1911. 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
823 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
Do not miss the significance of the 
Lewis bluster over his snap-judgment 
libel suit. He has been accused of 
swindling country people through the 
sale of bonds and notes of the Lewis 
Publishing Company, and of the Uni¬ 
versity Heights Realty and Develop¬ 
ment Company, and through the sale of 
debentures, and through the sale of 
Lewis Publishing Company stock on 
the assurance that an accumulative div¬ 
idend of 18 per cent, would be paid, the 
dividend never being earned and never 
paid. He has been indicted by a Fed¬ 
eral Grand Jury on these charges. He 
has been accused of selling Fiber Stop¬ 
per Company stock under representa¬ 
tions that made the transaction a pure 
swindle. Lists of some three dozen 
concerns promoted by him have been 
printed; and practically every one of 
them classified as fakes or frauds. We 
have shown that in the promotion of 
these schemes he has for nearly 10 
years collected money from young and 
old, rich and poor, but mainly from 
poor frugal country women. We have 
told how dying men, after years of dis¬ 
appointment, appealed to Lewis to keep 
his promises to them. They told him 
they needed the money to supply com¬ 
forts for their last hours on earth, and 
that they had given him their all—the 
savings of a lifetime. They would die 
easier if they knew that the wife and 
children could have returned to them 
the savings they had sent him. We 
have told how men mortgaged their 
homes and their farms to send money 
to Lewis in order to gain the marvel¬ 
ous profits he promised them. We have 
told of women who sent their all to 
Lewis, expecting to be made rich over 
night. When sickness came to them¬ 
selves and disease crippled their chil¬ 
dren, appeal was made to Lewis that 
medical treatment might be given the 
children in the hope of averting a life 
affliction. We have told of hoys who 
sent him their first savings; of widows 
who sent him the life insurance of 
their deceased husbands; of working 
women who earned the money over the 
wash tub, and of girls who saved it 
from labor in the kitchen. Ministers 
of the Gospel have told us how they 
were induced to send him the savings 
of a lifetime from their meagre salar¬ 
ies, and how they now find themselves 
penniless in old age. And yet we have 
not told a small fraction of the disap¬ 
pointed hopes, privation and suffering 
of the people who sent him their money. 
Lewis was indifferent to it all. His 
only answer to these heart-rending 
appeals was a new scheme with bigger 
promises than before for those who 
would send him more money. In the 
face of the losses and suffering he has 
caused, he says he is happy and care¬ 
free, and boldly asks more money. 
If all of these revelations and accusa¬ 
tions were not true, here was material 
for libel suits in plenty. Did Lewis 
bring a suit on any of them? Not he. 
He is as silent as an Egyptian Sphinx 
when these definite charges are made. 
What then could stir his righteous in¬ 
dignation? After having listened indif¬ 
ferently to such accusations, you won¬ 
der what terrible charges must be made 
against him that would at last induce 
him to seek redress. Surely, you say, 
it must be some action which, when 
finally adjudicated, will clear him of 
the charge of wholesale fraud, and of 
the particular charge of robbing chil¬ 
dren, old men and working women. 
Now listen. This is the ground of 
his complaint. On June 18, 1910, we 
made the technical error of saying that 
fraud orders had been issued against 
himself and two of his companies, 
whereas the fraud orders had been 
issued against himself and one of his 
companies. His complaint is made as 
of the publishing companyj but the 
Federal Court of his district has just 
decreed on the undisputed evidence be¬ 
fore it that this corporation was organ¬ 
ized in the State of South Dakota to 
circumvent the laws of the State of 
Missouri; that in truth there was no 
valid corporation; that the -corporation 
was a mere sham and pretense; and 
that, if the undisputed bill before the 
court be true, the corporate name is 
nothing in the world but a cloak to 
cover the purposes of E. G. Lewis. In 
other words, according to the decree of 
the Federal Court, the names given his 
bank, his real estate, his publishing 
schemes, his stopper company, and his 
other schemes, though taking corporate 
form and having some pretense of legal 
existence were in truth and in fact 
mere names assumed by Lewis. So that 
Lewis in the garb of a banker, under 
fraud orders is the same Lewis under 
the cloak of a publisher. Yet he rushes 
into court with this flimsy pretense of 
virtue as a publisher, while as a banker 
he is branded by the United States 
records as a fraud. According to this 
reasoning a man may have a record of 
fraud as a stockman, but personify 
virtuous citizenship as a horse jockey. 
