Rogers at one of
the meetings of the long list of giant corporations which number him
among their directors. Surrounded though he be by the elite of all
financialdom, the very flower of the business brains of America, you
will surely hear his sharp, incisive, steel-clicking: "Gentlemen, are we
ready for the vote, for I regret to say, I have another important and
unavoidable meeting at ----?" You look at your watch. The time he
mentions is twelve, or, at the most, fifteen minutes away. There is no
chance for further discussion. Cut-and-dried resolutions are promptly
put to the vote, and off goes the master to his other engagement which
will be disposed of in the same peremptory fashion.

At a meeting of the directors of "financed" Steel, during the brief
reign of its late "vacuumized" president, Charlie Schwab, an episode
occurred which exhibited the danger of interfering with Mr. Rogers'
iron-bound plans. The fact that the steel throne was many sizes too
large for Schwab had, about this time, become publicly notorious, but
Carnegie and Morgan on the surface, and "Standard Oil" beneath, were so
busy preparing their alibis against the crash which even then was
overdue that they had neither time nor desire to adjust themselves on
the seat.

In advance Mr. Rogers made his invariable plea for quick action on a
matter before the board when Schwab, with a tact generated by the
w