The Arizona copper camp., 1918-11-30
Trying to Protect
Lambs From Wildcats

Somebody said once that "open con-
fession was good for the SOUL" and
proud as we are of our war achieve
ments and the greater victories which
shall come with peace in the brother
hood of the new world, it is necessary
to admit that we are nation of ''sucR
ers,". so far as our continued belief is
concerned in the false theory that you
can get something for nothing 1t
is not a pleasant thing to admit, like
many other foibles, that we will play
the bunco game in spite of all the
lessons and all the publicity of two
or three decades. Barnum's theory
that .the ''public loves to be fooled"
has been proved to considerable ex-
tent in the annual contribution of good
money for bad stocks.
1t almost seems as though you could
go Barnum one better and say that
the public loves to be swindled. Meth
DDS are not as crude as they were rs
years ago, and national and state gov
ernments have donel something to
check the swindling industry, but seal
awag promoters are ingenious in
reaching their victims and hundreds
of them are at work today to devise
devious ways by which as many as
possible of the more than 20,000,000
owners of government bonds in this
country may be induced to exchange
N for worthless pieces of paper,
more or less beautifully printed, not
engraved, because engraving would
take some of the stealings of the ras-
cally promoters.
Here was the bald method 25 years
ago: An individual shaped and clothed
like a man, would acquire sufficient
money to pay for newspaper advertise
ments offering some "get-rich-quick"
proposition; he would have desk room,
perhaps in some printing office, and,
according to the amount of his adver-
,tising, his daily mail would run from
a bushel to two or three barrels of
letters; these he would carefully open
and those which contained money or
checks were welcome; money and
checks went into a receptacle and the
letters into the wastebasket without
even the formality of writing down
the name of the sender Of course,
all the letters without money or
checks Immediately went into the
Everything was profit,
except the cost of advertising. So
long as the advertisement was kept
up, of course, under. changed names
and locations, business was more than
good.
That was crude. Methods have
been improved upon, but the result is
the same. Solomon never proved his
title of wisest man more clearly than
in the famous 'HThe fool and his
money are soon parted"
A systematic campaign to rob Lib
erty bondholders of their savings has
stirred up bankers and national and
state authorities to take steps suffi-
ciently stringent to reduce the evil as
much as possible. The present form
of the propaganda is to create a per-
capital issues committee
which shall reduce the issue of wild
cat stocks and bonds to the minimum.
1t is big thing. full of difficulties,
but there should be such a committee
and with full power the danger is
that the full power will not be
granted.
The lamb, and he is, oh, so numer-
Gus! has heretofore had little chance
with the wildcat. The urgent need is
for sound legislation which will elm
mate the wildcat, or at least drive him
into caves, far from the sheepfold.-
Edward D. Jones, in Daily News Rec
ord On. ".
Z