The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-01-27
pRoMoTERs AND TIE LAW.

PROMOTERS AND THE LAW.
Following the lead of some other
states, the legislature Of Idaho has
passed i'm the lower house a bill. for the
suppression Of wildcat promotions on
lines suggested by the last American
mining congress. In the absence of the
text the scope Of the measure cannot be
known accurately, but if it is confined
TO mining promotions its author should
amend it to include any fraudulent pro
motion and add a rider to suppress GUS
sedness in human character.
This systematic reflection on the le-
gitimacy if mining gets to be a little
tiresome after awhile, particularly when
it is fathered by men in mining states.
Under the statutes of Utah any fraud
I'm promotion can be prosecuted, wheth-
er it be in mines, irrigation, electric
power. franchises or what-nOt, provided
always that the investor who is de-
frauded has insisted on common bust
ness sense in his negotiations. The man
who secures money by false representa-
tions is subject to prosecution now, but
there is no law to change the nature
of the easy mark" whether he is in
vesting in mines. buying bogus titles TO
land. playing the shell game or adding
TO the profits of the bucketshop manip-
ulator.
The very men and newspapers in the
east that talk most about the mining
craze" pass by unnoticed the pool rooms
that rob hundreds if thousands sys-
tematically. openly and eriminally
There is a pool room i'm Salt Lake that
takes hundreds of thousands of dollars
out of the city every year. mostly the
losses of men who cannot afford to lose
The law prohibits it, the officers of the
law ignore it, the pharisees of finance
who deplore stock gambling tolerate
IL as they do in nearly every other city
in the country; yet the occasional pro-
moter Of bogus mining scheme is used
TO discredit a great industry which is
founded on business principles and need
defraud no man who follows the same
rule in mines that he would in groceries
or dry goods or bonds,
Legislation TO govern the mining pro-
motion business specifically need not
hurt any legitimate enterprise If 1t is
properly framed; but the very discus
sion and enactment of such a law i'm the
west is accepted by fasteners as an
indication that the business needs leg
isIation to make IT safe. If New York,
for instance. We're to enact a special law
10 govern the promotion Of any indi-
vidual industry investors would fight
shy OF securities in that industry
whether they were sound or not. In
this. as in any other legislation. specific
or special enactments are not only I'M
necessary but they are generally in
effective where they are not positively
harmful.
Some people seem TO think it is smart
to sneer at promoters and promotion. as
though there were a faint on the bust
ness, whereas the genuine promoter is
the real builder OF new empires, the
missionary of civilized enterprise, the
pioneer OF all commerce. The genus
has it's Objectionable species. just as
every occupation has. but promotion it.
self is essentially honorable and re-
quires qualities of the highest type.
Christopher Columbus was a promo
ter. the first of all American promo
ters, with his prospectus OF a land he
had never seen and that few believed
could exist On his faith in The pro-
ject the great queen of Spain Dawned
her jewels 10 take stock i'm the enter
prise. and although his venture failed.
Spain realized ultimately such returns
as made her the most powerful nation
on earth. brought her the gold of the
Aztecs and the Incas, gave her domin-
ion Of large part OF the New World.
and endowed her SO magnihcently that
centuries of misgovernment were
passed before she fell back to rank
with the minor powers.
In later days. Cecil Rhodes was the
prince of all promoters. and his vision
of a new empire in Africa for Great
Britain Is slowly but surely being real
ized. To him. more than to any other
man Of his century. is cue the spread
OF British dominion; TO him is due the
approaching union of north and south
IN Africa through the Cape-to-CairU
road; following his plan wire IS be-
ing stretched across the wastes and
through the forests so Britain's domain