The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1892-10-28
REPUBLICAN RECORD.
A BITTER ARRANGEMENT OF CON-
MISSIONER RAUM'S METHODS.

tain Gypsum, Mine Transaction-Wherc
Did the Money Paid by Helpless PEN
sion Office Employees Go?
1t has been said that the scandals of
the Raum regime ran nearly the whole
gamut of possibilities. The greater part
of them grew directly out of the Raum
family's desire to get money without
earning it and in devious ways.
1t was for money considerations that
Raum got his daughter into two govern.
ment posts at once, contrary to law, and
tried to get her through a loophole of
the statute into remunerative place in
the civil service without the civil service
examination that all others must pass
n thing which would have cheated some
capable and law abiding person out of
the place and pay.
1t was for the sake of money that John
Raum exploited his relationship to the
commissioner by way of advertising his
business as pension attorney. 1t was
for the sake of gain that he seems tc
have been allowed illogitimate knowl
edge of what the pension Office records
contained.
1t was for gain to his family that the
commissioner created a place in the serv.
ice for his other son to occupy. 1t was
for money that Green b. Raum, Jr.,
levied tribute upon the earnings of his
subordinates and sold appointments fo1
bribes, as the civil service commissioners
have declared that the evidence justifies
them in charging, and as the congress
sional committee in its report says
"there can be no reasonable doubt" that
he did.
In the Lemon case Raum gave Lemon
as alleged security a block of stock in a
certain gypsum mining company Of
which he was president. This stock
happened to be, as the committee re.
ported, "of no particular value" because
Raum's company did not own the prop
erty it represented, and because the
mining value of that property was Of
very doubtful existence. But whatever
its worth, the stock appears not to have
belonged to Raum, but to the company.
Yet Raum pledged it for 1000 and
put the money into quite another specu.
lation of his own in which the company
that owned the stock had no interest
whatever.
The transaction was so foreign in its
methods to the ordinary accepted way
of doing business that one of the min.
ing company stockholders remarked to
Raum that he didn't think there was
much difference between that and EN-.
bezzlement," an opinion in which many
business men will perhaps share.
This gypsum mine was one of the
speculations which Raum undertook to
promote from the pension Office and
chiefly at government expense. With
one Buckley he had become possessed of
some lands vaguely located in south
western Virginia alleged to be gypsum
bearing. The company, of which he
was president and factotum, seems never
really to have owned the lands. 1t had
contracts of purchase merely, on which
it had paid an insignificant amount
partly in ''stock" of the company. I'm.
der these contracts the company was
bound to pay the full purchase price
500, ,OOO-within a specified time or for
felt not only the land, but all that might
have been paid upon it.
This vague, inchoate title to unpait
for lands of uncertain value seems tC
have been the only property Mr.. Raum':
company" possessed. Yet he capital
lied this at So 100000 and tried to wor,
off the stock on that basis.
According to the testimony of Buckley
who first got possession of the claim thus
capitalized, and who was nominally mad,
secretary of the company, Raum adroit
ly managed to get the whole thing int,
his own hands and to keep it there. TIL,
secretary swore that he had never beel
able to see the stockbook but once; tha
he had never succeeded in getting hi
own stock issued even to fulfill con
tract Of delivery for part of it to Colo
mel w. W. Dudley, of "blocks of five
celebrity; that Raum evaded the fulfill
ment of the contract by reason of tn
fact that the attorney who drew it omit
ted to name in it date for Raum's full
fillment of his part of it; in short, tina
Raum got possession of everything pei
odiilliiS W liIe COMPANY anu ulU what II
pleased with it regardless of the right
of everybody else.
The one occasion ON which the secre
tary had been permitted to see the stock
book seems to have been when Ram
wanted some stock issued-presumabl
for delivery to Lemon-and found
necessary to have the secretary's sigma
ture to the certificates. Then, accord
ing to Secretary Buckey's testimony, h
sent for him to sign the papers, but upo
pretense Of having mislaid his memo
randa had him sign the certificate i
blank SO that the secretary never kne'
how much of the stock Raum issued.
There is no reason to suppose thu
Raum imposed upon Lemon in givin
him this stock as security for his $12
600. Lemon was not man to be thr
taken in. Ee neither knew nor care
anything about the value Of the stool
he had other recompense for his outla,
But if, as Buckley says, Raum confesse
to him the stock given to Lemon b
longed to the company, the transaction
in its relations to the company, was of
oh r.o nta,, which thn cc,,,t, ,,,,,