1911. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
668 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
U. S. Senators Lured by the Idola¬ 
ters of the Sucker List. 
It seems that E. G. Lewis is now going 
to make a weekly of his much-boasted 
Daily. It is strange that the government 
will allow him to use the mails to fool the 
people out of their money. Last year he 
was publishing three magazines, claiming 
a million and a half subscribers. He 
stopped them and said he would enlarge 
the Daily each week and publish the mag¬ 
azines as supplements so that the sub¬ 
scribers would get the same service as 
before. That was untrue. Then he raised 
the price of the Daily to $2 and after 
getting all the subscribers he could, he is 
going to reduce it to a weekly. Has he 
got the right to fool the people out of 
their money, and to slander the whole 
Tost Office Department? It is just such 
men as he is who prompt loony cranks 
to assassinate our Presidents and other 
officials. If it can be stopped, why doesn't 
the government stop it? Surely if it can¬ 
not be stopped this government cannot 
stand, when its subjects have no respect 
for it. Anyone who reads bis paper can 
see that he is an anarchist, in the sense 
that he disrespects law. That paper is 
not fit to put into any family where there 
are children any more than the “Appeal tp 
Reason.” and of the two I think the Lewis 
publication the worse of the two, and the 
most to be feared. He should be stopped 
before he does any more harm. He has 
fooled the women out of millions, and if 
he can collect the notes they sent him un¬ 
der misrepresentations it will amount to 
millions more. I wish you would open the 
eyes of the Post Office Department and see 
if they will not try to stop his practices. 
Pine River, Wis. a. n. de cjroff. 
Some good people forget that our 
government is the people. The officials 
are merely their employees, and they 
are directed by the activities of the 
people interested in various projects. 
In Canada and in some of the old 
countries with limited monarchies the 
government is more rigid, stronger and 
less subject to transient and hysterical 
influences. With postal regulations 
much the same as ours, Lewis never 
could get his papers entered to second- 
class privileges in Canada. He has suc¬ 
ceeded here because of our govern¬ 
ment’s sensitive response to pressure 
from any number of people, whether the 
measure is just or otherwise. 
It is estimated that Lewis has one of 
the biggest “sucker lists” in existence. 
It is said to number over two million 
names. He started it with an endless 
chain fake. He added to it with a pure 
lottery scheme, and he increased it fur¬ 
ther by the purchase of names from 
patent medicine advertisers and various 
other ways. Later he classified the 
“list.” The attempt to perfect a male 
list failed; but the classification known 
as the American Woman’s League is 
said to have the distinction of being the 
first and largest exclusive female 
“sucker list” extant. The general list 
is made up of men, women and chil¬ 
dren of all ages and of every conceiv¬ 
able condition. Some are intelligent; 
Lewis appealed to their love of culture. 
Some are public-spirited; he appealed to 
their civic pride. Some are philan¬ 
thropic ; he appealed to their charity. 
Others are ambitious; Lewis tickled 
their vanity. Others still are venal; he 
appealed to their cupidity; others again 
are sentimental; he set himself up as 
the idol for their worship. He magni¬ 
fied every virtue, patronized every foible, 
flattered every vice, and all the time 
lured a flood of money from his unsus¬ 
pecting victims. It mattered not to him 
whence it came or how. He tricked 
the careful investor with realty securi¬ 
ties; he caught the speculatively in¬ 
clined with fake stock. The intelligent 
contributed to his - plausible bank 
schemes, and the ignorant to his more 
transparent swindles. He had schemes 
for all; and his insatiable greed knew 
no limitations. He talked only in mil¬ 
lions ; but the dimes and pennies of 
children and cripples were taken with 
as little compunction of conscience as 
the dollars of the wealthy. No limita¬ 
tion of youth or age deterred him. No 
degree of poverty of distress or misfor¬ 
tune was sacred to him. He wanted it 
all, allured it all, schemed for it all, 
lied for it all, got it all. No pleading of 
poverty or distress or sickness or death 
suffices to induce him to return any of 
it. The rich and the poor, the young 
and the old, the strong and the weak, 
the cripple, the deaf and the blind, all 
sent him their savings in the trust of 
his promised reward. For seven years he 
has jollied them and appeased them with 
one exchange of a fake certificate for 
another, and at last impudently demands 
the return of every worthless certificate 
and the surrender of every broken 
pledge. 
