1911. 
THE RURAI> NEW-YORKER 
lias 
OTHER PEOPLE S MONEY. 
Slowly and grudgingly we are getting 
a little light on the inner workings of 
the frenzied financial games of E. G. 
Lewis. In his testimony before the 
Congressional committee in Washing¬ 
ton, D. C., some weeks back, he said 
that before the fraud orders were is¬ 
sued against him he had a $1,000,000 
credit at St. Louis banks and that he 
borrowed that amount to organize one 
of his concerns. Last week the details 
came out before the same committee 
in St. Louis, and we learned how Lewis 
capitalized his University Heights Re¬ 
alty & Development Company for $1,- 
000,000, entirely on paper, and without 
the actual use of a single dollar. The 
cashier of the St. Louis bank flatly con¬ 
tradicted Lewis, saying that his bank 
never loaned Lewis a million dollars, 
and that it would be unlawful to do so. 
Lewis’ claim of credit at the bank was 
made for the evident purpose of show¬ 
ing that his later credit was impaired 
through the fraud order. To refute the 
banker’s statement, Lewis produced 
three draft vouchers, aggregating $1,- 
000,000. These were drawn by three of 
the Lewis employes on one J. P. 
Richarz. Here is the personal testimony 
of Lewis: 
“I went to the officers of the Bank of 
Commerce and told them I wished to comply 
with the law by paying up the capital 
stock of the University Heights Realty & 
Development Co. I told them that the 
property had cost .$200,000, but that 1 
believed it was worth $1,000,000, and wished 
to capitalize the company for that amount. 
I asked their advice. 
“One of them then suggested this meth¬ 
od, which I followed. The three drafts 
were made out, marked paid, and deposited 
in the bank, and a check against this de¬ 
posit was then made out and paid to the 
University Heights Realty Co., which gave 
back a check for $1,000,000 to the bank. 
This check was marked paid, and the trans¬ 
action was completed." 
“Let’s see about this.” said Congressman 
Rcdfield at length. “Did this man Richarz 
ever have $1,000,000?” 
“Not that I know of,” said Lewis blandly. 
“But,” persisted Rcdfield, “this draft is 
made against an individual for $1,000,000, 
and there must have been some such funds.” 
"You’ll have to get a banker to explain 
that,” said Lewis. “It paid up the capital 
stock according to law.” 
There you have it. Do you see the 
trick? A property cost $200,000. You 
want to capitalize it at $1,000,000, so as 
to sell the 20-cent stock to country 
people for a dollar. The laws of the 
State require that capital stock of cor¬ 
porations must be paid up in cash. So 
three of your clerks make out drafts 
for a million on a dummy. This is en¬ 
tered to your credit at the bank, but 
you cannot draw a penny against it. A 
check is made out to the Realty Co. 
for a million and a million of stock 
in the company is issued for it. Then 
the company gives a check to the bank 
for $1,000,000, and the bank account is 
closed. Not a dollar of currency has 
passed hands. Not a cent of money or 
value has passed in or out of the bank. 
In testimony under oath this is what 
Mr. Lewis calls borrowing a million 
dollars. He calls it a million-dollar 
bank credit. It has been reported that 
Lewis boasted that no Legislature could 
make a law that he could not get 
around. If such trickery as this goes 
as “according to law,” he stands a fair 
chance of making good the boast. Rut 
if such practice is accepted as comply¬ 
ing with the law, we may as well burn 
down the State houses and send Legis¬ 
lators home to work or be robbed like 
the rest of us. 
We know men who were induced by 
Lewis to mortgage their farms to get 
money to buy that stock. But that is 
not all. Besides capitalizing $200,000 
worth of land for a million, a mortgage 
for a half million more or less was 
filed and the mortgage notes sold 
to country people. Not satisfied 
with this, when the secured notes were 
exhausted, people who sent in money 
for the secured notes got promissory 
notes of the company, and in some 
cases the stock of the company was 
issued in exchange for money sent him 
for secured notes. So you have $1,- 
000,000 on the stock, $500,000 on the 
secured notes, and about $500,000 more 
on promissory notes, making $2,000,000 
of paper piled on top of his land 
scheme. The Lewis concerns are so 
involved that one cannot vouch for 
these figures as absolutely accurate. 
Some of the money was probably used 
to improve the land, but the niggling 
at the bank, the inflated stock, and the 
issue of promissory notes in place of 
mortgage notes, serves well enough to 
illustrate this form of finance. It must 
be remembered, too, that Mr. Lewis ad¬ 
vertised these stocks and notes as the 
safest and soundest form of investment. 
