410 
‘Ibe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 3, 1919 
r 
l 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
This its the Twenty-sixth Annual Hor¬ 
ticultural Number of Tiie Rural New- 
Yorker. Some of our readers may recall 
the first special issue 2G years ago. It 
was a 24-page paper. The present edition 
is 04 pages. This is the largest number 
of pages our press is capable of printing, 
otherwise we should further increase the 
number of pages this year. 
It requires approximately 48 tons of 
paper to supply a copy of this number 
to each one of our subscribers. The cost 
of the white paper is in the neighborhood 
of $6,500 and the postage is about $1,500. 
We are proud of the advertising patron¬ 
age in this number. It carries a larger 
amount of advertising than appeared in 
any single issue of The Rural New- 
Yorker since the publication was founded 
in the year 1850. We doubt if any farm 
publication of the season will equal the 
amount of strictly high-class advertising 
in this issue. We refer to this splendid 
show of advertising because it is an ex¬ 
pression of the confidence and trust which 
these good manufacturers, nurserymen, 
seedsmen and others place in the paper. 
At the same time, it is a recognition of 
the faith which farmers in the whole 
eastern section of the country place in 
the publication and its management. We 
can point with pride to the houses repre¬ 
sented in these columns because everyone 
of them is in principle and practice 
an advocate of the square deal and 
worthy of the confidence and trade of the 
farming public. We are frequently told 
that no other publication objects to this 
or that form of innocent deception, but 
we insist that every offer made to our 
people must be fair and aboveboard 
without any strings to it. This policy 
has inspired a confidence between the best 
class of business farmers in the land on 
one hand and the most honorable and 
upright business houses on the other, 
which has resulted in convenience and 
profit of both. We are sure that our 
people will be interested in the standards 
maintained for their favorite publication, 
and in the policies that make it success¬ 
ful in itself and helpful to them. 
I am enclosing a letter which a client 
of mine, a farmer in Dutchess County, 
received from E. G. Lewis. I told him 
not to invest one penny in such a wildcat 
scheme as that outlined in this letter, 
but he seemed to think that Lewis was an 
honorable business man. and that he 
should not miss such a golden opportunity 
as that outlined in the enclosed letter. 
As some of your other readers are un¬ 
doubtedly getting this letter. I thought 
that vou might, like to express an opinion 
on it! H. M. w. 
New York. 
We do not think old readers of TnE 
R. N.-Y. are much in danger from the 
Lewis allurements, and to our new 
friends we would simply -say “don’t.” It 
is estimated that Lewis gathered up $12,- 
000.000 in his St. Louis schemes, and 
the burden of it was lost to the small 
investors. Those familiar with those 
transactions will feel discouraged in 
any purpose to help investors who yet re¬ 
gard Mr. Lewis so highly, and it may be 
as well to allow them to pay the price of 
their avarice and folly. 
Cincinnati, O., February 12. —Roy 
Van Tress, president of the McAlester, 
Olda.. Real Estate Exchange, and fifteen 
associates, charged with conspiracy to de¬ 
fraud by the use of the mails, in the sale 
of Indian lands, were found guilty by a 
jury in the United States District Court 
here today. The jury deliberated seven 
hours. 
The case was placed in the hands of 
the jury at 3:30 P. M. yesterday after 
United States Judge Hollister had spent 
two and a half hours in reading his 
charge. Directly following the verdict 
attorneys for Van Tress and his asso¬ 
ciates gave notice that they would move 
for a new trial. 
The prosecution began early last Feb¬ 
ruary. when the defendants were arrested 
by Post Office Inspectors, and the offices 
of the McAlester Real Estate Exchange 
in Cincinnati and McAlester, Okla., were 
searched. The prosecution by the Gov¬ 
ernment has been largely centered upon 
the distribution among the customers of 
the McAlester Real Estate Exchange of 
a tract of 41.000 acres of land known as 
the Busebow lands in southeastern Okla¬ 
homa. It was charged that Van Tress 
secured an option on these lands after 
he found that he could not buy enough 
land at the Government sale of Indian 
unallotted lands to fill his contracts. The 
Government charged that the McAlester 
company perpetrated a fraud on its cus¬ 
tomer when it took $135 as a fee for 
locating and purchasing land, agreeing 
to act as attorney and agent of the cus¬ 
tomer, and then sold the land that it had 
bought privately at a profit. Timber 
right frauds were also alleged. 