What has become of all the money 
gathered from these people, and esti¬ 
mated at $10,000,000? Some say he 
squandered it in foolish attempts to ag¬ 
grandize himself; but there are rumors 
of a bank account in Europe, and these 
recall his wife’s trip abroad last year 
when financial troubles began to grow 
acute. 
Of course the honest and intelligent 
have long since become unwilling mem¬ 
bers of the “sucker list.” The prudent 
and crafty hold on in the vain hope of 
getting their money back. The hirelings 
yet serve and the idolaters still worship. 
To these two elements of the “sucker 
list” he is a real divinity capable of no 
wrong, and worthy of all praise. Hence 
it is that while you are attending to your 
business and your home and your chil¬ 
dren, and your employes at Washing¬ 
ton are faithfully trying to do their 
sworn duty in enforcement of the law, 
these Lewis worshippers are writing 
hysterical letters to members of Con¬ 
gress, using the very words that are 
put into their mouths by Lewis, and de¬ 
manding justice and a square deal for 
their idol, meaning thereby that he must 
be left free to violate the law as he 
pleases. Legislatures respond to the ap¬ 
peals of their constituents. If they took 
more pains to investigate drunnned-up 
complaints they might save themselves 
the humiliation of appearing in the 
United States Senate as champions of 
any notorious swindler or crook, 
and refrain from using their powerful 
position to embarras other officials in the 
honest discharge of an impartial duty. 
Of course the Senators who have taken 
up the Lewis complaint are acting in 
good faith. They have no other infor¬ 
mation, and they act in response to the 
demands on them. They think they ap¬ 
peal for a just cause. If the Lewis vic¬ 
tims told them their pitiable stories the 
Senators would see a new light. But 
don’t blame the Federal authorities. 
They stopped the old bank game; and* 
you turned the proceeds over to Lewis 
again, $1,300,000 of it. They indicted 
and tried Lewis for fraud; and you 
went to court and secured his acquittal. 
They applied the law to his publications; 
and you made such a fuss about it he 
was allowed privileges denied to others. 
They closed one bank; you sent him 
money to start another. They started 
an investigation of his later fakes; and 
you joined in Ins squeal and cried 
shame! When we say “you,” we refer 
to the voluntary members of the “sucker 
list,” the hirelings and the idolaters; 
but they are part of the mob who influ¬ 
ence legislators and send orders to pub¬ 
lic officials. If we could forget the help¬ 
less pitiable conditions of his victims, 
the trifling with Lewis would be ridicu¬ 
lous from the police phases of it. In 
view of the time and extent of his oper¬ 
ations it is fast assuming the proportions 
of a national scandal. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Discouraged because he is 
not able physically to perform manual labor, 
“Andy” Toth, of Pittsburg, Pa., who a 
month ago was pardoned from the peniten¬ 
tiary after he had served twenty years of 
a life sentence for a crime he did not com¬ 
mit, applied to Warden John Francis to 
return to the Western Penitentiary, there 
to spend the remainder of his days. When 
Toth was released from the penitentiary 
reports had it that Andrew Carnegie, having 
been touched by the sad story of Toth’s 
misfortune, would pension him. Friends in 
Pittsburg also expressed their willingness 
to help him. Tip to date he has received 
only a $48 subscription. His health is 
rapidly failing, and physicians say that 
hard work would kill him. Toth’s four sons 
there are barely able to support their own 
families. 
Two of the most important pieces of leg¬ 
islation pending in the Illinois Legislature, 
providing for the initiative and referendum 
and a constitutional convention, passed the 
Senate April 20. Both resolutions were 
unanimously adopted, 40 to 0. At no time 
was the initiative and referendum resolu¬ 
tion in danger. During the debate over the 
resolution it was clearly shown that both 
the Democrats and Republicans were en¬ 
deavoring to claim credit for its success 
rather than to prevent its passage. 
April 20 Post Office inspectors raided 
three mail-order medical concerns in New 
York, the Hartmann Medicine Company, 231 
East Fourteenth St., the Vienna Medical 
Institute, at 140 East Twenty-second St., 
and the Universal Medical Institute, at 30 
West Twenty-ninth St. This is the second 
time that raiders have sallied forth from 
the Federal Building in search of the men 
who advertise the curealls in newspapers 
printed in foreign languages in this country. 
