The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-11
KANSAS MORTGAGE SHARKS.
no" They DesPOiIed Eastern In
Nestors and Gave the state "a Bad
Name
From the Kansas city Star.

NPOi hdtisas IN proportion TO the
population Of the state than there are upon
any other state in the union. That state
ment was doubtless true five years ago.
/ When the census was taken, but in fve
I years great change has taken place in
Kansas, and the bad lands-that is laAds
"hlch lie in every county. and are only
good for grazing purposes, the "uplands''
the farmers call them-have nearly all
changed owners IN the past 1--WE years, and
with the change Of owners the mortgages
have disappeared.
The story OF the boom in Kansas was the
story OF a crime. Probably at no other pc
Rod in the history of this country has so
Hauch money been WantOnly wasted as was
wasted in Kansas between the years 1855
ana lSsS- Money came into Kansas lit
orally by the barrel. 1t came from every
| quarter of the globe. 1t went into the
hands Of all sorts and conditions OF men
Tor distribution among the people. These
men were for the most part not Kansans;
| they came from the east, and they came
for the express purpose of swindling every
| body with whom they had dealings. These
sharks" are gone now; they swan out
when the first receding wave of the boom
was felt. They went to Utah, to Oregon, to
| California. But the story of their nefarious
methods has not been told. 1t is an inter-
! estiug story and in Justice to the honest
people of Kansas. who are really trying to
pay their honest debts the story should be
| printed.
typical Kansas shark, sleek, well
dressed, with the manners of a fakir, swan
into Wichita eisrly in 1886, when everything
was booming, and money was as plenty as
grass. After looking the town over he
rented an office in one of the new Office
buildings in the booming town. and had
! painted upon his door the words: Great
| Western Trust Loan and Investment
| Comp dny," or some such grand and lawful
title He had eastern correspondents. and
/ in short time had bank account that
! Vas beautiful to look upon. Then he hired
! solicitors to scour the eastern states for
money, going out of the big cities and into
the little backwoods towns to tell the east
! erners of the glories Of Kansas as place
/ for investment. Money from widows; from
! orphans, sent by the guardians; from old
| people, who sent their little NEST eggs"
! from country capitalists; from New Eng
| land farmers; from workingmen and fac
tory girls; from every possible class and
| condition of men came 10 the Offices Of the
| Great Western Trust, Loan and Invest
| ment Company. Each person sending mon
ey received in return beautiful certifi-
| cate of stock, emitting him to a share of
the profits, which were to roll up as soon
| as the money was loaned at 8, 10, and II
per cent.
While the solicitors were in the east,
drumming up money, the shark was as
! siduously engaged in putting ii away.
! His method was simple one, as simple
! as is the method of the bunco man. He
went either himself or by proxy to the
! nearest neighborhood of uplands. The
nearest neighborhood of bad lands" TO
| Wichita happens to be the Flint hills
! country, about fifty miles away. This
country is stony, hilly and barren, save
for the stunted grass. which hardly COW
| ers the little flint gravel, and S. an acre
| would have been an exhorbitant price for
it. But there We're people living there
people who thought that to own land,
! however poor, meant to possess riches.
| The people on these hills were not the
| best citizens. They were "drifters," who
had come in with the boom; usually single
| men or young men; men with small fam
| lilies and with no means"
! When the shark came into this neigh
I borhood he put up at the first house on
! the outskirts of it and offered the trust
ing settler s. an acre for his land The
/ settler was only too glad to get it. Then
1 the shark said to the settler: Il should
4 like to have you make an application for
| a loan for a little more than the purchase
price" The settler wasn't particular
about little thing like that, and the APP
plication for the loan went into the Wi
/ chita office, whence it was forwarded to
| some investor in the east who had a
was approved by the G. w. L. T. and l.
Co., and the amount was based upon a
| price per acre all the way from 50 to So
| above the purchase price of the land. The
| money for the loan came back. The set
tier got So an acre for his land. He signed
a mortgage, mortgaging the land at IS
or $40 an acre, and left the country. The
| difference between the purchase price and
| the mortgage price the shark put into his
pocket. The shark kept up the interest
! upon the loan for perhaps a year. in or
| der that he might get other dupes from
| the neighborhood where the eastern in
weston lived.
When the shark appeared in the neigh
| borhood all the neighbors gathered at
| the house of the first man who had sold
out. There the shark reaped a harvest.
! During the boom days 1t was no unusual
thing for good solicitor to cucumber
| two or three thousand acres a day,
which, of course, meant hundreds of dol
lars to him, even If he only were working
on a commission. Day by day and week
| by week the entire Flint hills country-a
country twenty miles from east to west
and sixty miles long-was covered with
| MORTGAGES that were not made to be
paid, and the result was that that partic-
ular portion of Kansas was in bad re-
| pute all through the east.
| The Flint hills country was not the only
| country that was plastered with bogus
| mortgages. Nearly every group of half a
dozen counties in the state has a few
| thousand acres of bad land in it. and these
acres are covered with fraudulent debt
The sharks f1ourished under various alias
es at Wellington, Winfield, Salina, abb
| lene Goodland, Fredonia, Emporia and the
| honest money sellers-and there were hun
| dreds of them who have stayed with Kan
sas through the day of her adversity-have
to bear the burden of the men who should
be in prison.
The sharks were the men who gave Kan
sas a ''black eye" 1t is safe TO assume
there was not dollars worth of debt put
on any Kansas acre honestly that has been
| repudiated. A Kansas farm mortgage
| honestly placed to-day by a man who
knows his business. is as safe an invest
ment as government bonds. The shark
has gone from Kansas. There is nothing for
| him to do. He has robbed all the eastern
people there will be TO rob in the genera
| ton. The land which he covered with debt
has been turned over to the people who
were defrauded. The years 1890 and 1891
witnessed about all the foreclosures of
fraudulent mortgages, and If the census
| were taken to-day it would be found that
Kansas has no more mortgages in pro-
t~o~t;ov 20 tari YeonulatiOu than has anv