The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1907-10-11
WERE CAUGHT IN THE NET
Number of Prominent Men
Are Involved in Deal.
CATALOGUE HOUSES IN THE FIGHT
That lnquisitive Body Does Not APP
pear to Have Let Anybody Get
Away; Many indictments.

| Minneapolis, Oct. Am indictment
charging nineteen persons with con
spiracy to defraud by use of the mails
was returned by the federal grand
jury after an investigation of the
! 'little black book" which has been
conducted in Minneapolis since last
Tuesday. Mention of the indictments
was made in a special to The Free
Press yesterday
Bench warrants have been issued
| against each of the parties indicted
and they are to appear before Judge
| William II. Munger in the United
States district court at Minneapolis
the latter part of the week.
The penalty for the offense is fine
of not more than $4,000 or impris-
onment for not more than two years,
or both. A separate indictment was
also returned against Theodore S. Nc
Laughlin for misuse of the mails. 1t
is fine of not more than $500 for
each offense, or imprisonment for
eighteen months, or both.
Parties Who Are Indicted.
The persons named in the indictment
are indicted as individuals, and not as
members of any company or associa-
tion. They are: Ralph Burnside, Oska-
loosa, Iowa, president of the North
western Lumbermen's association, and
president of the Hawkeye Lumber
company; Willard G. Hollis, Mime
apolis, secretary of the Retail Lumber
mems association; George B. Ingram
Sank Center, MINI, director of the
Northwestern Lumbermen's associa
ton; Stanley Moore, Waterloo, Iowa,
director of the Northwestern Lumber
mems association; C. E. Trees, Eldora,
Iowa, up to last year vice president
of the Northwestern Lumbermen's as
ISOLATION; N. S. Darling, Oklahoma
City, Okla, president of the Okla
homa City Sash and Door factory;
Theo. S. Mclaughlin, Minneapolis, gem
eral manager of the Phoenix Lumber
company; Leonard Welles, Minneapolis,
vice president of Nthe North Star Lum-
Der company; George L. Thompson, Min
neapolis, secretary and treasurer of the
North Star Lumber company; Elijah
Hutchins, Minneapolis, vice president and
active manager of the Central Lum-
Der company; Nesbitt Tate, Minneapo-
lis, president of the Wisconsin Lum-
Der company; James c. Melville, Min
neapolis, of the Wisconsin Lumber
company; Rufus G. Clark, Minneapolis,
general manager of the j. II. Queal
Lumber company; ID. S. French,
Hawarden, Iowa, vice president of the
J. H. Queal Lumber company; William
j. Bruce, Minneapolis, manager Bruce
Edgerton Lumber company; j. w. Lu-
cas-, Winona, Mimi, president of the
Hayes-Luca Lumber company; o. NJ.
Betsford, Winona, Mimi, general man
ager Laird Norton yard, and A. R.
Rodgers, president, and George ii.
Rodgers, vice president of the Rodgers
Lumber company, Minneapolis.
Those Who Made Complaint.
The alleged conspiracy charged
against these nineteen men is that
they wrongfully, knowingly combined,
confederated and agreed together to
commit an act which was described
as a crime against the government
of the United States, described in Sec
ton $3.50 of the revised and amended
statutes of the United States, which
so devised, was to defraud the Cor
don Van Tine company, of Davenport,
Iowa; Waterman Hunter company,
Minneapolis; L. M. Roberts Co-Opera-
tive Supply company, Minneapolis, and
certain other corporations at Chicago,
among them the Chicago Mill Works
and Supply company, John Spry Lum-
herman company, Schaller-Hoer & Co.,
Sears, Roebuck & Co., South Side
Lumber company, George Green Lum-
Der company, Montgomery Ward &
Co., Chandler Lumber company, Street,
Hatfield & Co., White River Lumber
company, Chicago and Riverdale Lum-
Der company and Chicago House
Wrecking company.
The scheme to defraud as charged
in the Indictment was that the alleged
conspirators, knowing that the above
corporations sold lumber and mill sup
plies by catalogue system, and that
the catalogues cost the firm on the
average of about 81 each, devised
fraudulent scheme to get the firms to
send these catalogues out on the pre-
tense of entering into negotiations
with the senders. By mail these re-
quests and others for a list of fcti-
tious estimate of bills of lumber and
other supplies were sent to the firms
to be defrauded, the indictment al