Even if our error in saying that Lewis 
the banker and publisher had been 
branded by the Government as a fraud, 
when only Lewis the banker had been 
so branded, justifies a punishment of 
The R. N.-Y., in what way does that 
relieve him of the real serious and defi¬ 
nite charges of fraud that have been 
made against him, and which are undis¬ 
puted ? Even if our error were inten¬ 
tional, it would only convict us of insin¬ 
cerity ; it would not clear him of the 
definite charges made against him by 
those who trusted him and sent him 
their savings. 
Flow does this virtuous publisher but 
fraud-branded banker get his grievance 
into court? ‘Does he follow the plain 
requirements of the law and bring his 
suit where the publisher is doing busi¬ 
ness and has an office or agent? Not 
he. He has been plucking money from 
distant parts for 10 years, and spending 
large portions of it in his own county 
to make things easy there. At all cost 
the grievance must be adjudged, not in 
a place free from influence, but in this 
environment where the lavish use of 
other people’s money has created apolo¬ 
gists for his frauds against the country 
people who furnished the cash. To 
effect this, he creates the fiction that an 
advertising agent is the representative 
of the publisher. As is well known, 
the advertising agent represents the ad¬ 
vertiser, who fixes his compensation 
and pays for the service as agreed be¬ 
tween them. The advertising agent is 
bound by his contract to serve the ad¬ 
vertiser. He has no contract to repre¬ 
sent the publisher or to serve him. His 
individual orders are accepted or re¬ 
fused by the publishers when offered. 
He is simply a buyer of space for the 
advertiser he represents. He cannot 
bind the publisher to accept a sin¬ 
gle line for the advertiser. Nor 
can the publisher command him to 
cross the street or write a letter 
or even open his own door to a pros¬ 
pective customer of the publisher. The 
advertising agent must be free from all 
obligations to the publisher in order 
that he may place the advertising of 
his client in those papers in which he 
will get the best service for his client. 
If he were the agent of the publisher 
he would not be general advertising 
agent, but a special representative of 
the paper, and could not command the 
business of advertisers for rival papers. 
The advertising agent buys space at a 
discount, just as any jobber or depart¬ 
ment store buys for less than their re¬ 
tail customer; but they are no more the 
agent of the publisher than the buyer 
for the department store is the agent 
of the manufacturer who sells him the 
goods at a discount on the consumer’s 
price. On the theory, however, that 
this buyer for the advertiser is an agent 
of the publisher, Lewis induces the 
sheriff of his county to serve a sum¬ 
mons on an advertising agent, and in¬ 
duces the sheriff to certify the service 
as on us. We believe the court has 
been deceived, and certainly misin¬ 
formed in this matter, and that when 
the facts are fully understood the pre¬ 
vious decision will be reversed. If not, 
every crook in the country will rejoice. 
Under such a rule the press of the 
country would be silenced as to crooks. 
Not a paper would dare show up a 
single swindle, no matter how flagrant. 
The schemers, by a series of suits in 
distant States, could so haggle and 
annoy publishers and put such burdens 
of expense on them that the exposure, 
of crooks would soon become a hazard 
too great for the American press. But 
we anticipate no such result. Crooks 
are most secure in dark places. Natur¬ 
ally they discourage the flashlights of 
publicity on their operations, but honest 
people want the light, and they will 
furnish the oil for the lamps. 
DIARY OF FARM WORK. 
A Quiet Pennsylvania Day. 
Monday, .Tul.y 17.—I got up at 4.45 
and found Tony, who works for us by the 
month, in the kitchen putting on his shoes. 