Chief Postal Inspector Warren W. Dickson 
intends to keep right after the advertisers 
and then get after the newspapers 
that print the advertisements. Five pris¬ 
oners were taken in these raids and locked 
up in Marshal Henkel’s office charged with 
a scheme to defraud, and grand jury sub¬ 
poenas were served upon the employees of 
the various concerns. Dr. Ferdinand Hart¬ 
mann, the head of the company, and Frank 
Donnelly, his druggist, were both nut under 
arrest. Hartmann was held in $5,000 bail 
before Commissioner Shields, and Donnelly 
in .$3,000. both charged with schemes to de¬ 
fraud. The doctor had sixteen employees 
and ten interpreters hard at work writing 
letters in twenty different languages, gazing 
into test tubes in the laboratory on the 
ground floor and sorting out the morning 
mail. This concern is said to do an annual 
business of $75,000. Two men were arrest¬ 
ed at the Universal Medical Institute, which 
was said to bring in between $50 and $150 
a day, and one man was arrested at the 
Vienna Medical Institute. 
James .T. McNamara, secretary and treas¬ 
urer of the International .Bridge and Struc¬ 
tural Iron Workers Association, with head¬ 
quarters in Indianapolis, was arrested April 
22 on a charge of being connected with the 
dynamiting of the plant of the Los Angeles 
Times at Los Angeles last October. J. B. 
McNamara, alias Bryce, a brother to J. J. 
McNamara, and Ottie McManigal, were ar¬ 
rested in Detroit some days before, charged 
with being accessory to the Los Angeles 
dynamiting. McManigal made a lengthy 
confession to the police, in which he told 
of dynamite plots which caused the death 
of 112 men, and property losses of $3,500,- 
000. He said that all places they dyna¬ 
mited either used structural iron obtained 
from plants having the open shop or places 
belonging to the Erectors’ Association, which 
was opposing the Structural Iron Workers’ 
Union. The confession gives in detail the 
beginning of the attacks against the Erec¬ 
tors’ Association, comprising the greater 
number of the structural iron operators in 
this country, and especially in places where 
material supplied by the American Bridge 
Company was being used. April 23 the 
police found 400 pounds of dynamite in the 
heart of Tiffin, O., in a shed belonging to 
Ottie McManigal’s father. W. J. Ford, as¬ 
sistant prosecuting attorney of Los Angeles, 
Walter Drew of the Erectors’ Association 
of New York, and Frank Fox, proprietor 
of a taxiacb company, were arrested at 
Indianapolis April 24, charged with the kid¬ 
napping of McNamara, and were released 
under $5,000 bonds. The proceedings against 
them were brought by members of the 
executive board of the ironworkers union 
and at the instance of Attorney Rappaport, 
their legal adviser, the papers were signed 
by J. J. Keegan, Democratic Representative 
in the last Legislature, and formerly a 
member of the executive board of the iron¬ 
workers. The proceedings were based on 
the ground that McNamara was taken from 
the city without having a chance to defend 
himself or even the right to have a lawyer 
when he was taken before the police judge 
for identification. Detective W. J. Burns 
was arrested on the same charge April 25. 
Seven persons were burned to death and 
eight injured by the explosion of 4.000 gal¬ 
lons of gasoline in a Wabash tank car in 
the yards of the Bell Oil Company, St. 
Louis, Mo., April 22. When the car ex¬ 
ploded a mass of burning oil was sent up, 
which fell on many other tanks and houses 
in a radius of half a block, setting them 
afire. F. A. Bretsnyder, vice-president of 
the oil company, mounted the tank car 
shortly before the accident to test the qual¬ 
ity of the gasoline it contained. He denies 
that he permitted a spark to fall into the 
gasoline, and said that the explosion must 
have been caused by a spark from a loco¬ 
motive. Charles Onions, son of Thomas 
Onions, who was burned to death, says em¬ 
ployees of the oil company have been care¬ 
less and often struck matches near tank 
cars, lie said they boasted how little they 
feared the oils. In one house, 30 feet from 
the track, four members of the family were 
burned to death, and another seriously in¬ 
jured. 
Federal Judge Charles E. Wolverton de¬ 
cided at Portland, Ore., April 24, that the 
Southern Pacific and the Oregon & Califor¬ 
nia Railway companies must forfeit to the 
United States government about 200,000 
acres of land, which is valued at $40,000,000 
to $75,000,000. The case probably will be 
appealed. Interpreting the act of Congress 
granting the land as an aid to railway con¬ 
struction, the court held that Congress in¬ 
tended that this land should be sold to bona 
fide settlers, in tracts not greater than 100 
acres to one individual, and at a price not 
exceeding $2.50 an acre. In brief, the ques¬ 
tion raised by the Southern Pacific Com¬ 
pany was whether Congress had the power 
to make a subsequent act precedent to the 
rights conferred in an original grant. The 
suit was instituted in 1908 by Attorney 
General Bonaparte, following a memorial 
from the Oregon Legislature to Congress 
that the Southern Pacific Company, succes¬ 
sor to the Oregon & California Railway 
Company, had forfeited its rights to a grant 
of land in Oregon and Washington. The 
company was said to have refused to sell 
the land as provided in the grant. 
