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About Kendall Chronicle (Kendall, Mont.) 1902-190? | View This Issue
Kendall Chronicle (Kendall, Mont.), 23 Sept. 1902, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/sn85053338/1902-09-23/ed-1/seq-3/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
Kendall, Montana, September 23. 1902. 3. • GRAFT THROUGH THE MU Thousands of Dollars Daily Given Up to Swindlers. Many Intelligent People Who Do Not Read the Papers Are Easy Victims. Notwitstanding the fact that we are generally credited with being a news- paper -reading nation. I am often tempted to believe there must be many millions ot intelligent persons in the United States who never so much as glance at the headlines of a newspaper, says an official of the post - office department in the Washington Star. At any rate if these millions to whom I refer ever actually do read tan newspapers their gullibility must be so profound as to be unfathomable. Tne postoffice uepartment is con- stantly issuing fraud orders against Individuals and alleged firms engaged in getting rich in the operation of schemes that it would seem as if any shrewd child of ten ought to be able to see through without the least both- er. The other day, for example, the de- partment got alter a chap in Cincin- natti, who for some months had been conducting what he called a \turf bureau.\ He alleged in his really ad- mirably written circulars that he had private and absolutely certain meth- ods of obtaining Information as to the horses that were slated to win races on tracks all over the United States, and he guaranteed returns of tremen- eons proportions. Well, when we looked this fellow up, he promptly skipped, and his incoming mail was seized. It seems incredible, but every day's mail brought in thousands of dollars, in amounts ranging from *5 actually up to $500, Etna the letters enclosing cash and checks were near- ly all of them apparently wricten by persons of education. The book in which the man kept his simple ac- count of cash received showed that since he put his scheme into opera- tion he had taken in on less a sum Lan $466,000, almost out of the ques- tion as it may appear. 'the endless chain of schemes that the department runs down year after year are all of them money-makers for their operators. It would actually seem as if all a \busted\ individual had to do to get rich is to get a lot of circulars printed and send them out, borrowing the money for postage, and there will always be enough gulls to start him on his way. The cherry tree scheme, worked by a gang of southeastern men, one a clergyman, was a coliossal success for its promot- ers, and yet not a man in the crowd cad a coin to bless himself with when they started the endless chain scheme In motion. The more recent fountain pen fraud, worked by a couple of Pennsylvanians, yielded returns that went into the thousands every day, and I haven't a doubt in life that any number of similar endless chain schemes are being worked this very day that we shall have to go after later on. The people who bite on these endlee chain schemes all ob- viously want a whole lot for nothing, and this, combined with their strange simplicity, is at the bottom of the success of the fellows who attempt to make their fortunes through the use of the mails. You woula natur- ally suppose that persons sufficiently intelligent to possess an interest in stock speculation would be able to steer clear of \investment agents,\ whom they only know of through cir- culara, would you not? And yet the department is con- stantly in receipt of tales of woe from individuals who have invested sizable sums of money with New York and Chicago swindlers claiming to conduct speculative businesses, who operate entirely through the malls. These outfits are broken up by the United States postoffice authorities as soon as their fraudulent character is clear- ly established, but it seems impossi- ble to drive these fellows who run al- leged investment Agencies wholly out of business. The game is too easy for them and they are fully aware of ..., 3 8 -4 -*****-- 4 the great difficulty found in convict- ; ing them. As soon as the \brokerage\ firm that carries on its -business en- tirely by mail is smashed the men who have been successfully conduct- ing it simply move down to another block and open up another \broker- age\ office under another firm name. The shift only involves their getting out another batch of literature. The thousands and thousands of dollars which these sharpers take in year in and