After lighting the oil stove, filling the tea 
kettle and seeing that there was plenty of 
water in the double boiler under the rolled 
oats, I went to the barn. Tony had fed 
the five horses and three cows and was 
cleaning out the horse stall. I cleaned off 
the team I drive, and while I milked. Tony 
curried his. Breakfast at 6.15. The horses 
were all ready to be harnessed, the cows 
milked and the milk separated and the pigs 
fed. It rained Sunday night and looked 
as though it would this morning, so we 
decided not to hitch up the teams. After 
feeding the calves and watering the horses 
and colt, Tony cleaned up around the barn 
till noon. I took the scythe and cut weeds 
until 11 o’clock, when I was driven in¬ 
doors by the rain. From then till noon I 
busied myself writing letters and helping 
dry some half-drowned chicks. After din¬ 
ner Tony plowed about three-quarter of an 
acre for Alfalfa. Mrs. N. and I went 
down the -road to stake out a 20-acre field 
to be plowed for wheat. This field is of 
very Irregular shape, and as I wish to plow 
it from the inside out, it took us until 
three o’clock to get the stakes set. When 
we were coming back, Harry, the boy who 
is helping us through harvest, was seen 
coming across the fields. He couldn’t get 
here sooner*because of the rain. We have 
a cow seriously troubled with hoof rot. 
Harry and I tended her and -then put the 
new man-power sprayer together and got it 
to working. I then hunted up a barrel to 
mix some Bordeaux in, but found it so 
dry that it was ready to fall apart. After 
driving the hoops on tight I dropped it 
into the creek to soak. The supper bell 
rang at six. After supper Tony watered 
and bedded the horses. I milked and 
tended to the milk as in the morning, then 
hitched up a horse for Mrs. N. and my 
sister. While they were gone I measured 
the Alfalfa patch that is to be, and sat in 
the kitchen talking to Harry until we 
heard the horse outside the door. After 
Mrs. N. had mixed the bread to be baked 
to-morrow the household settled down for 
the night- K. O. N. 
McKean, Pa. 
Money On A Mulched Fruit Farm. 
The force consisted of the regular man, 
the writer, and his four sons, aged 18, 17, 
12 and 9 years. The man ran the binder 
cutting oats until 11 o’clock; remainder of 
day he mowed in the orchard with mowing 
machine, putting the second time the Al¬ 
falfa in the orchard where this is sown. 
This orchard is eight years old, planted 
after Alfalfa was sown, and all of the 
Alfalfa has gone back on the ground. The 
trees are bearing well. I set up oats until 
It o’clock, cut blight out of apple trees 
where cultivated for the Station until 12, 
remainder of day swung the scythe in 
orchard planted where woods were cut 
down. The three oldest boys mowed with 
their scythes all day in the orchard where 
the woods were cut down, cutting over 
about six acres. The youngest boy hoed 
out the garden in the forenoon and went 
after blackberries in the afternoon. We 
are hurrying to finish mowing as early 
apples are ripening fast. Our first sale of 
apples this year was on July 12; last year 
July 26. GRANT G. HITCHINGS. 
Onondaga Co., N. Y. 
A Day On Clover Leaf Fruit Farm. 
While breakfast was cooking and the 
teamsters were caring for their teams, the 
writer inspected the Alfalfa, which was cut 
the previous day, to see how soon it would 
be ready to handle. After breakfast Harry 
cultivated Soy beans with the sulky culti¬ 
vator, in the young apple orchard of 10 
acres which is just nicely coming into bear¬ 
ing. The beans were sown about June 1, 
using a grain drill with every third hoe 
open, putting on about three pecks or more 
per acre, and are now about 28 inches high. 
This is the third and last cultivation. In 
an acre of them we sowed 25 pounds of 
vetch seed as an experiment, without very 
much faith in the outcome. Should the 
plan succeed it will be a great advantage, 
however. Much will depend upon the 
weather. Cliff finished picking the Yellow 
Transparents for the first picking, taking 
off about one-third of the ripest and fin¬ 
ished the day cutting off worms’ nests. 
After hauling a load of baskets Jensen har¬ 
rowed in the peach orchard, while Itoy used 
the Cutaway harrow in the cherry orchard, 
where we finished picking last week, having 
harvested 1,740 bushels from about eight 
acres. The foreman sowed turnip seed 
after tho Cutaway and Jensen followed with 
smoothing harrow to cover it. We usually 
use the Cow-horn turnip, but this year are 
sowing the Purple-top White Globe. think¬ 
ing possibly there may be a demand for 
them at harvest time. Six of the men 
thinned apples. Others may discuss the 
question as to the profits of thinning apples, 
but I do not care to use good apple trees 
to grow broken limbs and hlckorynuts. The 
peaches and plums were thinned early in 
the season, and we shall soon be done with 
the apples and the pears. To obtain the 
size, color and flavor requisite for our 
fancy trade, we must thin. 
