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Title: Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Author: Wooldridge, Clifton R.
Language: English
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[Illustration: CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE.]
Twenty Years a Detective
IN THE WICKEDEST CITY IN THE WORLD.
20,000 ARRESTS MADE
12,900 CONVICTIONS ON STATE AND CITY LAWS
200 PENITENTIARY CONVICTIONS
The Devil and the Grafter
AND
HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER TO DECEIVE,
SWINDLE AND DESTROY MANKIND
AN ARMY OF 600,000 CRIMINALS AT WAR WITH
SOCIETY AND RELIGION
BY CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE
The World-Famous Criminologist and Detective
"THE INCORRUPTIBLE SHERLOCK HOLMES OF AMERICA"
After twenty years of heroic warfare and scores of hair-breadth
escapes, in his unceasing battle with the devil and the grafter,
Mr. Wooldridge tells in a graphic manner how Wildcat Insurance,
Fake Mines and Oil Wells, Turf Swindlers, Home Buying Swindlers,
Fake Bond and Investment Companies, Bucket Shops, Blind
Pools in Grain and Stocks, Pool Rooms and Hand Books, Fake
Mail Order Houses, ordinary Gambling Houses, Panel Houses,
Matrimonial Bureaus, Fake Underwriting, Fake Banks, Collecting
Agencies, Fake Medicine Companies, Clairvoyants, Fortune Tellers,
Palmists and other criminals of all classes operate, and how their
organizations have been broken up and destroyed by hundreds.
THE WORK ALSO CONTAINS
Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge's "Never-Fail" System
_For Detecting and Outwitting All Classes of
Grafters and Swindlers_
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY
CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE.
Chicago Publishing Co.,
83-91 Plymouth Place,
Chicago.
PREFACE.
In presenting this work to the public the author has no apologies to
make nor favors to ask. It is a simple history of his connection with
the Police Department of Chicago, compiled from his own memoranda,
the newspapers, and the official records. The matter herein contained
differs from those records only in details, as many facts are given
in the book which have never been made public. The author has no
disposition to malign any one, and names are used only in cases in
which the facts are supported by the archives of the Police Department
and of the criminal court. In the conscientious discharge of his
duties as an officer of the law, the author has in all cases studied
the mode of legal procedure. His aim has been solely to protect
society and the taxpayer, and to punish the guilty. The evidences
of his sincerity accompany the book in the form of letters from the
highest officers in the city government, from the mayor down to
the precinct captain, and furnish overwhelming testimony as to his
endeavors to serve the public faithfully and honestly. No effort has
been made to bestow self-praise, and where this occurs, it is only a
reproduction, perhaps in different language, of the comments indulged
in by the newspapers of Chicago and other cities, whose reporters are
among the brightest and most talented young men in all the walks and
professions of life. To them the officer acknowledges his obligations
in many instances. Often he has worked hand-in-hand with them. They
have traveled with him in the dead hours of the night, in his efforts
to suppress crime or track a criminal, and have often given him
assistance in the way of suggestions.
He now submits his work and his record to the public, hoping it will
give him a kindly reception.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface 7-8
Testimonials 11
Biography of the Author 27
Graft Nation's Worst Foe 51
The "Never-Fail" System to Beat the Get-Rich-Quick Swindles 112
The Best Rules for Health 116
Matrimonial Agents Coining Cupid's Wiles 119
The Great Mistake. Our Penal System is a Relic of Early Savagery 192
Vagrants, Who and Why 204
The Young Criminals and How They Are Bred in Chicago 230
Wiles of Fortune Telling 246
Wife or Gallows 267
A Clever Shop Lifter (Fainting Bertha) 272
Front 284
The Criminal's Last Chance Gone 288
Burglary a Science 311
Cell Terms for "Con" Men 341
Panel-House Thieves 348
Gambling and Crime 358
A Heartless Fraud 401
The Bogus Mine 409
A Giant Swindle 418
Quacks 426
Fabulous Losses in Big Turf Frauds 448
Fake Drug Vendors 462
Bucket-Shop 471
On "Sure Things." How to Learn Their Real Character 482
Huge Swindles Bared 487
The Social Evil 500
Suppress Manufacture and Sale of Dangerous Weapons 508
Getting Something for Nothing 517
Want Ad. Fakers 527
Millionaire Banker and Broker Arrested 533
Dora McDonald 551
Mike McDonald 581
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
The two arch enemies of happiness and prosperity are the Devil and the
Grafter. The church is fighting the Devil, the law is fighting the
Grafter. The great mass of human beings, as they journey along the
pathway of life, know not the dangers that lie in wait from these two
sources. Honest themselves, credulous and innocent, they trust their
fellow man.
Statistics show that four-fifths of all young men and women, and
nine-tenths of the widows are swindled out of the money and property
that comes to them by inheritance. Every year thousands of laboring
men spend their hard earnings and beggar their families by falling in
traps laid for them. Thousands of innocent girls and women, struggling
for a respectable livelihood, fall victims to the demons who traffic
in human honor.
The Grafters spend millions upon millions of dollars annually in
advertising in America alone. There is not a Post Office in the land
where every mail does not carry their appeals and thieving schemes;
and they collect hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the
trusting public. The State and National Governments spend millions of
dollars a year in trying to catch and curb these grafters. Some of
Satan's worst grafters are found in the church, working the brethren;
and he has them by thousands in every walk of life.
The object of this book is to protect the public by joining hands with
the church and the government in their work against the Devil and the
Grafter. The author reveals and exposes the Grafter with his schemes,
his traps, his pitfalls and his victims. The reader of this book will
be fortified and armed with knowledge, facts and law, that should
forever protect him, his family and his friends from the wiles of the
Grafters.
It is with the confidence that this work fills an imperative need, and
that it should be in the hands of every minister, every physician,
every teacher and every mother and father in the land, that the author
and publisher send it forth on what they believe to be a mission of
good to the world.
WORDS OF COMMENDATION.
=From Chas. S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois:=
"It is with pleasure that I am able to say that Detective
Wooldridge has conducted all his cases with zeal and
intelligence."
=J. M. Longenecker, former State's Attorney, says:=
"Mr. Wooldridge has thorough knowledge of evidence and is
an expert in preparing a criminal case for trial. I have
found him to be one of the most efficient officers in the
Department."
=R. W. McClaughrey, Warden of U. S. Prison at Leavenworth, Kans.,
Ex-Warden of Illinois State Penitentiary and Ex-Chief of Police of
Chicago, says in a letter to the author:=
"You were not only subject to bribes, but also frequently
a target of perjurers and scoundrels of every degree. You
came out from every ordeal unscathed, and maintained a
character for integrity and fearlessness in the discharge
of your duties that warranted the highest commendation. It
gives me pleasure to make this statement."
=J. J. Badenoch, Ex-General Supt. of Police, writing Mr. Wooldridge,
says:=
"Dear Sir--Before I retire from the command of the Police
Department, I desire to thank you for your bravery and
loyal service. The character of your work being such that
bribes are frequently offered by the criminal class, it
becomes necessary to select men of perfect integrity for
the purpose, and I now know that I made no mistake in
selecting you for this trying duty. It affords me great
pleasure to commend you for your bravery and fidelity to
your duties."
=Nicholas Hunt, Inspector Commanding Second Division, says:=
"I have known Clifton R. Wooldridge for the last ten years.
As an officer he is par-excellent, absolutely without
fear and with a detective ability so strongly developed
it almost appealed to me as an extra sense. If I wanted
to secure the arrest of a desperate man, I would put Mr.
Wooldridge in charge of the case in preference to any one I
know, as, with his bravery, he has discretion."
=Geo. M. Shippy, Chief of Police, of Chicago, writing Mr. Wooldridge,
says:=
"Your heart is in the right place, and while I have
always found you stern and persistent in the pursuit
and prosecution of criminals, you were very kind and
considerate, and I can truthfully say that more than one
evil doer was helped to reform and was given material
assistance by you."
=Luke P. Colleran, Chief of Detectives, says:=
"His book is most worthy and truthful and commendable; and
I take pleasure in commending it to all."
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN REAL LIFE.
_From The Chicago Tribune of November 25, 1906._
"Chicago may be surprised to learn that it has a Sherlock
Holmes of its own, but it has; and before his actual
experiences in crime-hunting, the fictional experiences
through which Poe, Doyle, and Nick Carter put their
detectives pale into insignificance. His name is Clifton R.
Wooldridge.
"Truth is stranger even than detective fiction, and in the
number of his adventures of mystery, danger and excitement
he has all the detective heroes of fiction and reality
beaten easily.
"He has personally arrested 19,500 people, 200 of them were
sent to the penitentiary; 3,000 to the house of correction;
6,000 paid fines; 100 girls under age were rescued from
lives of shame; $100,000 worth of property was recovered;
100 panel houses were closed; 100 matrimonial bureaus were
broken up.
[Illustration: Disguised as a JEW IN THE GHETTO]
"Wooldridge has refused perhaps 500 bribes of from $500
to $5,000 each. He has been under fire forty-four times.
He has been wounded dozens of times. He has impersonated
almost every kind of character. He has, in his crime
hunting, associated with members of the '400' and
fraternized with hobos. He has dined with the elite and
smoked in opium dens. He has done everything that one
expects the detective of fiction to do and which the real
detective seldom does.
"When occasion requires he ceases to appear as Wooldridge.
He can make a disguise so quickly and effectively that even
an actor would be astonished. Gilded youth, negro gambler,
honest farmer or lodging house 'bum,' it requires but a few
minutes to 'make-up,' to run to earth elusive wrong-doers."
The pictures which appear here are actual photographs taken from life
in the garb and disguises worn by the author in several famous cases.
[Illustration: "HECK HOUSTON"--STOCK-RAISER FROM WYOMING
In this garb the author makes himself an easy mark for the crooks
and grafters of the Stock-Yard district. The hold-up man--the
card-sharp--the bunco-steerer--the get-rich-quick stock-broker fall
"easy game" to the detective thus disguised.]
[Illustration: ASSOCIATING WITH THE STOCK AND BOND GRAFTERS
Disguised as an Englishman who has money and is looking for a good
investment, Mr. Wooldridge is easily mistaken for a "sucker." The
trap is set. He apparently walks into it; but, in a few minutes, the
grafter finds himself on the way to prison.]
[Illustration: POLICY-SAM JOHNSON
This is a favorite disguise of the author when doing detective duty
among the lowest and most disreputable criminals. Unsuspectingly
the crooks offer him all sorts of dirty work at small prices for
assistance in criminal acts.]
[Illustration: WE NEVER SLEEP
Detectives disguised as tramps: "I am made all things to all men,"
says St. Paul. The Detective must also make himself all things to all
men, that he may find and catch the rascals. To be up-to-date it is
necessary to be able to assume as many disguises as there are classes
of people among whom criminals hide.]
[Illustration: POLICY-SAM JOHNSON SHOOTING CRAPS
An illustration of the way the detective employs himself in the
gambling dens. It is often necessary to play and lose money in these
places that he may get at the facts. Observe that he is watching
proceedings in another part of the room while he is throwing the
dice.]
[Illustration: SHADOWING ONE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED.
Some of the most dangerous grafters in the world hobnob with the
elite. Here we have our author in evening dress, passing as a man of
society at a banquet of the rich, shadowing a "high-flyer" crook.]
[Illustration: CRAPS AND CARDS
The gambling house is a station on the road to crime. In proportion to
population there are, perhaps, more negro gamblers than of any other
race.]
[Illustration: A LITTLE GAME IN THE ALLEY AT NOON
Many boys and young men spend their noon hour in cultivating bad
habits that lead to nights of gambling; and then come crimes to get
money that they may gamble more.]
[Illustration: A RESTING PLACE ON THE ROAD TO CRIME.
The gilded saloon is the club-room of the crook. Here he hatches his
plots; here he drinks to get desperate courage to carry them out; and
here he returns when the crime has been committed to drown remorse and
harden conscience.]
[Illustration: YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE]
[Illustration: A GAME OF POKER FOR "A SMALL STAKE"
This is a clangorous stop. Many a ruined man traces his downfall
to the day he began in youth to "bet" a little "to make the game
interesting."]
[Illustration: Emma Ford (Sisters) Pearl Smith
Mary White, Flossie Moore
FOUR FAMOUS NEGRO WOMEN GRAFTERS
As confidence workers, highway robbers, and desperate criminals they
were the terror of officers and courts. Together they stole and robbed
people of more than $200,000.00. They were finally run to earth and
put in prison. Our author followed one of them across the continent
and back.]
[Illustration: THE DESTINATION OF THE GRAFTER.
"The way of the transgressor is hard." "Be sure your sin will find
you out." The penitentiary is full of bright men who might have
been eminently successful--an honor to themselves and a blessing to
mankind, if they had only heeded the old adage--"Honesty is the best
policy."]
[Illustration: WOOLDRIDGE'S CABINET OF BURGLAR TOOLS.
At the police headquarters in Chicago, one of the most attractive
curios is the above cabinet of burglar-tools and weapons taken by the
author from robbers and crooks during his eighteen years of service.]
[Illustration: TURNING THE BOYS FROM CRIMINAL PATHS
This is a photograph of the Juvenile Court in Chicago, where boys
who commit crimes are tried and sent to the Reformatory, instead of
to prison with hardened criminals. The author claims that our prison
system is filling the country with criminals.]
[Illustration]
CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE
AMERICA'S FOREMOST DETECTIVE.
Clifton R. Wooldridge was born February 25, 1854, in Franklin county,
Kentucky. He received a common school education, and then started out
in the world to shift for himself. From 1868 to 1871, he held the
position of shipping clerk and collector for the Washington Foundry
in St. Louis, Missouri. Severing his connection with that company,
he went to Washington, D. C., and was attached to the United States
Signal Bureau from March 1, 1871, to December 5, 1872. He then took up
the business of railroading, and for the following nine years occupied
positions as fireman, brakeman, switchman, conductor and general yard
master.
When the gold fever broke out in the Black Hills in 1879, Mr.
Wooldridge along with many others went to that region to better his
fortune. Six months later he joined the engineering corps of the
Denver & Rio Grande railroad and assisted in locating the line from
Canon City to Leadville, as well as several of the branches. The
work was not only very difficult, but very dangerous, and at times,
when he was assisting in locating the line through the Royal Gorge
in the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, he was suspended from a rope,
which ran from the peak of one cliff to the other, with his surveying
instruments strapped to his back. This gorge is fifty feet wide at
the bottom and seventy feet wide at the top, the walls of solid
rock rising three thousand feet above the level of the river below.
The work was slow and required a great deal of skill, but it was
accomplished successfully.
Mr. Wooldridge went to Denver in 1880 and engaged in contracting
and mining the following eighteen months. He then took a position
as engineer and foreman of the Denver Daily Republican, where he
remained until May 29, 1883. The following August he came to Chicago
and took a position with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway.
In 1886, he severed his connection with the railroad and founded the
"Switchman's Journal." He conducted and edited the paper until May
26th, when he was burned out, together with the firm of Donohue &
Henneberry at the corner of Congress street and Wabash avenue, as
well as many other business houses in that locality, entailing a
total loss of nearly $1,000,000. Thus the savings of many years were
swept away, leaving him penniless and in debt. He again turned his
attention to railroading and secured a position with the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy railroad and had accumulated enough money to
pay the indebtedness which resulted from the fire, when the great
strike was inaugurated on that road in February, 1888. The strike
included the engineers, firemen and switchmen, and continued nearly
a year. On October 5th of that year Mr. Wooldridge made application
for a position on the Chicago police force, and having the highest
endorsements, he was appointed and assigned to the Desplaines Street
Station. It was soon discovered that Wooldridge as a police officer
had no superiors and few equals. Neither politics, religion, creed,
color, or nationality obstructed him in the performance of his police
duties, and the fact was demonstrated and conceded times without
number that he could not be bought, bribed, or intimidated. He
selected for his motto, "Right wrongs no man; equal justice to all."
His superior officers soon recognized the fact that no braver, more
honest or efficient police officer ever wore a star or carried a club.
The mass of records on file in the police headquarters and in the
office of the clerk of the municipal and criminal court demonstrate
conclusively that he has made one of the most remarkable records of
any police officer in the United States if not in the world. Mr.
Wooldridge has seen twenty years of experience and training in active
police work. Ten years of this time he was located in what is commonly
known as the Levee district, a territory where criminals congregate
and where crimes of all degrees are committed.
BORN IN KENTUCKY.
Mr. Wooldridge is therefore of Southern extraction. And in spite of
the "big stick" which this terror of the grafters has carried for
twenty years, he still "speaks softly," the gentle accent of the old
South. But behind that soft speech there is a determined soul. The
smooth-running accents of the South are in this case the velvet which
hides the glove of iron.
The following are some of the deeds of valor, work and achievements he
has accomplished:
AN UNPARALLELED RECORD.
20,000 arrests made by Detective Wooldridge.
He keeps a record of each arrest, time, place and
disposition of the case.
14,000 arrests made for violation State and city
misdemeanors.
6,000 arrests made on criminal charges.
10,500 of these prisoners paid fines.
2,400 of these prisoners were sent to jail or the house of
correction.
200 of these were convicted and sent to the penitentiary.
1,000 get-rich-quick concerns were raided and broken up.
60 wagon loads of literature seized and destroyed.
A conservative estimate of the sum contributed annually
by this highly civilized nation to "safe investment" and
"get-rich-quick" concerns is $150,000,000.
300 poker, crap and gambling games raided and closed;
$1,000,000 lost.
200 wine rooms closed up. These wine rooms were the
downfall and ruination of hundreds of innocent girls.
185 wildcat insurance companies raided and closed.
2,500,000 bogus securities and 10 patrol wagon loads of
books, papers and literature seized. These companies paid
no losses, and there were, it is estimated, 1,000,000
persons who had taken out fire insurance policies in these
wildcat companies.
They had sustained fire losses and were not indemnified.
The conservative estimated loss by these wildcat insurance
companies is $10,000,000.
$200,000 of lost and stolen property was recovered and
returned to the owners by Detective Wooldridge.
129 slot machines seized and broken up; valued at $10,000.
130 policy shops raided and closed: $100,000 would be a
conservative estimate of the amount lost by the players.
125 matrimonial agencies raided and broken up.
4,500,000 matrimonial letters seized and destroyed.
1,500,000 matrimonial agencies' stock letters seized and
destroyed.
1,400,000 matrimonial stock photographs seized and
destroyed.
500,000 photographs sent to the matrimonial agencies by
men and women who were seeking their affinities seized and
destroyed.
40 wagon loads of matrimonial literature seized and
destroyed.
110 turf frauds raided and closed: $8,000,000 lost by the
public.
$20,000 bribe was offered Wooldridge by the turf swindlers
to let them run, but he refused to take it.
105 panel houses raided and closed.
$1,500,000 was stolen annually from 1889 to October, 1896.
At that time there were 64 uniformed officers stationed
in front of the panel houses. Detectives Wooldridge
and Schubert were assigned to break them, which was
accomplished in three weeks' time.
100 bucketshops raided and closed; $5,000,000 lost through
them.
July 31, 1900, Detective Wooldridge, in charge of 50
officers, arrested 415 men and landed them in the Harrison
Street Police Station, and dismantled the following
bucketshops:
10 and 12 Pacific avenue, 25 Sherman street, 14 Pacific
avenue, 10 Pacific avenue, 210 Opera House Block, 7
Exchange court, 19 Lyric Building, and 37 Dearborn street.
It was one of the largest and most sensational raids ever
made in Chicago, and will be long remembered.
73 opium joints raided and closed; $100,000 spent, and hundreds of
persons were wrecked and ruined by the use of opium.
75 girls under age rescued from a house of ill fame and a life of
shame, and returned to their parents or guardians, or sent to the
Juvenile School or the House of Good Shepherd.
50 home-buying swindles raided and closed; $6,000,000 lost.
48 palmists and fortune tellers raided and closed; $500,000 lost.
45 spurious employment agencies raided and closed; $200,000 lost.
40 bogus charity swindles raided and closed; $300,000 lost.
38 blind pools in grain and stock raided and closed; $500,000 lost.
35 bogus mail order houses raided and closed; $3,000,000 lost.
34 sure-thing gambling devices raided and closed; $2,500,000 lost.
33 fraudulent and guarantee companies raided and closed; $900,000 lost.
30 fraudulent book concerns raided and closed; $1,000,000 lost.
28 panel-house keepers were indicted and convicted.
15 owners of the property were indicted and convicted.
This broke the panel-house keepers' backbone and they never recovered
to resume business again.
Emma Ford, sentenced to the penitentiary April 5, 1902,
for five years. Pearl Smith, her sister, sentenced to the
penitentiary June 19, 1893, for five years. Mary White, May
20, 1893, for two years. Flossie Moore, March 27, 1893, for
five years. Seventy-five thousand dollars is said to have
been stolen by her in eighteen months.
$8,000 bribe was offered Detective Wooldridge to let Flossie Moore
slip through his fingers.
$3,000 bribe was offered by the same woman for the address of Sadie
Jorden, who was an eye witness of the robbery of E. S. Johnson, a
retired merchant, aged 74 years.
28 wire tappers were raided and closed. These men secured the
quotations from the Board of Trade and pool rooms, and hundreds of
thousands of dollars were secured from the speculators who were
victimized; $200,000 lost.
27 dishonest collecting agencies raided and closed; $200,000 lost.
25 swindling brokers raided and closed; $800,000 lost.
23 lotteries raided and closed; $1,700,000 lost.
$100 per month bribe to run his lottery was offered Detective
Wooldridge, April 21, 1900, by J. J. Jacobs, 217 Dearborn street, who
conducted the Montana Loan & Investment Co. He was arrested and fined
$1,500 by Judge Chetlain, June 21, 1903.
22 promoters raided and closed; $1,000,000 lost.
22 salted mines and well companies raided and closed; $2,000,000 lost.
20 city lot swindles raided and closed; $1,000,000 lost.
20 spurious medicine concerns raided and closed; $300,000 lost.
* * * * *
$30,000 worth of poison and bogus medicines seized October 29, 1904,
as follows:
$12,000 worth of spurious medicines seized by Detective
Wooldridge from Edward Kuehmsted, 6323 Ingleside avenue.
$5,000 worth of spurious drugs seized from J. S. Dean, 6121
Ellis avenue.
$2,500 worth of spurious drugs seized from Burtis B.
McCann, 6113 Madison avenue.
$500 worth of spurious drugs seized from J. N. Levy, 356
Dearborn street.
$2,000 worth of spurious medicines seized from W. G. Nay,
1452 Fulton street.
* * * * *
17 women arrested for having young girls under age in a house of
prostitution.
16 fraudulent theater agencies raided and closed; $100,000 lost.
15 procurists of young girls for houses of ill fame and
prostitution arrested and fined.
$8,000 bribe offered Detective Wooldridge, September 27,
1895, by Mary Hastings, who kept a house of prostitution
at 128 Custom House place. She went to Toledo, O., and
secured six girls under age and brought them in the house
of prostitution.
One of the girls escaped in her night clothes by tying a
sheet to the window. There were six in number, as follows:
Lizzie Lehrman, May Casey, Ida Martin, Gertie Harris,
Kittie McCarty and Lizzie Winzel.
After Mary Hastings was arrested and she found out that she
could not bribe Wooldridge she gave bonds and fled. Some
months later she was again arrested, and the case dragged
along for two years.
The witnesses were bought up and shipped out of the state.
The case was stricken off, with leave to reinstate. It is
said it cost her $20,000.
Four notorious negro women, footpads and highway robbers,
arrested by Detective Wooldridge, whose stealings are
estimated by the police to have been over $200,000. The
following are the names of the women arrested:
5 mushroom banks raided and closed; $500,000 lost.
Detective Wooldridge has been under fire over forty times, and it is
said that he bears a charmed life, and fears nothing. He has met with
many hair-breadth escapes in his efforts to apprehend criminals who,
by means of revolver and other concealed weapons, tried to fight their
way to liberty.
He has impersonated almost every kind of character. He has in his
crime hunting associated with members of the "400" and fraternized
with hobos. He has dined with the elite and smoked in the opium dens;
he has done everything that one expects a detective of fiction to do,
and which the real detective seldom does.
Wooldridge, the incorruptible! That describes him. The keenest,
shrewdest, most indefatigable man that ever wore a detective's star,
the equal of Lecocq and far the superior of the fictitious Sherlock
Holmes, the man who has time and again achieved the seemingly
impossible with the most tremendous odds against him, the man who
might, had such been his desire, be wealthy, be a "foremost citizen"
as tainted money goes, has earned the title given him in these
headlines. And if ever any one man earned this title it is Clifton R.
Wooldridge.
It is refreshing to the citizenship of America, rich and poor alike,
to contemplate the career of this wonderful man. It fills men with
respect for the law, with confidence in the administration of the law,
to know that there are such men as Wooldridge at the helm of justice.
The writer of this article has enjoyed intimate personal association
with the great detective, both in the capacity of a newspaper
reporter, magazine writer and anti-graft worker. The ins and outs of
the nature of the greatest secret service worker in Chicago, Clifton
R. Wooldridge, have been to me an open book. And when I call him
Wooldridge, the incorruptible, I know whereof I speak.
I have seen him when all the "influences" (and they are the same
"influences" which have been denounced all over the country of late)
were brought to bear upon him, when even his own chiefs were inclined
to be frightened, but no "influence" from any source, howsoever high,
has ever availed to swerve him one inch from the path of duty.
CANNOT BE BRIBED.
He has been offered bribes innumerable; but in each and every instance
the would-be briber has learned a very unpleasant lesson. For this
man, who might be worth almost anything he wished, is by no means
affluent. But he has kept his name untarnished and his spirit high
through good fortune and through bad, through evil repute and good.
Wooldridge does not know the meaning of a lie. A lie is something so
foreign to his nature that he has trouble in comprehending how others
can see profit in falsifying. It has been his cardinal principle
through life that liars always come to a bad end finally. And he has
seen his healthy estimate of life vindicated, both in the high circles
of frenzied finance and in the low levels of sneak-thievery.
TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF WORK DONE.
But the most remarkable thing to me about Wooldridge is the work he
has done. Consider for a moment the record which heads this article.
Could anything shout forth the tremendous energy of the man in any
plainer terms? There are men in the same line of work with Wooldridge,
who have been in the service for the same length of time, who have not
made one arrest where he has made thousands.
Twenty thousand arrests in twenty years of service, a thousand arrests
every year, on an average. A thousand get-rich-quick concerns,
victimizing more than a million people, raided and put out of
business; thirteen thousand one hundred convictions; hundreds upon
hundreds of wine rooms, gambling houses, bucketshops, opium joints,
houses of ill fame, turf frauds, bogus charity swindles, policy
shops, matrimonial agencies, fraudulent guarantee companies, spurious
medicine concerns, thieving theater agencies and mushroom banks
brought to the bar of justice and made to expiate their crimes.
That is the record of the almost inconceivable work done by Clifton
R. Wooldridge on the Chicago police force. The figures are almost
appalling in their greatness. It is hard for the mind to comprehend
how any one man could have achieved all this vast amount of labor,
even if he worked twenty-four hours a day all the time. And yet it is
the bare record of the "big" work done by Wooldridge, aside from his
routine.
LIFE HISTORY OF WOOLDRIDGE.
Detective Wooldridge from March, 1898, until April 5, 1907, was
attached to the office of the General Superintendent of Police and
worked out of his office. During that time over 1,200 letters and
complaints were referred to him for investigation and action.
April 5, 1907, Detective Wooldridge was relieved of this work and
transferred, and crusade and extermination of the get-rich-quick
concerns ceased.
September 20, 1889, Detective Wooldridge was placed in charge of
twenty-five picked detectives, who were placed in charge of the
suppression of hand-books and other gambling in Chicago. He remained
in charge of this detail for three years.
On December 13, 1890, at the residence of Charles Partdridge, Michigan
avenue and Thirty-second street, while three desperate burglars were
trying to effect an entrance into the house, Detective Wooldridge
espied them and in his attempt to arrest them was fired upon by the
trio. One shot passed through his cap, clipping off a lock of his hair
and grazing his scalp. The next shot struck him squarely in the buckle
of his belt, which saved his life.
NUMBERLESS HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES.
August 20, 1891, he met with another narrow escape at Thirtieth and
Dearborn streets, while attempting to arrest Nathan Judd, a crazed and
desperate colored man. Judd threw a brick at him, striking him over
his left temple, and inflicting a wound two inches long.
Judd was shot through the thigh, and afterwards was sent to the house
of correction for one year.
Detective Wooldridge, alone in a drenching rainstorm at 4 o'clock on
the morning of June 23, 1892, at Michigan avenue and Madison street,
intercepted three horsethieves and hold-up men in a buggy trying to
make their escape.
At the point of a revolver he commanded them to halt. As they
approached him no attention was paid to him, or to what he was saying.
Seizing the bridle of the horse, he was dragged nearly a block before
the horse was checked. A twenty-pound horse weight was hurled at him
by one of the robbers, which just missed his head. Another one of the
robbers leaped upon the horse and rained blow after blow upon his head
with the buggy whip.
Detective Wooldridge shot this man in the leg; he jumped off the horse
and made good his escape while Wooldridge was engaged in a desperate
hand to hand encounter with the other two robbers. Wooldridge knocked
both senseless with the butt of his revolver. They were taken to the
police station and gave their names as John Crosby and John McGinis.
Both were found guilty a month later and sent to the penitentiary by
Judge Baker.
SAVES WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN FIRE.
March 4, 1892, Detective Wooldridge by his prompt and courageous
actions, and the immediate risk of his own life, succeeded in rescuing
from the Waverly Hotel (which was on fire), at 262 and 264 S. Clark
street, two ladies who were overcome by smoke on the second floor of
the burning building: also a lady and two children, aged two years and
five months, respectively, from the fourth floor.
This act was performed by tying a silk handkerchief around his mouth,
and on his hands and knees crawling up the winding stairs to the
fourth floor, where he found Mrs. E. C. Dwyer unconscious. Placing
the two children in a bed quilt, he threw it over his shoulder, and
seizing Mrs. E. C. Dwyer by the hand, dragged her down the stairs to a
place of safety, where medical assistance was called.
Sept. 21, 1902, Detective Wooldridge was placed in charge of the
Get-Rich-Quick concerns with which Chicago was infested. He also
had charge of the suppression of gambling at parks and other places
of amusement, the inspection and supervision of picture exhibitions
in penny arcades and museums, and the inspection and supervision of
illustrated postal cards sold throughout the city for the purpose of
preventing the exhibition, sale and circulation of vulgar and obscene
pictures, the work of gathering evidence against and the suppression
of dealers in "sure thing" gambling devices, viz., loaded dice, marked
cards, roulette wheels, spindle faro layouts, card hold-outs, nickel
slot machines and many other devices.
Oct. 25, 1893, Detective Wooldridge had a narrow escape while trying
to arrest Charles Sales, a desperate colored man, for committing a
robbery at State and Harrison streets. Sales whipped out his gun
and fired four shots at Wooldridge at short range; two of the shots
passing harmlessly through his coat. Sales was arrested and given one
year in the house of correction.
RIDES TO STATION ON PRISONER'S BACK.
June 6, 1894, Detective Wooldridge arrested Eugene Buchanan for
committing a highway robbery at Polk and Clark streets. A few days
prior he had held up and robbed Philip Schneider and kicked out one
of his eyes. Buchanan was met in the alley between Clark street and
Pacific avenue, where he resisted arrest and fought like a demon,
using his hands, club and head. In the scuffle he ran his head between
Wooldridge's legs and tried to throw him, but Wooldridge was to quick
for him and fastened his legs around Buchanan's neck like a clam.
Buchanan could not free himself. Wooldridge pulled his gun and placing
it in the ear of Buchanan compelled him to carry him to the Harrison
street police station on his shoulder. It was one of the most novel
sights ever witnessed, and will be long remembered by those who saw it.
Buchanan was convicted and sent to the penitentiary for three years.
Upon his release he applied to Wooldridge to assist him in securing
a position. Wooldridge took him to his home, fed him and secured
employment for him with Nelson Morris & Co., where he remained three
years. He afterwards committed a highway robbery in Washington Park
and is now serving an indefinite term in the penitentiary.
HANGS ON WINDOW SILL.
May 16, 1895, Detective Wooldridge, accompanied by Officers Kern,
O'Connor and Cameron, located Matt Kelly at 411 State street, who was
wanted for a criminal assault. Kelly was a hold-up man, ex-convict
and a notorious safe-blower, who several years prior to this shot two
officers in St. Louis, Mo. Kelly was found behind locked doors on the
second-floor and refused to open the doors. Detective Wooldridge went
to the adjoining flat, opened a window and crawled along the ledge
until he had reached Kelly's room; with a revolver in his mouth he
pushed up the sash and was faced by Kelly and his wife.
"Go back or I'll kill you," said Kelly as he pushed his revolver in
Wooldridge's face.
Wooldridge had meanwhile secured a good hold on the sill of the
window, but was not in a position to defend himself. The Kelly woman
tried her best to shove him off; she succeeded in loosening one of
his hands, and for an instant Detective Wooldridge thought he would
have to fall. With an almost superhuman effort Wooldridge broke in the
window and covering Kelly with his own revolver ordered him to throw
up his hands, which he did. He was taken to the police station and
heavily fined.
A PLOT TO KILL DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE.
A dozen of the highwaymen and robbers on whom Wooldridge was waging a
relentless warfare gathered together on the morning of July 4, 1895,
and formed a plot to kill Wooldridge and get him out of the way.
They concluded that the night of July 4, when everyone was firing
off revolvers and celebrating, would afford the best opportunity.
They imagined it would be an easy thing to shoot him from one of the
windows or from a housetop while he was on duty patrolling his post,
and no one would know where the shot came from, as there was shooting
from every direction.
An oath of secrecy was taken by all present, and lots drawn to see
who was to do the deed. In all probability their plan would have been
carried out had it not been for a colored woman, who was watching them
and heard the whole plot, and who went with the information to the
Harrison Street Police Station.
Captain Koch and Lieutenant Laughlin were notified and upon
investigation found the report to be true. They took immediate steps
to protect Wooldridge by placing three additional officers in full
uniform with him, and also placing six men in citizen's clothes on his
post. Every man they met was searched for a gun; every crook, vagrant
and thief that they could lay their hands on was placed under lock
and key in the station, and by 11 o'clock that night there was no
square in the city quieter than the one this officer patrolled, and
in two weeks' time "Coon Hollow" and the whole neighborhood for half
a mile in every direction had undergone the most remarkable change
known to police history, and this change was apparent for a long time
thereafter.
February 11, 1896, Detective Wooldridge, while trying to arrest a
panel-house keeper and three colored hold-up men at 412 Dearborn
street, was fired upon by one of the trio, Kid White, the shot
striking the bar of his watch chain, which was attached to the lower
button of his vest. When the bar was struck the bullet was diverted
from entering Wooldridge's stomach, and it glanced off and passed
through his overcoat.
DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE ROUGHLY HANDLED.
In 1896 Wooldridge's fiercest fight came when he arrested George
Kinnucan in his saloon at 435 Clark street. A dozen roughs, henchmen
of Kinnucan, who were in the saloon at the time, came to the
saloonkeeper's rescue. The officer was knocked down, his billy taken
from him and himself beaten unconscious with it, and his face and
head kicked into one mass of bruises. Through it all he managed to
hang on to his revolver. This alone saved him. He finally managed to
shoot Kinnucan through the hand and forearm, and a moment later a
uniformed man burst in and evened up the battle. Six of the toughs
were arrested, and Wooldridge was left alone by them for a long time.
FINE WORK IN A THIEVES' RESORT.
In the same year of 1896, Detective Wooldridge, disguising himself
as a cheap thief, entered a Clark street criminals' resort and
fraternized with thieves, murderers and vagabonds of all kinds, in
order to obtain information, leading Wooldridge into the most amazing
school of crime ever witnessed by a Chicago police officer. He was
accepted in good faith as a proper sneak thief by the brotherhood,
and for his benefit the "manager" of the den put his "pupils" through
their "lessons."
These lessons were in shoplifting, pocket picking, purse snatching
and other forms of larceny requiring skill and deftness. When he had
seen enough Wooldridge generously volunteered to "rush the growler"
and went out--and called the patrol wagon. Twenty-three crooks were
arrested this time. Each one of them swore he would have killed the
detective had his makeup or conduct for an instant directed suspicion
toward him.
MAKES HIGH DIVE.
November 20, 1896, Detective Wooldridge made a high dive.
To offset his aerial stunt he took a high dive from the top of a
building, landing on his head in a pile of refuse with such force as
to go "in over his head" and stick there so tightly that it required
the combined strength of two officers to pull him out by the legs.
It was near Twelfth and State streets while pursuing two women across
a roof that his remarkable stunt took place. The women jumped from
the roof into a pile of refuse. They landed on their feet. Wooldridge
came after them. He landed on his head. As he landed he grasped a
woman with either hand, and held them until the arrival of his brother
officers effected his release and their capture.
But these are only humorous incidents, things to laugh over when the
day's work is done. In the parlance of the detectives, they belong to
"straight police work." As a direct antithesis to them is the story
of the murder and the black cat, which is in real life a weirder and
more startling affair than Poe's fantastic tale of the same subject. A
black cat helped solve a murder in a way which puts a distinct strain
on the credulity of the uninitiated.
STORY RIVALS POE'S "BLACK CAT."
A rich man had been murdered in a certain part of the city. He was in
his library at the time of the crime. His family was in an adjoining
room, yet none of them heard any noise, or knew what had been done
until they found him lifeless on the floor. Investigation proved that
he had been shot, but not with an ordinary weapon. The missile in
his heart was a combination of bullet and dart, evidently propelled
from a powerful air rifle or spring gun. But no clew was left by
the perpetrator of the crime, and Wooldridge carried the strange
missile in his pocket for several months before a single prospect of
apprehending the murderer appeared. Then it was the black cat that did
it. What strange coincidence or freak of fate it was that impelled
the cat to literally lead the detective to a little pile of dirt in
an alley that night Wooldridge never has attempted to explain. But
lead him it did, and when he dug into the disturbed ground he found
something entirely new in the gun line, the weapon that had discharged
the fatal bullet in his pocket. Eventually he traced the gun to its
inventor, and from there to the man who had purchased it, a young
fellow named Johnson, and a supposed friend of the murdered man's
family. The consequence was that this man proved to be the murderer.
When arrested he at first denied his guilt, broke down under the
sweatbox ordeal and confessed, and--killed himself in his cell next
morning.
For mystery and good fortune in bringing an apparently untraceable
criminal to justice this incident perhaps has never been equaled in
Chicago's police records.
ON DUTY IN GREAT STRIKE.
In 1900 Chicago's great building trade strike occurred in which
60,000 men were thrown out of employment. Many acts of violence were
committed. Several men were killed and many maimed and injured.
Detective Wooldridge was placed in charge of thirty picked detectives
from the detective bureau with orders to suppress these lawless
acts and arrest the guilty offenders. Through his vigilance and
untiring efforts law and order were soon restored, and he was highly
complimented by Chief of Police Joseph Kipley and the public press.
Literally speaking, the darkest situation into which his experiences
have led him was the tunnel by which inmates of Mattie Lee's famous
resort at 150 Custom House place escaped when the place was raided.
Mattie had decided that it was a nuisance to go to the station every
time the police wanted to arrest her, so she had the tunnel dug.
After that when the police called on her Mattie greeted them with
an empty house and a sweet smile, while underground the inmates
were crawling on their hands and knees to safety. Wooldridge found
the tunnel and, crawling in, "snaked out" six colored men and women
whom he found in the darkness. Versatility is a requisite with the
successful detective.
REMARKABLE WORK AS A RAGPICKER.
May 28, 1905, perhaps, his appearance in the role of a ragpicker,
which led to the arrest and conviction of two negro highwaymen,
Henry Reed and Ed Lane, was his most daring and successful effort at
disguise. Lane is at present serving a life sentence in Joliet for the
murder of Robert Metcalfe.
The assault and robbery of a contractor named Anderson was the
occasion for Wooldridge's assumption of the guise of ragpicker.
Anderson had described Lane so accurately that the detective was sure
of recognizing him once he put his eyes upon him, but in those days
a detective to go into the black belt looking for a criminal was to
spread a wide alarm over the whole district. Consequently he "made
up." A pair of large, worn overalls, a coat three sizes too large, a
bunch of papers between his shoulder blades to give him a hunch back,
burnt cork, a curly wig, a bag and a piece of telegraph wire, and the
erstwhile shrewd-looking detective was in ten minutes the typical
negro ragpicker who shambles up and down alleys on the south side in
hope of picking up enough for his day's bread.
While thus pursuing his way Wooldridge not only discovered the
presence of Reed and Lane, but actually worked through the refuse
in a garbage box upon which Lane was sitting quarreling with some
confederates over the division of the previous night's spoils. He
even went so far as to pick up an old coat which Lane had discarded.
Thereupon Lane ordered him to get out of the alley or get his throat
cut from ear to ear. Wooldridge went humbly out, and waited.
HERO OF SOME FIERCE FIGHTS.
Presently Lane and Reed appeared and went south on State street.
Wooldridge followed, and at an opportune moment seized them both from
behind. The fight that followed is historic. Only sheer luck and the
threat to kill both antagonists on the spot if they did not cease
resistance saved the detective's life. After knocking both men down
with his billy he succeeded in holding them until a fellow officer
came to his rescue. They were arrested and convicted June 25, 1905,
and sent to the penitentiary for three years.
May 19, 1906, Detective Wooldridge raided the following places: H. C.
Evins, 125 S. Clark street; George Deshone, 64 N. Clark street; E.
Manning Stockton, Bar & Co., 56 Fifth avenue, seizing some $30,000
worth of gambling paraphernalia.
Disclosures of conditions which so seriously threatened the discipline
of the United States army and navy that the secretaries of the two
departments and even President Roosevelt himself were called upon to
aid in their suppression.
It was charged that a coterie of Chicago men engaged in making and
selling these devices had formed a "trust" and had for years robbed,
swindled and corrupted the enlisted men of the army and navy through
loaded dice, "hold-outs," magnetized roulette wheels and other crooked
gambling apparatus.
CROOKED GAMBLING TRUST.
The "crooked" gambling "trust" in Chicago spread over the civilized
world, had its clutches on nearly every United States battleship, army
post and military prison; caused wholesale desertions, and in general
corrupted the entire defensive institution of the nation.
TRY TO CORRUPT SCHOOLBOYS.
Besides the corruption of the army, these companies are said to have
aimed a blow at the foundation of the nation by offering, through a
mail order plan, for six cents, loaded dice to schoolboys, provided
they sent the names of likely gamblers among their playmates.
This plan had not reached its full growth when nipped. But the
disruption of the army and navy had been under way for several years
and had reached such gigantic proportions that the military service
was in danger of complete disorganization.
Thousands of men were mulcted of their pay monthly. Desertions
followed these wholesale robberies. The war department could not find
the specific trouble. Post commanders and battleship commanders were
instructed to investigate.
The army investigation, confirmed after the raid and arrests, showed
that the whole army had been honeycombed with corruption by these
companies. Express books and registered mail return cards showed that
most of the goods were sold to soldiers and sailors.
DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE SECURES EVIDENCE IN NOVEL WAY.
In August, 1890, complaints had been made at the Stanton Avenue Police
Station for several weeks concerning the establishment of a disorderly
house at 306 Thirty-first street, but try as they would uniformed
officers were helpless so far as securing evidence enough to convict
was concerned. Wooldridge at that time a uniformed man, was put in
plain clothes and detailed on the case. One of the great stumbling
blocks in the way of the police had been the high basement under the
house, which made it impossible for any one to look in the windows of
the flat without the aid of the ladder. As the presence of a ladder
would arouse suspicion, the problem of viewing the inside of the flat
was a difficult one.
One thing the other men on the case had overlooked. This was the
presence of a beam jutting out from the top of the building to which
a rope, pulley, and barrel were attached, used as a means of lowering
garbage and ashes from the second floor to the alley. Wooldridge saw
the possibilities of the rope and barrel trick. Attaching to the rope
a vinegar barrel with holes bored in it at convenient intervals, he
awaited an opportune time, curled up in the barrel, and had himself
drawn up to the level of the windows by two officers. The lowering and
raising of the barrel being a customary thing in the building, excited
no suspicion in the minds of those in the flat, and Wooldridge, with
his sleuth's eye at one of the holes, saw what served to drive the
place out of existence and secure the conviction of its keeper.
ACTS AS VENDOR OF FIGHTING "CHICKENS."
One of the last exploits of Detective Wooldridge before his
completion of the twenty years of service, was the breaking up of the
cock-fighting mains, which infested Chicago during the latter part of
1906 and the early part of 1907.
The story savors of the burlesque. Wooldridge obtained information as
to the whereabouts of a cock-fight which was to be pulled off. Then he
sought out and purchased a pair of decrepit old roosters, that would
not fight an English sparrow, bundled them into a sack and started for
scene of action. Arrived in what he knew to be the neighborhood of the
fight, he declared that he had been sent to deliver some "fightin'
chickuns." He was directed to an old, abandoned building. Here he was
admitted and left the antique roosters. Then he said he was going for
more birds. Instead he went for a patrol wagon. And that was the end
of the chicken fight.
The trapping of the Wildcat Insurance companies furnishes one of the
most dramatic chapters in the financial history of the United States,
if not in the world. It involves millions of stolen dollars, brutal
filching from the poor, heartless commercial brigandage and finally
the running to earth and conviction of the ringleaders and promoters
of the "WILDCAT INSURANCE COMPANIES" OF CHICAGO, by Detective
Wooldridge.
The police and postal authorities worked together. Two thousand eight
hundred letters were sent out asking for information and gathering
evidence.
At the trial of Dr. S. W. Jacobs, on one of these cases, there were
200 witnesses present. Five of these witnesses were victims, and
lived in tents. Three were living in wagons: One, Samuel James, of
Westfield, Illinois, a carpenter, 64 years of age, had a wife and six
children. He had built his house morning and evening.
BRIBERY TACTICS OF NO AVAIL.
James accomplished the end of his heart's desire. It cost him $900 and
his health, for he was in the clutches of consumption when the cottage
was finally paid for. Fearing lest the fruit of his life-work should
be swept away by fire, James took out an insurance policy in one of
Dr. S. W. Jacobs' Wildcat Insurance companies. The house burned down
and he was not indemnified. With his wife and six little children
James was forced to take shelter in a chicken coop, where they were
living when the broken-hearted father came to Chicago as a witness
against Dr. S. W. Jacobs.
Twenty-five thousand dollars was tendered to an attorney to bribe
Wooldridge in the case.
The breaking up of the drug ring, however, was a delicate task.
It was strongly backed financially, and it was aided and abetted
throughout the United States by political rings galore. Chicago was
the headquarters.
A ten thousand dollar bribe was offered Detective Wooldridge, October
29, 1904, by the spurious medicine concerns to return their goods and
stop the prosecution; this failed. Then false and malicious charges
were filed with the Civil Service Commissioners against Wooldridge,
which was taken up and the trial lasted nineteen sessions.
Detective Wooldridge was exonerated by the entire board of
commissioners, and complimented by the press and public-spirited
citizens.
Detective Wooldridge secured four indictments against the above four
men, which was returned by the Cook county grand jury May 25, 1905. J.
S. Dean turned state's evidence and assisted the prosecution.
J. H. Carson promoted and run eighteen different matrimonial agencies.
He was arrested eighteen times. He offered Wooldridge a bribe of $100
per month not to arrest him. This failed and he brought suit in the
Superior Court against Wooldridge for $5,000 damages, thinking this
would stop him. The next day after filing the suit he was arrested
again, and was finally driven out of Chicago.
From $10,000 to $20,000 has been offered at a time for his discharge
or transfer by these get-rich-quick concerns. Every political pressure
was brought to bear, but to no avail.
Ex-Chief of Police Francis O'Neill, in his annual report of 1905,
states that Detective Wooldridge accomplished more work in breaking
up the get-rich-quick concerns in Chicago, in the year 1904, than the
whole Chicago police department had in its lifetime. He did equally as
much work, if not more, in the years of 1905, 1906 and 1907.
The day is never too long nor the night too dark for Detective
Wooldridge to find time to succor or save a young girl who has gone
wrong or strayed from the path of rectitude.
Detective Wooldridge, without fear or favor, for many years
inaugurated crusades and waged wars against the hosts of criminal
enterprise. Whenever a man or concern could not show a "clear bill
of health" he forced him to "disinfect, depart, or submit to the
quarantine of the county jail."
By vigilance and hard work he succeeded in obtaining good results.
Units, scores, and legions of fraudulent concerns have been exposed
and driven out of existence. Owners of others, anticipating exposure,
did not wait, but closed their places and fled. Many headquarters of
contraband schemes have been raided and their promoters arrested,
fined, and forced to cease operations. During that time retributive
justice has been visited upon countless heads that were devoted to
devising criminal schemes.
Detective Wooldridge permits no creed, color, religion or politics to
interfere with him in his sworn duty. He wants and exacts the truth,
and a square deal for himself, and accords the same to his fellow men.
He has never been known to wilfully persecute any man or to lie or
strain a point to convict him, neither will he suffer the same to be
done by any man if he can prevent it.
Wooldridge's motto is equal justice to all--be sure you are right,
then go ahead.
JAMES P. WILSON.
[Illustration: What Are YOU Going to Do About It?]
GRAFT NATION'S WORST FOE.
THE REIGN OF GRAFT.
Recent Exposures That Show How Strongly It Is Intrenched.
ARE YOU A GRAFTER?
Those Shocked at Exposures May Not Be Clean Themselves.
"A 'grafter' is one who makes his living (and sometimes his fortune)
by 'grafting.' He may be a political boss, a mayor, a chief of police,
a warden of a penitentiary, a municipal contractor, a member of a town
council, a representative in the legislature, a judge in the courts,
and the upper world may know him only in his political capacity; but
if the under world has had occasion to approach him for purposes
of 'graft' and found him corrupt, he is immediately classified as
an 'unmugged grafter'--one whose photograph is not in the rogues'
gallery, but ought to be. The professional thief is the 'mugged
grafter'; his photograph and Bertillon measurements are known and
recorded.
