Gambling and Crime
Best Cure for Gambling: Teach Pupils in School Laws of Chance
Gambling Device Swindle Is Exposed in the Army and Navy—The Scope of Fraud Is World-Wide.
There Is No Such Thing As An Honest Gambler—Suicides Are Common—Gambling Kings Go Broke, and Often Die in the Poorhouse—It Is a Hard, Cold, Brutal Road the Gambler Travels—It Ends Badly.
We do not believe that many young men DELIBERATELY take up the gambler’s career. They drift into it through weakness, temptation or accident. If any young man DOES imagine that in the gambler’s life he can find more money, less work and more happiness than in honest living and honest work, he is the victim of a dangerous delusion.
A most miserable creature is the gambler. He knows himself, and therefore he hates himself.
No man can gamble and be honest, even with his friends, even with his family. The idea of the gambler is to get from another man what he has not earned from that man, giving nothing in exchange. And when a man spends his time trying to get away the money of others with no return he soon drifts into throwing aside ALL honesty, even the gambler’s brand.
The unsuccessful gambler is one of the worst of wrecks. He runs his little course of dissipation, dishonesty, cheating and swindling. He is over-matched and eliminated by the bigger, keener, self-controlled gambler, who eats him up as the big spider eats up the little spider. Hanging around saloons, begging for a little money with which to bet, doing the dirty work of the bigger gamblers—that is the fate of the little gambling cast-off. He is not worth talking about.
The gambler’s life is simply the life of a criminal. And, like every other successful criminal, the successful gambler has got to work very hard. What the burglar gets, what the pickpocket gets, what the gambler gets, is money painfully accumulated. The successful burglar, or pickpocket, or gambler must work hard and be forever on the alert. He must be remorselessly cruel in taking money from those that cannot stand the loss. He must be indifferent to all sense of decency, for he knows that he is robbing women and children.
The criminal in ANY line, gambler or other, cannot be a self-indulgent man if he is to be successful. The young man who imagines that the gambler’s life is a gay and easy one is badly mistaken. If he tries it he will live to envy ANY honest man who has a right to look other men in the face.
Why Gambling Makes Men Commit Crimes
The statistics of crime prove beyond all cavil that gambling is the king’s highway to fraud and theft. This is not merely because it loosens general morality and in particular saps the rationale of property, but because cheating is inseparably associated with most actual modes of gambling. This does not imply that most persons who bet are actually cheats or thieves; but persons who continue to be cheated or robbed, half conscious of the nature of the operations, are fitting themselves for the other and more profitable part if they are thrown in the way of acquiring a sufficient quantity of evil skill or opportunity. The “honor” of a confirmed gambler, even in high life, is known to be hollow commodity, and where there is less to lose in social esteem even this slender substitute for virtue is absent. What percentage of “men who bet” would refuse to utilize a secret tip of a “scratched” favorite or the contents of an illegally disclosed sporting telegram? The barrier between fraud and smartness does not exist for most of them.
No Basis for Livelihood
Serious investigation of the gambling process discloses the fact that pure gambling does not afford any economic basis of livelihood, save in a few cases where, as at the roulette table or in a lottery, those who gamble know and willingly accept the chances against them. And even in the case of the roulette table the profits to the bank come largely from the advantage which a large fund possesses in play against a smaller fund; in the fluctuations of the game the smaller fund which plays against the bank is more than likely at some point in the game to be absorbed so as to disable the player from continuing his play.
If a man with $5,000 were to play “pitch and toss” for $5 gold pieces with a number of men, each of whom carried only $50, he must, if they played long enough, win all their money. So, even where skill and fraud are absent, economic force is a large factor in success.
Temptation to Embezzle
Since professional gambling in a stock broker, a croupier, a bookmaker, or any other species involves some use of superior knowledge, trickery, or force, which in its effect on the “chance” amounts to “loading” the dice, the non-professional gambler necessarily finds himself a loser on any long series of events. These losses are found, in fact, to be a fruitful cause of crime, especially among the men employed in business where sums of money belonging to the firm are passing through their hands. It is not difficult for a man who constantly has in his possession considerable funds which he has collected for the employer to persuade himself that a temporary use of these funds, which otherwise lie idle, to help him over a brief emergency, is not an act of real dishonesty. He is commonly right in his plea that he had no direct intention to defraud his employer. He expected to be able to replace the sum before its withdrawal was discovered. But since legally a person must be presumed to “intend” that which is a natural or reasonable result of his action, an indirect intention to defraud must be ascribed to him. He is aware that his act is criminal as well as illegal in using the firm’s money for any private purpose of his own. But in understanding and assessing the quality of guilt involved in such action, two circumstances which extenuate his act, though not the gambling habit which has induced it, must be taken into account. A poor man who frequently bets must sooner or later be cleared out and unable, out of his own resources, to meet his obligations. He is induced to yield to the temptation the more readily for two reasons. First, there is a genuine probability (not so large, however, as he thinks) that he can replace the money before any “harm is done.” So long as he does replace it no harm appears to him to have been done; the firm has lost nothing by his action.
How Commerce Condones Crime
This narrower circumstance of extenuation is supported by a broader one. The whole theory of modern commercial enterprise involves using other people’s money, getting the advantage of this use for one’s self and paying to the owner as little as one can.
A bank or a finance company is intrusted with sums of money belonging to outsiders on condition that when required, or upon agreed notice, they shall be repaid. Any intelligent clerk in such a firm may be well aware that the profits of the firm are earned by a doubly speculative use of this money which belongs to other people; it is employed by the firm in speculative investments which do not essentially differ from betting on the turf, and the cash in hand or other available assets are kept at a minimum on the speculative chance that depositors will not seek to withdraw their money, as they are legally entitled to do. In a firm which thus lives by speculating with other people’s money, is it surprising that a clerk should pursue what seems to him substantially the same policy on a smaller scale? It may doubtless be objected that a vital difference exists in the two cases: the investor who puts his money into the hands of a speculative company does so knowingly, and for some expected profit; the clerk who speculates with the firm’s money does so secretly, and no possible gain to the firm balances the chance of loss. But even to this objection it is possible to reply that recent revelations of modern finance show that real knowledge of the use to which money will be put cannot be imputed to the investor in such companies, and that, though some gain may possibly accrue to him, such gain is essentially subsidiary to the prospects of the promoters and managers of these companies.
Wherein Speculation Differs
It is true that these are not normal types of modern business; they are commonly designated gambling companies, some of them actually criminal in their methods. But they only differ in degree, not in kind, from a large body of modern businesses, whose operations are so highly speculative, their risks so little understood by the investing public, and their profits apportioned with so little regard to the body of shareholders, as fairly to bring them under the same category. In a word, secret gambling with other people’s money, on the general line of “heads I win, tails you lose,” is so largely prevalent in modern commerce as perceptibly to taint the whole commercial atmosphere. Most of these larger gambling operations are either not illegal or cannot easily be reached by law, whereas the minor delinquencies of fraudulent clerks and other employes are more easily detected and punished.
But living in an atmosphere where secret speculation with other people’s money is so rife, where deceit or force plays so large a part in determining profitable coups, it is easy to understand how an employe, whose conduct in most matters is determined by imitation, falls into lax ways of regarding other people’s money and comes in an hour of emergency to “borrow” the firm’s money. This does not excuse his crime, but it does throw light upon its natural history.
When It Will Cease
Publicity and education are, of course, the chief instruments for converting illegitimate into legitimate speculation, for changing commercial gambling into commercial foresight. This intelligent movement toward a restoration of discernible order and rationality in business processes, by eliminating “chances” and placing the transfer of property and the earning of industrial gains on a more rational foundation, must, of course, go with other movements of social and industrial reforms which aim simultaneously at the basis of reformation of the economic environment. Every step which places the attainment of property upon a sane rational basis, associating it with proportionate personal productive effort, every step which enables men and women to find orderly interests in work and leisure by gaining opportunities to express themselves in art or play under conditions which stimulate new human wants and supply means of satisfying them, will make for the destruction of gambling.
Gambling Don’t Pay
Two-fifths of all the crimes committed every year are estimated to be attributable to race tracks. Five men have been convicted this year of stealing money from the United States postoffice, and every one of them confessed he lost the money at race tracks. The mania for gambling is growing stronger, and as it grows the defenses of honesty crumble away.
What may be called gambling thieves are not so numerous in Chicago as in some other cities, for the reason that no race tracks are permitted to exist in Cook county. But there are many gambling swindlers in this city. A large proportion of the men in the county jail are there because gambling wrecked morals in them, and hardly a week passes that does not find at least one person before the courts charged with robbery because money was wanted to bet.
This is not all of the injury that gambling does to the community. Because the state’s attorney’s office and the police have not suppressed gambling the city is full of sharpers who make their living out of men foolish enough to think that they can get rich by betting on horse races, faro or roulette. These sharpers are an organized band of law breakers, preying on society, disorganizing it as far as is possible, their whole existence a menace to decency and order.
The passion for gambling can probably never be eradicated from human nature. But civilization should be able to prevent rogues and rascals from profiting by it in the way usual in Chicago. Professional gamblers—professional swindlers, should be sent to the penitentiary and kept there. There should be some means under the law to send all such to the penitentiary and keep them there.
How to End Race-Track Gambling
Race-track gambling has unexpectedly become an issue of importance in New York, and widespread discussion of means to rid the city of its race tracks is taking place.
Discussion, however, is unnecessary. The way to end the plague of betting on races is plain. Let the grand jury indict officials of the Western Union Telegraph Company for complicity in bookmaking and send them to jail. Without gambling race tracks would be deserted. Without the aid of the Western Union there would be no gambling worth mentioning. Strike at the Western Union and the race tracks would go out of existence.
The Western Union Company is the one great encourager of gambling in this country. But for its reports of races, hundreds of thousands of young men would be saved from ruin every year. It is in partnership with sharpers who fleece the foolish. It shares their gains in payment for the use of its wires. The money that flows into its coffers from that source is taken by trickery from the public. The race track swindlers rob a man and hand over a part of their loot to the Western Union, because without the Western Union’s assistance they could not have robbed him.
But for the Western Union Telegraph Company not a single race track would be in operation in the United States, for without the Western Union’s aid race tracks would not be profitable.
The way to stop race tracks gambling and drive race courses out of existence is to compel the Western Union to observe the law which forbids just such practices as those of which it is guilty every day. That can be done only by sending a few Western Union officials to jail and keeping them there until their company concludes to dissolve partnership with crooks.
Learn Early Not to Gamble; Teach Pupils Law of Chance
Mere driftwood on a restless wave;
A shuttlecock that’s tossed by Fate;
Year follows year into the grave,
Whilst thou dost cry, “Too late! Too late!”
A life that’s but a wintry day,
Whilst chilling storms blow thee about;
A tempter thou durst not say nay;
A conscience long since put to rout.
Who gets by play a loser is;
The gambler stakes his very heart;
What’s prodigally won’s not his;
Who wagers takes the knave’s foul part.
Thou shouldst not steal nor covet what
Another hath by labor earned;
No man who hath with wisdom wrought
But this base sport hath ever spurned.
Why haggard thus thy fair, young face
With vigils, passions, aimed at gain?
Is this thy mission in this place—
This idleness which brings disdain?
Be not a weakling, nor of wax;
Let mind be master over thee;
See that its shaping of thy acts
Prepares thee for eternity!
Art thou thy brother’s keeper?
Most emphatically, yes, if he be not sufficiently strong to refrain from doing that which is injurious to himself and those dependent upon him.
Public Lax; Gamblers Active
When the law declares against gambling, and advertisement and sale of even “fair” gambling paraphernalia, why is it that the righteous majority, which would not stoop to this form of speculation, sits inertly by, allows crooked devices to be advertised and sold, permits hundreds of men to waste their time and substance, and dozens to blow out their brains as a consequence?
Why do “good” men prate on “personal liberty,” which is merely their way of washing their hands of the responsibility for good government.
Does it eradicate the evil to say a man is a free moral agent and need not lose his money gambling unless he wants to; that “virtue is its own reward;” that “honesty is the best policy,” or that taking without giving return is a sin?
Would it not be better for this inactive majority of talkers to elect incorruptible men who can do something besides talk—men who would enforce the laws and provide heavy punishments for concerns which make gambling machines in which the unsuspecting have absolutely no chance to win?
Are We Following Rome to the Pit?
Are we going the way of Greece and Rome? Is there a menace in the rapid increase of wealth in the United States? Are we allowing the moral tone of society to sink?
The present tendency is toward speculation, even from childhood. In most cities the child barely able to walk can find slot machines in candy stores and drug stores from which he is made to believe he can get something for nothing. Is this the proper training to give children? Is it right to get something for which no return of money or labor is given? And is it right to thus lure children when adults know that their pennies more than pay for what they get—premiums and all?
Children in school should be taught to calculate probabilities as a part of their course in elementary arithmetic. Then they would know better than to play slot machines or buy prize packages. And when they grew up they would shun the bookmaker, the lottery, and the roulette wheel.
The ordinary gambler speculates partly because he loves the excitement and thrill of the game, but mainly, he will assure you, as he assures himself, he is buoyed up by the hope of winning. He does not stop to figure out his chances. If he sees a hundred to one shot he will play it, seeing only that by risking a dollar he has a chance to win a hundred. If he had been taught in school to see that really the chances were 200 to 1 against him, and that he was betting a dollar against fifty cents, he would keep his money in his pockets. Of course the man who plays the races knows the odds of the book are against him. He prides himself, however, that he is a wise reader of the “dope sheet,” and that can overcome the odds by a superior cunning.
He knows that he can’t win on his luck, for this “breaks even” in the long run.
Fate’s Cards Always Stacked
But the man who plays against a machine, if he has taken the elementary course in the law of probabilities, can suffer under no delusions and cannot give himself any reasonable excuse. He is bound to lose. The odds on the machine are against him. And even if they were not, it is entirely likely that the machine would win. An old gambler contends that if a man matched pennies all day every day for a month against a purely mechanical device he would quit a heavy loser. The only way he could keep even would be to start out with “heads” or “tails,” and then go away and leave the machine at work, never changing his bet. If he remained to watch the operation he would, be sure to lose his head and begin to “guess” against the relentless mechanism, and then he would lose.
In the ordinary coin-paying slot machine, the dial shows alternate reds and blacks, interspersed here and there with quarters, halves and, perhaps, $1. The player wins 5 cents on the black, 20 cents on the quarter, 45 cents on the half, and 95 cents on the dollar. The dials differ, but suppose there are thirty reds, thirty blacks, ten quarters, five halves, and one dollar. The chances are against you, then, on the red or black, 46 to 30; on the quarter, 66 to 24; on the half, 71 to 24, and on the dollar, 75 to 19. Most players, it is said, prefer the larger sums as a hazard in the coin machines, although the probabilities against them are much greater. Again, they are dazzled by the chance of winning a large sum at a small risk. Really, they are betting their nickel against 3 cents on the red or black, and against 2 cents or less on the larger sums.
Children Throw Away Money
If the children knew this they would not fool away their money in the machines when they go for a boat ride on the lake, and it is reasonable to suppose that grown men and women would beware of them if they had learned to figure chances when they were in school. In the penny machines in the cigar stores the probabilities are harder to figure. You play a cent in the machine, and if you get two pairs from a revolving pack of cards, always exposing the faces of five, you win a 5-cent cigar. In most of the machines you must get “jacks up or better” in order to win. Any poker player will bet you a chip on any deal that you will not have as good as a pair of trays, and the chances that you will have two pairs as good as jacks up must be at least twenty to one.
Some of the machines consist of wheels of fortune which revolve from the weight of the penny dropped in the slot. In any event the child gets a penny’s worth of goods, and there are chances to get two or five cents’ worth. Gum machines give an alleged cent’s worth of gum, with a chance for a coupon, which is good for a nickel’s worth without extra charge.
How many steps is this apparently harmless form of amusement removed from the deceptive slot machines in cigar stores? And, in turn, how many steps are these cigar machines removed from those in the saloons? The boy who wins five cents worth in the candy store will take cigarette tobacco or a cigar, if the dealer be unprincipled. Next he tries for a cigar in a cigar store, and then for a cigar in a saloon. If he is lucky in the last named, he is asked to a friendly game of poker. Beyond asking if it is a pleasure to either lose to or win from a friend, and to express the opinion that even though the game be perfectly square, and there be no rake-off, it still remains true that the time lost, and money spent for drinks and cigars, far outweigh in value any pleasure that may be experienced.
Confederates Used
Men who make a business of conducting and playing poker games stop at nothing to get the money. The expenses of running the place, and the free lunches, drinks and cigars dispensed must be paid for by some one, and the proprietor is not in business to lose money. The game in which there is no rake-off cannot possibly be square, and where there is a rake-off the odds against you are prohibitive, if you play fair. With seven men in a game of “draw,” three of whom are “house” men, the amount which goes into the “kitty” nightly is usually about equal to the losses of the other cheat who dares not be found out.
