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By Root 460 0

shortly before eleven, and his appearance quieted the crowd. The reception was a far cry from the cheers he had grown accustomed to, but it was a sign that although they were frightened, his investors had not lost all faith. He strutted into his office as unruffled as ever, twirling his snappy walking stick like a drum major, as though his biggest concern was where to eat lunch. Reporters trailed him like goslings as he walked through his office offering hearty “good mornings” to his staff. When he reached his desk, Ponzi tossed his straw boater onto it and declared, “My hat is in the ring.”

As the reporters fired questions about McMasters, the investigation, and the run, Ponzi responded true to form. “As far as being insolvent, I absolutely deny the allegation,” he said, beaming his grin at his inquisitors. “People have admired me for my nerve. My smile, which has become so well known through cartoons and photographs, is prompted by a clear conscience. A run does not affect my serenity because I have the money to back it.” He slyly noted that he doubted there was a single bank in the city that could withstand such relentless withdrawals without bleeding to death.

Ponzi said McMasters knew nothing about his business beyond insignificant advertising matters. He suggested that McMasters was motivated by Ponzi’s demand that he account for money Ponzi had given him to place newspaper ads announcing the suspension of investments. If not that, Ponzi said, McMasters was the tool of powerful men out to destroy him. “There is a desire to embarrass the investigators, a desire to turn public opinion against me,” he continued. “Should I be able to realize my dreams, such a realization would mean the downfall of an autocratic clique which has been able to prey upon the credulity of the people.” Casting himself as David against the Goliath of established bankers and business interests, Ponzi declared, “The issue now at stake is an issue between a man who wants to do all he can for the people and men who want to take as much as they can from the people without giving adequate return.”

He picked apart McMasters’s allegations one by one. Ponzi insisted that Pelletier had never called his business “crooked” and called on the district attorney to dispute McMasters’s claim. He branded Swig’s comments to McMasters lies, and showed receipts for money orders sent abroad to show he had indeed engaged in foreign transactions. He vehemently denied that he had bribed a police officer for a gun permit. Ponzi scoffed at the suggestion that he had followed McMasters’s advice when meeting with investigators, saying, “My dog follows me, never goes ahead.” Ponzi downplayed the likelihood of a libel suit against his former publicity agent—“McMasters hasn’t got anything”—but said he would talk to his lawyers about suing the Post.

He had just one request for his investors: “Come and get your money, but come in an orderly way. I may run out of check books, but I shall not run out of money.

“Let me tell you this,” he added. “I am going to meet all my outstanding obligations and meet them with funds which I have in banks right here in Boston. And when that is done, I shall have millions left.” With a sweep of his hand, Ponzi signaled that the half-hour interview was over. Afterward, one of the reporters marveled how Ponzi, at the center of a firestorm, could remain “as calm and undisturbed as a mill pond.”

Ponzi’s line about leading his dog inspired his personal poet, James Francis Morelli, to write an impassioned poem about McMasters titled “Charles Ponzi Says: ‘My Dog Never Leads Me.’ ” It began:

He bit the hand that fed him so well, the miserable, contemptible cur.

While with Ponzi he lived on the fat of the land, and returned nothing but a slur.

“Hopelessly Insolvent” are the words he used to imperil the Ponzi investor.

“Millions of Dollars” was the immediate reply of the “people’s proud protector.”

As the day wore on and more investors received their money, Ponzi’s popularity began to return. The only disturbance occurred when police and Ponzi