The world of graft is whereever known and unknown thieves or
bribetakers congregate. In the United States it is found mainly in
the large cities, but its boundaries take in small county seats
and even villages. A correct map of it is impossible, because in a
great many places it is represented by an unknown rather than by
a known inhabitant, by a dishonest official or an unscrupulous and
wary politician rather than a confessed thief, and the geographer
is helpless until he can collect the facts, which may never come to
light. The most that one man can do is to make voyages of discovery,
find out what he can and report upon his experiences to the general
public.
Within the last year or two it has become practically a synonym for a
thief who filches public money and money of large enterprises. It has
been so largely used in the public prints and periodicals, and more
recently in books, that it has spread abroad; and London and Paris
and Berlin, in referring to many American disclosures, adopt the word
without any translation. So today no American word is better known
either in this country or in Europe.
When men in office take a bribe and give away what does not belong to
them, it is more than the double crime of extorting and stealing; it
is treason. Graft is the worst form of despotism. It is a usurpation
of government by the forces of crime. There have been many virtuous
kings and honest feudal lords, but the despotism of graft never
founded its rule upon a semblance of the moral law.
Graft in its highest personification is the king of the American
nation in political, commercial and social life.
GRAFT IS OVERLORD.
Overlord of 80,000,000 people in the greatest republic of history,
commanding his tens of millions of dollars annually as tribute to
graft in a million of his impersonations--was Solomon in all his glory
to be compared with this?
Nine states in the union of forty-five states recently have declared
that graft exposures have not been in their categories of political
publicity for a year. They are Maine, North Carolina, Mississippi,
Iowa, Michigan, Colorado, New York, Illinois and California. But who
shall say what another six months may bring forth?
[Illustration: 30 CENTURIES OF GRAFT LOOKS DOWN UPON ITS HEADLESS
VICTIMS]
In industrial, commercial and social life of the American people
there is not a state in which King Graft has not his court and his
following. In the capital of capitals at Washington for generations
the powers of government as dreamed of for the republic have been
superseded by King Graft time after time, and the impeachment of his
princes, grand dukes and courtiers generally have not threatened his
reign in future generations.
SCORES OF PROUD NAMES SMIRCHED.
Within the last few years names that have stood honored for a
generation in financial, political and social life have been dragged
down from high places perhaps as never before in America. The court of
King Graft has been attacked and threatened as never before, and with
greater showing. There is war in the open against this pretender king,
and his legions everywhere are retiring behind their breastworks,
broken but not defeated.
Graft in its nakedness, has been exposed and the people are aroused,
fearing that the grafter has sucked the life blood of the republic.
What they have seen is but a glimpse of real conditions--the ulcer
spots where the rottenness beneath has broken through--but they have
seen enough to realize the peril and attack it. While the conditions
revealed are astounding and alarming, they are signs of improvement.
The nation is better than it was a decade ago, since tens of thousands
of grafters have been stamped out, since the leaders of the greatest
grafts of the land have been exposed to the withering light of
contempt of all decent Americans.
LIFE OF NATION IMPERILED.
Also, born of the conditions, there has arisen a little army of
leaders willing to engage the enemy and lead the people against the
grafters. They have been raised up to meet the crisis of the nation's
life, and with every blow they strike new recruits are joining them in
the war against graft.
They are still weak, and King Graft and his votaries are still
strong, but during the last year the leaders have won some remarkable
skirmishes and routed the grafters.
[Illustration: WHICH ROAD SHALL HE TAKE?
A GRAFTER IN EVERY ROAD.
The Public stands at the crossing of the roads, wondering which way he
shall go with his money. Wherever he turns he sees a grafter in the
road before him. The labels on these seven grafters give the names of
a few of those that beset every honest man's pathway. The grafters
spend twenty million dollars a year advertising; and they swindle the
people out of one hundred and sixty million dollars annually.]
NATION, STATES AND CITIES AROUSED.
Senators and congressmen at the national capital have been impeached,
and indicted, and tried, and convicted of grafting.
Bureau officials, as in the cotton scandal, the postoffice frauds,
and other of the departments, and civil service exposes have been
arraigned by their own democracy for traitor intrigues with King
Graft, and have been beheaded.
State senators, representatives, treasurers and the innumerable "small
fry" of official life, together with the millionaire briber and his
henchmen at state capitals, have been uncovered and convicted of
debauching democracy in behalf of a pretender sovereign.
Great cities have been shaken with the inquisitorial rounds of
investigations. Philadelphia of Independence memories has been
weighed in the balance and found wanting; in St. Louis the prosecutor
governor, Folk, has stirred corruption to the depths; New York
has been moved as it has not been since the overthrow of Tammany;
Minneapolis has been cleansed; and the spectacular "graft hunt" in
Milwaukee has been a lesson in "how to do it." Perhaps never before
in the history of America have so many grafters been scattered to the
winds, in hiding or locked behind the bars of prisons.
PRESIDENT LEADS FOES OF GRAFT.
But King Graft wears the crown of the pretender still, and there are
few of his fighting enemies who are disposed to rest upon their arms
in either truce or armistice.
The war against graft is led by the president of the United States,
who stands as the foremost foe of grafting--political, financial or
social--in the world, and behind him is a phalanx led by Folk, Jerome,
Riis, Lawson, Hadley, Miss Tarbell, Deneen, Monnett and others of
their type, fighting the nation's most crucial battle.
The grafters have declared that the objects of some of these men were
selfish, but, no matter for what object they fight, they are routing
the grafters in many fields and showing to the awakening public the
peril of the situation; revealing to a commonwealth the worms gnawing
at the vitals of the republic.
FORCES OF GRAFT HARD PRESSED.
Never were the forces of money and commercial and industrial power so
bewildered and so uncertain of the way to turn as they are now. Graft,
to their best interests, is still covertly a necessity to them, but
covert graft never was so hard to keep covert, now that briber and
the bribed are the common quarry of the law. The time was when the
rich man who bought political power to his uses was unnamed, standing
apart. The grafter legislator was the cause and the consequence.
Beginning and ending with the corrupt official whose official place
was grafted upon corruption, the official became immune from the
consequences.
"Grafting in this state never has cost the taxpayer a dollar," was one
of the slogans of a machine government in its attempts to perpetuate
that machine for the purposes of King Graft and his court.
But this false philosophy slowly was undermined. Not only was it found
that graft did cost money to the state, but it became a certainty that
it was costing something even more valuable than money. Graft became
the one object of the political seeker after office. The impersonal
graft-giver was a hanger-on at lawmaking centers, and the political
graft-seeker was insisting upon election or appointment to the
machine positions.
HIDEOUS PERIL IS REVEALED.
The result, first, was a campaign upon the man who had the graft
to dispense. He was sought out, and was found in high places. His
lobbyists were more easily marked than was the principal. So the law
and the law's executive began also to campaign against the lobbyists.
Suddenly the "good fellow" at a state capitol who had with him the
perquisites of good fellowship in graft measure found himself facing
the interrogation:
"What are you doing here?"
The scope of the query has grown, and it is still growing, in some
quarters even to the point of requiring the man who is elected to
office to render the cost figure of his successful campaign. All
over the country, and touching nearly every relation in official,
commercial and financial life, men have been put on the griddle of
publicity by courts and commissions, and with backs to the wall have
been sitting in the witness chair, holding to the one surly response
to an irritating, penetrating cross-examination: "Decline to answer on
advice of counsel."
But for all purposes of publicity have not these refusals to answer
carried light enough?
"The public be d----d!" was the original first utterance of the
millionaire, designed to stop interrogations which would not down.
"What are you going to do about it?" was the counter question of the
political grafter who once was charged with grafting.
"Where did he get it?" came to be a question of the politician
for political purposes, and within a year the country has heard
non-political bodies asking the same question of the millionaire
philanthropist who has been trying to give it away. Under the
growing interrogations of the time, names have been thrown from
pedestals within a year as names never before were juggled by the
fates.
[Illustration: THE CAVE OF DESPAIR.]
IDOLS COVERED WITH SLIME.
Depew, once a candidate for nomination for the presidency, a United
States senator still by some grace of toleration, and at one time
referred to in European royal circles as a "representative American
citizen."
United States Senator Mitchell became a derelict, politically and
socially.
United States Senator Thomas C. Platt was wrecked in the wreckage.
United States Senator Burton became blackened in the charges of graft.
Depew is a name no longer to conjure with.
Then followed a long list of the commercially and financially
prominent civilians, blackened, and with such blackness as never to be
white again by any of the old processes which once sufficed.
Graft is still king. But, truer than of any other monarch, it may be
repeated: "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."
THE UNCONSCIOUS GRAFTER.
It was a rhetorical and sensational sentence in which a recent speaker
in this city declared that the worst grafter is the man who does not
vote. But there is much more than a kernel of truth in the words. The
citizens of a republic need constant stimulus to the fulfillment of
the plainest duties of life. The better the working of the machinery
of government, the less the average man is affected. He rarely feels
the pressure of taxation. He lives in a generation from which no
military service is demanded. He is permitted freedom of thought,
speech and religion, and almost insensibly, as a result, he loses
sight of the supreme obligation which is due his country. He forgets
that that country, in time of public stress, may demand his time, his
property and his life, drafting him for its armies if he does not wish
to volunteer, governing him under martial law, which sets aside the
usual privileges accorded him, and exercising over him, if need be, a
tyranny ordinarily associated with despotism among the older peoples.
The very fact that the American citizen does not often feel the
exercise of the sovereign power, and is not called upon to pay the
supreme obligation of service, makes him careless of his civic duties,
when, it might be thought, he would feel the utmost gratitude for the
privilege of living under such favoring conditions. This carelessness
becomes chronic, and there is abundant need for the constant
reiteration of the call to duty. If, then, a citizen is content to
enjoy the comforts and the quiet of American life without rendering
any return therefor, he may justly be called a grafter, and a grafter
of that worst sort, who robs his benefactor. For, with duty faithfully
performed by the citizen, public opinion is readily shaped, laws
quickly secure enforcement, and public servants are kept clean and
true. It all comes back at last to the individual citizen, upon whom
must rest the responsibility for failure or success of government. It
is easy enough to cry out against the grafter in official position who
puts his hand into the public treasury. Perhaps, after all, the worst
offender is the citizen who does not vote, who does not take a lively
interest in the selection and election of his rulers, who fails to
recognize the underlying obligation of service which his country has a
just right to demand of him.
WAR ON GRAFT JUST BEGINNING.
But, thus far, only the beginning of the truth has been shown. There
remains the senate of the United States, the railway companies, the
Standard Oil Company, the great trusts, the multimillionaires, to be
investigated. All of them now are in the limelight. The courts of
law are under suspicion and must clear themselves by their acts, for
undoubtedly the revelations of the last year have shaken the faith of
the people in their judges.
After these, the huge powers of the land, cleansed states, counties
and cities must join the Augean stable-cleaning, for graft is
everywhere. The fight against graft is only beginning, and it will end
only when a new generation learns that honor is above money, and that
"grafting" is the most disreputable form of theft.
WHOLESALE SWINDLING GRAFTERS.
A chain of stores in various cities for no other purpose than the
obtaining of goods under false pretenses from wholesale merchants is
the latest novelty in the swindling line. It has often been remarked
that the originators of plans to dupe the public might coin their
brains into cash without nearly the draft upon their originality that
is called for by the devising of a swindling game. But the criminal
instinct or incentive seems to lay its hold upon persons who might
otherwise fill a leading and respected place in honorable avocations.
The men who conceived the system of credit for goods to the value of
many thousands of dollars, which they quickly disposed of in different
cities by auction and attractive sales, closing up their stores and
decamping when they had converted the credited stock into cash, were
swindlers of unusual calibre.
The police of several cities now have the task of unearthing the
frauds and bringing them to justice. They may or may not succeed in
so doing, as the scheme was craftily laid and carried out. A harvest
of $100,000 as the returns for a daring exploitation of the credit
system will be regarded, even by the gilt-edged among the robbing
fraternity, as a fine stroke of craftsmanship. The ingenuity of these
cormorants calls for constant readjustment of honest persons to the
conditions created. The lesson of the so-called bargain-house fraud
will be conned, and for a long time to come it may be practically
impossible for the same scheme to be worked again. But the feature of
such enterprises is that they are designed only for the one operation.
After that they become worthless to their originators.
RELIGIOUS GRAFT PAYS.
"Fake" religion as a business may have a fanciful sound, but there are
plenty of men, and women, too, in this day and age who have found it
to be an extremely practical, well-paying proposition. The readiness
with which a good share of the people are always anxious to receive
any new religion, or an old religion revamped in new fashion, makes
the road of the charlatan whose trade is the promulgation of a fake
religion one strewn with roses and money. Women are principally his
victims, although there are plenty of men with a penchant for adopting
strange religions, and from them the faker manages to reap a harvest
that makes the pay of the average minister look like the earnings of
an office boy. While the manner of securing money through the cloak of
a false new sect is generally so hidden that the votaries of the cult
are never aware of its existence until after their leader is exposed,
the main object is never lost sight of by the leader, and the main
object is always, "Get the money."
Out of the great mass of religions or NEW THOUGHT sects started each
year in this country, it is declared that but extremely few are
started with any idea other than that of separating a lot of people
from their money. Occasionally there is a man who sincerely believes
that he has discovered something new and precious in the way of a
religion, and establishes a cult with the motive only to help people
according to his own lights. But the mass of the new religions, sun
worshipers, psychists, Brahmins, Hindus, theosophists, mystics, etc.,
are promoted with the same object in view as that of the old negro
voodoo doctors--get the money.
FINANCIAL YIELDS ARE LARGE.
The financial yields of the new religions are incomparably higher than
is the voodoo man's gain. His followers, who believe in black art and
other foolish, old-fashioned things, are nearly always drawn from the
poorer, even the indigent classes--classes that have but little to
spend, even on a religion. But the East Indian religionist, or the
sun worshiper, draws his clientele from the better classes, and his
followers have the money to reward him in a way that is astounding.
He dabbles not with the poor--neither, it must be confessed, entirely
with the ignorant. His victims come from the upper walks of life,
sometimes from near the top, and their name is legion.
There is a Hindu who has now left this country to go back to spend the
rest of his days in luxurious idleness, the while chuckling over the
gullibility of the smart American people, who came here with a new
religion and made a fortune.
This man was an educated, cultured man of high caste. Sent at an early
age to England to attend school, he returned to his native country at
the age of 28, wise in the things of two worlds, that of his own and
that of the occidentals. For a while he buried himself in the native
life of a loathsome colony of Fakers. There he learned much of their
religious style by rote, and, putting this along with a smattering of
Buddhism, psychology and sun worship, he managed to appear in America
with a new religion, fairly reeking with the essentials required by
those who want mysticism served along with their religious beliefs.
MYSTICISM DRAWS MANY CONVERTS.
He had a new god, a new heaven and forty different and distinct ways
of torturing one's self while worshiping his deity. Mortifying
the flesh through fasting and self-denial, torturing one's self by
standing with the hands above the head, etc., all were included in the
new creed, besides such things as astral bodies and the other things
that go with a new religion. He first held forth in a sumptuously
furnished city flat, where he managed to draw to him a small gathering
of the select who love to dabble in mysterious oriental affairs.
The flat was a dream in itself, and when to it was added a tall,
ascetic young Hindu, with the look of the fanatic burning brightly
in his eyes, and mystic rites of a religious nature, the effect was
irresistible; at least it proved to be to those foregathered under
the tutelage of the young oriental. There were incense burnings and
incantations galore. At first these things did not cost anything.
No. The young mystic was simply working for the enlightenment of the
world, working to spread light into the stygian darkness of the old
and false dogmas and creeds.
After those who flocked to his standard had been so thoroughly imbued
with the sincerity of his teachings that his word was law to them,
the money question came to the fore. He, the missionary, wanted
nothing for himself--oh, no. But there was need for funds for the
establishment of the cult in India. A school and home must be founded
for the young devotees of the new religion in that country, a place
where they could go and live and be trained in the tenets of the creed
and prepared to go out in the world and teach. And it was for this
that the Hindu had come to this country, to permit the chosen ones
here to acquirement with the new deity by subscribing to the school
fund.
Since the beginning of things, when man first beheld the sun and bowed
humbly before it, it has been the custom to heap offerings on the
altar of worship. So the Hindu went back with funds enough to start
half a dozen schools if he had been at all inclined that way, which he
wasn't, and the people who were his followers are still living in the
hope that he will return.
AMERICAN FAKER GETS THE COIN.
Then there is another kind of charlatan, the American fake
religionist, of which, perhaps, there are just as many as of the
foreigners with the weird doctrines of the orient. This type of faker
is coarse compared with the soft-shod, incense-burning Hindu, but
he "gets the money" without much trouble. He is generally a ranter
as far as preaching goes. His methods are those of the shouter, his
religion includes visitation of spirits, shaking of bodies and other
manifestations of divine power. He boldly asks for contributions, not
for a school to be established for the training of missionaries for
his faith, but for the furtherance of his own work right here in this
country.
"It takes money to fight the devil," is a favorite cry with this type
of sacrilegist. The stronghold of the religious faker is that the
people who follow him believe in him implicitly. One faker recently
proclaimed himself the son of God, come to revisit earth, and, when
assailed by a paper for it, stood up in an audience of his believers
and asked them who they thought him to be and how they regarded him.
The answer was that he was the son of God, and his mission was to
save all mankind from sin. It is obvious that, when a man with such a
hold on a clique asks for money, it is sure to be forthcoming without
question. At times he does not have to ask for it, one man of this
kind having had money showered upon him at a meeting by the hysterical
women of his flock.
FAITH IN CHARLATAN STRONG.
This man has operated in at least four sections of this country, has
served a term in state's prison for alienating a wife's affections
along with the husband's money, has been driven out of two towns by
angry husbands; but now he is again in possession of a following which
believes implicitly that through him, and through him only, is it
possible to obtain eternal salvation.
In appearance this man is a human shark, long-faced, thin of jaw and
nose, and with a mouth that is nothing but a straight line cut in the
face. In repose he might be taken for a shyster lawyer, but when he
begins to speak and the artificial frenzy is burning in him it is easy
enough to see why impressionable women may be drawn to him. Even a
strong-willed man, observing his actions and the degree of enthusiasm
in him, is apt to feel that he can be nothing other than sincere in
his beliefs. But, if he is sincere, his sincerity runs only towards
making of his beliefs a good business proposition, and avarice is one
of his strongest points.
The persistency with which women will take up and practice the
cruelest of religious customs is evidenced by the manner in which a
Chicago girl tortured and starved herself to death in an effort to
obtain salvation through the mortification of the flesh. She was not
of an ignorant type, either, as might be imagined, but fairly well
educated and extremely intelligent, with running to intellectuality.
But the thrall of a new religion got her in its power, and, believing
she was sinful, she strove to cast out her sins and died in the
attempt.
It is seldom that pernicious practices of religion fakers carry
persons to this extreme, but deranged mentalities, wrecked homes and
depleted pocketbooks are of such frequent occurrence as to merit a
wholesale crusade against this type of fraud, even without raising the
question of religious scruples.
PAWN TICKETS ON DIAMONDS.
Another instance: Some working man or washing woman, having saved up
a little money for a rainy day, reads an alluring advertisement in a
newspaper that a party was looking for a small loan on valuable family
jewelry and diamonds. The interest offered is much higher than that
allowed by any savings bank. Diamonds, as everybody knows, are just
as good as money and offer perfect security. In hopes of profiting
a little more on their savings, such prospective victims respond to
the advertisement. The party looking for the loan appears to be a
well-dressed, smoothly-talking man, who represents himself to be the
scion of a wealthy or aristocratic family temporarily in hard luck. He
produces a pawn shop ticket, on the face of which appears that some
pawn broker had advanced on certain diamonds a large sum of money, say
$500.
[Illustration:
Two minds with but a single thought;
Two heads that beat us all.
]
Now, it is a matter of common knowledge that pawn brokers know their
business, and that no pawn broker would advance more than one-third,
or, at the highest, one-half of the actual value of the articles
pledged. It is that common belief which the swindler makes, as it
were, the psychic basis for his operations. The victim having once
jumped at the conclusion that the diamonds offered as security must be
worth at least $1,000 or thereabouts, the rest becomes easy.
VICTIM ANXIOUS FOR INTEREST.
The victim naturally considers a further loan on such diamonds of $200
or $250 a desirable risk. The offer of 10 per cent or more interest on
the loan is another allurement which makes the transaction still more
desirable. The pawn broker recognizes his ticket, and the diamonds,
when redeemed, turn out to be worth considerably less than the amount
which the broker was supposed to have advanced on them. The victim
loses some more by redeeming the diamonds.
Complaints by such victims have been coming thick and fast into the
state's attorney's office in Chicago and other large cities. The
conspiracy between the swindler and his accomplice, the pawn broker,
is almost self-evident. In some instances indictments have been
returned against the perpetrators of the fraud, but the prosecution
could not succeed. The reason is obvious. On the face of the
transaction everything seemed to be regular, and the defendants could
not be made criminally responsible for an erroneous conclusion arrived
at by the victims as to the business sagacity of the pawn broker or
the probable value of the diamonds. And yet who would doubt, in view
of the many identical complaints, that the plans in connection with
the fraudulent transaction had been laid carefully in pursuance of a
conspiracy to defraud the public?
NEW LAW BADLY NEEDED.
On the civil side of legal practice there is the writ of injunction
to prevent threatened irreparable injury to property by one person to
another. But in case of organized fraud upon the public in general our
modern legislatures have not yet grown to the proper appreciation of
the wise and ancient saying that comes from the orient, "The rat hole,
not the rat, is the thief." Our laws punish the thief when caught, but
leave the "hole" intact and ready to give shelter to other "rats."
The authorities may know well the fraudulent character of a concern
organized and existing for the express purpose of fleecing the public,
and yet, in the absence of a complaining victim, they are absolutely
helpless and unable to prevent victims from being ensnared by that
concern.
Suppose the legislature would enact a law making it a felony for
persons to set in operation any scheme to defraud the public and fix
adequate punishment for such offense, would not such a law enable the
authorities to anticipate and prevent a great deal of that misery
which is caused by organized frauds of all kinds and descriptions, to
a class of people that least can afford it?
POSTAGE STAMP GRAFTER.
The postage stamp grafter is one of the most pestiferous of the
"toucher" genus. He bobs up in offices, on the streets, in hotel
lobbies, everywhere and at all times. Here is the song he sings:
"I'm broke, mister, but I don't want any money. I am
looking for work and have just answered an ad. in the
paper, but, to tell the truth, I have only got a nickel,
and if I break that to buy a postage stamp I can't get a
cup of coffee. Just a 2-cent stamp is all I ask."
It is too small a request to refuse, and besides there is a chance
that the fellow may be telling the truth. Anyway, it is only a stamp.
You produce the stamp, and may give the "toucher" several stamps
so that he can answer more advertisements for work. A half day of
industry at this scheme gives any competent "toucher" enough stamps
to buy a little food, a good deal of drink and a night's lodging.
There is no difficulty in disposing of stamps thus collected, for the
salonkeepers and others that buy them--sometimes at a discount--know
they have been given, and not stolen.
"You are the third man that has tackled me for a stamp today," said
a man in the lobby of a downtown hotel recently to a young man who
"wanted to answer an advertisement for work." "Here, give me the
letter; I'll stamp and mail it."
Whereupon, to use the vernacular of his kind, the young man made a
sensational "getaway" via the side entrance.
Akin to the postage stamp scheme is the one of "touching" for three or
some other odd number of pennies to make up the amount necessary "to
send a telegram home for money." The "toucher" in this case usually
admits frankly that he came to Chicago and got drunk, spending all
his money. For victims he picks the men that look like they might
sympathize with a fellow in his predicament.
THE CLERK GRAFTER.
It may or may not be so that a sucker is born every minute. Doubt as
to the exactness of this has been expressed, the consensus of opinion
being that the average runs higher than Barnum's estimate. But as to
the natural increase of devious and various ways for making, or trying
to make, suckers out of the world's inhabitants there can be little or
no just doubt. A new one is born every time the old one gets stale.
Here is the latest:
The scene of operation, which is guaranteed to be harmless when
performed, but sure to be painful when the reaction sets in, is a
small office, store, or shop, any place where the total number of
employees is small.
Preferably it is a place where a young woman stenographer, clerk, or
other worker is employed, and, preferably, the stenographer, clerk,
etc., is of pleasing and attractive appearance. The more so the
better, though this is not absolutely necessary.
PLAYS ON TARDY VICTIM.
In fact, the only condition actually necessary to the successful
prosecution of this new game is that one of the employees come
down to work later than others. This must be. The operator picks a
morning when said employee is late in arriving at his or her place of
employment. If the employee is a young woman stenographer, so much
the better. Operator may be either male or female, but should be of
prosperous appearance--sort of money-no-object appearance.
"Is the Stool Pigeon in?" he inquires. Of course, he doesn't call this
party "the Stool Pigeon," having first carefully informed himself
as to the individual's Christian name and surname, so as to be in a
position to rattle it off with becoming familiarity.
"Not yet, but soon," replies the Fall Guy. He doesn't know that he's
the Fall Guy, but he is, unless he happens to possess more than a
human average of suspicion and wariness.
FALL GUY TAKES BAIT.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Now, I wouldn't have come to deliver this package
if he hadn't promised to be here at this moment. And he wanted it so
badly--and I can't wait!"
"That's too bad," says Mr. Fall Guy. "But that's all right; you may
leave the package in my care and I'll see that he gets it the first
thing he comes down."
"So kind of you," purrs the operator. "The only difficulty in the way
of that is that I must see him when I deliver it."
Nothing coarse or abrupt, you will see; instead the smooth, purring
round of the wheels that grind artistically and well.
Here the operator begins to bite the under lip and look at the clock
with clouded brows.
"Hm! I can't wait, and he wanted it so much this morning!"
SUCKER DIGS OUT COIN.
Fall Guy being a friend of Stool Pigeon's (the operator has picked
him because of that qualification), gets solicitous. "Well, there's
a collection of a dollar on this package; that is all, really." If
Fall Guy looks burdened with money the charge may be as high as $2.50.
Hardly more than this. It may run as low as 25 cents. The package
contains, according to the operator, anything from a pair of cuff
buttons to a pair of shoes.
And Fall Guy pays at least often enough to make the game worth playing
for the operator.
FLEECING INVALIDS AND CRIPPLES.
This is a story of the most despicable graft extant. For, although it
has been broken up in Chicago, it still flourishes in nearly every
other large city in the country. It is not only despicable but it is
heinous, fiendish, unspeakable. It is the sort of a thing that causes
the blood of an honest man or of a manly rogue to boil, and long for a
chance to clutch its inventor by the throat. It is the letter-copying
scheme. Real criminals take chances on death, or the penitentiary,
and on personal encounters with those whose money they unlawfully seek
to acquire, but the vultures behind the "ads." promising lucrative
work at home content themselves with mulcting helpless invalids, aged
and infirm persons who seek to contribute to their own support and
persons whom poverty has driven to desperation, and who see in the
gilded promises of the cormorant an avenue of escape.
The public is familiar with the advertisements which constantly are
seen in the newspapers offering employment that will not necessitate
canvassing, or peddling, and which can be done in the home with great
profit. Occasionally the "ads." explain that the work is that of
copying letters.
[Illustration: AN ATTEMPT TO CATCH YOUR EYE]
WRITE SMOOTH LETTERS.
The victim answers the "ad." and in reply receives this stereotyped
letter--the form is the same in every instance:
ESTEEMED FRIEND:
Replying to your application to write letters for us at
your home during spare time, we beg to say that your
writing is satisfactory, and we have decided to offer you
the appointment.
The work we give out is simply writing letters from a copy
which we furnish, for which we pay you direct from this
office at the rate of twenty dollars ($20.00) per thousand.
You do not have to write any certain number of letters
before receiving pay, and all letters you write you return
to us. There is no mailing them to your friends, as most
other advertisers who advertise for letter writers demand,
neither is there any canvassing or selling anything, or
anything else to mislead you; you simply write from a copy
which we furnish, and we pay you direct. We are an old,
reliable firm, always state plainly what is required, do
exactly as we promise and treat our employes honestly.
The work is easy; the letters to be written are the length
of the ordinary business letter, and all we require is
neatness and correctness. We furnish all materials free of
charge, paper, etc., and prepay all costs of delivery to
your home. You work only when you desire or have leisure
time, and no one need know you are doing the work.
We pay spot cash for all work done the same day as
received. We use thousands of these letters for advertising
our business, because we receive better results from using
written letters than from plain printed circulars. We have
a large number of people all over the country working for
us, and if you desire to become one of our regular workers
we request that you send us one dollar, for which we will
send you our regular dollar package of goods you are to
write about.
This is all you are required to invest, there being no
other payments at any further time, and this deposit is
returned to you after doing work to the amount of two
thousand letters. We are compelled to ask for this small
deposit to protect ourselves against unscrupulous persons
who do not mean to work and who apply out of idle curiosity.
We also send you first trial lot of letter paper, copy
of letter to be written (as we desire all letters to be
written on our own letter paper), also instructions and all
necessary information. After receiving the outfit you start
to work immediately. More reliable workers are needed
at once, and we guarantee everything to be exactly as
represented. If you find anything different we will refund
the amount invested.
Fill out the enclosed blank and send it to us with one
dollar or express or postoffice money order (stamps
accepted), and we will immediately send everything, all
expenses prepaid. You can start to work the same day
you receive the outfit by simply following our plain
instructions.
Kindly reply at your earliest convenience. Fill out
enclosed blank and direct your envelope carefully. Trusting
to be favored with your prompt services, we remain,
Very truly yours,
LESLIE NOVELTY COMPANY,
Per C. C. KENDALL.
ROB BED-RIDDEN WOMEN.
In their investigation of this sort of swindle the police discovered
that almost invariably the victims were bed-ridden persons or women
in straitened circumstances who were in frantic search of some means
of keeping the wolf from the door. Many instances were found where
some unfortunate had taken up a collection in the neighborhood in
order to raise the necessary dollar to send for the "outfit." Persons
were found who were actually starving and who had pawned their last
possession to get the money that was to start them on the road to
affluence.
Of all the offices raided Detective Wooldridge did not find record of
one instance where a victim had been able to keep the requirements of
the swindlers. The supposed letter sent to be copied was generally
about 800 words in length, full of words difficult to spell, of
rude and complicated rhetorical construction and punctuated in a
most eccentric manner. The task imposed was practically a life-time
job, and even if anyone had fulfilled it there were a hundred
loop-holes whereby the thieves could escape payment by declaring their
specifications had not been heeded to the letter.
The "outfit" consisted of a cheap penholder, a pen and a box of fake
pills.
Imagine the joyous anticipation with which a starving cripple would
await the arrival of the "outfit" that was to give him the opportunity
of prolonging existence! The bright hopes of the work-worn widow who
expected by this genteel means to keep her little ones in bread!
Think of the despair of both upon discovering they had paid out
money so sadly needed--money which probably had been begged or
borrowed--only to discover that they had been victimized instead of
benefited!
"OPERATORS" CRINGING COWARDS.
Trembling, cringing, whining specimens of humanity were found in
charge of each of these fakers' dens when Detective Wooldridge swooped
down upon them. They were typical of their graft--small, mean,
snake-like, cowardly. None among them was found who would bid defiance
to the officers, who would resist intrusion by the law or who would
go into court and fight. All were cheap and dirty in mind, loathsome,
shrinking, snarling, but not daring to bite.
Among those driven out of business by Detective Wooldridge were the
Twain Novelty Company, the Leslie Novelty Company, the Illinois
Industrial Company and Blackney & Company.
"I have raided all classes of swindling institutions," said
Wooldridge, "but it gave me more pleasure to run down these fellows
than all the others put together. They did not dare try to get money
out of people who could afford to lose it, or who were out in the
world where they could talk with others of more experience. Their
dupes were in almost every instance the most pitiable objects of the
communities in which they lived. The facts disclosed by these raids
were enough to fill the heart of the blackest grafter with indignation
and a desire to trounce the perpetrators."
SHARKS RUIN BUSINESS MEN.
NEW LINE OF FINANCIAL GRAFT.
A new loan shark, or self-styled "financial agent," who preys on the
business man and manufacturer, robbing him of his money and business
more relentlessly than the old-time loan shark ever dared with the
helpless wage earner, has made his appearance in Chicago and says he
has come to stay.
[Illustration: MR. FIRST MORTGAGE; FIELD OF RISKY INVESTMENTS]
Under the guise of discounting a manufacturer's accounts at his usual
rate of discount, the "financial agent" secures his first hold on
the struggling manufacturer, who sees the opportunity to enlarge his
business by collecting cash for his merchandise as he sells it. But
the first step with the "financial agent" means entering the portals
of bankruptcy.
The loan shark first finds for his victim an industrious, hard-working
manufacturer or wholesaler, who by his push and perseverance has built
a business beyond his capital, and approaches him.
"You have a good business here," remarks the agent. "If your customers
all paid cash it would be pretty easy sailing. Life would be one long,
sweet song if everyone paid for goods as soon as they were ordered,
wouldn't it?"
OFFER OF CASH AROUSES INTEREST.
Even the largest manufacturer in the country could not but accede to
this.
"I have been watching your business for some time with a great deal
of interest," continues the suave grafter, "and I would be glad to
discount your bills at the regular rate of discount, so it would cost
you nothing and you would have an opportunity to double your business.
"I presume you give the regular trade discount of 1 per cent a month
for cash. On that I can save you a little money and help your credit
materially. You receive 1 per cent a month on your purchases.
"This you cannot take, as you are cramped for money, because your
customers do not pay their bills promptly. Thus you lose 2 per cent a
month by not buying and selling for cash."
GETS $800 FOR $1,000.
The manufacturer begins to see a thriving business on a cash basis
without exposing his weakness, and agrees to allow the banker to
discount his bills.
"In the morning," begins the agent in explanation of his system,
"you send us $1,000 worth of duplicate invoices of the goods which
you shipped today, with shipping bills attached. You attach to the
invoices a note for $1,000, so the account may be kept from the notes,
and not from the invoices which we hold. In return for the note we
will send you a check for $800, less our commission of 2 per cent
a month, just what you are paying now because your business is not
done on a cash basis. The $200, or 20 per cent, we have to deposit in
the bank which loans us the money which we in turn pass to you. When
any bills are paid we will refund your 20 per cent which we hold.
Any bank compels us to have a representative in your store to look
after our interests, as a matter of form. We will just appoint your
bookkeeper--a matter of form entirely. Once a month we will send a man
over to check up your books. He will see that none of our money has
been overlooked."
BEGINS TO SHOW HIS TEETH.
All this sounds businesslike and plausible, and the arrangement runs
smoothly for a time, probably six months, to allow the manufacturer
time to sell all his open accounts to the financial agent. Then
the loan shark sends in a statement of the account, and, if the
manufacturer complains, begins to show his teeth.
On the statement appears all money the manufacturer has received and
in addition an extra charge for $50 a month to cover the services of
their agent--the manufacturer's own bookkeeper. Also an additional
charge of from 1 to 2 per cent for additional service rendered,
although the agency has had absolutely nothing to do with the accounts
beyond holding them as security. All overdue accounts are charged
back to the manufacturer, and a request for a check to take them up
immediately accompanies the statement.
As few accounts, if allowed to mature at all, are received by a
manufacturer on the exact day when due, the check called for often is
a formidable one. The manufacturer is at his wits' end. He goes to the
agency post haste and, after they find it is impossible to hold him
up for a check, they say:
"Oh, well, never mind, the bank--always the bank--is pressing us on
those overdue accounts, but we can hold up the 20 per cent until these
accounts are taken care of. That will be satisfactory, we are sure."
[Illustration: DEBT]
LOSES HIS 20 PER CENT.
After this the manufacturer's chance of ever seeing anything more
of his 20 per cent has vanished. Each day the agency trumps up some
fictitious charge of stamps, new check books, extra labor, taxes,
additional fees or other charges that could originate nowhere but in
the brain of a financial crook.
Finally the manufacturer finds he has nothing on his books but
accounts belonging to the agency, on which he is paying carrying
charges of from 5 to 10 per cent a month. The agency refuses to return
his 20 per cent, which they claim has been charged off by the bank to
take care of the overdue accounts.
The victim, seeing the plight in which he is placed, demands an
accounting and threatens legal proceedings. The agency in turn demands
he give them an itemized statement of each account, which they have.
They agree to check them up, and, if found correct, promise to give
him a check for the 20 per cent which they hold. That night the light
burns late over the bookkeeper's desk in the manufacturer's office.
In the morning the statements go to the office of the loan shark, who
says:
"I'll have the auditor check them up and send you a check as soon as
we find out everything is straight."
TRADE STATEMENTS TO CUSTOMER.
The manufacturer leaves the office. The loan shark gets busy with the
statements, and stamps each of them:
"This account has been transferred to Killem's Mercantile Company. You
are notified to pay this account to no one else."
These statements are mailed to the customers. When the manufacturer
returns the loan shark greets him cordially and remarks:
"Unfortunately one of my clerks mailed out a lot of your statements
last night, but I guess that won't matter. He stamped on them that
they had been transferred to us and sent them out as he does everyone
else's. He didn't understand. I am sorry."
As expected, the manufacturer, when he sees his business and
confidence abused in this manner, flies into a rage. Then the suave
agent takes the bull by the horns and issues his ultimatum.
"Our bank"--always "our bank"--"thinks we are not getting all the
money coming to us from your account. They demand that in the future
you deposit all your checks with us. I am sorry, for I know everything
is straight, but your using us as a bank will last but a few days.
Everything will then run smoothly again."
And unless some friend comes to the aid of the manufacturer the
agency's prophecy comes true, and it does last but a little while.
SHREWD BEGGAR GRAFT.
Pretend to be Deaf, Dumb and Blind, Playing on
Sympathy--How Philanthropy is Humbugged--Begging for Money
to Reach Home--An Army of Frauds and Vagabonds--Mastering
the Deaf Mute Language for Swindling Purposes--The Public
Should be Careful in Disbursing Alms.
Speech is so common, eyesight so precious, that he who would appeal
for charity needs no better warrant than that he is dumb or blind.
In an age when words are multiplied and golden silence is seldom
found, the very fact that lips can give no utterance is so unusual
that their mute assertion of misfortune is seldom questioned. There
is nothing so pitiful in all the world as an asylum for the blind.
There is nothing which so draws one to share the burdens of another
as the appeal of him in whom the wells of speech are all dried up.
We sympathize with illness, we grieve at the misfortune which visits
our friends, we mourn with them when bereavement comes, but all these
things are in the course of nature. They are sad, but they may be
expected. But then a figure in health rises and asks for charity in
the hushed language of the mute, philanthropy halts and humanity gives
alms. But if the dumb can evoke assistance, assuring of sincerity and
disarming doubt, how hushed is the questioning when the blind apply!
How much stronger than speech or silence are the sightless eyes that
stare unblinking at a darkened world! How sad is the fate of that man
who was buried by demons when God cried out, "Let there be light"!
But not every man is mute who stretches out his hand in silence.
Laziness is such an awfully demoralizing vice that some who choose
to beg a living and decline work are even base enough to feign a
misfortune they ought to fear. Fellows who find the winter pinching
and the ranks of vagabonds full to repletion arm themselves with a
slate and pencil and haunt the public with appeals for help on the
untrue claim that they are dumb. One of the most persistent beggars
of this kind makes the rounds of residence districts with a printed
card on which is stated the bearer's desire to reach his home in some
distant city--the destination varies from time to time--together with
a long-primer endorsement by a group of names which no one knows. The
fraud always asks for some slight money offering--nothing can be too
small--with which to assist him in the purchase of a ticket.
Usually his paper shows that he needs but a very little more, and
he asks one, by a series of pantomimic signs, to enroll his name,
together with the sum advanced, in regular order on a blank list
which he tenders with his touching appeal. He is so well drilled as
never to be surprised into speech, and looks with such straight,
honest eyes into the faces of the women, who form much the larger
number of his victims, that they cannot question him and usually give
up a dime or a quarter without a struggle. The beggar can readily
collect a good day's wages in this manner, and it is a matter of
surprise if he does not receive an invitation to partake of food three
or four times a day. He never lets his list get full. However small a
margin he may lack of having raised the sum needed to buy his ticket
to his home, he never gets quite enough, for nothing is easier than to
stop in some secluded spot and erase the names of his latest donors,
thus proving to those on whom he shall presently call that their help
is not only needed, but will so nearly end the necessity for continued
appeals. This class of beggar never looks like a dissipated man, is
always polite, and bears refusal in so noble a way that nine times
out of ten the flinty-hearted women who refused him at the back door
hurry through to the front and give the more generously that they have
harbored suspicion.
Another set of leeches have mastered the deaf mute language, and
always ask with a pleading, painful face which meets you as your eyes
lift from his written questions, if anyone in the house can talk with
him. He supplements the penciled question and the eloquent glance of
eyes trained by long use in the art with a few rapid passes of his
hands, a few dexterous wavings of the fingers, in a language you have
heard of and read about, but cannot understand. If the unexpected
happens and a person be present who can converse with him, your beggar
is sure of some entertainment, and the usual scene of one you know to
be honest talking to one who may be equally so, and certainly seems
needy, will almost infallibly wring from you the coveted assistance.
It is like two minstrels at a Saxon court. You know your own has
seen the holy land, though you have not, and as he tells you, this
thread-bare guest talks familiarly and correctly of distant realms.
That is all any one can know to a certainty, but you give him the
benefit of the chance that he may be honest, and help him with such
loose change as comes to hand. Time and again the pretended mutes have
been detected in their imposture by men who pitied a misfortune and
gave money at their homes in the morning to see it spent for drink by
an arguing, contentious fellow in the evening.
Some beggars even assume the appearance of blindness, and haunt the
homes of comfortable people, led by a little girl and asking alms
in the name of an affliction that is always eloquent of need. He
will sometimes carry a small basket full of pencils, or other little
trinkets, and glazes over his evident beggary with the appearance of
sales. But he does not hesitate, once the money is in his hands, to
ask his patron to give back the pencils, as he cannot afford to buy
any more. These people can sometimes see as well as the child that
seems to lead them, and yet their eyes, when they choose to assume
their professional attitude, seem covered with a film through which no
light can penetrate.
The public should be chary in bestowing charity, and especially to
able-bodied men who appear blind, deaf and dumb, or are still claiming
to be victims of some recent disaster. Most any one who has charity to
bestow can easily think of some deserving and honest unfortunate in
their own neighborhood.
PARALYTIC A BAD ACTOR.
The most transparent fraud on the streets of the great cities is
the pseudo-paralytic. At almost any street corner can be seen what
purports to be a trembling wreck of a man. His legs are twisted into
horrible shapes. The hand which he stretches forth for alms is a mere
claw, seemingly twisted by pain into all sorts of distorted shapes,
trembling and wavering. The arms move back and forth in pathetic
twistings as if the pains were shooting up and down the ligaments
with all the force of sciatica.
The head bobs from side to side as if it were impossible to keep it
still. And the words which come from the half-paralyzed mouth are
a mere mumble of inarticulate sounds, as if the tongue, too, were
suffering torture.
A more pitiable sight than this could not be conjured up. And the
extended hat of the victim of what seems to be a complication of St.
Vitus dance, paralysis, sciatic rheumatism, and the delirium tremens,
is always a ready receptacle for the pennies, nickels and dimes of the
thoughtless. This is one side of the picture; now look on the other.
It is dusk. Just that time of day when the lights are not yet
brightening the streets, and when the sun has made the great tunnels
between the sky-scrapers, ways of darkness. Detective Wooldridge is
watching. He has been watching two of the deplorable fraternity for
two hours. As the dusk deepens he sees them both arise, dart swiftly
across the street and board a car. By no mere chance is it that they
are both on the same car. The detective follows. Before a low saloon
on the West Side the victims of innumerable diseases descend from the
car, walking upright as six-year soldiers on parade. They enter the
saloon. They seat themselves at a table behind an angle in the back
which conceals them from the street. The detective loiters down to the
end of the bar and watches. From every pocket, even from the hat rim,
pours a pile of coins.
The two sort out the quarters, the nickels, the pennies. The heaps are
very evenly divided over two or three cheap whiskies or a couple of
bottles of five-cent beer.
Then the real finale comes. Detective Wooldridge gets busy, and a
goodly portion of the spoil finds its way out of the hands of the
sharpers in the way of a fine.
But for every one of these paralytic frauds caught there are dozens,
even scores, who get away unscathed. It is the estimate of the best
detectives that not one in a thousand of these paralytic beggars is
genuine. It is one of the most bare-faced cases of deception of the
public which comes under the notice of the police.
EASY MONEY FROM KIND HEARTS.
Charity covers a multitude of sins, almost as many backs, and quite a
bit of graft.
Thoughtless giving is almost a crime. It serve to encourage idleness,
and idleness is at the bottom of more crime than any other one thing,
unless it is poverty.
Here is a story, given in the words of the man himself, which shows
how the charity graft is worked in a number of ways. It covers several
fields, and is so dramatic that it is given as the best example of
all-round charity grafting:
"In experience in charitable work last summer I discovered
some of these truths. It was the first time in all my life
that I ever engaged in any charitable enterprise, and the
needy that I sought to relieve was myself.
"Any one will beg, borrow, or steal in the name of charity.
They may be as personally honest as a trust magnate--and
they would be horrified at the idea of begging or stealing
for themselves, but charity makes them respectable. At
least this is the theory I worked on.
"I was broke and far from home. I decided that I would
starve or steal rather than beg. Then a fellow I met
accidentally put me on to a way of making a living.
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HEATHEN.
"He had a lot of literature either really from a big
church, charitable organization, or fraudulently printed,
and he explained to me that I was to sell these 25 cents
a copy for the benefit of the heathen somewhere, or home
missions. I was to get 25 per cent of the money resulting
from such sales.
"About a week later, when I had received $12 besides a
little expense money from him. I discovered that he was
keeping all the money. I took the rest of the literature
and destroyed it. Three days later, when I was hungry, I
rather regretted destroying it.
"I joined a circus that was moving toward my home town in
Western Iowa, intending to leave it there and quit being
a tramp. I was then down in Eastern Pennsylvania. I was a
canvas hand. We went west by a tortuous route, and I never
could accumulate enough coin to pay my way home, so was
forced to stick to the place for many weeks.
"The second week one of the canvas hands came to me and
asked me to circulate a subscription paper among the men
for the benefit of one Will Turner, a member of the band,
who, he said, had dropped off the train while running over
from the last stop, and badly injured himself.
GAVE THE MONEY TO CANVAS BOSS.
"I circulated the paper. The man told me he already had
collected from the band on another subscription paper, so
I needn't go to them. The man subscribed over $40 to help
Turner, and I gave the money and the paper to the canvas
boss who asked me to make the collection.
"He took it, and remarked gratefully that he would make it
all right with me. I didn't catch the significance of the
remark then. About a week after that the same canvas boss
came again with another subscription paper for the benefit
of John Kane, who, he said, was a gasoline lamp tender and
had been horribly burned and taken to the hospital. He told
me a graphic story of the accident that aroused all my
sympathy. I took the paper and worked hard on it during the
afternoon and evening performances, and, as it was the day
after pay day, I collected nearly $100.
WORKED THE GAME ONCE A MONTH.
"I got a shock when I took the money to the canvas boss. He
gave me $50 and said:
"'That's your share. We'll work it again next pay day.'
"Then I went at him, and we had quite a fight. We were both
arrested, and at the hearing next morning I learned that
he had been working the game with that same circus about
once a month. There were so many with the outfit and so
few of them knew each other by name, and accidents were so
numerous, that no one suspected him. He had grown afraid to
work it for himself and used me for a tool.
"The show had pulled out and the boss and two others who
had been arrested with us took the first train back to it.
I used the $50 to pay my fine and get home, where I found
work and honesty--and, as soon as possible, I sent to the
chief horseman with the show $50, to be added to the fund
for the benefit of the next person really hurt, telling him
the entire story. He wrote that he had been among those who
helped kick the canvas boss out of the car after he read my
letter."
IN NAME OF CHARITY.
There are probably more "touches" perpetrated in Chicago by
professionals in the name of charity than under any other guise. In
this matter, more of the protection of honest charities than for the
protection of the public, the police have taken a hand and done a
great deal to weed out and punish the solicitors for fake charities.
An imaginary home for epileptics was one of the favorite plans. There
was a home for this class of unfortunates that was honestly run, and
the peculiar sympathy enlisted by the mention of the word epilepsy was
seized upon by dishonest schemers. Professional women solicitors were
garbed as "nurses" and sent forth. They were mostly austere-looking
women and silent. Their work of nursing epileptics was supposed to
produce this austere silence. This supposed charity appealed with
uncommon strength to most people because these "nurses" were supposed
to be performing the most unpleasant work imaginable amidst the most
grewsome surroundings. Large sums were collected in this way, the
promoter keeping everything above the liberal commission paid to
solicitors.
[Illustration: RACHEL GORMAN]
THIS ONE MADE FORTUNE.
Rachel Gorman was the originator of the "nurse for epileptics" graft,
and raked in thousands of dollars before she finally was rounded up
by the police. Not one cent of all the money collected by her and
her garbed and hired solicitors ever got past their pockets. In this
case the most shining marks were selected. William Jennings Bryan was
touched for $100. as was the Governor of Illinois, and many others.
This money for imaginary epileptics came so easily that the Gorman
woman confessed that it was almost a shame to take it.
There is little excuse, however, for Chicago men and women allowing
themselves to be talked out of money for charity. In no great city
are the charity working forces better organized or better known.
For virtually every form and case of need there is in Chicago a
distinct form of honest, well-organized charity. This condition grew
out of necessity, and promiscuous giving to "touchers" who plead as
qualification charity cases is dying out as the public comes to know
more of the comprehensive systems for the help of the worthy and
unfortunate.