Cheating Device in a Slot Machine
Ordinarily the owners and saloonkeepers divide the winnings of all slot machines. In a fair machine the winnings fall into the receptacle A. Most of the money gambled by players found its way into this depository. It did not please the owner of this machine to share his profits equally with the saloonkeeper. The winning player was paid from the nickels which lined a zig-zag chute ending at C. The owner changed this scheme by inserting the secret bag B. Then he cut a hole in the chute at D. and arranged a spring which diverted one out of three nickels into B. As long as the chute was empty below the point of entrance of A the nickels kept on filling the zig-zag runway.
When the machine was seized, in the box where all the gains were supposed to be, $60.20 was found. These two sums represented the total proceeds of a day.
Confederates, mirrors, words, signs and hold-outs are used. A player dealing from a stacked deck will inform his confederate how many cards to draw by uttering a sentence containing that number of words. Men lounging behind a player will “tip off” his hand. Cards are marked in a manner imperceptible to the eye of the novice, and sometimes liquid refreshment is spilled on the table in front of the dealer, so that his opposite can read the reflections of the cards as they are dealt face downward across the board. The last-named scheme is used where the table has no covering.
There are many who believe that talks of crookedness at card tables are only sermons by “goody-goodies,” who know not whereof they speak. Let the following advertisement, recently sent broadcast over the country by a large concern located in the business center of one of America’s largest cities, refute such claims:
HOLD OUTS.
“Correspond with Us Before Buying of Others.”
We have the finest line in the country, and every machine is made to get the money—not for ornament, and accuracy. Is as perfect as a watch. Works with a knee movement, and by a slight movement everything disappears. If they have played cards all their lives they will stand it.
Our price only $125.00.
The circular also mentioned dozens of other crooked devices at lesser prices, and contained illustrations showing how the machines work. Can there be any doubt these are used when concerns devote their entire time to manufacturing them and can get such high prices?
The sleeve hold-out above mentioned, is made of a hair cloth sideway, about the same size as a deck of cards, with its narrow sides laid in fine, plaited folds, so that it will either lie flat or expand. This is sewed in the sleeve of the coat or shirt and reaches from the cuff to the elbow joint. One of the wide sides is sewn or pasted to the cuff, both ends being open. At the elbow a strap fits around the arm, to which is attached a metal tube that reaches down to the near end of the sleeve, with a pulley attached to the end. A short wide elastic is also attached to the strap, and to the elastic is fastened a metal clamp that holds the cards. A cord is attached to this clamp, which runs down and over the pulley, then back to the elbow through the metal tube, thence to the shoulder, through the clothing to the body, thence down through the loop at the heel, with a hook attached to the end. The cord passes through a flexible tube from the elbow to the ankle. This tube will bend easily, but will not flatten, and is attached to the clothing with string ties to keep it in line with the body. Its use is to prevent the cord from ticking or binding.
To work this hold out the hook at the end of the cord is fastened to the loop of the shoe on the opposite foot. When the feet are spread apart the act causes the cord to draw the clamp referred to down through the sideway and to the near end of the sleeve. Any cards that are in it will reach into the palm of the hand, where they can be taken out or placed back into the clamp. By drawing the feet together again the cord relaxes, and the elastic will draw the clamp and the cards it contains back up the slideway to its place near the elbow. There are other similar hold-outs. Don’t let them hold you up.
Marked Cards.
Marked cards are known among gamblers as “Paper,” and are considered an article of utility in draw poker. The dealer, should he be a second dealer, will deal second to himself instead of reading the hand of his opponent’s, thus giving himself a pair, two pair, threes or whatever he wishes. Marked cards are used by those who are not second dealers, as they are often able to fill a hand by holding a card in the hand to correspond to the card on the top of the pack, and in any case enabled to read opponent’s hands and play accordingly. They are perhaps the greatest advantage to a professional second dealer, as by drawing a bob-tail card of any kind he can spoil the chances of an honest player, however, skillful. People at large are becoming aware of many of the schemes used in swindling, but so fast as the public becomes acquainted with a scheme, the shark invents something to take its place or practices the old one until he has it so fine under his manipulation it is hardly recognizable. A professional gambler is soon known. Even if he is never detected cheating, he is given credit for it.
Cards Marked With Finger Nails.
This is a mark put on the cards during the progress of the game, with finger nail or thumb nail. It is put on so that the gambler may know just what his opponent holds. The ace is marked with a straight line or mark in upper right hand corner. The king, is a straight line about one-half inch long in the center of the card. The queen is a straight line a half inch longer than the king. The jack is a straight line about the center of the card. The ten spot is designated by a straight line or mark in the same position as the ace. The nine spot is a slanting line in position of king. The eight is a slanting line in position of queen. Seven is a slanting line in position of jack. The six is denoted by a straight line in position of ace, running across the card at right angles to the ace mark. The five is same as six in position of king. The four is the same as five and six in position of queen. The tray is same mark in position of jack. Deuce is a cross below the jack sign. The mark denoting the suit of the card is placed in the center of the top of the card. Hearts are designated by a perpendicular line at the center end of the card. Clubs are shown by a horizontal line in the same position. Diamonds are shown by a slanting line in the same position. And of course, as hearts, clubs and diamonds are marked, a card without a mark would be a spade. This is one of the most dangerous tricks, as it is done during the progress of the game, and unless some one knows something about it, it would never be detected.
The Double Discard.
This is used by many of the gamblers, and is done through the neglect of the players. The man doing this will always draw three cards, no matter what he may hold in his hand. It is done by placing the cards he wishes to keep on top of the ones he wishes to discard, and laying them down beside him, ostensibly discarding them. As he is given his three cards he looks them over and has eight cards out of which to pick his hand. Suppose in his original hand he held three diamonds and a club; he places the three diamonds beside him and calls for three cards, holding one diamond and the club in his hand. When his cards are dealt him he has five cards out of which to pick two diamonds. He selects two cards and discards three cards; at the same time he picks up the three cards that he discarded first. Very few are expert enough to this trick without detection.
Check Signs.
This is a set of signs made with the use of checks. In making these signs a white check counts one, a piece of silver or a colored check counts five; often when colored checks or silver are not handy, matches are used instead. The count of checks corresponds to the size of the cards. One colored check would denote a pair of fives, or three fives, when used in a certain way, which I will endeavor to explain fully. Of course, all these different signs are used between two men, who are in league with each other in order to cheat a game. The first sign in this set is the sorting of cards, which means that the hand is no good. Should this sign not be given, the partner will look for the sign denoting what is held. When one man wishes to show that he has a pair, he holds the check or cards in the right hand, slightly to the left of his body. For instance, a white cheek held in the right hand, nearly in front of the heart, would denote that a pair of aces were held. Two checks, a pair of deuces, and so on to eleven, which signifies jacks; twelve, queens, and thirteen, kings. For two pair, the head pair is shown, the checks being held squarely in front. For instance, aces up would be shown by holding one white check up in front of the body. For three of a kind, the same sign is used, merely the check is held a little to the right of the body. Three colored and one white would signify that a straight was held; four colored and one white would signify that a flush was held; five colored and one white check would signify that a full house was held; six colored and one white would mean four of a kind; two colored checks, together in the palm of the hand, means a straight flush.
Uses to Which a Pack of Cards May be Put.
A pack of cards may be used as a Bible, a prayer book, and an almanac. As a Bible and prayer book, the ace should remind you that there is one God; the deuce, of the Father and Son; the tray, of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; the four, of the four evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the five of the five virgins, who had filled and trimmed their lamps; the six, of the command to labor six days a week; the seven, of the seventh day, which God blessed and hallowed; the eight, of the eight righteous persons who were saved in the ark, Noah, his wife and three sons and their wives; the nine, of the nine lepers who were cleansed by our Savior and never thanked Him for it; the ten, of the ten commandments; the king, of the Great King Almighty: the queen, of Sheba, who visited Solomon; Solomon was the wisest man living, and she was as wise a woman as he was a man; the knave, of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed our Savior.
As an almanac, count the spots, and you have three hundred and sixty-five, the number of days in a year. Count the cards, and you have fifty-two, the number of weeks in a year. Count the suits, and you have four, the number of weeks in a month. Count the face cards, and you have twelve, the number of months in a year. Count the tricks, and you have thirteen, and you have the number of weeks in a quarter.
The Bill Hand.
You have often seen a lot of poker players playing with a lot of checks stacked up in front of them and a few bills or greenbacks spread out in front of them, between checks and themselves. A player having his checks in this manner needs watching, for it is easy to slide a full hand or four of a kind under those bills whenever an opportunity occurs. Whenever a good fat pot appears he can use this hand which he has under the bills by simply putting his hand on top of the bills and turning them over, which brings the good hand on top and poor ones under the bills. He always makes a practice of laying his cards down on the bills, and other players see it at different times and will think nothing of it. The only way to detect this is by missing the five cards out of the pack, and one has to be a expert to miss five cards out of fifty-two without counting them, and after playing a good hand in this way he must get rid of the deal hand, which is under the bills, in order to get ready to collect another hand for the next play. The principal thing about this work is to do it at the right time and with the right people.
Toothpick or Cigar Signs.
A gambler will use a set of signs made with a cigar, pipe or toothpick to show his partner what he holds in his hand. The signs are as follows: The cigar, pipe or toothpick placed in the left side of the mouth signifies a pair. On the right side two pair; in the center of the month means threes. To signify that a straight is held the cigar is moved up and down with the fore finger. Working in the same manner with the first and second finger denotes a flush. With the third finger denotes a full house. With fourth finger means four of a kind. To show the size of the hand the fingers are placed on the cigar, pipe or toothpick in the following manner: Suppose a pair of aces are held, the cigar is placed in the left hand corner of the mouth and touched with the first finger of the right hand. Aces up or three aces can be shown in the same way. The first finger denoting aces, the second kings, the third queens and the fourth jacks.
GAMBLING DEVICE SWINDLE IN ARMY AND NAVY.
Scope of Fraud World-Wide—Soldiers and Sailors Victims of Contrivances.
On May 19, 1906, Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, with ten men, swooped down on: H. C. Evans, 125 South Clark street; George De Shone, 462 North Clark street; Barr & Co., E. Manning Stockton, 56 Fifth avenue. The offices were raided and sure-thing gambling devices valued at $5,000 seized and destroyed. H. C. Evans was arrested and fined $200; George De Shone was arrested and fined $100, and E. Manning Stockton arrested and fined $25. Afterwards E. Manning Stockton was indicted, arrested and gave bonds, which he forfeited and then fled.
Disclosure of conditions which so seriously threatened the discipline of the United States army and navy that the secretaries of the two departments, and even President Roosevelt himself, were called upon to aid in their suppression, were made in the Harrison Street police court following this arrest.
It was charged that a coterie of Chicago men engaged in making and selling these devices had formed a “trust,” and had for years robbed, swindled, and corrupted the enlisted men of the army and navy through loaded dice, “hold-outs,” magnetized roulette wheels, and other crooked gambling apparatus.
The “crooked” gambling “trust” in Chicago spread over the civilized world, had its clutches on nearly every United States battleship, army post, and military prison; caused wholesale desertions, and in general corrupted the entire defense of the nation.
Try to Corrupt School Boys.
Besides the corruption of the army, these companies are said to have aimed a blow at the foundation of the nation, by offering, through a mail order plan, for six cents, loaded dice to school boys, provided they sent the names of likely gamblers among their playmates.
This plan had not reached its full growth when nipped. But the disruption of the army and navy had been under way for several years, and had reached such gigantic proportions that the military service was in danger of complete disorganization.
Thousands of men were mulcted of their pay monthly.
Desertions followed these wholesale robberies. The War Department could not find the specific trouble. Post commanders and battleship commanders were instructed to investigate.
The army investigation, confirmed after the raid and arrests, showed that the whole army had been honey-combed with corruption by these companies. Express books and registered mail return cards showed that most of the goods were sold to soldiers and sailors.
Forts Infected by Evil.
Fort Riley, Cavite, P. I., Manila, P. I., Honolulu, the Alaskan army posts, Fort Leavenworth, Fort Reno, Fort Logan, Columbus Barracks, Fort McPherson, were among the posts where hundreds of dollars worth of equipment was sent, and where thousands upon thousands of dollars a month was the booty obtained by the Chicago trust on a commission basis.
Battleships in every squadron, the naval stations of this nation all through the world, navy yards, and other points where marines are stationed, have been loaded with the devices.
It was found, upon investigation, that “cappers” were selected from the enlisted men. Agents, who ran the games on commission, were also found. These men, dazzled by financial prospects, deserted in droves.
Many Victims Suicides.
The men who were fleeced and had their small pay taken from them month after month, became reckless. Some ended as suicides. Hundreds became unruly and were subjected to guard-house sentences. They deserted in their despair. The conditions in the navy were even worse. Scores of the battleship crews would be in irons at a time.
To the honor of the service, it was found that no officers had ever participated in the corrupting vocation. It was the rank and file who “fell for it,” as the gamblers said. They became either tools or victims, to the extent, it was estimated, of 60 per cent.
KING DEATH.
An Average of 200 Suicides a Year at Monte Carlo—Many Bodies Are Secretly Thrown Into Sea by Authorities of This, the World’s Greatest Gambling House.
Paris, Nov. 20.—Three thousand known suicides and murders have been committed in Monte Carlo in the space of fifteen years. The known suicides average fully 200 a year, and some weeks there have been as many as three a day. The Casino authorities do everything to hush up scandals and news of tragedies. A large force of plain-clothes men are engaged to either prevent suicides or to hurry the body of the dead unfortunate out of the way. It is estimated that more than one-half of the tragedies of Monte Carlo are never heard of except by the Casino staff. The corpse is rushed quietly to the morgue—a secret morgue. Here it is kept some time to see whether relatives or friends are going to interfere or kick up a row.
Bodies Thrown in Ocean.
Every once in a while a small steamer slips out of the harbor at dead of night. Its cargo is secured at the secret morgue. At sea the bodies are thrown overboard, duly weighted, without toll of bell or muttered prayer. There are countless graves of unknown dead in the Monte Carlo cemetery. But these are only those whose death has become known to the public. The Casino authorities have a special bureau, whose duties are to relieve persons ruined at the tables. The ruined gambler can get from this bureau enough money to take him to his home, or to some spot far from Monaco. Few know of this, perhaps, or there would not be so many deaths. The “dead-broke” gambler is taken through many inner chambers and before stern-faced men, to whom he has to tell his history in detail. He is also confronted with the different croupiers, who testify as to whether he really lost as much as he may claim.
Banish the Dead Broke.
Then the wretched man has to sign a document banishing himself forever from Monaco. His name and particulars are written in the “black book,” his photograph is taken and given to the doorkeepers and other officials to study, and then the man is taken to the railway station, a ticket bought, a few dollars given him, and an official escorts him as far as the frontier. Should he return it would not avail him. The police would turn him back again into France or Italy. It is related that an American who was “broke” and anxious to get back to the United States heard of this feature of Monte Carlo. He had not gambled there because he had no money, but he managed to make his way to Monte Carlo and demanded to see the authorities. He coolly asked for a steamer ticket to New York. Inquiries revealed that he had only just arrived in Monaco, and had never put a foot inside the Casino, but despite this the authorities gave him a steerage ticket to New York and saw him on his way.
Bonapartes Big Stockholders.
There is also the case of an important Indian army officer who went broke. The authorities gave him first-class passage to Calcutta, and $250 expense money. He had lost several thousands. As much as $2,500 has been paid out to a big loser so that he could settle up his hotel bill and take himself and family home. Should such money be paid back the Casino might again welcome the man. The sums usually paid range from $25 to $200, and an average of 1,000 people a year apply for this relief. The profits of the Casino are immense. Last year they were $7,500,000, an increase of $760,000 over the previous year. Seventy per cent was paid to the shareholders. The majority of the shares are held by the Blanc family, the leading member of which is the Princess Marie Bonaparte, whose father was Prince Roland Bonaparte, and mother the daughter of M. Blanc, the founder of Monte Carlo. She is the wealthiest princess in the world, and was lately married to Prince George of Greece, who is an impecunious princeling and needs the money.
Prince Owns no Stock.
The prince of Monaco has not a single share in the enterprise. But he derives his entire income from the sum paid him by the Gamblers’ Company for the lease of Monaco. The prince is of especial interest to Americans, because of his American wife. She was Miss Alice Heine of New Orleans. When she married the prince she was a widow, the Dowager Duchess of Richelieu. The prince is a “divorced” man. He first married Lady Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, and a son and heir was born. But eleven years after the marriage the pair were so unhappy that an appeal was made to the pope. The Catholic church, of course, does not recognize divorces, but the pope issued a special pronouncement declaring his 11-year-old marriage invalid, for the reason that the Lady Mary’s mother “over-persuaded her to marry.”
