The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1909-09-16
Probing the Promoters.


promoters, like reputable business
men, find great difference between
present conditions and those that pre-
vailed year or so ago, and thew are
Fastening to take advantage of the i'm
provement. Once again the financial
pages OF certain newspapers begin to
blossom with advertisements of mining
companies and other enterprises that are
guaranteed to yield enormous profits.
Undoubtedly they are profitable-to the
promoters-an they would be more 40
II the post office inspectors in Boston.
new York and other cities did not show
as Keen an interest in the fiaring an
nouncements as do the credulous per-
sons they were meant to reach. In New
ork, 1t IS stated, dozen official inves-
legations are under way. In Boston
Chief Inspector Letherman and his staff
have five in hand, and will conclude an
other at the October term of the limited
States District Court.
In one instance, in which many thou
: sands OF dollars were EXCHANGED for
worthless certificates of stock. it is al
legged that the company held no title
to Mexican lands which it claimed to
own, and that two mines in the region it
pretended to be exploiting, specifically
named as being in operation, were actu-
ally full of water. The impudence of
the swlndle could probably be paralleled
IN scores OF cases. 1t was surpassed,
perhaps, in the Ubero Rubber transac-
tons OF malodorous memory, for which
Borges is now serving fourteen years
sentence. Unfortunately the persons
who are seduced by promoters into buy
ing dollar shares of stock that are re-
tailed at the bargain price of ten or fif-
teen cents have no means to verify the
assertions the promoters make. Appar-
entity they credit any story that is circum-
stantially told. Unfortunately, too, they
are equally slow to realize that they
have been robbed. Some never find it
out. Others, after waiting two years or
so for dividends that fail to materialize
ask the postal authorities to investigate;
but by that time the inspectors frequent
~ discover that the promoter has ex-
hausted the territory, changed his name
and set up new camp elsewhere.
1t is quite within the possibilities that,
plying different scheme, the transplant
ed swindler approaches some of the very
persons he had already swindled. At any
rate, their names are reckoned amongst
his substantial assets and have cash
value. A list of twenty thousand "small
investors, the aggregate of many
stockholders, may be possessed by
any trickster who chooses to buy it. But,
though the simple folk who figure there
on seem ready to hand over their savings
to anyone who uses an impressive titleand
tells a plausible tale, that does not make
the situation any the less pitiable. The
lat h.
gives up means that necessities, not to
first place. 1t stands for real deprivation
as we'll as baseless hope, and on this
ground warrants ceaseless effort to save
the victim from himself.
On the report of a post Office inspector,
the Postmaster General will issue a
Fraud Order" which cuts off a pro-
motors mail. The promoter may then
be proceeded against on charge of de-
vising schemes to defraud through the
use of the mails, and, on an indictment
which specifies three offences commit
ted within six months, he may be fined
$500 or imprisoned for fifty-four months,
or both. Other charges may be brought,
if the facts warrant, as in the Borges
case. Obviously, then, the Post Office
Department and the courts stand ready
to do their part to discourage the swind-
ling promoter. But they cannot act ex-
cept they have something to work upon,
and it is question whether, in this d.
rection, intelligent citizens do not owe
society duty which they too seldom feel
called upon to undertake. When a flood
of suspicious advertising mandates the
newspapers that will receive it, or when
the post Office in certain community is
stuffed with letters and pamphlets that
promise dividends of from 50 to 100 per
cent, simple request to the post office
inspectors to investigate will frequently
work wonders. Boston Transcript