It took the hotel detectives years to check the "toucher" with the
fake bank account that operated largely in the hotel lobbies. Now
he works in other places. He carries a bank book that has all the
superficial marks of genuineness. He engages you in conversation, and
at what he considers the right psychological moment, he drops a feeler
like this:
"It's h---- to be without money when you've got plenty, isn't it?"
If you have met this type of "toucher" before, you instantly see it
coming and chase off to a most important engagement. If not, you only
can agree. Being without money when you have none is bad; being broke
when you have money is worse.
"Look here," says the "toucher," "here is my bank book. Look at this
balance?"
OFTEN WORTH THE PRICE.
A glance seems to show that the bank owes your new acquaintance
many thousands. He then tells how it happened, how he came to be
without a cent when he was so far to the good with his banker. It's a
complicated tale, too long to tell here. There are lost letters, the
cashing of checks for friends and, confidentially, a touch of the pace
that flattens bank accounts. By this time you see your finish. When
you seek to escape you find yourself backed up to the wall with no
chance to sidestep. The best you can do is to scale the original touch
from $1 to 50 cents, thereby making 50 cents for yourself and 50 cents
for the "toucher."
To "stand for" all the "touches" that are made in Chicago one would
require an income far in excess of that enjoyed by most. Those that
are responded to are those in cases where the donor generously thinks
that the "toucher" really needs the money. Probably in the vast
majority of cases there is no delusion as to the fiction woven in
order to drag forth the nickel, the dime, the quarter or the dollar.
Often it is worth the price to hear the fiction.
But after all one feels refreshed when a frank but hoarse and
trembling hobo says:
"Say, Mister, me t'roat is baked and me coppers sizzlin'. Gimme de
price of a drink. Did you ever feel like jumpin' from de bridge fur
lack of a stingy little dime fur booze?"
Here, you feel, is no misrepresentation. Here you may invest a dime
without feeling that you have been stung.
RAFFLES BANK ROBBERY.
One of the most annoying of small grafts is the raffle, as conducted
for gain. It is bad enough to be held up for 25 cents or 50 cents for
a ticket which entitles you to a chance on a rug or a clock when you
reasonably are sure that the proceeds will go to charity, but no man
likes to be fooled out of his small change by a cheap grafter, even if
the grafter happens to need the money.
A story is told of two printers who lived for a month on a cheap
silver watch which they raffled off almost daily until they had
"worked" nearly all the printing offices of any size in town. These
typographical grafters are unworthy of the noble craft to which they
belong. They pretended to be jobless on account of last year's strike,
and unable to live with their families on the money furnished by the
union.
HOW SKIN RAFFLE IS WORKED.
During the noon hour, or about closing or opening time, one of the men
would saunter into a composing room and put up a hard luck story. He
had an old silverine watch that he wanted to raffle off, if he could
sell twenty tickets at 25 cents each. He usually managed to sell the
tickets.
About the time the drawing was to take place the confederate entered
and cheerfully took a chance and won the watch without any difficulty.
Thus, they had the watch and the $5 also. They would split the money,
and on the first convenient occasion the raffle would be repeated at
another place, and by some trick known to themselves the drawing was
manipulated so that the confederate always won the watch.
A South Side woman recently had 500 raffle tickets printed, to be sold
at 10 cents each, the drawing to be on Thanksgiving day, for a "grand
parlor clock," the proceeds to be for the benefit of a "poor widow."
As the woman herself happens to be a grass widow, and as the place of
the drawing could not be learned, neither could there be obtained a
sight of the clock, it is not difficult to guess the final destination
of $50 for which the tickets were sold.
POPULAR GAME IN SALOONS.
At many saloons and cigar stores there is a continuous raffle in
progress for a "fine gold watch." It is well for those who buy chances
to inspect the time piece with a critical eye. One of these watches
was submitted to a jeweler by the man who won it. "It's what we call
an auction watch," said the expert. "It is worth about 87 cents
wholesale. The case is gilded, and the works are of less value than
the movement of a 69-cent alarm clock. It was keep time until the
brass begins to show through the plate, and it may not."
One of the attractive forms of the raffle ticket game is valuing the
tickets at from 1 cent up to as high as desired. The man who buys a
chance draws a little envelope containing his number. If he is lucky
and draws a small number he is encouraged to try again. This is a
sort of double gamble, and many men cannot resist the temptation to
speculate upon the chances, simply in order to have the fun of drawing
the little envelopes.
Of course, many of the raffles are for cases of genuine charity, and
it is an easy way to raise a fund for some worthy object. Many a
person would not accept an outright gift, even in case of sickness
or death, will permit friends to raffle off a piano or a bicycle for
a good round price in order to obtain a fund to tide him over an
emergency. To buy tickets for this kind of a raffle is praiseworthy.
RAFFLE IS LOTTERY BY LAW.
But sharpers are not above getting money by the same means. If a
strange man, or a doubtful looking woman, wants to sell you a chance
for the benefit of "an old soldier," or a "little orphan girl," or a
"striker out of work," it might pay you to investigate.
But here is where the easy money comes in for the sharper. It is too
much trouble to investigate, and the tender-hearted person would
sooner give up the 10, 25 or 50 cents to an unworthy grafter than to
take chances of refusing to aid a case of genuine need.
Then, too, there is what might be called a sort of legitimate raffle
business. Of course, the raffle is a lottery under the law, and,
therefore, is a criminal transaction. But in many cases goods of
known value, but slow sale, are disposed of through raffles, and
the drawings conducted honestly. A North Side man disposed of an
automobile in this way. It had been a good wagon in its day, though
the type was old. He wanted to get a new one, and as the makers would
not allow him anything in exchange for the old. He sold raffle tickets
to the amount of $500, and the winner got a real bargain--the losers
paying the bill.
RAFFLES THAT ARE STEALS.
A group of young men who wanted to build themselves a little club
house in the Fox Lake region, resorted to a raffle that was almost a
downright steal. They had the printer make them tickets, and each one
went among his friends and organized a "suit club," selling chances
for a $30 tailor-made suit. Of course those who invested understood
that the suit probably would be worth about $18, but they were
satisfied to help build the club house on that basis, and besides they
thought they had a fair chance to get the suit.
It was learned afterward by accident that there were twenty "series"
of tickets sold by these young men, and instead of each series
standing for a suit, only one drawing was held, and only a single
suit made for the entire twenty series of tickets. In other words,
they sold $500 worth of tickets for a $30 suit of clothes. They built
their club house, however, and laughed at the man who kicked because
he thought he did not get a square deal for the half dozen tickets he
bought. They thought it was a good joke.
GRAFT OF TRAIN BUTCHER EASY.
In these days if anything gets past the up-to-date train butcher it
isn't because the public knows any more than it did in Barnum's time.
We get a customer every minute by the birth records.
For a genuine, all-round, dyed-in-the-wool separator of coin from its
proud possessor, the train butcher is the limit. Here is a word for
word story by a train "butch" of how the thing is done. He excuses his
tactics much the same way that the little rogue does who points out
that the giant malefactors are doing the same thing, but "getting away
with it." Enter Mr. Butch.
"I got back yesterday from a two days' trip--out and in.
I had $29.65 to the good, and the company satisfied, and
nary a kick from the railroad. At one little place down the
line, though, a railroad detective got aboard and tried to
detect.
"'Say, young feller,' he said to me, 'I saw you go through
here yesterday lookin' pretty spruce, and I thought I'd
better take a look through yer grips as you came back. What
yer got in there?'
"He kicked my grip, and I opened her up on the minute. He
went through it like an old goat through a cracker barrel,
but he didn't find anything--see? If he'd looked under the
cushion of a seat in the smoker he might have found a whole
lot of stuff that didn't look like a prayer meeting layout.
WHAT WAS HIDDEN UNDER SEAT.
"Say, I bet I had fourteen $2 gold watches, twenty
gold-rimmed spectacles that cost me 15 cents apiece, one
dozen books, tightly sealed in wrappers, that looked mighty
interesting to the jay who couldn't see into the books, and
yet who had to do it finally at $2 apiece, and, as a topper
of it all, my three-book monte game. Did you ever see the
game?
"I've got a line of wild west books about two inches
thick, each, and costing me 40 cents a volume. They've
got some great pictures on the cloth covers, and maybe
there's some hot stuff inside--I don't know. But here's my
unparalleled offer: I pick out my man and lay these three
volumes across his knees in the car seat and go after him
with some of the warmest kind of air about their interest,
the binding, and the illustrations.
"You pay me for the set," I explain, "but in doing it I
give you a chance to get the books for nothing and at the
same time double your investment.
HOW THREE BOOK MONTE IS PLAYED.
"I take out three small, thin spelling books, cloth bound,
all alike as the bindery and the presses can make them.
Then, careless like, I take a $10 bill out of my pocket,
fold it across in a sort of V-shape and slip it into the
middle of one of the spelling books, so that just one
corner will stick out, probably a quarter of an inch. Of
course, I haven't seen it! Sometimes the man on the cars
will try to say something about it, but I cut in and drown
him out with easy talk till he gets the idea that he might
as well have that ten and the books for five, and let it go
at that.
"But one corner all the time is torn off that bill, and
about a quarter of an inch of that bill is sticking out of
the center of one of the other books. Of course the jay
hasn't seen that!
SHOWS CORNER OF BILL.
"Well, I begin and shuffle the books on the payment of the
$5. As they are shuffled the corner of the bill that is
still attached gets turned around next to me, while the
corner that is torn off gets around next to the passenger,
whom I have cornered in the seat in a way that he can't see
everything that he really ought to see in order to save his
money. When I hold out the three books for the drawing I am
in a position where I couldn't possibly see the corner that
sticks out, while he is where he can't see anything else.
"And he draws the book with the corner sticking out!
"I take it from him instantly, and hold it up with the bill
corner at the bottom, flipping the leaves through from
front to back and forward again. In the act the corner of
the bill drops out on the floor, where he doesn't see. 'Not
here,' I says. 'You made a bad draw. Here's the bill,' I
says, taking up the book that holds it and turning to the
$10 bill, just where it lies. He doesn't know how it all
happened, but I console him that he has the three wild west
books for his library when he gets home.
ALL SUCKERS NOT IN DAY COACHES.
"I don't find all these suckers in the day coaches--not on
your life. I found two pretty boys in the smoking room of a
sleeping car a week ago, and I had $7.50 from one of them
and $5 from the other, and they didn't know a line about it
till they got together after I had gone.
"Friends of mine have kicked because I get $2, or $3, or
$4 apiece for gold-rimmed spectacles that cost me $1.80
a dozen. But where is the kick. I know men who have paid
$10 or $15 for glasses from an oculist when the glass was
cut out of a broken window pane. I save such people money,
don't I?
"I am not out after the old farmer with hayseed in his hair
and leaf tobacco in his mouth, chewing. There are a lot
of gay chaps traveling these days who think they've got
the bulge on the train butcher by a sort of birthright or
something. They are after me, sometimes, till I can't go to
sleep after I come in from a run. For instance, the other
day a chap got into the train out of a little country town,
intending to go to another little town twenty miles away
without change of cars. He had $2 cash and a guitar when he
got on the train, but I had both when he got off. He wasn't
mad at all; he just didn't understand it. For that reason
I'll see him again one of these days, and he will buck the
game harder than he did the first time. The trouble is he
wants to vindicate himself; he's one of these smart alecs
that you couldn't down with a crowbar--he don't think!
COUNTRY TOWN "SPORT" EASIEST MARK.
"Just give me the dead-game sport as he comes from the
country and the country town. He's as good as I want. It's
a sort of charity to take his money away from him before
he gets into real trouble with it. One of them thought he
had me the other day when I tried to sell him a pair of my
famous $4 glasses with the gold rims. His had silver, only,
but he told me mine wouldn't show a full moon after dark.
"I asked him to let me see his specs and he handed them
over. I had a bit of wax out of my ear on the tip of my
little finger. I touched each of the glasses with the wax,
smearing them a little with it. That fixed his glasses for
good, and don't forget it. You can't get ear wax off a
pair of spectacles with anything yet invented; it's got a
sort of acid that eats into the glass and won't ever clear
up again. The fellow got hot about it, but I didn't know
anything, of course, and finally sold him a pair of my
$1.80 a dozen glasses for $1.50 cash, net.
"O, some people are almost too easy--I get ashamed of my
calling!"
WOMEN VICTIMS OF OLD COUPON SCHEME.
There is another moss-grown swindle, which, like hope, seems to
"spring perennial" in the greater cities.
This is the old-time coupon swindle. A suave young man appears at the
door, inserts his foot in the crack, if you try to slam it in his
face, and rapidly begins to explain that he has something to offer
you for nothing. The housewife sighs with resignation, and admits the
suave young man, thinking that she might as well get it over. But let
the housewife herself talk. Here is the story of a good woman who was
caught by one of these pettifogging grafters:
"Since my husband died I have partly earned my living by
renting furnished rooms. This seems to be the first thing
a woman thinks of doing when she is left unprovided for,
but it isn't a business of large profits, and few of us
ever cut 'melons.' My furniture, of course, represented my
'plant,' and it was growing shabby.
"That is, perhaps, why the glib agent got a hearing from
me. He had a lovely proposition. Opening a catalogue he
showed me pictures of beautiful pieces of furniture, made
from expensive materials, just the kind that would make my
rooms attractive and easy to rent.
"'Now,' said he, 'I am soliciting subscriptions for a weekly
paper. This paper will cost you 10 cents a number, and with
each number you get a coupon. When you have accumulated
sixty-eight coupons you can bring them to our wareroom and
select any one of these elegant pieces of furniture.'
"'Why,' said I, 'if these articles are as represented, I
couldn't buy them at any store in town for three times what
sixty-eight coupons would cost me--$6.80.'
THE OLD "WAREROOM" TALE.
"'Call at our wareroom, lady, before you sign the contract,
and you will see they are just as described.'
"Well, I saw the articles, and they were all they were said
to be. They explained that they were practically giving
them away in order to build up the circulation of the
paper. Everything appeared to be all right, and I signed
a contract. So did my widowed sister; so did some of my
neighbors.
"The paper was worthless, but I didn't care. Sometimes I
would buy several copies of one issue so as to make haste
toward getting my sixty-eight coupons. The time came when
I went around to select my furniture. I selected it, all
right--a handsome chiffonier.
"'This chiffonier calls for 360 coupons,' said the man.
"'Why, your agent told me I could have any of these pieces
when I had accumulated sixty-eight coupons,' said I,
dismayed.
"'He couldn't have told you that,' said the man. 'Read
your contract. You will see it says that when you have
sixty-eight coupons you may select any one of these
articles, but that means we will then hold the article for
you until you have paid the rest. Why, we have goods here
that call for 600 and 700 coupons.'
"I saw how I had been swindled, and was furious. I told him
what I thought of him and his business, and he offered to
tear up my contract (which, it turned out, bound me to more
than I had dreamed of), if I would pay him an additional
$2.50. I refused. He said he would sue me if I didn't. I
told him to go ahead.
"Shortly afterward a constable served a summons on me to
appear at a justice court at the other end of creation.
I didn't go; and I don't know whether the concern got a
judgment against me or not.
"But I do know I haven't anything to show for the money I
paid for those coupons."
BOOK LOVERS EASY PREY OF FRAUDS.
BOGUS ART WORKS FINE GRAFT.
Some of our citizens are paying a high price for education in art and
book swindles. People, generally, are becoming experts in detecting
small frauds and attacks upon their pocketbooks, and are becoming wise
to pious dodges that run into spiritualism, clairvoyance and fortune
telling, but when a large, smooth scheme is broached, they get caught.
It may be that we have concentrated our minds upon so many trifling
schemes to part us from our money, that we have laid ourselves bare
to big operators in big frauds like that perpetrated upon the Patten
family of Evanston. The clever fakir reached for $40,000 in an "old
book" game and came very near gathering in the pot. He did get $2,600,
which was a very neat job.
It appears that there is a wide-spread system under the operations of
which Chicago book lovers, and others all over the country, have been
bilked out of a sum estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The same system is applied to paintings by the "old masters," for
which some Chicago men have paid fabulous sums, only to find them
imitations. The expert frauds are geniuses in their peculiar calling,
and would deceive the elect if listened to. A bright, smart, well
groomed man with letters of introduction from high quarters, often
forged, perhaps with a title, breaks into society and bides his time
to make a big haul. The vanity and foibles of the high-steppers and
nobility worshipers are pandered to with masterly skill, and then a
mere suggestion of untold values in books or paintings is breathed in
secret. Do the big fish bite? Some of them swallow the bait and it
has to be cut out of them before they will give it up. It is becoming
so easy to gull some people, that the crime should consist in the
betrayal of innocence rather than in the successful fraud. While
guillible people continue to parade their guillibility to the world,
there will always be frauds to take advantage of them. If anybody
doubts the fact that people can be easily defrauded, let him visit any
old book store, antique furniture dealer, oriental rug concern, even
junk shops. He will find an amazing army of faddists, who are willing
to pay any exorbitant price for some cheap fraud because a gentlemanly
man, or an opium-smoking Chinaman, tells him it is the real thing.
When business is dull at the shops, agents visit front doors, back
doors, or invade society with some bogus job of "art" works and
realize enormous sums.
MISERABLE LITTLE SHORT MEASURE THIEVES.
In the Municipal Court in South Chicago three extremely mean swindlers
have been fined $25 and costs. It is unfortunate that they could not
have been sent to the Bridewell without the alternative of paying the
fine.
For these swindlers were coal dealers who robbed the poor that bought
coal by the basket. They STOLE money from their customers, just as the
short-measure milk trust conspirators robbed their patrons. We repeat
that they ought to be in the Bridewell.
Giving short measure is the dirtiest, smallest, most cowardly form of
commercial rascality. The hold-up man who takes his life in his hand
and robs on the public highway is a model of decency and courage as
compared with the pitiful rascal who steals the pennies of the poor by
selling coal or milk or any other necessity of life by short weight.
Short weight is larceny. It ought to be treated as larceny by law.
CRIME A FINE ART.
Living by one's wits has become a fine art, and it is a profession
that is more liberally patronized than any other by the present
generation. One of America's leading detectives remarked that there
were about seventy-five thousand people in a city the size of Chicago
that would bear watching. There isn't a bank, insurance office, dry
goods store, restaurant or hotel that does not employ men to watch
their customers, and there is hardly a business house in the country
that has not some system of watching its employes. Everybody at this
day seems to be afraid of everybody else.
[Illustration: (Learn to paint)]
Professional criminals pride themselves quite as much upon their
ability as men engaged in legitimate occupations. A thief, for
instance, is as vain of his superiority over other thieves as a
lawyer, politician, or clergyman might be whose talents had elevated
him to a commanding position in the eyes of the people. And the
talented thief is as much courted and sought after as the successful
man in the honest walks of life. The other thieves will say: "He is
a good man to know; I must make his acquaintance." But the thief who
has earned a reputation is particular about the company he keeps,
and is scornful in his demeanor toward another thief whom he does not
consider his professional equal. Caste exists among criminals as well
as among other classes.
Men and women who are not living merely for today must be deeply
interested in the efforts which practical philanthropists are making
to discover the causes of crime and to remedy the mischievous
conditions which now prevail to such an alarming extent. Hidden away
to a considerable degree in the great mass of figures which came
into being through the operations of the census bureau, are facts
that should shock every good citizen. With all the warmth of eulogy
the story of wonderful progress has been told again and again, but
only a few references have been made to the abnormal growth of what
may be termed by the criminal class. Forty years ago there was but
one criminal to 3,500 good or reasonably good citizens. According to
the last census the proportion was one in 786.5, an increase of 445
per cent in a period during which the population increased but 170
per cent. Never in the nation's history has educational work of all
descriptions been nearly so active as at present, yet the increase in
the number of those who were confined in penitentiaries and jails and
reformatory institutions is almost twice as rapid as the growth of
population.
CITIES BREEDING SPOTS OF CRIME.
The true explanation of this unsatisfactory state of things is not
far to seek. It is almost entirely to be attributed to the growing
tendency of the community to become concentrated in large cities. A
highly concentrated population fosters lawless and immoral instincts
in such a multitude of ways that it is only an expression of literal
exactitude to call the great cities of today the nurseries of modern
crime. Statistics of all kinds show this, but it can easily be
ascertained without the aid of any figures. The aggregation of large
multitudes within a very limited area must increase the chances of
conflict, and consequently multiply the occasions for crime.
A population in this crowded condition has also to be restrained and
regulated at every turn by a huge network of laws, and as every new
law forbids something which was permitted before, a multiplication of
laws is inevitably followed by an increase of crime.
The prevention of crime should be the great object with the
philanthropist. The obvious remedy is, if possible, to aid the
individual in overcoming the temptation to evil or to crime. The
remedy must be general, gradual, and constant. It consists in
religious, moral, intellectual, and industrial education of the
children, especially of the poor and unfortunate and the weakling
classes. The most certain preventive is the early incarnation of good
habits in children, which, becoming part and parcel of their nervous
organization, are an unconscious force when passion, perplexity,
or temptation tend to make them lose self-control. Little can be
expected from palliative remedies for social diseases so long as this
educational remedy is not thoroughly carried out.
AMERICA'S EDUCATED CRIMINAL CLASS.
The great mass of the American people, aside from those who have had
experience in hunting and shadowing criminals, labor under the popular
delusion that the most daring criminals of today are a lot of tough,
ignorant men, with little or no education at all, who would do almost
anything else than work honestly for a living. If people would but
stop to consider the subject a moment they would readily discover
their error. There are, it is true, a large number of swindlers,
thieves, pickpockets, thugs and criminals of a like class who have but
a scant knowledge of books, or literature, but they are only to be
found among the lower class of criminals. The most notorious criminals
the world has ever produced have been men and women of high culture
and refinement, well educated and thoroughly posted on all that is
transpiring. It is this class of people who make the most successful,
and at the same time most dangerous, criminals. It requires men of
education to swindle, crack a safe, rob a bank, jewelry store or forge
a paper. To be a successful confidence operator requires the man to be
well educated in matters of all kinds, to be a fluent talker, a person
of refinement and polite address, and a good judge of character.
REFINED CRIMINALS MOST DANGEROUS.
Criminal history shows that the most successful jobs are always
planned and executed by men of education; the details of some of the
great forgeries that have taken place, of the numerous bank robberies
and burglar's exploits, all go to show the direction of a brain of no
ordinary person, being proof positive that the persons planning the
work possessed both education and talent. First class criminals are
exceedingly hard to cope with, and are the most dangerous to handle
by the officers. They do not generally do things in a rush or by
halves. Great care is given to all the minor details of their work,
and it often takes weeks and months before they are ready to put their
plans into operation. They study all the possibilities of the job;
the chances of success, and the way of escape in case of failure; how
they can cover all traces of the work and throw the guilt or suspicion
upon the more unfortunate of their class who have had reputations and
who are likely to be brought up and possibly convicted on suspicion
of being the guilty parties. Educated crooks are always to be feared,
not only by the public against whom they are constantly devising
ways and means to relieve of their valuables, but by detectives of a
lesser grade. This class of crooks do not hesitate to sacrifice the
detective if their desired ends can be successfully accomplished,
while the detective finds it a task of no little moment to gain even
the faintest clue to their operations.
PRISON POOR CURE FOR CRIME.
Locking a man up for committing a crime does not always cure him. It
is now proven that affixed penalties to certain crimes accomplishes
practically nothing, for it is based on a wrong principle. The length
of confinement ought, confessedly, to be adjusted to the needs of
the prisoner. He should not be discharged from his moral hospital
until there is reasonable assurance that he is cured. He certainly
should not be turned loose on society, on the mere expiration of a
formal sentence, when it is known he will begin anew on his old life.
Protection to society, as well as the reformation of the criminal,
call for the retention of the latter until he can be trusted with his
liberty, and affords proof that he is fitted to take his place in the
world as a useful, law-abiding citizen. This system alone permits the
fullest scope to reformatory methods, and leaves to the court the
right of sentencing indefinitely, and to the tribunal which has to do
with the prisoner's release, to say when there is reasonable ground
for faith that if discharged he will not prove either a burden or
menace to society. Where conduct and character afford no such grounds
he should be incarcerated for life, just as we would retain hopeless
lunatics in asylums.
MACONOCHIE'S EXPERIMENT.
This form of sentence was first put into operation in a modified form
by Maconochie, at Norfolk Island, in 1836, with a success in the way
of reformatory results from the start which was unequalled. Now the
best authorities in penology in all countries not only commend it, but
the opinion is fast becoming general that it is a necessary feature in
every reformatory system of prison discipline. Of course it implies in
prison management the highest wisdom and integrity, and especially the
banishment of partisan politics therefrom. It makes the dominant idea
of prison administration manhood-making, and not money-making.
FACES PORTRAY CHARACTER.
Every one knows that men's passions, propensities, and peculiarities,
as well as their calling, are reflected in their faces.
It is as impossible to disguise a face as a handwriting. When the
expert comes the disguise is torn off and the face tells the true
story of the spirit inside the body. One only needs to visit the
penitentiary to realize how undeniably vice writes its sign manual
on the features. It is not the drunkard only whose red nose, flabby
cheeks and rheumy eyes betray him; it is the senualist whose vice is
read in his lips, the knave whose propensity is revealed in the shape
of his mouth; the man of violence is surrendered by his eyes. An
experienced detective policeman, or a trained jailer seldom needs to
ask the crime of which the prisoner was guilty. He can tell it by his
face.
It is quite evident that in the future the study of physiognomy is
going to be pursued more vigorously than it has been. As a means of
preventing crime it may prove invaluable. How constantly do we hear of
men "falling from grace," as the phrase goes. Yet these men must have
carried their crime in their faces for a long time. If any one had
been able to read their features the mischief might have been averted.
It is well known that every man's face is more or less stamped by the
pursuit he follows. An experienced observer can generally detect a
lawyer, or a doctor, or a merchant, or a clerk, or a mechanic, or a
clergyman, by merely studying his face.
The instinctive criminal is a social parasite. The conclusion is
irresistible that he is organically morbid. He will proceed to any
extreme, and life and property, separating him from the accomplishment
of his wishes, are but barriers to be overcome. The occasional
criminal is largely a negative creature, who yields himself when
temptation and the stimulus of opportunity exceed his resistive power.
The habitual and professional criminal represents degree rather than
kind. Criminality is to him a profession, a fine art, and susceptible
of division into specialties.
CRIMINAL HEADS NOT EXTRAORDINARY.
The average heads of criminals and those of ordinary people probably
do not vary much in size. A large brain does not necessarily indicate
great intelligence any more than a small one mental deficiencies,
this being true, as little importance can be attached to the weight
of brains of criminals. The weight of Oliver Cromwell's brain was
82.29 ounces; Lord Byron's, 79 ounces; Cuvier's, 64 ounces; Ruloff's
(a thief and murderer), 59 ounces; adult idiot's, 54.95 ounces;
Daniel Webster's, 53.50 ounces, and Gambetta's, that of the size of a
microcephalic idiot.
A face may either attract or repel; its lines indicate firmness
and decision, or weakness and sensuousness. In physiognomy may be
traced fineness or brutality, surfeit or privation, gentleness or
irascibility; yet from a consideration of the face it is assuming
too much to predicate the form of criminal tendencies, if any, on
the subject. Criminal physiognomy is not yet an exact science. The
practical criminologist regards criminality as bred in the bone and
born in the flesh, and the ethology of crime to be looked for chiefly
is in heredity and environment, using the word environment in its most
liberal sense, ante and post-natal, and whatever cause, in whatever
way, that exerts a deleterious influence upon nutrition and the
functions of organic life, voluntary and involuntary.
Little is being done in this country in criminal anthropology that can
compare with the studies and researches that are being carried on in
Italy, France, and Germany. The student unacquainted with the language
of these countries pursues his studies at a disadvantage, owing to the
paucity of literature in English upon the subject.
The tide of crime is steadily rising. The level of criminality, it is
well known, is rising, and has been rising during the whole of the
Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, throughout the civilized world.
Its prevention and cure is a perplexing study, and is engaging the
thoughts and energies of the best intellects of the world.
DETECTIVE CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE'S
_"Never-Fail" System_
THE ONLY SURE WAY TO BEAT:
TURF FRAUDS.
WILD CAT INSURANCE.
BOGUS SECURITIES, CONFIDENCE GAMES.
CITY-LOT SWINDLES.
HOME-BUYING SWINDLES.
DISHONEST DEBENTURE BOND COMPANIES.
FRAUDULENT PROMOTERS.
"SALTED" MINING AND OIL WELLS COMPANIES.
BUCKET SHOPS.
BLIND POOLS IN GRAIN AND STOCKS.
PANEL HOUSES.
BOGUS MAIL ORDER HOUSES.
POKER, FARO AND OTHER GAMBLING GAMES.
MATRIMONIAL BUREAUS.
COUNTERFEIT UNDERWRITERS.
FRAUDULENT BOOK CONCERNS.
DISHONEST COLLECTION AGENCIES.
ADULTERATED MEDICINE DEALERS.
WIRE TAPPERS.
FAKE BROKERS.
BOGUS CHARITIES.
SPURIOUS EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES.
SWINDLE PROMOTERS.
MUSHROOM BANKS.
CLAIRVOYANTS.
FORTUNE TELLERS.
PALMISTS.
$1,000 REWARD WILL BE PAID TO ANYONE WHO USES DETECTIVE CLIFTON R.
WOOLDRIDGE'S NEVER-FAIL SYSTEM AND FAILS TO BEAT THE ABOVE SWINDLES.
DO NOT RISK YOUR MONEY WITHOUT HAVING FIRST CAREFULLY INVESTIGATED
THE CHARACTER OF THE ENTERPRISE IN WHICH YOU ARE INVITED TO BECOME
FINANCIALLY INTERESTED.
BE CONVINCED BEYOND ALL REASONABLE DOUBT THAT THE MEN CONNECTED WITH
THE ENTERPRISE ARE ABOVE SUSPICION.
IF THEIR PROBITY, INTEGRITY OR RELIABILITY CAN NOT BE ESTABLISHED BY
PAST TRANSACTIONS IT IS CERTAIN THEIR HONESTY WILL NOT BE DISCLOSED BY
FUTURE DEALINGS.
DO NOT INVEST IN ANY COMPANY, CORPORATION, OR PRIVATE CONCERN UNTIL
THE MANAGEMENT HAS FURNISHED INDISPUTABLE PROOF OF ITS ABILITY TO
FULFILL EVERY PROMISE.
LEAVE SPECULATION TO THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD TO LOSE.
LARGE GAINS ON SMALL INVESTMENTS USUALLY EXIST ONLY IN THE IMAGINATION
OF GULLIBLE INVESTORS AND UNSCRUPULOUS PROMOTERS.
LARGE RISKS INCUR LARGE LOSSES.
NO MAN WILL "LET YOU INTO A GOOD THING;" HE WILL KEEP IT FOR HIMSELF
AND HIS FRIENDS.
PROMOTERS ARE NOT IN BUSINESS TO MAKE MONEY FOR YOU, BUT "OUT OF YOU."
CONTENT YOURSELF WITH LEGITIMATE INVESTMENTS AND SMALL BUT SAFE
RETURNS.
RATHER THAN SEEK GREAT PROFITS WITHOUT TOIL STRIVE FOR THE DESERVED
FRUITS OF INDUSTRY.
NO MAN WILL GIVE YOU A DOLLAR FOR FIFTY CENTS--UNLESS THE DOLLAR IS
COUNTERFEIT.
DO NOT PAY OUT YOUR OWN GOOD MONEY FOR ANOTHER MAN'S BOGUS DOLLARS.
IF THE PROMOTER COULD DO ONE-HALF OF WHAT HE CLAIMS, HE WOULD NOT NEED
YOUR MONEY, BUT SOON WOULD BE RICH BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE.
DO NOT INVEST YOUR HARD-WON SAVINGS IN VANISHING AIR CASTLES.
PROMISES WHICH PROCEED FROM A DESIRE TO GET YOUR MONEY ALWAYS MERIT
SUSPICION. SUBJECT THEM TO THE MOST CAREFUL AND RIGID EXAMINATION.
ADOPT THE BANKER'S RULE THAT: "ALL MEN SHOULD BE REGARDED AS DISHONEST
UNTIL THEIR HONESTY IS PROVED," RATHER THAN THE SUCKER'S THEORY THAT
"ALL MEN ARE HONEST."
THE BANKER WILL END LIFE POSSESSED OF WEALTH WHILE THE CREDULOUS
OPTIMIST WHOSE FAITH IS UNBOUNDED WILL WIND UP HIS DAYS "A POORER BUT
WISER MAN."
WHEN IN DOUBT DO NOTHING.
IF A PROMOTER CAN NOT DISPEL YOUR DOUBTS HE IS NOT WORTHY OF YOUR
CONFIDENCE.
DO NOT FOLLOW SIREN CHANCE. SHE WILL LEAD YOU INTO THE ABYSS OF
DESPAIR.
BEWARE OF THE DICE; THERE IS BUT ONE GOOD THROW WITH THEM--THROW THEM
AWAY. THEY WERE USED TO CAST LOTS FOR THE BLOOD-STAINED GARMENTS OF
JESUS CHRIST; THEY ARE USED TO GAMBLE AWAY THE HONOR OF MEN.
PLAY NOTHING, INVEST IN NOTHING, BUY NOTHING, TRUST NO MAN OR WOMAN
UNTIL YOU HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THE ENTERPRISE IS LEGITIMATE BEYOND
QUESTION.
AVOID THE MISTAKE OF THAT GREATEST FOOL OF ALL FOOLS, THE MAN WHO
THINKS HE IS TOO SMART TO BE FOOLED.
YOU ARE NOT SHREWD ENOUGH TO BEAT ANY MAN AT HIS OWN GAME; HE HAS
STUDIED ITS MANIPULATIONS; YOU ARE A NOVICE.
DON'T LET ANYONE STAMPEDE YOU INTO DOING ANYTHING. THE "RUSH" ACT
IS A FAVORITE TRICK OF GRAFTERS, FROM THE CHEAP CADGER WHO BORROWS
SMALL CHANGE TO THE INVESTMENT BROKER WHO OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO
RISK A FORTUNE IN "THE CHANCE OF A LIFE-TIME" THAT MUST BE SNAPPED UP
IMMEDIATELY OR LOST FOREVER.
WHEN A MAN TRIES TO HURRY YOU INTO SPENDING YOUR MONEY PUT IT BACK IN
YOUR POCKET AND KEEP YOUR HAND ON IT.
USE CAUTION, REASON AND COMMON SENSE.
DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU. MOST OTHERS WILL
"DO" YOU IF YOU GIVE THEM A CHANCE.
IF YOU ARE MARKED AS ONE OF THE GEESE READY FOR PLUCKING BY
GET-RICH-QUICK SWINDLERS THEY WILL SEND YOU LITERATURE THROUGH THE
MAILS. SAVE EVERY CIRCULAR, LETTER OR OTHER COMMUNICATION TOGETHER
WITH THE ENVELOPES AND SEND THEM TO THE POSTOFFICE INSPECTOR IN THE
TOWN FROM WHICH THEY WERE SENT.
BE SURE TO SEND THE ENVELOPES WITH THE LITERATURE AS THE
COMMUNICATIONS CANNOT BE ADMITTED AS EVIDENCE UNLESS THE ORIGINAL
WRAPPERS OR ENVELOPES IN WHICH THEY WERE MAILED ARE OFFERED WITH THEM.
THE POSTMASTER WILL INSTRUCT HOW TO FORWARD THE COMPLAINT.
PROSECUTION OF THE SWINDLERS WILL SURELY FOLLOW.
IF YOU ARE IN DOUBT ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF THE CONCERN WHICH INVITES
YOU TO INVEST YOUR MONEY, CONSULT A LAWYER, BANKER OR REPUTABLE
COMMERCIAL AGENCY.
Intending investors should remember that:
"SURE TIPS" are sure bait for sure fools.
When you hear stocks have gone up and men who bought them cheap have
sold them at high prices and gained fortunes suspect your informant.
If he seeks to induce you to invest be assured he is a GET-RICH-QUICK
grafter.
Many swindlers wear the garb of respectability; they even cloak their
rascality with piety. Many men accepted by the world as honorable
members of society spend their lives living on the credulity of the
ignorant, and when they die go to the grave followed by hordes of
dupes who mourn their end.
These swindlers await you at every turn; on the race-track; in the
saloon; with the poker deck and the ivory dice; with watered stock
and fraudulent bonds; with prayers on their lips and designs in their
minds to defraud you.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN HONEST GAMBLER.
Every gambling game is a dishonest scheme. You seek to get the other
man's money without giving him anything in return.
You are not entitled to one penny unless you give value in return. If
you are in business you know that every promissory note, to be valid,
must bear on its face two words, "value received."
INDUSTRY, ENERGY, THRIFT! These are the dice that win. The lesson is
hard to learn for the young.
He has anxious days and feverish nights who risks at chance what
should be devoted to the nobler ends of life; who "makes throws" on
the green cloth; who watches the snake-like tape squirm out of the
ticker; or gazes at a bunch of horses running around a ring.
GIVE IT ALL UP AND ADOPT HONEST MEANS OF PROCURING WEALTH!
The Best Rules for Health, Happiness and Success.
THEY ARE WORTH THE ATTENTION AND THOUGHT OF ALL READERS.
1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have earned it.
4. Never buy what you don't want because it is cheap.
5. Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We seldom repent of eating too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain the evils have cost us that have never
happened.
9. Take things always by the smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry,
count a hundred.
11. Watch the small things.
12. Laziness is a vice--fight it.
13. Do your honest best--it pays.
14. Without self-respect you cannot gain respect.
15. Trickery's triumph is fleeting.
16. Remember that opportunity waits only on worth.
17. Cultivate love, loyalty and respect for
work--especially your own work.
18. It is not enough to be honest and lazy.
19. Try to keep your mind clean--evil and success will not
mix.
20. If responsibility confronts you, seize it. Do not throw
it aside--responsibility represents opportunity.
Some of these sayings will strike you as very old and lacking in
novelty. But, old as these rules are, human beings have not yet
learned to follow them. And they won't learn for many a long year.
We shall not moralize about them all today, only one or two we want to
emphasize.
"Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly."
If you work willingly, if you make yourself realize that willing
effort is easy, AND THE ONLY KIND THAT MAKES YOU GROW AND SUCCEED, you
will solve one of your big working problems.
Did you ever see a small boy walking ahead of a band, with the music
playing?
And did you ever see the same small boy walking half the distance to
get a newspaper for his father? Walking with the band rests him; it
doesn't tire him at all, BECAUSE HE DOES IT WILLINGLY. And the other
kind of walking takes the very heart out of him and makes him almost
too tired to eat his dinner.
It is exactly that way with all the work we do in this world. When
you do things willingly, with the heart and the nerves and the brain
acting with one another cheerfully, work is easy AND SUCCESS FOLLOWS.
A willing FOOL may lag behind an unwilling man of intelligence. But
even a willing fool is happier in the end than an unwilling one, and,
all things being even, the employe working WILLINGLY will cease being
an employe and have others working for him sooner than the other man.
PRIDE COSTS MORE THAN HUNGER, THIRST AND COLD.
This applies to all kinds of foolish vanity. It applies to the young
man who never does anything, BECAUSE HE IS TOO PROUD TO DO WHAT HE HAS
THE CHANCE TO DO.
It applies to men and women who squander on dress and show the money
that they need for more serious purposes.
It applies to those that in old age have no money saved up, BECAUSE
PRIDE SPENT THEIR MONEY AS FAST AS THEY GOT IT.
The pride that keeps men honest, the pride that makes men truthful,
never kept a man back or hurt him.
The bad kind of pride is the pride which can be described as "the
coward's pride." Men are foolishly and cowardly proud BECAUSE THEY ARE
AFRAID OF WHAT OTHER MEN WILL THINK. Money that they cannot afford
they spend helping other men to drink too much, BECAUSE THEY ARE
ASHAMED TO BE THOUGHT STINGY OR MEAN.
Men squander in keeping up appearances money that should be saved for
another day, for a good business opportunity, because they are too
cowardly to be guided by their own judgment, and ignore what others
may THINK about them.
Self-respect is one thing; foolish pride, vanity, moral cowardice, are
very different. Get rid of them.
All the advice from these 20 rules is good advice. The man who can
keep his temper while he thinks--whether he count ten or a million--is
a lucky man.
A man in a rage is a man whose BRAIN IS NO LONGER WORKING. And the man
whose brain isn't working is at the mercy of the man whose brain IS
working.
Worry about the FUTURE troubles is a curse with many men. It prevents
their working well TODAY.
Overeating, and especially eating at the wrong time, is a great evil
in this country. If men would learn to eat heartily only when their
day's work is done, WHEN THEIR MINDS MUST NO LONGER BE CONCENTRATED,
THEY WILL SAVE THEIR STOMACHS AND ACCOMPLISH TWICE THE AMOUNT OF WORK
IN THEIR LIVES.
Read these rules over, and moralize on them for yourselves and for
your children.
COINING CUPID'S WILES.
How Matrimonial Agencies Prey on the Public--Their
Degeneration Into the Worst Forms of Crime.
$1,000,000 Secured by These Get-Rich-Quick Schemers
Discovered by Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, Chicago's
Famous Police Detective.
125 matrimonial agencies in Chicago raided and closed in
the last five years.
4,500,000 matrimonial letters seized and destroyed.
1,500,000 matrimonial agencies' stock letters seized and
destroyed.
1,400,000 matrimonial stock photographs seized and
destroyed.
500,000 photographs sent to the matrimonial agencies by
men and women who were seeking their affinities seized and
destroyed.
40 wagon loads of matrimonial literature seized and
destroyed.
One of the most insidious forms of crime is the Matrimonial Agency.
Seemingly harmless, or at most merely foolish, is the Matrimonial
Agency at its inception.
But step by step within the past few years we have seen the
Matrimonial Agency turned into a volcano belching forth fraud,
swindling, bigamy, desertion, and finally ghastly wholesale murder.
We have seen the Matrimonial Agency sweep the whole range of the
world of crime from the petty thieving of a Carson to the almost
unbelievable horrors of the Gunness Farm.
[Illustration: THE SORROWS OF CUPID
"He Does Not See All the Rocks Ahead When He Brings Two Young People
Together"--Beatrice Fairfax.]
And this monster is hydra-headed. Stamp it out in one place and it
immediately reappears in another. Send a "manager" to prison once,
twice, ten times, and the minute the prison doors are open he is back
at the old stand doing business.
Something of the tremendous efforts being put forth to stamp out
this evil may be gained from the headlines of this story, where the
strenuous work of Detective Wooldridge of Chicago is summarized.
Chicago has been and is today infested by a formidable community of
matrimonial agencies who invade all ranks of life. They promote many
specious schemes to lure the elusive dollar from the pockets of unwary
victims. These operatives are sharp, smooth and unscrupulous--the most
dangerous of criminal perverts.
Were the census enumerators of the United States to compile a list
of the "sucker" public the gullible ones would aggregate tens of
millions. There is not a township in this great nation that does not
contain its portion of confiding persons who are ready to believe
anything, from the rankest catch-penny advertisement to a fallacy in
theological dogma.
They are willing to open up their hearts to unknown matrimonially
inclined correspondents; to accept as gospel the incredible statements
of impostors and to pay out money gained by hard toil for something
which the reason of a child should tell them it is beyond the power of
man to provide.
They are easy prey alike to religious and political impostors and
unscrupulous adventurers. Investigations for years past into the
innermost secrets of swindlers, and the observations incidental to
official experience disclosing how victims are drawn into the net of
the grafter, impel the belief that the faith of many persons passes
beyond the bounds of credulity into the domain of imbecility.
Men and women who are engaged in promoting matrimonial agencies are
guilty of crime. It is opposed to the fundamental principles of
society. Such a practice should under no circumstances be tolerated.
It is inconsistent with the highest ideals of what should constitute
the proper marriage relations.
HUMAN DERELICTS ARE DUPES.
Human derelicts of a low mental caliber are the dupes of these
matrimonial agencies. Few people know that such schemes as these are
carried out. Few know that advertisements by men of wealth, women of
culture and pretty widows who seek matrimonial alliances are merely
means by which scoundrels get a revenue.
MATRIMONIAL AGENTS' METHODS.
To describe adequately the technicalities of the marriage agencies
and bureau swindlers' methods would be impossible without presenting
actual copies of documents necessary to the system. Early in the
investigations the discovery was made that the scores of matrimonial
agencies, "introduction bureaux" and "marriage clubs" were using
practically the same literature. Few departed from the stereotyped
plan for "pulling the suckers on." For the most part the prospectuses
and "follow-up" letters were identical.
As often happened, however, when a victim was "landed right" and
ventured to Chicago from his distant rural retreat prepared to carry
out in earnest the game that had been worked upon him in a spirit of
mercenary recklessness, the methods of handling him were varied in
respect to both finesse and effectiveness.
Any person familiar with the uses of the typewriter easily could have
discovered that the "personal" letters received from time to time were
nothing more than circulars printed by the thousands. So vast was the
number of the gullible that seldom, if ever, was an actual, bona fide
letter sent in reply to those from the victims.
Space was left at the top of the stock letters for the insertion
of the name of the person to whom it was sent. In their haste the
swindlers often begrudged the time necessary to change the "Dear
Sir" to "Dear Miss" or "Dear Madam" when a woman was addressed on
stationery intended for male clients.
[Illustration: (Men on knees, arms stretched towards large image of
a heart-shaped lady)]
[Illustration: NOTICE! SHE'S ENGAGED BUT ENGAGEMENTS HAVE BEEN BROKEN
SO HURRY BEFORE THE WEDDING BELLS HAVE RUNG.... GOING! GOING! THIRD
AND LAST CALL!]
NO TRUST HERE.
The general uniformity of the literature was at first thought by
me to indicate that the matrimonial agencies were banded together
in a gigantic trust. But later I learned that as they increased in
number the newcomers exhibited conscienceless audacity in copying the
forms used by their predecessors. It was also found in some cases
several matrimonial agencies were operated from one address and
one or two men, or a man and his wife would represent half a dozen
concerns by changing names and locations every thirty or sixty days.
Because of these facts and the added fact that whoever compiled the
original forms from which the others copied, realized, he was in an
illegitimate business, the plagiarists were never prosecuted. Thus the
buncombe administered to the suckers became uniform in phraseology.
If a person desired to make assurance doubly sure for gaining wealth
and marital bliss and he applied to several agencies at the same
time, the same mail would bring him letters from each matrimonial
agency with which he communicated, worded identically. They would be
mimeograph copies, and the only difference in their appearance would
be in the printed heading indicating the name of the agency. The name
of the recipient would often be written at the top in ink different in
color from the body of the letter.
WORKING THE DOUBLE CROSS.
The usual beginning is a small subscription fee paid for a
"matrimonial" paper. This paper contains alleged descriptions of men
and women, principally the latter, who are claimed by the publisher
to be seeking wives or husbands through the matrimonial agency. The
subscriber who becomes interested in any of the descriptions is
made to pay a fee for more detailed information and alleged record
of the financial circumstances of the person. There is sometimes
an additional fee for a photograph. This picture may or may not be
one of the person described, but that matters little. Almost any
old photograph will serve the purpose. In all the raids made on
matrimonial agencies collections of photographs have been found.
That tens of thousands of otherwise intelligent men and women
should either entrust pictures of themselves to an agency by which
it is to be sent out to unknown persons, or should even begin such
negotiations as those carried on through the matrimonial agency, is
incomprehensible.
The money derived in the aggregate from subscriptions to the
matrimonial paper, the fees for particulars and those for photographs
and miscellaneous "services" amount to large sums. With many of the
agencies the services stop at this point, but many others undertake
personal introductions of lonesome maids and widows to the invariably
"honest and affectionate" bachelors and widowers, and when this is
done there are other fees, depending altogether on how much the
victims appear to be willing to stand.
A large number have been found and suppressed in which there was but
one lonesome maid or widow and one honest and affectionate bachelor
or widower, the former being the woman accomplice of the manager of
the agency and the latter the manager himself. They answer love-lorn
correspondents of both sexes and select for victims those believed
to have the most money. If the assistant to the manager is posing as
the possible bride in the case the wife hunter must make satisfactory
settlements with the manager for conducting the negotiations, and
this amount, with that which the accomplice is able to secure from
the victim, amounts often to a considerable sum. After the victim
is separated from his money something happens to prevent the happy
conclusion of the marriage negotiations.
TWO WELL-DEFINED FORMS.
There are two well-defined forms of the "matrimonial agent." The one
is the man who openly runs an agency, who advertises "golden-haired
young ladies, worth half a million dollars," "blue-eyed widows of
languishing temperaments" and "wealthy farmers." It is through
this class of "bureau" that the great crimes of the matrimonial
business have been engineered. Hoch, Mrs. Gunness, Holmes and other
arch-criminals made good use of this type.
The other type is just the plain swindler. The man who works along
the secondary lines, as they may be called, would scorn to be a
matrimonial agent. He is either a reverend gentleman of the cloth,
a minister to whom some languishing widow is looking for spiritual
direction, and he thinks that she "needs she should get married," to
quote the East Side phraseology; or he is a lawyer who has a wealthy
client, who, not being a business woman, is incapable of running her
own affairs, and he again thinks of marriage as a solution; or, again,
he is "an employment agency." This secondary type is generally a cheap
sort, grafting on the gullible for five or ten dollars, or even as
high as $100.
CONCRETE EXAMPLES.
TYPE NO. 1.
September 8, 1905, John H. Harris, 168 Hamlin avenue, editor and
publisher of The Pilot, a marriage agency paper, and manager of
a cheap mail order house, was raided and arrested by Detective
Wooldridge.
Among the letters seized were complaints from his patrons. They
received no returns for money paid him, and averred his paper was
being used to blackmail men and women. Complaints were also made that
many of the names which appeared in the paper were not authorized, and
other names attached to the order were forgeries.
The following is the copy of a letter dated September 1, 1906, and is
only one among hundreds of others sent out by the thousands by Harris.
Many more thousands were sent through the mail to his sub-agents, who
worked on a commission. This agent employed other agents, who started
an endless chain by copying the letter and having the friends do
likewise.
Chicago. Ill., Sept. 1, 1905.