Receives Enormous Income.
The prince, in return for the gambling concession, has been getting an annual income of a quarter of a million dollars and all the expenses of running the State of Monaco, including the maintenance of the army and the royal palace. He recently granted a further contract to the “Monaco Sea-Bathing Company,” or to give the gambling concerns the full title “La Societé Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Etrangers à Monaco.”
This concession now extends to 1947, and the annual income of the prince has been raised $100,000. Every ten years it will be raised an additional $50,000. In six years time the Casino will also have to pay him a lump sum down of $3,000,000. It is stated that the prince of Monaco is by no means in favor of the Casino, and that he abhors the gambling and the consequent scandal in his state, and that could he do so, he would at once stop it. But in the old original contract it was agreed that the concession should be extended to 1947, and the prince is not rich enough to break this contract and pay the indemnity which the law would quickly assess.
Gambling Kings Go Broke; Often Die in the Poorhouse.
Some one has advanced the statement that every human being is a gambler at heart. Yet for a man to go into the business of establishing a card gambling house under modern conditions is to attempt one of the riskiest businesses in the world. Recently one of the most noted gaming-house keepers in the country seems to have suggested a further anomaly in the situation in his utterance in a court of record:
“When I conduct a house on a 10 per cent basis of profit it is only a matter of time until my steady patron ‘goes broke.’”
In the face of this statement, however, the innocent layman may be still further at sea when it is recalled by old habitues of the gaming table that nearly every gambling king of modern history has finished close to the poorhouse and the potter’s field! How is it possible that the gambler with the insidious, certain 10 per cent which inevitably wrecks the man who goes often enough to the green table almost invariably dies in poverty?
Must Have Fortune to Invest.
Today it is the gambler king who at least has an ephemeral show to gain fleeting riches. But in order that these riches shall approach riches as they are measured in other businesses, the man who opens the gambling house must have a fortune for the investment. His outlawed business itself will make it certain that he pays the maximum rental or the highest price for the property which he chooses for occupancy. To sustain this he will need to seek out the wealthy patron who not only has money to lose, but who may have a certain influence which may tend toward immunity for keeper and player alike. The “establishment” will need to have the best cuisine and the best cellars, with palatial furnishings and a retinue of servants in full keeping.
And somewhere money will be necessary in blinding officials to the existence of an institution which is visible to the merest tyro in passing along the street.
A constitution of iron, the absence of a nervous system, the discrimination of a King Solomon and the tact of a diplomat are requisites for the successful gambling king. Considering the qualification of the man for such a place and the final ending of the gambling king’s career, it might be a sociological study worth while to determine where, on a more worthy bent, such capacities in a man might land him.
In real life, however, it must be admitted that the gambler king is looked upon in exaggerated light. Almost without exception the big gambler is posing always. Conventionality has demanded it of him. But for more than this, in order to command the following which he desires, he must have a certain social side which is not too prominent, but which with tact and judgment he may bring out on dress parade. To the layman the gambler is the dark, sinister figure pictured in melodrama. He bears the same relation to gambling that Simon Legree bore to the institution of slavery of fifty years ago.
Story of One Gambler King.
One of the noted gamblers of his time in this country passed from laboring on the docks into the prize ring. When his ring work was ended the gambling house was an easy step onward in illegitimate fields. On the docks his reputation was not above a bit of “strong arm” work in separating a man from the money which the dock walloper wanted. Naturally, under the Queensberry rules, there were things in the ring which he could not do in overcoming an antagonist, and he learned to make concessions to fairness—which was education.
Opening a gambling house that was adapted to the wants of a rich clientele, it was a necessity that he preserve this educational regard for his patrons, and that he should add to it. Soon he was in a position where it was imperative that his reputation for fair dealing be kept intact. He became the “gentleman gambler” whose “word” carried all the accepted concomitants of his gentleman’s business. In the course of events he attained a high legislative office under the government. But it may be said for those who knew the man as a man, not one ever ceased to regard him at heart as the dock walloper, with the inherent and unreconstructed disposition to regard other men as legitimate prey. Had other conditions and circumstances made a card sharp of him, he would have held to the promptings of his nature.
In the conduct of a gambling house of the first class, the gambling king needs for himself and for his patrons the assurance of uninterrupted play. Men of money and position will not go to a house where there is menace of a police raid. The small gambler may subsidize the policeman on the beat in which his house stands, but he cannot placate the whole Police Department. And even when it is thought that the gambler king is impregnable in his castle someone may break over the barriers and raid the place in the name of the law and order.
Within a few years New York has given to the world some of the inside working of the gambling business. When Jerome raided the place of places which had been considered immune, the proprietor of the house was considered worth a million dollars. Before the litigation was done and the fine paid the gambler king was out $600,000, his “club-houses” were closed, and he had been branded officially as a common gambler, pursued in the courts for payment of lawyers’ fees, which he designated as outrageous and a “shrieking scandal.” Yet this man was of the type whose word had been declared as good as his bond.
Dice, Faro and Roulette.
Dice, faro and roulette are the principal games of the gambling house and, considering these, the experienced player will tell you that he is suspicious of a “petey” in the dice box, a “high layout” in faro, and a “squeezed wheel” in roulette, in just the proportion that the gambling house keeper has not recognized that he cannot indulge them because of the fear of detection. The gambler holds to the gambler’s view of the gambler—and it is not complimentary to the profession.
That the gentleman gambler is justified in his attitude toward the gentleman player, too, has been shown in the New York revelations. There one gentleman player, loser to the extent of $300,000. compromised with the “bank” for 130 bills of $1,000 denomination. There a gentleman player who had lost $69,000 to the bank tried to compromise on $20,000, but was in a position where the bank could hold him. How much the gambler king may loan and lose in the course of a year scarcely can be approximated. The gambling debt is “a debt of honor,” and even in business not all such debts are paid. Whether a borrowed debt or a debt of loss to the bank, this honor is the security, unless in emergency the gambler king discovers that he can blackmail with safety to his interests as a whole.
In general, the gambler who is “on the square” operates on a 10 per cent basis for his bank. In addition there is the “unknown per cent” which is his at the end of the year. The roulette wheel, for example, presents to the player just one chance in thirty-seven of winning on a single play, while the winning on that play is paid in the proportion of only 34 to 1.
More Nerve to Win Than Lose.
The one great characteristic in human nature on which the gambler counts is the fact that it requires more nerve in a man to win than is required of him to lose! It is startling for the layman to be told that $5,000 in a night is a big winning for a player, while $5,000 is only an ordinary loss in a big establishment.
This fact is based on subtle psychology. There are two types of players, one of which gambles when it is in a state of elation and the other when in a state of depression. With either of these types winning, it is a gambler’s observation that the man who will play until he has lost $25,000 when luck hopelessly is against him cannot hold himself to the chair after he is $5,000 winner.
Gamblers have made money—fortunes—in times past, only to be buried in the potter’s field. There are several reasons assignable for this end. Extravagant living appeals to the gambler, and when he has left his own special line of gaming it does not appeal to him strongly as either pastime or means for recouping his fortune. If he turns to gaming at all it is likely to be in fields where he does not know the game. Sometimes he goes to the Board of Trade—sometimes to the stock market. Playing there he is without system and without knowledge of conditions. He is likely to bull the grain market two days after the weather conditions have assured the greatest grain crop in history.
Once a gambler, always a gambler, is his condition; and it is only a matter of time until someone has a game which beats him out.
IT’S UP TO YOU, YOUNG MAN.
There are two trails in life, young man.
One leads to height and fame,
To honor, glory, peace and joy,
And one to depths of shame;
And you can reach that glorious height—
Its honors can be won—
Or you can grope in shame’s dark night.
It’s up to you, young man.
Stern duty guards the upper trail—
Exact obedience, too—
And he who treads it cannot fail
To win if he be true.
But tickle folly, gay with smiles,
Rules o’er the other one,
And leads to ruin with her wiles.
It’s up to you, young man.
At parting of the trails you stand.
At early manhood’s gate;
Your future lies in your own hand—
Will it be low or great?
If now you choose the trail of Right.
When you the height have won,
You’ll bask in Honor’s fadeless light—
It’s up to you, young man.
A HEARTLESS FRAUD.
SCHOOLS TO TEACH SHOW-CARD WRITING CATCH MANY VICTIMS AMONG THE POOR GIRLS.
December 5, 1905, J. H. Bell, the proprietor of a SHOW-CARD COLLEGE at 21 Quincy St., was arrested and the place closed. Bell advertised for students to learn to write show-cards and signs. He is said to charge $1 for a course and to promise positions at large salaries as soon as the course is completed.
After the course has been finished and the tuition paid Bell is declared to have refused to give the graduates employment on the ground that their work is unsatisfactory.
A great many girls are attracted to the scheme, and sign contracts to pay Bell for the instruction in the belief that they will be benefited. Bell tells them that he has customers who will purchase all the cards they can make. They are to receive a few cents for each card as soon as they learn the business, but they are required to pay a fine of 2 cents for each card they spoil.
“They are set to work painting gold borders such as are seen in the windows of the department stores, but the task is so difficult that only a finished artist can do the work. Bell has a woman accomplice who hustles into the office when it is filled with women and girls and tells how she makes from $25 to $30 a week painting cards. Her talk encourages the girls to keep on spoiling Bell’s cards and increasing his income.
Swindler Jumps Bail.
“When taken before the court, Bell made a hard fight for freedom, but he was held to the Criminal Court on five charges of obtaining money under false pretenses. Bonds were placed at $300 in each case by Justice Prindiville.
“He was unable to do the work he was requiring the girls to do, so when the grand jury saw through his scheme the five indictments were promptly returned.
“J. H. Bell jumped his bail, fled to Minneapolis, where he conducted the same business. Here he was again arrested, fined and given so many hours to leave the city.”
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the next place Bell opened his Show-Card College. On the 28th of September, 1906, he was again arrested for operating a confidence game and fined $80.
He then went to St. Louis, Mo., and opened an office in the Century Building, under the name of the Clark Institute. Charges of swindling women who applied to learn card-writing were made against him and he was arrested, but later released through some technicalities set up in the warrant of his arrest; also lack of evidence to support the charges made in the warrant.
The newspapers published his swindling operations and on this account Bell threatened to sue both the publishers and the police officials.
Detective Wooldridge located him through an article which appeared in the St. Louis paper, which gave a description of his Show-Card College, which was being carried on there.
John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, sent Bell’s picture and his Bertillon system of measurements to the Chief of Police in St. Louis, and requested him to make the arrest. On the following day John M. Collins. Superintendent of Police, Chicago. Illinois, received the following letter from E. P. Creecy, Chief of Police, St. Louis, Mo.:
St. Louis, Mo.,
Dec. 22, 1906.
John M. Collins, Esq.
Superintendent of Police,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
Replying to your letter of Dec. 21, relative to J. H. Bell, wanted in your city for obtaining money by means of a confidence game, will say that W. H. Clark, office 354 Century Building, this city, was in the Court of Criminal Correction this morning charged with larceny by trick, and a nolle prosequi was entered by the prosecuting attorney. He answers the description of Bell and is undoubtedly the same person, but I would suggest that you send someone to identify him before the arrest is made, as he is making a fight here on his case. Clark is carrying on the same kind of business here as he did in your city.
Very respectfully,
E. P. Creecy,
Chief of Police.
Detective Harry Harris of Chicago was sent to St. Louis to identify Bell, and swore that in his belief Clark was Bell. The detective department wanted the case continued until Friday, but Clark insisted upon immediate trial. Judge Sale held that the detective had not been positive enough in his identification.
Detective Wooldridge arrived on the scene as Bell was leaving the court room after being discharged the second time by the court. Detective Wooldridge seized Bell and turned him over to a St. Louis police officer and filed a new affidavit of positive identification that Clark was Bell.
His lawyer demanded an immediate trial, but Detective Wooldridge secured a two-day continuance to bring witnesses from Chicago to prove the identity of Bell. This so enraged the attorney that he turned upon Wooldridge and informed him that he would again free Bell and even offered to bet $200.
He further stated that he had asked Governor Folk not to grant requisition papers for his client. Detective Wooldridge replied, “Do you remember Admiral George Dewey at Manila Bay who told Captain Gridley to fire when he got ready?”
Wooldridge further told him he didn’t care any more for him than the dew that dropped on the jackass’ mane. Wooldridge told the attorney that Bell had defrauded over two hundred working girls in Chicago, Illinois, and that the Cook County grand jury had investigated the matter, and returned five indictments against Bell, and the Honorable Charles S. Deneen, Governor of the State of Illinois, had caused to be issued requisition papers for the arrest and apprehension of J. H. Bell, and he had made Detective Wooldridge a special messenger to go to St. Louis, Mo., and bring Bell to Chicago where he could be placed on trial to answer to the indictments that had been brought against him.
Detective Wooldridge stated that he had come three hundred miles to perform that mission and he intended that Bell should return to Chicago with him.
The attorney replied “he hardly thought the Honorable Governor Folk of Missouri would grant requisition papers on Bell.”
Detective Wooldridge told the attorney that he came for J. H. Bell and was fully determined to take him back to Illinois to stand trial and that he would cross the bridges as he came to them and burn them behind him. He told Bell’s attorney if the Honorable Governor Folk refused to grant the first requisition papers, he would try on each of the other indictments asking for requisition papers.
If this failed there was five forfeited bonds by which Bell could be brought back to the State of Illinois on extradition papers.
If all this failed he had made arrangements to have him brought back by the strong arm of the United States Government, through an Inspector of Mails and United States Deputy Marshal for using the mails for fraudulent purposes.
Wooldridge called up John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, Chicago, Ill., by the long distance telephone and requested the second set of requisition papers, certified copies of the five forfeited bonds, and that the bondsman be sent to St. Louis at once, which was done.
Thirty minutes after he left Bell’s angry attorney, Wooldridge was aboard a Missouri Pacific fast train, bound for Jefferson City, Mo., to see Honorable Jos. Folk and lay before him the reason why requisition papers should be granted. Arriving at Jefferson City at 10 P. M., the following morning (which was Sunday morning) he made a demand upon Jailer Dawson for the body of Bell. Jailer Dawson referred him to Judge Sale. Wooldridge found Judge Sale at his home, who, after examining his papers, found them all right and ordered the jailer to turn over Bell to Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
Bell was again brought to the office of the Chief of Police and confronted by Wooldridge and Harris who arrested him.
When J. H. Bell was arrested in Chicago December 5, 1905, Mr. Turner defended him and afterwards went on Bell’s bond for $1,500. Bell was turned over to Wooldridge who slipped a pair of handcuffs on him as he was boarding a street car, landed him in East St. Louis, Ill., none too soon, as Bell’s attorney had sent out a writ of habeas corpus and would watch all trains and stop the detective from taking Bell from the State of Missouri.
Wooldridge requested the Chief of Detectives to inform Bell’s lawyer that both he and Bell were now in the State of Illinois and their address would be in Chicago, Ill., if he wished to see either of them.
One of the police officers at East St. Louis overheard Bell tell his cell-mate he would make his escape before he reached Chicago, and told him to watch the newspapers the next day.
This information was given to Wooldridge.
Detective Wooldridge had tickets over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad.
This train left at 11 P. M. at night and the first stop it made was twenty miles north on the Missouri side of the river.
Wooldridge could not take his prisoner and board the train there on account of habeas corpus writs for Bell. Officers were watching all trains expecting him to leave St. Louis. Wooldridge outwitted them by taking interurban street car, traveling some twenty-five miles in company with two officers whom the Chief of Police had sent along with him. Upon arriving at the station in a heavy rainstorm he found the agent had deserted his post and gone home.
The headlight on the Eastern Illinois fast express train showed up in the distance. What was to be done to bring the train to a stop so that they could board it? At this important moment Wooldridge’s eye rested upon a switch lamp under a switch only a few yards from him; with one leap across the track he secured the lamp and began to swing it across the track to and fro with a red light pointed towards the approaching train. This was a signal for the engineer to stop. But would the engineer see the signal in time, or would the rain which was beating down in torrents prevent the engineer from seeing the signal? It was an exciting few seconds to pass through. But the engineer did see the signal to stop, he blew one long blast of his whistle, reversed his engine, applied the air-brakes which brought the train to a stand-still right at the station door.
A conductor and brakeman had alighted and run forward on the sudden stop of the train as they thought some accident had happened, inquired of Wooldridge what was the trouble. He replied, “Nothing but two passengers for Chicago.” At this time he and Bell were aboard the train. The conductor told Wooldridge that he had no right to flag the train. Wooldridge told him that he had purchased two tickets to Chicago with the understanding that the train stopped there to let on and off passengers, furthermore the card stated that this train stopped there, and arriving there he found that the agent had abandoned his post and gone home, and he had taken it upon himself to act as station agent for the time being and stopping a train. He told the conductor that he had to be in Chicago the following morning as his business was urgent, furthermore he could not afford to stand there all night in the rain without shelter because the station agent had neglected to do his duty.