All of the twenty-three miners entombed 
by the explosion in the Ott mine of the 
Davis Coat and Coke Company, April 23, 
near Elk Garden, W. Va., have perished. 
Fourteen bodies were taken out April 24, 
and one was recovered the previous night. 
By a vote of 105 to 30, the New York 
Assembly April 25 adopted the resolution 
of Senator Roosevelt advocating the election 
of United States Senators by direct vote 
of the people. Twenty-one Republicans 
voted with the Democrats in favor of the 
resolution. One Democrat, Donovan, of 
Kings, voted against it. 
Andrew Carnegie went before the grand 
Jury at New York, April 25, to tell what 
he knew of the affairs of the trust company 
which had taken his name as its title, and 
which has been under investigation ever 
since its collapse last January. Carnegie 
issued a sweeping denial of the promises 
credited to him by Cummins and the State 
Banking Department, that he had pledged 
himself to go to the trust company’s aid. 
He repudiated Cummins and refused to give 
him the endorsement that Cummins had told 
the grand jurors they could get from Mr. 
Carnegie. Clark Williams, former State 
Banking Superintendent and Comptroller, 
and friend of Carnegie, came in for strong 
critc-ism from the latter who declared that 
it was largely through Williams’s recom¬ 
mendations that he had become so heavily 
involved in the company’s affairs. The name 
of the City Chamberlain, Chas. IT. Hyde, 
has appeared repeatedly in the investigation, 
it being evident that city money was de¬ 
posited where personal interests dictated. 
WASHINGTON. — Cream-colored postal 
cards printed in red ink are to take the 
place of the old cards of commonplace black 
ink design. It is said that the new cards 
will be of more attractive appearance. Last 
year the government issued 871.318,000 pos¬ 
tal cards, the total cost of which was $273,- 
000. or $84,000 in excess of the cost of the 
cards issued the year preceding, against 
which so many complaints bad been made. 
The new card will cost approximately $65,- 
000 more than the present card. 
Detailed information of the activities of 
the sugar trust is demanded by a resolu¬ 
tion introduced in the House April 23 by 
Representative Sabath of Illinois. The Sec¬ 
retary of the Treasury and the Attorney 
General are asked to inform the House how 
many constituent companies there are in 
the American Sugar Refining Company, the 
names of the directors, the amounts paid 
by the companies to the government in com¬ 
promise of frauds, the total amount that 
should have been collected as customs du¬ 
ties by the government on undervalued en¬ 
tries, the length of time the frauds con¬ 
tinued and the reason why criminal pro¬ 
ceedings have not been instituted against 
officers of the sugar trust. 
The Canadian reciprocity bill, to secure 
the passage of which President Taft called 
Congress in extra session, was passed by 
the House April 21 by a vote of 265 to 8!). 
Of those who stood out to the end against 
the agreement, ten were Democrats, one 
(Representative Akin, of New York i was an 
independent, and seventy-eight were Repub¬ 
licans. Sixty-seven Republicans and 197 
Democrats voted for the bill, as did Victor 
Berger, the Wisconsin Socialist. The bill 
got 45 more votes than it did in the last 
session, the vote on its former passage hav¬ 
ing been 221 to 92. Seventy-eight Repub¬ 
licans, one less than a majority of Represen¬ 
tatives of that party in the ’ House, voted 
against the measure. Sixty-four Republicans 
upheld the hand of the Administration. 
Eleven Democrats deserted their party or¬ 
ganization by voting against the Adminis¬ 
tration bill reported by Representative Un¬ 
derwood of Alabama, the Democratic (hair- 
man of the Committee on Ways and Means. 
“A deficit in the operation of the Post 
Office Department of $17,600,000, inherited 
by the present administration of the postal 
service, practically has been wiped out.” 
said Postmaster General Hitchcock April 22. 
