Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-11-11
GET RICH QUICK SCHEMES.
Fraudulent Investment Business Is
the Safest of All Crimes.

the Safest OF All Crimes.
1t has been said that in this coun.
try murder is the safest of all crimes
This may be true, but as a pursuit
that is easy, profitable and perma-
nently successful. the get-rich-quick
investment business has few, if any
equals The dupe of this class OF
concerns is an optimistic creature,
who bites at the bait again and again
| If he finds supposed gold brick to be
| a worthless thing with a bronze veneer
he does not lose faith in the prospect
| of getting somewhere and some time
a genuine gold brick for small frac-
ton of its value, but simply deplores
| his luck in doing business with the
wrong salesman and renews his
search. Once inoculated with the get
Irich-quick germ, it is very difficult to
eradicate it from victims system
And then there is the waiting army
| of new suckers, which, if not born
every minute, is certainly recruited
at a phenomenally rapid rate.
These facts serve to soften the sur
prise that might otherwise be oc-
casioned by the statement that one
get-rich-quick promoter has been do
| ing business in New York's financial
| district ever since some time in the
seventies. Having nouriShed many
schemes that looked big on paper
but eventually went the way Of finan-
cial derelicts, he still finds the business
lucrative. Steel, nickel, copper, rail-
way and dock construction, patent
medicine-these are some Of the
things that were to have mado for
tunes for investors if things had not
gone wrong. His latest proposition,
in which stock is offered at IS a
investors are told, $500 and probably
$1,000 a share.
The average person enticed by this
prospectus does not know anything
about the promoters previous finan-
cial record, but reads with great in
terest of the concern that proposes to
IrevolutioniZe the steel industry and
send the Carnegie mills to the scrap
heap. And these investors are by
no means exceptional among those
who purchase get-rich-quick invest
ments. The concern that puts out
attractive paper and can support
offices that sustain the impression of
solidity and affluence can find plenty
of persons, apparently, who are willing
to entruSt their money to it without
eNlHClHS a ulSpOSlllOll u lIQulIe lllO
the antecedentS of the men behind 1t.
When an investment concern doing
business in various American cities
got into difficulties recently it de-
veloped that the man who supplied
the brains of it was a former convict
operating under an assumed name,
but the patrons of the company had
not been informed, Of course, upon
this point. In the case of another
concern, whose Sumptuorsly furnish
ed offices in Boston were .aided a few
days ago. it was learned that the
manager had previously been con-
victed of land frauds in the west, and
it is alleged that the president of the
concern had employed for booming
the business, StimOnialS given to
him some time previously by respon-
sible men to assist him in raising an
endowment fund for a college, when
he was the head of that institution.
Had those invited to connect them
selves with the enterprise that prom
iSed big profits been informed regard
ing these matters they might have
been less inclined to hand over their
savings to this company, but they
were blissfully ignorant A Mon
treal investment agent. So-called,
who defaulted recently in the amount
of $1,500,0O0, and for whose arrest
large rewards have been offered, is
alleged to be the same man who did
rushing business for a time under
another name on Long Island a few
years ago, investments purporting to
yield anywhere from 25 per cent a
month to 100 per cent q day. and who
had previously run a similar career
in Scranton, Penn. If this is true the
trusting Canadians who placed their
money in his hands had no suspicion
OF it.
1t is unnecessary to multiply such
examples. The path of the investment
wizard is through a rich clover field
if he will only give the requisite de-
gree of care to outward appearances
The ordinary searchers for an easy
and quick way to make fortune lacks
the facilities. and also, it seems, the
disposition to tear away the screen
and read the facts as they are. Some
times the smooth talking schemer
moves from one city to another and
finds a waiting army of dupes in each
Again. possessed of more nerve and
versatility, he picks a big financial
center and stays there. In either case
his rewards are large.
Those who make such schemes prof
liable to the OriginatorS are seldom
or never OF the very wealthy class, as
wealth is rated nowadays. Often they
are persons who have inherited modest
fortunes or having accumulated mod
crate amounts by hard work. are seiz-
ed with the desire of rising To afflu-
ence i'm some other and easier way. In
many cases they feel a pride of lineage
or social position that COnStrainS them
to keep silent when they realize they
have committed costly error. Hon
est men who find it difficult to attract
capital for legitimate enterprises may
feel sore because of the conditions
herein indicated, but it will be rather
difficult to apply a remedy So long as
Il busy public is possessed Of the craze
for big dividends to the exclusion Of
other considerations which, in times of
greater prudence than this, have been
wont to influence investOrs.-Spring-
field Union.