The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1913-12-05
Cairo Fish" Nibbled at Tempting
Bait Offered By Standard
Home Company.
LOANS OF ONE THOUSAND
ON EACH SHARE OF STOCK
Subscribers to Pay So Monthly Dues
Officials Indicted for Lottery
Scheme and Misusing Mails.

Last May there appeared in Cairo
q wer-dressed and very prosperous
looking individual who from the
card he presented was the represen-
tative OF the Standard Home Com
pany with headquarters at Birming-
ham, Ala.
This individual was very fluent
talKer with magnetic presence and
the way he landed suckers" was o
caution He put UP at swell local
hostelry with sumptuous quarters.
staying in Cairo until June.
The promoter OF the Standard
Home Company unfolded a proposi-
tion which was an endless chain
scheme by which persons were in-
duced to sign contracts agreeing to-
pay the company the sum of six dol
lars a month, the contract specf.t-
ing that after six payments had
been made the "stockholder" would
De entitled to become eligible" to
secure loan from the company OF
$1,000 at the rate Of five per cent
year with ten years in which to
repay the loan. subscriber was
entitled to borrow $1,000 for every
share Of stock he owned. Several
Cairo people subscribed for several
shares with the idea that they
would at the end of six months hor-
row 81 900 on each share of stock
they, held i'm the company.
These members are still awaiting
answers to their applications for
loans, the applications having been
made in NovQnber,
Thousands of people over the
country are alleged to have been
caught in the dragnet of the com
pany.
| Indictments were returned IN
| Birmingham last week by United
1
States grand jury upon evidence
worked up by the postoffice In
spectors and by l.. NJ Reeves, spec
ia agent of the United States De-
partment Of Justice against individ-
hals operating the Standard Home
company.
The indicted officials are F. e.
Whitehead. president his brother
L. A. Whitehead, vice president, and
L. f. Harrison, the secretary and
treasurer.
They are charged with conduct
ing lottery and also with the use
of the mails to defraud.
The Standard Home Company,
which they have conducted for the
past seven or eight years, is said
to be entirely solvent having book
assets Of something like si.500,000
to the stockholders since its estab-
lishment, besides handsome salaries
to its officers.
Joker in Word "E'igib'e."
The government claims that these
contracts have been sold to persons
in ~ states and that at the time OF
Investigation more than 5000 per
sons we're paying in their SO month
ly.
The joker appears to have been in
the word eligible"
When a customer applied for a
loan he was informed that his con-
tract was one OF a large series, every
one of which must be fully matured
before his loan could be made Thus
the customer was kept paying his
ST a month indefinitely.
Had 5 900 Contracts in Force.
While to the customer the little
word eligible" did not mean any
thing in particular, except the hope
of favors to come, to the company
il meant that the proposed loan
could be postponed practically for
ever. 1t was rather an expensive
word at that, as IL cost good many
people sS6 apiece to learn It's real
meaning.
| The corsracts were sold through
la multitude of smooth. talking
agents and were also, 1t is alleged,
offered at wholesale rate through
the mails.
| Il was specified in the contracts
that the company was to retain the
first three payments as executive
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