Now he tells you that the people who 
put their money into such things will 
lose it because the Government issued 
fraud orders against him, and The 
Rural New-Yorker showed up his 
schemes. But the Government did not 
interfere with this land scheme, and 
The R. N.-Y. referred to it only after 
he defaulted in payments of interest 
and principal due its subscribers, and 
taxes due and unpaid. The company is 
admittedly insolvent. 
The committee is getting some light 
on the Lewis operations; but in the 
language of a clear-headed farmer, “the 
Lewis dupes do not live at St. Louis.” 
I f the committee wants to know how he 
got the money he squandered among his 
St. Louis cronies, let them gj to coun¬ 
try people who parted with their life 
savings for his inflated paper securities. 
It has been intimated that a majority 
of the Congressional committee, being 
Democratic, an effort would be made 
to clothe Lewis in the garb of a martyr 
in order to embarrass the Department 
of Justice and the Postoffice Depart¬ 
ment, with a view to discredit the Ad¬ 
ministration. While some reports from 
the committee room may lend color to 
the intimation, we do not take it seri¬ 
ously. There are some things that a 
political partisan cannot stand for, and 
the legalized robbery of poor and in¬ 
experienced and confiding country peo¬ 
ple is one of these things. 
If a political party wanted to take 
on burdens, we do not know how it 
could better succeed in its purpose than 
to identify itself brazenly with wild¬ 
cat financial schemes. The Taft Ad¬ 
ministration has done the country a 
real service in curbing the activities of 
stock jobbers and in protecting the sav¬ 
ings of the people. It is sure to be 
accorded the credit it merits. It is in¬ 
conceivable that any party or any^ aspir¬ 
ant for public honors would wish to go 
to the honest voters of the country 
acknowledging a sympathy with crooks. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.-—Ton ranchmen owning 150,- 
000 acres in Pecos, Brewster and El Paso 
counties, Texas, stocked with 200.000 cat¬ 
tle, are reported to have invested in an 
aeroplane, not for pleasure, but to rid their 
lands of the wolves, panthers and mountain 
lions which kill cattle. They estimate that 
it cost them $100 a month for men to hunt 
the wolves, not to mention the thousands of 
dollars worth of cattle killed. Some of the 
catlemen employ hunters by the month to 
kill wolves, while others pay bounties of 
from $3 to $7 for scalps. It is said that 
they plan for an aeroplane that will carry 
two men and it is planned to penetrate the 
wild country and despatch beasts of prey 
witli guns from a safe distance in the air. 
From end to end of the country the So* 
cialist vote showed emphatic gains in the 
election November 7. and Socialist candi¬ 
dates for minor offices were elected in 
many States. Among the more important 
victories achieved by the Socialists were 
the election of three Assemblymen in the 
East—one in this State, one in Rhode 
Island and one in Masachusetts; 11 mayors 
in Ohio, a mayor in this State (Schenec¬ 
tady), mayors in Utah, Minnesota, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and Mississippi, and municipal offi¬ 
cers in many States of the West and 
South. 
Andrew Carnegie turned over $25,000,000 
November 10 to the Carnegie Corporation 
of New York, the body which was incor¬ 
porated by the Legislature on June 9 of 
the present year for the purpose of taking 
over Mr. Carnegie’s work in connection 
witli educational institutions, libraries and 
hero funds. The gift w'as in the form of 
five per cent first mortgage bonds of the 
United States Steel Corporation, the bonds 
being given as at par. The bonds closed 
November 10 at 102%, so at the close of the 
day the gift was worth about $656,250 more 
than the face value of the bonds. The 
income of which the incorporators will have 
the disposition is $1,250,000 a year. Mr. 
Carnegie Is credited with giving something 
like $52,000,000 in round figures for li¬ 
braries, but the donations came from time 
to time as the needs presented themselves 
to the donor. The Carnegie Instiution at 
Washington has received $25,000,000 from 
its founder, but the sum is the total of 
several gifts, including two of $10,000,000 
each. Mr. Carnegie has scattered $20,000,- 
000 or more among the smaller colleges of 
the country, but at various times. Alto¬ 
gether rough estimates of his gifts for 
the cause of education, peace, research and 
for hero funds and other philanthropic pur¬ 
poses made before (he present $25,000,000 
gift totalled between $190,000,000 and 
$200,000,000. Mr. Rockefeller’s general 
education fund has at its back a fund of 
$53,000,000. But this again is the total 
of a number of separate gifts, as is the 
$25,000,000 and over which the same donor 
has bestowed upon the University of Chi¬ 
cago. 