Dear Sir:
We have a very recent application from a brown-eyed widow
of 41, medium size, musical, has no children. She informs
us that she has recently come into possession of a fortune
of over FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, and that she wishes
to marry an honest, affectionate gentleman. We also have
a recent application from a pretty, blue-eyed lady of 20,
who estimates her present means at FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS,
and her inheritance at twenty thousand dollars. Her form is
graceful, her education good, her disposition gentle and
she desires a steady, honest husband. We believe she would
start her husband in business. And to accommodate those
ladies and quickly find a husband for them we make the
following SPECIAL OFFER:
Fill out the coupon at the bottom, and send it to us with
one dollar (and six postage stamps) and enclose a sealed
and stamped letter to either or both of the ladies referred
to above. We will immediately mail your letter to the lady
or ladies, and place your name on our books, and send you a
certificate of membership for six months, and send you the
full names and addresses of the handsome widow of means,
and the handsome blue-eyed maiden of means, and also send
you a list of names and addresses of other ladies of means
and otherwise. And until you are married, or until the
end of six months, we will, on or about the first of each
month, mail you a list of descriptions, names and addresses
of ladies of means and otherwise, without application from
you or any expense to you. We have good reason to believe
that either of the ladies mentioned above would make you a
good wife, but if they do not meet your approval you can
select one who will from the stream of ladies of means
and otherwise who are constantly requesting us to secure
husbands for them, which enables us to introduce you to
those whom you would be pleased to meet with a view to
marriage.
Faithfully yours,
JOHN H. HARRIS.
_Pub. of The Pilot._
JOHN H. HARRIS,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
I herewith enclose $1.12 as full payment on the above offer.
Name---- Postoffice----
Street, or Box No---- State----
United States Inspector of Mails at Chicago Postoffice R. W. McAfee
compelled John H. Harris to furnish him with the names and addresses
of the two women heiresses who were worth $40,000 and $500,000,
respectively, who were just dying for the want of a good, kind husband
to spend their money for them, and were seeking marriage through his
paper and matrimonial agency.
[Illustration: (Interest in Science; Marriage)]
Harris gave the name of Mrs. H. R. Adams, at Huntington, Md., as the
$40,000 woman and Jennie Ziehler, Lawrence, Mass., as the $500,000
woman. Upon investigation it was found that neither of the women was
worth a dollar. The $500,000 woman was in the insane asylum.
This letter, together with The Pilot, marriage paper and its printed
advertisements, was plainly intended to draw the unwary and deprive
the ignorant of their savings.
John H. Harris then appealed to ex-Mayor Edward F. Dunne of Chicago,
under the alias of A. Ingird, taxpayer, citizen and reputable business
man, to have Detective Wooldridge stopped from further interfering
with him or his business. Men who operate these frauds pretend to
be honest and high-minded; by constant practice of their wiles upon
others they develop self-deception and come to believe in their own
honesty to such an extent that when questioned they assume a good
counterfeit of honest indignation.
Mayor Dunne upon investigation learned the large mass of evidence
gathered, and ordered the investigation to go forward, which, resulted
in the arrest and holding over of John H. Harris to the Grand Jury.
COMMITS SUICIDE.
These complaints and evidence were turned over to Colonel James
Stuart, Chief Inspector of the Mails at the Chicago Postoffice, for
further investigation. A fraud order was requested. On August 18,
1907, Mr. Harris committed suicide by blowing out his brains at 168 N.
Hamlin avenue, Chicago, Illinois, after the mask had been pulled off
and his methods exposed.
One is unable to state whether John H. Harris is opening a mail order
house, paper and marriage agency in the other world. When he left he
did not leave word where he would make his next stop, but if he went
to the other world, we are not informed that wireless telegraph or
balloon companies have as yet perfected the lines of transportation
or communication.
Harris is a fairly representative and concrete expression of the
regulation matrimonial agent. It was through such agencies as his that
the great crimes eventually were pulled off.
SECONDARY TYPES.
But in the following letters we have an excellent example of the
second type, the little grafter who wants anything you can give, from
$5 to $100. From the text of the letters it will be observed that this
man was operating as a minister, a lawyer and an employment agency at
one and the same time, as the letters are all from one source.
In the case of the lawyer this scoundrel was trading upon the name of
Edward H. Morris, one of the foremost colored attorneys of the United
States, a man universally respected and admired by men in all walks
of life. When the fact of this trading on his name was brought to the
real attorney's attention he was furious, and he cheerfully gave all
the assistance in his power to Detective Wooldridge.
This smooth one was afterward arrested in New Orleans, convicted and
sent to prison for a term.
Here follows the text of the letters:
MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES' STOCK LETTERS UNDER THE GUISE OF MINISTRY.
REV. JOSEPH SPENCER,
80 Madison Street.
Manager of American Book Concern.
Dealer in Religious Books.
Chicago, Ill., July 26, 1905.
MR. O. W. ZINK,
Marshall, Mo.
Dear Sir:
For many years I have been a MINISTER of the GOSPEL and
during that time I have not only performed hundreds of
marriages, but have arranged many, and there are at the
present time among my acquaintances some half dozen wealthy
ladies, ranging in age from twenty to forty or fifty years,
one of whom is the handsome widow whose photo I enclose
herewith.
She is worth, in actual cash and negotiable securities,
fully $50,000, inherited from her worthy husband, who
departed this life a year ago and, as she is without
friends, relatives or children, her physician, a friend of
mine, has on account of her utter loneliness advised her
to marry, believing that marriage and change of scene will
prove for her a blessing in disguise, and naturally she has
turned to me, her spiritual adviser, in whom she has the
utmost confidence. I have several times talked the matter
over with her, and, knowing that she is very much averse
to advertising, I have undertaken to introduce to her some
gentleman who would make her a good husband, and to arrange
a marriage for her.
As her physician thinks it advisable for her to reside
elsewhere than Chicago, I have been somewhat perplexed as
to how to secure for her a suitable introduction and in my
dilemma consulted a matrimonial agency and, after several
conferences with them, I have decided to submit for your
kind consideration my proposition and manner of procedure.
I have studied the matter carefully, have gone thoroughly
into your description and instructions as filed with the
agency of which you are a member, and in my mind there is
not the slightest doubt as to you two proving mutually
suitable to each other. Of course, you cannot form the
proper idea of her from the small photo enclosed, but in
age, appearance, circumstances, etc., she is just what you
have been seeking in a wife.
She is in every respect a thoroughly good woman, unusually
bright and intelligent, but knows nothing of business, and
is in absolute need of a husband to look after her affairs,
but, TO BE CANDID WITH YOU, I am getting along in years,
and have a large family to support and as I only arrange
a few marriages at intervals, I must necessarily have
compensation adequate to the service I render.
Now, I can, by recommending you personally, cause her to
enter into a correspondence with you that will undoubtedly
lead to your marriage, if you are still desirous of such
a marriage, as I presume you are, from the fact that you
are registered with a matrimonial agency. I will, for the
consideration of $100, introduce you to her by letter and
after you have exchanged three or four letters, will have
you visit her at her expense, as you may mutually agree, if
you will follow my simple instructions.
I am not making you this proposition on the spur of the
moment, for I have spent much time and thought before
deciding to write you, and all I ask is that, AS AN
EVIDENCE OF YOUR GOOD FAITH and to cover the immediate
expense necessary thereto on my part (such as asking her
to dinner with me a few times in order that I may during
the good cheer that abounds at such times dwell at length
upon the matter without any unnecessary delay), that you
enclose me immediately upon receipt of this letter BANK
DRAFT, REGISTERED LETTER, or EXPRESS MONEY ORDER, for $10;
the balance, $90, you need not pay me until after you have
married her and assumed the management of her affairs.
Upon receipt of this small amount, $10, I will absolutely
guarantee your marriage to her within sixty days and, if
before that time you should feel that you do not care to
pursue the matter to a conclusion, I will positively refund
your money upon my honor as a MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.
My standing in my profession is such that I could not do
otherwise and, as I have stated before, there are several
ladies to whom I could introduce you, now that I have
really taken the matter up with you, but I consider you two
really suited to each other, so will not go into further
particulars. Trusting to hear from you AT THE VERY EARLIEST
POSSIBLE MOMENT, I am, with assurance of my regards,
Very respectfully,
WANTED A RICH HUSBAND.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
July 15, 1905.
REV. JOSEPH SPENCER,
80 Madison Street,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
You asked me in your letter to give you a description of
the man that I would like to become acquainted with. I wish
him to be as tall as I am, to have dark hair and a very
good disposition. I would like him to be rich. His age to
be about 45 years, also have a good education. I want him
to be a temperate man, and to have a nice appearance, one
who is lovely at home, and does not care for society and
likes music. I do not care what his occupation is if he is
honest.
Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain
Yours truly,
MISS VERNIE ADAMS.
Oshkosh, Wis., July 20, 1905.
REV. JOSEPH SPENCER,
Chicago, Illinois.
Dear Sir:
You asked me in your letter to give you a description of
myself, which I take pleasure in doing: I am a young man 26
years of age, 5 feet 6 inches tall, weigh 140 pounds; blue
eyes, red hair; I am strictly temperate, do not gamble;
kind disposition, a farm hand; have no means; income $15
per month.
I would be delighted to make the acquaintance of several of
your prospective rich women who are seeking a husband. Send
me a list of those who are worth from $50,000 to $75,000,
also their photographs, whereby I can make a selection, and
I will send you your fee of $5. I remain,
Sincerely yours,
THOMAS FLINN.
MATRIMONIAL AGENCY UNDER THE GUISE OF AN ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.
EDWARD MORRIS,
Attorney-at-Law.
82 Madison Street.
Trusts and Estates a Specialty.
Chicago, Ill., Jan. 4, 1905.
MR. GEO. FERLIN,
Los Angeles, Cal.
Dear Sir:
I have during my professional career arranged many
marriages for ladies of means, and at the present time
have among my clients some ten or twelve wealthy ladies,
ranging in age from twenty-five to fifty years, desirous of
marriage, one of whom is the charming widow whose likeness
I herewith enclose.
She is worth $60,000 ($25,000 in ready cash, the balance
in high-class tangible property inherited from her mother,
recently deceased). She is alone and childless and her
physician, on account of her bereavement, has recommended
a marriage and change of scene, and in her dilemma she has
consulted me, her legal adviser, and I, in turn, without
her knowledge, appealed to a matrimonial agency with which
I have for several years had business relations in a
professional way.
Out of the several names submitted to me I have, after much
thought and deliberation, selected yours, and I beg that
you will consider carefully my proposition and the fact
that I am not in business for my health, but for revenue,
together with a desire to please my clients and to give
them value received.
This lady, while unusually bright and intelligent, knows
little of the ways of the world, and nothing of business,
and, to be candid with you, needs a husband to manage her
estates, and I can, by recommending you personally, cause
her, through me as her attorney, to open negotiations with
you for a marriage; so if you desire a wealthy wife, as I
presume you do from the fact that you are registered with a
matrimonial agency, I will, for the consideration of $100
introduce you to her, have you visit her at her expense, as
you may mutually agree, and will absolutely guarantee your
marriage to her within sixty days, if you will follow my
instructions to the letter.
All that I ask is, as an evidence of your good faith and to
cover the immediate clerical expenses necessary thereto,
you enclose me immediately upon receipt of this letter,
BANK DRAFT OR MONEY ORDER for $10, the balance ($90) to be
paid after marriage, and when I have caused her to place in
your hands, or under your control, a goodly portion of her
worldly possessions.
Now, if you wish to accept my proposition, enclose me
immediately the small retaining fee ($10) and promise me
that you will follow carefully my instructions; otherwise
do not write me, as I positively will not enter into
further correspondence until you have engaged me as your
attorney upon the lines I have laid down.
If before the end of sixty days you feel that you do not
care to pursue the matter to a conclusion I will refund
your money. My standing as an attorney is ample evidence
that I will faithfully carry out my contract. Remember that
I have among my clients, as I have stated before, ten or
twelve wealthy ladies to my certain knowledge desirous of
marriage.
Awaiting your immediate reply, I am
Sincerely and professionally yours,
EDWARD MORRIS.
EDWARD MORRIS, Attorney-at-Law.
Chicago. Ill., Jan. 11, 1905.
MR. GEO. FERLIN.
Los Angeles, Cal.
Dear Sir:
Your letter in reply to mine received, and I will say,
that as a leading attorney, and a prominent member of the
bar, I could not act for you until you have first retained
me as your attorney in this matter, and sent me the small
retaining fee of $10, as requested.
[Illustration: OH! OH!! OH!!!
AWFUL CONSTERNATION AT PIKES CROSSING! DIRECTORY GOWN IN TOWN. BY
JIMMINEDDY!!].
Now, my dear sir, if you really mean business and really
want to marry the charming and wealthy young widow in
question, I see no earthly reason why you should hesitate
for a single instant to retain my services in connection
with this matter. You may give me good references, and I
can give you the same, but that has no bearing on the case
whatever. I cannot, as stated, do any business with you
until you first enclose me this small retaining fee, as I
must be in a position to truthfully state that you are my
friend and client.
You may have had unfortunate dealings with matrimonial
agencies, but as an attorney in high standing, I am not
to be compared with such concerns, and on receipt of your
small retaining fee, I will guarantee to do my part and
arrange a speedy marriage if you adhere strictly to my
instructions.
Trusting to hear favorably from you at once, I am,
Yours very truly,
EDWARD MORRIS.
P. S. I do not ask for the balance of the $100 until after
your marriage, and I have caused the lady to place in your
hands or under your control a goodly portion of her worldly
possessions.
EDWARD MORRIS, Attorney-at-Law.
Chicago, Ill., Jan. 23, 1905.
MR. GEO. FERLIN,
Los Angeles, Cal.
Dear Sir:
Your favor at hand with enclosure accepting my proposition.
Now, I wish to assure you that everything you write to me
will be treated in the strictest confidence, and I will say
that it will be necessary for you to follow to the letter
the instructions which I will from time to time give you.
In order to break the ice, I would suggest that you address
a letter to Mrs. Lucy Kline, in my care, briefly setting
forth the fact that you are a friend and client of mine,
and that as you are matrimonially inclined. I have advised
you to open a correspondence with her. You can say to her
that I have favored you with her photograph, and that same
meets your approval, and that you would very much desire
her acquaintance and what it may lead to. I have already
taken up the matter with her, and she is expecting a letter
from you, and in reply will send you her private address.
I would advise you, after receiving her reply, not to
write too often or too long letters. In other words, do
not appear to be too anxious, for it must devolve upon me
to bring you two together. The correspondence you may have
with her is simply a preliminary introduction leading to
the establishment of congenial relations and eventually,
marriage.
Important business prevents my writing a longer letter to
you today, and in order that I may be prepared to take the
matter up, I suggest that you write your letter so that it
will reach my office in about one week from today.
Yours truly,
EDWARD MORRIS.
MATRIMONIAL AGENCY UNDER THE GUISE OF EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE.
Positions for Men and Women. Commercial, Technical, Educational,
Professional. Those Hardest to Find and Hardest to Fill.
G. H. CANNON, Manager,
Ohio Block.
Chicago, Ill., Sept. 21, 1905.
MRS. A. A. BURROWS,
San Fran. Cal.
Dear Madam:
I am directed by a client for whom we transact much
business, to submit you a proposition, which both he and
I sincerely hope you will accept. He is a bachelor of
middle age, of fine appearance, and is the owner of a large
manufacturing plant, as well as of a magnificent residence,
in which he lived until recently with his aged mother, who,
greatly to his regret, departed this life some six months
ago. Since her death he has felt the need of a woman's
guiding hand in the management of his household affairs,
and it is to offer you a position as his housekeeper that I
am addressing you personally.
I beg to state that attached to the position is a salary
of $75 per month, your board, and an allowance of $25 per
month for your clothing, and you will have full charge
of his household expenses, including the employment
and discharge of servants, consisting of a butler, two
housemaids, driver, cook, etc.
If you accept the position his carriage will be at your
disposal at all times, and you will be the actual head of
his household, with no restrains of any kind upon you. As I
have stated, this client is a bachelor, and on account of
his mother's determined opposition to his marriage during
her lifetime, he has gone little in society, but since her
death he has never ceased to feel the need of a woman's
hand and presence in his home.
His first thought was marriage, but after a lengthy talk
with me he very cheerfully acquiesced in the suggestion
that has led to the writing of this letter, and now to the
point.
I suggested that he allow me to secure for him a
housekeeper who might possess the qualities he most desires
in a wife, and then I consulted a matrimonial agency with
that end in view. Your description seemed to fit so exactly
his idea of true womanhood and appealed to him so strongly
that his first impulse was to address you directly, but
being of a sensitive and retiring disposition, he came to
the conclusion that he should become thoroughly acquainted
with you, and could not do better than allow me to carry
out my original plan to make your acquaintance.
To be candid with you, this position is a very lucrative
one, and will undoubtedly lead to your marriage with this
gentleman, if you see fit to accept the proposition, and
for that reason I trust you will give it the consideration
it deserves.
As he secures the help necessary to the running of his
large factory through this firm, of which I happen to be
the manager, you cannot but understand that I am thoroughly
acquainted with him, and am in a position to arrange this
matter to your mutual satisfaction.
It is a custom to charge a fee of $5, but in this instance
we would make no charge at all, only our client, insists
that we require our usual fee simply as an evidence of good
faith, and that there may be no misunderstanding. If you
accept the proposition I have submitted kindly fill out the
enclosed form and return to us with EXPRESS MONEY ORDER or
BANK DRAFT for $5, which amount will be returned to you
as soon as you have taken charge of his household affairs,
as your good faith will have then been proved.
As soon as you can start for Chicago I will send you
expense, free railroad transportation, and if, after your
arrival here, you do not care to accept the position, a
return ticket, etc., will be furnished you so that you will
not be out one dollar of expense.
This offer is made to you in the strictest confidence, and
I sincerely trust you will so regard it, and not discuss it
with any one, at least not until all the details have been
arranged.
No matrimonial agency in the world can do this for you,
nor do I think such an opportunity will ever occur to you
again, so kindly sign the enclosed form and return it to me
immediately with the small fee necessary, or do not write
me at all. No harm will have been done by having submitted
the proposition to you, but if you cannot take immediate
advantage of it, I simply will not correspond further in
the matter. Trusting that you will see your way clear, and
wishing you well, I am,
Very sincerely,
G. H. CANNON.
[Illustration: OPINIONS DIFFER]
The above are illustrations of the method. Cannon, Rev. Spencer and
Attorney Edwards are all one and the same man. We now turn to a
few special examples of differences of procedure among the various
bureaux.
A PERSISTENT OFFENDER.
One of the most successful operators who ever invaded Chicago with
matrimonial schemes was one John Carson, who, on April 8, 1908, was
fined $1,000 and costs for misuse of the United States mails after
he had plead guilty to the charge, which was preferred by Inspector
Ketcham.
Carson, at one time or another, operated no less than eighteen
concerns of this nature. He was first discovered in 1902 in Chicago by
Detective Wooldridge, operating no less than five matrimonial and fake
concerns simultaneously. These concerns were:
The Loretta Matrimonial Publishing Co., 98 Ogden Ave.
The Unida Matrimonial Publishing Co., 408 Ogden Ave.
Mr. John's Matrimonial Publishing Co., 565 West Madison St.
Mr. J. C. Hills Matrimonial Agency, 565 West Madison St.
The Chicago Mutual Securities Co., a Chicago Medicine
concern, 567 W. Madison St.
Carson evaded arrest and fled to St. Louis, where he was shortly
afterward arrested by the postal authorities and sentenced to eighteen
months in the State Penitentiary at Jefferson City, in addition to a
fine of $500.
BOBS UP AGAIN.
In 1904 Carson bobbed up again in Chicago. Since that time his record
is best given from a report made to Chief of Police John M. Collins
by Detective Wooldridge, who repeatedly broke up Carson's games. The
report, in part, is as follows:
Feb. 9, J. H. Carson Woods' Advertising Agency, 62 Ada St.
Goods confiscated; fined $25.
March 9, 1904, J. H. Carson, Mill's Advertising Agency, 71
W. Lake St. Fined $15.
May 4, 1904, J. H. Carson, alias J. H. Hayes, 408 Ogden
Ave., raided. Literature seized and destroyed by order of
court.
May 4, 1904, J. H. Carson, alias J. H. Hayes, 255 Madison
St., raided. Literature seized and destroyed by order of
court.
Nov. 15, 1904, J. H. Carson, alias J. W. Bessie, 480 Ogden
Ave., raided. Arrested; released; writ of habeas corpus.
Nov. 15, 1904, J. H. Carson, alias J. W. Bessie, 67
Flournoy St., raided. Arrested; released; writ of habeas
corpus.
Jan. 4, 1905, J. H. Carson and Oscar Wells, promoted and
run the J. H. Hunter Matrimonial Agency, 164 East Randolph
St. Oscar Wells was arrested and fined $50 by Justice John
K. Prindiville.
April 19, 1905, J. H. Carson and J. R. Ferguson, conducted
the Jesse H. Lee Matrimonial Agency, 84 Washington St.
Ferguson was arrested and fined $15 by Caverley. The
literature seized and destroyed.
TURNS CLAIRVOYANT.
May 27, 1905, J. H. Carson conducted the Clay's American Bureau of
Correspondence, 62 Ada St. He was arrested and fined $25 by Justice
John K. Prindiville. The literature seized and destroyed.
Aug. 21, 1905, J. H. Carson and J. R. Ferguson conduced the Ferguson
Directory, a Matrimonial agency at 171 Washington St. This place was
raided and Jesse R. Ferguson was arrested and fined $25 by Justice
John K. Prindiville.
May 27, 1905, J. H. Carson conducted the Jesse Lee Matrimonial Agency,
84 Washington St. He was arrested and fined $25 by Justice John K.
Prindiville.
Aug. 19, 1905, J. H. Carson was arrested for conducting a Chicago
Matrimonial Agency at 171 Washington St. and 95 Fifth Ave., under
the name of Prof. John C. Hall, Astrologist, Occult, Scientist,
Clairvoyant, Medium, and Lifereader.
With this record behind him this rascal actually had the nerve to
bring suit for false arrest against Detective Wooldridge, but quite
naturally, he failed to appear when the suit came up for trial.
He has not been heard from since the fine imposed on April 8, 1908, by
the Federal authorities.
AGENTS OF THE UNDERWORLD A NEST OF POLE-CATS.
But crime is not the only long suit of the Matrimonial Agency. Some of
these miserable frauds have descended into the depths and wallowed in
the slime of the ultimate shame.
With unbelievable effrontery they have attempted to trade upon the
basest instincts in human nature; they have attempted to coin the most
abominable of the brute passions of men.
Nothing can exceed the turpitude, the brazen shamelessness of the
Matrimonial Agency, when it decides to go the limit.
Attest the following from the literature of the New Era Advertising
Agency and Introduction Bureau, Curtis, Clark & Co., Props., formerly
located at 112 Clark street, Chicago. This abomination was raided
by Detective Wooldridge and the following sample from one of the
circulars seized shows the nature of the concern:
"If you are willing to give your name and protection to
one who has fallen and wishes again to enter the ranks of
respectability, we have some young women who have led fast
lives and accumulated considerable money, and want to marry
some respectable man, settle down in a new place and be
respected and respectable. THEY ARE HANDSOME, STYLISH,
LIVELY AND FULL OF FUN: HAVE MONEY ENOUGH FOR BOTH. They
will no doubt make good, loving and true wives for some
good-natured fellow who is not particular about their
past. Through our efforts several wealthy ladies of the
demi-monde have married very poor men in return for their
name and protection, given them a life of ease and luxury,
and the opportunities are greater today than in the past,
considering the fact that the world in general is anxious
to lend a helping hand to those who have erred and wish to
become respectable again."
This pole-cat literature was being sent broadcast through the United
States mails. In some way it evaded the inspectors until the 23rd of
September, 1902, when Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge descended upon
the nest of pole-cats, seized the literature, chased "Curtis, Clark
& Co." out of Chicago, and made further evil-smelling operations
impossible.
These abominations are now practically impossible, thanks to the
activity of the great police detective. But the above illustrations
shows to what depths the marriage bureaus can descend, once they have
become started on their infamous careers.
November 26, 1902, Detective Wooldridge raided the Climax Matrimonial
Agency, located at 418 LaSalle avenue, which is situated on the North
Side, in one of the most fashionable places in Chicago.
It was run not only as a matrimonial agency, but a matrimonial paper
and mail order house. Among the literature seized was a circular
containing a picture of the manager's wife, and of which he sent out
over 300,000. which gave the description of her, which read as follows:
SHERIFF DUPED--ATTEMPTS ROLE OF LOTHARIO.
"I am 23 years of age, 5 feet 2 inches in height, weigh 120
pounds, have a turn-up nose, plain-looking and worth about
$147,000. I desire to marry a good, honest, affectionate
man. On our wedding day I will give my husband $5,500 in
cash, and one year later, if we are still living together,
I will make over to him $25,000 more. No milk-and-water man
need answer."
[Illustration: "GOT A GOOD HOME ALREADY PAID FOR, AN' MONEY IN DE
BANK."]
[Illustration: "DES A PLAIN LITTLE ONINTERESTIN' FAMBLY ROW."]
One letter from a Mississippi sheriff shows that the officer of the
law is willing to forsake bachelorhood for a woman who, though plain,
advertises that on her wedding day she will give her husband $5,500.
This is the gay Lothario's letter:
Miss Ot--I take pleasure in answering your "ad" in the
"Hour at Home." You stated in your "ad" you were worth
$147,000, and would give the man that married you $5,500 on
his wedding day. You say you are plain.
I am good looking, so the people tell me, and if you
correspond with me we may come to an understanding. I am
willing to marry you if you give me proof you have the
money, and will do all that you say in the "ad."
I will do my best to make your life happy. Awaiting your
reply, I remain.
Yours truly,
W. M. M., Sheriff.
BIGAMY AND THE BUREAU.
Where the Professional Bigamists Find Wives.
The matrimonial agencies that have been investigated and suppressed by
Detective Wooldridge and the postoffice authorities have disclosed an
almost incredible phase of woman's nature.
There are today in the United States no less than 50,000 women who
have been married, robbed and deserted by "professional bigamists."
This fact represent the most serious phase of the matrimonial agency
swindle, for it is the history of nearly all noted bigamists that
they secured their victims through the matrimonial agencies. Of
the thousands who become subscribers to these agencies, however,
comparatively few ever proceed far enough to encounter the tragic
features of the swindle. It might be inferred from this that women
are much easier to entice into matrimony than men. Probably, however,
this is an untenable conclusion. When a woman does start on marrying
bent, mere men fall before her like grain before the sickle. Miss
Marion Rapp, arrested at Philadelphia, is known to have secured eight
husbands in three years, and is suspected of having captured six or
eight more. Miss Rapp is still young, and if her career had not been
untimely cut off she might have made a record that would have done
credit (or discredit) to her sex.
[Illustration: PUTS A SNAFFLE BIT ON THE OLD MAN]
The sad experiences of people who have been victimized by gay
deceivers, male or female, perhaps contain a lesson to persons who
carelessly contemplate matrimony. When a stranger proposes marriage
at first sight it may possibly be well to take a look into his or her
antecedents. This is not the most romantic way to proceed, but it is
a way that may have a great practical advantage. It probably would be
endorsed by every one of the 50,000 women in this country who are now
looking for professional bigamists who married them and ran away with
their cash.
That the matrimonial agency business is not confined to Chicago and
dupes of the system are found elsewhere than in rural communities and
among the poor and humble is demonstrated by recent revelations in
Europe. During one raid I seized a large quantity of literature in
the offices of a swindling concern doing business under the name of
Mason, Brown & Co. The "firm" advertised itself as the largest of its
kind in the world and the only one "indorsed by press and public and
patronized by royalty," adding that its "clients and representatives
were to be found in every land."
In extra large type the information was conveyed to the victim that
he or she need not be ashamed to resort to the agency method in order
to secure a life partner, as the royalty of Europe used this means
exclusively in contracting marriages, especially in cases where
American heiresses were sought as wives for titled but impecunious
foreigners.
When it was casually remarked during an examination of a wagon load
of Mason, Brown & Company's advertising matter the reference to the
titles and heiresses was the only true statement it contained, there
were smiles of incredulity. American millionaires were said to be too
shrewd and level-headed to enter into deals with marriage brokers
when the life happiness of their fair and independent daughters is
concerned.
[Illustration: (Divorce Decrees; Spring)]
It was but a short time after this conversation, however, that the
following cablegram was published:
THE CASE OF COUNT LARISCH.
"Aug. 25th, 1905: The alleged attempt to blackmail Count
Franz Joseph Maria Von Larisch Monnich out of 200,000 marks
on a pre-nuptial note alleged to have been signed by the
count, and the implication of army officers and members of
the aristocracy in the marriage brokerage business, has
caused more talk in high circles than anything which has
happened since the elopement of Crown Princess Louise of
Saxony."
It is said the Kaiser had to take a hand in the matter, and insists
that this business shall be stopped finally and effectively on the
ground it is bringing the army and nobility into disrepute and
ridicule.
The harm done by these agencies is almost incalculable. Foolish women
having money at their disposal fall easy victims to the many scheming
scoundrels who make a practice of subscribing to the matrimonial
agencies for the purpose of securing the addresses of prospective
victims.
As instances of the harm done by these matrimonial agencies the case
of Johann Hoch, who married fifty women, and after securing all their
money, either poisoned or deserted them. He was captured in New York
City, January 30, 1905, after he had married a woman in Chicago, Mary
Schultz, alias Brees, alias Bauman, poisoned her, then made love to
her sister, married her, secured what money she had and deserted her.
Hoch was brought back to Chicago, tried for murder, convicted and hung
February 23 1906. This is a glaring example.
[Illustration: IN CUPID'S WORKSHOP.]
[Illustration: ROUTING HER THROUGH
"Ten dollars extra, cabby. If you catch the train with her. She's my
mother-in-law."]
The case of Fredrick Carlton, indicted on two charges of grand larceny
in Brooklyn, New York, July, 1905, is another.
It is stated on what seems to be reliable authority this man made the
acquaintance of women in various parts of the country through the
medium of matrimonial advertisements, married them and decamped with
their money at the first favorable opportunity. Still another:
Dr. George A. Witzhoff, champion bigamist, arrested in Bristol,
England, October, 1905, for bigamy and given a long term in prison. He
was wanted in many cities in the United States.
Witzhoff confessed to marrying and robbing thirty-two women. Most all
of the women he married lived in the United States, and were secured
through the matrimonial agencies.
WITZHOFF'S CONFESSION--BOUGHT FIFTEEN WIVES FROM ONE AGENT--TAKES
$4,000 FROM HIS FIRST WIFE.
"Then, one night, after indulging in plenty of wine, she
confessed she had a child in Pittsburg. I left her there,
telling her I was going to bring her child, which was nine
years old. Instead, I went to New York with her money
($4,000), and paid my friend part of his money, and started
a practice as a dentist in Fourteenth street as Dr. A. R.
Houser. I went to see a matchmaker. He introduced me to a
widow of means. We got married in two weeks at the City
Hall, New York.
"She had all her money loaned away, so I was compelled
to seek another one, as Sig. Badillo was hard after his
balance of $1,000.
"I went, to Philadelphia and got a Jewish matchmaker again
on Fifteenth street and Fairmount avenue, and he introduced
me to a Miss Jocker as Dr. A. Houser.
"I got $800 from her. I paid Badillo $500 and left for
Springfield, Mass., where a woman answered one of my ads. I
inserted an 'ad.' as follows:
"'A professional gentleman of nice appearance, aged
thirty-two, desires the acquaintance of a sincere,
affectionate lady, with some means; object, matrimony;
triflers ignored. Give particulars in first letter. Address
Busy Bee, the Journal.'
[Illustration: (Man with many wives inside heart)]
"I had about twelve answers to this advertisement, and I
picked out a boarding house mistress, and ten days after
she was Mrs. Westfield, and as she was a vulgar woman,
I left her two days after. She had given me $500 before
marriage.
"I returned to New York to wife No. 2, and a week after I
went to St. Louis and inserted an 'ad.' as previously, and
got fifteen answers. There I selected a farmer's daughter
and married her as Dr. Doesser. I married and left her all
within a week.
"I came to Detroit, and with her money, $350, I started
a dental practice as A. Houser. In answer to my
advertisements in a German paper, Mrs. Piser came.
"We went to Toledo, O., five days after our first
interview, and we got married. I left her six days after.
"I came now to Pittsburg, as Dr. Wolfe, got a furnished
room in Allegheny. In answer to an 'ad.' in a German paper
a sexton's daughter answered, the ugliest I ever had. Three
days after we went to the justice of the peace and got
married."
DESERTS WIFE AFTER THE FIRST DAY.
"There I slept the first night, and the next morning I
was on my way to Cleveland, and started a nice practice
with the $150 I had left. I paid the balance to my friend,
Badillo, and inserted an 'ad.' in the Plain-Dealer.
"I had two answers to my 'ad.,' and selected a Mrs. Moore,
a nurse, and a Mrs. Kreidman. I got from the nurse $100,
and was making love to Mrs. Kreidman and Mrs. Moore, when I
got a letter from wife No. 3, with whom I corresponded all
the time, telling her I traveled for a firm.
"So I left, and forgot that I left in Cleveland a paper
under the tablecloth which had my address in Brooklyn. One
morning (ten days after I left Cleveland) two detectives
came to the house in Brooklyn and arrested me. As there
was no bail for my offense (obtaining money under false
pretenses), I returned to Cleveland a week later, and there
I married a bad woman in jail, Mrs. Kreidman.
"She gave $200 bond, but I left her four days after, as she
was a bad woman. I slept one night at her house, and three
days after I went to Chicago and went to see a matrimonial
agent at 55 Washington street.
IDENTIFIED IN CHICAGO; WEDDING STOPPED.
"He introduced me to a nice Jewess, and her father gave me
$400. I started an office on Fourteenth street, when a man
from Philadelphia recognized me, and told her father, a rag
dealer, that I was a married man, named Hausen, just in
time to prevent the marriage.
"I left Chicago as Dr. Weston and went to St. Louis, where
I started an office in Olive street as Dr. A. Dresser, and
there I advertised and selected from a number of letters
that of a farmer's daughter that had $1,000, and married
her (Katie). Six days after I left her and left America and
went to Roumania, and married a girl, a Jewess, in Pitest,
and lived in Roumania as Dr. F. A. Shotz.
"Happy six months; I got 3,000 francs, and we left for
Germany. There we had a quarrel, and she returned to her
parents."
Dr. Witzhoff further states that the number of all the girls and women
he merely promised to marry and secured money from would reach over
one hundred.
One of the women Witzhoff married lived in Chicago, Ill.
May 13, 1903, John J. Marietta (alias Homer C. Reid, Harold C. Mills,
A. S. Anderson, C. H. Huston, C. B. McCoy, H. C. Jones, Harold C.
Reed) was arrested through exposure by Laura E. Strickler, a beautiful
young girl from Cincinnati, Ohio, who boarded at the Young Women's
Association, Chicago. She had been lured to the Newport Hotel, 73
Monroe street, where he proposed marriage and attempted liberties.
Miss Strickler became frightened, jumped from the second story window
and was badly injured.
Marietta married no less than six women, three of whom, Sophia
Headley, Marie Butler and Flora Beals, appeared in court to prosecute
him September 28. He was convicted. Judge Brentano's court of bigamy,
and given five years in the Joliet penitentiary.
[Illustration: TITLES ARE CONSIDERED GREAT ORNAMENTS "For as it was in
the beginning, the American girl came over and energetically pursued
the Lords."]
[Illustration: (Men appealing to lady sitting on chair)]
Marietta said he secured most of his wives through the marriage
agency. Mills said to Miss Headley, after meeting her the second time:
"How anxious are you to marry me? Make me an offer in cash of the
sum you are willing to settle on me." "Three thousand dollars," she
answered. "All right," he replied, "but you know I am from Missouri,
you will have to show me." She gave him the $3,000 and they were
married.
At the time of his conviction Marietta had in the bank $25,000, said
to have been secured in the above manner.
[Illustration: (Man and two women in fancy clothes)]
BREAKING INTO THE NOBILITY.
HOW TITLED RAKES USE THE AGENCIES.
The marriage bureau is not a distinctly American institution.
They know the animal in Europe, only there the operators refer to
themselves as marriage brokers, and are decidedly more careful than
their American prototypes to steer clear of crime.
The idea of marriage broking has thoroughly permeated the effete
nobility of Europe. The broken-down "nobles," out at heels and buried
under a mountain of debt, look to America for a rich heiress to whom
their titles may be sold. For many years they looked to the brokers
on their own side of the water to provide them with golden girls; but
of late years they have been mixing with the American Matrimonial
Agencies, sometimes to their sorrow, as attest the case of Count
Larisch.
WOES OF COUNT LARISCH.
The story of the attempt on Count Larisch is not an unusual one.
Briefly, the count, who is an Austrian, but who has estates in
Prussia, was anxious to replenish his treasury by marrying an
heiress. A syndicate composed of the men now under indictment, it is
said, financed him. He set out to marry the daughter of Faber, the
multi-millionaire pencil manufacturer of Nuremberg, giving his notes
for $50,000, payable upon his marriage to Fraulein Faber. The venture
was a failure, for Fraulein Faber did not care to become Countess
Larisch. The noble fortune-hunter then went to America in quest of a
bride. Whether it was on his own account, or under the auspices of
another marriage syndicate, does not appear, though it is hinted the
latter is the case. In any event, he was successful, and married Miss
Satterlee, of Titusville, Pa.
On his return the members of the first Faber syndicate demanded
payment, and presented a note purporting to have been given by Larisch
without the qualification that it was payable only after his marriage
to the pencil manufacturer's daughter. Larisch, regarding the Faber
affair a closed incident, and declaring the note presented a forgery,
refused to pay. The matter got before the public prosecutor and the
exposé resulted.
LORD BERTIE CAVENDISH--CHAMPION MATRIMONIALIST.
Oct. 24, 1905, Miss Gladys Simmons, Hot Springs, Ark., married Lord
Bertie Cavendish after two days' acquaintance. He represented himself
to be of noble birth, son of the late Marquis of Queensbury, and to
have immense possessions in South Africa and Mexico, which he was
unable to obtain on account of his banishment from England for serving
against the British in the Boer war, due to the activity of British
army officers against him.
Miss Simmons' mother received information that her son-in-law's name
was not Lord Bertie Cavendish, but Douglass. By photographs and
further investigation his identity was established as that of an
adventurer.
Following is a partial list of his wives, several of whom have asked
the court to grant them divorces:
Miss Louisiana Hobbs, Lambert Point, Va., near Norfolk.
Mrs. Mabel Duncan, Denver, Colo.
Mrs. Scott, South Bend, Ind.
Mrs. Beatrice E. Anderson, Fort Worth, Texas.
MARKET FOR AMERICAN HEIRESSES.
There has been more than one similar scandal involving members of the
high nobility and rich American girls.
It will be remembered last year there was a stir created by The
broadcast announcement that Prince Hugo Von Hohenche-Oehringen,
Prince Heinrich Von Hanan and Baron Berhard-Muenhausen, accused
an Englishman, O'Brien, who was alleged to be the agent of Berlin
marriage brokers, of attempted blackmail.
[Illustration: IDLENESS, TITLES, MONEY, UNHAPPINESS, NOTORIETY,
DIVORCE]
Among the Americans whose names are said to be on the list of this
marriage syndicate, without their personal knowledge or consent,
are the Misses Angelica and Mabel Gerry, the Misses Nora and Fannie
Iselin, the Misses Adeline and Electra Havemeyer, Mrs. Lewis
Rutherford Morris, formerly Miss Katherine Clark, daughter of Senator
Clark, of Montana; Mrs. Francis Burton Harrison, formerly Miss Mary
Crocker, daughter of Mrs. George W. Crocker; Miss Dorothy Whitney,
the Misses Beatrice and Gladys Mills, Miss Gwendolyn Burden, and the
Misses Florence and Ruth Twombly.
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ROUSED TO MANY FRAUDS BY THE MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES
AND BUREAUX THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY, "AGENCIES" TO PUT UNDER BAN THE
SWINDLING OPERATIONS.
MRS. JENNIE SCOTT, ARRESTED BY POSTAL INSPECTORS, TELLS SECRETS OF HER
MATRIMONIAL AGENCY.
The second blow has been struck against the affinity trust, of
Chicago, and the second member of the alleged trust in Chicago, Mrs.
Jennie Scott, a woman of many aliases, by Postoffice Inspector James
E. Stuart.
This woman was arrested at her home, at 214 Thirty-second street, her
"Cupid shop," where she received thousands of letters, descriptions
and photographs of affinity seekers from all over the United States
and Canada. She received them in the name of "Glinn's International
Corresponding Association," to join which from $2 to $5 was drawn from
each affinity. Thousands joined.
SAME LITERATURE USED AS IN MARION GREY CASE.
Postoffice Inspectors A. E. Germer and Frank Sheron worked up the case
against the woman and discovered that the same literature was used by
this woman as was used by Marion Grey, convicted for the misuse of the
mails in operating an affinity matching business at Elgin.
There were some changes, however, in the method. This is shown in the
literature sent out by this woman. Her literature explains to the
affinities that the business is absolutely honest and above board, and
must be kept so. Under "special reduced rates," she drew in hundreds
of women clients, many of whom sent in their pictures.
[Illustration: MRS. JENNIE SCOTT]
[Illustration: TYPES OF "AFFINITIES" FOUND BY MARION GRAY, SKETCHED IN
COURT WHERE BEAUTY IS ON TRIAL]
Mrs. Scott operated also at 2208 Wabash avenue, where she had a room
for receiving mail. She was known not only as Mrs. Scott, but as E. L.
Glinn, Mrs. Jennie Call, Mrs. A. M. Harvey and Mrs. E. L. Glinn. She
lived on Thirty-second street, with her young daughter.
CLIENTS ALL WEALTHY; TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT.
Almost every client on the books of this marriage-fostering concern
claimed to be worth from $5,000 to £1,000,000 sterling.
Many of them were alleged to have large incomes. Some were said to
have children and are not to be divorced, but still seek life partners.
WITNESSES NEED A SHEPHERD.
Then, from among the queer little party huddled together on the
benches at the rear of the big court room--a helpless, shepherdless
flock--Mr. Shirer began to call out his witnesses.
First of the hungering souls who sought life companions through Mrs.
Scott came Mrs. Mary Quinn, of Trenton, Ill., a short, dumpy little
person of about thirty-five or forty, who was chiefly remarkable for
the white hat she wore.
"I saw the ad.," she whispered--it was with the greatest difficulty
that Judge Bethea induced her to talk so she could be heard ten
feet away--"and I answered it. They sent me back a circular and a
photograph of a nice-looking fellow who was said to be rich.
"I sent my $2 and wrote that I would like to get into correspondence
with him. They sent me back word that he was corresponding with
another lady just then, and didn't want any more names at present, but
there was another one just as good.
NICE LETTERS LACK RICH TONE.
"I corresponded with him until three weeks before I remarried my
divorced husband, last December. He wrote very nice letters, but he
certainly didn't sound rich."
"You got what you asked for, didn't you?" asked Mr. Murphy.
"Oh, yes, I guess so; I'm not complaining."
The uncomplainingness of the alleged victims is the odd feature of the
case.
[Illustration: JAIL FOR CUPID'S AID
Marion Grey, Pretty Love Broker, Who Was Sentenced to a Year in
Prison]
Dr. Montgomery Porter, a graduate of the University of Arkansas, came
all the way from his home in Pine Bluff, to say that he had answered
one of Mrs. Scott's advertisements but had not paid the $5 fee, "which
she charged the men members."
Porter C. Dyer, a graduate of the Ohio State University, who lives in
Austin, O., said that he paid the fee and was disappointed, "because
the names sent were not those of refinement and culture, as promised
in the circulars."
Mrs. Flora Scott, a restaurant keeper at Middleport, O., tall and not
particularly stylish, couldn't recall what any of the circulars said,
but she was quite sure she hadn't landed a rich husband yet.
SOUTHERN BEAUTY SENDS $2.
The handsomest of the witnesses was Miss Avis Christenberry, a stately
brunette from Memphis, who rather liked the looks of the rich young
man's photograph used for bait and sent in $2.
"They told me he was corresponding with some one else just then," she
testified, "and I corresponded with two substitutes, but they didn't
entertain me much."
Wilson Schufelt, a real estate man, said that he had rented the
matrimonial headquarters to "Mrs. A. M. Harvey" for a mail order
house business. Mrs. Harvey got her mail under the names of Glinn and
Hill, and when the postal authorities became interested in her she
told Schufelt that her name was Jennie Scott. At her home, 214 East
Thirty-second street, she is known as Mrs. Jennie Call.
She was indicted under the name of Glinn. It was testified by E. J.
Beach, superintendent of the Twenty-second street sub-postal station,
that the matrimonial agency received from 50 to 200 letters every day.
She was arraigned before Judge Bethea and found guilty, on April 25,
1908, and was sentenced to one year in the House of Correction, and
was fined $500.
THE HORRIBLE GUNNESS FARM.
THE RIPENED FRUIT OF THE MATRIMONIAL AGENCY.
But the giant blossom of this plant of hell is not bigamy, not
swindling, not desertion; it is murder, wholesale, ghastly murder.
For it is the matrimonial agency, nothing else, which is directly
responsible for the unbelievable horrors of the Gunness Murder Farm,
at Laporte, Ind., the revelation of the existence of which shocked the
entire civilized world as it has not been shocked since the time of
the Borgias.
This wholesale murderess invariably lured her victims to their fate
through advertisements in a "matrimonial paper," or through an agency.
She would insert the usual stereotyped "ad." of the wealthy widow lady
who desired a mate, but always a mate with money.
Always being able to produce proof that she was well-to-do, it was
an easy matter for her to persuade her victims to visit her at the
Laporte farm. She invariably stipulated that they should bring a
substantial sum with them.
Arriving at the Gunness farm, the prospective suitors were invariably
impressed with the evidences of wealth and luxury. After a stay of a
few days, during which time the cunning murderess would find out how
much money her victim had, and whether he could immediately procure
more in the form of cash, the victim would be invited to supper and
his food drugged.
He would then be escorted to his room, where he would soon become
unconscious. Chloroform was then administered, the body hurled through
a chute to the basement, where it would be dismembered and placed in a
gunnysack.
The sack would then be taken out and buried in a convenient spot on
the farm. It was an inquiry from the brother of one of the victims,
Andrew Helgelein, which revealed the whole horrible affair.
[Illustration: THE DEATH HARVESTER.
A Crop on the Gunness Farm.]
It is estimated that this woman, through the aid of the matrimonial
agencies, murdered more people than any other human being that ever
lived. She exceeded the records of the Benders, Holmes, and even those
arch-assassins of the middle ages, the Borgias.
LOMBROSO DISCUSSES MONSTER.
Dr. Cesare Lombroso, of the University of Milan, the world's greatest
criminologist, in discussing this woman, said:
"In general the moral physiognomy of the born female
criminal approximates strongly to that of the male. The
female criminal is exceedingly weak in maternal feeling,
inclined to dissipation, astute and audacious, and
dominates weaker beings sometimes by suggestion, and at
other times by muscular force; while her love of violent
exercise, her vices and even her dress, increase her
resemblance to the stronger sex.
"Added to these virile characteristics are often the
worst qualities of women; namely, an excessive desire for
revenge, cunning cruelty, love of dress and untruthfulness,
forming a combination of evil tendencies which often
results in a type of extraordinary wickedness. Needless
to say these different characteristics are not found in
the same proportion in everybody. One criminal will be
deficient in intelligence, but possessed of great strength,
while another, who is weak physically, triumphs over this
obstacle by the ability with which she lays her plans.
"But when, by an unfortunate chance, muscular strength and
intellectual force meet in the same individual, we have a
female delinquent of a terrible type, indeed.
"In short, we may assume that if female-born criminals are
fewer in number than the males; they are usually much more
ferocious.
"What is the explanation? We observe that the normal
woman is naturally less sensitive to pain than a man, and
compassion is the offspring of sensitiveness. If the one be
wanting, so will the other be.
"We also find that women have many traits in common with
children; that their moral sense is deficient; that they
are revengeful, jealous, inclined to vengeances of a
refined cruelty.
"In ordinary cases these defects are neutralized by piety,
maternity, want of passion, by weakness and an undeveloped
intelligence. But when a morbid activity of the psychical
centres intensifies the bad qualities of women, and
induces them to seek relief in evil deeds; when piety and
maternal sentiments are wanting, and in their place are
strong passions, much muscular strength and a superior
intelligence for the conception and execution of evil, it
is clear that the innocuous semi-criminal present in the
normal woman must be transformed into the born criminal
more terrible than any man.
"What terrific criminals would children be if they
had strong passions, muscular strength and sufficient
intelligence; and if, moreover, their evil tendencies were
exasperated by a morbid intellectual activity! And women
are big children; their evil tendencies are much more
numerous and more varied than men's, but generally remain
latent. When they are awakened and excited they produce
results proportionately greater."
LIST OF THE VICTIMS.
Below is given a partial list of the victims of this inhuman monster,
as it appeared in the Chicago American, Sunday, April 26, 1908:
PARTIAL CATALOGUE OF MRS. GUNNESS' 180 VICTIMS.
1. Max Sorenson, Mrs. Gunness' first husband--whom she
poisoned.
2. Peter S. Gunness, second husband, whom she killed with a
meat axe.
3. Her infant child, whom she strangled to death.
4. Miss Justina Loeffler, of Elkhart, Ind., believed to
have been married to Johann Hoch and sent by him to Mrs.
Gunness to be murdered and buried.
5. Olaf Limbo, Norwegian farm hand.
6. Ole Budsberg, a hired man, from Iola, Wis.
7-9. Three well-known men of Fort Wayne, Ind., who have
disappeared in the last two years.
10. A horse trader from Montana.
11. Jennie Olsen, eighteen years old, adopted daughter of
Mrs. Gunness.
12. Henry Gurholt, left Scandinavia, Wis., on March 12,
1906, saying he was going to marry Mrs. Gunness.