Four of the young men who are thin¬ 
ning fruit are students from the agricul¬ 
tural colleges of various States, and we are 
well pleased with their help, as they are all 
keen, clean, pleasant, industrious fellows, 
with whom it is a pleasure to associate. 
Elmer is using the one-horse cultivator with 
the sweep shovels in the strawberry field 
of ten acres planted in the young apple 
orchard. We usually cultivate with the 
sulky earlier in the season, but after the 
runners begin to form plants freely, we 
think less damage is done by the one-liorse 
Planet, Jr. Slaughter is cutting stray 
weeds out of the potato field. Frank pre¬ 
sides in the packing shed, caring for the 
Victoria and Wilder currants which are be¬ 
ing brought in by 35 pickers, while Will 
sees that they are doing thorough work, 
and thins fruit on an adjoining row of 
Kleffers ‘•while he is resting.” After start¬ 
ing all at work in the morning, the writer 
drove to the post office for tho morning’s 
mail, and to the machine shop for the lawn 
mower, and then inspected the various op¬ 
erations of disking, thinning, seed sowing, 
cultivating, etc., etc., which were in prog¬ 
ress. Later he ent sprouts which were 
checking the growth of some young grafts, 
and thinned apples a little while 'with the 
boys. 
In the afternoon Roy raked Alfalfa and 
the foreman and part of the thinning gang 
cocked it up to finish curing. A shower at 
about 4.30 drove all to cover, and part of 
the men nailed up berry crates, part nailed 
the handles on baskets to be ready for the 
peach and plum harvest, some packed ap¬ 
ples, some ground the mowing machine 
knives, while the teamsters cleaned up 
around the barn, and cleaned the water 
tank, and started the engine to filling it 
again, while they oiled up the wagons, etc. 
Will looted after the billing and shipping 
of the day’s picking of fruit. After sup¬ 
per a neighbor came after some crates and 
baskets for blackberries, and I loaded him 
up and quit work for the day. 
The last thing at night I always make 
out and write down the plans for next 
day’s work for every man and horse on the 
place. If weather is at all unsettled, I 
make out three sets of plans, one for fair 
dry weather, one for rainy weather, and 
one for a day when the ground is wet and 
still not raining. I consider it an advan¬ 
tage to have everything planned before¬ 
hand, and also like to tell the men before¬ 
hand, as much as possible. A splendid 
fruit crop this year again. 
Ohio._ W. W. FABNSWOETH. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Four persons were killed and 
6ne was seriously injured July 27 when a 
fast express train on tho Pennsylvania 
Railroad struck an automobile at a grade 
crossing at Wilkinsburg, a suburb of Pitts¬ 
burg, Pa. 
Damage estimated to exceed $50,000 was 
done by fire July 29 to the barn on the 
estate of Percy R. Pyne, Bernardsville, N. 
J. Spontaneous combustion from a quan¬ 
tity of hay recently stored in the building 
is deemed to be the source of the fire The 
structure itself, 200 by 250 feet in area, and 
constructed of stone and wood, was burned- 
down. 
Philip S. Dyeiv secretary and treasurer 
of the American Horseshoe Company, who 
was indicted as a member of the ‘'pool” 
known as the Horseshoe Manufacturers’ 
Association, July 27, appeared before Judge 
Archbald, in the Criminal Branch of the 
United States Circuit Court at New York, 
and withdrawing his original plea of not 
guilty, entered a plea of nolo contendere. 
He was fined $1,000. William Rand, ap¬ 
pearing as attorney for Dana R. Pullen 
and Wallace S. Clark, withdrew their pleas 
of not guilty and entered pleas of nolo 
contendere. Judge Archbald refused to re- 
duce the amount of the lines as imposed in 
about thirty-eight prison cases, saying: 
“If there are any distinctions to be made 
such action will not be in the direction of 
leniency.” Similar fines were imposed in 
the cases of Henry A. and Henry D. Reed, 
of the Bishop Gutta Percha Company, and 
Richard W. Comstock, vice-president of the 
Rhode Island-Per kins Horseshoe Company. 
