1911. 
THR RURAL NEW-YORKER 
631 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
Whatever his motive previously, E. G. 
Lewis is certainly playing false and fraudu¬ 
lent now in "swiping the evidence,” and re¬ 
sults are the same to us whether or not he 
was false from the start. H. s. p. 
Lewis certainly astonishes me in his ease 
and audacity for lying, well as I know his 
art by this time. In the face of the suits 
against him and his admission which you 
quote that there is no equity whatever in 
the Publishing Company, he assures the 
stockholders in his weekly that the con¬ 
cerns are in a more flourishing condition 
than ever before. How can the women be 
convinced that he is untruthful when he 
openly denies all the reports they hear? 
Comments like the two above come to 
us now regularly from women who once 
thought better of Mr. Lewis. If they 
could know half of the facts these 
women would make short work of his 
present pretenses. What he is writing 
them in letters and printing in his pa¬ 
per is really an insult to their intelli¬ 
gence, and they begin to see it. 
He is now frantically appealing to 
those who have joined in the suits to 
collect what he owes them to revoke 
their instructions to their attorney and 
give his attorney full authority to do as 
he pleases with their claims. It would 
seem impossible that any man had the 
gall to propose such a thing, and yet 
we have it in plain writing. Think of it. 
He buys land for $114,000; turns it over 
to his company for $537,000, taking a 
profit of $423,000, and then mortgages 
it to country people for the full amount 
of the $537,000. No interest has been 
paid on the notes against this mort¬ 
gage except the first advance payment 
evidently made to induce the sale. The 
notes are past due; and he blandly tells 
you, if forced to a settlement, your 
mortgage will not bring more than 25 
per cent of its face. When you took the 
notes, he told you it was amply se¬ 
cured—the safest investment in the 
world—and would be paid within ,a 
year. He convicts himself of misrep¬ 
resentation and fraud, if we are to be¬ 
lieve the statements he makes now to 
get these papers out of your hands. But 
he says if the suits are pushed his re¬ 
organization committee will have to 
buy in the claims, to protect those who 
have deposited their claims with him. 
That is a cool bluff and a fool argument. 
That would suit us exactly. He can stop 
the suits by paying the notes. If others 
want to turn everything over to him, 
and take anything, he cares to give them 
in five years, or nothing, well and good. 
Let him pay our people and have done 
with it. He knows well in his heart 
that the so-called reorganization com¬ 
mittee myth was not created to pay any¬ 
one, but to prevent the collecting of 
honest claims. - It is alleged that pub¬ 
lishers are to appoint such a committee, 
but it is our information that they have 
refused to have anything to do with 
it. The “sucker list” does not look as 
promising to them as it did. The wo¬ 
men are getting wise to the game. 
Other creditors ought to understand 
this reorganization scheme. Lewis’s 
purpose through it was to get the evi¬ 
dences of debt and criminality into his 
possession. Besides he owed the Class 
A Publishers large sums of money. It 
is in open account. They want to col¬ 
lect this, and also to use the League as 
a subscription agency for their cheap 
publications. Under the depositor’s 
agreement published by Lewis April 15, 
1911, absolute power to do as they like, 
and to control the accounts and the com¬ 
panies, and to interpret the contract is 
given to the committee. The committee 
is to last five years, and is under no re¬ 
straint or obligation in the meantime, 
and creditors get no assurances that they 
will even then get anything definite. The 
committee also has a right to be the 
sole judge of the necessity of the pay¬ 
ment of expenses and the amount of 
them that must be borne by the persons 
who deposit their claims. You are 
bound to pay expenses, though you may 
receive no definite returns. It is. plain 
that the publishers with such authority 
for five years could go ahead and pay 
themselves out of funds, if any were 
found. After Lewis’s admission that 
the company had nothing left, the pub¬ 
lishers probably lost interest. But even 
if they went into it, nothing but further 
disappointment and loss could come to 
note holders under the mortgages. But 
if these gentlemen want the claims out 
of the way and the suits stopped, and 
have the money handy, let them come 
forward with the cash. Hysterical ap¬ 
peals are no good here. 
Those having claims should now send 
them to us so that the claims can be 
proved and properly presented to the 
court; or they may be sent to Claud D. 
Hall, 705 Olive street, St. Louis, Mo. 
The mortgage notes of the publishing 
company should be presented promptly 
as they are a lien on the real estate 
and must be paid first. 
