Evening star., 1925-10-22
LOST DOLLARS AB1LL1oN A YEAR
N-WhO Gets Them?
BY VI. b. LETICK.

When the crooked stock go-getter
goes out to get he uses no end of tricks.
Some of them are amazingly clever
and some are stupid. They all de-
pend on the willingness Of the victim
to believe-sometimeS to keep on be-
lieving despite a string of prison sen
tences in the career of his benefactor.
The staple methods are tried and true,
yet the men who watch these things
with "a punitive eye say the stock
crooks show their individuality in
their work. An expert on crooked
methods will he able to say. when he
hears the methods used by some COM
pany that is only grandiloquent
name, "Oh, that's So-and-So again
The salesman himself may be an
ordinary type of his kind. He may
even believe what he is doing; crews
are sometimes turned loose on the
public trained in high pressure sales
manship. without knowing just what
is back of their work. Or he may be
an affable fellow cashing in on his
popularity. The big operators, how
ever, often have way with them that
shows even in the forms of circular
letters. Some of them can put per
sonal magnetism in a printed page.
Occasionally a touch of the pic
turesque lights up some wolf-the ac-
ences, the mere name Of Gen" Rob
ert T.. Lee. Business men fought
the chance to give Leo Koretz their
money; he got So 1000 900, and when
he died in prison a credulous world
refused to believe he was really dead.
Rice Got Six Millions.
George Graham Rice had q fascina-
ton of n different sort, such as it was.
In Is years he duped 10000 individuals
out of Sc ,000, 900, it is said. Originally
Jacob Simon HerZtg, he used many
names. corporate and personal. Rice
was somewhere in the West a year
or so ago. He served three terms in
New York prisons and was known as
a forger, tout and promoter, yet he
found no trouble in getting new in
veStorS in each venture, and he was
always claiming he had been vindicated.
He bought reputable financial papers
and ran them into the ground. He
found partners who had regulations.
He acquired options in mining COM
panies whose officers were innocent
and then looted stock buyers. With
Shanghai" Larry Sullivan he organ
lied a trust company at Goldfield and
sold stock, and there was no evidence
of crime. He ran branches in seven
cities; they looked well on the let
terheads, but they were bucket shops.
But at any rate he could fight. His
fifth arrest came in 1918 after a battle
on every one of the Country's 20
exchanges-in none of which did he
hold membership. In that fight he
rugged the market: the stock went
from 60 cents to 1915 as a result Of
fake sales. Other operators bought
short, expecting to clean up when Rice
reached his limit. But he kept on.
There was mass attack. He bought
and bought. He was accused of
using his clients funds. 1t cost him
a million dollars, that fight. But 1T
| was different sort Of work than
picking pockets.
No Saving Grace.
! Rice figured in a list compiled six
years ago which showed fake promo
tions with a capitalization of $3,000.-
! 100000. Some of the promoters had
| organized as many as 80 companies
| each.
BY and large, the crooks have no
saving attributes. They don't fight.
Their routine is made up Of old lodges.
! The promoter who protests his un-
! selfishness, the one who Is crusading
| to save his victims from vague in
terests and octopuses, the one who
makes wild guarantees but has no