The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1908-02-20

the phone and ask him."
This is done and after a little dick.
ering the agreement is made. The
manufacturer goes back to the Office
of the capitalist, gets a check for a
thousand dollars, puts his own thou
sand dollars with it and turns both
over to the president of the guarantee
| company. Then the contract for the
sale of the bonds is completed and
signed. 1t contains provision that an
examiner shall be sent to examine tine
plant, books and assets of the manu-
/ featuring concern and make a report.
The capitalist explains that this is a
routine formality and merely by way
of official confirmation of the state
ments made by the manufacturer, of
the accuracy of which the capitalist
has not the least doubt
The examiner duly visits the manu-
facturcr and makes himself very
agreeable. After a time, when the
manufactures gets no money from the
sale of his bonds and no satisfaction
from his letters TO the capitalist he
makes another personal call The mo.
ment he enters the office he is made
to feel a decided change in the tenn
perature Of the place. The bearing of
the capitalist is one of outraged limo.
cencC. Tie presses button and in
structs the secretary responding TO
the summons to bring the report Of
the special examiner who handled the
manufacturer case This report is
read to the manufacturer, who is as,
founded to hear that it states that his
original representations, made to the
capitalists, were grossly exaggerated
and without substantial foundation,
and recommends that the manufaCtuF.
er be prosecuted for attempting to de-
Ceivc and swin1le the capitalist, whu
terminates the interview by makin"
the manufacturer feel like a rclOu about
to be sentenced. If the manufacuner
does not himself plead for mercy the
capitalist finally indicates that he is
inclined to be lenient and has deter
mined not to prosecute; bnt if the
manufactures is obStrCpCrOuS he viii
be punished to the limit of the law" "
Meantime the worthless check for
$1,000 sent by the capitalist to the
president of the guarantee company
has been torn up and these cOnfed
crates have divided the manufacture
er's $1,000 between them. This scheme
has been worked with many variations
upon hundreds of business men look
ing for capital. They have taken in
hundreds of thousands of dollars in
the country at large and have been
particularly successful in Chicago
However, very considerable number
of them have been prosecuted by fed
Gral and state authorities and have
been sentenced to heavy terms.
Another scheme which brought gen
erOus fortunes to its operators, and
which also contains the element of po,
tential blackmail. is the wildcat in
surance fraud. The small business
man was Il frequent victim of this
Swindle. The names of the wildcat
insurance companies We're invariably
built upon the titles of the standard
insurance companies in order to lead
the public into confusing their identi,
ty. Agents for these wildcat concerns
had no difficulty in placing immense
amounts of this insurance at cut rates.
The householder, the. farmer, the mer-
chant or the manufactures figured
that he had picked up bargain in in.
surance and had made 4 material say,
ing.
Often, at the outset, a company of
this stripe would pay a few small
losses in scattered communities in
order to bait other residents Of the 10.
cality to take ont more policies. Rut
the first material loss brought matters
to a crisis and the 'adjustur" sent to-
report upon the loss seldom, it ever,
failed to turn in finding more or
less boldly duplicating the holder of
the policy in the charge of arson. or
course it was intimated that if he pre-.
ferred to drop the matter this ugly
charge would not be made public, but
if he insisted upon pressing the claim
Of loss his good name would have to
suffer and the whole thing would be
aired in court Many of these wildcat
insurance swinders have been con
viCted in Chicago as result of the
energy and vigilance of the federal
state and municipal authorities, but
the success of these operations dem.
onstrated that the business man is not
exempt from the wiles of the swim
dlcr.
AS a matter of fact, Sucker lists"
of business men are In sharp demand
in the Offices of sWindlers They
realize that the average business man
has weakness for making money on
the side" in ventures of wholly diff
ferent character from that with which
his own business has made him famil
lar. He is trapped because he will no!
thoroughly investigate before he parts
with his money.
JOHN M. GLENN.