The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-14
County Organized for Benefit of
a Few Men.
RECORDS TELL STORY.
Show Why County Is Stagger-
ing Under Debt.
Story Is Disgrace to Early His
tory of State.
No Wonder People of County
Oppose the Bonds.

Afessrs. .Burrow, Dayhoff and Coleman.
the members of the state school fund
commission, with a great pretense of
looking out for good investments for
the trust fund given into their keeping,
alIege that Comanche county has been
paying off the bonds which the COM
mission has just purchased. and that
they are therefore a good investment.
1t is true that the county has paid a
few of the six per cent bonds-AT 80
CENTS ON THE DOLLAR! This is a
matter of record on the books of Co
manche county Three bonds were paid
off last winter at that figure.
Yet Messrs. Burrow. Dayhoff and
Coleman buy these bonds at Az per cent
and at par for good investment for
the state school fund.-
Originated in Conspiracy.
Is there a fatality connected with
these COmanche county bonds which III
wolves everyone VINO is in any way con-
nected with them? They have already
proved a handicap to more than one
man. and it looks as though fatality
follows them.
The story of those Comanche county
bonds forms one of the most remark
able tales in the financial history of
Kansas. 1t is a story of fraud from the
beginning. and the 1870 people of Co.
manche county at present are sad1led
with tremendous debt that was con-
tracted more than q decade before the
county had enough people to effect u
legal organization.
The bonds began in conspiracy. Co
1nanche county was first organized for
the express purpose of issuing fraudu-
lent bonds 1t was doubtless the pur-
pose Of the conspirators to unload the
bonds upon the state school fund al the
time, but they were able to unload
only $1,000 of school district bonds, and
those are the ones which are today held
nv ct cob. EWrr.
ed fraudulent" The larger issue Of
county bonds the conspirators were un-
able to unload upon the state at the
time. so they were sold to innocent pur-
chasers in the east at a low rate but
now. after twenty-eight years, they
refunded get into the state school fund
by the grace of Messrs. Burrow, Day
hon and Coleman. with the assistance
of T. T. Kelly and A. A GODDARD.
More than that. the facts with refer
ence to this conspiracy and the fraud
ulent issue of these bonds are, or ought
10 be. on record in Mr.. Coleman's office,
where he has easy access to it. for the
details are recorded in the attorney
generals report for 1876. filling forty
pages. and it certainly ought to be a
matter of record in Mr.. Coleman's
officei
The Story of the Fraud.
In 1873 the territory that is now in
cluded in Comanche county was a wild
country over which the buffalo roamed
and infested by Indians. Its nearest
railroad point was Hutchinson, nearly
a hundred miles away There was no
telephones nor rapid methods of COM
municatiOn in tn Ose days, and less was
known to the outside world about that
territory than is now known about the
wilds OF Mexico.
About that time the conspiracy was
formed to organize a county out there
where no people lived and to issue a
lot of bonds and sell them before any
one found out the truth. A. J.
NnNrrU n three fa
from Doniphan county in the Iegisla-
ture. was one of the prime movers in
the scheme As soon as the facts came
out il can be said to the credit of
Doniphan county, that the people
turned Mowry down and he was ex-
PEELED from the legislature.
Mowry with four or five others went
to what is now COmanche county in I
the fall of 1873, they claimed to take |
a census. Which was made I'D from an
old directory of st. Joseph, Mo, and
Mowry appeared at Topeka to repre- /
sent Comanche county in the legisla- |
ture- He actually did so and secured
the passage of a bill authorizing Com /
anche county to issue $40, 900 in bonds |
Instead of stopping with $40, 900, how
ever. the conspirators issued $4,000
worth, and that is the Indebtedness,
twice refunded and now increased by 4
accumulated interest to $123,O00. !
which Messrs. Burrow, Dayhoff and
Coleman have purchased as a good
investment for the state school fund.
The cOnspiratOrS did not have
enough men among them to fill all the
county offices-they did not live in the
county and there were only two set
tiers living there-and they got a DR..
Cox of Peabody, who came through on
a buffalo hunt, to take the office of
county attorney, and his statement. as
recorded in the attorney generals re-
part for 1876. is as follows:
Tn the summer of 1873 he (Cox)
and two or three others were in Com
anche county with a team. a buff
falo hunt They met, while in camp,
Mr. MoWry. a Mr. Dunlap of Doniphan
count. a man named Mills of Topeka,
and one or two from that headquar-
ters of bond frauds. Hutchinson
about five persons in all This gang
were engaged in organizing Comanche
county. There were just two bona fde
settlers in the county. These organ
izers wanted DR.. C's assistance in
order to make a full board of county
officers. They accordingly elected him
county attorney, although he had
probably never eobked into a law
book in his life. Mowry's gang pro-
ceeded to organize; his part of the
programme was to be elected to the
legisIa~Sre and procure the passage of
an act authorizing the issue and sale
of $4,000 of Comanche county bonds
to pay current expenses An old d.
rectory of St Joseph was made to fur
nish the names of about two hundred
and forty voters, and there names
were duly copied on the election tally
sheets, etc. After the county seat was
located and laid out. the next step was
TO create school districts and authorize
81 h4Tf1 cob rrNIN