On gaining admission to the car Bell was made comfortable: By turning two seats together he had two big pillows on which he might rest his head.
Wooldridge then stooped down and unlaced Bell’s shoes so he could rest his tired feet, he then called the porter and gave Bell’s shoes to him with orders to shine them up and keep them until the detective called for them next morning.
Wooldridge then reached down into his traveling bag, took out a pair of leg-irons which he placed around Bell’s legs, and locked them securely. Bell made a protest and assured the detective that he would not give him any trouble or make any attempt to get away. Wooldridge told him the first law of human nature was self-protection and he was exercising that precaution in this case.
Only a few weeks prior to this time an officer was returning from New York with a prisoner and neglected to take these precautions, dosed off into a little sleep, the train had just then stopped to take on coal, the prisoner only had handcuffs on, and in the twinkling of an eye passed the officer who was asleep and succeeded in getting off the train just as it started. His escape was not noticed by the officer until they had gone several miles; it was then too late, the bird had flown, and having money in his pocket found a man who filed the shackles off his hands. He made good his escape and the officer lost his job.
After Bell had been securely shackled and made as comfortable as possible, Wooldridge turned two seats together on the opposite side of the car, never closed his eyes until they reached Chicago the following morning, taking Bell to the Bureau of Identification, had his measure and picture taken. He was then turned over to Cook County Sheriff.
A few months later J. H. Bell was arraigned for trial and confronted by over thirty angry women, whom he had robbed, as witnesses. After a long trial he was found guilty of obtaining money under the confidence game. He asked for a new trial which was denied and on March the 9th, 1907, he was sentenced to Joliet Penitentiary for an indefinite time by Judge Brentano. His counsel asked for the arrest of judgment so he might have time to write up the record and present it to the
Then the Bell luck, which could beat even detectives, broke Bell’s way. Also the Bell honesty suffered a recrudescence. It so happened that while Bell was in the County Jail a plot was set on foot to make a big jail delivery.
It was planned, and the plans seemed to have been well arranged, to smuggle enough dynamite into the jail to wreck even that formidable building. The plot was hatched by George Smith, Eugene Sullivan, Morris Fitzgerald and Alfred Thompson.
On March 2, 1907, this precious crew had been arrested for robbing a mail wagon. They were apprehended and taken to the County Jail. There they hatched the plot for the introduction of the dynamite. Many other prisoners were admitted to their secret, among them Bell.
Smith, who was as big and powerful as Bell was little and insignificant, threatened to choke Bell to death in his cell if he told of the dynamite plot.
Bell’s spirit appeared to be as big as the other man’s body. This may have been due to the fact that he saw that “peaching” on his confederates was the only method of escape. Anyway Bell “peached.” He told of the dynamite plot and the dynamite was seized. Dr. J. A. Wesener afterward declared that there was enough of it to have destroyed the whole building.
It was so undoubtedly true that Bell had been of service to the state in revealing this plot that a plea for clemency was made for him and so he escaped the penalty for his crimes.
But the experiences of Bell, and the fear of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge had the salutary effect of putting a stop to the “Show-Card Writing” fraud in Chicago.
THE BOGUS MINE.
$100,000,000 EACH YEAR LOST BY INVESTMENTS IN FAKE MINING SCHEMES.
To what extent investment swindlers have operated in Illinois will never be known, for some of them have so thoroughly covered up their transactions that it will be impossible to disclose them. This is especially true of a class of mining companies, the promoters of which remained in the background while their dupes were gathered in by seemingly respectable residents. These concerns operated by giving blocks of stock into the hands of unscrupulous men with good or fairly good reputations, and the latter disposed of it to such unsophisticated acquaintances as could be easily gulled.
Gold and silver mines in Colorado, Nevada, and Utah furnished the basis for most of these swindles. Sometimes the company really had an old mine or claim that had been abandoned, sometimes it had a lease on some worthless piece of property that was “about to be developed,” but frequently it had nothing more than its gaudy prospects and its highly decorated shares of stock to give in return for the money it received. Money-grasping church deacons were the favorite agents for these swindles and widowed women without business judgment their most common victims.
It is estimated that in this country every year nearly $100,000,000 are taken out of the savings of people of limited means by financial fakers, especially mining and oil fakers. During the last five years Detective Wooldridge has observed the “financiering” of several thousand fake companies, each of which secured a great deal of money from ignorant people.
Bands of swindlers repair to mining camps and establish branches there. They expend a few hundred dollars for shreds and patches of ground void of present or prospective value.
They then form a mining corporation, place its capital stock at some enormous figure—a million, two or three million dollars—appoint themselves or some of their confederates, or even their dupes, directors, and sell the worthless claims to the company for a large proportion, or perhaps, all of the capital stock of the company.
The stock must be disposed of with a rush. It must all go within a year or shorter time. When it is gone the suckers who get the stock for good money may take the property of the company. They always find an empty treasury, worthless claims, and the rosy pictures that led them astray, smothered in the fog.
During the last five years the advertising columns of leading newspapers have been full of offers of mining stocks as “sure roads to fortune.” Nearly all of these mining companies, into whose treasuries the public has paid millions, have either been abandoned or the properties have been sold for debts, and invariably they bring very little. The major portion of receipts of these companies from the sales of stock is stolen by their promoters.
Official statistics of the mining industry show that out of each one hundred mines, only one has become a success from a dividend-paying point of view. About five earn a bare existence, while the balance turn out utter failures.
Promoter’s Word Valueless.
Investors will do well to consider that stocks of mines which are only prospective are the most risky form of gambling. In buying stocks of the undeveloped mines offered to the public on the strength of statements the only substance of which is the imagination of promoters, one runs up against a sure-thing brace game.
Don’t take the promoter’s word for it. When you wish to place money where it can work for you, don’t bite at the first “good thing” you see advertised. It is to the interest of the man who wants to sell you stock to place it before you in the rosiest light. Otherwise he knows you would not buy it. If you want to buy stock, don’t rely upon what the seller says, but consult others.
Before consulting persons whom you think may be able to express an honest and intelligent opinion, ask the promoter to furnish you a statement of the condition of the company, showing its assets and liabilities, profits and losses, and an accurate description of its property.
You will then be able to judge whether the company is over-capitalized; whether it is incumbered with debts (for debts may lead to a receivership), and if its earnings may lead to permanent dividends.
Also ask for a copy of the by-laws of the company. If, with such information at your disposal, you cannot get a correct idea as to whether the stock is desirable or not, consult your banker or somebody else in your community who may be able to advise you.
If some one offered you a mortgage on a certain piece of property, common sense would tell you to ascertain whether the property is sufficient surety for the loan, or if the title to the property is good and there are not prior incumbrances on it.
The man who would buy a mortgage without ascertaining the value and condition of the surety, would be considered an idiot.
Why not use the same precaution when buying stock? Don’t believe what the promoter tells you about the value and prospects of the stock he wants to unload on you. Don’t take it for granted the stock offered you will turn out a great money-maker and dividend-payer because the promoter tells you so.
The promoter, generally a person from another city and entirely unknown to you, has no interest in you, but is prompted by his own selfish interest to sell you something which, in many cases, he himself would not buy. He may Offer you a good thing, but it is up to you to find it out.
Investigation Necessary.
In most cases, an intelligent investigation will prompt you to let alluring offers of great wealth for little money severely alone. The observation of the common-sense rules outlined above will save investors bitter disappointments and heavy losses.
It is safe to say seventy-five per cent of the so-called “Mining, Plantation and Air Line” schemes and “Security” companies now paraded before the public in flaring advertisements in the daily papers, and through glittering prospectuses sent through the mails, are vicious swindles. Men who operate these frauds pretend to be honest and high-minded. By constant practice of their wiles upon others they develop self-deception and come to believe in their honesty to such an extent that when questioned, they assume a good counterfeit of honest indignation.
Most of them do not own the furniture in the offices they occupy while swindling the public. It is a common practice for them to rent offices in national bank buildings and to furnish them with rich furniture bought on the installment plan, to make the necessary “front.” They spend their cash capital for flaring advertisements, sell as much stock as they can induce the gullible public to buy, and then decamp, leaving unpaid bills for advertising, if they can get credit after their cash is exhausted, and their furniture bill unpaid. The absconding swindler is usually succeeded by an “agent” or “manager,” who repudiates the bills against his rascally predecessor and continues the work of fleecing the gullible under some new title or by means of some new trick.
Keep Lists of Suckers.
Every well-equipped fraudulent concern acquires the names and addresses of susceptible persons. Painstaking revisions of the lists made up of these names and addresses form an important part of the labor of the principals or employes. The lists grow as each advertisement brings inquiries from persons who, either through curiosity or desire to invest, write for particulars. Affiliated swindles operated in succession by a gang of “fakers” use the same list of “suckers.”
In affiliated swindles if the “sucker” does not succumb and remit his money on the inducements offered by one concern, his name is transferred to the lists of another, and he is then bombarded with different literature. Thus a man must pass through the ordeal of having dozens of tempting offers made him before he demonstrates that he is not a “sucker,” or has not got the money. His name is then stricken from the list.
There are so many “get-rich-quick” operators at present that competition between them has become strenuous. They are now infesting the entire country with local solicitors, who frequent saloons, hotels, and even residence districts, where victims are found in foreigners, ignorant servant girls and inexperienced widows.
These solicitors get 50 per cent commission on all sales of stock. This fact in itself is evidence that the propositions are rank swindles. When the swindling operator finds things getting too hot he disappears from his office and bobs up in some new place with a new proposition.
Pecksniffian Tears Delude.
A few attempts have been made to prosecute the swindlers, but for the most part the local officials have failed. In but few instances have the victims been able to give anything like intelligent statements of the representations made to them. Where the right sort of agents have been used the people who have lost their money have not awakened to the fraud passed upon them. A few Pecksniffian tears have deluded them into the belief that the swindlers as well as themselves were victims of some third party who is in another state and out of reach.
Where cases have been brought to trial it has been a difficult matter for juries to understand how the persons aggrieved could have been caught with the sort of chaff thrown to them, and there has been little disposition to show charity for the victims. Then, too, the men hauled before the courts have always made it appear they were in the same boat with the complaining witness, and that the culprit was many, many miles away. So, usually, they have escaped.
Difficult to Convict.
Even in the most flagrant cases and where every advantage was taken of the ignorance, inexperience or trustfulness of the person deluded it has been difficult to bring the offense under the state statutes. It requires more than ordinary misrepresentation and lying to make out a criminal case, and under the rules of evidence which prevail it is almost impossible to overtake a cheat who has not put his misrepresentation into writing or made them in the presence of third parties.
Where the swindlers have used the mails, however, it is not such a difficult matter to convict. The United States is scrupulously jealous of its postal service, and under its statutes every fellow who undertakes to utilize it for improper purposes can be brought to book. He can not hide behind some one in another state, for the federal jurisdiction is general and the other man can be brought in. Nor can he plead that the business was legally licensed in another state, or that its incorporation was regular. If it was a cheat and the mails were used in furtherance of its design, no corporate cloak thrown around it by any of the commonwealths can save the promoters.
Power of Uncle Sam.
An example of the power of the federal authorities was given when Secretary of State Rose of Illinois was trying to keep the swindling investment companies out of the state. This was before the enactment of the present law regulating the licensing of corporations. A number of concerns had been formed in southern states, and they were insolently demanding licenses to do business in Illinois. The secretary of state was powerless under the Illinois statutes, but when the matter was called to the attention of the federal authorities they wiped out the whole lot of companies with a postal fraud order.
Wooldridge Finds Smooth Scheme.
Detective Wooldridge, in looking into many of these mining frauds, discovered one or two which proved quite a revelation even to the United States authorities. This was a system of “kiting” stocks, just as other fraud concerns have been known to kite checks. The method is very simple.
James Johnson, of Indiana, is “roped in” by one of the smooth young men who operate for the schemers. James buys 500 or 1,000 shares in the Holy Moses mine, located in or near Goldfield, Reno, Rawhide, Cripple Creek, or some other well known mining camp. The “Holy Moses” is a hole dug in the side of a hill, and all that will ever come out of it is soil. But that part does not matter. Under certain strict laws now prevailing only so much stock can be issued even by the schemers.
James Johnson holds his thousand shares for three months. By this time all the stock has run out and the firm is at the end of the rope, apparently; but no, they have found a way to stretch that rope.
William Wilson, of Michigan, is clamoring for a thousand shares of the “Holy Moses.” There is no stock to sell him, and if any more is printed and issued the waiting detectives will swoop down at once, for word has gone forth that the “Holy Moses” is a non-producer. How to get that thousand shares for Wilson is the problem.
“Holy Moses” Rises?
Aha; it is easy. A letter is drafted to James Johnson, bearing to him the gladsome news that “Holy Moses” has gone up, away up, and that the stock is mounting by leaps and bounds. Does James Johnson wish to sell his stock at a substantial advance? James Johnson does.
Well, the philanthropic owners of the “Holy Moses” will put that stock on the market for him at once and send him the proceeds, if he will kindly send in his stock with authority for transfer in blank.
The Indiana sucker bites at the bait and sends in his thousand shares to be sold. No sooner do they reach the office than they are immediately started off to Michigan to Wilson, after the precaution has been taken to remove Johnson’s name from the face of the stock and substitute Wilson’s. The authority for transfer in blank, and the fact that the transaction is a transfer of stock, is thus kept from Wilson.
In due course of time a fat check from Wilson finds its way into the coffers of the “Holy Moses” promoters. And also, in due course of time, Johnson wants to know something about that sale.
“Holy Moses” Falls.
He is met with the doleful news that while his stock was on the way to Chicago, or elsewhere, the stock in “Holy Moses” had experienced such a decided slump that it was impossible for them to sell it at a profit. If he desires, they will hold the stock for a raise, which they expect as soon as the present unfortunate financial panic has passed, or until industrials begin to go up. The drop in “Holy Moses” is not due to any slump in the production of the mine; far from it. It is only the unfortunate financial depression which is to blame, and there is no doubt but that “Holy Moses” will go up a-whooping very soon.
Naturally Johnson bites again, and says hold the stock for that raise. Meanwhile the stock has been procured again from Wilson and sent to Baker, in Kentucky. And so on, indefinitely. It is only when some of the swindled ones become particularly savage that their stock is returned to them. And then it is not their original stock at all, but a new thousand shares which some sucker has sent in.
One block of stock in one company was sold in this way in 1907 by a Chicago mining company, no less than twelve times.
The activities of Detective Wooldridge afterward put this firm out of business, and the head promoter was arrested in the West by the federal authorities.
It is well that all these facts should be taken into consideration by the public before investing in mining shares.
First Principles in Mining Purchases.
Here are a few good leads to follow in buying mining stock. First make sure that there is a producing mine. Then make sure that the stock you get is not kited stock. But, above all, make sure of the responsibility, respectability and solidity of the firm from which you make the purchase.
A GIANT SWINDLE.
BANKS IN CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND LONDON BADLY FLEECED.
Bogus Notes and Stock—Many Firms Are Victims—Prisoners Said to Have Practiced Frauds Under Titles of Corporations—Chicago, September 14, 1906, Detectives Wooldridge and John Hill Uncover the Fraud—Five Men Arrested.
A remarkable story of swindling which, extended to many cities in America and to England, was disclosed, uncovering a gigantic forgery and check kiting plot as well as several fraudulent stock selling schemes.
Chicago Concerns Are Victims.
Banks and business concerns, especially in Chicago, suffered through the operations of the men. Their methods came to the attention of John Hill, Jr., connected with the Board of Trade, and Detective Wooldridge learned enough to convince them and the men behind institutions the objects of which were to obtain money fraudulently.
Some of the places which have been mulcted are:
Commercial National Bank, August 15; bogus note for $1,078. Stromberg, Allen & Co., printers, 302 Clark street; bogus note for $206. R. B. Padgham & Co., packing boxes, 59 Dearborn street; bogus note for $300. Matthew Hallohan, 42 River street, September 12; bogus note for $190.
Loses All of Savings.
Julius Radisch, 2509 South Halsted street, a German who lost $700 in the wreck of the National Fireproofing Company, told the police of the unique methods used by Johnston in selling him the stock. He asserts that Johnston told him that the stock would pay at least 8 per cent dividends, and as proof of the prosperity of the company took him to the downtown district and showed him several skyscrapers which he claimed were owned by the corporation. Radisch also says that Johnston also pointed out a bank where he said the company had immense sums on deposit. The story told by Radisch is peculiarly a sad one, as the money lost by him in the crash of the Fireproofing company represented the savings of a lifetime of hard labor. Shortly after the discovery that his money was lost his wife died.
One Capitalized at $1,000,000.
The concerns most frequently used by the men in their transactions, the police say, were known as National Fire Proofing Company of New York and the Federal Trust Company of South Dakota. The fire proofing company was stated to be capitalized at $1,000,000 and the trust company at $100,000.
