The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-11-24

tngs Bank the confidential and purely
business correspondence of the mana
gers Of these institutions assumed
enormous proportions. The banks had
become involved in a maze of bewilder-
ing complications and money was pour
ing forth from the vaults of the banks
into hundred different avenues Thou
sands of letters bearing directly and
indirectly upon the transactions that
drew money from the banks were writ
ten. All Of these letters are interesting,
but they do not bear intimately upon
the gigantic conspiracy that was or
ganized and carried to. a successful
conclusion by NJ. H. Sherman.
After the McDonalds realized that
the Riverside Bank, the John Brown
colony, the Mohawk Canal and I'M
provement Company the Phoenix
speculations and primarily the Los
Angeles electric road deal had set
them on the high road to ruin
they plunged into scheme after
scheme, squandering thousands of dol
lars in the crazy effort to save their in
stitutiOns from destruction. The Call
has in its possession all of the docu-
, ments that prove the suggestion, the
origin, the development and the cul-
-44Allt1NAOLl VI al lilCSC SNllGLllSS-
Some of these documents became pub
lie property at the time when the banks
failed Much of the information con-
tanned in these papers has never been
published. and is not now of sufficient
public interest TO warran' a publica-
ton in detail. An outline of the various
schemes in which the McDonalds be-
came involved subsequent to the or
MI Of no NV
NJ. H. Sherman and his confederates is
however, of timely interest. It will be
- remembered that the Alaska Coal Com
pany was organized and exploited by
the McDOnaIds at the suggestion of w
II. Eastland and others.
1t should be remembered that the
McDonalds used all of their con-
fidentiaT agents and parasites as
dummies. 1t made little difference
70 the deIuded bankers how often
or in what way these parasites
We're used. For example, one of the
Mcdonald agents might be the mana
ger or president or controlling execu-
tive of half a dozen different schemes
In this way the McDonalds kept the
secret of their own affairs within
little coterie Of dependent fatterers
This viii explain the fact that certain
men who were in the employ of the Nc
Donalds wrote a series of most in
eliminating letters bearing upon the
affairs of a dozen corporations.
The Alaska Company, as already
indicated. was kept in its dan
gerous existence by the money
Of the Pacific Bank. It, like every
thing else the McDonalds touched.
turned to ashes. The letters of East
nd oh
The Cedar River Coal Company was
another wild venture, in which the
McDonalds sank tens of thousands of
dollars. The International Electric
Supply and Construction Company
was another vehicle in which to
drain the vaults of the bank
The MADEIRA Improvement Company has
a history of its own which The Call,
in proving its main accusations of con-
spiracy, fraud and dishonesty, has not
found yet the necessity 20 exploit at
length. The John Brown colony and its
affairs have been described at length
without introducing minor letters that
are of Importance, but no of public in
terest Many of the incidental trans
actions in the bank Of MADEIRA are de-
scribed in occasional letters covering
period of over four years. The incep-
ton. progress final c. lapse of the
California Raisin Company have also
only been touched in outline.
The great transactions in real es
tate in MADEIRA and the manipu-
Iations of the men concerned IN
these transactions are also of i'm
portance, but not absolutely neces-
sary TO the purpose of The Can IN
demonstrating the allegations of THEFT.
The Riverside Bank. - riverside
Water Works, the Riverside motor road
and the Cotton Marble Works might
be described with absolute thorough
ness as far as the Pacific Bank is con-
cerned, but the description would ada
nothing TO the proof already estap-
lished that deception. financial jugglery
and absolute deliberate theft mark the
association Of the Riverside people, the |
McDonalds and their agents.
i volume might be written with the |
letters that relate to the Los Angeles
electric and cable railroad, but this vol
ume would not be necessary to en-
phasize the proof that The Call has al
ready submitted that Moses H. Sher-
man was dishonest schemer, engaged
IN the business Of brbing City Coun-
ellis, corrupting Bank Commissioners
This volume would not make clearer
the fact that ex-Bank Commissioners
w. II. Knight and Charles Dunsmore
were in collision with Moses Sher-
man and his thieving associates.
The record needs to be no more COM
plete than ii is to demonstrate that John
T. Farnum, who is now the manager of
the Pacific Bank, was the abject tool
of his cousin, NJ. II. Sherman, and with
him used the Bank Commission as a
club with which to threaten the Nc
Donalds into the acceptance of abso-
lutely worthless securities, stocks and
bonds. 1t is not necessary to go into
more than an outline Of the connection
Of the Pacific Bankers with the San Di-
ego cable road and the National Bank
Of that town. Sherman's crazy schemes
and absolutely dishonest manipulation
Of the Phoenix street railroads known