June i, 1905.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER ^VORLD 



301 



AFFAIRS OF THE UBERO COMPATslES. 



[The last issue of this Journal contained the details of the business 

 of the Ubero Plantation Co of Boston and the Consolidated Vhiro 

 Plantations Co. which ltd to the appoinlnient, in the federal courts, 

 of receivers of the assets of those companies. The receivers have 

 not yet made a report on the afTairs entrusted to them. Mr. Sted- 

 man, who is quoted below, was for some time president of the 

 companies.] , 



ON the return from Europe of Mr. Arthur W. Stedman' 

 of the firm of George A. Alden & Co., who arrived at 

 his home in Boston on May 4, he was besieged by 

 newspaper reporters for interviews in relation to the 

 Ubero plantation companies, to all of whom he refused any 

 statement for publication, pending the report of the receivers 

 now in charge of the affairs of these companies. In the course 

 of a conversation with the Editor of The Indi.\ Rubber 

 World, however, Mr. Stedman reviewed his connection with 

 the Ubero companies, and in view of the interesting character 

 of his statement he has been persuaded to break the seal of his 

 silence and consent to the publication o( the following inter- 

 view : 



"As all of the rubber manufacturers know, "said Mr. Stedman, 

 " I have been for years intensely interested in the opening up 

 of new sources of rubber. Not only because I wanted my firm 

 to become factors in the handling of all new sorts, but I felt 

 that the trade more and more needed greater supplies. For 

 this reason, when Congo rubbers first appeared on the market, 

 in 500 and 1000 pound lots and little general attention was paid 

 to them, I took a lively interest in them, had them tested, found 

 customers who could use them to advantage, and our present 

 imports will show what the result of that attention has been as 

 far as we are concerned. Then too, I took hold of and got to 

 going a large company for the gathering of Par4 rubber, to be 

 brought out and shipped from the west coast of South America. 

 That company has produced many hundreds of tons of rubber, 

 and is still producing. 



" Again, I got a Boston syndicate to take up a large tract of 

 wild land down in Panama, and although that occurred but a 

 short time ago, many thousand pounds of Central American 

 rubber of high grade have already come into the market and in- 

 creased receipts will follow from this source. All that, of course, 

 was in the line of increasing the supply of wild rubber; but it 

 has seemed to me from the beginning of rubber planting that 

 one great source of good rubber some day would be that pro- 

 duced by plantations. 



" When Ceylon plantation rubber first appeared, I at once 

 began to handle it, and we have not only imported more of it 

 than anybody else in the United States, but at the present time 

 have one of our men in the far East visiting the planters, tak- 

 ing photographs, and examining the whole situation, with an 

 idea of gaging the future output and seeing that American 

 manufacturers have their share. I cite all this, simply to make 

 it clear how much interested I have been in anything that 

 promised an addition to the supply of crude rubber. 



" When rubber planting in Mexico began to take shape, scores 

 of companies came to me and made all sorts of propositions 

 with the view of obtaining my cooperation. I, however, turned 

 them all down. Finally, an old time friend of mine introduced 

 Mr. W. D. Owen. This friend was a planter in Mexico whose 

 property bordered on the Ubero property, a man who stood 

 very high in Boston society and one whom I had known from 



boyhood. He vouched for Mr. Owen very strongly, though" 

 this was hardly necessary, lor Mr. Owen brought to Boston 

 such a line of credentials from men whose names are widely 

 and favorably known that a man would be a skeptic indeed to 

 doubt his standing. After that I saw Mr. Owen a number of 

 times and he converted me absolutely to his plans, and not 

 only that, but I came to have absolute faith in his integrity 

 and honor. It was not until last spring that serious doubts 

 were raised. At that time Mr. W. P. Pinkham, the superin- 

 tendent of the plantation, came up from Mexico, and during 

 the course of conversation let fall some remarks which Vice 

 President Hood and myself thought demanded explanation, 

 and we, therefore, had a meeting with him and finally secured 

 from him the information that in his opinion all the side crops 

 had been failures and that the earnings with which dividends 

 had been reported to be paid did not appear on his books at 

 the plantation. 



" We both then went to Mr. Owen and demanded an imme- 

 diate investigation. Mr. Owen replied that he was then going 

 to Washington to get a representative of the government to go 

 with him to Ubero and make a report. On his return from 

 Mexico his report was far from satisfactory, and then we sent 

 Mr. W. L. Wadleigh, who spent some time down there and 

 whose report brought on the crisis in the afTairs of the com- 

 pany. This report, by the way, was printed by us and sent to 

 every stockholder. 



" Prior to the reception of Mr. Wadleigh's report, I called in 

 the largest stockholders, stopped all payments to the promo- 

 tion companies, shut down on the sale of stock, stopped all 

 commissions for sales, and cut down office and other expenses 

 to a minimum. I should then have resigned my position as 

 president, and so my counsel advised me, had it not been for 

 the fact that I wanted to do what I could to help the stock- 

 holders win out. 



" After all this had been done it seemed advisable to get in 

 closer touch with Owen, who had gone to Europe, and I must 

 say frankly that I had even then faith enough in him to be- 

 lieve that 1 could get him to come back and help straighten 

 things out. Aside from this, I was very close to a nervous 

 breakdown, and my physician told me that a short rest was 

 imperatively necessary. In Europe I tried in every way to get 

 in touch with Owen, by telegraph, by telephone, and by letter, 

 but was not successful. Toward the end of my stay there one 

 of my telegrams to Paris was answered from the United States 

 to the effect that Mr. Owen was sailing for America on April 



'5- 

 " I want to say, now that I am here, I am doing all that I can 



to win out for the stockholders. I have put all of my stock and 

 bonds into the hands of my counsel to be used for their benefit. 

 From the time that I took charge the books have been open to 

 the counsel of the various stockholders, and I have had assur- 

 ances from the best of them that they are in full sympathy with 

 my course and that I am doing the best that anybody could do. 

 I must say that I do feel somewhat sensitive over the treat- 

 ment of some of the stockholders, because they, as well as the 

 promoters, were partly to blame for my ignorance of affairs 

 down in Mexico. For example, three years ago. at a meeting 

 of the stockholders, I had selected as the yearly inspector to 

 make a visit to the plantation in behalf of the investors, a man 

 who was a heavy investor himself, and a sound business man 



