White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-07-22


have been stricken from the list of
the San Francisco stock exchange
board during the last few days,
among them being that OF the Broken
Hills, which three years ago was Wig
orously advertised and sold by per-
sonal effort in Ely and other towns
of the district.
The Broken Hills was a fake mine
promoted by George Graham Rice,
twice a convict at Biackwell's island
New York, for his financial manipu-
lations and once at Sing Sing. 1t was
while out on an appeal bond under
the Sing Sing sentence that he pro-
NOTED the Broken Hills and in the
face of it that the stock was hawked
in this district.
Broken Hills stock was not sold in
the Ely district by Rica's agents
alone. Persons engaged in business
locally took a hand in it and worked
actively for its sale. Several sales
involving hundreds of dollars were
effected by the efforts of men not in
the employ of Rice but by admirers
of his, who used as an argument that
in his Goldfield days Rice had em-
ployed a system of putting his stocks
up and had previously given an op-
portunity to his own employees who
had taken their wages in stock to re-
ceive a higher price than they had
paid. 1t a a fact that through the
general boom conditions of Goldfield
and the financial furnished
him by the management Of the State
Bank and Trust Company there Rice's
stocks had gone up in the manner
described and his Office help had been
offered opportunities to get out at ad
vanced prices but were talked out OF
it. Yet such never happened in the
case Of the Broken Hills stock AMI
those persons who were TALKED into
buying it here were brncoed out of
that much money and left to hold thu
sack. The names of some of those
who were induced to buy arc known,
one who parted with either $3.50 or
S35G after much persuasion by 4 man
not in Rice's employ being d. Boyd
Smith, formerly of McGill. The char
acter of Rice, his pending prison sen
tence and all about his previous rec
ord we're known to the persons here
who assisted in effecting the sales
These did not claim that the mine
had any merit. Their only claim was
that Rice had a system of putting the
stock up, which this time he failed
to do.
In effecting these sales Rice carried
on a campaign of advertising and also
sent here a former Ely newspaper
man, Ray d, Harris by name. Harris
worked in the newspaper business
several times at Goldfield and at one
time had a weekly paper at Seven
Troughs, near Loyelock. Through
having gained the acquaintance of
Rice at Goldfeld Harris entered his
employ at New York and Reno as a
publicity writer. Among others in
Rices employ was The late Sam c ,
Durham, formerly editor of the To
nopah Miner mad a poet of some abil-
ity, and Harry Hedrick. a former Col
orado newspaper man. Rice. Hedrick
and another of his writers were tried
In New York for using the mails to
defraud. The case was in progress
for several weeks, during which Ric
his attorneys and proceed
as his W counsel, showing mark
ed ability as such, but finally with
certain conviction Of all the ac-
cused imminent he entered into n
with the district attorney |
by which he was permitted to plead
guilty and accept a sentence of fifteen
months at Blackwell's to save the |
help from prison stripes. 1t not be-
ing new to Rice. he did not mind it, |
he having served a previos term for
an offense committed before he came
west.
Among his Ely friends, who are
some of the same to whom he was
close during his career at Rawhide.