Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-22
CHARGED WITH SWINDLING
NEW YORK BROKERAGE" FIRM
IN HANDS OF THE POLICE.
Clients of Clark Goodman & Co. Ask
for Investigation and Arrest of
Financiers Follows.

NEW YORK, April 22.-Alfred c. Good
man. who describes himself as a broker.
and Edgar NJ. Martain, also known as c.
ID. Martain. both living at the Hotel Re-
gent, We're locked up at police headquar-
tiers yesterday afternoon on charges of
grand larceny. The arrest was brought
about by letter which Commissioner
Bingham received last month from H. j.
Boswell, lawyer of Greensboro, Ga, who
wrote that number of persons in Green's
boro and Madison had been doing business
with Clark Goodman & Co. of 20 Broad
street, New York, A. Clark Goodman sole
partner, and that it appeared to be the sort
OF business where you put in your money
and get back a lot of encouraging letters.
The letter said that the firm had been So
netting in and about Greensboro, was to
deal IN stocks on margin and had taken
about 500 out of that part of the country
Drafts which had been drawn on Clark
Goodman & Co., according to Instructions
had not been honored, said the letter, and
would the police please investigate.
Firm Had Moved.
Detective McConville was sent down to
see Clark Goodman G. Co, who, according
to a sample of their letterheads sent on
by the Greensboro lawyer, were interested
in cotton, stocks and grain. He found the
office on the seventeenth floor of 20 Broad
street, but the door was locked and a note
said please call at fourteenth floor,
Charles Earring Earring expressed surprise
when told that his name was on the note.
He said that he had had some business
with the firm On the seventeenth floor, but
he knew nothing about them and thought
less. The superintendent of the building
told the detective that the Goodman people
hadn't been seen about the place for
week.
A day or two ago Emil Dame Of 81 Mag
nolia street. Atlanta, Ga. turned up at the
central office He said that he had been
a kind of agent for the firm in Atlanta and
had induced a list of people, whose names
he gave, to invest from 500 to 5000 to buy
stocks. The investors hadn't Jared very
well and Dame came up to inquire. Dame
showed the detective a telegram from
Clark Goodman & Co., dated March of
this year, which read:
opportunity of taking in partner. Fifty
five thousand dollars in cash if you can
transfer one or two thousand quick. Hustle
tomorrow and Monday"
On March 10 Dame got a telegram as
follows:
Get 500 additional from Byers today
Answer. Retain $50, remit balance"
The message was signed c. G. & Co.
Byers is of the men mentioned by
firm.
Taken Into Custody.
Through some hints from Dame McCon-
Vile located Goodman and Martain at the
Regent. Papers found in Martains room
indicate, McConville says, that Martain was
once the cashier of "a Louisville bank and
had been an applicant for the job of bank
examiner of Kentucky; also that Martain
had an interest in Clark Goodman & Co.
Among Goodnians effects was an undated
letter from Philadelphia supposed to have
been written by Martain. The writer
thought that If things didn't look up it
would be better to seek wider fields" and
suggested that Goodman borrow four or
five hundred dollars and get d place on the
dead line"
The police explain that to get place on
the dead line means that Goodman should
join the line of cheap boCkmakers at the
race tracks.
McConville said last night that he would
ask to have his men held on short affi-
davit and would try to get Lawyer Boswell
to come up from Greensboro. Dame will
remain in town to act as witness.