The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-01-12

old wireless patents taken out fifteen
years before by Professor Dolbear Of
Tufts College. These patents rad been
almost forgotten. Their existence was
recalled by the sudden rise to fame Of
young Marconi and the incorporation
of the American Wireless Telephone and
Telegraph Company, capital S5.000,0OO,
was the result with DIR. Gehring prcsi
dent
The Wireless Telegraph Scheme.
The promoters lacked the courage and
funds to buy whole pages of advertising,
and for weeks and months the Sunday
newspapers carried only short an
naunccment of the company's plans. The
$40 stock was offered first at S1.5O
share, but gradually the price was raised
to SIS. Meanwhile, sub-companies were
formed. The American was not an OPP
Grating company. 1t owned the patents,
and divided the country from coast to
coast into fields in which the sub-com-
panies were the New England, Federal.
Northwestern, Atlantic, Commercial,
Central, Western Gulf, Continental and
Pacific. EACH sub-company turned a
large proportion of its stock over to the
parent company. The capital of the
whole wireless outfit was 500, 100000 It
was a bold scheme on paper but it need
ed some one with courage and funds to
develop it.
The man for the New England Wire
less Telephone and Telegraph Company
was found in Thomas 4. Bishop, who, as
Ty;r
years ago as the author of "Slroo Fly =!
Don't Bother Mel" But it was not as a
song writer that r. Brigham Bishop be-
came a leader in the world of finance.
b Bishop has the distinction of having OPP
; ened the nrst bucket shop in New York
> for women gamblers At the time of the
k collapse of the Dean discretionary
n pool" swindle Bishop was running lit
o tie discretionary pool of his own, and
= the post-Otiice authorities did not over
G look him while issuing fraud orders
l. Bishop got a figurehead president for the
'' New England ~ ireless, the Hon. James
II N. Huston, former Treasurer of the
IS United States. General Huston was al
+ ready the head of another S5,00000C
: company, one of the Beaumont oil boom
wildcats. General Huston suffered fin.
ancial reverses in the hard times of '95
"a to '9G, and became the tool of parasite
promoters Bishop lrawked his wireless
l. stock through New England at bargain
e. prices, selling it, at first. at ten cent,
= a share. But nobody paid much atten
NJ ton to the new wireless companies unit
" the autumn, when Pike, in the heyda!
Is of his oil company career took hold of tn
s. Federal Wireless Telephone and Tele
50 graph Company, a sub-company covering
a. eleven Eastern States, and opened sucl
s. an advertising campaign as had neve
Is before been seen in Wall Street. Hi
W. figurehead president was the Hon. Ernes
10 Cady, former Lieutenant-Governor o
a Connecticut, already vice-president o
I'll Pixies Eastern Consolidated Oil Compa
u ny, and president, besides, of a wildca
1t gold mining company. Pike spread hi
le circus-bill advertisements of the Fedora
OIL Wireless through the Sunday newspapers
III Offering the stock first at forty cents, thel
e. at sixty cents, and finally at a dollar
81 He took whole pages in the New Yor
ne newspapers, spending thousands of dol
Il. lars a week, for many weeks. He set tn
lg pace for all the wireless telegraph com
ST pany advertising since that time. Her
H. are some of his best things
e Bait That Attracted the Fish.
"The most marvellous invention of tn
century"
lg "Bell Telephone stock, when first offer
ed. went begging at fifty cents a shar'
III and those same shares to-day are wort
De $4,000"
IL 'Many predict that the stock will 500
r be selling for as many dollars as cents q
Oh the present time"
n More remarkable TRAN the late acl
80, ievements of wireless telegraphy on tn
Oh sea is the fact that the Federal Wireles
hS Company has instruments nearing con
as pletion for operation between New You
De and Philadelphia, when it will receiN
er messages at any hour of the day or nigh
IS at the rate of ten cents for ten words
ny "With the Bell Telephone stock
memory, wlrch went from a few cen
lis to thousands of dollars a share, though
0. 5 full persons are buying up wireless sto'
nc with avidity."
ID "The career of the company controilir
IT. the basic patent In the richest field
re- America starts with a thousand tim
81 more nattering prospects than did t
re. Bell Telephone"
OIL "Stock will soon advance in price
ire leaps and bounds"
all One feature of the Pike wireless a
IA vertising was tlrat there was no promi
of dividends. Much of the company a
at vertsing of the day was of the guara
&c tccd-dvidend variety-Pike, himself. h
been the chief exponent of the month
~ dividends scheme in his oil promotion
VI Pike, of course, saw that there was
lle' possibility of earning dividends on
ke $5O00,000 capital, and that it was il
be possible to pay unearned dividends wit
VI out getting caught. Pike made his wht
AN play, therefore, on the similarity betwe
san tbc wireless telegram and the telepho
an as an investment ;and, instead of pI
rec missing dividends, he talked only of l
&c