Offices for each concern were at 1138 Broadway, New York. From there, it is charged, circulars and pamphlets were sent out to investors in all parts of the country, and it was also a practice of these concerns, it is alleged, to open accounts with banks and exchange bogus notes for good ones.
Sheriff in Charge of Affairs.
About one week before the arrest the concerns were placed in the hands of the sheriff of New York County, and, following this, it is declared, disclosures were made which hastened the arrest of the men involved.
Banks and firms in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and London, it is declared, are known to have suffered through the alleged operations of the men, who were aided by companions in the different cities.
Most of the concerns, of which there are at least twelve, all declared to be fraudulent, are in Chicago.
List of Bogus Firms.
The following is a list of the concerns, the names of which have been learned by the police:
National Fire Proofing Company, New York and Chicago.
Federal Trust Company, New York and Chicago.
Keystone Structure Cleaning Company, Philadelphia.
McGuire, Johnston & Co., New York and Chicago.
Hessley, Johnston & Co.
Hessley & Johnston, Chicago.
A. A. Hessley, Chicago.
George F. Johnston, Chicago.
C. F. McGuire, Chicago.
F. L. Cunningham, Chicago.
Chester E. Broughn, Chicago.
Lincoln Gas Light & Coke Company, Lincoln, Neb.
Another concern dealing with alleged spurious bonds of Custer County, Idaho, the police declare, was under the direction of these men.
It was the old-time favorite method of kiting checks and drafts among the banks and private individuals of the city and country that was used, and there is no doubt that it proved successful in this instance. Although it is believed the men did not obtain great riches in their operations in Chicago, it would have been only a question of time when they would have become wealthy, so apparently easy was it for them to get funds.
Opened Many Bank Accounts.
Accounts in banks in Chicago and other cities were opened and then exchanges of checks were made among them. Only the over-boldness of their operations caused their downfall.
An instance of their methods would be the following: The Federal Trust Company, one of their “paper” concerns, would deposit a check in a Chicago bank made by the Keystone Structure Cleaning Company of Philadelphia, another of their alleged firms. The check would be sent east for collection, and in a few days it would be returned marked “No funds.”
Offer Bond in a Settlement.
Meanwhile the trust company had checked against its account, to which the Keystone Structure Cleaning Company’s check had been credited. When the check was returned from the eastern bank the Chicago bank would notify the Federal Trust Company of the non-payment of it. The Chicago firm would then offer explanation and apologies and give a 5 per cent to concerns that cashed the checks.
When they came back, the men who got the money were shocked beyond measure and at once offered stock and bonds of twice the face value of the money involved as security. This quieted the fears and enabled the schemers to go on.
Five Men Are Arrested by Detectives Wooldridge and Barry.
Five men were arrested by Detectives Wooldridge and Barry, charged with operating twelve concerns. The Commercial National Bank was one of the victims. The men arrested are as follows:
Chester A. Broughn, broker, 218 LaSalle street.
S. L. Cunningham, 56 years old. 1009 West Jackson boulevard.
C. F. McGuire, 40 years old, arrested at the Great Northern Hotel.
George F. Johnston, 36 years old, arrested at 185 Dearborn St.
Alvin A. Hessley, 48 years old, arrested at 185 Dearborn St.
Tool Tells Truth—Usher of Church in Crime Cloud.
At the age of 50 years, S. L. Cunningham, vestryman and Sunday School teacher and chief usher in the Jackson Boulevard Christian Church, has come to the conclusion that he is “just an old fool, after all.”
Mr. Cunningham was arrested recently on the charge of being one of a gang of forgers and “get-rich-quick” men who have been swindling Chicago and New York business houses and banks during the last few months. He says his only connection with the gang was in selling stock until a short time ago for the National Fireproof Paint Company, one of the concerns raided, and lending his bank account to George F. Johnston, said to have been one of the prime movers in the gang.
Mr. Cunningham looks like a bishop. His hair is white and his appearance distinguished. His story is an illustration of the manner in which swindling concerns procure one or two men of weight and respectability in a community to act as their advance agents and establish confidence.
As he sat on the white-pillared porch of his residence, surrounded by his wife and sympathetic neighbors and church members, his face in the gaslight showed the marks of grief through which he has passed since his arrest.
Cunningham Tells the Story.
“Yes,” he said, “we of the fold often go astray, but I am innocent. I have a Sunday School class of young girls that I am going to take out into Lincoln Park tomorrow. I hardly know what to say to them. I can’t bear to think of taking my place as head usher on Sunday, although my pastor tells me to march down the aisle with my head erect. I am getting to be an old man, you see, and I have never wilfully wronged a person in my life.” His voice trembled, but his wife laid her hand on his arm and he straightened up.
“I know nothing of these men except Mr. Johnston,” he said. “I was introduced to him by a friend of mine three months ago. I have sold stock and insurance for the last twenty years, and I thought he had a good thing in the National Fireproof Paint Company, so I started selling stock for him. I could not sell the stock, as I could not show enough assets, so I quit two weeks ago. I was a fool, and a dupe, all right.
Bank Account Overdrawn.
“Johnston, a young man, told me he was hard up and asked to use my bank account at the Commercial National. I let him and endorsed his checks. My wife told me not to do it, but I thought he was all right then. Well, he overdrew the account, the check was protested, and when my name was found they arrested me. I never knew any of the other men, although I saw them around the office. They did too much whispering, and I thought it did not look well.”
Then, in a simple way, he went on to tell of his wife and his work in the church. He produced a letter from the pastor of his church, the Rev. Parker Stockdale:
“This introduces Mr. Cunningham, a member of my church. He enjoys among us the reputation of a thorough gentleman and a conscientious business man. He is a highly respected and useful citizen. His honesty is beyond question.”
He also had a letter from Col. Jonathan Merriam, former United States pension agent, which was along the same lines.
Offer of Bribe Alleged.
Broughn, the broker, is a man of a different stripe, according to Detective Barry, who arrested him. When he was informed of his arrest he is said by the detective to have replied:
“Come down to the saloon next door. I will settle the case at once. Name your price.”
When arraigned before Justice Cochrane the cases were continued until September 24. All the men were released on $1,200 bonds each, with the exception of Broughn, whose bail was fixed at $800. The bonds were signed by a professional bondsman at the Harrison Street Police Station.
C. F. McGuire forfeited his bond and fled to New York City, where he was apprehended and arrested by New York authorities at the request of John M. Collins, the Chief of Police. The information which led to his arrest was secured by Detective Wooldridge, who was made a special messenger by Charles S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois.
C. F. McGuire was a powerfully built man, weighing 240 pounds and standing over 6 feet tall. He was turned over by the New York authorities to Detective Wooldridge, who slipped on him a pair of handcuffs and crossed over to Jersey City on a ferry, and from there took a section in a Pullman car on a fast train on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
McGuire was put to bed in the upper berth, after he undressed. Detective Wooldridge told him he was bringing him back like a gentleman, but the first law of nature was self-protection. The detective then requested him to turn over all his clothes except his night shirt, which was done. Wooldridge then placed the clothes under the mattress in the berth below, which he was to occupy. He then took out a pair of leg irons, tied a strong cord to them, placed the leg irons on McGuire, threw the cord back behind the berth below, and this was tied to his hands after he had buttoned the berth curtains and pinned them with safety pins all the way down. The curtains were then stuffed in under his mattress. After all this was done Wooldridge then laid down with his clothes on and laid awake until morning, but managed to get some rest by laying down.
Chicago was reached in safety. After taking McGuire to the bureau, where Bertillon measurements were taken and his finger prints recorded, he was turned over to the sheriff of Cook County.
The trial was set, which lasted five days. Witnesses were brought from the banks in New York City and Philadelphia which had been victimized.
February 7, 1908, found guilty.
Check “Kiters” Heavily Fined—George F. Johnston and C. F. McGuire Assessed $2,000 Each.
A jury in Judge Kersten’s court later returned a verdict finding George F. Johnston and C. F. McGuire guilty of swindling and imposed a fine of $2,000 each. If the fine be not paid the defendants will be compelled to serve the amount at the rate of $1.50 a day in the Bridewell. Chester A. Broughn and A. H. Hessley entered pleas of guilty at the last minute and their cases will be disposed of later by Judge Kersten. State’s Attorney John J. Healy and Assistant State’s Attorney Barbour expressed themselves as pleased over the outcome of the trial.
QUACKS.
RASCALS WHO PREY UPON THE IGNORANT.
The “Specialist,” the “Optician,” the “Doctors’ College”; All Frauds.
Blackmail Helps Medical Scamps—Poor Girls Victims of “Doctor” Thieves.
The history of quacks and quackery includes some of the most glaring frauds ever perpetrated on a credulous people. In all ages of the world’s history down to the present day, these humbugs have cut an important figure in their day and generation. They are numerous in almost every line of business, serving God when it pays them to do it, and assisting the devil when their interests demand it. In these pages I propose to deal with medical quacks only.
The advent of every discovery in medicine, slight though it may be, has brought to the front a ring of pretenders in the healing art. These fellows catch the multitude. The poor, the ignorant and the credulous are their followers. It has been so in every age of the world’s history. The man or woman with broken health will catch at every straw that offers hope of recovery, and so they drift from one quack to another, until ruined in fortune and oftentimes made worse in their physical ills, they at last pass to the silent home where the pain and joy the cunning and simplicity of the world are alike of insignificance.
The desire to live lurks in the heart of nearly every human being. And no matter how wretched they may be, how poor in pocket, broken in spirit, whether suffering from real or imaginary ills, thirsting for relief, they have gone from quack to quack, giving of their meager savings for some vaunted elixir which in all probability only hastens their journey to the grave.
One reason why quackery flourishes is the fact that medicine is not a science. Ask any honest physician and he will tell you the same. A drug that will help one person will have no effect on another. There are in the realm of medicine no such things as “cures.” People who are sick recover, but they would do so whether they took “dope” or not. All disease is self-limited. The doctor who talks of curing smallpox, measles, typhoid fever, is a fool. Natures cures, not the doctor. People get well of these complaints, and many others who take no medicines and employ no physicians.
Physic to the Dogs.
Followers of the late “Elijah Dowie” relegated physic to the dogs, where it properly belongs, and yet enjoyed good health. Mrs. Eddy’s converts take no drugs, not even simple household remedies.
Here is a body of people numbering millions, entirely repudiating physicians, yet their health is as good, if not better, than those who continually take drugs. Doctors make war on them. Why? It interferes with the medical graft.
Don’t think for a minute that advertising doctors are the only grafters in the medical profession. Many of them are bad, very bad, but there are men right here in Chicago, as well as other big cities, who never advertise in papers, yet they are as notorious swindlers, and will as quickly take advantage of the ignorant and credulous, as the man who flaunts his skill in the daily press. To fall into the hands of these fellows is to be despoiled in pocket and ruined in health. Operations that are uncalled for and not needed are performed almost daily.
Only a short time ago I heard a doctor boast of having removed the ovaries of two thousand women. How many of these operations were actually necessary? Probably very few, but each case enriched him to the extent of several hundred dollars.
Women more frequently than men are the victims of unscrupulous doctors. People do not often question the skill or the opinion of the fashionable physician; they take for granted the truth of all he may say, forgetting for the time that he has a pecuniary interest in the work that may possibly result in the death of the patient.
Unnecessary Operations.
How many people die from wholly unnecessary operations? Only the hospital records and the immediate friends of the patient can tell.
These words are written to put people on their guard. Dishonest doctors are everywhere, especially in big cities. Chicago is full of them. They may be strictly ethical and affect to despise the advertiser. They do so, however, only from a business standpoint. They hate opposition, and somehow the advertising doctor manages to get a goodly share of the business, and is oftentimes the superior in skill in his particular line or specialty to his ethical brother.
There are good doctors and bad ones, just as there are good and bad men in every walk and business of life.
In my experience as a detective I have met with both kinds. In these pages I will deal with the advertising doctor only. I will do, and have done, what I can to drive the dishonest ones out of the business.
The eye doctor, professing to cure blindness or other diseases of the eye without the knife, is one of the most dangerous and dishonest men in the medical profession. Chicago has its full quota of this form of quackery. There are two men in this city—Dr. M—— and Dr. O——, who are national advertisers.
Both have been exposed in a recent New York weekly paper at the instigation of the American Medical Association. It is noteworthy, however, that this same paper accepted a full-page advertisement from Dr. O—— only a few months before the expose, thus deluding thousands of its readers. The price paid for one page and one issue was fifteen hundred dollars. This sum, paid to but one paper, will give the reader some idea of the vast expense to which the quack is put to place his name before the public in his effort to rob the blind. This same Dr. O—— pays out annually sixty thousand dollars for advertising alone. He employs twenty typewriters—mostly girls. The correspondence is handled entirely by the clerks, the doctor rarely ever seeing a letter.
He employs but one assistant, a young man fresh from college. No personal interviews with patients are asked for or desired. It is a mail order business almost exclusively. Occasionally a patient comes to the city to see this great oculist.
Dr. O—— himself is hardly ever in evidence. He spends most of his time in summer resorts and European capitals.
The only medicine used is a solution of boric acid in water. The same can be bought at any drug store for a few cents. His charges are ten dollars per month.
This man’s mail is enormous. I have known him to take in twenty thousand dollars a month. One of the catchy lines in his advertisement says he cures crossed eyes without the use of the knife. This is true, but he uses scissors instead. Cross-eye can only be straightened by severing the muscles of the eye. All physicians know this, but the people do not; hence the success of this robber of the blind.
Dr. O—— is a devout church member. He is one of the largest contributors to the Christian Church, to which he belongs. Nearly all church papers carry his advertisements, though they must know him to be a fraud of the first water.
Sleek and Unctuous Church Member.
Personally he is sleek and unctuous, is always found among the godly, takes more interest in foreign missions than the every-day affairs of life, and fully expects to occupy a seat in the parquet of the New Jerusalem.
The money wrung by the basest of false pretenses from his poor unfortunate blind victims, does not disturb his slumbers. If he has any conscience at all he fortifies himself with the thought that “Jesus will bear it all,” and lets it go at that.
Blind people, or those with failing eyesight, beware.
A close second to the above-named grafter, and in the same nefarious business, is Dr. M——.
This man’s advertisements read very much like those of others in the same line of work. He also cures without the knife, but uses the scissors. His treatment is the same—boric acid and water.
This can do no possible good except in slight inflammations. It cannot cure cataract. It may be set down as a truth (ask any honest physician) that cataract is incurable except by surgical operations. Yet these men continue to advertise its cure, claiming to have a specific remedy that will absorb it. Dr. M—— is wealthy, all made out of the blind. While other men are giving of their wealth to ease the lives of these poor unfortunates, they are being systematically robbed in the most heartless and shame-faced manner.
Priceless is sight. A man or woman threatened with loss of it will give up their last dollar for a prospective cure. In this way these so-called “eye doctors” fatten on the credulity of their victims, doing them absolutely no good and quite often a serious injury.
Dr. M—— is also a devout church member. He can be seen hanging over the pew of a fashionable West Side church every Sunday. There he is hailed as a good brother by his fellow members, many of whom are as great, if not as successful, a grafter as he is. They use the cloak of religion in which to serve the devil.
The “Optician” Fake.
In connection with this subject let me warn you of the existence of an army of “Opticians.” These men are often swindlers of the first water. Their misrepresentations as to the money value of glasses amounts to grand larceny. They charge all the way from ten to seventy-five dollars for a pair of lenses that usually cost seventy-five cents each. There are honest men in the business, but beware of the grafter.
There are many lesser lights engaged in the eye business, but the examples given above will serve to place you on your guard. Take no treatment by mail. Less can be done for the eye than any other organ of the body, unless it is the ear. Both are so complex in their anatomy and the symptoms so obscure that it is an impossibility to make a correct diagnosis without seeing the patient and using the best instruments that science can bring to the aid of the physician.
Consumption Cures.
A few years ago Dr. Koch, of Berlin, Germany, announced that he had discovered a cure for consumption. The same announcement has been made thousands of times before by more or less illustrious physicians.
Dr. Koch’s cure was a gas, requiring more or less elaborate apparatus. Several years’ trial of this supposed cure convinced the medical profession, and Dr. Koch himself, that he was mistaken.
He retracted his statements and acknowledged he had been in error. Yet in every large city of the country, Chicago, of course, included, there are established “Koch Institutes” for the cure of consumption.
A more brazen fraud was never perpetrated on an ignorant public than the claims which these so-called institutes advertise. They are patronized chiefly by the poor—those who have been told by honest physicians that they are incurable. Having no means with which to take trips to the mountain or sea shore, they grasp at every quack medicine or institute that offers hope of recovery.
