1530 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
The last echo in one of the fiercest bat¬ 
tles ever waged by The Rural New- 
loBKER against deception and fraud, re¬ 
echoed in the court room at Saint Joseph, 
-Mo., last week, when the Supreme Court 
reversed the judgment of the Lewis Pub¬ 
lishing Company for $30,000 against the 
Rural I ublishing Company, and denied 
the plaintiff the right of a new trial. The 
opinion of the court recited that the 
greater portion of the business of the 
Lewis Publishing Company was illegal 
and unlawful, and that the business of 
the plaintiff as shown Tiv their own evi¬ 
dence, was such as not'to entitle it to 
protection under the libel law. 
For nearly 20 years E. G. Lewis has 
been shifting from one fake scheme to 
another. Big and small, he devised about 
7o fake schemes and collected from his 
victims an amount of money estimated 
at twelve million dollars. He collected 
over three million dollars on a bank 
scheme. After three months’ run the 
State closed the bank, and the Federal 
Government issued “fraud orders” against 
it and Lewis, but he convinced his de¬ 
luded victims that he was a martyr to 
corrupt and jealous banking interests, 
and got possession of the money again in 
exchange for his worthless notes and 
equally worthless stock in his publishing 
company. 
Lewis’s crowning fake was the National 
M Oman’s League, and its auxiliary, the 
alleged People’s University. He * made 
these schemes broad enough to appeal to 
every fault and every virtue of man¬ 
kind and womankind. To the avaricious 
he promised fortunes; to the charitable 
he offered orphanages and old woman’s 
homes. To the cultured he offered musi¬ 
cal and art salons, and to the intellec¬ 
tual he presented college courses. He ap¬ 
pealed to civic pride in the promise of 
public halls, and he tickled vanity with 
fulsome praise and notoriety. In return 
for all these promises he received fees of 
$52 each from women all over the coun¬ 
try until he had gathered up in all some¬ 
thing close to three million dollars. He 
interested some very able and sincere 
women in this scheme, and in his pre¬ 
tended educational courses he interested 
many of the educators and came near 
involving some of the educational insti¬ 
tutions of the country. lie promoted 
this scheme through advertising in Col¬ 
lier’s Weekly, Farm Journal, and other 
monthly publications, with the evident 
purpose of anticipating any adverse com¬ 
ment. 
The first complaints to The R. N.-Y. 
were promptly settled by Lewis with ex¬ 
planations and apologies. After several 
thousand dollars had been returned the 
demands grew too numerous, and Lewis 
refused settlements. He, however, con¬ 
tinued to launch new schemes and to col¬ 
lect large sums of money on them. 
Lewis got the money from the country 
and spent it freely in St. Louis, and con¬ 
sequently was not without apologists and 
defenders there. It was even asserted 
that he made such effective use of other 
people’s money that suits in his local 
courts or the collection of claims were de¬ 
layed on one technicality after another 
until attorneys with claims became dis¬ 
couraged and quit. 
Lewis warded off unfavorable publicity 
by his reputation as a legal fighter. His 
lawyers were paid by the money of his 
victims, and as other publishers had to 
use their own money for defense of libel 
suits, they prudently let him alone. 
The R. N.-Y. practically alone showed 
up the true nature of his schemes. The 
Federal government followed up the tes¬ 
timony we presented, and indictments 
were filed against Lewis alleging fraud, 
and an application was made by his vic¬ 
tims for a receiver to take over his prop¬ 
erty. Money stopped flowing to St. 
Louis and in a last desperate effort to 
check the merciless exposures by The 
R. N.-Y., Lewis filed three libel suits 
against the paper in bis local courts. 
The court had no jurisdiction and the 
summons was never legally served, but 
the judge had once acted on a committee 
for Lewis on a lottery scheme, and the 
suit was forced to trial at a time when 
no one representing the paper could be in. 
court to defend. Under such circum¬ 
stances Lewis got a judgment for $30,000. 
The next day Judge Dyer, of the Federal 
Court, appointed a receiver for the Lewis 
affairs in one of the most scathing de¬ 
crees that has ever been issued from a 
Federal court. It was thought then that 
the creditors might get something on their 
claims, but the details showed such a 
shameless use of the people’s money that 
all hope of getting anything back was 
quickly abandoned. 
The crowning humiliation of it all, 
however, was the success of the Lewis 
monumental bluff in protesting to Con¬ 
gress against the fraud order, and mail 
restrictions on his publications. These 
protests received scant considerations 
until the change in the political com¬ 
plexion of Congress occurred some three 
or four years ago. The Committee on 
Post Offices and Post Roads then actual¬ 
ly undertook an investigation of the 
Lewis protest. At the time Lewis’s trial 
under the indictments for fraud was ap¬ 
proaching. Just what influence was 
brought to bear we never assumed to 
know; but no one seemed to doubt that 
the hearing was an attempt to keep 
Lewis out of jail. Certain it is that if 
such was the avowed intent, the hearing 
could not have more earnestly addressed 
itself to the task on the part of the ma¬ 
jority of the committee, of which the 
lion. Wm. C. Redfield, now Secretary of 
Commerce, was a conspicuous member. 