Almost 20 deaths, several million dollars’ 
property loss and much suffering and in¬ 
convenience resulted from the violent 
change of temperature, the preceding storms 
and the succeeding cold and snow that 
beset the central portion of the country 
on November 10-11. After an unsually 
wa>m November day, tornado storms did 
much damage in Wisconsin and Illinois and 
killed a dozen persons, besides injuring 
more than 20. several fatally. A cold wave 
almost immediately followed and extended 
in a few hours to the Gulf coast and At¬ 
lantic seaboard. Rain turned to sleet, 
snapping telegraph and telephone wires, and 
snow followed. The temperature dropped 
in several places more than 60 degrees 
in less than 18 hours. Several persons 
were frozen to death by the sudden cold: 
shipping on the Great Lakes was damaged, 
and several vessels were cast adrift by the 
high wind. In some places gas almost 
failed. The poor in large cities and the 
homeless in storm-swept regions suffered 
severely. A summary of deaths, injuries 
and damage and conditions follows: Janes¬ 
ville, Wis., and vicinity—(Eight persons 
dead, two dying, a dozen injured and 
$500,000 damages. Chicago—Two men 
frozen to death ; seven fishermen missing on 
Lake Michigan ; many persons hurt on the 
icy pavements; shipping damaged. Central 
Illinois—Three or more persons dead and 
20 injured in storms at Easton, Virginia, 
Peoria and other places; $1,000,000 prop¬ 
erty damage. Iowa—One man frozen at 
Ottumwa ; much suffering from cold. North 
Dakota-—One man frozen at Grand Forks. 
Omaha—One man dead in cold. Indiana— 
Entire State swept by blikzard ; $1,000,000 
damage by wind. Ohio—Heavy damage and 
suffering caused by cold, wind and snow. 
Michigan—Storm damage at several places 
by wind and sleet. Kentucky—Widespread 
damage by wind; unusually cold. Alabama 
—One man killed by wind near Montgom¬ 
ery. Gulf Coast—Unusually severe weather; 
much suffering. The freeze extended to the 
upper Gulf coast region, doing enormous 
damage to the sugar cane crop and Fall 
vegetables. All late cotton was killed. In 
Canada the cold weather has congested 
wheat shipping. The elevators are jammed 
with grain which the railroads cannot han¬ 
dle and much wheat is stored on the 
ground. A fourth of the Canadian grain 
crop of 200,000,000 bushels is lost, it i* 
said. The tieup of lake traffic has jammed 
the terminal elevators at lake ports and 
It is not thought that any more grain 
can he taken down the lakes this year. 
Some of the grain boats now out are over¬ 
due and have not been heard from since 
the gale started. 
The Chilian Minister. Senor Suaraz, de¬ 
livered to Secretary Knox in the State De¬ 
partment November 13, a draft on New 
York for $966,000 in settlement of the 
judgment of The Hague Court in favor of 
the Alsop elaimantsi The check was sent 
to the Treasury Department for distribu¬ 
tion among the many claimants under the 
award, which was based on a concession 
granted by Peru many years ago to Alsop, 
which was not carried out by Chili when 
It became possessed of the provinces of 
Tacna and Arica. 
Formal indictments were handed down 
November 14 by the Federal Grand Jury in 
New York against four of the men con¬ 
nected with the Columbian-Sterling Publish¬ 
ing Company ; Frank Orff, who was presi¬ 
dent : John F. B. Atkin, general counsel; 
Lee Sidwell, treasurer, and Eugene Bryan 
Yates. The four are implicated for conspir¬ 
acy and using the. mails to defraud the 
stockholders of the Columbian-Magazine 
Publishing Company, the Western Magazine 
Publishing Company, and Hampton’s Maga¬ 
zine and others. The false representations 
mentioned are that on June 1. 1911, the 
Columbian Magazine Company, the Western 
Magazine Publishing Company and Hamp¬ 
ton’s Magazine, Inc., operated six maga¬ 
zines at a profit; that on July 20, I^ee Sid¬ 
well “had such knowledge of the financial 
and business condition of the said Colum¬ 
bian-Sterling Publishing Company as to 
to be able to state definitely that the said 
Columbian-Sterling Publishing Company 
would have a sufficient surplus on August 
31, 1911, to warrant a dividend of at least 
4 per cent,” and that the company would 
declare a dividend on August 31. The 
complainants named in the indictments are 
Mrs. 7 . . E. Perkins of Shrewsbury, Mass., 
and B. S. Murphy of Mountoursville, I’a. 