I have visited the Chicago branch of this miserable fraud. Invalids who can scarcely walk are to be seen there daily inhaling mixtures of nauseous gases that have no more effect on the germ of consumption than a popgun on one of Uncle Sam’s ironclads. By means of paid-for testimonials and a couple of “cappers,” people from all parts of the country are brought here, oftentimes taking the last dollar of the family exchequer to pay for the so-called treatment. These frauds have been exposed time and again. However, a new crop of victims are gathered in every day and the game goes merrily on.
Human Ghouls.
The human ghouls in the guise of doctors are meantime living in luxury, and fattening on the misfortunes of their already half-dead victims. You might ask why does not the law step in and protect the sick. If you had seen as much of the law as I have you would discover that it too frequently protects the doctors and not the patients.
The men running this and other similar frauds are all licensed physicians, and have the authority of the great State of Illinois to pursue their calling. If you have consumption spend your money in getting good air, not dope. Drugs never yet cured consumption. That is the testimony of all honest doctors, and there are still a few of them left.
The Morphine Cure.
Forty years ago Dr. C——, of Laporte, Indiana, a bricklayer by profession, conceived the idea of selling morphine as a cure for the opium habit. Morphine is the essence of opium, just as cocaine is the essence of the coca leaf. It was a brilliant idea and brought Dr. C—— (he afterward bought diplomas galore) a mint of money. C—— constructed himself a mansion in Laporte, which stands today, a splendid specimen of the builders’ art. He was the first man to put on the market an opium cure.
The poor wretches who are addicted to this habit would make any kind of a sacrifice for a cure. The whiskey habit is not a circumstance to the opium or morphine fiend. There is no habit which so enslaves the victim as the drug habit, and they are seldom cured. C—— ran along for many years with but few imitators. The many victims of morphine whom he has gathered into his net were pouring in their wealth until it amounted to thousands daily. As long as they took the C—— remedy they had no desire for morphine. The “remedy” contained morphine—more, usually, than they had been taking before.
“Dr.” C—— had thousands under treatment, but made no cures. At last the so-called remedy was analyzed and its true nature discovered.
At once an army of imitators sprang into existence in all parts of the country, and morphine cure became as common as other cures. They all had and have as a basis opium or some of its salts. The extent of these drug addictions is hardly realized. Chicago alone has thirty thousand of these unfortunates, and the trade in opium and allied drugs is immense.
Encouraging the Morphine Habit.
Many of these victims date their downfall from some sickness in which a physician prescribed the drug—perhaps to allay pain or produce sleep. When they recovered they found they still had to have it. The habit grew and finally fastened itself with such a deathlike grip that they were unable to shake it off, and so they totter through life, unfitted for anything except to beg, borrow or lend some of the dope. Men and women once high in the business and social world are frequently found in the police dock accused of some petty theft in order to satisfy their craving for these destructive drugs.
Chicago has its quota of doctors who “cure” the morphine habit, but always in the way that “Dr.” C—— did. Most of them are “fiends” themselves who eke out a living selling the drug to other victims in the form of a “cure.” If by any chance you have contracted the habit steer clear of all so-called cures. The remedy is worse than the disease.
The Cancer Cure.
One can hardly pick up a paper or magazine that does not carry the advertisement of Dr. B——, of Indianapolis, Ind., with branch institutes at Kansas City and other places. Dr. B——’s remedy is an oil for which he claims wonderful properties.
In reply to an inquiry the doctor sends out a little book, filled with testimonials from grateful patients, dependent preachers and his fellow church members. The book tells you that the doctor has even built a church all by himself and maintains it at his own expense, even paying the salary of the pastor out of his own pocket.
It will be noticed that all successful quacks appeal to the religious element of the community. A man who is really religious is honest; having no tinge of dishonesty himself, he suspects none in others. He therefore falls easily into the net of the charlatan.
The quack knows this, hence his use of the religious press in which to exploit the virtues of his medicines.
Does Dr. B—— cure cancer? Yes. There are seven varieties of cancer; two malignant, which all physicians agree are incurable, and five non-malignant, of which the wart and wen are good examples. Dr. B—— cures the non-malignant varieties only, and you can do the same yourself by the application of a few drops of glacial acetic acid to the growth once a day.
This is the whole secret of the so-called cures wrought by these men. Dr. B—— never cured a genuine malignant cancer in his life, and never will until a specific is discovered that will combat it. He has grown very rich, is known as a public-spirited gentleman and to say aught against him in his native town is to bring down on one’s head the wrath of the business community. Why?
Patients from Everywhere.
Dr. B—— has patients coming from all parts of the country. They bring and spend money at his sanitariums. It is “business,” and I am only sorry to say that what is known as business is too often larceny. If you have a growth you do not understand, trust it to your family physician, if he is an honest man, rather than to one of the many cancer sharks that infest the country.
The Rupture Cure.
This, when offered by mail, as it is in almost every magazine that accepts medical advertisements, is also a glaring fraud upon a most helpless class of people. While it is true that a well fitted truss will retain and often cure a rupture, yet the quacks who advertise the rupture cure propose to cure you by mail, then by application of a wonderful oil which they sell at ten dollars per bottle, they propose to close up the opening through which the rupture descends and effect a permanent cure. A few years back the surgical treatment of rupture was not always a success, hence people so afflicted had reason to avoid operations.
Today the cure of rupture is not attended by any danger. Surgery has made many advances in the past few years. People who are ruptured should avoid any other means of cure than the operations.
There are not less than twenty-five advertising specialists in Chicago who profess to cure rupture without operation.
They only succeed in separating you from your money. My advice is not to go near them, lest you regret it.
Female Diseases.
It is well known among the readers of the daily press that all the advertisements of a medical nature addressed to women are meant to cover the nefarious business of the abortionist.
The commissioner of health in a recent interview stated that not less than fifty thousand abortions are committed yearly in Chicago. It is well to state that only a small number of these are performed by the advertising abortionists. Most of them are the work of regular physicians.
Indeed, in no other way could this immense destruction of infant life take place. I know of physicians here in Chicago who have and do no other business. I have in mind one palatial residence on Michigan avenue patronized exclusively by the rich. It is presided over by a strictly ethical physician. This man’s fee is from one thousand to five thousand dollars.
The poor content themselves with less pretentious places and prices. I know of physicians on the north side and the west side who do this work for five and ten dollars. They have as many as ten and twelve cases a day.
Up to a few weeks ago all of the Chicago papers contained a list of advertisements under the classification of medical, about as follows:
“Maternity Hospital—Ladies taken care of before and after confinement.”
“Mrs. Dr. B——, licensed midwife, takes ladies for confinement, etc.”
“Dr. Anna B—— Elegant home for ladies expecting confinement, etc.”
The above are only samples of a long list of advertisements of similar tenor which appeared daily in the Chicago press for twenty-five years. These advertisements attracted the attention of people in the country. They were not designed to attract city people. People residing here seldom patronize them on account of the high prices usually charged. They know cheaper doctors. Girl from the smaller towns and the farms are the ones sought.
The girl applying for relief at any of these places was usually told that abortions were unlawful and dangerous to life. She was strongly advised to stay in the hospital, which offered perfect seclusion, until the full period when the child would be naturally born and without danger to either of them. This advice was generally accepted and the price agreed upon paid. This was always all the girl had with her, and the promise of more. The amount ranged from one hundred to five hundred dollars.
The money paid over, the girl was shown to a pleasant room, and invited to make herself at home. There were always other girls there, usually under assumed names. They kept coming and going every few days. None remained longer than ten days.
After the girl had been there a couple of days the madam announced that the doctor would call on her that day and make an examination, so as to approximate the time of baby’s arrival.
With a very small instrument the abortion was produced while making the examination, the patient knowing nothing of it. This is done so deftly that labor pains do not come on for sometimes two days afterwards.
In ten days the patient is ready to leave the hospital. The fee having been paid, both parties are usually satisfied, and the girl, if she is wise, makes her misfortune a stepping stone to something better.
If the amount paid has been too small to satisfy hospital funds, an effort is made to collect more, but usually not from the girl.
The madam gets the patient’s confidence and discovers, if she can, the man responsible for the girl’s condition. A bill is then sent him for several hundred dollars. Should he ignore it or refuse to pay, he is politely told that the account will be placed in the hands of a lawyer in the town where he resides and the matter can be adjusted by a “jury of his fellow citizens.”
Imagine the consternation of some business man or church deacon in a small community over the receipt of such a letter.
If guilty, and they are as a general thing, they take the next train for Chicago and pay the bill. Parties running these establishments are money makers. I know of one on West Adams street whose owner has made a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all accumulated in twenty years.
The Electric Belt Fraud.
This is another one of the many humbugs that seem to have fastened themselves on the country. Chicago is the center for this as well as every other fake of a medical character.
These belts are of the cheapest construction and are made at a cost of twelve and one-half cents each. They sell for anything, up to three hundred and even five hundred dollars. There may be virtue in electricity, properly applied, but there certainly is none in the belt.
Dr. McL—— is located in Chicago, and has branch offices in almost every state in the union. He takes pages in the daily press to tell of the virtues of his belt. It cures everything from lumbago to corns. He usually pictures a man in a half-stooping position, holding his back with one hand, while with the other he is getting a belt from a sympathizing doctor.
Dr. McL—— has made big money duping his fellow men. Recently he opened an office in the City of Mexico. There the government protects people somewhat from their own folly.
A Mexican bought a belt, guaranteed to cure his disease: it failed. The doctor was promptly arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses. He was sent to jail, where he remained sixteen months.
The offices were closed and have not since been reopened. The best evidence that electric belts are a useless article is to be found in the fact that physicians neither use nor prescribe them. They are an adjunct to quackery.
The Varicocele Cure.
To begin with, varicocele is a surgical disease and is only cured by an operation. Yet the daily papers teem with advertisements offering cures by drugs, appliances and external washes.
It is needless to say that all of these are fakers. Chicago has more than twenty specialists who profess to cure varicocele. Only two of them fulfill their promises. The rest take your money and render you no service.
Nearly every paper advertises these men, such headlines as “Cured in Five Days,” “Cured Without Pain.”
“Five-day varicocele cure” meets the eye of the reader on nearly every page. It is true that varicocele can be cured in five days; it can and is cured in one treatment, but always by surgical means. The headlines above are simply baits for the afflicted.
The main idea of the so-called specialist is to get the victim into his office. Here he will tell him that he has two methods of cure. One is an operation, which necessitates the patient going to a hospital, remaining there for five days in order to effect the cure. The other is a suspensory and a liniment which, applied daily, will do just as well, but it requires three or four months to get the cure.
The patient wishes, of course, to avoid an operation. He is always told there is some danger from the chloroform. He usually takes the “slow cure,” parting at the same time with a good, fat fee, usually a good deal more than he would have had to pay a reputable man for an operation. At the end of the period fixed for the cure the patient finds himself no better and finally in disgust places himself in the hands of a man who does operate and is promptly cured.
Among the many men engaged in the cure of varicocele is Dr. Mark K——, of Cincinnati and Denver. This man’s advertisements adorn every page of papers that will take them. His fee is $2.00; his remedy a suspensory and a wash. Both are utterly useless. After you have paid your money your name or original letter is sold to someone in the same business.
In a little while you are surprised to receive mail from all parts of the country—all wanting you to purchase a varicocele cure. This applies to vacuum pumps, the superior system, the Parisian system and other fakes of a like nature. They are all frauds. In the past few years I have raided their places many times, seized their literature, which is always obscene and indecent, and arrested the proprietors. The game, however, still goes on.
The “Nervous Debility Specialist.”
“Lost Manhood Restored” is probably the greatest of all medical grafts. These men succeed simply because of the total ignorance of the people on matters pertaining to the sexual system.
If sexual physiology was a part of the studies in the public schools for pupils at the age of fourteen there would be no cases of nervous debility, and the “lost manhood” physician would have to seek other fields for the display of his talents.
One of the saddest of all the habits that young men drop into at some period of their lives is the secret vice. Until quite lately prudery has prevented its proper discussion and about the only literature on the subject was to be found in that issued by advertising doctors who treat the effects.
One thing is certain—no one ever acquired the habit by reading one of these “scare” or quack books. John Stuart Mill, in speaking of this vice, says: “The diseases of society can be no more checked or healed without publicly speaking of them than can those of the body.” To ignore or deny the prevalence of the evil is sometimes honest ignorance, but is more often hypocrisy.
A little scientific discussion on this subject is not out of place here. It will put young men on their guard against themselves, and cut off in some degree the income of that class of doctors who live on their credulity.
So far as I have been able to trace its origin it has always been with us. According to Ovid, Horace and Aristophanes, it was a curse in ancient Greece and Rome. Even Hippocrates, the father of medicine 380 years before Christ, considered it a subject worthy of his pen. Of modern writers the greatest was Tissot, in 1760, who issued a classic on this subject whose object was to stay, if possible, the abuses and vices which threatened the ruin of the French people. Lurid as the little book distributed by specialists usually is, the effects of this vice depicted by Tissot puts them all into the shade. If not exactly scientific, it at least exerted a large moral influence which was beneficial in the then state of public and private morals.
In the discussion of secret sin let us make it plain that the evil effects are not immediate, as is often thought and frequently taught by school teachers and writers. The brain is not palsied at once. Dementia, palsy and sudden death are not likely to occur. The erroneous idea that it does, accounts in a great measure for the terror, the bashfulness and the love of solitude exhibited by this class of sufferers.
It is enough for the purpose of this article that in the course of physical decay, gray hair, baldness and enfeebled gait, weakness of the muscular and nervous system, in fact, a general lowering of the tone of the bodily health, appear. Life has been lived out with abandon, its energies have been overdrawn and its wheels have run down like the mainspring of a clock whose regulator has been lost.
The sporty and fast life led by reckless youth is making him pay the penalty. And what is the penalty? Look at the daily papers, see the brazen medical advertisements, “Manhood Restored” staring at you from every page. These advertisements are costly. They run up into the thousands of dollars a month. One man, a doctor of Chicago, formerly paid the daily press eight thousand dollars a month for advertising; his “Lost Manhood, Varicocele and Hydrocele Cured” appeared in almost every paper in this city.
And the people who needed the treatment paid the bills. So powerful was this man’s influence that he was enabled to stave off undesirable legislation at Springfield. In this he was aided by the newspapers, who did not wish to lose this princely revenue from quack doctors.
This doctor is still in business, but on a small scale compared to former times. Competition and the advent of more mendacious liars have reduced his income to more modest proportions than it once was.
A Monumental Swindle.
MEN who need treatment or advice concerning their health or any weakness or private disease should, before taking any treatment whatever, go to Dr. S. for consultation, examination and advice; free.
DR. S.—Longest Established, Most Successful and Reliable Specialist in Diseases of Men, as Medical Diplomas, Licenses and Newspaper Records Show.
Dr. S. first came to Chicago about the time of the World’s Fair. His home office was supposed to be in Philadelphia. While Philadelphia has the reputation of being slow, yet the methods of Dr. S. were decidedly swift, so much so that he almost took the breath away from the Chicago specialists.
He was the first to charge for medicine in addition to his fees. It is a well-known fact that a man having been under the treatment of Dr. S. for a week or a month never seeks the aid of another one.
He has been cured? Not on your life. He has been robbed. I have known this “Doctor” to charge as much as one hundred dollars for two small bottles of dope. This is in addition to a fee of twenty-five to five hundred dollars. He always operates a “drug store” in connection with his office.
The patient, having undergone an examination and having been thoroughly frightened, is told what the fee will be. This being paid, he is given a prescription and sent to the “drug store.”
This is so written that no other drug store can fill it. In a short time he is handed two or three small bottles, and on asking “how much” is told a sum varying from ten to one hundred and fifty dollars. Surprised and indignant, he hastens back to the “Doctor” and complains. He is told that the medicines are cheap at that price; that they are expensive drugs and very necessary in his case.
If the patient has the money he pays it, resolving that he will have no more to do with Dr. S. If he lives in the country he is surprised the following week by getting notice from the express company that a C. O. D. package awaits him at the office.
It is the second week’s supply of medicine. Charges from twenty-five to ninety-eight dollars. He at once writes to the “Doctor” and says he doesn’t want the stuff.
The first supply has done him no good. It’s too expensive and he can’t afford to continue it.
The “Doctor” writes back and says that he must pay for it. It will require three months to effect a cure, and the whole treatment has been prepared. If he does not take it the office will be subject to a loss of many hundreds of dollars. They also threaten him with a suit for the recovery of the amount.
Blackmail an Adjunct.
The poor victim, almost frightened to death at the prospect of exposure, usually compromises and pays all the money he can raise, taking the three months’ “treatment” which he is assured has been specially prepared for his case.
It is not an uncommon thing for Dr. S. to get several thousand dollars out of one patient. Men have been known to mortgage their farms to get out of the clutches of these cormorants. They never let go until the last dollar has been extracted from the poor patient. After his experience with Dr. S. he wants no more. He thinks that they are all alike and carefully avoids them in the future.