With all the efforts to favor Lewis not 
a single charge of his against the officials 
of the post office was sustained. The 
committee might have been satisfied with 
its purpose and its work; or it might 
have been disgusted with its own part in 
a pitiable public farce, or it* may lack 
courage in an attempt to defend its course 
on the record before the members of the 
House, but it merely issued a perfunc¬ 
tory report, letting Lewis down as easily 
as it could, but in effect telling him to go 
home and find something better to do than 
the collection of money from women and 
children on schemes of doubtful promise. 
The record taken by this committee is a 
long one. It took much time and cost 
considerable money. We doubt if the 
majority members will ever review it with 
pride. Secretary Redfield has some gems 
of thought and principle in it that would 
plague a man of more modest ambitions. 
Lewis was tried on criminal indict¬ 
ments three times, and each time the jury 
disagreed. Our information is that the 
last indictment still stands and he may 
be obliged to stand another trial. He is 
now working another land scheme in Cal¬ 
ifornia. The Supreme Court of the State 
of Missouri reversed the verdict in The 
P- N.-Y. case and the other two suits had 
previously been withdrawn. 
The R. N.-Y. publicity drove him out 
of the Eastern territory entirely, and out 
of St. Louis. He is now working a land 
promotion scheme in California, and his 
literature bears all the characteristics of 
his earlier swindles. 
The experience illustrates the amount 
of trouble and expense even a notorious 
crook may make for a publisher who tries 
to protect his readers from swindling 
schemes, but the publisher cannot fairly 
avoid his responsibility, because the task 
may be unpleasant or the expense heavy. 
As a publisher he assumes a responsibility 
to the public, and if he neglects to give 
timely information, he is like the police 
officer who would turn his face from 
trouble and danger when he saw the thief 
in the street picking your pockets. 
Charles Abrahamson, or A. Abraham- 
son, as he was also known, has at last 
been caught and sentenced to a year in a 
Chicago jail. Abrahamson began, as far 
as our records show, at 233 Madison 
Street, New York. He solicited ship¬ 
ments from farmers, and neglected to 
make returns, giving as his excuse that 
the tags had come off the cases, or checks 
lost in the mail. Later he sent out a 
couple of hundred checks in payment for 
shipments, but as he had no account in 
the bank on which the checks were 
drawn, they were returned to farmers un¬ 
paid. T\ e next heard of him in Pitts¬ 
burgh. but he did not stay there long 
enough to be apprehended. He operated 
in Chicago under the name of Louis 
Abraham, and also as Samuel Pollock, 
Detroit. He was recognized, however, 
through his handwriting and methods, 
and the postal authorities immediately 
began work on the trail and arrested 
him in Detroit. He was taken to Chi¬ 
cago and the sentence imposed. 
A young neighbor of mine, a farmer’s 
son just graduated from high school, gave 
me the enclosed. He answered an ad¬ 
vertisement in a farm paper (?) called 
l p-to-Date Farming,” and received this 
letter. I told him to have nothing to do 
with the people, and said I would write 
and ask you if you knew or could find out 
about them. It seems to me a crime for 
people like that to take money from 
young people starting life, and I hate to 
tell you what I think of the so-called 
rarm paper that accepts such adver¬ 
tisements. This young fellow, after 
'' aa t I told him about such gold bricks, 
i- S ^ ea thftt there is something in 
this letter, which is why I have taken 
the matter up with you, for the advice of 
a reputable paper like yours would con¬ 
firm what I told him. A b h 
Pennsylvania. 
^ e have analyzed the Yeterinary 
Science Association, of London, Canada, 
fake scheme in this department from time 
to time for 10 or 12 years past. The 
printed letter enclosed assures the appli¬ 
cant that the company is going to estab¬ 
lish a branch of the association in his 
vicinity in the near future, and desires 
his services at a salary of $80 per month 
and an allowance of $50 for expenses, 
making a total of $130. It is also sug¬ 
gested that the second year the salary be 
increased to $240 a month. Further on 
in the letter a text book of the associa¬ 
tion is referred to for which a deposit of 
$3 is required. As the scheme develops, 
the applicant for the position will find 
that there is no salary attached to the 
position at all, and the amount he is able 
to earn selling the books of the Yeter¬ 
inary Science Association will depend en¬ 
tirely upon his ability to fake his neigh¬ 
bors and other farmers and induce them 
to sign orders for them. This case of a 
young man just out of high school with¬ 
out experience or knowledge of advertis¬ 
ing schemes of this kind, illustrates the 
danger in reading publications that have 
little or no regard for the class of ad¬ 
vertising they carry. The subscription 
price of such papers is usually nominal, 
or in connection with some premium. 
The rule is, however, that the reader 
loses 10 times more than the subscrip¬ 
tion price of legitimate publications 
through patronizing fake and fraudulent 
ad\ ertising. An individual reader may 
escape, but the readers of fake papers as 
a whole must foot the bills. 
December 25, 1915. 
When you write advertisers mention 
Ihe It. N.-Y. and you'll get a quick 
reply and a “square deal.” See guaran¬ 
tee editorial page. : : : ; 
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