year out from people whose way ot cxpressing themselves on paper makes it patent that they are edu- cated men and women is a perpetual source of astonishment to me. The smaller fry of mail swindlers are the fellows who advertise that they will send \solid gold watches\ and all that sort of thing upon rrceipt of $1. Now, it doesn't seem reasonable to imagine that any man or woman sane enough to run loose in a civil- ized community ought to know per- fectly well that a solid gold watch or whatever other article it may be, perhaps \a genuine diamond ring,\ cannot be bought for the sum of $1. And yet there are responses to these ads reaching literally into the mil- lions and the promoters of these dodges nearly always get rich. Last year we routed out a fellow in Boston who advertised in a very elaborate and splurgy fashion throughout the country that he had got hold of a lot of \lucky stones\ on his travels through India which he was willing to purvey by mail upon receipt of $1 per stone. The money that chap got was something fabulous. The dollars were just raining in when the inspectors swooped upon his office and cleaned him out. He didn't care then wheth- er he was cleaned out or not. He had got the money. Something over a year ago the de- partment nailed a clever woman who was operating her little dodge down in Florida—a woman of tremendous shrewdness, this one was, sure enough. She advertised and sent out circulars to the effect that she was, a natural-born healer of any old dis- ease that was ever included in a med- ical book; mental or physical, and she set forth the fact that, if anything, she was some better as an \absent healer\ than she was a contact heal- er. All the person afflicted with any sort of disease had to do was to hike a $6 note along to her and she would spend five minutes at a certain hour of the day or night thinking of the person remitting the money. Thus, the afflicted one would be made whole. If I remember correctly, this little woman pulled in something like $200,000 with her scheme, and if she had really devoted five minutes of thought each day to each of her sub- scribers the day would have had to be about two months long. The beauty of the situation in her case was that absolutely nothing could be done in the way of punishment to her. ShF clung to it when nailed that she really was an \absent healer\ all right—although there was a merry twinkle in her eye as she said R— and the government hadn't any way of proving that she wasn't what she claimed to be, even had the govern- ment been disposed to establisn any such a contention. Not in recent years nave any of these mail swindlers been so bold as tnat humorist who, advertising that he would send a certain way of get- ting rich on receipt of $1, sent but little slips containing the words, \Work like the devil and never spend a cent,\ but manipulators of the mails almost as brazen are constant- ly requiring suppression. When one stops to reflect how many years this sort of mail swindling has been go- ing on. and then consider how many tens of millions of newspapers con- taining accounts of such swindles are constantly being thrown off of Amer- ican presses, one is tempted to take stock in that old aphorism that \there's a sucker born every minute and they never die.\ Weigh Reales and Coal Shed : Mr. II. SIMI] will have ten ton scales erected in front of his store this week for the use of the public. lie will also have ii coal shed erected in the rear of iiis store. The shed will be 10xI6 feet and will hold 50 tons. Mr. Smith will sup- ply Kendall people with coal this winter. Clii1) Saloon .1/ It NLEY vIVE.VUE, KEN1.1LL Hi di Grade ot Cigars TRY OUR • WHISKIES e !Alit I PROPRIETORS t Cedar Brook Clark Ry irli - 4 0 $414444 1 - #4.41 1 4 - 44404W414.410144444 , 04 440.414 1 044 444 Montana Hardware \wistiliana. Company The Largest and Most Complete Stock of 11INERS' SUPPLIES IN NORTHERN MONTANA. Everyt.iing that the mine owner and proapector needs we carry, Anvils, Forges, Picks, Shovels, Drills, Etc. .1 gent si 1,r Hercules Powder .111.4 Also a Full Une of Assayers' Supplies Carpenters i and Blacksmiths' Tools %Vile') it comes to kitchen furnishings, we have everything there is in the market In other lines of goods we are well stocked. W. S. SMITH TELEPHONE 115 LEWISTOWN, MONTANA EXCLUSIVE IN HOUSE FURNISHINGS TERMS CASH LEWISTOWN HOTEL Cii ARLES E. WRIGHT, Proprietor, „AAA Headquarters for Mining Men The Leading Hotel in Lewistown Subscribe for the CHRONICLE; 2 R year 4.4.0 Electric Lights Bar, and Billiard Rooms