Dr. S. himself is not in Chicago. He is said to live in Philadelphia. He operates offices in this city and several other places. Three men comprise the office staff—one man who “takes” the case, another a physician, usually a dummy engaged at a salary of fifteen to twenty dollars a week, and a druggist.
The main guy of every medical quack office is the “case taker.” He is always a “confidence man” skilled in the business. He plays upon the fears and credulity of his victims. He pictures the most dreadful fate awaiting the unfortunate patient. If a case of private disease, he knows that the patient will rot on his feet and become a charnel house of infection.
If a “Lost Manhood” case, he pictures the horrors of impotency, a trusting girl deceived, a divorce, together with the scandals that precede and follow.
The old Reliable B—— Doctors Cure Men—Men only.
NO PAY UNTIL CURED. $5 FEE FOR CURE, $5.
NEWLY CONTRACTED SPECIAL DISEASES.
Consultation and Examination Free Whether You Take
Treatment or not. Come to Expert Specialists.
We cure Varicocele, Nervous Debility, Urethral Troubles, Blood Poison, Private Diseases, Phimosis, Piles, Skin Diseases, Rupture and other Wasting Diseases of Men.
Call or send for free question list. Hours—Daily. 9 to 8; Sundays, 10 to 2. J. B. McG——, M. D., Medical Director.
B—— MEDICAL INSTITUTE.
Chicago, Ill.
The above advertisement appears right along in the Chicago dailies. If Dr. S—— is the “Prince of swindlers” the B—— Medical Institute is a good second.
It is owned and run by a Bohemian, who changed his name from an almost unpronounceable one to that of Hansen. He employs cheap doctors—mostly dope fiends—men who could not get employment elsewhere. His pay is about fifteen dollars per week. This man also runs a “dental” Institute where equally cheap dentists are employed. Both institutes rob the unsuspecting.
Hansen was sued by a former patient and nearly four hundred dollars recovered, quite recently. The man was absolutely free from any disease, but was frightened into paying that amount to get rid of an imaginary one.
He is a common, cheap, medical swindler.
These are Positive Facts.
MEN $10.
CURES YOU.
“DON’T PAY MORE.”
Under scientific treatment all diseases peculiar to men are thoroughly cured.
Nervous Debility, Blood Poisoning, Lost Vitality, Prostatic, Bladder and Kidney Troubles, Varicocele, Hydrocele, Contracted Diseases, Urethral Obstruction, Male Weakness.
Dr. C——’s Medical Offices are the most reliable and permanently established specialists in Chicago. See them before commencing treatment elsewhere. Advice, consultation and examination FREE.
Dr. C—— MEDICAL OFFICES,
Hours: 8 a. m. to 8 p. m.
Sunday, 10 to 3 only.
Chicago, Ill.
Swindler a “Dope” Fiend.
The above advertisement is that of Dr. C——. C—— himself is out of the game. He is a dope fiend. A few months ago he narrowly escaped the penitentiary for taking $225 from a sixteen-year-old child. He was fined $200 in the Municipal Court, paid it and quit the business.
Previously, however, he had sold the use of his name to Dick Williams, owner of several of the so-called medical offices along State street. Williams changes his doctors every few days, so that a patient hardly ever sees the same man twice. Each man makes an effort to “re-fee” the patient—that is, they try to extract more money in the way of fees, claiming that the other “doctor” did not grasp the severity of the case. It is not unusual for a patient to pay half a dozen fees in the same office before he drops onto the fact that he is being systematically robbed.
The main object of advertising cheap is to get the people into the office and started on the treatment. Money is demanded at every visit and new “diseases” discovered as long as the credulity of the patient lasts.
CONSULT DR. R——
A graduate and Regular Licensed Physician. Dr. R—— is qualified through twenty-one years of practical experience to give you the best medical advice and treatment in
All Diseases and Weaknesses Peculiar to Men.
The oldest established and most reliable specialist, who sees and treats patients personally. Dr. R——’s Home Treatment Cures Weak Men. If you have Varicocele, Hydrocele, Weakness, Drains, Lost Vigor, Losses, Blood Poison, Kidney, Bladder or Any Chronic Nervous, Private or Urinary Disease, consult the reliable specialist, who will cure you quickly, permanently and cheaply.
CONSULTATION FREE AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL, as the doctor never makes a professional charge unless you desire him to treat your case until cured. Remember, you see Dr. R—— personally. If you cannot call, write a description of your case and he will send you symptom blank and book, “VITAL FACTS FOR MEN,” FREE.
Dr. R—— is no better and no worse than others who have similar advertisements. They all practice the same game.
He is not, however, on very friendly terms with other specialists. A few years ago when some adverse legislation was threatened at Springfield it was necessary to raise a fund to check it. R—— subscribed one hundred dollars, but never paid it. There must be honor even among thieves.
I CURE IN FIVE DAYS VARICOCELE
AND HYDROCELE without Knife or Pain.
I want to cure every man suffering with Varicocele,
Stricture, Contagious Blood Poison, Nervous
Debility, Hydrocele or a disease peculiar to men.
This liberal offer is open to all who have spent large sums of money on doctors and medicines without any success, and my aim is to prove to all those people who were being treated
CONSULT DR. R——
by a dozen or more doctors, also without any success, that I possess the only method, by means of which I will cure you permanently.
DON’T PAY FOR UNSUCCESSFUL TREATMENT,
ONLY FOR PERMANENT CURE.
I will positively cure diseases of the stomach, lungs, liver and kidneys, even though very chronic.
PRIVATE DISEASES OF MEN cured quickly, permanently and with absolute secrecy. Nervous Debility, Weakness. Lost Vigor, Strains, Losses, Urinary Losses.
DISEASES PECULIAR TO WOMEN—Pains in the Back. White Discharge and other ailments cured permanently.
BLOOD POISON—And all kinds of skin diseases, like Pimples, Swollen Glands, Wasting Diseases, Lingering Diseases.
CONSULTATION AND EXAMINATION FREE.
CURE ONCE FOR ALL.
DR. L. E. Z——, Chicago.
Office Hours: 8 a. m. to 8 p. m.
Sundays: 9 a. m. to 4 p. m.
“I cure in five days.” So says Dr. Z—— and several others in the same business. However, when you offer to take the five-day cure you are told it is an operation. “I have a slow cure,” say the oily “doctors,” “just as good, which requires three months.” As the one operation itself is a little alarming, most men take the “slow cure.”
At the end of three or six months they find they have been victimized. They are no better, and often worse.
Just Plain Fraud.
Among other advertisers are Dr. L. R. W——, Dr. H. J. T—— and Dr. D——. The last named was recently arrested and held to the grand jury on the charge of defrauding a patient. It might be asked in the light of the above exposés of so-called specialists, are there no honest ones? Detective Wooldridge says yes, there are several in Chicago who deliver the goods. To any earnest seekers after the truth he will be glad to give the names of several men of whom he can say, “They do not misrepresent.”
FABULOUS LOSSES IN BIG TURF FRAUDS.
“INVESTMENT” COMPANIES OF LAST FEW YEARS NETTED $10,162,000.
This is a sad, sad story, because it is an obituary, the death notice of one of the meanest and most abominable frauds that has ever taken the hoarded pennies of children and working girls, the “late lamented” “turf syndicate.”
Several years ago the turf syndicate was in its glory. A poor girl, fresh from the old country, would scrub floors for a week or take in washing for a month in order to pour money into the pockets of these swindlers. Thanks to the efforts of Detective Clifton E. Wooldridge, of Chicago, and others, this particular fraud is now a thing of the past.
But the enormity of this tremendous crime against the poor may be appreciated from a study of the following figures.
Turf “investment” companies that have failed, absconded or have been driven to the wall by prosecutions during the last few years and the amount of money estimated to have been lost in the swindles give the following astonishing record:
| E. J. Arnold & Co. | $ 4,000,000 |
| John J. Ryan & Co., St. Louis, Mo. | 1,500,000 |
| Brolaski & Co., Chicago | 200,000 |
| Benedict & Co., Chicago | 200,000 |
| The Mid-Continent Investment Company, Chicago | 150,000 |
| The Mason-Teller Company, Chicago | 50,000 |
| The Douglas-Daly Company, R. S. Daly and N. C. Clark, Chicago | 125,000 |
| The Armstrong-Baldwin Turf Commission, J. P. McCann and O. L. Wells, Chicago | 100,000 |
| The Money-Maker, C. A. Pollock, manager, Chicago | 15,000 |
| Gulf Pacific Trust Co., F. Lehman and R. G. Herndon, Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco | 50,000 |
| Investors’ Profit-Sharing and Protective Association, Chicago | 12,000 |
| J. J. Shea & Company, Chicago | 10,000 |
| Standard Investment Bureau, Chicago and San Francisco | 25,000 |
| The Security Savings Society, W. R. Bennett, Chicago | 1,500,000 |
| The Investors’ Protective Association, Frank E. Stone, Chicago | 200,000 |
| D. W. Moodey & Co., Chicago | 50,000 |
| Co-Operative Trust Co., L. M. Morrison, Chicago | 150,000 |
| Edward L. Farley & Co., Chicago | 75,000 |
| Inter-Ocean Commission Co., J. T. Mitchell, Chicago | 75,000 |
| Hugo Morris & Co., Chicago | 50,000 |
| Al Fetzer & Co., Co-Operative Turf Pools, Hammond, Ind. | 500,000 |
| Co-Operative Investment Association, L. H. Myers, New York | 150,000 |
| American Stock Co., W. M. Nichols, New York | 100,000 |
| Mutual Security Co., C. Dudrey, New York | 100,000 |
| Henshall, Bronner & Co., New York | 75,000 |
| W. W. O’Hara & Co., Cincinnati | 50,000 |
| Crawford & Co., New York | 35,000 |
| Paul Pry’s Investments | 70,000 |
| The Belt Company, N. S. Goodsill, Hammond, Ind. | 150,000 |
| Drake, Allison & Co., Hammond, Ind. | 175,000 |
| McClellan & Co., John McClellan and John Murphy, proprietors, New Orleans, absconded | 50,000 |
| New York Co-Operative Company, New York | 20,000 |
| W. J. Keating Company, New York | 20,000 |
| The Fidelity Trust, Wm. J. Young, San Francisco | 25,000 |
| C. E. Cooper & Co., Cincinnati | 15,000 |
| C. E. Cooper & Co., Covington, Ky. | 10,000 |
| C. E. Collins & Co., George D. Jones and Charles Thompson, New York | 30,000 |
| ————— | |
| Total | $10,162,000 |
Gigantic Turf Swindle.
Among the first of the get-rich-quick schemes into which the public poured millions was the “turf investment” concern. The “literature” of probably no other class of swindle was so plausible as this. The promise was to pay 5 and in some cases 10 per cent on the investment each week. The method by which the promise was to be fulfilled was this: The money invested was to be placed in a pool and used as capital in playing the races. A standard bet of a certain amount was to be made. If this wager was lost, enough money out of the pool was to be bet on the horse picked by the managers of the concern in the next race, to recoup the loss on the first race, win the amount set out to win on the first race, together with a like amount on the second race. If this wager was lost, the process was to be repeated on the next race, and so on until a wager was won. Each time there was a winning, a large enough sum would have been bet to recoup all losses on previous races and win a fixed amount on each of the races played. Some concerns claimed to play the favorite horses in the betting, others the second choices to win and others to bet according to “inside information” derived from horse owners and jockeys.
Regardless of the variations of the scheme, the general plan was the same. The prospectuses, in a most plausible way, set forth the claim that “beating the races” was merely a matter of having a large enough capital at hand to continue the progressive betting plan.
By the claim that horse racing was as legitimate a calling as dealing on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange and possessed the additional advantage of being open to persons of small means, a strong appeal was made to the poor.
Of course, none of the money that poured in ever was bet. Had 5 per cent a week on all the millions contributed by the public to this form of swindle been actually derived from the bookmakers, every penciler in the country would have been bankrupted in a month. The remarkable feature of the “turf” investment scheme is that this phase of the matter seemed never to occur to investors, and the other palpably impossible phases of the operators’ claims were also overlooked in the effort to secure 260 per cent a year on the investment made.
Get-Rich-Quick Schemes.
As in the horse swindles, the older investors were paid their dividends from funds sent in by new ones. No attempt was made to win dividends in the market. As the gullibility of the “suckers” became a little dulled, innovations to increase the plausibility of the schemes were made and new forms of bait devised.
“Turf swindles” have flourished, while the victims, who number tens of thousands, dare not raise their voices in protest or complaint, well knowing that they would not only be the butt of ridicule in their community, but also that the world at large would rather rejoice at their losses, and courts and juries would probably waste little sympathy on them. Consequently the safest swindles operated today are those having race-track betting for their basis.
In the latter part of 1902 there were upwards of twenty-five of these schemes in operation in the United States. New York City was the headquarters for about ten, and the balance were located in St. Louis, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Brooklyn.
Their prosperity was evidenced by the ability of managers to buy advertising space in the leading newspapers, to pay the printers for the most elaborate booklets, circulars, etc., and Uncle Sam for postage stamps, with which they were extremely liberal, usually sending a stamped envelope, for reply, to prospective investors.
Extracts which I give below from the literature of five of these concerns offer a fair criterion for the whole mass which I have before me, and demonstrate the turf swindlers’ method of extracting money from the unsophisticated. Fully 25 per cent of their “investors” are women, while the whole number who contribute to their scheme is made up of persons who would not be seen betting at a race track or pool room, but who have consciences that will permit them to make money “honestly or otherwise.”
Here Are Plausible Arguments.
This is one argument of a firm of so-called “Expert Handicappers” of New York City, who bet on the races:
“There has never been a week since we started in business when we did not pay a dividend. The smallest dividend we have ever paid for any one week was $6.50 for every $100 invested. We average about $9.50 per week on each $100.”
“An investment with us is safer and brings better returns than bookmaking or any other form of speculation.”
Here is an argument of a firm of so-called “Turf Commissioners” of San Francisco, which claimed to be betting on the races, guaranteeing 4 per cent weekly:
“There is no kind of speculation that affords so great an opportunity for making money rapidly on a small capital as playing the races on a business-like and systematic basis. Our average weekly profits usually range from 4 to 8 per cent.”
Another argument, that of a so-called “Bookmaker” of St. Louis, who guarantees 5 per cent weekly dividends to investors:
“We make books and allow the betting public to place the money. The man who bets has one horse running for him—the bookmaker has the rest. For this reason the odds are all in favor of the bookmaker and if he understands his business he is certain to make money.”
Argument of a firm of so-called “Turf Commissioners” of Chicago, who claim to make books on the races:
“Our plan insures a steady income on a small capital, such as no other company offers, and far eclipses any mining, oil, or other stock investment.”
Argument of so-called racing stable concern of St. Louis, guaranteeing 3 per cent per week to investors of $50 and upward:
“We have a large stable of race horses, which we run at all tracks, winter and summer; we make books wherever racing is conducted, and the proposition we manage pays so well because we know how to run it to that end.”
One of the variants of the old turf scheme is the venerable “Two-Horse Special,” a fraud that is so old that its whiskers drag about its knees. Here is a sample of the two-horse literature:
“MY TWO-HORSE SPECIAL PLAN.”
(Send this slip with remittance.)
No Account Received of Less Than $50.
George F. Stone,
Turf Specialist.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
I hand you........ Dollars to be used by you in speculating for me, according to your TWO-HORSE WIRE plan of Turf Speculation. You are to play one-fifth of the amount of capital on each special, placing the money to win and also for place. You are to mail for me your selections each day, mailing the same NOT LATER than 1 P. M. You agree to operate the account, MAKING NO CHARGE until winnings equal capital invested. After that 20 per cent of all winnings you are to deduct, and send me the balance by money order, with statement, each week. I can close my account and withdraw any balance due me on demand. My liability is strictly limited to above amount.
The Police, Aroused by Turf Swindlers, Raid and Close Up Their Places.
Detective Wooldridge led the officers on February 23, 1900, when the following concerns were raided and closed up:
Co-Operative Trust Company, 80 and 84 Adam street.
Turf Investment Company, 84 Adams street.
Inter-Ocean Commission Company, 66 Wabash avenue.
Security Savings Company, Madison street and Fifth avenue.
Investors’ Protective Association, 510 Realty Building.
D. W. Moody, 182 and 184 Dearborn street.
The papers, books and “big-dividend” circulars of these concerns filled several wagons. The police estimated that over $500,000 had been lost by the investors in these concerns, which, notwithstanding some of the high-sounding names adopted by them, were all turf swindlers. Raid after raid has resulted in practically ridding Chicago of these vampires, but they seem to thrive wherever they are permitted to exist.
FAKE TURFMEN INDICTED.
Gambling and Bookmaking Charged Against the “Get-Rich-Quick” Syndicates, Including Bennett’s.