13. George Bradley, forty years old, of Tuscola, Ill., went
to La Porte, Ind., October 20 of last year.
14. Olaf Lindboe, farm laborer, of Chicago, employed by
Mrs. Gunness.
15. Lee Porter, of Bartonville, Okla., quarreled with his
wife and answered one of Mrs. Gunness' matrimonial "ads."
17. Crippled man from Medina, N. D.
18-20. Three children of Mrs. Gunness killed or burned in
house--Myrtle, aged 11; Lucy, 9; Philip, 5.
21. Body of unidentified woman found in ruins of burned
house.
22. Strange baby left last fall by man and woman, as told
by Ray Lamphere, arrested as accomplice of Mrs. Gunness.
23. John O. Moe went to La Porte from Elbow Lake, Minn.,
day before Christmas, 1906, with $1,000.
24. Armat Hartoonan, wealthy Armenian rug merchant of
Binghamton, N. Y., who went to La Porte in 1906 in answer
to a matrimonial "ad."
25. Charles Neuberg, of Philadelphia, took $500 and went to
visit Mrs. Gunness in June, 1906.
26. George Berry, of Tuscola, Ill., went to work for Mrs.
Gunness July, 1905. He took $1,500, expecting to marry the
widow.
27. John A. Lefgren, aged forty-eight, disappeared from the
Chicago Club, and is believed to have gone to Mrs. Gunness'
farm.
28. E. J. Tiefland, retired railroad man, of Minneapolis.
29-30. A Los Angeles college professor and wife--names not
yet ascertained.
31. Andrew K. Helgelein, Aberdeen, S. D., ranchman, the
last victim, whose fate led to the discovery of Mrs.
Gunness' crimes.
32. Charles Edman, farm laborer, from New Carlisle, Ind.
Took $3,000 in savings to Mrs. Gunness' home.
33. Frank Riedinger, young German farmer, of Delafield,
Wis., went to La Porte in February, 1907.
34. Babe seen by a neighbor, Mrs. William Diesslen, which
afterward disappeared.
35. Unknown young woman visitor, seen to go to Gunness
house; never accounted for afterward.
36. Unknown man, a widower, and his young son, went to Mrs.
Gunness' house a year ago--never seen again. One of the
bodies found on farm was that of a small boy.
37-57. Twenty-one babies entrusted to Mrs. Gunness' care
while she was running a "baby farm" on the outskirts of
Chicago all disappeared mysteriously.
57-180. Other unknown men, women and babies, who went to
Chicago and La Porte homes of Mrs. Gunness, and were never
seen again, are estimated to bring the grand total of
victims up to 180.
This, then, is the crowning work of the matrimonial agency; this
horrid burying ground of dismembered bodies, this ghastly charnel pit
on an Indiana hillside. By their fruits ye shall know them. In the
dread Gunness Farm behold the ripened fruit of the matrimonial agency.
[Illustration: RIDES OUT OF THE CLUTCHES OF MATRIMONY]
[Illustration: She Steers Him Straight for the Lily Pond.]
IN LIGHTER VEIN.
The Funny Side of the Matrimonial Business.
There is necessarily the amusing side in all this miserable trading
upon the affections of fools. Some of the letters sent in to the
matrimonial agencies are little less than "screams."
Imagine, if you can, a big, husky farmer, a collarless, coatless son
of the Utah deserts, gushing forth that he "could live and die on
love." Think of a staid and sober trained nurse who has arrived at the
ripe age of forty pouring into the ears of the matrimonial agent that
she "wants a man who is a flower," and also saying confidingly that
she believes that she requires a few more years in which to prepare
for the "solemn step."
One who is 39 and dark, blushingly admits that she is a "young girl"
of loving disposition, and, since love is the destiny of us all, prays
for a husband of fifty or thereabouts.
One who describes herself as "lively and frolicsome" frankly admits
that she is out for the money and can get along without the love end
of it at all. It is needless to say that this letter comes from the
Pennsylvania Dutch regions.
Here are a few of the gems:
COULD LIVE AND DIE ON LOVE.
Huntsville. Utah,
Dec. 27. 1902.
MRS. ELLEN MARION.
Grant Works, Ill.
My Dear Lady:
I wish to beg your pardon if I appear rude in trying to
personally introduce myself, but allow me to assure you
that I am sincere in my quest for a kind friend, and it is
nothing but the purest and holiest motives of the human
heart that prompts the intrusion.
I saw your advertisement in the Valley Farmer, and in it
I seem to behold the image of an ideal lady, who is well
worthy of the highest esteem and admiration from a true
gentleman, and how happy and thankful should the man be
who is so fortunate as to captivate the love and heart of
so noble a prize. Among many others your advertisement to
me seemed to be the most suitable and impressive. While it
would not be within good taste to express a great love for
you at present, yet I believe that I could come as near
living and dying on love as the next one. My object in
writing you is to find if there should be a chord within
our natures that could be touched mutually to harmonize
with the word love.
I have been married and know of the joy and happiness of a
kind and loving companion. Two years ago death robbed me of
my greatest prize in life. Since then I have been baching
it. I am tired of roughing it alone, and if there were only
some one to meet me with a kind smile of approval I could
work much harder and be a better man for it, and I do most
earnestly and sincerely solicit your correspondence with a
view to closer ties should our natures prove congenial.
Should you feel inclined to favor me I would certainly feel
highly flattered.
NOT A FLIRT.
Please do not rank me with the ordinary flirts and
adventurers, for I assure you that I am honest in my
intentions and would not mislead or advise anyone
wrongfully. My age is thirty-seven, height five feet nine
inches, weight 175 pounds, have a good moral character
in every respect, honest and industrious, without any
bad habits, total abstainer from liquor and tobacco,
move in the best society, am of a quiet, kind and loving
disposition. Home is the dearest place to me on earth and
I know how to make it happy. I can appreciate and know the
real value of a kind and loving wife, and the dear lady
that becomes my wife will find in me a true and honest
husband, a kind and loving companion, one whose greatest
aim and object will be to make his home and loved ones
happy.
To you the above may have a smattering of self-praise and
flattery, but the facts are wholly true, which I hope in
due time will be fully demonstrated. Should you wish to
hear further from me I shall be quite pleased to furnish
any information desired.
Anxiously awaiting your acquaintance, I am,
Yours sincerely,
JENS WINTER.
With best wishes and compliments of the season.
[Illustration: AROUND THE CLOCK WITH A "HOME HUSBAND"]
LOVELORN WAILS.
I want a man who is a flower, with love and affection oozing from all
its petals. Maybe, however, I need a few more years' preparation for
the most solemn of steps--matrimony. I admire a man of good physique,
kind, gallant, conscientious, of good morals as can be expected
nowadays, home-loving, and fond of children.--Application for a
husband from Catherine M. Barnes, trained nurse, aged 40, Indianapolis.
* * * * *
Love is the destiny of us all. At times it seems it is going to
side-track and pass us. Therefore, I ask you to help me to find a
handsome man of 50 or over who has some money and can make more.
I am a young girl of loving disposition; do not powder, except on
special occasions; can cook, and know how to dress on nothing or
little. I want love and fidelity. Do not send me the name of any
traveling men.
I am 39 and dark.--Miss Ella Miller, 837 Spring Garden street,
Philadelphia.
* * * * *
Introduce me to a widow with money who wants a good entertainer and
honest man. I have no funds, but don't tell her that. I play, sing and
recite well.--Adam Werker, Glen Ellyn, Ill.
HER IDEAL HUSBAND.
"My ideal must be tall," suggests Miss Mary Hester, from Wayland,
N. Y., "and a gentleman in every sense of the word. He must be of
good standing socially and morally. He must be of temperate habits,
kind, generous, affectionate, devoted--a man of ability, who would
be a companion socially, intellectually and morally to a true, pure,
devoted wife."
She says she would ask for no more.
[Illustration: (Letter, first part)]
[Illustration: (Letter, second part)]
[Illustration: (Second letter, first part)]
[Illustration: (Second letter, second part)]
[Illustration: "READ US 'BOUT WHUT DE FOLKS IN PITTSBURG AN' NEWPORT
IS UP TO."]
[Illustration: "I'D RUTHER BE MARRIED TO A WOMAN WHO WAS REFORMIN'
THINGS OUTSIDE DE HOUSE DAN IN HIT."]
THIS ONE IS REAL FRANK.
Here is another letter from Reading, Pa:
Dear Sir: I notice by Sunday's paper that you are looking
for a wife. Now, strange to relate, I am looking for a
husband. I don't know what your requirements are, but I do
know mine, and the chief ones of them are money, a good
home, less work and worry, and happiness. If love comes,
too, I shall not object, although I have lived long enough
to realize that there can be a sort of lukewarm happiness
without love.
Be that as it may, I judge my capacity is sufficiently
large to satisfy the sort of a man I judge you to be. Now,
for the next item of importance--myself. I am tall and
slender, five feet six inches high, and quite "figuresque,"
as one of my girl friends tells me. I am of the
Irish-American type; hair medium in shade and profuse as to
quantity; deep-set, very bright gray eyes; good carriage,
on account of which strangers often consider me haughty--an
entirely erroneous idea.
Am of a lively, frolicsome nature. I am full of fun, and
no matter how black things are I always find something
to laugh at. I am twenty-three years old, and decidedly
domestic, that being, in fact, my only accomplishment. I
am artistic only along some lines; have no musical talent
and am not an artist, but I love both devotedly. Am very
practical, in fact, and a good housekeeper. There is lots
more I might tell you, but we will call this enough for the
present. Should like to know something about you, and hope
you will be as truthful and frank as I have been.
Sincerely yours,
MARY ANDERSON.
ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES.
A Matrimonial Agent Captures a Rich Husband and Retires from Business.
Mamie Marie Schultz, a matrimonial agent, outwits the police and
postal authorities after being raided and broken up, moves to other
quarters, continues business, finds a rich man seeking a wife among
her patrons and marries him.
September 11, the German-American Agency, run by Mamie Marie Schultz,
3150 Calumet avenue, was raided by Detective Wooldridge, the
literature seized and destroyed. Mamie Marie Schultz was fined $25
by Justice Hurley. The evidence obtained was submitted to the postal
authorities for action.
Mamie Marie Schultz fled to Oak Park, where she continued her
matrimonial agency. After she moved to Oak Park she was notified "by
order of the town board" to vacate, but she laughed at the order and
enjoyed the newspaper notoriety she attained, for it only increased
her business. It is said she made thousands of dollars out of her
matrimonial agency.
With a stealth that is characteristic of his art, Cupid has
accomplished what Oak Park officials had been trying to do for two
years. He has closed out the Oak Park matrimonial agency by making a
victim of his promoter in that vicinity, Marie Schultz, manager of the
matchmakers' concern.
The postmaster, United States marshal and several of the town officers
yesterday received letters signed "Mrs. J. D. Edwards," announcing
that Marie Schultz "had been caught in her own net" and had deserted
the village for a "palatial" home in Seattle, Wash., where her new
husband, J. D. Edwards, is a wealthy lumber dealer.
SWIFT COURTSHIP BY EDWARDS.
Edwards, it is said, arrived in Oak Park on Tuesday, and after a
whirlwind courtship this "Lochinvar who came out of the West" had won
the whole matrimonial agency.
"Marie," the name in which all her extensive advertising was done,
has defeated the officials of Chicago, Oak Park, and even the United
States postoffice inspector, in every effort they made to suppress her
enterprise.
To Postmaster Hutchinson she wrote requesting that all letters
addressed to the agency be returned to the writers, as she didn't
"want any more of their money." The postoffice force was burdened with
the task of mailing back to some 500 lovelorn men and maidens the
letters which had accumulated in "Marie's" postoffice box.
But the bleatings of the overgrown calf from Utah, and the wails of
the maiden lady who desires a "flower" for a mate are both eclipsed by
the mushy outpourings of a Chicago business man.
This fellow evidently possesses the artistic temperament. Not only
is he moved to write prose poetry, "to bay the moon of love," but he
insists on inserting illustrative sketches of an ardent wooing.
He has forged the white heat of his passion, which evidently puts Ella
Wheeler Wilcox at her fiercest to shame, into pictures. Here we behold
him, hand in hand with his beloved, under the kindly stars. There,
more prosaic, it is true, but still quite passionate, is the drawing
room scene, with the lady seated on his knee. Behold the works of
genius when love impels.
THE FESTIVE FARM HAND FRIVOLS.
Among the hundreds of applications for a wife Detective Wooldridge
found one from Jacob C. Miller, of Martinsville. Pa. Miller filled out
the application blank as follows:
Q. Where born? A. Lancaster, Pa.
Q. What language do you speak? A. English.
Q. Nationality? A. White.
Q. Weight? A. 130.
Q. Color of eyes? A. Greenish blue.
Q. Color of hair? A. Brown on a little patch.
Q. Complexion? A. Fair.
Q. Circumference of chest? A. 36 inches.
Q. Circumference of waist? A. 36 inches.
Q. Circumference of head (just above ears)? A. 13 inches.
Q. Circumference of neck? A. Wear 15-1/2 collar.
Q. Profession? A. Farm hand.
Q. Income per year? A. Nothing.
Q. Extent of education: common, high school or university?
A. Common.
Q. Do you use tobacco or liquor? A. I use a little tobacco,
but no liquor.
Q. How much real estate do you own? A. Nothing.
Q. Do any of the pictures we have submitted to you suit,
and will you marry? A. Yes, the one with the turned-up nose.
Q. If we secured you a wife worth $250,000 would you be
willing to pay us a small commission for our trouble? A.
Yes.
THE FAKER AND THE PRESS.
SOME NEWSPAPERS ARE BUNCOED, WHILE OTHERS WILLINGLY ASSIST RASCALS.
Strangely enough, the abomination known as the "matrimonial agency,"
bureau or what-not, has succeeded in hoodwinking the great American
press to a certain extent.
Advertisements appear in leading journals all over the country.
Without this the great fraud could not exist ten minutes. There are
numberless instances, we are quite sure, where the publishers have no
suspicion that they are furthering the cause of scoundrels. In others,
we regret to say, the motive for accepting these advertisements is
traceable to nothing more or less than just the plain greed of the
publisher.
It is impossible for a private citizen to prophesy whether the entire
power of the government of the United States can purify the columns of
some of our greedy newspapers.
[Illustration: HOW TO TRAIN A HUSBAND]
These matrimonial agencies are frauds. The newspaper man knows this
and takes their money for the advertisements, and becomes a messenger
of a crime for a paltry sum, and if I were the District Attorney
I would get busy and call the attention of the Postmaster General
to these alleged newspapers for the purpose of shutting off their
distribution through the mails.
Here are a few samples of the ads appearing in the reputable daily
press of the country:
MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES' ADVERTISEMENTS FOR RICH WIVES AND HUSBANDS.
They Appear in All the Leading Newspapers Throughout the Country.
This is a very select list of ten ladies picked at random from our
books by one of the leading newspaper reporters of this city, February
1, 1904:
Minnesota Maiden--30 yrs., 5 ft. 2 in., weight 128 lbs.;
brown hair, blue eyes; has $10,500.
Missouri Maiden--28 yrs., 5 ft. 7 in., weight 150 lbs.;
blonde, blue eyes, German; has $4,800.
Pennsylvania Maiden--20 yrs., 5 ft. 4 in., weight 132 lbs.;
light hair, blue eyes; will inherit $30,000, provided she
is married on her 21st birthday.
[Illustration: Can a Man or Woman Know Each Other Before Marriage?
BEFORE.
"When he was wooing her, Romeo devoted his time to thinking of
delicate little attentions that he could pay Juliet, and of things he
could do to make her happy."
AFTER.
On Christmas he is liable to shove a dollar or two at his wife,
remarking: "Get yourself something. I don't know what you want, and I
haven't time to fool with it."]
[Illustration: "ONE HOUR OF IT IS WORTH LIVIN' FOR AN' DYIN' FOR."]
[Illustration: "AN' DAT WOMEN'S CLUBS IS DE CAUSE OF ALL DE PO' LITTLE
NEGLECTED CHILLEN."]
Wisconsin Widow--49 yrs., 5 ft. 3 in., weight 130 lbs.;
black hair, black eyes; no children; worth $15,000. Will
marry elderly man.
Indiana Maiden--29 yrs., 5 ft. 4 in., weight 122 lbs.;
brown hair, blue eyes; pretty and worth $7,000. Would marry
farmer.
Illinois Maiden--21 yrs., 5 ft. 8 in., weight 140 lbs.;
chestnut hair, blue eyes; worth $40,000; is a cripple. Will
marry kind man who will overlook her misfortune.
New Jersey Widow--28 yrs., 4 ft. 11 in., weight 150 lbs.;
brown hair, blue eyes, one child; worth $35,000. Will marry
and assist husband financially.
Ohio Farmers Daughter--Orphan, 25 yrs., 5 ft. 7 in.;
brown hair, gray eyes; has large farm. Alone, will marry
immediately, farmer preferred.
Montana Maiden--Half-breed Indian, age 25, 5 ft. 4 in., 130
lbs.; black hair, black eyes; has large ranch. Will marry
honest white man.
Illinois Bachelor Girl--Age 35, 5 ft. 7 in., 160 lbs.;
black hair, brown eyes; owns fine estate, valued at
thousands. Would marry gentleman of equal wealth.
PENNSYLVANIA.
Beautiful maiden lady, refined and well educated; American;
blonde, age 37 years, height 5 ft. 4 in., weight 106
pounds; worth $30,000.
NEBRASKA.
Stylish young brunette, fond of society; American; age 28
years, height 5 ft. 3 in., weight 135 pounds; Baptist, and
worth $25,000; income $3,000 a year.
OHIO.
Stately widow, age 49 years, handsome and remarkably
well preserved; height 5 ft. 6 in., weight 160 lbs.; no
children; worth $5,000; wants elderly husband.
[Illustration: (Man and woman pointing at each other through heart)]
KENTUCKY.
Beautiful blonde Southern girl, educated and refined; age
21, height 5 ft. 2 in., weight 115 lbs.; American, and
worth $10,000; wants nice-looking husband.
Pretty little girl, age 19 years, height 5 ft. 3 in.,
weight 112 lbs.; American; worth $10,000. Says she is very
anxious to marry.
BOSTON, MASS.
Fine-looking lady, age 37 years, height 5 ft. 3 in., weight
140 lbs.; American, Protestant, and worth $20,000.
Young lady, blonde, age 25 years, weight 128 lbs., height 5
ft.; American, Methodist; income $720 a year; worth $25,000.
CHICAGO, ILL.
Maiden, age 26 years, height 5 ft. 4 in., weight 140 lbs.;
Scotch, Protestant, Methodist; income $1,200 per year;
worth $75,000.
MONROE CO., PA.
Young lady, age 23 years, very pretty, height 5 ft. 5 in.,
weight 150 lbs.; German, Methodist; worth $12,000.
DOVER, N. H.
Stylish, brown-eyed lady, age 24 years, height 5 ft. 6 in.,
weight 135 pounds; American, Methodist; worth $50,000.
NEW YORK CITY.
Young widow, age 32 years, height 5 ft. 5 in., weight 140
lbs.; Irish Catholic; worth $40,000.
UTAH.
Maiden lady, age not mentioned, height 5 ft., weight 120
lbs.; worth $35,000.
And all this, ridiculous, murderous and otherwise, is all outside the
pale of the law. The matrimonial agency is a crime _per se_. It is a
criminal institution. It has been pronounced to be such by the best
and foremost judges of the United States, Germany and Great Britain.
Judge Klerbach, sitting in the case of a marriage broker at
Goettingen, Germany, in 1903, declared that the marriage broker was a
criminal in intent, from the very nature of his business.
In the celebrated case of Alan Murray vs. Jeanie McDonald at
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1898, Justice Grahame pronounced from the
judicial seat one of the most scathing arraignments of the marriage
bureau ever delivered. "Leeches upon the body social, blood-suckers,
destroyers of womanhood, abominations of the bottomless pit," were
some of the phrases used by Justice Grahame in denouncing Murray.
In the petty sessions at Tinahely, Ireland, Justice O'Gorman in
May, 1905, is reported in the Wicklow People, a newspaper which has
a wide circulation in the South of Ireland, as fiercely denouncing
the marriage broker business. The Justice declared that the marriage
broker was a wolf, "preying upon the weaknesses of humanity, a
pander to the lowest instincts"; that he had no right to demand the
interference of the law in his behalf, but rather that the law should
always be exercised for the suppression of his nefarious traffic.
SAME THING NEARER HOME.
To get nearer home. In the Chicago American, February 12, 1903, Judge
Neely, in the case of the State vs. Hattie Howard, declared from the
bench that to "sell men and women in marriage is the height of crime."
Judge Neely further said:
"Men and women who engage in this business of promoting
matrimony for money are guilty of crime. It is opposed to
the fundamental principles of society. Such a practice
should under no circumstances be tolerated. This practice
should be stopped. The trade should be killed. The courts
should make it their business to discourage this thing in a
way that may be easily understood."
Judge Kohlsaat, of Chicago, has inveighed against the practice in
equally vehement terms. Judge Kohlsaat declares that "the Police
Department of Chicago is entitled to great credit for what it has done
in discouraging this business. I hope it will continue its vigilance
until every promoter of marriages of this character has been compelled
to leave the city. They should make such criminals give the city a
wide berth."
There, then, is the law. The business is a crime in its very nature.
It leads to bigamy and wholesale murder. It is made the instrument of
the thief, the swindler and the murderer. How much longer will the
American people look with calmness upon these practices, upon these
abominations, which make a stench of the very air of the great and
free country in which we live? The answer is up to you.
THE GREAT MISTAKE.
OUR PENAL SYSTEM IS A RELIC OF EARLY SAVAGERY.
Our whole penal system needs changing. It is a relic of barbarism, and
stands a monument to the early savagery of the human race.
How is it possible for a man or woman to lead an upright, useful life
after they once come under the ban of the law? Society combines to
hound them down. They are forbidden to place themselves on an equality
with others by narrow, human prejudice--the "holier than thou"
attitude of that portion of the public which has not yet been "found
guilty."
We are Pharisees, all, and sit in judgment on our fellowman, because
we do not yet realize the mixture of evil and good that is in every
man--none are exempt--only some are caught and punished.
Men have come to us, desperate, despairing men, crying: "For God's
sake, what are we to do? If we get a job someone will tell our
employers we have 'done time,' and we are fired. If they find us on
the street, we're arrested. Where can we go and what can we do?"
A man may commit murder and not be a criminal, and yet a sneakthief is
always a criminal and every burglar a potential murderer.
Social conditions produce criminals. As well expect a rose to bloom in
a swamp as human nature to flower in the slums.
All our prisons are hotbeds of tuberculosis and most prison physicians
hold their positions through political pull.
In our opinion a greater distinction should be made between the
penitentiary and house of correction. Petty misdemeanants should not
be branded with the prison stigma. We also favor suspended sentence
for first offenders.
The crime and its punishment should be separated. At present the
personal equation does not enter into the case when a judge imposes
sentence. The man's environment, what leads him to break the law, and
how best to help this particular man, all are questions that should be
carefully considered before sentence is pronounced.
INTELLIGENCE IN PUNISHING CRIME.
A student of prison affairs once said that the prison population
consists of two classes--people who never ought to have been sent to
prison and people who never ought to be allowed to leave it. It is
unfortunate that students interested in either one of these classes
are too often apt to forget the importance of the other.
There are many habitual criminals, weak persons readily giving way
to temptation, who should not be classified as professionals. The
professionals are only those who deliberately set about supporting
themselves by crime. These are the ones who are among all criminals
most unlikely to change their ways, and it was for their control that
Detective Wooldridge suggested some years ago that after several
convictions such criminals should be given a special trial to decide
whether they were true professionals or not, and if they were, they
should be imprisoned for life.
If more attention were given to professional crime and if harsher
methods were used in protecting society from it, the result would be
merciful in the end--merciful both to the citizens protected from such
crime and to the men who, as conditions now are, graduate every year
into such careers.
THE "SILENT SYSTEM" IS A CRIME AGAINST CRIMINALS.
The penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, at
Philadelphia, in 1907, was the only prison in America conducted on
what is known as the "silent system."
In this grim edifice a man sentenced to twenty years imprisonment
might pass all of that time buried from sight in his cell, seeing only
his keeper, the chaplain, the doctor and the schoolmaster, and for
twenty minutes in every six weeks he would be allowed to talk with a
near relative.
This man loses his identity the moment he enters the prison gates. A
black cap is drawn over his head and he is led to a cell in one of the
many corridors that radiate from the central tower like spokes from
the hub of a wheel. He is known thereafter by a number.
The cell in which he eats and sleeps and works is a little larger than
the average prison cell, and more completely furnished--as it must
hold his bed, his lavatory, his dishes and a place for eating, his
work, his every possession, and such books as he may secure from the
prison library.
His front door opens on a corridor and is kept ajar on a heavy chain
so the prison guards may watch him.
His back door opens on a plot of ground about 8×10 feet. It is
surrounded and cut off from all communication from every living human
being by a brick wall. Only the watchman in the central tower and the
birds that wing their way over the prison can see him in his little
yard. Robinson Crusoe on his deserted island could not be more utterly
lonely.
In this tiny yard is a circular path worn smooth and pressed deep into
the soil by the feet of despairing men--his predecessors.
The prisoner is forbidden even the negative pleasure of going out into
this God-forsaken walled plot of bare ground except for one hour a day.
In his gloomy cell the prisoner drags out the "task" given him to
escape insanity. He fears to be idle without the sound of a human
voice in his ear or the sight of a human face to relieve his awful
loneliness.
To lengthen these "tasks" the State of Pennsylvania has provided
primitive hand-looms, some 100 years old, and other discarded
makeshifts of man's industrial infancy.
Not for him has the world progressed beyond the caveman's day.
Perhaps he is a skilled mechanic, a man accustomed to the swift
play of machinery, the grip of tool on material. He is condemned to
manufacture by primitive methods the clothes he wears to keep him from
quite going mad.
EXTREME METHODS FAULTY.
As between the abominable "contract" and "lease" systems and this
reversion to blind seclusion, is there no human method to be found of
apportioning the convict's labor?
Yet No. 99, locked away in his solitary cell in the Philadelphia
prison, must toil laboriously, denying his brain and hand their
cunning, with a pretense at occupation. He is not sharing in the
world's work. He knows this child's play of making something that
no one needs on an instrument left over from the twelfth century is
futile and foolish.
How shall he meet and battle with the great world of commerce and
labor after twenty years of this? In what way is this make-believe
fitting him for liberty?
Some few in the Philadelphia prison escape the fate mapped out for
them. There are 800 cells, and there are at present about 1,100
prisoners. Naturally, some must "double up." And then the regular
domestic work of the institution must be done, tasks at which it would
be impossible to keep prisoners separated or wholly silent.
And so the "silent system" is not entirely silent. But, we protest,
that is not the fault of the prison management, nor is it that of
the good citizens who seventy-eight years ago devised and built this
prison, the only one of its kind in America.
Men are unfitted for after-life under the "silent system." They come
out of prison at the end of their terms with shuffling gait and
incoherent speech and unskilled hands.
Cut off from all obligation to family or friends, the prisoner's whole
spiritual nature is bound to deteriorate. Will he be a better citizen,
a more loving father or husband or son, when he is released?
The prison at Philadelphia is a model of cleanliness, management,
discipline and sanitation. The warden, Charles C. Church, is humane
and intelligent; the guards above the average in character.
And yet Pennsylvania's crime against her criminal population is
appalling. All she does for her unfortunate offender is to guard him
securely, shelter him in cleanliness, feed and clothe him--and hold
him against the day of his release.
These are necessary things, but it is more necessary that the state
turn back the criminal at least no worse than she found him when
committed to her care.
She could turn him out a better man morally, better equipped to gain
a livelihood, in fair physical health, and certainly without mental
taint or bias due to his imprisonment.
JAILS MAKE 50,000 CRIMINALS A YEAR.
If the jails and lockups in our country--4,000 or 5,000 in number--are
in truth, as they have been often aptly termed, in most cases
compulsory schools of crime, maintained at the public expense, we
shall have from this quarter alone an accession to the criminal
classes in each decade of perhaps 50,000 trained experts in crime.
Surely, almost any change in dealing with the young, with the
beginners in lawbreaking, would be an improvement on the prevailing
system. Jails and prisons, so constructed and managed as to keep
separate their inmates, would afford an adequate remedy for the evil.
Until this can be done it would be far better to cut down largely the
number of arrests and committals of the young.
[Illustration: United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas; the
best and most modern Penitentiary in the United States if not in the
world.]
"It is absurd to argue that life in the penitentiary is conducive to
moral betterment, for all the conditions are against this cheerful
theory. In jail a man meets criminals. The whole system makes for
greater criminality on the release of the prisoner. He has time to
plan fresh onslaughts on society. His incarceration further embitters
him against the world. He looks with malicious envy on those who
have escaped the punishment which he has had to suffer. When he is
turned out of prison he is ready for further felonies--only now he has
learned more caution, and for this reason he is more dangerous than he
was when he entered the institution."
When a man has served two prison sentences without being convinced of
the futility of the attempt to live without honest work, it is evident
that he has abandoned all idea of being a good citizen and has made up
his mind to prey upon society.
"Then," says Mr. Wooldridge, "moderate sentences having produced no
good effect upon him, either to deter or reform, why should he not be
taken permanently out of society and put where he cannot harm others
or wrong himself by committing crime? No objection," he concluded,
"can be found to this method."
CRIME BASED ON SUGGESTION.
The man who has declared war upon the world, as every man has done who
is not reformed by two successive prison sentences, should be seized
and permanently imprisoned. Modern thought does not sanction the
literal translation of this idea, but that does not interfere with the
possibility of carrying it out for the benefit of society.
The world spends millions of dollars every year in the business of
protecting itself against the criminal and in caring for him. But that
is because no serious attempt has ever been made to solve the problem
of crime.
Crime is largely a matter of suggestion and therefore if all the
habitual criminals in the country were segregated where their
influence would no longer be able to exert itself, crime would not
propagate itself so fast. The young men would not have presented to
them so often or so forcibly the example which causes most of them
to take the crooked path. Thus the expense of prevention would be
enormously diminished at once.
SUGGESTS GREAT PRISON FARM.
With segregated criminals supporting themselves, as they might be
made to do under our plan, the enormous cost of penitentiaries would
at one step be done away with. A penal colony such as Mr. Wooldridge
proposed would be placed in such a situation that the convicts could
be compelled to raise every bit of food they put into their mouths
and every bit of clothing they put upon their backs. Out in one of
the western states or territories a reservation might be made of
several thousand acres of land, around the rim of which the convicts
could be made to build a great wall shutting themselves away from
the rest of the world. On its surface would be built in the same way
habitations for them, and they would live there, tilling the soil and
manufacturing their necessities, until death.
The time will come when this plan will be carried out. The law-abiding
citizens of the United States will not continue forever to be taxed
enormously for the support of a class of persons who are enemies of
public order and decency.
IMPROVING THE PUBLIC HEALTH.
Can a nation be said to be civilized that spends billions of dollars
every year in the detection and punishment of crime, and not one cent
for the prevention and cure of disease, which kills thousands of
persons who might otherwise have retained their health and strength?
Suppose only a billion dollars a year, that now goes to the support
of criminals in jails and penitentiaries, were to be saved by the
establishment of a national penal colony where criminals would be made
to support themselves; and suppose the billion dollars thus saved
were to be spent on free hospitals and medical treatment, would the
country not be much better off?
Such a use of the money would result in cutting down the death rate
in the United States at least one-half. The death rate in England,
through the exercise of care and the assistance of the government, has
been reduced from one-half to two-thirds in many diseases, and ten
to twelve years have been added to the expectation of life between
the ages of one year and forty-five years. A similar state of affairs
should exist in this country, where the waste of life and health
through preventable diseases is incalculable.
Our enormous expense on account of criminals, most of which might
be avoided if brains were really brought to bear upon the problem,
will not always be endured. The future will force the criminal to
support himself, and the money now expended on him will be devoted to
the preservation of health and life among honest men, for the time
will certainly come when free hospitals and medical service will be
provided by the government for every citizen who needs them.
ROAD WORK FOR CONVICTS.
Criminology, on its humanitarian side, seeks new methods of employment
for criminals. It seeks to regenerate convicted criminals morally, as
well as care for their physical well-being.
Indoor prison trades have a deadly monotony. In most cases they
are carried on without sunlight, and with too little fresh air.
Confinement within walls is alone a heavy punishment, but when allied
with conditions that breed disease and possibly death, society exacts
more than just retribution.
Modern criminology leans toward both moral and physical care in
allotting the daily tasks of criminals. It assumes that the state has
no right to make the criminal a worse or a weaker member of society
than when he entered the prison walls.
This explains why most experts in criminology are strongly in favor of
putting criminals to work at road-making. Here is employment in God's
sunlight and air, where criminals can do useful work, and still be
under watchful guard. They will be giving the state better highways,
and at the same time escape the deadly indoor prison grind.
Criminologists are studying a hundred speculative methods of
benefiting the criminal. They all agree on one point--namely, that
useful work in the open air is beneficial to the average criminal,
morally and physically.
If there can be a large benefit to the state, at the same time that
the state is benefiting the criminal, there is a double advance along
the lines of rational, humane treatment of criminals.
The sordid idea that criminals should pay the cost of their own
incarceration is secondary. And yet, in applying convict labor to the
solution of the good roads problem in the United States, the public
would get back at least a portion of the enormous drain on public
revenues for the support of criminals.
SOLVES "GOOD ROADS" PROBLEM.
This is the only complete solution of the good roads problem. It is
one that all farmers or other rural residents should insist upon. It
is the one practical way of gridironing the states, old and new, with
good roads. It is especially vital in the newer states, where the
absence of good roads is the heaviest tax on industry that individual
communities must suffer.
It is far better for the criminals themselves that they should
be employed in this useful outdoor labor. The greatest clog on
the science of criminology is the aversion to breaking away from
traditions. The housing of criminals in penitentiaries, where
expensive idleness alternates with desultory forms of industry, has
ceased to be a method abreast of the times. There is enormous waste in
the orthodox prison systems.
Get all able-bodied convicts into road-making for a single generation,
and what would result? The productiveness of agricultural states would
be vastly increased. Markets, for the average farmer, would be easier
of access. Instead of virtual isolation for three or four months of
the year, agricultural life would be more evenly balanced.
The actual financial benefits to farmers would aggregate a vast total.
In European countries, it took several generations to solve the
good-roads problem. But they have solved it. The rural roads in the
average European state or principality are a national blessing. They
are not only a joy to transient travelers, but form the bulwark of
agricultural industries. European governments have wisely considered
no cost too great for good roads.
As distances are immeasurably greater in America than in thickly
settled European states, the good roads problem takes on a different
aspect here. American roads are, on the average, worse than in any
other civilized country. Therefore, they must be built up, slowly and
patiently, perhaps, but with increasing energy as population grows
denser.
With European methods it would take a hundred years to give the
western states good roads. With the convict labor, the problem would
be solved in twenty years or less. This would suffice, at least, for a
great national system of highways.
EXTEND THE PAROLE SYSTEM.
The fear is expressed that an extension of the parole system as
regards adults would open a velvet path for criminals to continue
preying upon society. There was a loud hue and cry raised against
the idea as administered recently by one of our Municipal Court
Judges. Still, there is no denying that there is a great deal of good
resultant from this plan. It is a safe, sane and conservative one,
especially so when in the hands of judges who can feel for the man
who has committed his first offense.
Chicago has some peculiar problems to contend with. It is the stopping
off place for all traveling from south to north, and from north to
south, and from west to east. Many of these transient visitors live
a hand-to-mouth life. Oftentimes they are driven to crime by sheer
force of necessity. Again, the father or son may be out of work, and
chance may place in his way the opportunity to commit some petty
theft, tempting him on to his first crime. If such offenders show
signs of desiring to do better and are susceptible of reformation,
they ought to be given another chance. On the other hand, those who
are unmistakably guilty and evidence no signs of repentance should be
punished without any undue delay.
Many families have been driven to disgrace and ruin when their heads
were sent to prison. Surely among these there were some who had
manifested repentance and shown indications of a desire to be given
another opportunity to start anew; surely had they but been shown
lenience they might have proved good citizens and worthy of the
confidence reposed in them.
Of course, there are a lot of drawbacks to the parole system as it
applies to juveniles in Chicago. But free from politics and in the
hands of fair-minded, square-leading men it would prove a splendid
scheme worthy of the highest praise. In its infancy it might look like
a failure, but as time passed it would be perfected, so that in the
long run it would prove a godsend to humanity.
When a criminal returns from penitentiary or prison he is shunned by
society; he is under the eternal vigilance of our police force--he is
walked upon and pushed down. Finally, tired with trying to earn an
honest living, he again resorts to crime. Probably had he been paroled
he might have turned out a deserving citizen and the father of a happy
family.
VAGRANTS; WHO AND WHY.
WHAT WILL WE DO WITH THE VAGRANT AND TRAMP?
[Illustration: Raggles--"Why did yer refuse what she offered yer?"
Weary--"Cause I never heard of it before and de name was too much for
me. Why when she said 'chop suey' cold chills run down me back, 'cause
dat word chop reminds me too much of de time when I had ter chop three
cords of wood looking into de face of two shotguns."]
The vagrant is the most elusive man among us. He is always with us,
yet we can never locate him. No one wants him, yet we always send him
to someone else. We make laws to get rid of him, but succeed only in
keeping him a little longer in custody at our own expense. Most of
us laugh at him and some of us cry over him by turns. We draw funny
pictures of him in our newspapers and in our billboard advertisements,
but we are really afraid of him. We blame the police for not keeping
him off the streets, or at least out of sight, and yet we feed him
at our own doors. We fear to meet him after dark, and nevertheless
we give him a nickel or a dime to keep him in town over night. He is
an object of charity, or a criminal, just as we happen to feel. He
is sometimes the hero of our melodrama at the theater, who gets our
tearful applause. At the same time he stands for all that we brand as
mean and vile. We spend money lavishly to support him without work by
charity, or imprison him in idleness by law.
The problem is to understand vagrancy so well that we can deal with
it on a large enough scale both to restore the vagrant to the working
world or to keep him in custody, and to prevent the accidental or
occasional vagrant from becoming a habitual mendicant. The English
and European governments have dealt with their problems of vagrancy
more effectively than we have. This is due to the fact that they have
investigated the causes and conditions of vagrancy more widely than
we, and dealt with it on a larger scale by uniform legislation and by
more persistently following up the measures in which the public and
private resources combine to treat the evil.
TRAMP A RAILROAD PROBLEM.
Thus the tramp cuts no figure as a railroad problem, much less menace,
abroad. But with us it is the fact that railroads representing more
than half the total mileage operated in the United States and Canada
testify almost without exception to depredation, thieving, injuries,
deaths, accidents to passengers or rolling stock, enormous aggregate
costs to railroads or society, caused by the habitual illegal use of
the railroads by vagrants. The number of "trespassers," from one-half
to three-quarters of whom were vagrants, who are killed annually
on American railroads exceeds the combined total of passengers and
trainmen killed annually. Within four years 23,964 trespassers were
killed and 25,236 injured, thus furnishing the enormous total of
49,200 casualties, with all the cost they involve.
Only by the co-operation of the railroads with one another and of
towns and cities with the railroads can this waste of life and
property and this increasing peril to the safety of the traveling
public be prevented. Much more stringent laws will have to be both
enacted and enforced to prevent the trespassing, which puts a premium
on vagrancy.
One of the best effects of the strict prevention of free riding on
railroads would be to keep boys from going "on the road" and becoming
tramps. It is simply amazing to find little fellows of from 12 to 17
years of age, who have never been farther away from home than to some
outlying freight yards, disappearing for several weeks and returning
from Kansas City, or Cleveland, Omaha or New York, having all alone,
or with a companion or two, beaten their way and lived by their wits
while traveling half way across the continent. Once the excitement
of the adventure is enjoyed, the hardship it costs does not seem so
hard to them as the monotony of home or shop. The discipline of the
United States navy has been the only regulation of this wandering
habit which the writer has known to be successful. But the habit is
more easily prevented than regulated. Massachusetts has taken the most
advanced legislative action of all the states to this end. The Wabash
and the New York Central railways suggest fine and imprisonment for
trespassing upon railway tracks or rolling stock.
BETTER LODGINGS FOR HOMELESS MEN.
Far better provision for lodging homeless men must be made by cities
in municipal lodging houses of their own, such as Chicago effectively
conducts, and by far stricter public regulation and supervision
of lodging houses maintained for profit or for charity. The
anti-tuberculosis crusade shows that this supervision and regulation
should be shared by the health authorities with the police. Within a
period of five years 679 consumptives were taken from only a portion
of Chicago's lodging house district to the Cook County Hospital, most
of them in the most dangerously infectious stages of the disease. An
investigator of Chicago's 165 cheap lodging houses and their 19,000
beds declares that "the unfortunate man forced to sojourn in them for
a while may enter sound and strong and come out condemned to death."
The New York City Charity Organization Society and the Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor have rendered a country-wide
public service in furnishing the report on "Vagrancy in the United
States" by their joint agent, Orlando F. Lewis. It may well be the
basis for better public policy here and everywhere.
Startling figures and facts were presented at the State Conference
of Charities and Corrections at Albany by Arthur W. Towne, secretary
of the Illinois State Probation Commission, regarding the extent of
vagrancy and the habits of tramps in this state.
More than 31,000 persons, mainly vagrants, received free lodgings in
New York State, in town and city lockups, during 1906, and the number
in 1907 was larger. Seventy-five cities and towns thus provide for
their wandering visitors. Half of these towns and cities also feed the
wanderers free of charge.
A large number of places give lodgings also to boys, many of them as
young as 10 or 12 years, thus encouraging the wandering spirit that
makes the later tramp. With only one slight exception, not a single
town or city required any work at all from the lodgers in return for
the lodging or the food provided, thus giving absolutely no incentive
to the wanderer to work for his board or meals.
It is urged that the system of allowing the police authorities to give
these free lodgings, as well as the similar practice in some jails and
almshouses, be abolished as a most direct encouragement to vagrancy,
and that in their stead such free lodgings as are necessary should be
furnished by the overseer of the poor, but only when repaid by some
form of work, such as chopping wood or breaking stone.
TRAMPS LIKE JAIL.
Mr. Towne also brought out the fact that tramps like to go to jail in
winter. Instead of considering a jail sentence for that part of the
year as a form of punishment, they welcome it as a chance to keep warm
and loaf at the public expense. Forty-three per cent of the commitment
of tramps occurs between November 1 and February 1. In short, the
jail or the penitentiary becomes a sort of winter vacation resort for
tramps. Many chiefs of police with whom Mr. Towne communicated said
that tramps in winter would ask to be sent to jail, and that if this
were not done they would sometimes commit offenses for the express
purpose of being arrested and sent there.
It is declared to be significant that in the tramp's slang the word
"dump" is applied to both lodging houses and jails.
With a cold winter the number of vagrants in penitentiaries and jails
increases. In 1906 there were more than 10,000 tramps and vagrants
in penitentiaries and jails, while in 1904, which was a very cold
winter, there were more than 14,000. On the average, about one-third
of the prisoners are tramps and vagrants. This means that the public
is annually paying several hundred thousand dollars for the avowed
purpose of punishing men for vagrancy, but in reality it amounts only
to furnishing a free place of winter rest. Most of the chiefs of
police believe that jails and penitentiaries do little good, if any,
in their treatment of tramps. Another fact is that the sentences for
this class of offenders are too short to accomplish any results. About
85 per cent of the sentences are from only one to sixty days.
[Illustration: THE TRAMP OF FICTION]
[Illustration: Tore Purse from the Hobo.]
[Illustration: (Tramp dropping bucket)]
HOBOS CLASSIFIED BY RACES.
In a vague way the veteran hobos, classified by the various
nationalities, are fairly representative of the make-up of the
whole American nation, in accordance with the number of hobos each
nationality turns out. After taking into consideration the fact that
certain parts of the United States are dominated by people of one
nationality, and the bulk of tramps in that part of the country would
necessarily come from that nationality, the following classification
was given as doing justice to all:
The Irish and British elements lead in the number of hobos. They are
closely followed, however, by the German element. The nations of
Eastern Europe, Poles, Bohemians, Hungarians and others, are next in
line. Then follow, in smaller numbers, Scandinavians, French, Italians
and Jews. The French come mostly from Canada, the Scandinavians from
the northwest and the Italians from the largest cities in the country,
like New York and Chicago, and also from the southern states. Here and
there one finds a stray Servian or Bulgarian who drifted into trampdom
and has never been able or has never cared to drift out of it again.
Greeks are seldom found among tramps because they have not yet a
"second generation" of Greeks to any extent in the United States.
Chinese and Japanese likewise are not found in the hobo class. Of
the negro race, many would not be averse to becoming professional
tramps were it not for the risk which a negro tramp generally runs. A
"stray negro," according to the hobos interviewed, is regarded with
apprehension and is apt to be shot on mere suspicion.
NEW FOREIGNER NOT A HOBO.
You will hardly ever find a foreigner in the first five or ten years
of his American life among tramps and hobos. "He may be near tramp,
he may be apparently 'down and out,' but he is not a genuine hobo,"
said one of the men. "You will find plenty of foreigners in the
lodging houses, plenty of them who starve and suffer, but they are not
hobos. They have had hard luck, and now in their old age they live by
doing two or three and some even one day's work a week. But they work
more or less. They have not the parasitic philosophy of one who is a
full-fledged hobo. They fall more in the class of European vagabonds,
such as one finds in Germany or Russia. They work now and then; they
have some trade, or know a smattering about a number of trades."
The American hobo falls in an entirely different category from these.
Work with him is said to be a disgrace. Neither does he relish crime
much if he can get along without it. He will beg from door to door and
will commit a crime only as a last resort. The hobo primarily has no
will power, or rather, he destroys it.
The majority of hobos became such because of their false conception
of freedom and of wrong inter-relations between parents and children.
Their parents have been held in many cases in semi-savage conditions
by their landlords in the old world. When they come to America
they naturally appreciate their freedom. They speak of it to their
children. They are lax with them, and this spoils them.
JEW RECRUIT IN TRAMPDOM.
Polish tramps and tramps from other nations of Eastern and Southern
Europe were declared to be more apt to turn to petty crimes when
pressed to it by want. They are, however, according to statements of
tramps, easily found out. They somehow are hasty in their actions, and
just as they brandish their knives and pistols thoughtlessly they
fall into the hands of the police simply and easily.
The Jewish tramp was a rarity until recently. However, the large
number of Jews which poured into this country from oppressed countries
in Europe since 1881 have also furnished a "first generation," many
of whose members have found their way to the barrel houses and slums
of all large cities. The Jewish tramp, however, was declared to be
entirely of the class of the petty criminal. Out of the penitentiary
for some petty crime committed, or having been a go-between for
thieves and the person who buys the goods stolen, the Jewish youth for
the time being takes to trampdom.
His commercial instinct, however, together with the wide system of
charity which the Jews maintain in every city where they are found,
soon enables him to get out of the hobo class. He becomes a trader of
some sort and soon leaves the barrel house and his hobo companions
behind him.
TALKS OF THE TRAMP--WHY DILAPIDATED GENTLEMAN DOES NOT
GIVE UP WANDERING AND SETTLE DOWN--LIKES THE CARE-FREE
LIFE--MINGLES AMONG THE PEOPLE AND GETS TO KNOW THEM
WELL--CHANGES IN COMMUNITY.
"Why don't I give it up and settle down in city or village and become
a respectable member of the community?" echoed the dilapidated
gentleman as he pocketed his usual fee. "I have been asked that
question a thousand times, it seems to me, and my answer has always
been the same. I tramp as a profession, and I stand at the head of
it. I like it. There's a good living in it. I come in contact with
human nature at every turn. I am respectable as it is. The cities and
villages are overcrowded, and the man who butts in has little chance
of success. I have less to worry about and sleep more soundly than any
business man in America. You newspaper fellers think you know it all,
but you'd take a drop to yourselves if you were on the tramp for a
month. You'd see more human nature with the bark on in that time than
you can find on the East Side in New York in five years.
"Say, now," continued the man, "can you name me one single newspaper
in the state of New York that felt sure of Roosevelt's election as
governor? No, you can't. I hit his majority within 2,000. Why? Because
I was among the people and knew how they talked. Plenty of politicians
and newspapers said he'd be elected as president when he ran, but
no man or no newspaper came within a thousand miles of the popular
majority. I don't say that I hit it, but I could have given pointers
to a hundred editors.
[Illustration: SHOWING A "MEMBER" GETTING INTO THE FIGHT LAST NIGHT.
Roaming Rowley--"I've just gotter break inter that nice, warm jail fer
de winter. Here goes dat old shell I found on de battlefield."
(Bang! Flash! Boom!)
"Yes, Mr. Sheriff, it wus me did it! I'm a desprit dynamiter and jail
bird."
Sheriff--"Git out of this township, quick! I won't have you blowin' up
my nice, clean jail! Gwan, git!"]
GET OUT AMONG THE PEOPLE.
"Before the next national convention of either party meets I'll have
tramped over three or four states, and I'll be ready to wager my life
ag'in a nickel that I can name the victorious candidate. I'll wager
that I can predict it far closer than any newspaper in the land. If
you want to know what this country is thinking about, my boy, don't
box yourself up in a sanctum and read a few exchanges. Get out and
rub elbows with the people. It isn't the few big cities that settle
the great political questions. It's the farmer and the villager, and
they come pretty near being dead right every time. When I had tramped
across seven counties of New York state I shouted for Hughes. A
politician in Syracuse who heard me had me thrown out of a meeting and
wanted the police to arrest me. I heard that he had a bet of $5,000
on another candidate and was predicting Hughes' defeat by 50,000. But
enough of this. I'll switch off and tell you something that has hurt
me for the last three or four years.
BARNS NOW LOCKED.