Judge Emory Speer in his charge to the 
United States Grand Jury at Savannah, Ga., 
November 14, featured the present low 
price of cotton and the probable forces 
that are holding the price down. He read 
an interview with the Attorney-General of 
the United States touching on the probable 
prosecution by the Government of cotton 
bears and charged that it would be the duty 
of the Grand Jury to investigate such 
conditions, if any existed in the Southern 
District of Georgia, and frame their bills 
accordingly. He charged that it would not 
be necessary to await indictments from the 
Attorney-General before the Grand Jury 
could proceed in this district. 
Three rapids in the St. Lawrence River 
entirely in Canadian territory, the Cedars, 
Cascades and Coteau, are to he developed 
for power purposes by an English syndicate. 
The promoters are about to incorporate 
a company with an authorized capital of 
$100,000,000 and with a charter from the 
Dominion government. It is believed that 
English promoters hope to defeat the am¬ 
bitious plans of the St. Lawrence Power 
Company, which has for several years been 
seeking for permission to dam the Canadian 
side of the St. Lawrence River at the foot 
of the Long Sault Rapids. 
While playing with four boxes of dyna¬ 
mite caps, which they had stolen from the 
Rochester Lime Company, three boys, aged 
8, 12 and 14. met with death at Rochester, 
N. Y., November 13. The-#boys stole the 
caps, which number 100 to a box, and it is 
supposed they were experimenting witli them 
in an alley back of their homes when the 
accident occurred. Several houses nearby 
were partly wrecked and windows in a 
radius of several blocks smashed by the 
force of the explosion. 
Dr. Charles F. Wainright, of New York, 
filed suit in the Supreme Court of the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia November 14 against 
the American Security and Trust Company, 
executor of the estate of Thomas F. Walsh, 
of Colorado and Washington, for $42,000 
for medical services in the last illness of 
Mr. Walsh. The doctor’s bill was for 
$50,000. but he received $8,000 on account. 
Dr. Wain right’s complaint alleges that he 
devotfd his whole time to Mr. Walsh for 
three months, to the exclusion of all other 
practice. 
Rescued from death after a struggle with 
the elements for nearly 30 hours, 50 persons 
on the schooner Washington, which struck on 
Peacock Spit, near Astoria, Oregon, Novem¬ 
ber 12. reached Astoria in safety on the re¬ 
leased ship in tow of the Columbia bai 
tug Tntoosh. During a lull in.the gale 
Captain Bailey ran the Tatoosh in close tc 
the Washington and got a line aboard. Hun 
elreds of persons, who had gathered on the 
beach in the early morning hours and 
watched the vessel all day, momentarily 
expecting to see her crushed on the: rock: 
near North Head anel her passengers one 
crew swept into the sea. cheered the Ta 
toosh as it drew, the schooner safely into 
deep water. 
Tile 1 International Harvester Company of 
America was ousted from Missouri and fined 
$50,000 by the Supreme Court at Jefferson. 
November 14. The court’s decision sus¬ 
tained the findings of Special Commissioner 
Theodore Brace, who reported to the court 
that the company violated the common and 
anti trust laws of Missouri. The court 
ruled that the fine must be paid on or 
before January 1, 1912, and that if the 
International Harvester Company proves to 
the court by March 1, 1912, that it has 
ceased all connection with the International 
Harvester Company of New Jersey, which 
the court held to be unlawful, that the 
ouster of the International Harvester Com¬ 
pany of America will be suspended. The 
harvester company must file proofs of its 
willingness to comply with the judgment of 
the court. The proofs must be approved 
by the Attorney-General. 
The indicted Chicago meat packers sprang 
a surprise on the government November 
14 when they made another effort to 
avoid trial and to have the Sherman anti¬ 
trust law declared unconstitutional. The 
latest move consisted in the surrender of 
the packers to the United States marshal 
and an immediate appeal to Circuit Judge 
C. C. Kohlsaat for a writ of habeas corpus. 
The request for a decision on the consti¬ 
tutionality of tile Sherman law before un¬ 
dergoing trial was said to have been taken 
as a necessary step to carry the case be¬ 
fore the United States Supreme Court with¬ 
out the cost or delay of a trial. Viola¬ 
tions of the fifth, sixth and eighth amend¬ 
ments to the Constitution, ambiguity and 
alleged failure of the act either to create 
an offence against the government or to de¬ 
fine what it set up as an offence in a man¬ 
ner that would enable a citizen to know 
when he erred and when he did not were 
charged against the Sherman law as inter¬ 
preted by the United States Supreme Court 
in the Standard oil and Tobacco cases. 