By the way, Senator Jeff Davis has 
reserved his information from the Post¬ 
master-General. If anyone has any 
lingering doubts about the character of 
the Lewis schemes and of his papers, 
let them send to Washington and get a 
copy of the report and of the Secre¬ 
tary’s letter on the subject. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Second Lieutenant George 
E. M. Kelly, a volunteer pupil in the aero¬ 
plane corps of the United States Army, was 
killed May 10 at San Antonio, Tex., while 
making a handing after a flight alone in the 
new Curtiss machine purchased by the War 
Department for the use of the Signal Corps. 
Lieutenant Kelly was thrown from his ma¬ 
chine when it was only about 15 feet above 
the ground. I-Ie struck upon his head and 
died at the post hospital an hour later. 
Lieutenant Kelly is the fifteenth of army 
and navy aviators to be killed in. aero¬ 
plane accidents. He is the second in the 
United States. The other was Lieutenant 
Thomas E. Self ridge, of the field artillery, 
who met his death on September 17, 1908, 
at Fort Myer, Virginia. He was a passen¬ 
ger with Orville Wright, who was making a 
test of the machine for the Government. 
Lieutenant Selfridge died about three hours 
after the fall at the post hospital. Orville 
Wright was badly injured and spent about 
six weeks in the hospital before he was re¬ 
moved to his home at Dayton, O. The fa¬ 
talities in the army and navy are as fol¬ 
lows : 1908, America, 1 ; 1909, France, 1; 
1910, France, 2; Italy, 2; Germany, 1; 
Russia, 1; 1911, France, 1; Russia, 2; Ger¬ 
many, 2, and America, 1. 
John F. Dietz, the outlaw of Cameron 
Dam, Wis., who for five years successfully 
defied the State and Federal Governments, 
was convicted' at Hayward, Wis., May 13, 
of murder in the first degree because of the 
killing last Fall of Deputy Sheriff Oscar 
Harp, one of 150 deputies who surrounded 
the Dietz borne in the Northern Wisconsin 
woods under orders to capture Dietz dead 
or alive. Mrs. Dietz and Leslie Dietz, a 
son were acquitted, Dietz fought the au¬ 
thorities for years, defending his home¬ 
stead against the Hines Lumber Company, 
which claimed it, and after removing one 
Sheriff for inability to arrest him, Governor 
Davidson ordered Sheriff Madden to see 
that the State was no longer defied. Dietz 
managed his own defence, even making his 
own plea to the jury. The Judge overruled 
his motion for a new trial and gave Dietz a 
life sentence in the State Prison. Capital 
punishment is not allowed in Wisconsin. 
Dietz will appeal to the Supreme Court and 
will hire a lawyer this time. 
The forest fires which have been sweep¬ 
ing the townships of Montague, Wendell 
and Erving, Mass., up to May 12, had 
burned over about 10,000 acres of timber 
and brush lands, causing damage estimated 
at fully 8100,000. Twelve farm buildings 
have been destroyed by the fire. The city 
of Keene, N. H., was covered by dense 
clouds of smoke from fires raging in the 
forests of the towns of Marlboro and Rox- 
bury, adjoining Keene, May 12. The flames 
have swept over nearly a thousand acres of 
woodland, including valuable tracts of pine, 
and the loss amounts to several thousand 
dollars. 
The demurrers of the Chicago packers in 
the Beef Trust case were overruled May 12 
by Judge Carpenter in the United States 
District Court. In his ruling, Judge Car¬ 
penter declared that the Sherman Anti- 
Trust law, which had been attacked by the 
packers, is constitutional. He also held 
that the indictment charging J. Ogden Ar¬ 
mour and other packers with violating its 
provisions is valid. Judge Carpenter’s de¬ 
cision may have an indirect bearing on all 
anti-Trust litigation in the United States, 
in upholding the completeness and stability 
of the Sherman act. The packers had 
based their demurrers in part on an asser¬ 
tion that the act did not define a crime, 
or provide legal and constitutional means 
of correcting the abuses in accordance with 
design to control; the decision distinctly 
denied this assumption. They also claimed 
that the act did not define the misdoing in 
terms that would enable the defendant to 
know in advance that such performances 
as it condemned were illegal. 
Lewis Conrad, president, and Conrad 
Lotz and W. M. Bingaman, officers of the 
Correspondence School of America, of Scran¬ 
ton, I’a., were fined $25 each and one-third 
of costs after a plea of nolle contendere in 
the United States Court at Harrisburg, Pa., 
May 12. The men had been arraigned on 
the* charge of using the United States mail 
to defraud by representing that they could 
teach art and cartoon drawing by mail. 
The costs in the case will amount to about 
$3,000. Numerous witnesses were brought 
to Harrisburg from other States. 