"Do you know that a few men, comparatively, have almost changed the
nature of the country and village population? No, you don't, but
you'll learn of it some day through some magazine writer who gathers
up his points in the way I have. Time was when not one farmer in ten
in the land locked his house or barn at night. Now ninety out of a
hundred do it. When a stranger came along they welcomed him. When a
man talked with them they accepted his statement. What they saw in the
newspapers they believed without cavil. Well, they have got over all
this. The patent medicine faker, the mine exploiter, the bucketshop
man and the hundreds of other swindlers have destroyed the confidence
of the farmer and villager in human nature. They have been bitten so
often and so hard that they come to doubt if such a thing as honesty
exists. They won't take a stranger's word for anything. They have got
through believing that there is an honest advertiser. They have even
become distrustful of each other. It has become the hardest kind of
work to sell a windmill, piano or other articles direct.
VICTIMS OF FAKERS.
"You can't get out into the country and walk five miles without
finding a victim of the fakers. The farmer has invested in bogus
mines, bogus oil wells, bogus stock and bogus other things, and not
only lost his money, but come to know that he was as good as robbed of
it. The villager has been trapped the same way. It has hardened their
hearts and given them the worst view of mankind. You can know nothing
of this by telling, nor of the ruin wrought until you get among the
people.
"Up to a year or so ago it was seldom that a farmer turned me down.
If he had nothing for me to do to earn a meal or lodging he would not
turn me away. He most always took me on trust and had no fear that I
was a rascal in disguise. It's all changed now. This last summer I
was paddling the hoof in Connecticut and Massachusetts, making a sort
of grand farewell tour, and it was hard work for me to even get a few
apples of the farmers. They used to be full of 'chin' and gossip.
They used to hold me for an hour in order to hear all the news. I
found them last summer sullen and sulky and calling to me from the
fields to move on. In other years the village landlord would set me at
work in the stables or with a pail of whitewash in some of the rooms,
and in that way I'd pay for my stay. I found a change there.
HARDENED BY LOSSES IN "PROSPERITY" TIMES.
"Three years ago, if you had started out for a day's tramp with me
along a country road every farmer we met would have had a 'Howdy'
for us, and perhaps stopped for a chin. You'd have heard whistling
or singing from every man at work, and the farmer's wife would have
called to you that she had some fresh buttermilk. Take such a tramp
today and you'll find a tremendous change. I can't estimate the sum
the farmers and villagers have been robbed of during the past years
of prosperity, but it is something appalling for the whole country.
As much and more has been taken out of victims in the cities, but the
case is different. The man in the city doesn't pin his faith to an
advertisement. He speculates on chance. He is where he can use the
law, if needs be. If he loses here he goes at it to get even there.
With the other class it is a dead loss, and the swindler can give them
the laugh. Take almost any highway you will, leading through almost
any state, and eight farmers out of ten have been made victims. Even
the man who has not lost above $10 has been hardened by it.
HIS FEELINGS HURT.
"I said that this change hurt me, and so it does. You may be surprised
to hear that anything can hurt the feelings of a tramp, but that is
because you don't know him. He is looked upon as an outlaw in the
cities, but ever since he took the road there has been a sort of
bond between him and the dwellers outside. He has paid his way or
been willing to. He has asked for little and done little harm. The
newspapers have made thousands of farmers tell hard stories about the
tramp, but it has been in the newspapers alone. The two have worked
together harmoniously.
"Have you got any idea of how the professional conducts himself on
the road? No? Well, it won't happen once in a week that you will find
one without a little money. It has been earned by hard work. When he
stops at a farmhouse he offers to work for a meal. If there is no work
he pays cash for what he gets. If he has been padding along for three
or four days he will stop and work for half a week if the chance is
offered him. In his work he keeps up with the hired man. He washes
before he eats. He knows what forks are made for. He carries a clean
handkerchief oftener than the man he works for. The average tramp can
dress a chicken, kill a pig, empty and fill a straw bed, whitewash
a kitchen, paint the house or fence, hoe corn, dig potatoes, run a
cultivator, drive a team, split fence rails, dig a well, shingle a
roof or rebuild a chimney. He is a handy man. He eats what he gets,
sleeps where he is told to and brings the farmer a bigger budget of
news than any two of his county papers. When his work is finished he
slings his hook and is told to stop again. That's the tramp and that's
the farmer just as they have been for the last forty years, and that's
the reason I bemoan this change in the farmer. He has been victimized
by men he thought were honest, he has been robbed where he trusted,
and in changing his feelings toward mankind he must include the tramp,
who has never wronged him.
DRIVEN TO THE CITIES.
"Take a walk and you will find those same green meadows, those same
brooks, those same lambs, but you won't find Uncle Josh and Aunt Mary
any more. A city like this seems a hard-hearted and cruel place, and
you shiver at the idea of being dead broke. Let me just tell you that
tramps are driven into the cities to recuperate. All the clothing I
have had for the last five years has been begged in the city. All
the money I have had has come from the dwellers therein. The only kind
words I have heard have come from the hurly-burly. Makes you open your
eyes, doesn't it? You are still clinging to the old-fashioned ideas of
the country.
"My friend, let me tell you something. There isn't today a harder man
to deal with than the average farmer. There isn't a woman with less
sentiment than his wife. There's been a mighty change in the last
twenty years. Indeed, it is a change that was forced on the farmer
to protect himself. In years gone by, in tramping over the highways,
I have met lightning-rod men, windmill men, piano men, hay-fork men,
commission men, peddlers, chicken buyers and horse traders. All were
after the farmer. Each and every one intended to beat him, and did
beat him. He was beaten when he sold his produce and he was beaten
when he bought his goods. He was considered fair game all around. It
was argued that his peaceful surroundings made him gullible, and I
guess they did.
[Illustration:
Maud Muller on a summer's day
Raked the meadows sweet with hay;
This heavy work upon the farm
Gave Maud a very strong right arm.
In Chicago just the other day
She raked the muck heaps without pay.
"Near food" and "curealls" went up in smoke.
Maud deserves credit, and that's no joke.
]
THINGS ARE CHANGED NOW.
"Well, Uncle Josh and Aunt Mary died twenty years ago, and their
children took hold. The babbling brook babbles for cash now. The green
meadows mean greenbacks. The lambkins frisk, but they frisk for the
dough. The watchdog at the gate can size up a swindler as well as a
man. The farmer holds on until he gets the highest price, and the
merchant who sells him shoddy has got to get up early in the morning.
Say, now, but I'd rather start out to beat ten men in a city than
one farmer. I'd rather be dead broke here than to have a dollar in
my pocket out in the country. If taken ill here I'm sent to a free
hospital; if taken sick in the country, the Lord help me.
"I'm not blaming the farmer in the least. For a hundred years he was
the prey for swindlers and was taken for a fool. If he's got his
eyes opened at last and is taking care of himself, and I assure you
that such is the case, then so much the better for him. It is the
dilapidated gentleman who suffers most from this change.
"Why is a sailor a sailor? Nineteen times out of twenty it is because
he wants to rove the seas. Why is a tramp a tramp? Nineteen times out
of twenty it is because he wants to rove the land. It is a nervous,
restless feeling that he cannot withstand. He wants to get somewhere,
and he is no sooner there than he wants to get somewhere else. The
majority of them are sober men. They are as honest as the average. Not
one in twenty will refuse to work for a meal or for pay. Not one in
twenty commits a crime for which he should be jailed. You can't make
statistics talk any other way. The whining, lying, vicious tramp has
his home in the city and stays there.
FARMERS DOWN ON TRAMPS.
"It is the press of the country that has got the farmer down on the
tramp. You may drive for fifty miles and interview each farmer as you
come to him and you won't find five to say that a tramp ever caused
them any trouble. In summer the tramp may steal a few apples or
turnips. Anyone driving along the highway is free to do that. Should
he steal an ax, shovel, plow, sheep, calf or break into the house and
steal a watch or clothes, what is he going to do with his plunder? The
instant he tries to realize on it he is nabbed. The tramp who entered
a house and stole $50 in cash would be worse off than if he hadn't a
cent.
"I can walk into that bakery over there and say that I am hungry and
the woman will give me a stale loaf. I can tackle most any man passing
here for a dime for lodgings and get it. I can wander down most any
residence street and raise a hat, a coat or a pair of shoes. How is
it out in the country? We'll say I've hoofed it all day, making about
fifteen miles. I've stopped to rest now and then and view the scenery.
Don't you make any mistake about that scenery feature. If any art
company wanted to publish a thousand views it couldn't do better than
to ask the tramps where to find the best ones. For lunch I pull two
turnips from a field. My drink is from a brook. Along about 6 o'clock
I hunger for cooked victuals, and as it looks like rain I would like
to get lodgings in a barn. I turn aside to a farmhouse. The farmer
is washing his hands at the well to go in to supper. Out of the tail
of his eye he sees me approaching, but he pays no heed until I stand
before him and say:
"'Mister, I can milk a cow, chop wood, mow weeds or hoe If you will
give me supper and lodgings on the haymow I will work an hour at
anything you wish.'
[Illustration: "WHEN DID YOU GET OUT OF JAIL?" HE ASKS.]
SUSPICIOUS OF CALLER.
"'When did you get out of jail?' he asks.
"'I have never been in jail.'
"'But you look like a durned skunk who stole a pitchfork from me last
year.'
"'Last year I was in California.'
"'Want to set my barn afire with your old pipe, do you?'
"'I don't smoke.'
"He stands and thinks a moment and then grudgingly tells me to take a
seat on the kitchen doorsteps. The wife brings me out a stingy supper.
There's an abundance on the table and part of it will go to the hogs,
but she cuts me short, thinking to get ahead of me. I have cleared my
plate in ten minutes and then I am set to work and buckle in until too
dark to see longer. My bed is on the hay, and twice during the night
the farmer comes out to see if I haven't stolen the shingles off the
roof. In the morning if I want a meager breakfast I must put in a good
hour's work for it. That means an hour and a half, and when I thank
the farmer for his generosity and get ready to go on, he says:
"'Goin', eh? Well, that's the way with you durned critters. I've
filled you up and lodged you, and now you want to play the sneak on
me.'
"My friend, don't look for much sentiment in humanity these days, and
don't look for a bit of it out in the country. You won't find it. The
farmer can't afford it. He has been beaten by sharpers and squeezed
by trusts until he has lost faith in everyone. He has buttermilk, but
it's for sale, and before selling it to you he wants a certificate
that you have never stolen a haystack or run away with a field of
buckwheat."
It was hard to suspect that the clean-cut, energetic and rapid-fire
talker was a tramp, but when he produced credentials from one end of
the country to the other, and promised and threatened to produce them
from Brazil, Hungary, New Zealand and the Klondike regions to prove
his statement, it had to be credited.
"I'm A No. 1, the well-known hobo, tramp, author and traveler," he
said, in a speed of diction that would have made the late lamented
Pete Daily or Junie McCree green with envy. "Everywhere you've seen
the marks 'A. No. 1,' on railroad fences, in railroad yards, or
anywhere else, and you must have seen them if you've been over this
country much; you'll know I've been there."
HOBO LOOKS LIKE BUSINESS MAN.
A No. 1 had uttered this sentence in almost one breath, and was
proceeding with such rapidity that it was impossible to follow his
flow of ideas. He was a medium-sized but lithe and powerfully built
man, attired in a neat tailor-made brown suit, with highly polished
shoes, and looking something like a prosperous business man in a small
way. Under his arm he carried a pair of blue overalls, and as he laid
them on the table he remarked: "My traveling rig."
[Illustration:
"Say, Jack, have some more nice hot coffee."
"Gee, Bill, I was jus' thinkin' o' that myself. Talk about great
minds--"
"Come on, Jack, be game. Please have some more o' this nice turkey."
"Turkey! Great Scott! When have I heard that word before? Hain't it a
country out in Asia some place?"
"No. Jack, turkey is vittles. You get it if you love your teacher.
Better let me give you a few nice slivers off the breast."
"Say, Bill, on the dead, you're sure generous, all right, all right.
Here you are, sharin' your last turkey."
"Old man, don't you know it's Thanksgivin' day? Don't you hear the
bells ringin'? Do you reckon I'd dine alone on a day like this? No,
siree, not much. Pass your plate fer some more o' this nice hot
turkey, and some nice hot scolloped oysters, an' some o' these nice
hot biscuits, an' some nice cranberry sauce, an'--"
"There you go. Bill, robbin' yourself. You won't have any left."
"O, there's plenty here. I like to see a man eat till he's plum
foundered.... When I used to go home fer Thanksgivin' mother wasn't
happy unless I et enough to stall a hired hand. If I didn't eat four
helpin's of everything she thought I didn't like her cookin'. Had to
try ever'thing--choc'late cake, turkey, sage dressin', hot gravy,
mince pie, an'--"
"Say. Bill, you might gimme a piece o' that mince pie while you're
about it. I got a nice, cozy little place fer a piece o' mince pie."
"Sure, Jack. I'll give you a whole quarter section. How do you like
this celery? Awful hard to get good celery these days."
"Yep, celery and servants. One's hard to get an' the other's hard to
keep."
"Say, Jack."
"What?"
"Shall we have our cigars and coffee here or in th' drawin' room?"
"O, let's have James bring 'em in th' drawin' room."]
"Maybe I don't look like a tramp to you," he continued, "but I'm
the genuine article, not the tomato-can or barrel-house bum type,
but a real, up-to-date, twentieth-century tramp who respects his
profession. Why am I a tramp? Because I like it. When did I start?
When I was 11 years old. What is my name? None but myself knows it. I
call myself A No. 1 because I'm an A. No. 1 tramp."
[Illustration: DID YA SEEN IT HEN? NAW--WHAT WAS IT? (HONK)]
He had a most convincing way with him and proceeded to spin off a tale
of his adventures which differed somewhat from the ordinary story
that the average tramp will tell you; how he had been hounded by the
police, or released from jail and couldn't get work, or had bad luck
in business, being crushed out by the heartless trusts until he had
to tramp or starve, ending up with an appeal for the "price of a bed,
mister."
"I've kept a record of the towns I've been in ever since I've been on
the road," continued A. No. 1. "and up to date I've traveled 445,405
miles, and it's cost me just $7.61. Out of that distance there's been
92,000 miles of it by water. In 1906 I traveled 19,335 miles for 26
cents, and in the year 1907 I traveled between Stamford and West
Haven, Conn. I jumped a street car and the conductor made me pay my
fare. Oh, I always have a little money, and I'm honest, too, and
that's saying a good deal for a tramp. Of course, once in a while I go
hungry, but that's when I can't get a potato."
[Illustration: "Dese awnings is handy t'ings.
"Wot's de matter wit' fixin' one up on meself?
"It would be a good umbreller----
"An' if a cop bothered yer----
"Youse could let de water off de top.
"It makes a bully tent, or----
"A screen for yer fire.
"But when it's windy----
"Yer wanter look out cause----
"Yer might go sailin'!"]
"Is that your staple article of diet?"
"No, I don't eat them except in restaurants," said A. No. 1,
seriously. "Here is what I do with them." He pulled a good-sized
tuber from his pocket, opened a large clasp knife and speedily had it
peeled. Then he proceeded to cut and carve, and in about three minutes
had fashioned a grotesque human face on the potato, the lines coarse,
to be sure, but nevertheless well outlined.
TRAMP AN ARTIST.
"I make these and can carve anyone's face, and I can sell them
anywhere from 25 cents to $2," said the tramp. "I'm the only man
in this country who can do such work, and there's a demand for it
everywhere I stop long enough to do it. I only stop to do it when I
have to, so that I can get a little money for a meal and pay little
expenses, although my living doesn't cost me much. Then, again, I
never drink or smoke, so that item is cut off. They don't know so much
about me in Chicago as in other places, because I never stopped here
long enough to get acquainted; but they know me back East, all right,
and out in the West."
Then A. No. 1 paused long enough to draw his breath and showed a medal
certifying that in 1894 he had hoboed his way across the continent in
eleven days and six hours in company with the representative of an
Eastern paper and had been given $1,000 for doing it.
"That's how I first became famous," he said, "but I took good care of
the money. I went and bought myself a lot in a graveyard at Cambridge
Springs, Pa., so I could be buried respectably when I die, and I paid
part of the premium on a sick benefit so that I can be taken care of
in case I fall sick suddenly. I'm a member of the Chamber of Commerce
of that town, too. I believe in looking out for A. No. 1, and that's
why I've been so prosperous in the tramping way."
Then A. No. 1 launched into a long and picturesque description of the
ways of tramps in general and himself in particular.
"I've always been particular about some things," said he, "and one is
to keep clean. I find that in asking for a handout the man who looks
up-to-date is the man who gets it. I always wear a suit of overalls
when I'm tramping, for I find that it prevents me from being annoyed
by watchmen in railroad yards. I am generally taken for an engineer.
While I was down in a yard here in Chicago one man came and asked if
I had a car lock, thinking I was a railroad man. I told him I did not
have one and walked off. I have prevented a number of train wrecks,
tramping about, probably at least one every year. The last one, as
you see by this letter, was a few months ago. I saw a freight running
along with a broken truck dragging. I jumped aboard and gave the
warning, as you can see by this clipping. I have also been in a number
of wrecks myself, and have never been injured. I always carry a little
bottle of cyanide of potassium in my pocket so that in case I am
ever fatally injured and in great agony I can take it and end all my
trouble in about 20 seconds."
COLONIES FOR TRAMPS.
Teaching Vagrants a Trade.
The vagrancy problem, growing so great in every part of the country,
has caused the authorities of Massachusetts to make a trial of the
German plan of farm colonies for quasi-criminals. Vagrants are sent to
such farms under indeterminate sentences, forced to support themselves
by honest labor and made to stay there until they give evidence that
upon release they will become useful and self-respecting citizens.
This is a modification of the penal colony idea, which is to send
confirmed criminals to such a place for life. It is a great advance
upon the plan in use in Chicago, which is to send vagrants to the
Bridewell for a stipulated time and let them out again. While they are
confined they are an expense to honest citizens, they acquire more
extensive knowledge of crime, and when released they are less likely
than they were beforehand to go to work and support themselves.
The Massachusetts scheme promises well, so far as it goes. The
trouble with it is that in this climate a farm provides work for only
a small part of the year. From November to March other work would have
to be found for inmates, and up to this time society has failed to
agree upon any that would be satisfactory.
Persons interested in charities and prison reforms are indorsing a
plan for "tramp colonies," "forced colonies" and "free colonies."
Into the one put criminals, or incurable tramps who are unwilling to
work. The other would contain tramps who are unable to find work,
neuropaths, cripples and those who are judged to be curable. Both
kinds of colonies would be strictly agricultural, and their products
would pay all expenses of operation and relieve the country of the
enormous sums now required to be spent.
But why confine this plan, admirable and satisfactory as it is, to
tramps? Why not extend it so as to include criminals? Criminals cost
honest taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Why not reorganize a
system of confinement in such a way as to compel criminals to support
themselves?
But financial relief is not the only advantage. If habitual
criminals--that is to say, criminals who have served two terms in the
penitentiary, and then have committed another crime--were placed in a
penal colony, remote from society and kept there for life, the moral
tone of the country would at once be raised. The bad example of such
men, which leads youths into crime, would be removed. The knowledge
that there was no escape, that return was impossible, once an offender
was sent to the penal colony, would deter many would-be criminals. The
possibility that hardened criminals might propagate themselves would
end.
The penal colony is the one rational solution of the crime problem,
which becomes more difficult and menacing each year. It will be
adopted, sooner or later.
THE YOUNG CRIMINAL
HOW HE IS BRED IN CHICAGO.
Chicago Raises Its Own Criminals.
There is material in this subject for earnest thought. Men under
twenty-five are responsible for 75 per cent of crimes committed in
Chicago, and 50 per cent of robberies and burglaries are done by boys
under nineteen.
If that is true, then the idea many people have had that crimes in
this city are mostly committed by a roving army of criminals, alien
to Chicago and attracted hither by one cause or another, must be
abandoned. If it is true, then Chicago itself is responsible for most
crimes committed here. The men who are guilty have grown up in this
environment, which has given them the evil impetus under which they
act.
The thought that Chicago boys are the criminals who terrorize the
city, rob houses and flats, hold up citizens on the streets and
assault women is distressing. It was much pleasanter to attribute
these crimes to desperate men from elsewhere, descending upon Chicago
like raiders and leaving the city again as soon as possible. But that
is a misconception. We ourselves have reared most of our criminals.
They are a Chicago product. They have received their notions of right
and wrong here among us. We are responsible for them.
What is the matter with Chicago? What are the elements in its life
that breed criminals? What causes thousands of young boys to take up a
criminal life? What must we do to change conditions?
These are questions that should engage every good citizen in anxious
endeavor to find answers to them. If we are to reform criminals and
lessen crime, we must first learn how to reform our own city.
PREVENTING CRIME BETTER THAN CURE.
Instead of attempting to prevent crime, we wait until after the crime
is committed, then burden ourselves with the expense of apprehending,
trying, convicting and imprisoning the criminal.
Our first duty is to adopt those measures that will prevent the
further commission of crime.
Among the problems of Chicago there is no one, perhaps, that is more
baffling than that of the vicious boy.
His years protect him from the rigors of the law, and it is a
difficult matter to know just what to do with him.
There are all sorts of organizations formed for his aid and his
reformation. There is the Juvenile Court, for instance, and there are
innumerable homes and shelters, and still the problem is not solved.
The boy looms large in the public eye these days, when he is sent
to prison for life for murder and spends long years in durance for
burglary and other serious crimes.
The story of the car-barn bandits and their tragic end is too recent
to need more than a passing reference.
The car-barn bandits met an ignominious death on the gallows. Rudolph
Gamof will spend the remainder of his years behind prison bars and
it is quite likely Alfred Lafferty will know what hard work means
in Pontiac or some other such institution before he is once more at
liberty.
THE END OF THE GAMIN.
It will be remembered that little Gavroche, the gamin in "Les
Miserables," came to his death on a barricade in the streets of Paris.
It was during the fatal insurrection of 1830. The lad allied himself
with the insurrectionists and found he was in his element. He did
prodigies of valor and was robbing the dead bodies of the enemy of
cartridges when he was shot. Even after he had been shot once and had
fallen to the earth he raised himself to a sitting posture and began
to sing a revolutionary song.
"He did not finish," says Hugo. "A second bullet from the same
marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the
pavement and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken flight."
Thus it is to be seen that Hugo has made a hero of this lad. But what
of the little gamins that throng Chicago's streets? Will they find any
such glorious end? It is not likely.
Jacob Leib is but 17 years old, and Alfred Lafferty, accused of
twenty-three burglaries, is only 16. The John Worthy School is full
of boys who have been gathered in by the police; the Junior Business
Club, another reform organization, has a big membership, and the
Juvenile Protective League is hard at work trying to do something to
arrest the boy in his mad race to the reform school, prison and the
penitentiary.
In looking about for the causes of crime among boys I found that
poverty, liquor, divorce, yellow newspapers, cigarettes and bad
company played important parts. Certain streets of Chicago are schools
of crime, where boys are taught the rudiments of larceny and soon
become adepts.
Hardened criminals use the more agile youths they find idle to do work
they are unable to do. Certain sections of the city swarm with boys
who are steeped in vice and crime and are in embryo the murderers, the
burglars and the forgers of tomorrow.
CHICAGO HAS HER CHILDREN.
Turning again to the pages of "Les Miserables," the story of Gavroche,
the gamin of Paris, may easily be found, and the tale of this youth
is not far different from that of the "kid" of Chicago. Here is what
Victor Hugo says of Gavroche in that section of his great novel called
"Marius": "This child was muffled up in a pair of man's trousers, but
he did not get them from his father, and a woman's chemise, but he did
not get it from his mother.
"Some people or other had clothed him in rags out of charity. Still he
had a father and a mother. But his father did not think of him and his
mother did not love him.
"He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all; one
of those who have father and mother and who are orphans nevertheless.
"This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The
pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart.
"His parents had dispatched him into life with a kick. He simply took
flight.
"He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wideawake, jeering lad, with
a vicious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played, scraped
the gutters, stole a little, but like cats and sparrows. He had no
shelter, no bread, no fire, no love. When these poor creatures grow
to be men the millstones of the social order meet them and crush
them, but so long as they are children they escape because of their
smallness."
This is a true picture of the urchin of Chicago. These tiny atoms
of humanity are sponges that absorb all the filth, the vice, the
sin and the crime of the streets. They pick up all that is evil and
nothing that is good. They are nurtured at the breast of poverty and
viciousness, and are reared on a diet of depravity and degradation.
There is nothing they do not know of crime and of wickedness. They are
thoroughly saturated with everything that is evil, unprincipled and
debased.
Is it any wonder, then, that the city brings forth an appalling annual
crop of criminals? There may be heroes among the gamins in Chicago,
but most of them are only heroes so long as they remain uncaught.
When they fall into the hands of the police and are taken to jail they
are sorry-looking heroes.
And in the meantime the problem of the boy is still unsolved.
GRADUATE OF THE STREETS.
This, then, is a good specimen of the kind of boy the schools of the
street graduate. From these petty classes of crime they go to the high
school, the prison, where they are further grounded in the knowledge
of wickedness, and as like as not return to Chicago once more,
full-fledged criminals, ready for anything. But this is only one of
hundreds of such cases that are brought to the attention of the police
and the public every year.
Most of the boys who come here are either orphans or half orphans.
Drink has wrecked their homes, perhaps, and they are thrown out on the
world to shift for themselves. If they get into bad company they soon
make their appearance in the Juvenile Court or in jail.
10,000 BOYS WORSE THAN HOMELESS.
A charitable worker who has come in touch with the young of the poorer
districts, whence comes the tough lad, estimates that there are over
10,000 boys in Chicago who are worse than homeless. In other words,
they are in direct line of becoming criminals or public charges, under
the teaching of the trained criminal who makes the city his refuge.
Anderson, the stickup youth who operated extensively on the north
side, choosing women for his victims, is but 23 years old. The men who
relieved Alderman C. M. Foell at the point of a gun are less than 20,
and thus it goes down the line.
They laugh at the efforts of the police to catch them. For the most
part they live at home or with relatives, and in the neighborhoods
are known as dissipated and tough boys, but not as hold-up men. With
companions they sally out at night to isolated sections of the city
where they know the police protection to be inadequate. They choose
secluded spots offering the protection of darkness and lay in wait.
Then, with plenty of time deliberately to stop the victim and take
from him valuables, they operate until it is time for the policeman
to be in the vicinity, or until the profits of the expedition are
sufficient to satisfy their spirit of revelry and riot.
SCHOOLS FOR PICKPOCKETS.
There are numerous places in Chicago where boys are taught to become
pickpockets. Poolrooms are gathering places for such young criminals
and certain saloons of a low order harbor others. There is one saloon
in West Madison street, for instance, not far from Canal street, where
a lot of pickpockets are in the habit of congregating. They are young
fellows for the most part and adepts in their particular field.
They find a sort of home in this saloon, where they can get a big
glass of beer and a generous free lunch for 5 cents. They are in and
out of this place day and night and manage to keep out of the clutches
of the law through their sleekness and cleverness. There is one young
man in there at least who has made a good living by forging orders for
goods. So far he has escaped detection.
His method is to forge an order on some big business house and get
certain goods. One day he got a lot of belting from a well-known firm
on a forged order. He sold this later and realized $4.50 on the deal.
This he spent freely in the saloon mentioned and made no bones of how
he got the money. Others run out, snatch a pocketbook and make for
cover. Later on they look up their cronies at the saloon and spend the
money for beer and cheap whisky, and eat free lunch provided by the
management.
There are numerous other such places, more especially on South Clark
near Van Buren street. Some of the saloons in that section are alive
with young fellows who prey upon the public for a living. They do not
always beg their way, either, for they often take a run out and stick
up somebody, filch a purse or break into a store. When one of them has
been up to some devilment his companions can usually detect it, for he
will come back and be very flush for a few hours, or a few days, all
depending, of course, upon how much he was able to steal.
[Illustration: (Children outside junk shop)]
MODERN BOYS ARE GAMBLERS.
But it is not only in the slums that the tendencies of the modern boy
may be studied. In the more respectable parts of town, in the vicinity
of schools and in the neighborhood of churches may be seen evidences
of what the youth of today think play.
Time was when boys were content to play marbles. Some of them, of
course, had the temerity to play for keeps. Others were taught it was
wicked, and even at the risk of being called "sissy" refrained from
disobeying their mothers. But now marbles are a thing of the past. As
soon as spring comes boys want to shoot "craps." They want to play for
money. They want to gamble.
A visit to almost any school playground during recess or the noon hour
will convince any person that the modern boy is a very wise youth. His
conversation is not a well of English pure and undefiled by any manner
of means. In the first place, his profanity is something shocking,
and, in the next place, his knowledge of the world and its wickedness
is thorough.
There is nothing the modern schoolboy does not know. He is conversant
with all sorts of vice and crime, even if he does not take an actual
part in it. If this sort of thing obtains among schoolboys and youths
of that class it is little wonder, then, that the boys of the slums
are what they are. And the pictures is not overdrawn. The conversation
of boys of ten and a dozen years will bring the blush of shame even to
a grown man.
Just how to cure all this is a question that is bothering a good many
people. Societies are being organized right and left. Homes for boys
are being established, schools are being started and other efforts are
being made to reclaim the delinquents. It has been found that good
playgrounds in the tenement districts have been beneficial. The boy
is exuberant. He must let out some of his animal spirits. If he has
a good place in which to play he will not be half as apt to get into
mischief.
REMEDIES SUGGESTED BY SOME.
There are some who insist that moral suasion should be used at all
times in an attempt to reform the juvenile. But this has been found
to fall short in many instances in Chicago. Even the Juvenile Court,
with all its benefits, is found to come somewhat short of doing
everything for the vicious lad. It is found that boys who are herded
together in penal institutions are inclined to leave such places much
worse than when they entered. The bad boys dominate. The evil spreads
and the good is suppressed. One bad boy is able to do much, while the
influence of one good boy amounts to almost nothing.
Those who have made a study of the matter aver that the only
true solution of the boy problem is individual work. The lad's
characteristics must be studied, the conditions under which he has
been living must be scrutinized and all the influences that have
been brought to bear upon his particular case must be looked into.
Under these circumstances it would take a reformer for every dozen
boys, and so far the money has not been forthcoming to support so
many reformers, for even a reformer must live. A good many of the
delinquent youths of Chicago have been reared in squalid surroundings
and have been nurtured in filth and unloveliness. They have been
surrounded from babyhood by poverty, drunkenness and depravity. These
boys take to crime as naturally as a duck does to water.
In order to reach boys and try to help them individually a movement
is now on foot to form juvenile protective leagues in all parts of
the city. One organization is now working in the vicinity of Halsted
and Twenty-second streets to put a stop to race wars between school
children. It is thought by some that this new movement will fill a
long-needed want. It is admitted by those who have given the matter
close study that something must be done.
The records of the Juvenile Court and the books of the John Worthy
School emphatically bear out this contention.
FAILURE TO RULE CHILDREN MAKES CRIMINALS.
What are you doing with your child's sense of right and wrong? Are
you certain that you are not training a criminal, beginning with him
at two years old? What is your boy at six years of age? Is he liar,
thief--perhaps of insane ego as he was when he first toddled from his
mother's arms? Inferentially President Roosevelt may have complimented
you on the acquisition of a large family, but rather than this, has
it occurred to you that the father and mother of one child, brought
up in the light of wisdom, may be deliverers of mankind against the
numerical inroads of the other type of parent?
Insanity is the mental condition out of which it is impossible for
the person of any age to recognize the rights of others in any form.
This insanity may be due wholly to the overdevelopment of the primary
ego in the child. At one year old the infant may be a potential
criminal of the worst type. It lies to the mother by screaming as if
in pain in order that she may be brought to its bedside. If the adult
should steal personal property as this babe steals food wilfully,
the penitentiary would be his end. Angered, this same babe might
attempt murder in babyhood, the spirit fostered by the same selfish
intolerance that is filling jails and crowding gallows traps.
RESPECT RIGHTS OF OTHERS.
Ego in the community life is the basis of all ill or all good, even
to the dream of Utopia. The basis of all ill is the primary ego which
is inseparable from the child until teaching has eliminated it. The
basis of all good is that secondary ego which recognizes the rights of
others.
Morality--good--virtue--all that is considered desirable in the best
type of citizenship develop out of the community life. Even in the
lower orders of animals a greater intelligence marks the creatures
that live community existences than is to be seen in the isolated
creatures. And this is from the development of the secondary ego which
exacts rights for others.
The child has no knowledge of this secondary virtue save as it is
taught it. The mother who, by responding out of a mistaken affection
to every wail of the infant, encouraging all, no longer is susceptible
to home influences in teaching the lesson. If this youth shall become
entangled in the toils of the law and the mistaken parents intercede
for him, gaining their ends in saving him from all punishment for his
misdeeds, the boy receives through it only another selfish impetus
toward more and greater offenses against society.
REFORMATORY AFTER FIRST CRIME.
Here in this first offense of magnitude sufficient to call for
the intervention of the law the parents have their opportunity,
if only they would see. The place for such a youth at this period
is a reformatory in which are sufficient educational facilities
and the strictest discipline, which in justice visits the full
penalty of community transgressions upon the head of the offender.
In this reformatory environment the offending one finds none of
the intercessions that may have been made for him in his home.
In sterner fashion than he ever dreamed before he discovers that
as he transgresses the community laws he receives a full penalty
for the offense. Young enough, he may be led to discover that his
transgressions are not worth while. Too old for these teachings, he
becomes the persistent lawbreaker, or, on the other hand, degenerates
to the asylum for the insane.
How intimately some of the fundamentals of training are associated
with everyday lives in the home, and yet not recognized, is shown
in the college life of the country. "Sophomore" is a class term in
schools which needs interpreting. As a word, it is from the Greek,
meaning "wise fool." Its application in the higher education is to the
second-year "men"--to those students who are in that period of mental
and physical stress after the age of fifteen is reached. In school
parlance the word associates itself with the flamboyant youth who
prates, and preaches, and struts, and lays down the law of all things
as he sees it. Until twenty-five years old, indeed, the "Sophomoric"
period is not fully passed.
Broadly stated for all men, it may be reiterated that in the parents'
failure to enforce the subjection of the selfish first nature in the
child lies the seed of his destruction. Encouraging the infant to wail
again when nothing ails it is already catering to this criminal ego.
Later, when a parent humors its every whim, he is stunting its growth
toward good citizenship. And later still, in that crisis in physical
life, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years, such a parent
may awaken suddenly to a realization of the criminal which he has made.
Ego in the child mind prompts it to take instantly anything which it
desires and which it can take. Unchecked by training, this primary ego
grows with that upon which it feeds. At two years old the child should
have had its lessons in the rights of others administered in any way
in which it can be reached, but always in all justice. Justice in this
lesson should be the first consideration. At six years of age these
lessons are of special significance. It is an age in the development
of the child when they may be taught with especial emphasis, with
lasting results.
GUIDE CHILD OF FIFTEEN CAREFULLY.
At fifteen years old a new condition arises in the life of the child.
At this time the race condition and the individual condition are
at war. It is at the beginning of this period that an unbridled,
untrained youth may take his first step toward crime, simply because
the primary ego in him has not been set toward the background by the
lessons of his duty toward the rights of others. Here it is that the
heedless, ignorant parents may come to the first realization of what
his own sins of omission have been.
If for any of the reasons suggested a youth's parents have not given
him this necessary training in recognition of the rights of others,
the age brings with it a condition making it impossible in ordinary
cases for the parental conscience and home environment to avail.
[Illustration: (DO IT NOW scenario)]
For example, the fact that the boy becomes a thief, or burglar,
indicates in any or many things that disregard for the rights of
others which is destructive to all law and order. Properly handled in
the home he would have been amenable to all of these conditions.
Raise the child like a plant, care for it as you do for the rarest
specimen of vegetation, bring it up in an atmosphere of love. Child
raising and plant development are akin.
If the child has but the smallest trace of some characteristic you
desire to develop, take hold of it, care for it, surround it with
proper conditions and it will change more certainly and readily than
any plant quality.
CHILD LIKE A PLANT.
The child in nature and processes of growth is essentially the same as
the plant, only the child has a thousand strings instead of but a few,
as has the plant.
Where one can produce one change for the betterment of the plant one
can produce a thousand changes for the betterment of the child.
Surround the child with the proper environment to bring out certain
qualities and the result is inevitable.
Working in the same way as one does with the plant, the development of
the individual is practically unlimited.
Take the common daisy and train it and cultivate it by proper
selection and environment until it has been increased in size, beauty
and productiveness at least four hundred fold.
Do our educational methods do as much for our children? If not, where
is the weakness?
REAR CHILD IN LOVE.
Have the child reared for the first ten years of its life in the open,
in close touch with nature, a barefoot boy with all that implies for
physical stamina, but have him reared in love.
Take the little yellow California poppy and by selecting over and over
again the qualities you wish to develop you have brought forth an
orange poppy, a crimson poppy, a blue poppy. Cannot the same results
be accomplished with the human being? Is not the child as responsive?
THE GREATEST REFORM MOVEMENT OF THE DAY IS THE CHICAGO JUVENILE COURT.
The statistics show conclusively that the operation of the Juvenile
Court is an advance step in the treatment of the young and helpless.
It shows that not only are the dependents helpless, but that the
delinquents are helpless to extricate themselves from a life of
idleness and crime, for most criminals are made, not born, and the
sooner time is devoted to changing the environments of the young, the
sooner will be solved the problem of criminology.
ILLINOIS IN THE LEAD.
Various claims have been put forth from time to time as to the State
which was the first to inaugurate the Juvenile Court idea.
The Juvenile Court Law went into effect July 1, 1899, and immediately
the Juvenile Court was established. The Judges of the Circuit Court
assigned one of their members to preside in the Juvenile Court.
The law gave the court jurisdiction of all dependent and delinquent
children who are under seventeen and eighteen years of age, and
defines dependents and delinquents. The word "dependent" shall mean
any child who for any reason is destitute or homeless or abandoned,
or dependent upon the public for support, or has not proper parental
care or guardianship, or who habitually begs or receives alms, or
who is found living in any house of ill-fame or with any vicious or
disreputable persons, or whose home, by reason of neglect, cruelty or
depravity on the part of its parents, guardian or other persons whose
care it may be, is an unfit place for said child, and any child under
the age of ten years who is found begging, peddling or selling any
article, or singing or playing any musical instrument upon the street,
or giving any public entertainment, or who accompanies or is used in
aid of any person so doing.
The word "delinquent" shall mean any boy under seventeen or any girl
under eighteen years of age who violates any law of this State or any
city or village ordinance, or who is incorrigible, or who knowingly
associates with thieves, vicious or immoral persons, or who is growing
up in idleness or crime, or who knowingly frequents a house of
ill-fame, or who knowingly patronizes any policy shop or place where
any gaming device is or shall be operated.
A boy of seventeen is at a period of life where he is neither a boy
nor a man. In many cases he has the mind of the boy and the impulses
of the savage; his ideals are force, and his ambitions that of the
wild, erratic western rover. Why the wise head and steady hand of the
court and probation officer should be withdrawn at this period is not
explainable on any reasonable theory.
It may be contended that a boy of seventeen years is too advanced in
the knowledge of crime, but it can also be contended that the boy of
fifteen years is too old in crime. Just what standard can be used to
find the responsibility of a boy when measured by his age and physical
proportions I am unable to discover. The only just standard is mental
capacity. The Judge and probation officers, who are familiar with the
boy, know his parents or guardians and his environments, should be
allowed to exercise their judgment as to the moral responsibility of
the boy, for there are many boys at fifteen who are more responsible
for their acts than others at eighteen.
In many cases where children were committed to an institution the
parents were placed under the care of a probation officer and the
number of failures to reform the parent are few.
In cases where the parents are responsible for the dependency of
existence those parents mean well, but they are unfitted for the
duties they have assumed. The father thinks he has fulfilled his whole
duty to his family when he provides food, shelter and clothing; the
mother thinks she has fulfilled her whole duty when she does her house
work and attends to the mending and washing. The children are masters
of both parents before the parents take cognizance of the actual
mental state of the child.
What should be done when the boy's home is the case of his delinquency
is to provide for him a place where every home impulse would be
developed and where industry and economy would be practiced. He should
live in this home under the jurisdiction of the court until he has
reached his eighteenth year.
What is said of the boys is equally true of the girls, and, in many
cases, more important. Where the father is directly responsible for
the downfall of the girl, the girl should not be allowed to return to
her parental home.
WILES OF FORTUNE TELLING.
FORTUNE TELLERS HAVE EXISTED SINCE RECORDS OF EVENTS BEGAN TO BE KEPT.
Some of Their Methods--Charlatans Have a Great Hold on the
Poorer Classes of Big Cities, Much Alike--Schools of Crime
Run Full Blast--Silly and Ignorant People Undone by Vicious
and Wide-Open Fraud.
War against the swindlers, impostors and blackmailers who operate
in Chicago under the guise of clairvoyants, trance mediums,
astro-psychics, palmists, magicians and fortune tellers, of whom there
are about 1,500 in Chicago, should be driven out of the city and never
allowed to return.
There exist in Chicago a horde of these brazen frauds, who ply their
trade in the most open and unblushing manner. Few of them are other
than organized schools for the propagation of crime, injustice and
indecencies that would make an unjailed denizen of the red light
district blush to even mention. We particularly refer to the army
of fortune tellers, clairvoyants, Hindoo fakers, mediums, palmists,
hypnotists and other skillful artists, whose sole occupation is to rob
and mislead the superstitious, foolish and ignorant. The business is a
paying industry, realizing, it is said, an enormous sum of money every
month in Chicago, all of which is obtained by false pretenses.
Here is a very large field for police investigation. The practices
of these people are of the most demoralizing tendency. Can there be
anything worse than holding out love potions to married women to
compel other women's husbands to love them? Those dens of iniquity
offer their services and even actually aid in the procuring of
abortions, and in showing how and where a good haul can be made by
robbery or burglary. They bring together the depraved of both sexes.
Many of them are purveyors to our brothels and stews.
They flaunt their profession, their "spiritual mysteries," brazenly in
public in our busy thoroughfares, even invading some of our hotels.
They are the hotbeds of vice and crime, from the robbing of orphans
to the deflowering of innocent girls. They fall into "trances" and
call up spirits from the vaults of heaven, or elsewhere, to testify to
their truth, and in the turn-up of an ace of spades they see a "dark
lady" or a "dark gentleman" who is pining for you, and furnish the
address of either.
[Illustration: Famous Artist's Explanation of Scientific Ghost
Upper Row (left) Real Ghost. (right) Marx's Imitation.
Lower Row (left) Fake Ghost & drawings by von Marx Showing Make up]
PANDERERS TO DEPRAVITY.
Why these panderers to depravity in all its most hideous forms are
permitted to continue their depredations among every rank of society
without attracting the attention of "reformers" or the grand jury is
something beyond the ken of human knowledge. And as a block is a small
cityful in some parts of the town, the reading of palms, the casting
of horoscopes and the looking into seeds of time through the backs
of a greasy pack of thumb-marked, tear-stained cards is a profitable
calling. Perhaps it should be explained that the tears are not shed
by the prophets of the tenements, but by the patrons who go to the
oracle to learn if they are to be dispossessed next month or if their
ambitious children will sometime learn a little Yiddish, so that they
may talk with their own parents in their own homes, are sources of
information for the settlement workers and others who try to learn the
hopes and fears and ambitions, the real life of such places. But the
fortune tellers are the real custodians of the Ghetto's secrets. In
their little back rooms, some of which are cluttered with the trash
that suggests the occult to the believer, some as bare as the room
of a lodger who has pawned the last stick of furniture, they hear
confessions that court interpreters never have a chance to translate,
and listen to tales of hard luck that are never told to the rabbis.
[Illustration: Chair with open back stuffed with disguises]
[Illustration: (Drawing of costumes)]
[Illustration: Supposed "Medium" Sitting in the Chair.]
PROGNOSTICATIONS ARE VAGUE.
But they don't use the mails to drum up trade, and they have no
barkers at the doorsteps to cajole the credulous to step inside to
learn what the future has in store for them. And so, in a legal sense,
they are guilty of no fraud. They are not very serious frauds in any
sense, for their tricks are harmless and their prognostications are
vague as the weather predictions of an almanac and as probable as the
sayings of the cart-tail orators who hold forth at the street corners
in campaign time.
"About this time, look for cold winds, with some snow," sagely remarks
the almanac writer, stringing the ten words of his prediction down the
entire column of the month.
"In a few years," says the fortune teller, solemnly, "you will have
good friends and more money than you have now."
"If you vote for this man," shrieks the cart-tail orator, "rents will
be lower and the street cleaner and you will get jobs. The other
ticket stands for graft and greed. Vote for it if you want your
children to run in the streets, because there is no room for them in
the schools."
PREDICTS LIKE A SPELLBINDER.
Like the spellbinder, the oracle frequently builds on the
look-on-this-picture-and-then-on-that plan.
"This is a strong line," mumbles the palmist. "You will meet a man
with blue eyes who will help you, but beware of a man with dark hair."
Sometimes the helper has light hair and the man to be avoided black
eyes. But invariably the good friend of the future is blond and the
devil is brunette. No seer would any more think of changing that
color scheme than the writer of a melodrama would dare stage a villain
who didn't have hair and mustache as black as night. That prediction
is one of the traditions of the art, and no future has ever been
complete without the dark and the light men or the dark and the light
woman, as the case might be.
One of the most famous of fortune tellers, a woman, died suddenly. She
had been reading cards in the same house for forty years, and on the
day of her funeral her house was crowded with mourners, whose future
she had foreseen with so much shrewdness that not one of the 200 or
more men and women who filed by the coffin, to view the body had any
fault to find with the services she had rendered. On the contrary,
they compared notes, each trying to pay the best tribute to the dead
by telling the most wonderful story of her predictions.
WARNED OF THE ENEMY.
"I was sitting right in this room at that table where the flowers are
today," said one mourner, "and she said to me: 'You have an enemy.
It is here on this card where you can see it plainly. But here is a
friend, a tall, light man, who will come between you and your enemy.
Put your trust in the tall, light man, but keep away from a dark man.
There is a dark-haired woman who pretends to be your friend, but lies
about you.'"
Compare that prediction of the oracle with this forecast of Daniel
Defoe's famous deaf and dumb predictor, Duncan Campbell.
"To Mme. S----h W----d; I see but one misfortune after the year of
1725. A black man, pretty tall and fat, seems to wish you no good.
Never tell your secrets to any such persons, and their malice cannot
hurt you."
And that warning wasn't original when Mme. S----h W----d called at
Duncan Campbell's lodging in London to learn what was what. No doubt
it could be traced beyond Delphi. That's almost as safe a guess as to
assume that Mme. S----h W----d was a Sarah Wood. She might have been a
Wedd or a Weld, but that is doubtful.
PREDICTIONS CHANGE LITTLE.
So, although the seer of Randolph street and all the rest probably
never heard of Duncan Campbell or Nostradamus, or of their
predecessors at Delphi, they have kept the profession of forecasting
remarkably free of innovations.
"This art of prediction," reads Defoe's Life and Adventures of Duncan
Campbell, "is not attainable any otherwise than by these three ways.
1. It is done by the company of familiar spirits and genii, which are
of two sorts (some good and some bad), who tell the gifted person
the things, of which he informs other people. 2. It is performed by
the second sight, which is very various and differs in most of the
possessors, it being only a very little in some, very extensive and
constant in others; beginning with some in their infancy and leaving
them before they come to years, happening to others in a middle age,
to others again in an old age that never had it before, and lasting
only for a term of years, and now and then for a very short period of
time; and in some intermitting, like fits, as it were, of vision that
leave them for a time, and then return to be strong in them as ever;
and it being in a manner hereditary in some families, whose children
have it from their infancy (without intermission) to a great old age,
and even to the time of their death, which they even foretell before
it comes to pass, to a day--nay, even to an hour. 3. It is attained by
the diligent study of the lawful part of the art of magic."
MAKE ENOUGH TO RETIRE.
Nowadays the prophets see to it that their miraculous power does not
depart from them for any cause whatsoever until their own palms have
been crossed with enough silver to enable them to retire in comfort.
A certain Fatima who told fortunes on Madison street for years removed
her card from the front window and disappeared altogether. She had
bought a farm up the state, where she is now living and raising fancy
breeds of poultry. There is no mortgage on the farm, and the hens have
grain three times a day.
Just which one of Duncan Campbell's three methods a certain
practitioner uses is not apparent, but he was one of the most noted
and successful fortune tellers, and his men patrons set more store by
what he said than in the promises of the district leaders.
ANSWERS QUESTIONS FOR A DOLLAR.
He has reduced his business to a fine system, and all the questions
that anybody could possibly think of are set down in a book with
numbers opposite them. And these books, printed in Yiddish, English
and German, anticipate all the hopes and fears of the tenements. The
questions, all of a strong local flavor, are all answered by the
fortune teller off-hand for $1, notwithstanding the fact that they
present some of the toughest problems that the philanthropists who
support the Educational Alliance and the settlement houses have been
trying for years to solve. To illustrate, take this group of questions
under the general classifications "Home and Children":
"Can I learn English?"
"Can I make my son or daughter learn Yiddish?"
"Shall my children play with Christians?"
The book printed in Yiddish shows the most wear. It is divided under
these heads: "Travel and Letters," "Love and Marriage," "Home and
Children," "Business," "Work," "Luck and Losses."
Some of the questions make interesting reading and supplementary to
the reports and papers of the various Hebrew charity organizations.
One of the more recent of these reports gave statistics of desertions
of wives, and "other women" was put down as the cause in a large
number of cases.
MARRIED TWO WIVES; WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
The first question in the fortune tellers book under "Travel and
Letters" is, "Where did my husband elope to?" The identity of the
other woman in the case seems to be secondary in importance to the
whereabouts of the deserter.
Under "Love and Marriage" are these questions, among many others:
"Is my bride's dowry as big as she says it is?"
"I have married two wives; what will happen?"
"Shall I be married in court?"
Those who are in doubt about work have many questions to select from,
the list starting off like this:
"Shall I be a letter carrier?"