He had just received from the auditor for 
the Post Office Department a final report 
showing that the revenues for the first six 
months of the current fiscal year aggregated 
$118,573,817 and the expenditures $i 18,614,- 
680. “The wiping out in less than two 
years of the largest deficit in the history 
of the department,” said Mr. Hitchcock, 
“was accomplished not by curtailing postal 
facilities, but by extending the service along 
profitable lines.” He believes that the cur¬ 
rent fiscal year will show a considerable 
surplus. The auditor's report says that 
since the opening of the administration 3.089 
new post offices have been established, de¬ 
livery by letter carriers provided in 142 
additional cities and 2,124 new rural routes, 
aggregating 51,230 miles in length author¬ 
ized, force of postal employees increased 
by 8,274 men and annual expenditures for 
salaries increased by $11,70S,071 in the two 
years. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Half a million 
Russian mulberry trees were planted April 
21 by Chicago school children in celebra¬ 
tion of Arbor Day. The trees were planted 
in front and back yards, and on school prem¬ 
ises, and in small parks. The Russian 
mulberry is peculiarly adapted to Chicago, 
according to Mr. Prost, the city forester. 
The Connecticut Sheep Breeders’ Asso¬ 
ciation will hold its annual field meeting 
and sheep shearing contest at the farm of 
P. G. Tripp, Ellington, Conn., Thursday, 
May 11. All interested in sheep raising 
are invited to attend. Mr. Tripp’s farm 
shows conclusively the beneficial effects of 
sheep upon cheap land. The shearing con¬ 
test will be divided into the following 
classes: Class A, hand shearing; Class B, 
machine shearing; Class C, hand shearing 
by boys under 18 years old; Class D, ma¬ 
chine shearing by boys under 18 years old ; 
Class E, sweepstakes for most humane 
shearing by all contestants. All contestants 
must be residents of Connecticut. There 
are prizes of $5, $3 and $2 in each class. 
Shearing machines will be furnished at the 
farm. 
The Crop Improvement Committee of the 
Council of North American Grain Exchanges 
is sending out a post card that says on one 
side in big white letters on a black ground : 
“Test Your Seed Corn.” On the other side 
it says: “We are informed that tin 1 seed 
corn is extremely poor this season. Every 
grain which fails to grow cuts your crop 
down at least 25 per cent to the hill.” 
The thirty-sixth annual convention of the 
American Association of Nurserymen will 
be held on June 14, 15 and 16, 1911, at 
St. Louis, Mo., with headquarters at the 
Southern Hotel. The program lias been is¬ 
sued, and all those desirous of obtaining 
further particulars should address John 
Hall, secretary, 204 Granite Building, 
Rochester, N. Y. 
The Pacific Coast Association of Nursery¬ 
men will meet in convention at San .Tose, 
Cal., on June 21 and three following days. 
St. James Hotel will be headquarters. 
George C. Roeding of Fresno, Cal., is the 
president, and C. A. Tonneson of Tacoma, 
Wash., is the secretary-treasurer. 
CORN ACREAGE. 
The acreage of sweet corn in this vicinity 
will remain about the same as usual. It 
will depend somewhat on the fact whether 
the factory at East Baldwin is operat' d this 
season or not. If this factory is run the 
acreage will be increased ; if not it will be 
a little less. The land here used for corn 
is generally cultivated fields, as most of the 
pastures are too rocky for cultivation, and 
there is not much meadow land here. The 
seed most generally used is early and medi¬ 
um Crosby, and from 600 to 1500 pounds of 
fertilizers are used to the acre in addition 
to barnyard dressing. F. j. m. 
North Baldwin, Me. 
There has been more corn planted in this 
vicinity during the last few years than for¬ 
merly, but I do not think there will be any 
increased acreage in corn this year, but 
rather a decrease, as the price of corn is 
lower than It has been for the last few 
years. Corn is planted hereabouts on regu¬ 
larly cultivated fields, in rotation with other 
crops. I am unable to state how much fer¬ 
tilizer is used per acre. As to the variety, 
common flint corn is used almost wholly* 
Very little, if any, dent corn is planted. 
Chelmsford, Mass. u. w. D. 
I do not know that the acreage will be 
increased this year any over that of last 
year, but it has been increased somewhat in 
the last two or three years. Corn in this 
section is generally the first crop after 
breaking up. The amount of phosphate 
that is generally used on land that has had 
a dressing of stable manure is from 300 to 
400 pounds per acre. Without manure, one- 
half ton and upwards should be used. The 
varieties of corn raised here are the e’ght- 
rowed yellow corn and the 12-rowed. There 
may be a small increase in acreac' 1 this 
year, but no great enthusiasm has been 
aroused in raising corn for grain. 
Nashua, N. II. r. c. n. 
