Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-05-06
office buildings where they roasted

that were starving to death for ten
ants. OF course these buildings had
got beyond the point of caring how
much publicity was given to their
numbers.
when King blew up and landed
in Charlestown Jail lot of the fake
financial agents who had been fol-
lowing his method got bit scared,
for King was the first big faker of
this sort to be sent to Jail in many
years. They doped it out that too
much advertising had done it. 1t
wasn't long after this before those
newspapers that had taken their ad-
vertising shut down pretty hard on it,,
that is, most of them. Now you
might think that all of this would
have caused the species to cease null
tiplying. but it didn't.
There are more fake mines than
ever. more wells that haven't ever
spouted oil and never will; more in
ventions that are going to be sec
ond telephone and won't be worth
anything but junk and more indus
trial enterprises that will be fortune
makers if you'll only just send in your
money to the financial agent.
How are they doing business now?
I'll tell you. They're making house
to house canVasSeS for one thing, but
there's another way they are doing 1t
now, and with a great deal of sue
cess.
Don't be surprised if any day now
vou're asked by some one you know
slightly to take a few shares of stock
in some mine or oil company that he
is assured is a good proposition. Per-
haps it's all right, but there's a good
chance hp doesn't know what he's SELL
ing. He's on the level perhaps, conn
ed by the crooks into thinking 1t a
good thing.
"If he's fallen a victim to this new
game it's dollars to doughnuts he
will tell you that he just happened to
stumble into it and got few shares
of stock to sell to his friends and
help them pick up a good thing. He
really thinks there's only few shares
being sold and that those glowing re-
ports from the man at the mine
catching the ore being exposed are
genuine. Of course, for his trouble
in disposing Of the few shares that
have been given to him for his friends
he is getting probably some shares
for nothing.
This new way is pretty nearly as
as the old way of using
printers ink, and it is a good deal
safer because it isn't going to attract
the attention of the post office de-
partment and the folks whose busi-
ness it is to protect suckers.
THE financial crooks. the slick
ones, l mean, are trying to get agents
of the sort | have described in all
lines of business. They generally
pick out a man earning a moderate
salary in a district like the jewelry
district, for example. They first find
out all about him and satisfy them
selves that he has lots of friends and
has a reputation for honesty and fair
dealing that is spotless and doesn't
know a blessed thing about mine
or an oil well or whatever they want
him to sell. In other words, he's new
er been Singed.
"They have various ways of getting
to him, all different forms of the old
game that is as old as the
hills and that was worked to sell green
goods and sawdust before stocks be-
came so popular. Pretty often the
family tree is made use Of, or If not
that some mutual friend.
Before they get through they are
apt to have convinced their victim
that he will be really comforting
favor on his friends by allowing
them to buy some of the stock they
want him to peddle, and with the
stock he will get for nothing that
salary Of his will look like two cent
piece when they begin shipping all
that ore to the smelter next year.
In some cases they are offering to
give their victims small weekly
drawing account.
1.-The insurance field is one of the
..t, In
work this game. l shouldn't be sur
prised to hear that a pretty harvest
has been reaped already in some or
the big insurance companies which
have thousands of employees The
sad feature of it is the bitter disap-
pointment. modification and chagrin
that il is going to mean when the
light begins to dawn on the poor fel-
low whom they have made their
agent and who has been innocently
roping in his friends perhaps.
''Itll be the old story then, no
word from the mine, flooding or some
other old excuse, and not a dollar
ever coming back to the victims.
They are even working the police
and fire departments now, L under
stand.
LAS | said before, the get rich
quick game is flourishing without at
tracing as much publicity and the
financial agent with bargain prices
for unlisted stocks of his own creation
and a word of warning against wicked
Wall Street as he takes your money
would be feeling pretty good if it
wasn't for that bucket shop raid by
the department of justice in Washing
ton. What the department of justice
can do to the bucket shops it can do
to the man selling fake stocks at bar
gain counter prices.
Take away from him the right
to use the United States mails and
he'll die i'm just about one day. Now
the word is being spread around that
the same people who called Attorney
Wickersham's attention to
the bucket shop game also called his
attention to the financial harpies that
are doing business here and elsewhere
with the assistance of the United
States mails. and who have been do
ing a whole lot of injury 20 legiti-
mate business of this kind. The fake
financial agents both uptown and
downtown are waiting TO see what
is going to happen and are doing all
the business they can by word of
mouth.
Until recently there hasn't been
any crooked game quite as safe and
as this game Of being
a financial agent and selling five
cent stocks in mines and oil wells so
far away that the poor investor can
never get to them. If you complain
ed that something had gone wrong
and you'd been swindled it was up
to you to prove the thing was a fake,
and how was the man with the few
hundred dollars he had saved all
gone into the hole going to do that?
IF he appealed to the pOstoffice
he was told that the de-
partment had no money to Investigate
mines or oil wells scattered. all over
this country and that unles. he could
prove the misrepresentat. IN they
couldn't do anything. 1t was the same
way with the district attorney He had
no money tn send to California or Ari-
zona and get the evidence needed to
convict the stock seller of swindling.
What these crooks are now afraid
of is that the department of justice
will start running down a few of their
big schemes of recent years that are
still within the statute of limitations
and will go after them for misusing
the mails; and a few convictions with