The establishment of a State industrial 
farm colony for the detention, humane dis¬ 
cipline, instruction and reformation of male 
adults committed as tramps from any part 
of the State is provided for in the Chanler 
bill which was signed by Governor Dix of 
New York July 29. The Governor is to 
appoint a board of 17 managers, and the 
managers are to name a superintendent and 
to select, if possible, a site from abandoned 
farm lands owned by the State. The law 
provides that reputable workmen tempo¬ 
rarily out of work shall not be deemed 
tramps or vagrants or be committed to the 
tramp colony. The bill appropriates $10- 
000 to start the work, and was drafted by 
Robert W. Hebbard, secretary of the* State 
Board of Charities, who became familiar 
with this phase of philanthropic work dur- 
!ag his four years’ service as Commissioner 
of Chanties of New York City. 
THE HARVESTER TRUST.—Burdette C. 
Townsend’s report on the International 
Harvester Company and its alleged relation 
to the l nitc<l Status Steel Corporation was 
made public July 26. It was read into the 
records of the Congressional committee in¬ 
vestigating the Steel trade. Chairman Stan¬ 
ley and Charles J. Bonaparte, formerly At¬ 
torney General, would be asked to explain 
why no action was taken on Townsend’s 
charges. Mr. Townsend’s report goes into 
the history of the harvester companies in¬ 
volved and the organization of the Inter¬ 
national in 1902, the transaction being di¬ 
rected and guided by J. 1>. Morgan & Co. 
I,he steel committee will call attention to 
the forming of the Steel Trust the year 
before. A feature of the Townsend report 
which the steel inquirers lay stress on is 
the following : 
“The International Harvester Company 
sells to the foreign trade at a cheaper price 
than the domestic trade. It sells machines 
of all kinds for export, delivered at New 
York, at the same price for which they are 
sold to domestic purchasers f. o. b Chi¬ 
cago. This makes a difference of from $6 
to $10 for each machine. 
“I was surprised to learn that the Steel 
"rust refunds to harvester companies $3 a 
ton for all steel used in the manufacture of 
machinery exported, thus giving the same 
result as if the steel had been imported, the 
import duty paid and afterward refunded 
under the drawback law, indicating that 
steel can profitably be produced in this 
country and sold at the foreign price. This 
justifies a small difference between the do¬ 
mestic and foreign prices, but it would 
amount to only a few cents for each ma¬ 
chine, and in now way explains the differ¬ 
ence indicated above.” 
Townsend particularly referred to the 
Price paid by J. P. Morgan & Co. in the 
Harvester deal, saying “$5,000,000 is a very 
high price for the simple service of sug¬ 
gesting to people how they can agree in 
a legitimate transaction. It is not unusual 
in illegal transactions, such as creating a 
trust which can evade the laws. Doubtless 
if proceedings were instituted against the 
International Harvester Company the man¬ 
ner of its defence would demonstrate that 
the fee was earned.” In explaining the 
purchase by the International of 1 >. M. 
Osborne & Co. in 1903 for $4,000,000. the 
Aultman-Miller .Company for $700,000 in 
the same year, the Minneapolis Harvester 
Company for $700,000, and .the Keystone 
Company for $460,000, Townsend reported : 
“The -manner of these purchases and the 
use made of the property show the purpose 
of the International Harvester Company. 
Each of the purchases was made secretly, 
in the name of some of the directors or 
stockholders, who held the stock in trust 
for it. The Osborne and Keystone com¬ 
panies were both operated for some time 
ostensibly as independent, competing plants ; 
the International Harvester Company con¬ 
ceal'd its ownership. Why? Was it: not 
because they were conscious that its dis¬ 
closure would give added testimony of their 
trust character and trust methods? 
“Again the Aultman-Miller Company and 
the Minneapolis company were abandoned 
immediately after purchase and the plants 
dismantled. The purchase of these plants 
could have been for no other purpose than 
to destroy competition. One million four 
hundred thousand dollars was expended to 
acquire plants which it did not intend to 
use but simply to destroy.” 
