To Mr. Pierpont Morgan

Dear Mr. Pierpont Morgan, -

I hasten to give you a hearty British welcome.

Come to my arms;

I am in the Trust line myself -

That is to say, I used to be

Before people started putting up announcements

To the effect that

"Poor Trust is dead,

Bad pay killed him."

Some day, an I mistake not, Mr. Morgan,

Your Trust will die:

All Trusts are grass.

Ponder it!

I am a political economist, and I know.

Meanwhile I am very pleased to think

That we have amongst us a man of your financial prowess

And purchasing power.

There is a certain class of British person

Who apparently goes in bodily fear of you.

That class of person has groaned loudly over your steel exploit,

And he has groaned loudlier still

Over your purchase of the Leyland Line of Steamships.

To groan over a fair deal of any kind

Appears to me, my dear Mr. Pierpont Morgan,

To be an entirely stupid proceeding.

Nobody can come to grief by selling things,

Providing they sell them at the right price.

You have bought the Leyland Line of Steamships:

I see no reason why you should not buy all the other lines

If you want them, and have the wherewithal to pay for them,

For in the long run everything comes to him who vends.

You buy my steamships, or my steelworks,

Or, for that matter, my caller herrin':

I take your money, I put it in your bank,

And live sumptuously on the interest.

You have all the trouble

Inasmuch as you have to rake up the interest.

I sit at home and enjoy myself,

You scheme, and scheme, and scheme, and scheme, and scheme, and scheme, and scheme,

I am happy,

I hope you are.

Between ourselves I should not tremble

If you bought up Great Britain and Ireland (especially Ireland),

And all that in them is,

Providing always, as I have said before,

That you paid the price.

Indeed, I hope to live to see the day

When Englishmen will cease to toil and spin,

And derive their incomes

Wholly and solely from American dividends.

Fools buy things, my dear Mr. Pierpont Morgan,

Wise men sell them.

That is particularly true

When the article involved happens to be poetry.

Nevertheless, as you appear to be in a buying frame of mind,

I take this opportunity of informing you

That I have at my villa at Hindhead

A large and varied stock

Of sonnets, odes, rhymes, jingles, and what not,

Which I am prepared to sell at an enormous sacrifice.

My price to you for the lot would be

Fifteen Million Dollars.

If you care to deal, I undertake to melt your cheque

At your own bank,

And to invest the proceeds in any concerns

In which you happen to be interested,

So that you would not only get the poetry,

But also your money back again.

This, at any rate, is how it seems to me.

Vale!