The Ward Liner Merida, from Vera Cruz, 
Progreso and Havana, was rammed amid¬ 
ships May 12 by the fruiter Admiral Far- 
ragut of the American Mail Steamship Line 
in a heavy fog 55 miles east one-half north 
of Cape Charles. After the transfer of the 
passengers and crew of the Merida to the 
Admiral Farragut the Ward Liner foun¬ 
dered in 35 fathoms—210 feet—beyond the 
hope of salvage and too deep to interfere 
with the progress of the deepest ships. All 
the Merida’s passengers, 202 in first and 
second cabin, were saved. One, a woman, 
was injured, but not severely. The story 
of the disaster was told by wireless long 
before the passengers, officers and crew of 
the Merida arrived in Norfolk aboard the 
Old Dominion steamship Hamilton, which 
took them from the Admiral Farragut. The 
Merida carried 360 passengers and crew, 
and was bound from Havana via Vera 
Cruz for New York. She carried $750,000 
in silver bullion and specie, and this, v with 
the valuables belonging to the passengers, 
went to the bottom. The treasure is be¬ 
low diving depth. The Farragut was also 
seriously injured, and the passengers were 
transferred to another vessel summoned by 
wireless. 
New York State Bank Superintendent 
Orion H. Cheney and Clark Williams. Mr. 
Cheney’s predecessor, explained May 12 for 
the first time, their relations with the Car¬ 
negie Trust Company of New York, and 
William J. Cummins and the Cummins syn¬ 
dicate. Mr. Cheney says that he received 
from Mr. Carnegie and from R. A. Franks, 
Mr. Carnegie’s confidential man, numerous 
assurances between April, 1910, and Janu¬ 
ary, 1911, that depositors in the Carnegie 
Trust Company would be protected, but 
that when the fate of the compamy was 
put squarely up to Mr. Carnegie on the 
night of 'January 6, 1911 (the day before 
the trust company went under), Mr. Car¬ 
negie declined to advance the $500,000 that 
was immediately required. The bank su¬ 
perintendent says in his report to the Gov¬ 
ernor that the trust company was not 
closed before January 7, 1911, because “the 
conditions did not justify such action.” 
The concern was weak when be took office, 
he says, and the problem before the super¬ 
intendent was to correct unsatisfactory con¬ 
ditions and at the same time protect depos¬ 
itors. Cheney became the head of the de¬ 
partment on November 24, 1909. One of 
the first things he did was to order out of 
the Carnegie the four independent fertilizer 
notes for $600,000 each that Dickinson and 
Cummins had secured to get the money 
with which to buy the Van Norden banks. 
With the $2,000,000 that Andrew Carnegie 
loaned to Cummins and his associates the 
notes were taken up. Joseph B. Reich- 
mann. then the president of the National 
Starch Company, and a member of the ex¬ 
ecutive committee of the Corn Products 
Company, was made president of the Car¬ 
negie Trust Company in place of C. C. Dick¬ 
inson. 
The United States Express Company 
filed a declaration in the Supreme Court at 
Trenton, N. J., May 15, in its suit to re¬ 
cover $250,000 from Jersey City on account 
of losses sustained during the expressmen’s 
strike last Fall. The declaration alleges 
that Mayor Wittpenn and the police depart¬ 
ment of Jersey City failed to furnish prop¬ 
er protection to the express company or to 
take adequate action to suppress the rioting 
which resulted in tying up the business of 
the express company and the destruction of 
its property. It is also shown that In the 
large quantity of express matter, delivery 
of which, was tied up by the strikers and 
their sympathizers, there was much perish¬ 
able merchandise. The declaration states 
in some detail how the company’s stables 
were mobbed, its wagons overturned in the 
streets and its business interrupted. The 
company seeks to hold the city responsible 
because of its failure to adopt suitable pro¬ 
tective methods. 
The Supreme Court of the United States 
May 15 ordered the dissolution of the 
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. In 
connection with this decree it also handed 
down its interpretation of the Sherman 
anti-trust law. In this, the first of its big 
decisions in the anti-trust cases, the court 
holds that the Standard Oil Company is a 
conspiracy in restrain of trade and a mon¬ 
opoly in contravention of the Sherman 
anti-trust law. Thus after a fight of many 
years, in which every obstacle known to 
the legal profession has been interposed, 
the Fedex - al Government has finally succeed¬ 
ed in its efforts to compel this giant cor¬ 
poration to cast off its holding company 
and again to separate itself into thirty- 
three constituent parts. To accomplish this 
gigantic undertaking the court sets a period 
of six months. This is an extension of five 
months over the time allotted in the dis¬ 
solution decree of the lower court. The 
decree of the Circuit Court was modified by 
the Supreme Court in only one other partic¬ 
ular. The Supreme Court orders that the 
Standard Oil Company and its subsidiaries 
shall not be excluded from interstate com¬ 
merce pending the putting of its house in 
order. The decision of the court in regard 
to the general interpretation of the Sher¬ 
man anti-trust law was awaited with great¬ 
er anxiety by the business world than the 
finding of fact in the Standard Oil case. 
