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With the Dreyfus trial fresh in my mind, I urged Colby that he should be the man who would Americanize the “J’accuse” and charge Hyde with these various malfeasances against the policy holders.

A few days later, Mr. Stillman called and told me that he wanted to warn me to be very cautious in my activities of this policy holders’ committee; that public opinion was so excited and might easily be fanned to fever heat if the conditions in the Equitable were published; and that the people might demand investigations of all financial institutions, and thereby create a panic. He also asked me to discuss the matter with Mr. E. H. Harriman. I had no objection to doing so, and a conference was arranged. Harriman asked me what the committee wanted, and I told him that although Hyde owned a majority of the stock, the assets belonged to the policy holders; and that they had enough accusations which would condemn him before any court; and that the committee demanded the removal of Hyde and control of the executive committee which controlled the company. I told him that it would be much better for them to make terms with us, who were reasonable men, than to try to persuade any of our committee to compromise, because the proxies we had would be taken from us and given to people who would see that justice would be done. He saw the force of my argument and suggested my meeting Mr. Elihu Root. We met the next day and went over the whole situation. Mr. Root laid great stress on the fact that it was unheard of to displace a man owning the majority of the stock of a company. On behalf of the policy holders, I told Mr. Root that we were going to arouse public opinion against the impropriety of having the funds of widows and orphans subjected to the whims and fancies of a quasi-irresponsible young man, and I also referred to the grave danger that the whole financial fabric was being exposed to by permitting the vast power that went with the control of the Equitable and its subsidiary companies, to pass by inheritance, and not by election.