Omaha daily bee., 1908-03-15
HAYOR CAUGHT IN CRASH.
Dahlman One of Investors Squeezed
in "Air" Line Scheme.
oH1CAGo-NEw YORK LINE NO GO
work on Project stops and Now
Our Jim and Others Arc
Left Holding the
Sack.

Omaha investors in the stock Of the
Chicago-New York Electric Air IAne rail-
road, which has been exploited all over
the county as the biggest railroad project
of the decade, will be interested to learn
from New York sources that work on the
railroad has stopped and the Cooperative
Construction company, which has been do
! ing the construction work. is selling its
equipment and has discharged its men.
Among the omahans caught in the
scheme is Mayor Dahlman, who says his
investment was small. Several other Oma-
hans have put more or less Of their money
in the project. w. F. Porter, who was
secretary of state during the populist re-
gime, was the accredited agent for the
| company in Nebraska.~an he is said to
have persuaded large numbers Of his po-
litical and business Friends to put money
into the road Mayor Dahlman said yes
terday he had heard nothing about the
condition OF the company and did not know
whether It has suspended or not.
Mayor Dahlman, Mayor Decker of MIL
waukee and a number OF city officials from
neighboring cities were present last June
when the formal opening Of the first
stretch of the road took place. President
A. c. Miller OF the railroad corporation
made a speech painting the future of the
railroad in glowing terms. Five or six
miles of track had been laid then and a
car was run over this. From the New
York reports the construction work has
not progressed far since then,
| The road was to have been built on an
/ air line between New York and Chicago,
turning aside for nothing. The officers as
| serted the time between the two cities
could be reduced to ten hours, which would
give the road practically a monopoly of
the passenger business between the two
cities. Glowing predictions of the immense
profits which would go to the stockhold-
ers were made in the newspaper advertise
ments and the literature which was spread
over the country.
l. To Appeal to Wall street,
The road was to be constructed, accord
| ing to the officers, on the cooperative
plan without appeal to Wall street, the
issue Of bonds or preferred stock The or
ganization was to be very democratic and
the money was all to be raised by the sale
OF common stock. II is said almost 81 200,
coo worth of the paper has been sold. The
price Of the stock ran from $40 to S5O with
bonus of the face value Of stock in trans
portation privileges.
In a suit in Chicago last summer It came
5000 a year in cash and $4,000 a year in
stock as salary, and that other officers
were paid in proportion. Burr Brothers
and the Hancock company of New York.
who put the stock on the market, are said
to have received Is per cent of it as COM
mission.
| The New York Sun says of the company
THE latest news comes from Chicago,
where the Cooperative Construction COM
pany, organized by the promoters to build
the road, has been located. According to
dispatch from there, the company has
removed its offices from La Porte. near
where the first spike was driven last June
with speeches that did much to help the
sale oFstock. 1t has also sold ninety mules
that were paraded before the stockholders
on that auspicious occasion and dismissed
fninety laborers that had been at work off
and on, A large part of the equipment
has been sold to construction company
in st. Louis With the work abandoned
the chances for the stockholders to enjoy
the advertised privilege of using up the par
value Of their shares in transportation APP
pear to be poor. Somewhere near La Porte
there are a few miles of rails which can be
Travelled on in a handcar, but the right OF
the stockholders to even these is said to
| ba dfanutad