True bills were voted against proprietors of “get-rich-quick” turf concerns by the grand jury. Indictments were returned in court, and capiases for the arrest of the accused persons placed in the hands of the sheriff. Those against whom bills were voted are:
Frank E. Stone, alias Eddie Dunne, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. W. R. Bennett, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. W. I Bennett, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. D. W. Moody, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. Louis Morrison, alias L. M. Morrison, Co-Operative Trust Company, for bookmaking. Edwin E. Farley, for keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. Charles Carroll, for keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. J. W. Turner, alias J. W. Taylor, for keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. Miss S. Beck, stenographer for W. R. Bennett, for bookmaking.
One puzzling feature of the prosecution of the turf people is that although the bills accuse them of keeping common gaming houses and operating poolrooms, officers and lawyers interested in the cases say the promoters of the concerns never really attempted to win their advertised profits by betting on the races. It has been alleged that not one of them speculated with deposits, but simply sent dividends back to investors out of their own money. It is now suggested that the accused persons will either have to admit they were gambling or confess that their alluring statements about winnings on the race tracks were glittering frauds.
The turf swindle was prosperous until February, 1903, when the crash among the St. Louis contingent precipitated a “run” on all of the concerns then in operation. As it was not the policy of the swindlers to pay, they either closed their doors and fled or the police conveniently interfered with their business.
Prior to the crash at St. Louis there were several notable failures and disappearances. On July 9, 1902, the Al Fetzer Co., of Hammond, Ind., “failed,” and about a week prior Turf Commissioner W. W. O’Hara, of Cincinnati, absconded. Both of these events shattered many dreams of riches. In the Fetzer case heavy rains were said to have broken the sure-thing combination by which the company was to win fortunes from bookmakers on the race tracks.
The amounts lost by the credulous investors in Fetzer’s scheme, which, it was declared, “could not lose,” reached into the hundreds of thousands. The towns that suffered the most were Hammond, Ind., and Appleton, Wis. It was reported that the people of the latter town had suffered to the extent of $50,000, and dozens of small cities are believed to have fared almost as badly.
The clients of the concern in Appleton included a number of well-known business men and people of all classes. They lost from $25 to $200 each. A poor widow who had put in all her savings was left penniless and was obliged to seek aid from the city authorities.
Fetzer conducted a large part of his business through the mails. He advertised extensively in the newspapers and found many who were willing to “play the game.” Dividends of $5 a week for $100 invested were promised and were paid punctually up to about July 1, 1902. He said he had a system of playing the races that could not be beaten, and the success of the early investors convinced the doubting ones that his system was all right. The information of the “snap” spread rapidly and Fetzer’s business increased accordingly. No one thought that dividends of 260 per cent were improbable when they read of the “long shots” that won races on the Chicago tracks.
Fetzer attributed the downfall of his business to the rainy weather and said that he had been unsuccessful in picking “mudders.” His system of betting, which was to make everyone rich by the end of the summer, went to pieces with each succeeding thunder shower, and the investors received the doleful information that the company had lost its own capital, as well as the money entrusted to it.
An investigation into the affairs of O’Hara at Cincinnati revealed a state of affairs almost beyond belief. More than 4,000 letters which were received within a week after O’Hara’s disappearance were opened. They were from every state in the country, and many were from Canada. Amounts from $5 to $500 in checks and mail and express orders were enclosed. The total amount of the money in the letters opened was $5,518, and Inspector Holmes stated that O’Hara got away with $7,500 which came in the mail the same week, making a total of over $12,000 for one week’s business. O’Hara’s books showed that from July, 1900, when he commenced operations, until he skipped out in June, 1902, he had received from credulous “investors” the enormous sum of $465,000.
The inevitable crash came early in February, 1903, and the police and grand juries at Chicago, St. Louis, New York and other cities got busy, but the money had been transferred to the pockets of the swindlers, who had the choice of paying lawyers and possible fines or traveling in foreign climes until the excitement blew over.
February, 1903, Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge raided and closed the following named turf investment companies in Chicago:
H. B. Blackstone, E. J. Arnold, 95 Dearborn street.
Harry Brolaski, “Brolaski & Co.,” 356 Dearborn street.
Henry Thompson, “Brolaski & Co.,” 356 Dearborn street.
Mattie Woodin, “Benedict & Co.,” 225 Dearborn street.
M. J. Beck, “Benedict & Co.,” 225 Dearborn street.
W. J. Mason, “Benedict & Co.,” 225 Dearborn street.
“Mid-Continent,” 185 Dearborn street.
Prey on Chicago Teachers.
From papers found in the Mid-Continent offices it appears this company had been doing a loan as well as an investment business. A letter addressed to Chicago school teachers invited deposits for investment on which 2-1/2 per cent monthly interest was guaranteed.
If the teachers needed money it was offered them at 3 per cent a month. The company’s methods and those of the banks were compared in the letter, to the disadvantage of the banks.
Medical students, stenographers, maids in hotels, women of various classes, farmers in many sections of the country and hundreds of men in different employments in the city were disclosed as the dupes.
The following telegram from St. Louis to a Chicago paper briefly outlines the situation on the second day of the raiding there:
St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 11, 1903.—Runs were made on the E. J. Arnold Turf Investment Company, the International Investment Company, The Christie Investment Company and John J. Ryan & Co. yesterday by hundreds of men and women who during the last six months have invested their savings with these co-operative bookmaking concerns in the hope of enormous profits. The International and Christie companies paid all the stockholders who appeared, at first. Then they decamped.
Arnold & Co., in accordance with their announcement which caused the panic among the “turf speculators” yesterday, refused to pay back any stock certificates, although still claiming to be perfectly solvent, and determined to pay the usual weekly dividends until affairs of the company are wound up.
At the offices of John J. Ryan, owner of the Newport (Ky.) Race Track, a riot was averted by the presence of the police; and the excited investors, who were reminded that their stock certificates are payable only on thirty days’ notice, went off in a state of rage and anxiety at once amusing and pitiful.
How Arnold Inspired Confidence.
Arnold was a wise one. He knew how to work the game. First he sent to New York and bought the famous race horse Gold Heels. This horse had won many of the great Eastern classics. He broke a tendon and was useless, but Arnold’s investors did not know that. They would swear by Gold Heels. Then he caused his “bank” to issue a letter along the following lines:
American Central Trust Company.
Capital—$1,000,000. Surplus—$500,000.
S. Schnurmacher, President.
Wm. S. Simpson, First Vice-President.
Joseph Wachtel. Second Vice-President.
Franklin P. Hunkins, Third Vice-President.
Edward Bauder, Secretary and Treasurer.
Directors.
Shepard Barclay,
Edward Bauder,
G. A. Bauder,
John N. Drummond, Jr.,
Henry W. Gehner,
Morris Glaser,
Frank Griesedieck,
G. A. Gurner,
Franklin P. Hunkins,
John D. Manley,
H. I. Mills,
John A. Nies,
H. F. Powitzhy,
Leo S. Rassieur,
B. Schnurmacher,
Wm. S. Simpson,
Joseph Wachtel.
St. Louis, Mo., May 15, 1902.
To Whom It May Concern:
The firm of E. J. Arnold & Company, of this city, is one of our largest depositors, and we consider them amply responsible for every obligation they may assume.
American Central Trust Company,
By Edward Bauder,
Sec’y & Treas.
The disaster was brought about by the appointment of a committee by the Missouri legislature to investigate the “get-rich-quick” situation. St. Louis had become the haven of every conceivable class of swindlers, who swarmed there in such numbers that the legislature deemed it wise to look into the matter. What motive inspired it to take this action was a mystery. Sufficient, however, to observe that when it came to following out its own recommendation to pass laws that would drive the “get-rich-quick” companies of all kinds out of the state something stopped the legislation.
The investigation of the “get-rich-quick” concerns in Missouri by the State Senate Committee resulted in an elaborate report, which was presented March 3, 1903. This report had the following to say of the turf investment companies:
“These institutions are of modern origin. The pioneer in this field, especially in this state, seems to have been E. J. Arnold & Co. Then followed Ryan & Co., the International, The Christian Syndicate, Brolaski, Thomas Walsh, Maxim-Gay and others.
“These concerns were presumably prosperous until the examination which was begun by the grand jury, instigated by the circuit attorney of St. Louis, Hon. Joseph W. Folk, and your present committee. When the crash came, company after company closed its doors or refused to pay back to depositors on demand, and upon examination of these companies, we found them to be mere shells, with little or no money or available assets on hand, and the millions of dollars handled by them either paid out in dividends, squandered and gambled away on race tracks, or absorbed by the officers and managers of the said companies.
“The evidence discloses the fact that E. J. Arnold is supposed to be in Mexico, the books of said company being in the hands of the grand jury. So far as the search under legal process has developed, no assets of Arnold & Co., except a stock farm and stock thereon, office furniture and fixtures, and a few hundred dollars in cash, were found.
“Ryan & Company claim that they have on hand $200,000, which has been attached and garnisheed, in the hands of the depositories, and the same process has been used to take possession of the real estate holdings and other personal property.
“George A. Dice, inspector of the postoffice, in charge of the St. Louis department, testified that he had made an examination of E. J. Arnold & Co. and John J. Ryan & Co., and that on their showing Arnold & Co. had on hand $160,000 more assets than their liabilities; that two different examinations of these concerns were made by him and his deputies, and that in the last report of November and December, 1902, his report to the department recommended that they be cited to appear before the department and answer as to their liability for criminal use of the mails, and that so far as his report went they were notified that there was a case pending against them; that the ruling of the department was not in accordance with his recommendation; that from the evidence it appears that the department at Washington, by some process or other unknown to your committee, overruled the recommendations of the inspector, dismissed the cases pending against these companies, and they were allowed to proceed with their process of absorbing the people’s money. Had the department at Washington acted promptly and properly upon the recommendation of the inspector, millions of dollars would have been saved to the people of the State of Missouri and other states.
“In order to protect the people who are attracted by the fair promises and the payment of extraordinary profits or dividends, and to prohibit the improper and vicious misapplication and absorption of the money of the people who confide in the representation of investment companies, your committee recommends that a law be passed which will prohibit the doing of business by said turf investment companies or other like institutions in this state.”
If one should moralize on the turf swindles it would only be to repeat the old story—avarice. Nothing else explains why they are permitted to flourish and rob, and then a newspaper story and no more.
Justice, blind and decrepit, is unable to scale the insurmountable barrier of the swindlers’ “bank roll.” But there is still hope, for from Washington we hear from day to day that another boodler has been landed in the grand jury net—thanks to President Roosevelt, who, if he knew all, would do more.
When the last paragraph was written the finale had not been reached. But the strong arm of the federal government has at last been felt and the turf investment companies are no more. It is impossible for even the veriest sucker to be taken in by them any more, and their literature would be barred from the mails in an instant. It is all over with the turf investment companies. “Requiescat in pace.” May they rest in peace.
FAKE DRUG VENDORS.
A MOST DANGEROUS FORM OF RASCALITY.
Drugs Worth $30,000 Seized.
War on Makers of Imitations of Medicines Begun by the Chicago Police in Charge of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
In all the history of fraud, imposture and graft, there is no story to parallel that of the “fake drug clique.” There is no means of finding out how many thousands of lives are annually sacrificed in consequence of its nefarious practices, and the strong arm of the law while it can reach out and prevent further crime, can not call back to life those who have been offered up on the altar of greed.
Sensational raids made in the effort to clear Chicago of its numerous “Fake” patent medicine concerns, occurred on the morning of Nov. 29, 1904.
The raids followed a long conference between Chief of Police Francis O’Neill and Col. James E. Stuart, Chief Inspector of Chicago Postal Department, and for the first time in the history of the city, the Federal and City forces worked in unison. They decided that Chicago should be cleared of “Fake” Patent Medicine Concerns which for years had been using the mails to defraud hundreds of thousands of sick and weak persons.
George G. Kimball, U. S. Inspector of Mails, and Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge were assigned to gather the evidence and prepare the cases for prosecution. The work was no easy task. Both officers went about the work of gathering the evidence in a thoroughly systematic manner.
Inspector Kimball discovered the mails were employed extensively by the agents in disposing of their spurious drugs. Investigation proved that large orders were sent to small suburban towns and cities weekly. The correspondence, circulars and goods were secured.
The breaking up of the drug ring, however, was a delicate task. It was strongly backed financially, and it was aided and abetted, throughout the United States, by political rings galore. Chicago was the headquarters, and it was natural that to the police department of this city, ever-famed for its hatred of “grafts” big and little, should fall the lot of exterminating the traffic.
Detective Wooldridge gathered the information in Chicago, the names of the firms, location and the men who owned them.
The men are charged with making and selling a spurious preparation of aristol, a product made in Germany, and valued as a substitute for iodoform. Their products were represented as genuine, were said to differ from those handled by the wholesale drug trade, only in the fact that they were imported from Canada and England instead of from Germany.
Here are a few of the things discovered in the course of the investigation by Detective C. R. Wooldridge. The statements are printed from an interview with the great detective.
“As we have progressed the work has broadened and grown to proportions never anticipated at the start. Among the goods seized were found boxes, the labels of which bore the chemical name and formula of trional, and which gave an exact description of the chemical and physical properties of trional and the medicinal indications of this drug.
“On examination it was found that these boxes contained pure acetanilid. The dosage of drugs recommended upon the label was fifteen to twenty grains, and it was stated ’that night sweats of phthisis are promptly arrested by eight grains.”
“I am informed that it is within the professional knowledge of every druggist as well as every physician that the substitution, grain for grain, of acetanilid, for trional, is a most reprehensible fraud, which might cause the death of the patient to whom the drug was administered.
“As indicating the commercial fraud connected with this substitution, it should be stated that the price charged for this drug by the defendants in this case, as shown by the price list, was 95 cents per ounce, commercial value of acetanilid is one and one half cents per ounce.
“But by far the largest fraud found was in the counterfeit label business. There were 2,400 metal caps for bottles stamped with the name of a Swiss manufacturer. There were also labels purporting to be German or Swiss labels. A number of half filled bottles, waiting for the adulterants, showed conclusively the use to which these labels were to be put.
“We were fortunate enough to find certain cards and bills in this place indicating that the makers of these metal caps and labels had never been nearer Switzerland or Germany than Clark and Harrison streets. Acting upon this information we secured evidence that these articles were made in Chicago and never imported.
“These entire preparations including the mixing, boxing, labeling and placing upon the market was done by these parties here in Chicago, and the goods, much of it undoubtedly, placed in the hands of innocent purchasers, who were deceived by the external appearance of genuineness, into purchasing the adulterated and fraudulent goods, without analysis or investigation of any kind.
“The great public, the individuals who use these drugs when prescribed by their physician, are themselves in total ignorance of the fact, not only that they have defrauded and cheated, but perhaps placed in jeopardy of their lives.
“There were found among these boxes seized, certain receptacles which bore labels stating that aristol was contained therein. On examination by reputable chemists at the Columbus Laboratories, the powder in these boxes was found to be fullers earth, colored with oxide of iron, not containing a single trace of aristol. The aristol, which was quoted on the price lists as ‘equal to Bayer’s’ was sold at 80 cents per ounce, at which almost a ton of fullers earth and oxide of iron could be purchased.
“The evidence was procured and chemical tests made which proved the presence of alien matter in the prescriptions which called for pure drugs. In nearly 20 per cent of the samples obtained there was not even a trace of the drug called for in the prescription; Acetanilid as a substitute for trional-aristol, which is an antiseptic wash much used by surgeons.
“Prescriptions were sent to 139 druggists signed by Dr. J. Scott Brown, calling for pure aristol. Dr. J. A. Wesener of the Columbus Laboratories conducted the tests.
WHAT THE TEST SHOWED.
(The results) Dr. Wesener showed the following:
| 23 prescriptions | No trace of aristol |
| 66 prescriptions | 80 per cent impurity |
| 10 prescriptions | 20 per cent impurity |
| 9 prescriptions | 10 per cent impurity |
| 31 prescriptions | pure |
“Druggists have been misled into purchasing this substitute for aristol by unscrupulous salesmen, who have palmed off on them a substance which in many cases is nothing more than ‘fuller’s earth,’ said Dr. Wesener. This stuff was sold to them cheap.
“The druggist can have no excuse for selling this stuff, which is injurious, because it is an easy matter for him to test it to find out whether it is aristol or not. Aristol is soluble in either, and makes a dark brown solution. Some of the powder which we have obtained on these prescriptions is not soluble at all. We have not completed the chemical analysis of all the precipitates, but those which we have tried consist of chalk mixed with an iron oxide to give it the color, or some other mineral substance.”
The two leading imitations are as follows: Spurious preparation of aristol, and an imitation of triethylate which is a substitute for trional.
Aristol sells at $1.85 an ounce and triethylate retails at $1.50 an ounce. The cost of manufacturing the two imitations is about 2 cents an ounce.