Omaha daily bee., 1902-11-05
HOT AIR ARTISTS At WORK
Experts in the Science Of Graft sesH at
Their Best in Washington.
NO PROJECT TO ABSURD TO HANDLE
Men Ready 20 "FInance" Any PrOpO.
sitiOn-MythicaI Sources from
which the sinews of War
Are Obtained.

tire country. The modern designation Of
this class is aptly descriptive in the term
"hot air." They will tackle any proposition
such as financing a railway from the Bering
sea to the straits of Magellan or projecting
a 3-cent lunch counter. Either enterprise is
within the compass Of their abilities to
successfully finance with hot air."
Tie most marvellous thing in connection
with this class, relates the Washington Post,
is not, as might at first be supposed, how
do they manage to live, but why they exist
at all in a country daily receiving thousands
of foreigners seeking and finding homes,
and which offers so many opportunities for
honest and Industrious folk to make a
decent living. The hot air srtist-for artist
he is in his peculiar professionals graded
like all other classes. There are the few
top-notchers and the substrata, or partly
submerged majority, who have gradually de-
scended from planning gigantic undertake
ings to selecting sites for bootblack stands,
shoestrlngs and "phony'' jewelry peddling.
Let any substantial citizen but manifest
the least desire to either enlarge or dis
pose Of his business and the hot air premier
artist is on the ground with the bearing
and assurance Of an unlimited capitalist.
Reticence in exposing ones business af-
fairs melts before the fascinating and con-
hdent individual, who is as ready to draw a
check for $500, 900 as no Is for a IS subscrip-
tion to a church fair, and with equal proba-
bility of having them cashed at the bank.
He knows the very man who wants to invest
in the particular business on hand and he,
himself, will in any event, put in half or
two-thirds of the required capital or pur-
chase price, as the case may be.
In the second or third Interview he has
completely mastered the details Of the
business 1t has taken the merchant 9 life
time to acquire. He is now becoming in
dispensable as a negotiator with the al
legged parties he has in reserve as pros
pective purchasers-or investors. His vic
tim is daily weakening with hopes deferred,
but the bot-air artist is not "pheazed.
He makes his regular daily call, or calls a
la physician, and accurately diagnoses the
case on hand. He has by one method or
another, depending largely on the nature
Of the business to be disposed OF, strength
ened, or projected, secured various sums
under one pretext or another, but so in
geniously natural, II the expression is per-
Missile, that the victim is the last person
to realize that he is up against a hot-air
promoter, pure and simple.
Promoter on n Large Scale.
1t is in TIE projection or formation of
new companies and enterprises that the
hot-air artist of the higher type exhibits
all his gents and appears at his best. He
is the soul, so to speak, OF the proposed
enterprise until the Showdown Of cash
is called for. Even then he is not embar-
assed. His wife is a little slow in raising
the money on certain gilt edged securities,
but 1t will be forthcoming in a few days
Meantime he has, as a rule, succeeded in
absorbing all the, functions OF president
secretary and directors. He has drafted
the rules and bylaws or prepared the pa
pers for Incorporating the Mozambique Hy
draulic Gold Extracting company. He hat
certain influential friends over in New
York who can raise barrels OF money. HI
is certain that it will not take him a weel
In the metropolis to sell all the stock the
company desires to dispose. OF.
He finally succeeds in securing a few hun.
bred dollars OF the money paid in by tn,
other gentlemen in the enterprise for
weeks expenses in New York while dis
posing of a million or two OF stock In tn,
great enterprise. He returns and reports
his experience. No sales Of stock, but pros
poets magnificent. Proposed enterpris,
meets the unqualified approval Of his inhu
entail friends and in the course of a weel
or ten days, when certain millions return
the project will be laid before them an,
money will roll in to the company. Mean
while 1t will be necessary for him to re
turn to New York In a few days and keeI
the project warm. He is voted an ad
dttional couple Of hundred and. as a rule
takes his wife, II he has one, to the sea
side or the mountains and begins negotia
tions with the proprietor OF the summer re
3 sort to incorporate a company and con
~solidate the rival hotels at the resort unde
4; one management.
This type OF hot-air artist is irrepressi
BILE and never entirely broke, for he
never without an enterprise or project o
> hand. Sometimes It is a company to utiliz
the Mexican cactus or to introduce into thu
country the most gorgeously beautiful Of til
a tropical flower plants Of the sister republic
Indeed, one Of these hot-air artists actualI
succeeded in organizing a close corporate
l. for this purpose into which a New HaveI
Conn, man OF wealth put $50, 900. A suit
OF rooms magnihcently furnished wei
Q opened in an office building on F street an
= not less than a dozen handsome wome
n typewriters were employed at one time.
Visionary, but Harmless.
Another type OF the hot-air fraternity
Of the unconscious variety-that is, he
, visionary, Of course, but harmlessly homes
e In other words, he finds certain lines
business congenial and makes pathetic e
forts to be 'in it," as the street won.
say. Sometimes, too, he is a newspap
man, or, more properly, a man who Xix,
TO write for the newspapers. Here are e,
- tracts from a letter recently received fro
Y the bowels Of the earth in the mining n
b gions Of Ohio:
IN Il blistered my hands yesterday facing I
IS a new vein OF coal / found on the plac
I'll Wanted to get It In shape to show up we
Everything is painfully dull here, wi
the exception Of one ty-barrel-a-day {
well. II they get a little closer / may
n able to talk business within a r~easonat
Id length of time"
" The hot air" from this type of the gen
homo is predicated on honest intention
with which, 1t is claimed by theologiar
G a nameless place is paved. Money TO pu
or originate an enterprise is always fort
coming on certain contingencies. The
contingencies. however. from being certa
IN the come to pass" sense, never or rare
occur. but the hope which springs eteTI
in the human breast" aids this species
the hot-air fraternity to secure the ear. I
time and the sympathy OF the struggll
merchant or newspaper publisher, until {
;, inevitable end arrives, and in one II
burial blent" merchant, newspaper a
hot-air investor become "~spooks."
c -