The court holds that it is necessary to dis¬ 
tinguish between “reasonable” and “unrea¬ 
sonable” restraint of trade as covered by 
the Sherman anti-trust law. 
The Supreme Court of the United States 
in an opinion that will probably become 
historical as a precedent, held May 15 that 
the labor boycott is illegal, that it may be 
enjoined and that violations of the injunc¬ 
tion may be punished by fine or imprison¬ 
ment. The case decided was that involving 
the sentences of imprisonment imposed 
upon Samuel Gompers, president of the 
American Federation of Labor; Frank Mor¬ 
rison, secretary of that organization, and 
John Mitchell, a member of the federation 
council. The opinion of the court, which 
was rendered by Associate Justice Lamar, 
held that the prison sentences .imposed on 
the three defendants were improper be¬ 
cause the action against them was a civil 
and not a criminal action. The court held 
that because the action for contempt was 
begun upon the application of the attorneys 
for the Bucks Stove and Range Company 
and was prosecuted by them it was neces¬ 
sarily a civil action. Therefore it was held 
there was no authority in the Supreme 
Court of the District of Columbia to pun¬ 
ish the offence as an act of criminal con¬ 
tempt. 
A parcels post conference will be held in 
the Waldorf Hotel, New York, May 24, at 
two and eight p. m. On June 14 there will 
be a hearing on the Sulzer parcels post 
bill at Washington. It is hoped that both 
of these meetings will be largely attended. 
Samuel S. Bogart, vice-president of the 
United Wireless Telegraph Company, who, 
with Christopher C. Wilson, the president, 
and four other officials of the corporation, 
is on trial in the United States Circuit 
Court, entered a plea of guilty May 17. 
The indictment under which the six men 
are being tried is a joint one, and charges 
conspiracy and the use of the mails in a 
scheme to defraud investors. Throughout 
the trial, now in its third week, the gov¬ 
ernment made no attempt to separate the 
defendants or to show their individual ac¬ 
tivities in the scheme to reap millions 
through misrepresentation as to the value 
of the United Wireless stocks. It was 
shown, however, that C. C. Wilson had 
gathered the lion’s share of the loot, re¬ 
ceiving approximately $1,500,000. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The twenty- 
sixth annual meeting of the IIolstein-Friesian 
Association of America will be held at the 
New Court House, Syracuse, N. Y., Wednes¬ 
day, June 7, at 10 a. m. All persons inter¬ 
ested in IIolstein-Friesian cattle, whether 
members of the association or not, are most 
cordially invited to attend this meeting. 
The Bureau of Animal Industry of the 
United States Department of Agriculture 
has purchased practically all the Morgan 
horses owned by the Willowmoor Farms, 
Redmond, Wash., the proprietor, J. W. 
Clise of Seattle, having concluded to dis¬ 
continue the horse breeding feature of bis 
farm. These animals are intended for the 
Department’s Morgan Horse Farm at Mid- 
dlebury, Vt., where breeding is being car¬ 
ried on with the object of preserving and 
improving the Morgan breed. 
The New York State Drainage Association 
offers three medals, gold, silver and bronze, 
for the best reports of experience in tile 
draining. Conditions of the contest can 
be secured from Prof. Elmer O. Fippin, 
Ithaca, N. Y. 
An attractive programme has been ar¬ 
ranged for the bee keepers’ convention and 
field days to be held at the Massachusetts 
College, Amherst, June 6 and 7, as a clos¬ 
ing feature of the short course in bee keep¬ 
ing. The regular faculty of the college will 
give several lectures and demonstrations. 
Besides these, Mrs. Anna Botsford Com¬ 
stock of Cornell University, Mr. E. R. Root 
of Medina, Ohio, and Dr. James Porter of 
Clark University, all having world-wide 
reputation as experts in the subject of bee 
keeping, have been engaged as principal 
speakers. 
Jersey Cattle Club. 
The annual meeting in New York May 3 
was well attended. During the year 62 
new members have been added and 28 have 
died, making the present membership 462. 
