The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1908-11-05
High Finance is Again Seen in
the Dealings Connected With
the C. & NJ. Electric R'y
KENoSHA LINE UNDER FIRE
Committee Plans to Investigate Owner
ship of the Kenoshs Line in
Connection With the Frost
Tangle in Chicago

Just as the stock and bondholders of
the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Rail
way company, promoted by Albert G.
Frost, were awaiting the announcement
Of the receivers of the road for the
opening of the through line from Chi
cago to Milwaukee and which opening
was expected to result in making the
investment a paying one, causing the
stocks and bonds issued to be worth
better than par, came the report that
the affairs of the company are in
most tangled condition and that the
courts will be asked to give special
committee, representing bondholders,
full power to take such court proceed
ings as may be necessary to untangle
the involved financial skein and pro-
tect the bondholders interests.
Tangled millions, interviewer with al
legged manipulation of corporation law,
presents what is said to be the greatest
financial sensation that Chicago has
ever known, and constitutes the center
of whirlpool which the bondholders
of the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric
Railway company plan to spring by an
Investigation into the affairs Of the
road.
That the matter will be fought in
the civil courts is certain and it is
said that criminal procedure may
follow.
The brunt of the attack which is
given it's initial impetus by committee
Of the bondholders, is directed against
A. G. Frost, president of the Chicago
& Milwaukee Electric Company Of Wis
consin, president of the Republic Con
struction Company and president of A.
&c. Frost & Company of Chicago. He
is also connected with numerous other
promotions, notably with the Alaska
Central Railroad bubble.
The committee which has taken up
the matter consists Of John V. Clarke
and G. B. Shedd of Chicago, and Mil
Ter Lash, George A. Sommerville and
Robert Cassells of Toronto. Fred
erick Yard is secretary Of the commit
tee, Jacob Newman of Chicago and
Miller Lash of Toronto are counsel of
the company. It is alleged by the
committee that the railway which con-
sists of two corporations, one of Wis
consin and the other of Illinois, has a
floating Indebtedness of $2,169, lOO.51,
which it is impossible to assign owing
to the fact that the material for which
this sum is owed was purchased for the
Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Rail
way Company without reference as to
whether the company referred to was
the Wisconsin or Illinois organization.
The committee also questions the
ownership Of Ravinia park, the Racine
stone quarries, the Libertyville Trot-
ting association track, the Kenosha
Electric Railway and the Waukegan
Electric Railway, all of which are
Frost promotions and are allied with
the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric rail
way company. The bondhollers wish
to know what interest they have in
these places or organizations, but are
forestalled by a seeming aversion to
any reference to which state the cor
poration controlling an interest III each
property belongs.
The total amount Of stock and bonds
tied up in the transaction amounts, it
is said, to more than $10000,000. From
indications such as the bondholders
have been able to trace, the entire sum
has been tied into such knots by the
Frost deals that it is impossible for
, anyone to tell who owns the road, what
the road owns, what the road owes, or
what is owing to it.
The inference is that some one indi-
vidual sought to SO entangle the affairs
Of the road that the only solution
would be the eventual passing into the
hands Of that individual of the full
control Of both the Illinois and Wis
consin corporations and their subsidiary
organizations. The bondholders do not,
however, name any one man whom they
will charge with manipulations which
are in violation of criminal law, though
the methods of Mr.. Frost are openly
questioned from civil point Of view.