"Shall I be a conductor?"
"Shall I be a street cleaner?"
"Shall I be an actor?"
"Shall I be a lady-figure?"
A lady-figure is undoubtedly a cloak model.
Under "Business" some of the questions are:
"Shall I remain a peddler or keep a store?"
"Shall I sue my partner?"
"Will my partner sue me?"
"Shall I take my wife into the store as a partner?"
"Shall I take my husband into the store as a partner?"
"Shall I buy the goods?"
"Will the bank fail?"
Under "Luck and Losses" are:
"Was I robbed by friends or strangers?"
"Does anybody look in my pockets nights?"
"Will the landlord put me out?"
ROOMFUL OF PATRONS.
The deviser of these books keeps his office in a rear tenement open
from early morning till late at night, and there is generally a
roomful of anxious patrons awaiting their turns.
At a single sitting, price $1, the man or woman who wants to know
may select three questions. She puts the number corresponding to the
questions on a slip of paper. The numbers do not run in regular order
through the book or through any section of it.
The slip of paper is kept concealed by the questioner, and later on,
when she is in the actual presence of the oracle, she writes those
numbers again on another slip of paper, hidden from the fortune teller
by a book cover. She also writes her name on two pieces of paper,
which she places in two Bibles, opened at random by the fortune teller
after she has named any three words she happens to see on the page.
GETS POINTERS FROM CUSTOMER.
Then the books are closed, the soothsayer tells his customer what
her name is (he is not often absolutely accurate in that part of
the game), and then he begins to talk about the past and future in
such a rambling, comprehensive way that he is almost sure to hit
upon, directly or indirectly, the questions she has in mind. If he
is too far off the trail he asks the woman from time to time if she
understands him, and from her replies and questions gets a further
clew as to just which three questions she had selected from the lists.
Then the rest is simple.
SPOOKS RAIDED.
DETECTIVES WOOLDRIDGE AND BARRY DESCEND ON A WEST SIDE MEDIUM'S PLACE.
Lively Fight Before the Officers Succeed in Making
Arrests--One of the Number Set Upon and Severely Beaten
Before Aided--Spectators at the Seance Take Part and the
Row Becomes General--Search of the Premises Reveals a
Systematic Plan to Deceive--Anger of the Dupes Turns to
Chagrin at the Revelations Made by the Police.
September 2, 1906, Catherine Nichols, Sarah Nichols and Jennie
Nichols, 186 Sebor street, fake exponents of materialization of
spirits and general "spook" grafters, were arrested, the seances
raided and the game closed, by Detectives Wooldridge and Barry.
The scene of the raid was a brick building at 184 Sebor street, which
is just east of Halsted and a block south of Harrison street.
The medium arrested was Miss Jennie Nichols, who, with her mother,
Mrs. Catherine Nichols, and her sister, Sarah, had been gleaning a
harvest of dollars from guillible residents, mostly of the West Side
of the city, during the last two years. The establishment of the
Nichols family occupies parts of two buildings, the mother and her two
daughters living at 186 Sebor street, next door to 184. On the second
floor of the latter address was located the hall which they used for
their public seances.
PLANS ARE WELL LAID.
The raid was made on the authority of a warrant which was applied
for by Miss Muriel Miller, a young woman who was induced by the
blandishments of other mediums to come to Chicago from her home in
Portland, Ore. Miss Miller, who is employed in a barber shop in Clark
street, is slightly deaf. She became interested in Spiritualism, and
thus came in touch with the Nichols' outfit.
[Illustration: "SPIRIT PICTURES" OF WOMEN HELD AS BOGUS MEDIUMS, AND
SCENE SHOWING FIGHT BETWEEN PUGILISTIC SPOOKS AND DETECTIVES.
CATHERINE NICHOLS, JENNIE NICHOLS]
She had written to another Chicago medium, and received letters in
answer signed "Professor Venazo."
It was explained to Miss Miller that the wonderful cures which the
medium professed to be able to make were brought about while the
patient was in a trance. In a letter which had been turned over to
the police, "Professor Venazo," which is the name with which an
accomplice of certain Chicago mediums signed such communications,
explained that because of stress of business it would be impossible to
undertake to cure Miss Miller of her deafness unless she was prepared
to put up at least $50 in cash.
The letter stated that if she would send to "Professor Venazo" $100
the medium would undertake to go to her home and cure her there. If
she did not wish to pay that much money she could come to Chicago, pay
the medium $50, and be cured "while in a trance."
Detectives Barry and David Carroll were detailed to assist Wooldridge
in serving the warrants and making the raid.
DETECTIVES ATTEND SERVICE.
Barry and Carroll planned to effect an entrance to the "seance."
Inspector Revere was informed and asked to give a detail of six
officers, who, headed by Detective Wooldridge, went to the hall on
Sebor street. Barry and Carroll had preceded them and succeeded in
convincing Jennie Nichols, who was the master of ceremonies, that
they were interested in spiritualism and desired to witness the
materializations.
When they went to the hall, Detective Barry walked in and found
twenty-eight or thirty others there before him. Jennie Nichols was
busy arranging the spectators in seats. She took a great deal of care
about placing them. Carroll and Barry entered and signed their names
on the register. This was a book in which everyone who is admitted to
a seance is requested to place his name and place of residence. Barry
signed as "John Woods"; address, 142 Ashland boulevard.
CALLING UP THE SPIRITS.
When the seance opened Jennie Nichols conducted those who were in the
hall through the main room and the one at the rear, before which the
curtain was placed. Everything was all right, so far as Detectives
Barry and Carroll could see. The cabinet from which the spirits were
to come stood across one corner, and opposite it was a door leading
into one of the two rooms in the rear of the hall.
They examined the cabinet and the rooms carefully, but found
everything all right. After they had been through everything the doors
were locked and they returned to their seats, Miss Nichols making some
other changes in the arrangements of the seats, and then the place was
darkened.
When the place had been made almost entirely dark, Jennie Nichols,
the medium, began pacing back and forth in front of the curtain. She
rubbed her hands over her head and eyes a number of times, and began
to chant: "Come, O queen, O queen."
When she began to call on the "queen" the spectators began to get
excited. Most of them appeared to be thoroughly familiar with the
proceedings, and several of them said: "Oh, I hope it's the king."
Then the medium pulled a cord which was attached to a light enclosed
in a sheet-iron case, the one small opening of which was covered with
several thicknesses of green tissue paper. When she pulled the string
the room became darker than ever.
SPIRITS BEGIN TO MOVE.
Before she began her incantations the medium had requested everyone
present not to cross their feet, and to try to assist her to bring the
spirits before them. She said that it would probably not be possible
to bring a spirit for everybody, but that if all helped her, the
spirits wanted by many in the audience would surely appear.
Then she asked them all to sing "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which they
did, and after a few more passes over her temples and in front of her
eyes the spirit began to move. The detectives could see it, and they
began to think they had been wrong in thinking there was nothing in
spiritualism. It certainly appeared real. First one form would glide
back and forth in front of the curtain, then an entirely different
one would appear. Altogether there were spirits of about ten men and
children materialized.
As the apparitions moved slowly in front of the curtain, in the
spectral light which made it impossible to detect more than a faint
outline of the form, women rushed forward crying out that it was their
husband, or their child, that they saw. They stretched out their hands
to clasp the forms of their departed, but Jennie Nichols and her male
assistant would take them by their hands and tell them they must not
touch the spirit or it would fade away. You could get within six
inches of the figures, and peer into the faces as they passed to and
fro, but everyone was restrained from attempting to touch them. In the
ghostly light of the room the closest inspection could not determine
that the figures were frauds, so clever were they disguised.
KEYS UP THE SPECTATORS.
While the detectives were waiting for the materialization, a woman
they knew entered the room. Barry put his handkerchief up to his
face for fear she would recognize him. They wanted to know what was
the matter with him, and Barry said that he guessed he had something
in his eye. They wanted to take it out, and he had to put his
handkerchief away. He thought he was discovered, but the woman, Mrs.
Ella Hoobler, 319 West Madison street, said nothing about him. After
they had arrested the Nichols woman, Mrs. Hoobler told Barry she had
recognized him when she first entered the room, but she thought he was
"bug" in the game, and said nothing.
After about ten materializations of husbands and children had keyed
the spectators up to a high pitch, Mrs. Hoobler asked for the spirit
of her daughter, Helen. In a few minutes the figure of a young girl,
clad in white from head to foot, appeared before the curtain.
"Oh, Helen, my Helen!" Mrs. Hoobler exclaimed, rushing to the
apparition. "Oh, mamma!" came the answer in a shrill falsetto voice.
[Illustration: Medium's Paraphernalia Seized by Police in Raid.]
Jennie Nichols and the big assistant seized Mrs. Hoobler's hands just
as she was about to clasp what she believed to be the spirit of her
daughter in her arms.
"You must not touch it," Jennie Nichols told her, "or the spirit will
go away."
The poor, almost frantic woman kneeled before the apparition. Barry
thought it was time to get busy, and he whispered softly to Carroll:
"Watch out, there's going to be a pinch." Then he threw on the
flashlight and whistled for the squad outside to come in.
Just as he did this the "spook" in front of him looked so realistic
that for the life of him he couldn't decide whether he was going up
against a real spirit or not. But he took a chance and grabbed for it.
Even when he had hold of it and knew it must be flesh and blood, it
seemed so slimy, with the white stuff rubbed over it, that he felt his
hair rising.
Just about that time the medium outfit got busy. The big man who had
been helping Jennie Nichols hold the hands of the people who were
trying to grab the spirits of their dead hit Barry over the head with
some sort of a club that knocked him to the floor. Jennie Nichols put
out the light entirely, grabbed Barry's flashlight and began pounding
him over the head with it. They went to the floor in a rough and
tumble scrimmage, the crowd on top of them, yelling and screaming.
In the next room Carroll was busy, too. He got hold of Mrs. Catherine
Nichols, the mother, who had been helping with the show, and he was
beset by spectators who were incensed because the seance had been
broken up.
WOOLDRIDGE TAKES A HAND.
When Detective Wooldridge and his detail broke down the doors of the
hall and made their entrance into the place it was pitch dark, and
they had to strike matches before they could separate the combatants.
After a semblance of order had been restored in the place the
premises were searched, and a most astounding outfit of disguises
discovered. Before this development the spectators, who had been held
in the place, were very angry with the officers, saying that they had
been attending the seances for the last two years; that they knew
Jennie Nichols as a medium had shown them the spirits of their dead.
When the officers produced Sarah Nichols, to whom Detective Barry had
held when he seized the "spook," they discovered that she had been
wearing a pair of sandal slippers with felt five inches thick for
soles; a pair of men's black trousers and the white shroud and painted
picture face of a young girl.
Attached to a pole in front of her was a paper head, around which was
a white shroud four feet in length. Those in attendance believed this
image to be the spirit of a believer's dead relative. The "medium" had
"spook" images of men, women and children, and could produce them as
circumstances demanded. The light was turned up, and the contemptible
imposition on credulity was exposed to twenty-six dupes, who had
been paying $1 apiece for the privilege of attending meetings of the
"spook" grafters for years. It was the greatest exposé of "spooks"
that has been made in many years. A wagon load of masks, wigs, false
whiskers, tin horns, gowns with safety pins in them, skulls and
skeletons with cross-bones to match, were seized.
WOMEN REFUSE TO TALK.
At the station the women refused to talk. Sarah Nichols, the "spook,"
had donned a house dress before she was taken to the station. Jennie
Nichols, the "medium," was dressed in a neat black gown of rich
material. The mother appeared in a black skirt and a white shirtwaist.
The latter is a gray-haired woman apparently about 50 years old. She
wept copiously. Sarah Nichols also wept. In the scrimmage after the
arrest her ear had been injured, and it was bleeding when the trio was
booked at the station.
Jennie Nichols was the most composed of all. She held a palm leaf fan
in front of her face and above it twinkled a pair of shrewd blue eyes.
As she and her relatives were led from the private room at Harrison
street she even laughed, although her mother and her sister were in
tears, and her victims were denouncing her for having robbed them,
through their credulity, of hundreds of dollars, which many of them
could ill afford to lose.
WOOLDRIDGE MAKES GHOST WALK IN POLICE COURT.
A "spook" sat on the bench with Justice Prindiville. He made ghosts
walk and graveyards yawn.
The "spook" was Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
When Miss Sarah Nichols, "the ghost," Miss Jennie Nichols, "the trance
medium," and Mrs. Catherine Nichols, mother of the other two known as
the "overseer," appeared in court to answer to charges of obtaining
money by false pretenses through spiritualistic seances, Detective
Wooldridge crowded to the center of the stage.
He bore a great board, on which were tacked white shrouds, grinning
skulls and cross-bones, the costume of an Indian, and other
instruments of the medium's trade.
"For the benefit of the public at large," he said, addressing
the court, "I ask permission to expose the methods of these fake
spiritualists."
The permission was given, and "Spook" Wooldridge took the wool sack.
"SPOOK" WOOLDRIDGE DEMONSTRATES.
He lit the punk with which the mediums were wont to light up the
skull. He burned incense. He put on a white gown.
"This is Carrie's garment," he said, pointing to where "Ghost" Carrie,
twenty-four years old and buxom, stood.
He went through the whole performance, save the grease paint. He
started to daub his face with the stuff, which gave a ghostly hue,
when the justice interrupted:
"You needn't dirty your face, Friend Spook. You've scored your points
already." The "Spook" had, indeed.
Despite the exposures, many women and a few men who had come to hear
the cases, expressed their devotion to the persons arrested and to the
"cause."
They finally became so demonstrative that Justice Prindiville ordered
the court room cleared of the "devotees."
"This is not a matinee, a spiritualists' meeting or a circus," said
the Justice. "Let the devotees meet in the outer hall."
Fifty women, of all ages and many conditions of life, stood with
mouths wide open and eyes bulging as Wooldridge went through his
performance. They were the victims of the Nichols women.
Jennie Nichols and Sarah Nichols were fined $100 each.
ARREST SOUTH SIDE MEDIUMS.
To conclude the record of the day, Detectives Wooldridge and Barry,
accompanied by two officers from the Cottage Grove station, visited
a seance given by Clarence A. Beverly and Mrs. M. Dixon at Arlington
hall, Thirty-first street and Indiana avenue. The officers bought
tickets and awaited the performance. After a lecture on psychic
problems by "Dr." Beverly and a programme of music rendered by
children, "Dr." Dixon took the rostrum and went through a series of
clairvoyant discoveries.
Among the things which she professed to predict while in her
"trance" was a prognostication which had not a little to do with the
developments of the evening. After she had pointed out a number of
persons in the audience and told what they had done or should do, she
discovered Wooldridge and singled him out.
"I see a man with glasses who has his hands crossed over his knees,"
she said. "I am governed by the spirit of John Googan, an Irishman. He
gives you a message," pointing to Wooldridge, "and says that whatever
John orders must be done."
At this Wooldridge, arising from his seat, advanced to the rostrum.
OFFICER SERVES PAPERS.
"John Collins, chief of police, says, Mrs. Dixon, that I am to put you
under arrest under a state warrant charging you with receiving money
by a confidence game. I also have a warrant charging the same offense
against Clarence A. Beverly. Dr. Beverly, please come forth."
Dr. Beverly presented himself, and both he and Mrs. Dixon were taken
to Harrison street, where strenuous efforts on their behalf on the
part of "Dr." Harry H. Tobias, spiritual mental healer, with offices
at 118 East Thirty-third street, and others, failed to procure them
bonds.
The arrest of Beverly and Mrs. Dixon was made on a warrant signed
by Miss Miller, who had entered into correspondence with them from
her home in Portland, Ore. The fee in Chicago was to have been $50,
according to the letters she received from the mediums, as in the
preceding instance. She borrowed money to come to Chicago, and had
but $25 to pay the "healers." When she received no benefit from their
treatment she made complaint and was threatened with violence, she
alleges. Thereupon she laid her case before Chief Collins, resulting
in the raid and the closing up of this place.
Thus did the sleuth a-sleuthing vanquish the ubiquitous "spook," the
"ghost," the "spirit," the re-incarnation, the Mahatma, the "sending,"
and all the hosts of the immaterial world, whose immaterialism was
being converted into good hard material cash by the producers of the
evanescent shapes from beyond the veil.
Thus did Clifton R. Wooldridge and his able assistants make "spooking"
a dangerous business in Chicago.
WIFE OR GALLOWS?
PREFERS HANGING TO LIVING WITH HIS WIFE.
Hugo Devel prefers being hanged to living with his wife.
Unable to escape her in any other way, lacking the courage or nerve to
kill himself, and shuddering at the idea of life imprisonment with the
woman he had promised to love and cherish, he confessed to a murder
he did not commit, and was ready to go upon the gallows or to penal
servitude for life in the stead of the real murderer.
[Illustration: HE'D RATHER BE HANGED THAN LIVE WITH HIS WIFE.]
Now he is free, and miserable, and in his home at Lubeck, in Germany.
He is envying Franz Holz, who is awaiting the gallows.
Devel admits sadly that he had a double purpose in wanting to die on
the gallows. First, that he would escape his wife; and, second, that,
by being hanged he would make it improbable that any other man should
meet his fate--not his fate on the gallows, but his fate in having
wedded Frau Devel.
The case, which was cleared up by the Hamburg police, furnished a
problem that would have defied the cunning of Sherlock Holmes and all
his kindred analysts. Briefly stated, the facts in the case, which is
the strangest one ever given to a detective department to solve, are
these:
WOMAN WAS ROBBED AND MURDERED.
A few months ago a certain Frau Gimble, of Munich, was cruelly
murdered by a man. The evident motive of the deed was robbery, and
that the crime was planned and premeditated there was sufficient
evidence. Every clew and circumstance pointed to Franz Holz. He
was known to have been at or near the scene of the murder shortly
before its commission. He knew the woman, and had knowledge that she
kept a considerable sum of money in her home. He was known to have
been without money for days prior to the murder, and immediately
after the deed, and before the body was discovered, he had appeared
with a quantity of money, made some purchases, bought drinks for
acquaintances, and then disappeared.
The police were on his trail within a short time after the finding
of the body of the murdered woman. Holz had fled toward Berlin, and
a warning was sent in all directions, containing descriptions of the
fugitive.
The awfulness of the deed attracted the more attention because of
the locality and the ruthless and cruel manner of its commission.
While the police were making a rapid search for the fugitive Holz,
Hugo Devel, a well-to-do tradesman in Lubeck, surrendered himself to
the police of his home town and confessed that he, and not Holz, had
committed the crime. Devel had been in Hamburg at the time the crime
was committed. His confession, which destroyed all the evidence and
all the theories implicating Holz, staggered the detectives.
DEVEL CONFESSES TO THE CRIME.
Although apparently saved from a remarkable network of circumstantial
evidence, and no longer wanted for the murder of the Gimble woman,
the German police reasoned that Holz, if he had not fled because
of that crime, must have fled because of some other crime. So
the department, which has a name a couple of feet long, which in
English would mean, "the department for finding out everything about
everybody," kept on the trail.
Meantime the police of Hamburg got possession of Devel and examined
him. From the first they were uneasy. He confessed that he murdered
the woman to get her money, and beyond that would not tell anything.
It is not customary for the police to insist that a man who confesses
that he is guilty of murder shall prove it, but there were facts known
to the police which made them wonder how it was possible for Devel to
have killed the woman. They used the common police methods, and made
the prisoner talk. The more he talked the more apparent it became to
the police that he was innocent, although he still claimed vehemently
that he, and he alone, killed the Gimble woman.
POLICE LEARN HE IS NOT GUILTY.
Some of his statements were ridiculous. For instance, he did not know
what quarter of the city the woman lived in. He did not know how she
had been murdered. He said he climbed through a window and killed the
woman. When pressed, he said the window was the dining-room window.
In view of the fact that she was killed while working in a little
open, outdoor kitchen when murdered, the police became satisfied that
Devel was not the man, and ordered the pursuit of Holz resumed by all
departments.
The case even then was a remarkable one, and one which would have
defied any theoretical detective. The police proved that it was
impossible that Devel should be confessing in order to shield
Holz--first, because he never knew Holz; and second, because the
police had informed him that the real murderer was in custody, in
order to discover a reason for his confession. It was suspected that
Devel was partly insane and seeking notoriety. Everything in his life
refuted that idea. He was a quiet, orderly citizen, who seldom read
newspapers, and who neither was interested in crime or criminals.
He owned a small business in Lubeck, attended to it strictly, drank
little, and apparently was as sane as any one.
SEARCHING FOR MOTIVE OF CONFESSION.
The case worried the police officials. The absolute lack of reason for
Devel's confession stimulated their curiosity. He was held in custody
for weeks, and then the police gave up in despair, and, as Holz had
been arrested and had confessed to everything, the release of Devel
was ordered. The order of release proved the move that revealed the
truth. When he was told that he was free to return home, Devel broke
down and begged the police to keep him in prison, to hang him, to
poison him, but not to send him home.
In his agony he confessed that the only reason he confessed the murder
was that he desired to get hanged, and that he preferred hanging to
life with his wife.
The hard-hearted police set him free--literally threw him out of the
prison, and he returned to his wife in Lubeck. The following day he
resumed charge of his business.
An English correspondent visited Devel in his shop and made certain
inquiries of him regarding the case. As the hanging editor would say,
"the condemned man was nervous." He was afraid his wife would read
what he said, but the correspondent finally got him to tell.
"I desired to be hung," said Devel, mournfully. "Life is not worth the
living, and with my wife it is worse than death. If I had been hanged
no other man would marry my wife, and I would save them from my fate.
Many times have I planned to kill myself to escape her. That is sin,
and I lack the bravery to kill myself, besides. If they will not hang
me I must continue to live with my wife."
Devel states, among other things, that these are the chief grievances
against married life in general, and his wife in particular:
She was slender, and became fat and strong.
She was beautiful, and became ugly and coarse.
She was tender, and grew hard.
She was loving, and grew virulent.
She grew whiskers on her chin.
She called him "pig."
She wore untidy clothes, and her hair was unkempt.
She refused to give him beer.
Her breath smelled of onions and of garlic.
She threw hot soup upon him.
She continually upbraided him because there were no
children.
She scolded him in the presence of neighbors.
She refused to permit him to bring his friends home.
She came into his store and scolded him.
She accused him of infidelity.
She disturbed him when he slept in the garden on Sundays.
She made him cook his own dinners.
She spilled his beer when he drank quietly with friends.
She told tales about him among the neighbors, and injured
his business.
She served his sausages and his soup cold, and sometimes
did not have his meals for him when he came home.
She did not make the beds nor clean the house.
She took cards out of his skat deck.
She talked continually, and scolded him for everything or
nothing.
She opened the windows when he closed them, and closed them
when he opened them.
She poured water into his shoes while he slept.
She cut off his dachshund's tail.
These things, he said, made him prefer to be hanged to living with her.
Incidentally Holz, who is awaiting execution, expresses an earnest
desire to trade places with Herr Devel.
There is no accounting for tastes.
A CLEVER SHOPLIFTER.
DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE FINDS A FAIR CRIMINAL.
While passing through the Fair, one of the largest retail dry goods
establishments in Chicago, Detective Wooldridge noticed one of the
cleverest shoplifters that ever operated in Chicago, Bertha Lebecke,
known as "Fainting Bertha."
She was standing in front of the handkerchief counter, where her
actions attracted Wooldridge's attention, and he concluded to watch
her. She called the girl's attention to something on the shelf and as
she turned to get it Bertha's hand reached out and took a half dozen
expensive lace handkerchiefs, which disappeared in the folds of her
skirt.
The act was performed so quickly and with such cleverness that it
would have gone unnoticed unless one were looking right at her and saw
her take the handkerchiefs.
From the handkerchief counter she went to the drug department, where
she secured several bottles of perfume. As she was leaving this
counter she met a Central detective who had arrested her before
for the same offense. He stopped a few yards from her to make some
trifling purchases. She, thinking he was watching her, left the store.
From the Fair she went to Siegel-Cooper's, another large dry goods
store several blocks away. Detective Wooldridge followed her. She was
seen to go from counter to counter, and from each one she succeeded in
getting some article.
As she was leaving the store she was placed under arrest by Detective
Wooldridge and taken to the Police Station.
When she was arrested she fainted, and a great crowd gathered around
her, and many of the women cried and implored Detective Wooldridge not
to arrest her, but he would not be moved by any of them to let her go
free.
[Illustration: "_FAINTING BERTHA_"]
When she arrived at the Police Station she was searched, and beneath
the folds of her skirt was found a strong waist pocket which looked
like a petticoat. It consisted of two pieces of material gathered
full at the top with a strong cord or puckering string run through,
and sewed together around the edges. In front of this great bag was a
slit two feet long opening from the top to within a few inches of the
bottom. This petticoat was worn under the dress skirt. On each side
of the outside skirt was a long slit concealed by the folds of the
skirt, and with one hand she could slip the stolen articles in through
the slit in the inside of her dress and into the petticoat bag to the
opening in front. The capacity of the bag was enormous. She had stolen
some $40 or $50 worth of goods when arrested. The following morning
she was arraigned in the Police Court and heavily fined, and the goods
were restored to the merchants.
Bertha Lebecke, 27 years old, is conceded by Illinois state
authorities to be the most troublesome person who ever crossed the
state line from any direction at any time.
Just how large a cash bonus the state treasury today might be willing
to advance could it be assured of Bertha's deportation forever beyond
the confines of Illinois is something difficult to estimate, but it
is certain that in the asylums for the insane at Kankakee, Elgin
and Bartonville, and in the state penitentiary at Joliet there are
attendants on salaries who would make personal contributions to help
swell the possible fund.
Yet "Fainting Bertha" Lebecke is one of the prettiest, blondest,
most delicate handed little bits of well-developed femininity that
ever made a marked success in deceiving people of both sexes and all
conditions in public, afterwards deceiving officials of jails, asylums
and penitentiaries until bars and gates and frowning walls were as
cobwebs before her.
SLEEPS ALL DAY; MAKES NIGHT HIDEOUS.
Gates of steel never have held her in jail or asylum. In the mightier
penitentiaries she has made herself such an uncontrolled fury
by night--sleeping calmly all day long and resting for the next
seance--that penitentiary gates have opened for her in the hope of
having her maintained as an asylum ward. After which "Fainting Bertha"
has secured keys to asylum doors and gone her untrammeled way straight
back to a police record which for years has shown her to be one of the
most remarkable pickpockets, diamond snatchers and shoplifters of her
time.
Making such a nuisance of herself in the penitentiary as no longer to
be tolerated in a refined convict community, she proves her madness.
In the locked, barred, asylum she proves her cunning at escape. And,
once more at liberty, the abandon with which she goes after personal
property in any form, at any time and under any circumstances, proves
her skill as a thief and her unbalance in the "get away."
There is her escape from the asylum at Elgin on the night of December
25, 1904. Christmas eve she had fainted in the arms of an attendant
and in the scurrying which followed had secured the keys to the gates.
On the night of Christmas she went out of the Elgin asylum, boarded an
electric car for Aurora and bought a railroad ticket to Peoria.
STOLE $1,000 WORTH OF GOODS IN TWO DAYS.
On the way to Peoria she relieved the conductor of $30 in bills,
secreting them in her hat. In Peoria, within forty-eight hours, she
had stolen a thousand dollars' worth of goods from stores, registered
at three hotels under assumed names, and was in a chair car with a
ticket for Omaha when the Peoria police had followed her easy tracks
through the city. Perhaps the broadest, most easily identified track
was that which she left in a barber shop in the National Hotel, where
she appeared for an egg shampoo. Two eggs had been broken into her
shiny hair when Bertha promptly fainted and rolled out of the chair.
As a count of shop equipment showed nothing missing an hour later, the
barber shop proprietor was at a loss as to the purpose of the faint.
This girlish young woman, with the baby dimples and skin of peach and
cream, the innocent blue eyes, and the smiles that play so easily over
her face as she talks vivaciously and with keen sense of both wit and
humor, is a study for the psychologist. There is no affectedness of
speech--for the moment it is childishly genuine. She could sit in a
drawing room and have half a dozen admirers in her train.
But reform schools, asylums and penitentiaries are institutions
through which this young woman has graduated up to that pinnacle of
notorious accomplishment which today is centering upon "Fainting
Bertha" Lebecke the official attentions of a great state. What to do
with her is the question.
KEPT AT SOUTH BARTONVILLE WITHOUT LOCKS.
Dr. George A. Zeller, superintendent of the asylum for the incurable
insane at South Bartonville, having fought for the care of Bertha in
his institution, purposes to make her a tractable patient and willing
to remain. He has the history of his institution back of him, from
whose doors and windows he has torn away $6,000 worth of steel netting
and steel bars.
In the first place, "Fainting Bertha" will have nothing to gain by
fainting at Bartonville; she is promised merely a drowning dash of
cold water when she falls. She can secure no keys by fainting, for the
reason that there are no keys to doors. A nurse, wideawake for her
eight-hour nursing duty, is always at hand and always watchful.
"Take away the show of restraint if you would have a patient cease
fighting against restraint," is the philosophy of Dr. Zeller. "Human
vigilance always was and always will be the greatest safeguard for the
insane."
If "Fainting Bertha" Lebecke were a grizzled amazon, even, she might
be a simpler proposition for the state. She is too pretty and plump,
however, to think of restraining by the harsher methods, if harsh
methods are employed. She can pass out of a storm of hysterical tears
in an instant and smile through them like a stream of sunshine. Or
as quickly she can throw off the pretty little witticism and airy
conceit of her baby hands and become a vixen fury with blazing blue
eyes that are a warning to her antagonist.
And at large, exercising her charms, she can become the "good fellow"
to the everlasting disappearance of half a dozen different valuables
in one's tie or pockets.
HISTORY OF "FAINTING BERTHA."
Bertha Lebecke says she was born in Council Bluffs, Ia., in 1880. Save
for the trick of raising her brows while animated, thus wrinkling her
forehead before her time, she might pass easily for twenty-three years
of age. In these twenty-seven years, however, Bertha Lebecke has kept
the institutions of four states guessing--to some extent experimenting.
Her father was a cobbler, and there were five children, only one other
of them living. The father is dead. The mother, with the one sister,
is living in Council Bluffs. Seven asylums and one state's prison
have held her--for a time; Kankakee three times and Elgin twice, with
two escapes from each place credited to her childish cunning. But
today the face of Bertha Lebecke in trouble anywhere in Christian
civilization would draw helping funds for less than her asking.
"Don't write that I am the awful creature that the papers have
pictured me," she exclaimed, with a tragic movement of her little
hands. "Oh, I have been a bad girl--I know that--but not as bad as
they accuse me of being," burying her face in her arm.
But in a moment she was sitting up, dry eyed, stitching on the bit
of linen "drawn work" which she said was intended for Gov. Deneen at
Springfield.
CRITICISES THE LINEN PURCHASED BY THE STATE.
"But what awful linen!" she exclaimed, holding it out to Dr. Zeller as
she sat in a ward with twenty other women inmates regarded as among
the hardest to watch and control among the 1,900 inmates of the great
institution. "I'm surprised at you! Can't you buy better linen than
that?"
But while she talked and the doctor smiled, a small key fitting
nothing in particular was laid by Dr. Zeller close at hand and it
disappeared in ten seconds. Likewise a pencil from the doctor's pocket
found its way almost unnoticed into "Fainting Bertha's" blonde hair.
Her smiling face all turned to frowns when finally, one at a time, he
took the key from her waist and the pencil from its hiding place in
her hair.
"Did you ever know a man named Gunther?" asked Dr. Zeller suddenly.
"Yes--what of it?" she asked quickly, with a show of nervousness.
"He is in the penitentiary."
"Good! Good!" exclaimed the girl. "I'm delighted to hear it. He ought
to have been there long ago, and he ought to stay there the rest of
his life!"
This was the man whom Bertha charged with responsibility for her
first wrong step as a girl, sending her first to the Glenwood (Ia.)
Home for the Feebleminded. Later she charges that this man taught
her the fainting trick, by which she faints in the arms of a man or
woman wearing jewelry or carrying money and in the confusion biting
the stone from a pin and swallowing it, or with small, supple hand
taking a purse from a pocket or a watch from its fob, perhaps with
innocent eyes and dimpled face assisting the loser in the search for
the missing valuable.
BERTHA SAYS GUNTHER PROMISED TO MARRY HER.
"That man Gunther promised to marry me," she said, lowering her voice.
"He sent me out to steal and when I wouldn't do it he used to beat me
when I came home. Do you wonder I'm what I am?"
There was a burst of what might have been tears. Her face was buried
and her figure shook with sobs. But in five seconds the dimpled face
appeared again, dry eyed, and at a remark on the moment she turned
toward her auditors, winking an eyelid slyly.
"Fainting Bertha" Lebecke has almost lost consecutive track of the
asylums and prisons in which she has been locked.
From this Glenwood home for the feebleminded she was released. She
got into trouble again and was sent to the Clarinda State Hospital
for the Insane. Here, in the words of the superintendent, she was
looked upon as a case of "moral imbecility, with some maniacal
complications." Here an operation was performed, and, in the opinion
of the superintendent, she was eligible to discharge soon afterwards
as improved.
St. Bernard's Asylum at Council Bluffs cared for her for a time, but
she succeeded in escaping from it and was not returned.
In Asylum No. 3 at Nevada, Mo., in spite of the close watch kept upon
her, "Fainting Bertha" escaped several times, but was caught soon
after and returned to the institution. On December 21, 1901, she was
discharged as not insane and returned to Omaha, where she had lived
for a time. Here Bertha remained about two years, acting as a maid
of all work in households. Her experience in Chicago and Illinois is
stranger than any fiction.
MOST UNRULY PRISONER IN JOLIET.
On a charge of shoplifting she was given an indeterminate sentence of
one to ten years in the penitentiary at Joliet.
Records of Joliet prison show her to have been the most unruly
prisoner ever confined in that institution. Her conduct was such that
Prison Physician Fletcher declared that she was insane and she was
sent to the asylum at Kankakee.
Twice she escaped from Kankakee, once, she says, with the aid of an
employee of the institution, whom she refuses to name. This first
escape was made within four months of her arrival at the institution;
the second after a year. On her return to that institution for
criminals her actions were such that the hospital authorities decided
that she was not insane and sent her back to Joliet prison.
On this second imprisonment "Fainting Bertha" showed what she could
do in making herself impossible even in a prison. Her cell was in
the north wing of the building, overlooking the street. She would
appear in the window with her clothing torn to ribbons, shrieking
that she was being murdered. According to prison officials, there was
no language too impossible for her glib tongue. Her furies of temper
caused her to heap unspeakable abuse upon matrons and guards alike.
Deputy Warden Sims, responsible for order and discipline, says he has
been abused by her beyond belief. Her plan was to sleep in daylight
and make the whole night hideous with her screams and cries and
unspeakable language.
PENITENTIARY GLAD TO BE RID OF HER.
As a last resort the tortured prison officials at Joliet, taking
the diagnosis of Physician Fletcher, sent her to the care of Supt.
Podstata at the Elgin asylum. There, after consultation of the asylum
physicians, it was found that she should have been confined in an
asylum for the feebleminded when she was younger; that, lacking this
treatment, she had grown and developed such destructive tendencies
that a hospital for the insane was the only haven for her.
But Bertha escaped from the asylum, which has for its safeguards
the lock and the steel bar. Locks and bars are nothing to "Fainting
Bertha"! She was recaptured and returned, only that she might escape
again on Christmas night, finding her way to Peoria, where her
escapades in going through the town were marvels to the Peoria police.
The conductor on the Peoria train from whom she took $30 has not
claimed his money. But half a dozen stores in which she operated and
the salesman from whose samples in the Fey Hotel she took hundreds of
dollars worth of silks, jewelry, clothing and perfumes got back some
of the plunder, which detectives found piled around her in a chair car
in an Omaha train.
The Peoria police locked her up, and while the charges rested Dr.
Zeller, of the asylum for the incurable insane at South Bartonville,
asked of Dr. Podstata and the penitentiary authorities the custody
of "Fainting Bertha." Warden Murphy at Joliet was delighted at the
idea. Supt. Podstata at Elgin was as greatly pleased. Dr. Zeller at
South Bartonville Asylum for the Incurable Insane, receiving the young
woman, was conscious of having a unique addition to the 1,929 other
inmates of his barless cottages of detention. In the history of the
South Bartonville asylum only one female inmate has escaped, and she
was found dead soon afterwards in a ravine into which she had fallen.
PALE BLUE COLOR SCHEME OF BERTHA'S WARD.
"If Bertha escapes here it will be the test of vigilance as opposed
to locks and steel bars," is the summing up of the situation by Dr.
Zeller. Bertha is not wholly satisfied where she is. The food is not
all she desires. She refers to her ward and its environment as "the
dump." Yet her particular "dump" is decorated in pale blue--part of
the color scheme of the asylum management,--the color scheme of her
ward being adapted to her particular temperamental degree of insanity.
But while Bertha has been gnawing diamonds from tie pins, one of her
fraternity in ward classification has a record of gnawing the woodwork
from at least a dozen other insane wards in as many institutions for
the insane.
How subtly conscious of her position "Fainting Bertha" may be on
occasion was demonstrated the other day when it was arranged with Dr.
Zeller that she should go with two nurses and the staff member in
Peoria in order that her picture might be taken in a local gallery.
DELIGHTED AT CHANCE OF GOING TO TOWN.
With $9 to her credit in the asylum's system of personal accounts,
Bertha wanted some of this sum for "shopping," but when it was refused
she accepted the situation without particular protest. The idea of
going uptown, five miles from South Bartonville, was delightful. Her
spirits rose high at the idea, and when her nurses had brought her
over to the administration building she dropped into the office chair
occupied by Dr. Zeller, and in mock seriousness turned to the little
group, asking what she could do for them.
On the Pekin and Peoria electric road she was banked in next the
window by her escorts, and was the pink of propriety until Peoria was
reached, save as occasionally she turned backward toward the conductor
and smiled. And invariably the conductor smiled in return!
"Honey" was her designation of Nurse Quick. "I'm a perfect lady,
ain't I, Honey?" she repeated a score of times on the trip. In the
photographer's gallery the snap of the camera shutter brought a start
from the object of the lens, and the first picture in six years, save
as the police authority of the state had insisted that she pose for it.
But after the ordeal at the photographer's Bertha wanted most of all a
"square meal." Miss Quick knew of a restaurant where quiet prevailed
and where there would be little incentive to Bertha to faint, and
there the little party adjourned for the "square meal." Pie--apple or
mince--was the dessert.
TOOK PIE AND CANDY BACK "HOME."
"You won't mind, honey, if I take a pie home, will you?"
Miss Quick didn't mind at all. And not minding the pie, Miss Bertha
promptly buttered four rolls liberally and included in the package
a bunch of celery which had been left over after she had passed it
around insistently, time and again. At the candy counter just outside
the dining room Bertha balked amiably.
"I don't like to presume on your good nature, but I know you won't
object to a small box of candy?" she purred.
The nurse didn't object to the 25-cent box; which was an inspiration
to "Fainting Bertha."
"But don't you think this is ever so much nicer?"
The nurse had to admit that it was. It was a half-dollar box of mixed
candies!
"But I'm afraid it looks like imposing on your good nature just a
little?" she smiled, as the cashier proceeded to wrap it up. "And you
don't mind, honey?" to Miss Quick, who smiled indulgently, and with
the pie, rolls, and celery in one hand and the box of candy in the
other, Bertha started back to the Asylum for the Incurable Insane at
South Bartonville, five miles away.
DETENTION RECORD OF "FAINTING BERTHA."
Asylum for the Feeble Minded, Glenwood, Ia. Discharged.
Insane asylum, Glenwood, Ia. Discharged.
Insane asylum, Nevada, Mo. Discharged after several escapes.
St. Bernard's asylum, Council Bluffs, Ia. Discharged.
Indeterminate sentence at Joliet penitentiary.
Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.
Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.
Kankakee, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Returned to Joliet
penitentiary.
Elgin, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.
Elgin, Ill., Asylum for the Insane. Escaped.
Present address, Asylum for the Incurable Insane, South
Bartonville, Ill.
But even the genial Dr. Zeller and his barless windows and lockless
prison proved in time to be enervating to such a restless being as
"Fainting Bertha." So, during June, 1908, she made no less than three
attempts to escape. She was, however, apprehended in each case before
she reached Peoria, and returned to the asylum. The authorities
declare that she was really playing for theatrical effect rather than
from any desire to get away from Bartonville. Be that as it may,
the fact remains that if she desires to get out of Bartonville she
probably will, as she is the most resourceful criminal of her sex
known to the authorities.
FRONT.
A good front is a distinct asset. A good front is made up of neat,
clean clothes, on a clean body, the whole housing a clean mind. A man
with clean clothes on a dirty body, or dirty clothes on a clean body,
is not wanted anywhere in the business world; and there is no place in
the heavens above or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth,
that has room for the man with the dirty mind.
But with the clean mind inside the clean body, and neat, simple, clean
clothes on the outside of it, the young man has all the essentials
of a good front. Anything more is superfluous and tends to make him
ridiculous. Simplicity is the keynote.
This moralizing on the value of front is suggested by observations
and comparisons of the habits of certain Chicago millionaires, and
the ways of some of their cheap clerks, the latter having exaggerated
ideas of putting up a false appearance of prosperity.
These comparisons were so striking that they attracted the attention
of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, and during the course of his
regular work he found time to tabulate a little, with startling
results.
The detective found that there are in Chicago many young men living
on very meager salaries, who have such exaggerated notions of the
value of a prosperous appearance that they overshoot the mark, and
frequently, as result of trying, as they think, to "look like a
millionaire," they often succeed in looking very much like the famous
animal with very long ears and a loud voice which one spoke to the
prophet Baalam.
[Illustration: (Man in top hat walking next to man in buggy)]
"It is easy to distinguish the real millionaire," said the great
detective, in discussing this subject. "If he wants to get anywhere
in a great city and his automobile happens to be engaged, he takes
the same means of getting there as does the toiler in the mills or
factory; he walks, or he rubs elbows on the street cars with the
laboring men, many of whom never know that they are brushing against
the owner of millions."
STANLEY FIELD'S BUGGY.
"Stanley Field runs around town in a crazy old country buggy, just
like a farmer. He took this method of going about when the great
teamsters' strike was on, and he was a member of the Merchants'
committee.
"But I will bet you a good cigar that there are any number of little
snippety ten-dollar clerks in the great establishment of which Stanley
Field is the head, who would feel themselves eternally disgraced if
they were seen in that buggy.
"Not for little mister-ten-dollar clerk! No, sir. He must go out
and spend three dollars for a cab if he wants to get down town to a
theatre. It is just this silly pride that makes forgers and embezzlers.
"My advice to young men would be, 'Keep your mind clean, your body
clean and your clothes neat and clean. Never mind about fancy show.
Men will respect you more if you follow this advice than they will if
you squander money foolishly in the effort to put up a false front
which deceives no one.'"
Out of hundreds of cases which Wooldridge has run down, where
embezzlement, forgery and theft, even of the pettiest sort, was at the
bottom of the crime, the great detective declares that fully half of
the cases had their origin in this silly attempt to appear something
more than the real thing. Silly pride is a teacher of crime, and a
sure school mistress she is.
And the absurdity, the bally foolishness of it all, is that these
pitiful attempts deceive no one. Every one knows solidity when they
see it, just as they know sham when they see it. A self-respecting
young man cannot afford to make of himself a sham, even by taking a
cab when the millionaires walk or take the street car.
FAKE PRIDE LEADS TO CRIME.
On the other hand, many young men have plunged into a life of crime
through over-spending their salaries, in the effort to convince every
one who looked at them that they were on the directorate of the
Standard Oil Company. Where the millionaire walks these silly young
jackasses take a cab, and pay half a day's salary in order to ride two
or three blocks.
"I have seen John J. Mitchell, the president of the Illinois Trust
and Savings Bank, and one of our foremost financiers, walk from the
Northwestern station to the bank building, while right behind him a
young donkey, who was working for $25 a week in that very bank, would
pay a cabby a dollar to drive him the seven short blocks from that
same station to the bank.
"It is just such young pinheads as that who afterwards turn out to be
our embezzlers, forgers and financial criminals."
The man who has made a name which is known in every corner of the
United States as an authority on all kinds of frauds, snorted his
indignation as he thought of the silly bank clerk. Then he continued:
"Does anybody ever see Arthur Meeker take a cab to ride a few blocks?
Not on your life. He walks. So does Cyrus McCormick, Harold McCormick,
R. Hall McCormick, Frank Lowden, and any number of the other men whose
names stand at the top of Chicago finance. I see Frank Lowden on the
Indiana avenue cars, the line I take myself, time after time. He is
one of the most democratic of men."
LAST CHANCE GONE.
IDENTIFICATION BUREAU AIDED BY NATURE.
The Criminal and the Crooked Members of the Human Race Have a New and
Dangerous Enemy in the Finger Print Method of Identification.
The last hope of the enemies of society, the habitual criminals, is
gone. The Bertillon system sounded the death knell of the criminal so
far as capture was concerned. The finger print system, as first set
forth by Sir Francis Galton and elaborated by Sir Edward Henry, has
made possible the absolute identification after capture.
One of the first men to see the tremendous possibilities of the
finger print system, as applied to the identification of suspects,
was Detective Clifton E. Wooldridge of Chicago. Through his efforts
and that of others equally interested in the exact identification of
criminals, the Chicago Police Department established the finger print
method of identification in 1905, as a Supplement to the Bertillon
system which was established in 1887.
The Bertillon system catches the suspect. The finger print system
makes sure that he is the criminal. The Bertillon system, while a
splendid thing for catching the thief, still left some loop-holes
which needed strengthening. This was supplied by the finger print
system. Like the man and woman referred to in Longfellow's Hiawatha it
is a case of "useless each without the other." When the two systems
are worked together there is absolutely no possible escape for the
apprehended suspect.
The Chicago Police Bureau of Identification is the second largest in
the world, and contains over 70,000 pictures.
[Illustration: Trunk Measurement, Head Length Measurement, Left Middle
Finger Measurement, Right Ear Measurement. Measurement of the Stretch
and the Left Foot.
The Bertillon System of Identification by Measurement.]
By combining the Bertillon measurements with the finger-print system
the police department has woven a network of identification around
the criminal which makes it practically an impossibility for him ever
to disguise himself should he at any future time fall into the hands
of the officials of the law.
[Illustration: (Fingerprint form)]
The finger print method was discovered about forty years ago by Sir
William Herschell, then an English official in India. Sir Francis
Galton, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was the first to systematize
it, and the first to establish the fact that the papillary ridges of
the fingers did not change through life. This was nearly twenty years
ago. Sir Francis Galton made the calculation that the chance of any
two sets of finger prints being the same is one in 16,400,000,000, and
as an article from which the writer quotes states, "there are only
1,600,000,000 people in the world," its population would have to be
increased ten times before two people were identical and means that a
finger print as a mark of identification is practically infallible.
PERFECTED IN LONDON.
Sir Edward Henry, Chief Police Commissioner, London, England, is the
man who perfected the system, as it is now used, classifying finger
prints by signs and numerals, so that it is now considered perfect.
The finger prints of women are the same as men, except in size, while
the prints of negroes are the clearest and strongest, owing to the
thickness of skin and moisture from perspiration, and it has not yet
been demonstrated that finger prints are any indication of character.
While quite a large number of cities and penal institutions in the
United States have adopted and are now using the Bertillon system
of criminal identification, it is to be regretted that it has not
been more generally adopted by all cities of a population not less
than 5,000, and by all penitentiaries, reformatories and county
jails. Universally applied under competent instructors, nearly every
professional criminal would, in a few years, be recorded, so that it
would only become necessary to keep up with the new additions to the
ranks of the criminal classes.
It has been thoroughly established that the papillary ridges of
fingers never change during life. From infancy to senility and until
long after death no change ensues in the fingers. Though partially
destroyed by injury, the original lines retain their pristine
characteristics when healed.
This is nature's method of identification, and no record can be found
of the digits of two persons having exactly the same characteristics.
Numerous instances could be cited of twins and triplets whose finger
prints afforded the only means of distinguishing one from the other.
[Illustration: MAGNIFIED FINGER PRINT
The above is an enlarged print of a right index finger, which we
classify as an Ulnar Loop. Loops on different fingers are not all
alike, but vary in many important characteristics, so it is a very
easy matter to distinguish one from another.]
[Illustration: FINGER PRINT OUTFIT]
INSTRUCTIONS FOR TAKING FINGER PRINTS.
Instruments required: A piece of tin, ordinary printer's ink, and a
10-cent rubber roller are all the tools necessary for getting the
impression. It requires no special training to take finger impression,
and any rural constable can, with ten minutes' practice, take a set of
good finger prints in five minutes. After having a week's practice he
could take them in three minutes.
SCOTLAND YARD METHOD.
At Scotland Yard a metallic brace is in use for the purpose of forcing
refractory prisoners to leave correct impressions upon the records.
One application of this brace is persuasive enough to cause the
culprit to hasten to comply with a request for his signature.
A small slab stone is covered with ink, which is distributed with a
sprayer, and the prisoner is compelled to place his fingers in the ink
and then firmly implant them upon paper.
On a regular prescribed form impressions are taken so that the flexure
of the last joint shall be at a given point on the record.
The digits are taken singly and then an imprint is made of all of them
simultaneously.
When the prisoner has finished imprinting the record he is called upon
for his signature, and immediately underneath the name, as written by
himself, an imprint is left of the right forefinger.
For the edification of American police, Mr. Ferrier demonstrates that
upon a sheet of paper you may sprinkle some charcoal dust and press
it upon the paper with your thumb and then blow the dust off and the
imprint of the digit will remain.
MOST POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION.
But this thumb print possibility in commercial papers has its
greatest future in the positive identification which either thumb or
finger print carries with it. Criminologists all over the world have
satisfied themselves of the absolute accuracy of the finger print
identification. It would be hard to figure just how many Constantines
were arrested or kept under surveillance following the horrible
murder in Chicago, the suspicions aroused by personal resemblances
to the criminal's photograph and especially by the prominent gold
tooth of the man. But in a criminal's finger print the merest novice
anywhere in the world may take an ink impression of the fingers of
the suspected criminal, and if these prints should be in the bureau
of identification at Scotland Yard, with its 100,000 records of
individuals, the man would be identified positively within half
an hour--identified not only by the experts of the bureau, but an
ordinary citizen would be an authority in attesting the proof.
