New-York tribune., 1920-10-24
Fight ON Stock
SWindlers Not
Always in Vain
Fraudulent Promotions Can
Still Be Found and Pub
lies Losses Run High, but
Enlightenment Spreads

SO long as human desire to get some.
thing for nothing exists, methods to COM
bat effectively the activities of stock
swindlers will fail. 1t has been est-
mated that the annual loss to the Amer
lean public through the purchase of
fraudulent stocks reaches the sum of
$500 100000, but this figure is of neces-
sty more or less guess work, as the
great mass of people who turn over
their money to questionable promo
tons, about which they know absolute
ly nothing, are too proud to admit their
gullibility.
1t is only when the operations of
such men as Ponzi, 1920 Per Cent"
Miller and John Law, of "Mississippi
Bubble" fame, become too fragrant that
the law steps in and puts stop to
their predatory activities. Ponzi's un-
doing probably lay in the fac that he
employed a press agent. Had he not
done so he might have continued his
dealings in international reply" cou-
pons until he felt he had accumulated
sufficient wealth to quit the country
and spend the remainder of his days
luxuriously in Italy.
Ponzi, however, with his promise of
so per cent profit to his clients every
SIXTY days, was plker compared with
"520 Per Cent" Miller, who pretended
to know enough about the future course
OF stock market prices to insure his
customers 10 per cent week on
money placed with him. Miller's op-
erations were conducted in 1899
Concern Prospered Long
This is the broker who maintains
through the Franklin Syndicate, at 144
Floyd Street, Brooklyn, but after
hourshing career of eight months his
place was raided.
The outstanding fact about the oper-
atlons OF the Franklin Syndicate was
the fact that the concern prospered for
months, while the authorities were
powerless to prove the existence of a
fraud. William f. Miller, promoter of
TINS dazzling enterprise, was only twen-
ty-three years old. He featured the ac
ceptance of small sums and the So
called investment of them for poor
people
1t was said that in the week preced
ing the RAID Miller received daily de-
posits aggregating from $50 900 to S40,-
ooo. The principle of his endless chain
was for old customers to bring him nd
oltlonal members, for which they were
ailo"ea commission Of per cent. An
astonishing feature was the stoid con-
hdence reposed in Miller by his dupes
TO the last. The total collected bv
Miller during the life of the Franklin
Syndicate was estimated by the police
at So, 400 900
bucket shops in the old sense of the
term nave become more or less extinct.
que largely to the efforts of the New
York Stock Exchange authorities. But
I cl
operations are conducted so cleverlv
that he can be touched neither by this
institution nor by the government.
Wins on Others Failures
This is the broker who maintains
injurious offices and has a host of
clients, the personnel of which is con-
tinually changing. This class of broker
advises his customers always to buv
securities, but never to sell. This sort
OF counsel is based on the we'll known
axiom that what goes up must eventu-
ally come down. By this process of
pyramiding the top-heavy structure
usually drops with q crash, and the
broker is left with the customers
funds, as the chances are he never exc
cuted their orders at all.
Stock Exchange officials and invest
ment institutions admit their inability
to reach this class of swindler except
by Withholding from his Offices the Off
cial quotations of the exchange. But
this is comparatively useless pana-
cea, as these quotations are so widely
distributed it is difficult to prevent
their theft from some source.
Officials of the Stock Exchange and
bankers have continually before them
the problem of meeting new methods
of the stock swindler but they admit
that this cannot be successfully solved
except by cducation-and more educa-
tion. This is one of the main purposes
of the Investors Information column
in The Tribune. Many letters received
daily by this department contain re-
quests for information about securities |