The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-03-01

make money by the mere signing =,
notes and putting them up as collotoN
in your own loan company. The ~.
pie of the East showered none ~
the State. It couldn't be kent ona
Bonds of electric light companies
waterworks and sewer enterprises
of street Car companies, stock in banS'
investment companies, and what M
in places that were mere cross road
and in places that did not exist at Oh
YER subscribed for.
It soon became necessary to USE no,
of the principal to pay the alleged bisI
interest. The era Of swindling beoe'
Nearly all the loan companies hi
guaranteed-that was an easy matt,
both interest and principal. Co~
panies with a capital of $50, OOO-rs
haps $40. 600 Of which was paid up-ba
guarantees for millions out. ThousanS,
upon thousands of dollars which II,
Kansas farmers paid on their loan
we're stolen deliberately, and hundrea
of lawsuits over such cases are W
pending. One company, according b
the report of the State Bank Comms
sioner in 1895, collected more tha,
1875, 600 from the Kansas people, and
deliberately stole it all. Forged salts
factions of mortgages were made out
and hundreds of thousands of dollar
borrowed on them under faa
pretences. One company did SOON
of such business. Then there wen
banks. The Mcpherson Counb
Bank was one of these. There was d
such institution, and yet hundreds d
Eastern investors sent their money d
buy it's stocks and bonds without IA
vestigating the matter. The famou
Citizens Bank of Wichita was a verl
able quicksand for Eastern money.
was supposed to have a capital of $780,
600, and a surplus of 5000, 600. 1t
vanished like a mist. WIcniGa's tow
lots and tremendous oMoe building
out in the corn fields still remain, ba
the money is gone. No investors ap
parently were more reckless than tI
savings banks of New Hampshire, mos
OF which have since been wrecked be-
cause of their Western investmenh
The variety and scope of the swindlina
that grew out of this unbusinessl Rs
way Of doing business were such thai
the Bank Commissioner, in his repoH
for 1895, said:
The list of those who have been
robbed by these rotten institutions
augmented, until to day there is a small
army of Eastern people who belieW
that our State is populated with a claa
of consclenceless rascals-whose sdA
business is to prey upon the people i
the East"
The crash of the boom came, withia
wreckage in Kansas and otha
States. The crops were fair in Kansa
to that time, and even unusual a
late as the year 1892. Then the haIt
times set in. Crops were light, tb5
farmers had but little money to spar
for debts, and Eastern invt s -ors wer
called upon. under the double liability
act, to put more money into the STATE
Some of them did 50, in the hoped
saving part of what they had invested
Most Of them let their investments g
at once, and took what satisfaCCid
they could by denouncing the peopled
the State unfortunately as sWind
lers. Few denounced themselves pub
licly for lending money foolisbly, All
forcing other people to take d
OF the ne Arly 400 loan companies Onl
s sven survived. They we're those tbs
had refused 10 guarantee interest aa
They paid lover inters
than the companies which went dow
Instead of paying ten and twelve "
cent they paid only eight and ta
They received only two per cent. cor
mission for placing loans, instead
four per cent. One of these survivig
companies actually kept $50, 600 Oeloq
ing to q Philadelphia clergyman
money that he insisted on ~investiDga
high rates in Kansas-from April
August, and then sent it back to bio
One easily understands now how tbo
seven companies survived. They Oh
business on business principles.
ALI business was Frustrated. Mons
stopped coming in. Some of the sWIDa
lers sent forged papers East, and tie
pleaded for time in liquidation, hopLl9
to escape prosecution through %
statute of limitations, which provldS
that two years was the limit of time
which action in such cases could
taken. Thousands upon thousands