The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-12-02
CLIFTON ID. NLAYNE.

The press dispatches of late fire.
quently refer to Clifton E. Mayne of
Los Angeles, California, who lis said
to be drawing near deaths door in
prisoners cell as the result of con-
sumption.
Mayne has had a wonderful career
for man of his years. Starting in
as a poor telegraph editor years ago
in this city, he suddenly resolved to
become a plunger in the speculation
world, and without any capital save
his native wit he went east to Omaha
and in a few brief months was rated
as a millionaire; and he was not
man of wealth in name only but he
could draw his checks for immense
sums of money and they would be
promptly cashed by almost any bank
er who knew him.
He was not content to make money
as if by magic, but he seemed to be
seized with a, desire TO become the
greatest money king of the world.
and he plunged into every conceivable
form of speculation extant and even
invented some forms of his own.
He prospered beyond measure for a
time and then the crash came and
down he went.
A while before his first failure he
was easily wortlnfa million and could
have retained his wealth and grown
richer with the succeeding years had
he been content to follow ordinary
methods of wealth gathering. He
went under when the wave of mis-
fortune struck him but he soon came
to tho surface and in 1890, came to this
city where he again made money, but
his health was poor and he was also
unable to induce all men to follow his
1i1,5 I1n
had been able to inspire earlier in his
career. Some OF his schemes worked
here in Ogden partook of his old
spirit and he was able to persuade
many conservative men of means to
do some things that to the ordinary
mind would have seemed impossible
and even to the victims of his caprice
it was something uneXplainable to
them.
On one occasion after one of his
gigantic schemes had failed through
the misguided zeal of some of his
followers and something like treachery
ON the part of other people, ne re-
turned to this city from California and
met his business associates in confer
ence when they were determined to
be very severe and call him to ac-
count and put him behind prison bars
If he did not account to them for
money advanced, and in the face of
all this he met and quelled the
troubled spirits of his colleagues and
left the city after a sojourn Of twenty
four hours with s1,600 more of their
money in his pocket.
He did not visit Ogden often after
that And yet there are men who lost
money in that ard other schemes of
Mayne's in this city who today be-
lieve his plans were feasible and that
they would have proved profitable had
his health been good and everyone
had stood by him. Certain it was
that he had draft of $4,000 backed
by eastern capital on that particular
occasion which failed to realize the
cash through no fault of his. It is
probably a mooted question whether,
had he succeeded, if Ogden and the
people interested with him would have
profited in the end, because Mayne
might have drawn the capital prize
and in the wind up have gathered in
most of the money.
Many there are in Ogden who honest
ly believe that Mayne's failures are
due more to an unbalanced mind than
any wilful design on his part to really
do wrong