The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-05
MARYLEASE'S MORTGAGE
AND THE ATTEMPT OF THE KANSAS
SCOLD TO POSE AS A MARTYR.
Some Personal Experiences in BOr-
rowing and Looming Money ON
Lands in the SunfIOweF state.



TOPEKA Kan, July 3.-Kansas people
have read with much interest and amuse-
ment the recent bitter wall of Mary Ellen
Lease, in her frantic effort TO pose as
martyr because the sheriff sold her Wichita
property TO the highest bidder and no one
considered it worth over 5000 Some people
may read her smooth story and become
deluded into the idea that Mary's rights
have been ruthlessly trampled upon and
that the Republican party is the author of
all her assumed woe because it failed to
exert a paternal guardianship over her
speculations and keep her from borrowing
money from the Jarvis-Conklin Mortgage
Company. Mary lived in what was known
in boom days as the windy wonder of the
West" In those days property that did
not, in the imagination of Wichita people,
advance in value % per cent. every morn
ing before breakfast was too slow for bust
ness in that progressive town. Mary says
her property was near the geographical
center of the city" but failed to intimate
that in some directions the city limits
tended much farther from the business
center than they do in others. The prop
erty may really be out in the suburbs,
long distance from the business center and
yet near the geographical center of that
vast elIGt pletLlGu anu CeliSQ CITY III inc
wild days of the boom. She says she gave
a mortgage for 81, 100, but after paying COM
missions, abstracts, only had $500 left that
her property was appraised by the agents
of the loan company for three times the
amount Of the mortgage. That now,
Jane Marsh alias the Jarvis-Conklin
Mortgage Company, has foreclosed and bid
the property III for 5000 and is trying to
enforce the payment of the remainder of
now intimates that she has money to
throw at birds and will fight to the last
ance of that debt She says: In nearly ev-
cry instance the loans upon Western
homes and farms have been made for one
third of the value of the property as APP
praised by the agents OF the loan COM
pdny'
PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
In a dozen years of pioneer experience,
your correspondent has been agent for loan
companies and also borrowed money from
them upon mortgage security, and there
fore in making these remarks he is not
discoursing through his head covering
Mrs. Lease well knows that she designated
the amount of money she desired to bor-
row. and that the appraisers were supposed
to be disinterested men, but as a matter
of fact had either mortgaged or wanted to
mortgage their property for as much as
those days values were largely fictitious
and imaginary. The Western mortgage
companies did not have capital to make
vast number OF loans and spend the re-
mainder of their days clipping coupons.
They were men of moderate means who
made loans and Immediately sold the mort
cages to parties in the East. But in maxi
ing these assignments they had to guaran-
tee the interest, and that fact brought most
of them to grief and bankruptcy. The
foreclosure proceedings have generally been
brought by Eastern parties against the
mOrtgageOr ana the company making the
TO illustrate the method of business more
plainly q statement of transaction of my
own will be in point. The writer borrowed
upon his presumption $500 for five years al
10 per cent. interest. The company desired
to sell to Eastern parties and wanted 1t to
call for Z per cent. interest. The mortgage
was thus written but in order to cover the
3 per cent. margin an additional mortgage
was given for $50 without interest. That
was the ''rake-off' for the Western COM
pany Before the first annual interest be-
came due the State had received its sec
ond instaIment of hot winds and my coun-
ty was in the Supreme Court contending
for a county seat. Payment of interest
and taxes was delayed to await develop
ments The land was twenty miles from
the railroad. The wheat industry was in
its infancy. The neighbours like the Arab,
had folded their tents and quietly stolen
away The amount of mortgage interest
and taxes growing more luXuriantly than
anything else, had reached nearly 500; the
Western mortgage company had failed and
the unfortunate Eastern investor wanted
settlement. l estimated the cost of fore
closure, and my PROPOSAL to give a deed for
less money was promptly accepted. To-day
If, like Mrs. Lease, ] had money to burn or
throw at birds l could not be induced to
exchange $100 for that quarter section which
ten years ago my neighbors appraised at
$500 That is only an example of what
was done in thousands of cases People
thought they had valuable property in that
semi-arid region. Loan agents and Eastern
investors were of the same opinion. All
were mistaken. All lost money. But 1t is
all rot and the rawlings of maniac to say
that the Republican party is in any man
ner responsible for the failures and mis-
fortunes of those years.
ANOTHER VIEWPOINT.
Look at the case of Mrs. Lease from an