The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-02-02
Statements from District Attorney and
Items from New York Brokers
Help to Give Public Real
Novel Reading.
INGENIOUS MAN DID IT
An Ex-bartender Who Was Artist at
Cocktails Played His Part In
Little Clean Up Game In
Wall Street.

If you piece together the fragmen-
tary statements that come out from
the district attorneys office and the
brokerage houses in New York you
will have the skeleton of q crime
story equal to any the fiction writer's
furnish, says Richard Spillane IN the
Philadelphia Public Ledger.
1t seems that man with magma
ton, a speckled reputation and
pretty fair knowledge of the machln-
cry Of Wall street, set out deliberately
to "clean up" One of the specks on
the mans reputation was murder
case. a...
The schemer appreciated that it
would be easy in the wild markets
that have obtained this year to
plant thieving messengers in wan
street, but his real task was to pro
vide means for disposing OF the
stolen property without danger OF
quick discovery. A crude youth en-
deayoring to sell securities would
be an object Of suspicion, especially
as the banking and brokerage houses
would be advised of the numbers ana
descriptions of the stolen certificates.
1t was necessary, therefore, for him to
establish a clearing house for his
| plumber.
He did, and this is the ingenious
manner in which he did it:
In one of the large cities he had
come into association with a person
with rare gift for mixing cocktails.
This person had been both bartender
and cafe keeper. The man with the
specified reputation made a Wall
street broker out of him by the simple
prcess of buying membership In the
| Consolidated Stock Exchange for him,
hiring and equipping an office for him
in Wall street and opening up con-
nections for him in some outside
cities. a.. .....
The master crook kept in the back
ground, but engineered everything.
AS everybody knows, the stock mar
lset has been wild in recent times
Brokers were too busy to investigate
as to the character Of the boys"
Soon after the ex-bartender BIOS
somed out as a stock broker there
was an epidemic of thefts of securi-
ties. Boys disappeared. When effort
was made to trace them it was dis
covered they had given fictitious
names and addresses. The thefts
went into the hundreds of thousands
of dollars. When they came to
million Wall street was worried.
Not until the market began to
break did the secret come out. Then
the art of the schemer was laid bare.
To all outward appearance the brok-
j erage establishment of the ex-barten.
I der was legitimate. 1t had some GUS
TONERS who had no knowledge of it's
character. 1t had connections with
out of town banks that supposed 1t
was perfectly honest concern. The
master thief and several rogues who
acted for him in dealing with the
Ithieving messengers never went to
Wall street, but had their head
lquarters in great hotels.
! When the boys stole securities the
stock was turned over to the eX-
bartender and the thieving messen-
gers were paid and ordered to skip
the town. The ex-bartender opened
Fictitious accounts on his books and
credited to these customers the owner
ship of the securities. Then he nego-
ltiated loans with various banks,
pls3ging the securities as collateral
ifoy he loans. Usually he would get
from so to 80 per cent of the market
value of the stock and the stolen stuff
was reasonably safe from recovery.
hidden away, as it was, in the vaults
of bank.
It might have been difficult to
catch up with the crooks but for the
smash in the stock market The banks
are timid when prices begin to crum-
BILE. They call loans or demand more
security. The crooks had a suspicion
there had been leak" and, as the
they could not put up enough to sat
isfy the banks, they determined to
fade away" The matser thief did.
So did those who were his closest as
sociates, but the exbartender appar-
ently was left to be the goat