The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-14

I
| bonds for $4,000 were issued to build
a school house. The next step was to
| map out other school districts and is
sue bonds. The papers for all these
purposes. it should be known, were all
on hand ready prepared, blanks only
| being left to be filled up with dates,
names, etc. DIR. c. asked these virtu-
4 Gus gentlemen where they expected to
sell these bonds-if they thought any
| man who had money to invest in bonds
| would not, also, have information
| enough to know that there were. no
| people in the school district or county,
and that the whole thing was a swim
/ die and a fraud that ought to conSign
/ its authors to the penitentiary. The
/ reply was made by the organizers to
/ this effect: THERE IS JUST AS
| GOOD A MARKET FOR FRAUDU-
LENT SCHOOL BONDS AT TOPEKA
| AS THERE IS FOR LEGAL BONDS.
There is only a difference in the price
THE plans of the organizers were
| thus perfected. DIR. c. and his party
completed their buffalo hunt and re-
turned to their homes at Peabody. Mills
made a flank movement on Topeka to
manage the finances of the gang. Dun
lap went back to the bosom of his fam
ily and the quiet of his farm in Doni
phan county. Mowry made forward
movement on the legislature in 1874
and got his little bill passed authoriS
ing the issue of $4,000 of Comancne
county bonds. The bonded indebted
ness of said county appeared to be, in
November. 1874 as follows:
For building court house. $29. 900
For building bridges ...........- 23. 600
For general expenses ............ 10000
Total - ....... s72, 900
Matters stood thus in the spring of
1874 when Mowry made a flying visit
to Comanche county. The two German
families who were there the year be-
fore, had abandoned their dugouts and
returned to Bourbon county. The only
constituents he found were coyotes and
prairie dogs, who received him-the
former with their usual prolonged
howls, and the latter with their short
barking"
1t is the $4,000 referred to in this re
port of the attorney general which
formed the debt which the $12S,OOO OF
bonds just purchased by Messrs. Bur
row. Dayhoff and Coleman are suppos-
ed to pay
Those Fraudulent Bonds.
This is simply an incident in the at
torney generals report, however The
expose came out over the $4,000 of
bonds which were unloaded on the
state school fund. The bond for 81, 200
school fund commission, but A L.
Williams, who was then attorney gen
eral, pronounced the bond worthless
and it was turned down. Later two
bonds, for 81, 900 each from alleged dis
tricts , and 3, Comanche county, were
offered to the board while General Will |
liams was absent, and they were pllr-
chased. 1t developed a year or two Ia
ter that the school districts which were
supposed to have issued these bonds |
were imaginary and the bonds worth |
less. These are the $1,000 Comanche |
county bonds which are today carried
in the school fund as fraudulent
In the meantime Mowry had gone
back to Doniphan county and had |
been elected to the legislature from |
that county again. A Legislative m
ell I7n n
fact that the bonds were fraudulent,
and~T. IT. Taylor, representative from
Reno county, father of Carr W. Tay-
lor. was chairman of the investigating
1t fastened the guilt for
the sale of the bonds upon Mowry, but
it also severely censured the secretary
of state and state superintendent Tor
the purchase of the bonds
Taylor had a warrant issued Tor
arrest. but he fled and was
captured in St. Joseph after a reward
was offered for him by the governor
He was never convicted of issuing the |
bonds, however, because
the necessary witnesses could not be
produced to prove in court that they
were fraudulent.
In the meantime the $4,000 of
county bonds had been
of by the conspirators in the
east. To whom the State journal does
not now know, nor what they brought
but il was frequently customary TO
sell bonds of new counties for SO cents
on the dollar. Spectators would buy
them and hold them until the county
became rich enough to pay them
After selling these bonds Mowry
and his fellow conspirators never went
back to Comanche county, of course,
and the county was entirely deserted
Gen. A. l. Williams, who was in
structed by the legislature to make
personal investigation of the county,
saws in his report that he rode around
through the county in october, 1874,
without finding any sign OF human
nabitation except two or three aban-
ioned dugouts and log huts in the
vicinity of Smallwood, the quondam
county seat
How the Bonds Became Valid.
For eleven years Comanche county
was without inhabitants except the
transient cattle herders- The eastern
speculators who had bought the S72,-
300 worth of bonds found there was
no interest paid on them, there
was no property on which taxes couIo
be assessed, and there were even no
people in the boundaries of the sup
posed county. In the meantime un-
paid interest was piling up at the rate
Of ten per cent per annum-
In the eighties came the boom and
he prairies began to fill with people.
In 1885 what had been Comanche
again had enough people in it
vas legally done. Three years later
he population figures showed that
here were over 5000 people in the
county and the assessed valuation was I
)ver a million dollarS-at boom fig !
Tres. The eastern bond holders found ;
t out and began to want their money. !
rhe people protested that no such !
ponds had ever been issued by the Ie- ,
,al organization of the county. no
court house or bridges had been built. $
Tor any current expenses paid A I
,ond holder brought suit in the feder- +
Il court for his accumulated interest. | {
r,1n f1 court
leId that as the legislature had recog- :
lied the frst orera MIA tinn of Conan :