A DAY’S WORK ON AN ALASKA FARM. 
A day’s work on the farm in the Tanana 
Valley is 10 hours, but with farmers who 
are working for themselves it will probably 
average 13 or 14 hours in Summer, and at 
this time of the year 10 hours with the 
majority. There is no regular routine; in 
the Summer you are just as liable to see 
a man working at 11 or 12 p.m. or 3 or 4 a.m. 
as during any hour in the day time; there 
practically is daylight for three months or 
so little twilight between two days that you 
can work any part of the 24 hours that 
you choose, and we take advantage of the 
weather and work any old time. This is 
done on account of the mosquitoes and 
gnats; we protect ourselves from them by 
wearing netting and gloves which is com¬ 
pulsory, for if you did not, or make a 
smudge, they would drive you crazy. Prob¬ 
ably an item as to crops and the business 
end of it would be appreciated. I planted 
potatoes May 27. and dug them September 4, 
and planted a small patch of carrots, beets, 
turnips and parsnips a few days later; also 
set out 500 cabbage; 100 cauliflower in the 
middle of .Tune. I have 30 rhubarb plants 
and small patch of strawberries. I har¬ 
vested carrots, turnips, beets and cabbage 
September 10. A half acre I had in pota¬ 
toes last year was devoted as experiment. 
I sowed 30 pounds of oats that I have been 
raising for three years. 10 pounds Dala 
oats, 10 pounds Golden Rain oats, 15 pounds 
White ITulless barley, packet of Teoslnte, 
which grew to height of six inches; Giant 
beggarweed, of which one plant came up; 
a small package of Alfalfa, which I con¬ 
sider did finely; Mammoth Red. Crimson, 
and Medium Red clover, which all did 
well : Velvet bean, which grew to a height 
of about four inches; Sand vetch, which 
did well, and three pounds Timothy, which 
grew to a height of two feet. The Dala 
oats I cut for seed August 15; the drought 
affected them, and grain was not as good 
as might be. The native and Golden Rain 
I cut August 26; barley August 20; Tim¬ 
othy August 20; with half an acre of 
potatoes. This makes my total ground 
cropped 1% acre; having 20 acres cleared 
the business end will explain why I did not 
crop more of It. 
About 50 per cent of the people here have 
a small garden, and there are about 30 
hothouse gardeners. Gardening and farm¬ 
ing is overdone. What market there is here 
for potatoes and hay the transportation 
company and business men supply about 90 
per cent of It. the leading company of this 
valley also runs the town of Fairbanks, 
which it supplies with light, heat and water, 
and it pays for its wood and teaming with 
oats, hay and provisions; no money. The 
teamster and wood chopper are next to the 
miner in numbers and a good portion of 
the small business men are interested in 
some of the industries or mines, and they 
all knock native produce, especially pota¬ 
toes and hay. In spite of all we are show¬ 
ing them that you can raise as good pota¬ 
toes, hay or grain as can be raised any¬ 
where. The farmers have demonstrated 
what can be done here, and have captured 
about 10 per cent of market, but in the 
last two years a now competitor entered the 
field. He is too much, for it is no trouble 
to him to put up buildings, clear ground or 
buy lime and sell potatoes, because he can 
undersell the farmer. It is Uncle Ram in 
the form of an experiment station, so- 
called. It has boon the opinion of a large 
portion of the people ever since camp was 
established that the post office was run in 
the interests of the business element, and 
now they have another institution run by 
Uncle Ram working in their interest. The 
transportation company and shipper have 
done everything' they dared to do to retard 
development along agricultural lines. Rome 
five or six years ago, thinking experiment 
stations were operated to aid the farmer, 
I wrote to Ritka asking for a few seed po¬ 
tatoes, and they informed me they would 
freeze if they sent them, but as soon as we 
were putting good potatoes on the market 
Uncle Ram could get all kinds of potatoes 
in here to compete against us for the small 
part of the market we conquered, as you 
are probably aware of the fact that the 
ground does not thaw until timber, brush 
and moss is removed, and you can imagine 
what a slow process it is to sweeten ground 
with lime retailed at 12 to 15 cents pel* 
pound. By shipping from Beattie a barrel 
of 200 pounds cost me $12. This was 
just for experiment. Lime at $120 per ton 
is out of mv reach. The climate here in 
interior Alaska is ideal with the exception 
of the extreme cold, short days we have 
during part of Winter, eight months; Sum¬ 
mer. four months. j. a. 
Fairbanks, Alaska. 
