The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1908-03-24
How to Stiff "Sure Things"
Crafty Investment Swnders Who Prey Upon the Creduty
of the Laborer to Defraud Him of His
Hard Earned Savings.
BY ROBERT B. ARMSTRONG,
Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

had given his receipt for the sealed
package said to contain valuable pa
pers," a telegram had been sent by
the fiscal agent to mail out trustee
circulars" The man in this scheme
of course believed that, as the circu-
lars were being mailed out into ter
ritory about a thousand miles from
the city in which the banking and
trust company was located the trust
officer who had been imposed upon
would never hear of the misuse of his
receipt for dummy" package which
actually contained certificates of the
mining company's stock.
Why did the men who worked this
scheme to steal the moral support OF
the big trust company go to so great
pains to get it; to make the transfer
of a sealed package containing its
bonds? Because fake investment OPP
orators have found it profitable to
take every precaution to give the color
of legality to their acts; they have
found it profitable to hire shrewd legal
pilots to tell them just how far they
may go in a given direction without
! running upon the reefs of the United
States post Offices fraud order" or
upon the rocks of a conspiracy"
prosecution. These pilots for the
fleets of the investment pirates make
a professional study of the art of
steering their craft just outside the
line of successful criminal prosecu-
ton. Take 1t in the incident which |
have related: had these men been
prosecuted for falsely using the name
of the trust company or for obtaining
moneys by Misrepresentation (the
claim that the trust company was act
ing as trustee on the Brite & Fair Sc
curities), an able lawyer could have
made out of the trust" to transfer a
package of unknown contents, very
plausible defense. Again, the mining
company was able to make valuable
use of the trust company's receipt for
the package by having facsimiies OF
the receipt printed and distributed
among solicitors for the stock VINO
were canvassing persons not at all
| familiar with legal documents-and
who. under the statements and argu-
/ ments of the agent, would see IN the
recent an acknowledgement that this
great trust company and its millions
were behind the securities of the Brite
e. Fair Bonanza company.
So far as the writer knows, there
has never been a fake investment con
Germ exploited which has not tried &c
steal moral support under the name
of some guaranty" trust" or "secur
tiles" company. In most cases, per
hans. these companies are as thorough
fakes as the company which they are
supposed to guarantee, and ere the
creatures and creations of the same
men. But so many instances OF this
shallow deception have been shown
nm in criminal prosecutions that
little variation has been found desira
BILE. Instead of owning a fake guar
anty" concern, the eXploiters OF th'
fake companies have recently come L
regard it as a better practice to claim
connection with some genuine com
pany doing a general trust business.
This brings us straight to the prac
tical point in the matter: Never g
into an investment until you first tin'
out for yourself, by direct and first
hand investigation, what the refer
ences" named in the literature or ad
vertising matter of the company hay,
TO say about it, and also how mucl
the references themselves amount tc
Promoters of wildcat investment en-
terprises have used hundreds Of name
as references which they had not tn
shadow of right to use-calculatini
that persons credulous enough to b
interested in the proposition woul
also be credulous enough to say "thes
references will speak well enough 10
the enterprise, else their names woul
not be given out for this purpose