The indictment against Van Tress and 
his associates contained only one count, 
but it referred to no less than 493 con¬ 
tracts which were made by the McAlester 
exchange with its customers. Approxi¬ 
mately 100 of these customers testified at 
the trial.—New York Evening Post. 
This is a fitting ending of the promo¬ 
ters of the McAlester real estate scheme. 
The R. N.-Y. warned its readers against 
it for two or three years before the Gov¬ 
ernment officials took action. We heard 
of one case where a copy of The R. N.-Y. 
containing the exposure of their methods 
caused the agents and their advertising 
car to be run out of town. That com¬ 
munity was saved at any rate, and we 
hope few if any of our readers failed to 
heed the advice printed in Publisher’s 
Desk. It is small satisfaction to the vic¬ 
tims that the president of this company 
and his 15 associates will serve a term 
in prison for their misdeeds; but under 
our present laws there seems to be no 
way of stamping out these schemes until 
the damage is done. 
The late report of the receiver of the 
American Real Estate Company is not 
particularly encouraging to the investors 
in its “Gold Bonds.” For the six months 
previous the receiver sold only $1,722,221 
worth of property. Its value on the 
books of the company was $2,038,198. In 
other words it sold for $315,977 less than 
its book estimated value. In the Park 
Hill section, where the company holds 
considerable property, sales were made 
at one-third of the book value. The total 
real estate is now valued at approxi¬ 
mately $15,000,000. Its book value was 
$22,900,000. 
While the report does not say so, some 
of the best property held by the company 
is mortgaged for 90 per cent of its present 
value. When the expense of sales are 
deducted, there will be precious little left 
for bond-holders. During the years that 
this bubble was being inflated through 
advertising in many of the high-class 
literary and religious papers of the coun¬ 
try, we did our best to keep our people 
out of its allurements. The bonds were 
nothing but the promise of the company 
to pay, and the assets of the company 
were small equities in property that was 
mortgaged to the last dollar that anyone 
would loan on them. As long as new 
bonds could be sold to replace old ones, 
the scheme worked, but it was sure to 
fail sooner or later, and the holders of 
the bonds had to lose because they fur¬ 
nished the cash for a speculation by 
speculators for speculators. 
Sometimes we are asked why it is that 
Publisher’s Desk is such a big success 
while attempts to imitate it by other 
papers fail. Some of the investors in 
the bonds of the American Real Estate 
Company may be able to give a substan¬ 
tial reason. 
“Help Us Stop Claims,” is the cry of 
American Railway Express Company. We 
feel sure every shipper is anxious to co¬ 
operate with the express service to this 
end. It is suggested that “poor packing” 
and “improper marking” are responsible 
for a large percentage of the damage and 
losses in shipping. Fragile boxes, second¬ 
hand containers, illegible writing, pencil 
writing easily rubbed otf. labels and tags 
which tear or pull off are given as fre¬ 
quent causes. We are asking our sub¬ 
scribers to see that their shipments are 
started right, and then we will do our 
best to hold the express s rvice for dam¬ 
ages and loss due to the carelessness or 
indifference of the employees of the com¬ 
pany. We want to give the new or¬ 
ganization credit in the matter of giving 
claims better consideration than was the 
custom under the old regime. We see 
many evidences of improved service as 
well as more prompt settlement of claims. 
“My boy has a wonderful amount of 
perseverance and persistency, an optimism 
nothing can dim and a nerve nothing can 
daunt. W!hat work would you put him 
to?” “I should think with those qualities 
he would make an ideal book agent.”— 
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