The Ordway new era., 1920-10-22

In the last article we told you of
Townley's s;sal and land enterprise in
Dade county, Florida, and related the
story from the time Townley became
interested in the project in 1916 up
to the time of his financial difficulty
at Valley City, N. D., where he and
his attorneys. and his employees. Box
and Hastings, became involved in n
federal investigation as the result of
bank promotion and the reorganiZ-
ing of a national bank into a ctate
bank to be owned and controlled by
League men, Hastings and Box were
being investigated by the federal
grand jury. Townley and his attor-
ney, Lemke. were involved, and the
newspapers were full of charges and
counter charges. Hastings was about
tc leave for Mama, to take personal
charge of the Townlcy Florida un-
dertaking. He was to assume owner
ship of the project and Townley was
/ to deny any CONNECTION with it, but
| the federal investigation of Hastings'
activities forced Townley to dis
charge Hastings not only as mana
/ ger and trustee of the Florida ven
ture but as financial secretary OF the
| Nonpartisan League.
Here Mr.. Water5 will continue the
story:
About tho middle of March, 1913.
| was called from my bed at about
midnight, upon the arrival of the
midnight train from Fargo, by A. C.
Townley, who informed me to get
dressed and como over to the Nc
Kenzio hotel. Upon my arrival there
1 found Townlcy In u very excited
state OF mind. Mr.. Bris on was also
there. Wa retired to a room, and
ther Mr.. TownIey related to me IA
long story of his Florida promotion
scheme, the difficulty that he was In,
the necessity of getting soma one to
aGsume ownership Of it-and the dan
ger OF pubIcftY-what it would mean
to him II 1t became publicly known
that he was the owner OF -, 400
acres of land down in FlOrida.-This
\ was my first knowledge OF any inter-
est that Mr.. Townloy had outside of
his North Dakota promotions-with
which was more or less familiar.
Fears Indictment
Mr.. Townley related to me the pos
3ibility of an indictment being re-
turned against his financial secretary
Mr.. Hastings, ana that in such an
event 1t might involve or bring 10
light his Florida Investments. 1t
seems that Brinton had suggested to
Townley my association with the
project as lis owner. Townley related
how | had been in the real estate and
farm loan business for 20 years in
nol ff q
cuspicion If 1t became known that I
were the owner of 22.4OO acres
in Florida, California or Mexico. And
l saw Townlcy's point and the mental
explosion that would take place in
North Dakota il it developed and be-
came known that Townley had in
vested money in Florida land.
! l have always been open for a deal
! when 1t came to zeal estate, and
generally made my best deal when
the other fellow was the AGGRESSION. l
had dealt in real estate in Iowa, in
Minnesota, Montana and North Da-
kota, but had never seen Florida.
| was reluctant to go into a project
which had never seen. ButTownley
was inpatient. For Gods sake,
Jim, take this deal off my hands, -
appealed Mr.. TownIey. "You can go
to Miami, and take your wife with
you," explained Mr.. TownIey, "and IL
will be fine trip for you. will pay
your expenses and after you have
seen the property and agree to AS
sumo ownership of II, We can come
to II more definite arrangement. I've
got to get Hastings out OF the deal
and get someone else TO take charge
of it"
! This was Townley'a general line of
talk. / finally agreed to go to Flori-
da and look his proposition over, and
I agreed to assume p-oprietorship of
| the property II 1t was as he and Brin-
ION represented IL to bc-provided
| Mr.. Brintol would join me in its
management as he was familiar with
! Townfey and Brinton went back to
I Fargo and secured { release or with
drawal from Mr.. Hastings and Box,
as | did not care 70 have any asgocia-
ton in a business way with these
gentlemen. This Mr.. Townley Sc
cured and delivered to Mr.. Brinton
and l before we left for Miami. 1t
reads:
''Thos P. Harvey, Miami, Florida.
Dear Tom. This will introduce Mr..
Brinton, who is coming TO Miami to
assume full charge of the sisal prop
csition and property and tha two
companies which have been organiz-
ed. Please turn over to him all
property, records, files, letters, doc
uments and all this organization pa
pers. etc, and hereafter make all fu-
:ure arrangements with regard to
your employment, expenses, 5elary.
etc, with Mr.. Brinton, as Mr.. Box
and myself are withdrawing from the
enterprise and turning over our in
tcrests to Mr.. Waters and Mr.. Brin-
ton. Signed. J. Hastings"