New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-10-31

paid about what the thing was worth.
I'd have charged that myself"
| MIR. Wyckoff outlined for a Tribune re-
porter the entire history Of the Queens
boro Corporation. beginning with its orig
inal purchase of land i'm 1908 He began
with the remark that Mccall had got
| IL all wrong"
Why Bonds Were Issued.
In the first place" said he. we wanted
money to pick up more land as we went
along. and we didn't have the cash. But
we did own certain mortgages and Sc
curities against which We decided to Is
sue debenture bonds. 70 make them at
tractive we determined on an interest rate
Of per cent, together with the privilege
of sharing I'm the profits Of the corpora
| ton.
Some Of the directors thought ii Hould
/ be a good thing to get Strauss Ander-
son into the thing so, although | had al
ready drawn the indenture myself, we had
them revise il, and it became the most
complicated instrument you ever saw.
The Guardian Trust Company. before
consenting to act as trustee, referred the
document to Hotchkiss. Barber & Nc
CURE. and they read IT and approved it
with hardly any revision.
I'VE sold some bonds under it; / don't
| remember how many. But II wasn't long
after the panic and there wasn't much
of a market for such securities. In the
mean time. however. we had been selling
a good deal of our land. our terms always
being 30 per cent cash and 50 per cent
mortgage, titles guaranteed. We decided
TO issue some per cent bonds against
these mortgages, which were first class
| I'VE picked out the Queens County
Trust Company as trustee because il was
the only trust company doing business in
the county in which the property lay and
the officers knew the property and the
owners of it, First we decided to issue
| 100000 of bonds. but later we cut that
| figure TO $1,O0O,OO0 Well. Mullen and
drew up the indenture and the Queens
County Trust Company accepted it,
Voted Against Corporation.
These two indentures, you see, were
absolutely separate. They had nothing
to do with each other. Both are in force
at present and bonds are outstanding
under both.
MIR. Mitchell was going abroad about
! that time. We knew he had excellent
connections abroad, so it was agreed he
should try to float our bonds abroad but
/ there was no fee of $4,000 decided upon or
any other figure. He was to place the
! bonds and we were to reward him accord
! ing 10 the circumstances. ] knew,
! though, that he'd have hard time be-
| cause the Moroccan question had scared
| the European bankers
That turned out TO be the case. He
! tried Edinburgh, London, Paris and Am
sterdam. and he almost placed them i'm
Amsterdam. but after the Moroccan ques-
ton had reached settlement, why. the
Italian Turkish War broke out and then
came the Balkan trouble. He did all any
body could have done. When we got
tired waiting for the Amsterdam bankers
TO take our bonds we began selling them
over here.
But if Mccall thinks 5000 too much
for drawing up AN entirely new indenture
what about the fee Hotchkiss Barber &
Mcclure charged for merely reading over
the first indenture-Sl 100? We thought il
was cheap enough.
And about Mitchers attitude on the
I subway question IN this relation Under
| the dual contract one of the elevated
extensions N Queens runs through a cor
ner OF the Greensboro Corporation's
property. Yet Mitchell voted against fine
whole thing"