The total registration numbers are 95,077 
bulls and 255,313 cows. A building site 
has been purchased by the Club and a new 
building with ample space for offices and 
board. meetings will be erected. President 
Darling was re-elected; following are the 
new directors : II. N. McKinney, J. M. Over- 
ton, W. W. Potter, and Geo. E. Peer. 
FARMERS’ SHARE OF “SPORT” MONEY 
Farmers whose abutting property often¬ 
times is used by the sporting fraternity 
without the asking or the permission, 
ought to be interested in the outcome of 
a contention that just has ended consider¬ 
ably to the interest of the farmers. The 
Kane Co., Ill., farmers whose fields and 
fences are along a so-called automobile 
race course on which daredevil races have 
been held for the last two years, got to¬ 
gether and refused to allow onlookers to 
stand in their fields or sit on their fences 
unless they were paid for the privilege. 
The race people had sold a number of 
privileges for observation stands, lunch 
counters, peanut roasters and so on. At 
first the entire revenue from this source 
went into the pockets of the motor club 
people. Even advertising space was sold, 
and some of it encroached on the property 
of the farmers. The racers of eourse occu¬ 
pied the public road that the farmers had 
either helped to make or taxed for upkeep, 
and for two hours or more each day th« 
same public highway was closed to legiti¬ 
mate traffic. Bystanders were not permit¬ 
ted to stand or sit between the fences, and 
so this drove them over Into the meadows, 
corn patches and growing grain fields. 
Last year the farmers got together; they 
had the county officers back of them and 
they threatened to estop the use of the 
road unless each property holder was 
allowed for the use of his land. Last year 
they were poorly paid, or at least some of 
them got little or nothing, while others 
received a great deal. This year the farm¬ 
ers laid out a new set of rules, or rather 
they demanded something better from the 
motor club, so that a schedule has been 
arranged and agreed to by which eaeh 
farmer along the entire course is paid ac¬ 
cording to the frontage on the course. 
More than this, they demanded and were 
given a percentage of the income from 
huckstering and other concerns occupying 
their land. The result was that there will 
be an even and equitable division of the 
receipts, and the guaranteed sum for races 
to be held next August is near $3,000 
more than it was last year. At first ths 
motor club refused to come across, but the 
farmers, some of them owning some of the 
finest dairy farms in Illinois, simply and 
firmly told the sports that there would 
have to be an agreement beforehand or 
there would be no races, and ultimately, 
the differences were adjusted. In other 
ways the Illinois farmer is holding out for 
recompense for so-called sporting scheme* 
brought off in the country and on farm 
property. It has got to be a kind of farm 
by-product, and in some instances the 
revenue has built some of the best farm 
buildings in the State. Picnic groves, sav« 
in instances for local church, Sunday school 
or other local associations of neighborhood 
interest, where once they were taken with¬ 
out even asking permission, are charged 
for. The practice has reduced a great farm 
nuisance and made to pay for the dam¬ 
aging occurrences and for cleaning up the 
litter left on the grounds. J. t. graft. 
Illinois. 
The prospects for a large crop of 
peaches, plums, pears and cherries in Mus¬ 
kegon and Oceana counties are very good. 
Many of the varieties of apples do not seem 
to be well budded, and the crop will not he 
as large as expected. Owing to the num¬ 
ber of canning factories in this locality 
several of the farmers have been setting 
out berries; prospects are very favorable 
for a good crop. Several carloads of trees 
have been planted in this locality this year. 
At Whitehall one grower planted out 5,500 
trees, mostly cherries and apples. E. v. a. 
Muskegon County, Mich. 
Ideal weather for work; corn planting in 
full blast (May 12) ; next week will see all 
planted. Wheat and oats look promising; 
clover and Timothy poor; high price of 
seeds prevented much being sown this year. 
Alfalfa looks unusually fine. Potatoes be¬ 
ing high-priced and rush of work are causes 
for a short acreage. We think this a mis¬ 
take, and predict high prices to remain. 
Fruit prospects very good, all kinds. Spray¬ 
ing is being done by many. Old grain 
mostly sold; stock interests are change¬ 
able. Last year hogs were the rage—even 
this Spring brood sows brought unusually 
high prices. Now farmers are disposing of 
all their hogs, claiming that last year’s 
prices, although high, did not let them out 
whole. Cattle in demand. Poultry, eggs 
and butter are leading Items in profit this 
Spring. Business outlook fair. Good crops 
if they can be had will put things in good 
shape. J. h. h. 
Carroll Co., Ind. 