This is a suggestion of the absolute accuracy of identifications on
commercial paper. At the present time traveling salesmen who spend
much money and who wish to carry as little as possible of cash with
them, have an organized system by which their bankable paper may be
cashed at hotels and business houses over the country.
APPLIED TO IMMIGRANTS.
Major R. W. McClaughry, warden of the federal prison at Leavenworth,
sees in the finger print system a possibility which might be taken
cognizance of by the government at Ellis Island. With the millions of
immigrants who have come and who still are to come to these shores,
the finger print requirement would simplify many of the tangles of
many kinds which result from this inrush of foreign population.
Aside from the fact that many of this country's criminals are foreign
born, it remains that civil identifications of such people are matters
of great moment. Titles and estates have hung in the balance of
incomplete identifications of persons who are claimants in the United
States. Fifty years after a finger print is registered that same
finger, or group of fingers, will prove the personality of the one
registering. In case of accidents of many kinds one hand or the other
is most likely to escape mutilation, and a post-mortem imprint of the
fingers still is proof of identity.
The finger print system is being taken up more rapidly than was
the Bertillon, largely owing to the fact that police departments,
recognizing that a scientific system gives far greater results and can
in no way be compared with the old method of describing criminals, by
color, age, height, weight, eyes, hair, etc., are more willing than
formerly to intelligently investigate and test new methods.
Under the Bertillon system it is contended that the bones of the
human anatomy stop growing after the age of twenty-one years. In
consequence measurements taken of juvenile offenders under that age
are practically of little use, as they show too wide a variance with
measurements taken in after years, and are not a certain source of
identification.
The identification from imprint taken from the finger tips of both
hands can be recorded as soon as the child is born, and no matter at
what time of life a record is again taken of the subject, absolute
identification can be had, as the papillary ridges of the palmer
surface of the finger tips present the same formation until death,
and even though some of the fingers become mutilated, amputated or
lost, sufficient prints would remain on the other fingers to produce
identification.
While it is claimed that the finger print system is sufficient unto
itself for all identification, after working each system side by side
for a number of years, I believe that both systems should be installed
in all cities, penitentiaries, etc., especially as they both will be
given an impartial and thorough test here, with the result that it
will be the survival of both, or of the fittest.
KEEP BAD MEN OUT OF SERVICE.
In these government departments it is expected that the finger print
records will serve to keep undesirable people out of the service, as
well as to afford a complete method of identifying every member, or
past member, in years to come.
Both branches of the War Department, the army and navy, had first
installed the Bertillon system, and within the last year the finger
print system, thereby recognizing both, but apparently giving the
finger print system the preference; owing to the many ways it can be
applied in the service, and especially as to recording all enlisted
men and to the identification of those who might be maimed or killed
in battle, whose identity might be sought afterward, or to identify
deserters; or if a soldier or sailor has lost his honorable discharge
paper, he can go to any enlisting office, have his finger prints
taken, his identity established, and new papers issued, thereby
avoiding red tape or having about one dozen affidavits from different
people to substantiate his claim.
Not only as a means of detecting and identifying criminals may the
finger print be used, but its usefulness in various ways is easily
demonstrated.
It is clearly within the range of possibility that the traveler a few
years hence may be called upon to imprint an identifying finger mark
upon his letter of credit or certified check.
[Illustration: (Fingerprints on check.)]
As a means of preventing-fraud or securing the signatures of those who
cannot write, the finger print system is invaluable, as the mark may
be easily forged, but the finger's impress can be only made by the
proper party and cannot be duplicated by others.
The thumb or finger tips will leave an imprint upon glass, polished
metal or wood, owing to the moisture and natural oil oozing from the
cuticle. It is a simple matter to procure such imprints when wanted,
and they can be turned over to the authorities for identification of a
suspect.
SECURE PRINTS OF ALL CRIMINALS.
If peace officers throughout the country would secure finger prints
of all criminals passing through their hands and forward them to a
central bureau it would facilitate the apprehension and identification
of malefactors.
As a preventive of repeating at elections, the finger print
identification would serve an admirable purpose. When an elector
registered he could leave an imprint of his fingers upon the
registration book, and when he went to vote a glance at the
registration list and comparison of the imprint made at the polls
would readily establish his identity if the prints tallied.
The natives of India decline to recognize the validity of any document
beneath the signature of which is not imprinted a reproduction
of the whorls or loops of the thumb of the signer, alleging that
a person might deny his own signature, but that the finger prints
afford incontrovertible evidence, as no two people can make the same
impression with their thumbs upon paper.
Upon opening an account with a bank in India the depositor leaves the
impress of his right thumb upon the roll of depositors and none of his
paper will be honored unless checks are thus imprinted.
In the same country pensioners are compelled to imprint their thumbs
upon receipts for pension money, and thus obviate the likelihood of
other persons drawing the stipend rightfully belonging to the veteran.
The best test of a system is its practical use and the results
derived, and one of the most important matters is uniformity in
all branches of work, classification, filing, size of cards, etc.,
so that, as the system becomes universal, it will be operated on
identical lines in all countries. From my observation of the practical
workings of the system, I believe that at New Scotland Yard, London,
to be the best.
FINGER PRINT SYSTEM FURNISHES COMPLETE IDENTIFICATION.
In Paris a public house or saloon was broken into one morning, and it
was found that the owner had been murdered and that apparently there
was no clew to the murderer.
On arriving at the saloon they found a table on which drinks had
been served, and on which were found a number of glasses. On close
investigation finger prints were discovered on each. Finger prints
were also found on a knife by the side of the body and on a decanter.
On comparison it was found that the prints were made by the same
person. On causing the arrest of the different people who had been
seen to visit the saloon they were finger-printed and a comparison
made, with the result that the murderer was arrested and a confession
obtained within ten days, followed by conviction.
At New Scotland Yard, London, a little boy was brought in and two sets
of his finger prints taken and filed away in separate steel deposit
vaults. The boy was an orphan and an heir to a very large fortune
in Africa. His finger prints were taken as a protection, so that if
anything happened to him, or he disappeared, or he had to prove his
identity to claim his estate, or provided he died and proof of the
identity of the body was required, such proof could be shown with
absolute certainty.
An interesting case nearer home is that of a recent arrest in Chicago
of a man that the authorities were convinced was a professional
criminal, and from his accent and other indications they believed him
to be an English professional crook.
His Bertillon measurements and finger prints were taken at the Bureau
of Identification by Captain M. P. Evans, superintendent of the
bureau, and a copy of the photograph and finger prints given to Mr.
William A. Pinkerton, of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Mr. Pinkerton, who is a personal friend of Frank C. Froest,
superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department of New
Scotland Yard, London, mailed the finger prints to him without any
other memorandum, data or the picture, simply making the test on the
finger prints. He received a reply from Inspector Frank C. Froest,
giving the name of the criminal, and a long record of some fourteen
arrests and the picture, so as to authenticate the identification, and
also a statement from Superintendent Froest that the identification
was made inside of three minutes from a collection of over 70,000
records.
The identification was absolutely correct. The prisoner, on being
shown the letter, admitted his guilt.
If a clerk handles papers or letters on his employer's desk, it is a
very easy matter of detection. By means of a little syringe filled
with a powder blown on the paper, the finger prints are reproduced
with startling clearness.
BROKEN GLASS PROVES GUILT.
Some pieces of broken glass had been taken to Scotland Yard, four days
previous to the Ward, Lock & Co. burglary. These fragments of glass
had been picked up at the London City Mission, where a burglar had
broken through a window and carried off a clock and other articles. No
one could be connected with the crime after a most thorough detective
hunt.
The one remaining source was a bit of glass on which finger prints
had been noticed. These were photographed and compared with the
finger prints of all the recent records. Surprisingly enough, they
corresponded exactly with those of the young clerk who had been found
stealing books from the publishers' warehouse. Instead of being a
clerk, he was a very adept young burglar. On this new evidence the
prisoner was sentenced to twelve months at hard labor.
About a month before this a similar case occurred in London. A man was
arrested on Tower Hill carrying a pair of boots wrapped up in a brown
paper. He said he had been employed to carry the parcel to Fenchurch
Street Station. He was held on suspicion. Later in the day it was
discovered that the boots had been stolen from a neighboring store,
and that on the transom, which had been broken, there was a perfect
imprint of a man's finger.
Inspector Collins, superintendent of the finger print department at
New Scotland Yard, examined the print and found it corresponded to the
mark of the suspected man's left forefinger made on the brown paper
parcel in which the boots were wrapped. The evidence was conclusive,
the man pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to nine months at hard labor.
About the same time another interesting case occurred in
Staffordshire, England. There had been a wholesale burglary of a large
jeweler's shop. The perpetrator had left distinct finger marks on a
plate glass shelf in a window. These marks were photographed and sent
to New Scotland Yard. They were identified as belonging to William
Davis, a notorious burglar who had been confined at Wakefield prison
in 1901.
The man was hunted up. He was found living near the place of the
recent robbery under the name of John McNally. He at first denied the
recent offense, but afterward made a full confession. But for these
tell-tale finger marks, he might have continued to ply his trade
unsuspected under his new name, in a district where the local police
did not know him.
In one of the large banks where the finger print system was
introduced, they make it a rule that when a depositor cannot read or
write, he shall, in addition to making his mark in the old way on
checks or documents, place the finger print of the thumb or index
finger on them.
IMPORTANT IN WILL CONTESTS.
Finger prints are also used in the making of wills, so that while the
signature of the testator may be contested, it is almost impossible
to contest the signature of the fingers, for so long as the skin of
the fingers of the dead person can be taken up, just so long can the
finger print impression be obtained to verify the living imprint.
It is only a question of time before all large transportation
companies, like express and railways, whose employes handle packages
of money or other valuables, will be required to place their finger
prints on file, so that when money or valuables are missing the cover
of the package will indicate who handled or tampered with it.
HOW TO DETECT A FORGER.
How to detect a forger as one of the cleverest of operating criminals
has been solved by the "thumb print" method of identification now
spreading through the rogues' galleries of the world.
It is quite as interesting as the suggestion that through the same
thumb print method in commercial and banking houses the forger is
likely to become a creature without occupation and chirographical or
other means of support.
The system is not only a great aid in preventing the forgeries of
commercial brigands, but the easiest of all means for a person in a
strange city to identify himself as the lawful possessor of check, or
note, or bank draft which he may wish to turn into cash at a banker's
window.
USED IN ANCIENT TIMES.
A thousand years ago the Chinese were using the thumb print signatures
in commercial business. Its practical adaptation today is explained
at a glance in the check reproduced here, as it was filled out by Mr.
McClaughry himself. In this check the design is that the maker of the
check, before leaving home for a distant city, shall draw the check
for the needed sum and, in the presence of the cashier of his bank,
place one thumb print in ink somewhere over the amount of the check
as written in figures. Thereupon the cashier of the bank will accept
the check as certified by his institution. With this paper in his
possession the drawer of the check may go from his home in New York to
San Francisco, stranger to every person in the city, but at the window
of any bank in that city, presenting his certified check to a teller
who has a reading glass at his hand, the stranger may satisfy the most
careful of banks by a mere imprint of his thumb somewhere else upon
the face of the check.
Had this simple thumb print been used in the Stensland bank, no
handwriting expert would have been needed to establish the genuineness
of any note under question.
With the ink thumb print of the cashier of a bank placed on a bank
draft over his signature and over the written amount of the draft,
chemical papers and the dangers of "raising" or counterfeiting the
draft would be an impossibility. The thumb prints of the secretary
of the United States treasury, reproduced on the face of greenback,
silver certificate and bank note of any series, would discourage
counterfeiting as nothing else ever has done.
SAFEGUARD ON SEALS OF LETTERS AND MONEY PACKAGES.
As an aid in the transmission of sealed packages, the thumb print is
invaluable. The print will determine absolutely whether the wax has
been broken in transit, and it will also establish the identity of the
person putting on the seal.
Packages so protected have been left by train robbers where all other
packages in the safe were taken. The thumb print was too suggestive of
danger to make tampering with such packages safe.
In the ordinary usage of the thumb print on bankable paper, the city
bank having its country correspondents everywhere, often is called
upon to cash a draft drawn by the country bank in favor of that bank's
customer, who may be a stranger in the city. The city bank desires to
accommodate the country correspondent as a first proposition.
The unidentified bearer of the draft in the city, may have no
acquaintance able to identify him. If he presents the draft at the
window of the big bank, hoping to satisfy the institution and is
turned away, he feels hurt. By the thumb print method he might have
his money in a moment.
IDENTIFYING STRANGERS.
In the first place, even the signature of the cashier of the country
bank will be enough to satisfy its correspondent in the city of the
genuineness of the draft. Before the country purchaser of the draft
has left the bank issuing the paper he will be required to make the
ink thumb print in a space for that purpose. Without this imprint the
draft will have no value. If the system should be in use, the cashier
signing the draft will not affix his signature to the paper until this
imprint has been made in his presence.
Then, with his attested finger print on the face of the draft the
stranger in the city may go to the city bank, appearing at the window
of the newest teller, if need be. This teller will have at hand his
ink pad, faced with a sheet of smooth tin. He never may have seen the
customer before. He never may see him again. But under the magnifying
influences of an ordinary reading glass he may know, past the
possibility of doubt, that in the hands of the proper person named in
the draft, the imprint which is made before him has been made by the
first purchaser of the draft.
SIGNING BONDS AND STOCKS.
In the more important and complicated transactions in bank paper one
bank may forward from the bank itself the finger print proofs of
identity. The whole field of such necessities is open to adapted uses
of the method. Notes given by one bank to another in high figures
may be protected in every way by these imprints. Stock issues and
institution bonds would be worthy of the thumb print precautions,
as would be every other form of paper which might tempt either the
forger or the counterfeiter. In any case, where the authenticity of
the paper might be questioned the finger print would serve as absolute
guarantee. In stenographic correspondence, where there might be
inducements to write unauthorized letters on the part of some person
with wrong intent, the imprint of finger or thumb would make the
possibility of fraud too remote for fears. For, in addition to the
security of signatures in real documents, the danger in attempting
frauds of this kind is increased.
The beauty of the finger print system is that there is absolutely
no chance for error. The finger prints of the child of eighteen
months will be the same as the finger prints of the man of eighty. No
laceration, wound, or mutilation can disturb the essentials of the
outline of the finger print. The only escape for the criminal is to
cut off all of his fingers, and even then the toe prints would be as
effective.
As to the physical necessities in registering finger prints, they are
simple and inexpensive. A block of wood faced with smooth tin or zinc
the size of an octavo volume, a small ink roller, and a tube of black
ink are all that is required. For removing the ink on the thumb or
finger a towel and alcohol cleanser are sufficient. A tip impression
or a "rolled" finger signature may be used. Only a few seconds are
required for the operation.
[Illustration: The Bertillon System of Identification
Instruments used in the measurement of criminals by the Bertillon
system of measurements.]
OBJECTS TO HAVING FINGER IMPRESSIONS RECORDED.
In one of our prisons recently, a man who had just been sentenced
was brought up, and while he made no opposition to being measured
by the Bertillon system, he objected strongly to having his finger
impressions recorded. This caused the identification expert to be
suspicious, and he submitted a duplicate record to the Scotland Yard
police, in London, with the result that the man was at once identified
as a murderer who had escaped from a prison in England, and was taken
back there. When confronted with the English record, the convict at
once admitted his identity.
An express company lost a large sum of money which was being sent from
one point to another in a sealed package. During transmission the
seals were broken, the money abstracted and the package resealed with
wax. At first the express company were absolutely unable to locate the
thief, but later on it was discovered that in resealing the package,
the thief had wet his finger and pressed it on the warm wax, leaving
a distinct imprint. The finger impressions of all the agents through
whose hands the package passed, were taken, with the result that the
thief was easily identified, a confession obtained and the money
recovered.
A jewelry store was entered and valuable diamonds that were on display
on glass trays in the windows were stolen. In doing this the thieves
left the imprints of their fingers on the glass. An expert, on making
investigation with a powerful magnifier, discovered the imprints
and by a careful photographic process was able to reproduce them on
paper. A research being made among a collection of 20,000 finger-print
records revealed the fact that the prints left on the glass tray were
those of a well-known professional burglar, whose record had been
taken some two years previously, while undergoing sentence in State
prison. As a result the man was arrested and, through him, his partner
in the crime, resulting in a conviction and the recovery of most of
the goods.
The London police in investigating a burglary discovered in the
pantry of a house a partly empty bottle of ale, which had been full
the previous day. There were finger prints on the bottle, which was
protected by a cardboard shield and taken to Scotland Yard, where
the prints of the photograph, afterwards, were found to correspond
with those of McAllister, who had just previously been released from
jail. McAllister, on his arrest, in some way learned that they had
his finger prints, and, realizing their value as evidence, made a
circumstantial admission which led to the recovery of the goods and
the conviction of his partner, Alexander Harley, on whose premises the
property was found.
A half-empty bottle of wine was discovered in the room of an old woman
at Asnieres, France, she having been murdered. A close examination
of the bottle revealed finger prints, which were submitted to
M. Bertillon, the great identification expert, who caused large
photographs to be made, and who, after research, declared they were
the imprints of a hospital attendant named Gales, who has since been
arrested, charged with the murder, and convicted.
MURDER REVEALED BY FINGER PRINTS.
Recently in London a murder was committed, and in order to destroy any
chance of detection, the murderer took the tin of his shoe lace and
cut the tips of his fingers in all directions. He was suspected of the
crime and arrested. The officers found blood prints on the furniture
and other things in the house where the murder was committed, and
when the man's fingers healed his prints were taken and corresponded
exactly with those discovered by the officers; conviction followed.
Where large bodies of Chinese or negroes are employed on government
or public work it is often difficult to stop men from representing
themselves as being other men and signing the pay roll to obtain the
wages due others. Nowadays the thumb print of each employee is taken
and when he comes up to draw his money and there is any doubt as to
his identity he makes a fresh imprint, which easily disposes of the
matter. Rich men disposing of their property by will, in addition to
their regular signature, also place the finger prints of both hands on
the paper, thereby insuring the authenticity of the document. An easy
way to protect a check is to put the thumb print where the figures are
written in.
Among the most noted of these is the case of Thomas Wilson, who a few
years ago committed a burglary and most atrocious murder near Windsor,
England.
Besides the bludgeon with which he felled his unsuspecting victim,
Wilson carried a lantern which was blackened by smoke, and, after
accomplishing his design of robbery, the fiend took his departure.
As he made his escape after the foul murder, Wilson picked up the
smoke-begrimed lantern and left upon it an imprint of a thumb wet with
the blood of his victim.
SENT TO GALLOWS BY BLOODY THUMB PRINT.
With the cunning of the criminal he covered his tracks, and as a last
resort Chief Henry of Scotland Yard secured the lantern bearing the
tell-tale print and resolved to try the efficiency of the ancient
Chinese method of fixing responsibility by finger tracks.
This astute detective had paid some attention to the fact that no two
hands would leave a similar imprint, and, working upon this theory,
he pursued a still hunt until he found a man whose right thumb made
an imprint identical with that upon the lantern. When found, vigorous
denial followed accusation, but measurements were drawn to such a fine
point that the culprit finally confessed and expiated his heinous
crime upon the gallows.
Recently the perpetrator of an extensive burglary in the jewelry
shop of Mr. Bickley, Lord Mayor of Staffordshire, England, left the
imprint of his fingers upon a plate glass shelf. The shelf was sent
to Scotland Yard and the finger-print record disclosed a duplicate in
the records left by the digits of William Davis, well known to the
authorities. When confronted with the mute evidences of guilt the
culprit confessed.
In a police court at London a few months ago a man appeared who
declined to give any name or address. A detective thought he
recognized him as John White, wanted for a jewel robbery some time
before, though his facial appearance had changed and did not tally
with photographs held by the police. However, the imprint left by his
fingers when in custody before had not changed a particle and his
identity was established.
After the success attained in numerous instances the authorities at
Scotland Yard decided to adopt the system and have now so perfected
it that no malefactor who leaves a finger print can hope to escape
ultimate punishment.
Mr. Wm. A. Pinkerton, of the famous Pinkerton's National Detective
Agency, and without doubt one of the greatest criminal experts, on his
return from Europe, in an interview published recently, says: "During
my visit at New Scotland Yard, London, I was greatly interested
in the high state of efficiency which the finger print system of
identification has reached in the police service of London. The Bureau
of Finger Prints there is one of the most marvelous departments I ever
examined. Identification of criminals has been reduced practically to
a matter of bookkeeping. You get the finger print and then simply turn
up your indexes, and you know your man at once. A criminal may shave
or grow his beard, become stout or thin, alter his appearance to a
considerable extent, but the one constant feature of his makeup is his
finger prints.
"The only safe way for criminals nowadays is to wear gloves when they
go out on a job, for the impressions they leave of the fingers are
found by detectives on glasses, newspapers, dusty tables, and the
slightest impression of the fingers on a damp table or paper can,
by the process in use at the Yard, serve as an adequate means of
identification."
GOVERNMENT TO KEEP WATCH ON CRIMINALS.
The United States government at Washington, D. C., has established a
criminal identification bureau, or what may be called an "Habitual
Criminal Registry," for keeping the records of all men convicted of
crimes against the federal laws, and also all indicted by grand
juries of the United States courts. The bureau is to be under the
supervision of the department of justice, and all prisons in the
United States where government prisoners are or have been confined
have been directed to send their records, consisting of photographs,
Bertillon measurement cards and finger-print identification sheets
immediately to the department of justice.
This bureau is intended to be used for the identification of federal
lawbreakers. It has been urged for some time by criminologists.
Heretofore each prison in the United States has kept its own records,
and a federal lawbreaker could serve a term in one prison and be freed
without the fact ever becoming known that he had served a previous
term for a similar offense in another penitentiary.
Now all records are to be classified in Washington, and not in any of
the federal jails or prisons. The Bertillon measurements, photographs
and _finger prints_ of the convicts are to be taken and sent to the
central bureau.
Also, the records of all men suspected of being yeggmen, train or
postoffice robbers are to be taken. Those held in federal jails under
indictment, etc., are to be sent there.
This bureau will ascertain the record of each man from the date he
has, and if one not yet given trial proves to be an habitual criminal,
this fact will be made known to the prosecuting attorney and the judge
previous to the hearing, and if the man is convicted it will mean that
he will be given the limit sentence.
At the present time there are about 8,000 known criminals who violate
the government laws, and a close tab is to be kept upon these in the
future. It will go hard on a known criminal convicted in a United
States court hereafter.
BURGLARY A SCIENCE.
Up-To-Date Professional Burglar Must Be Skilled in Latest Methods.
ELECTRICITY NOW A FACTOR.
It Has Taken the Place of Dynamite and the Jimmy in Advanced Safe
Looting.
Scientific Equipment of Burglar Includes High-Class Automobile.
Jobs at Country Houses Usually Planned Far in Advance, and With
Intimate Knowledge of Loot To Be Gained.
[Illustration: _HOW BURGLAR UNLOCKS DOORS._
Unlocking a door is one of the easiest tasks of the professional
burglar. His ingenuity defies the efforts of locksmiths to invent
safety devices. The picture shows how an expert turns a key in the
lock, and also a simple device to prevent this.]
The up-to-date burglar must have a motor car, the use of which is
only a part of his scientific equipment. That the modern burglar
does not consider that he is properly equipped unless he possesses a
motor car is an incontrovertible fact. House-breaking nowadays has
been reduced to a science. The use of gloves renders detection by
finger prints impossible. Besides, the modern burglar's tools are most
scientifically made. The men who make it their business to manufacture
these tools are first-class workmen.
The majority of large country burglaries are planned for days in
advance, and every detail is most carefully arranged. In some
mysterious manner the word is conveyed to the gang that a visit will
be made on a certain day, by a member of the household which it is
intended to rob, to a jeweler's shop. The train is met at the terminus
and the person followed to the jeweler's or wherever they go.
When they enter the shop a man strolls in casually and makes some
inquiries. While an assistant is attending to his supposed wants it
is very easy for him to see what the person at the same counter is
purchasing and, having obtained all the necessary information, the man
leaves and imparts all his information to his confederates.
Before a county ball or such function a visit to the jeweler's is
often necessary to get the family diamonds, and the fact that this
visit is going to be made is either communicated or anticipated, and
the same system of following is put in operation. Equipped with all
the desired information, the modern burglar then brings his motor car
into operation. There is no tedious waiting for trains; he simply
drives down to the "crib" and avoids the old-fashioned way of taking a
train at a small wayside station, with the chances of being arrested
on his arrival in the metropolis.
If he is noticed on the road he is taken for a rich man touring in
his car, and if a great social function is in progress he is regarded
as a belated guest. The car is carefully stalled in an obscure place
while the robbery takes place. The booty is subsequently placed in it
and a quick trip back to town is made. The police are left practically
without a single clew.
Those members of the community who make a business, or a profession,
rather, of burglary keep up with the march of science quite as closely
as do people in a more legitimate calling.
The burglar of today is a vastly differently equipped individual from
the one of a generation ago. He must of necessity be an enterprising
and daring man, and in addition to that if he would make a success
of safe cracking in this twentieth century he must be something of
a scientist as well. The great progress made in the manufacture of
safes for the storage of valuables has brought about this revolution
in the burglar's methods, and it is a regrettable fact to note that no
matter how strong and secure safes may be made, the ingenuity of the
scientific burglar is pretty sure to devise some method to overcome
their security.
The most recent development in the burglar's advancement is the use of
electricity to open safes in place of the old-time jimmy and the more
recent dynamite.
OLD-TIME STRONG BOX.
Years ago the old-fashioned strong box was considered quite an
adequate protection for hoarded wealth and was the legitimate
successor of the stocking in which the gold pieces were carefully
stored and hidden away. The strong box of wood bound with iron
and with ponderous locks proved but child's play for the burglar
thoroughly intent upon obtaining its contents. Then came the more
modern iron and steel safe, with its thick plates of highly tempered
metal and ingeniously complicated time locks.
Safe breakers have more than kept pace with improvement in safes,
including time locks, chilled steel chests of eight or nine inches
thicknesses and electric protective attachments. Their tools are made
by some of the finest mechanics and inventive geniuses of the world. A
full kit of the most approved modern safe workers' tools costs about
$5,000.
The modern burglar is like love in one respect; he "laughs at
locksmiths." Yet he is not much of an artist, although he is rapidly
improving. The simple tools of the burglars' trade indicate how easily
the contrivances made to bar his progress are overcome. Yet these
tools give no mark of great mechanical genius. They are as crude as
the average burglar is. They are in keeping with his practices of
force and brutality. The destructive power of the best pieces of
handiwork is their main advantage, and doubtless an illustration
of the house-breaker's stunted idea, that the best way to overcome
obstacles is in all cases to break them down.
The tools used by the burglar are supplied to him. They are made by
men after his own heart, and who make for him what is most effective
in his hands. No doubt there are smart men engaged in the business of
defying law and setting the rights of honest people at naught. Some of
the methods they employ might be used to their credit in a commendable
industry.
JIMMY IS NECESSARY.
There are places where the jimmy is absolutely indispensable to the
burglar. Front doors, which a house proprietor usually has doubly
bolted and barred and supplied with improved locks, are the last
apertures in the world a night marauder would seek to enter.
It must be an amusing thing to the burglar, after noting the
precautions taken to prevent his entrance by the street door, when
he has walked through the skylight on the roof without the slightest
resistance, or dropped through the coal-hole leading to the cellar
from the sidewalk, to find that no doors bar his passage from there to
the rooms above.
Those are the popular ways of getting into many banks and business
houses. The basement door, at the rear, if there is one, is another.
In such case the jimmy is the magic wand that opens the way. It
is more useful to the burglar than any half dozen of his other
implements, and is the first thing he purchases when getting an outfit.
How do safe burglars get their tools? Why, every man of any account in
that line has what he calls "his man," who is a practical mechanic,
and makes everything in the shape of jimmies, punches, etc., that the
burglar uses. A safe blower's outfit consists of many curious tools,
some of them being of special design for some particular class of work
of which the owner is the originator. Scarcely any two men work alike,
and some of the clever ones invent instruments to do a certain part
of their work. When a well-known notorious crook was arrested several
years ago in his room, the officers found one of the finest kits
of burglars' tools that was ever brought into police headquarters.
Talk about ingenuity--if that man had applied but one-third of the
intelligence to a legitimate business that he had spent in devising
tools for robbery, he would have been a millionaire today.
Twenty years ago when burglars started out to rob a safe they filled
a carpet sack with highly tempered drills, copper sledges, sectional
jimmies, dark lanterns, powder and a fuse. On the way they stole
a horse and wagon, filling the latter with the greater portion of
the tools of a country blacksmith shop. They would work on the safe
from four to six hours, and finally blow it open with a fine grade
of ducking powder. Usually the shock would break all the glass in
the building, arouse the town, and the burglars would often have
to fight for their lives. In those days the men had to be big and
powerful, because the work was extremely laborious. If the burglar
was an ex-prize fighter or noted tough, so much the better, for he
could make a desperate resistance in case he was caught in the act, or
immediately after it.
With the modern safe burglar it is almost totally different. Although
much more skillful and successful than his predecessor, he is more
conservative. He seldom runs his own head into danger, and therefore
seldom endangers the head of a law-abiding citizen by permitting his
head to come into contact with him or the job while it is under way.
Every precaution is taken against being surprised, and it is seldom
the robbery is discovered until the cashier's appearance the next
morning. The modern safe burglar is an exceedingly keen, intelligent
man. He can open a safe having all modern improvements in from ten
minutes to two hours without the aid of explosives and by only
slightly defacing the safe. Sometimes he leaves scarcely a mark.
A first-class modern safe, whether large or small, generally has
double outside and inside doors, with a steel chest in the bottom,
forming really a safe within a safe, the inside being the stronger.
The outside door is usually either "stuffed" or "skeleton." The
inside one is made of eight or nine sheets, of different temper,
of the finest steel. These sheets are bolted together with conical
bolts having left-hand threads, after which the heads of the bolts
are cut off, leaving what is virtually a solid piece of steel, which
no drill can penetrate. The best locks are of the combination type,
with time lock attachment. In many cities and town safes containing
the valuables have an electric alarm attached. Any tampering with it
will communicate the fact to the owners or the safe's guardian, which
in cities is either an electric protective bureau or a central police
station. A recent invention in France is a photographic attachment. As
soon as the safe is touched this device will light an electric lamp,
photograph the intruder and give the alarm at the electric protective
company's office. As a consequence safe-breaking is going out of date
in France, as the cleverest criminals have so far failed to find a way
to circumvent the camera.
The first thing considered by a gang of the finest experts is a
desirable bank's location and the chances for getting safely
away with the plunder. Every transportation facility is
carefully considered. As the work is almost invariably done at the
season of the year when wagon roads are impassible, railroad time
tables are carefully considered. In these days of the telegraph and
telephone the gang must be under cover in a large city or concealed
with friends by the time the crime is discovered, which, at the
utmost, is about six hours after the crime has been committed.
From November 1 to March 1 is the safe burglar's harvest time,
because then the nights are longest and the chances of detection
less, as fewer people are on the streets and houses adjoining, being
tightly closed to exclude the cold, exclude noises also. A man can,
furthermore, carry tools in an overcoat without attracting attention,
that he could not wear with a summer suit. The remainder of the year
is spent in "marking" the most desirable banks for future operations.
Four men, who compose the ordinary safe mob, will put up from thirty
to forty "jobs" for a winter's work, allowing for all contingencies.
From six to ten of these will be carried out. A bank safe will be
broken into in a small town in Maine, and in ten days the gang will be
operating in Texas.
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 1)]
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 2)]
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 3)]
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 4)]
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 5)]
[Illustration: (Burglar blowing up safe, part 6)]
Having decided on a bank, the habits of the cashier and other chief
employees are carefully studied; but, above all, of those who visit
the bank after working hours, chief of whom is the watchman, if the
bank has one. If the watchman drinks, or spends time visiting women
when he should be at the bank, the bank is an easy prey. Weeks, and
sometimes even months, are spent in putting up a job of magnitude, and
a number of smaller jobs are done to carry out one where the proceeds
may run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Men visit the town who have a legitimate business as a "blind." They
make all preliminary preparations. The greatest ingenuity is employed
to obtain exact information, such as the evenings the cashier or
teller is likely to visit the bank and the exact time.
SCIENTIFIC BURGLARY.
Burglars whose chief qualification is the mechanical ability to open
bank vaults and safes and steal thousands of dollars in bonds or cash
cannot be classed with those who break open a store door and filch a
lot of buckets, brooms or dry goods.
The man who makes the defects of a combination lock, safe or vault a
study must have intelligence and mechanical knowledge equal to that
of a man who draws a big salary for what he knows. Whenever any new
combination lock is brought in the market for vault or safe use the
scientific burglar obtains one, and by patient study discovers its
weakness or defect, something which every safe or vault has.
The combination of a safe or vault has often been learned by these
burglars by obtaining an entrance to the banking house after banking
hours, removing the dial of the combination and placing a sheet of
tin foil behind it. Then, replacing the dial, the turning of the
combination in opening or closing makes the impression of letters or
numbers on the soft foil, which is removed by the burglar at the first
chance he has to get into the banking house. Having the combination
impressed on the tin foil, he and his accomplices open the vault or
safe, secure the contents, and then often change or put out of order
the combination, so the doors of the vault or safe cannot be opened
for some hours after the regular time for opening, and then only by
an expert of that particular safe company. This, of course, gives the
thieves several hours of valuable time in which to effect their escape.
The tools required by the mechanical burglar who forces open safes
are the air pump, putty, powder, fuse, sectional jimmy, steel drills,
diamond drills, copper sledges, steel-faced sledges (leather covered),
lamp and blow pipe, jack screw, wedges, dynamite and syringe, brace
with box slide, feed screw drills, steel punches, small bellows, blank
steel keys, skeleton keys, nippers, dark lantern, twine and screw
eyes. The latest, most dangerous set of tools manufactured is the
second power in mechanics--the screw.
The method of work with the screw is to first rig a brace, and then
drill a hole in the safe, cut a thread in the hole and then insert
a female screw. Then, with a long steel screw with a handle so long
that two men can turn it, the screw is inserted in the female screw,
and by turning it goes in until it strikes the back of the safe. Then
either the back or the front must give way. In nearly all cases it is
the latter, as that is the weakest, and it gives enough to insert the
sectional jimmy, which the screw handle is part of. The jimmy is then
inserted in the part forced out, and the safe is then torn asunder and
its contents easily appropriated. This work is accomplished without
much noise.
INVENT NEW DEVICES.
However, these new one-piece safes have not discouraged the
malefactors. They have only suggested to them the creation of special
appliances which enable them, without stopping to pick the lock, to
remove from the side wall of the safe a circle of the metal large
enough to allow of an arm to be put inside.
One of the most important of these new devices for assisting the
safe-crackers in their crime is formed of an iron hoop furnished with
well-tempered steel teeth, which is fixed by means of a simple pivot
on the safe after a screw worm has been previously driven in. The
instrument is then turned on its pivot and plows a groove in the safe
wall each time it revolves.
Science has not left the burglar weaponless, however. The progress
accomplished has merely compelled him to obtain higher qualifications,
and in the continuous strife between the armor plate and the desperado
who would pierce it the thieves have had hitherto the last word. For
many years dynamite was their chief reliance, and then a product was
discovered some years ago by a chemist, who gave it the name of
"thermit," by which the cracksman was able to melt sheet metal, inches
thick, with comparatively little trouble.
MELTS HARDEST STEEL.
This substance known as "thermit" is in current use for repairing,
heating or soldering large pieces of metal and consists of a mixture
of aluminum and oxide of iron, the latter being replaced, according to
the requirement, by oxide of lead, peroxide of sodium or peroxide of
barium. This composition is thoroughly mixed together, or is used in
the form of cartridges or tablets, which ignite by means of a piece of
magnesium fixed in the substance like a wick. The heat developed is
more than sufficient to cause the hardest steel to melt.
Although this process is rapid and silent and really marvelous from
the point of view of the result obtained, it is not without much
danger to those using it, for at the high temperature produced by it
an inexperienced operator runs the risk of being seriously burned.
In consequence the prudent and careful burglar uses accessories
which render him secure against such accidents. He protects his eyes
by means of heavy dark glasses, wears shields of aluminum over his
hands and applies the mixture through a small hole in the bottom of a
crucible. When the reaction takes place it lasts long enough to allow
the operator to charge the crucible again and again in proportion as
the melting of the metal plate is effected, thus making an opening of
the desired size in the safe. It is a simple enough operation for a
skilled burglar, but a very dangerous one for an amateur.
TESTS WITH ELECTRICITY.
But even this has been discounted by an experiment before a United
States government commission, showing that electricity can be so
applied as to give the scientific cracksman a greater field for
operation than ever before. The experiment was made by an expert
burglar, who, having retired from business after amassing a
sufficient competency, was requested to favor the commission by
contributing the light of his knowledge.
He demonstrated that by the aid of electricity he could, within a
short time, reduce safes of the highest repute to old iron. For this
purpose he took out of his pocket a style in the form of retort
carbon, similar to those used for arc lamps; a few yards of electric
wire, black eyeglasses and a plate pierced in the middle. It was with
this simple outfit he pierced in less than three minutes a circle of
holes in a cast steel safe with walls one and a half inches thick.
His method of procedure was simplicity itself. To the electric supply
current of the chandelier overhead he connected two wires, one of
which he fixed on the safe, and the other at the extreme of his carbon
style. It was suitably insulated by a wooden handle. Then, having
inserted this pencil in the hole of the plate, whose purpose was to
protect him against the heat and light, he produced a voltaic arc of
immense power between the point of his style and the wall of the safe,
thus melting the metal with the greatest ease.
SOME CONCRETE EXAMPLES.
BURGLARS USE ACETYLENE FLAME TO OPEN SAFE DOOR.
In Paris, January 4, 1908, burglars broke into the premises of Martin
and Baume, colonial traders, at Marseilles, and stole money and goods
to the value of $20,000. Most of their booty they took from a safe,
the door of which they burnt through with an apparatus giving an
acetylene flame of sufficient heat to melt the metal.
The case recalls one at Antwerp recently, when the thieves melted a
safe with a combined oxygen and acetylene flame.
The police believe that the Marseilles burglars are past masters
of the art, and that probably not more than a dozen possess such
apparatus for melting safes. One or more of the burglars may probably
have been employed at a motor factory, where acetylene lamps are in
frequent use.
In any case, even the finest lock or the best steel safe can't resist,
if burglars take to using oxygen and acetylene lamps with blow-pipes.
Safe manufacturers have a new problem to solve.
THE BANK SNEAK.
The bank sneaks of the country were formerly among the most
troublesome criminals with whom the police had to deal. The money and
jewelry stolen by them aggregated hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually.
The bank sneak is the cleverest of crooks, and as bold and daring
as any of them. But modern police methods, the system of exchanging
Bertillon photographs, and the organization of bankers' and jewelers'
associations, together with perfect burglar alarm equipment, have
combined to put him out of business, and his work nowadays is on a
limited scale.
During the past ten years not more than five good bank sneak games
have been pulled off, while there has been a similar reduction in the
raids on jewelry shops.
The Bertillon photographs facilitate the identification of the sneak
and the bankers' and jewelers' organization put up the money with
which to pursue him remorselessly, and soon catch him. Concerning the
bank sneak and his mode of operating:
An expert professional bank "sneak" thief and his associates study
the habits of all employes to determine when the greatest number
are absent (which generally happens at the noon hour), decide how
many confederates will be necessary to engage the attention of the
remaining employes, while the sneak thief noiselessly enters a vault,
teller's cage, or goes to a safe, and commits the robbery.
Confederates are usually of good appearance, understand business
methods, can discuss loans, mortgages, sale of securities, etc., long
enough to allow the "sneak" to operate without discovery. A "sneak"
thief, wearing rubber-soled shoes, will frequently pass within a few
feet of the official or clerk in charge, enter a vault or teller's
cage, or rob a safe or money drawer, without creating the slightest
noise.
A ruse to make the way clear for the "sneak" is for a confederate to
drive in a carriage to the bank or store to be robbed, as a pretext
exhibiting a crutch, or accompanied by a female, requesting some
passer-by to ask the cashier or some other official to step out to the
carriage, which usually occurs when few of the employes are in the
place.
Another device is to hold a large blue print of some property on which
is pretended a loan is desirable, or a bundle of maps offered for
sale, in such position that the view of the official being interviewed
is obstructed, thereby covering the "sneak" and giving him opportunity
to operate.
Another more recent artifice is the telephone; the confederate of the
"sneak" at an appointed minute "calls up" the bank and requests that
the paying teller be sent to the 'phone, and there detains him in
conversation while the "sneak" thief operates; confederates, as may be
necessary, engaging the attention of other employes.
CIRCUS DAY BRINGS A HARVEST.
Many sneak robberies were formerly committed in medium-sized towns
on circus days, while most of the employes were at windows or
doors watching the circus parade. This offered "sneak" thieves the
opportunity to enter the building by some unguarded door or window,
or having, prior to the parade, concealed themselves in the bank or
store, to commit the robbery while the parade is passing, virtually
behind the backs of the employes.
A favorite scheme, especially in savings banks, is for one thief to
attract the attention of a customer who is counting money, to have a
bill purposely dropped in front of him on the floor by the thief and,
while he stoops down to pick it up, believing it part of his money,
another thief steals the then unprotected money he, the customer,
was counting. Often professional "sneak" thieves have posed as bank
clerks or porters, wearing office coats or porter's uniforms and, when
the opportunity presents itself, committed robberies of considerable
magnitude.
Some of the old-time "sneaks" used specially made steel instruments
of various shapes to move packages of money from one section of the
teller's cage to a point nearer the teller's window, so that it could
be more readily extracted. This practice, while the utmost caution is
necessary to avoid suspicion, has been quite successful.
At times thieves have used large satchels or dress-suit cases to stand
upon and, with a long wire hook, extracted money by reaching over the
wire screen surrounding a paying teller's cage.
A method sometimes used to commit money drawer or "till" robberies
in stores is to select some innocent-appearing storekeeper, usually
a foreigner, whom one of the thieves wearing a silk hat would
approach, informing him that they had just made a wager that the hat
would not hold more than a gallon of molasses, and requesting that
the storekeeper measure a gallon of molasses into the hat at their
expense, to decide the wager.
BLINDING VICTIM WITH MOLASSES.
Seeing the prospect of a sale, even if the wager was a peculiar one,
the groceryman would concede to this request. The hat being partly
filled, one of the thieves would place it quickly on the merchant's
head, blinding him with the molasses, while they stole the contents of
the money drawer.
The "sneak" who commits the robbery, to be successful, usually is
of small stature, active, alert and noiseless, as upon him mainly
depends the success or failure of the venture. He must judge from
the operations of his associates when the opportunity to commit the
robbery has arrived. There are no signals or conversations between the
confederates and the "sneak" designating the moment for him to act.
He must decide this from observation of what his confederates have
accomplished in preparing a safe way for him. If there is a suspicion
or a discovery by employes, it devolves upon his confederates to do
their utmost to confuse and obstruct the pursuers.
I once asked an old-time professional "sneak" thief how he was first
introduced into a band of first-class bank "sneaks." He explained
that he was raised in a small village having a general store presided
over by a widow; that she at times would go to the cellar for certain
merchandise, leaving the store unguarded. This suggested to him how
easy it would be to rob the money drawer during her absence in the
cellar, which he afterward did, and which was his first successful
"sneak" robbery. Afterward he stole from a small window in the same
store, packages of chewing tobacco, pipes, etc., also occasionally
again robbing a bakery of pies and cakes, and occasionally again
robbing the "till." But one afternoon, before a Fourth of July, in
attempting to steal some packages of fire-crackers and some loose
torpedoes, a couple of the torpedoes dropped to the floor, causing
an explosion and resulting in his discovery and arrest and final
imprisonment. In jail he met with other criminals, and finally became
one of them, joining with the first-class "sneak" band of professional
criminals. This man for years was a most successful leader of "sneak"
thieves, stealing fortunes, finally dying in prison and leaving a
family in actual want.
RARELY USE PISTOLS.
Among the old-timers were some of the most remarkable criminals
operating in any part of the world; their thefts requiring, in almost
every instance, dexterity and great presence of mind, a quick eye
and unflinching courage, yet few of these "sneaks" used firearms or
weapons of any kind in the commission of their crimes.
Among the younger element appear the names of the cleverest thieves
of today, some of whom have operated extensively in this country and
abroad.
THE LORD BOND ROBBERY.
One of the largest "sneak" robberies ever committed in the United
States occurred late in the sixties, and has always been referred to
as the "Lord bond robbery." Lord was a wealthy man, and had an office
at 22 Broad street, New York City. He had invested $1,200,000 in 7-30
United States bonds, all being coupon bonds, payable to bearer, which
any one with a knowledge of finance could easily dispose of at this
time. A band of "sneak" thieves, consisting of "Hod" Ennis, Charlie
Ross, Jimmie Griffin and "Piano" Charlie Bullard, planned to steal
these bonds.
Awaiting their opportunity until a morning arrived when Mr. Lord was
absent from his office, they entered it when it was in charge of only
two clerks.
Bullard and Ross engaged these clerks in conversation, while Ennis
"sneaked" into the vault, seized the tin box containing the bonds,
and walked out with it. While these thieves were expert in their
particular line, they did not fully understand the negotiating of the
bonds, and for this called in George Bidwell, since renowned as the
Bank of England forger, who went to England and disposed of a large
part of them. The thieves were at the time suspected, and Ennis fled
to Canada, but was subsequently extradited to the United States and
convicted of a crime committed some time before. He was sentenced
to a long term of imprisonment. Charlie Bullard settled in Paris,
but afterward returned to the United States, and with Adam Worth,
successfully committed the Boylston Bank robbery, after which both
returned to Paris and opened the celebrated American bar under the
Grand Hotel, 2 Rue Scribe, which flourished for many years. Bullard
afterward was arrested for an attempted bank burglary in Belgium, and
was sentenced to prison for a long term. Bullard, Ross, Ennis and
Worth all stole millions of dollars in their day and died poor.
[Illustration: BLIND.
JUSTICE--"I CAN'T SEE IT."]
ONE MAN'S BOLD OPERATIONS.
Another celebrated robbery was on January 7, 1878, of $500,000 in
bonds and securities from the office of James H. Young, a banker and
broker at 44 Nassau street, New York City, by "sneak" thieves headed
by "Rufe" Minor, alias "Little Rufe," exceptionally clever in his
line, and who had with him George Carson, Horace Hovan and "Billy"
Marr. They were located at Petersburg, Va., on March 23, 1878, and
found all of the stolen property in Minor's trunk. Minor was a
Brooklyn-raised boy, small of stature, of good appearance and engaging
manners, a most expert "sneak" leader, and was in his lifetime
concerned in many great "sneak" robberies, among them being: $80,000
from the Commercial National Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, 1881; $12,000
in bonds from the Bank of Baltimore, Md.; $114,000 in bonds from
the Erie County Savings Bank, in 1882; $73,000 from the Middletown
Bank, Middletown, Conn.; $32,000 from the Detroit Bank, Detroit,
Mich.; $70,000 from the Boston Safe Deposit Co., and $71,000 from the
Guarantee Safe & Safety Deposit Co.'s vaults, Philadelphia, Pa.
In Chicago, many years ago, a band of professional bank "sneaks"
planned to rob the Subtreasury, then located in the Arcade Court.
Philip A. Hoyne, a leading republican politician in those days,
had an office in this building. He was also a candidate on the
republican ticket for some local office. At a ball game "Joe" Parrish,
a professional pickpocket and bank sneak, picked the pocket of a
clerk. Among other articles found in the pocketbook was a key and
the personal card of the clerk, which showed he was employed in the
Subtreasury.
Parrish imparted this information to Walter Brown, Sam Perry, Little
Joe McCluskey and Jimmy Carroll, all members of a noted bank "sneak"
band, then operating.
HIRE A BAND TO HELP THEM.
After several visits to the Arcade Court and trying the key in
different doors, it was finally found to open a rear door to the
Subtreasury office. On the day the robbery was planned to be
committed, the thieves hired a brass band to play in the Arcade Court
as a serenade to Candidate Hoyne, the plan of the thieves being to
start cheering for Mr. Hoyne, expecting that the band and the cheering
would attract the attention of the Subtreasury clerks from their
desks to the windows, giving Little Joe McCluskey, the "sneak," an
opportunity of using the key to the bank entrance, passing into the
office at the back of the clerks and stealing as much money as he
could carry. About the time the plans of the thieves were completed
Mr. Pinkerton learned of them, and communicated with Elmer Washburn,
then chief of the United States Secret Service at Washington.
On the day the robbery was to occur the band appeared as arranged,
the Arcade soon filled with people, and there was prolonged cheering
for Mr. Hoyne. Not one clerk left his desk, and when McCluskey tried
to open the door with the key he found it would not fit. Through
precautions taken by Mr. Washburn, the lock had been changed and
instructions given to all clerks to remain at their desks when the
band played, which prevented what would have been a very heavy loss to
the government. Owing to the way the information had been obtained,
and not wishing to expose the source, no arrests were made.
Walter Sheridan, known under many aliases, an accomplished "sneak"
thief, was a Southerner by birth and of gentlemanly, dignified
appearance. In addition to being a sneak, he was also a general
all-round thief, counterfeiter and forger.
IMPORTANCE OF BEING ON GUARD.
One night in 1873, at Chicago, while Mr. Pinkerton was on his way
home, he recalls seeing Walter Sheridan, "Philly" Pearson and Charlie
Hicks on a street car. He followed them to the Chicago & Alton
Railroad station, where he saw them purchase tickets for Springfield,
Ill. The following day the vault of the First National Bank of
Springfield was robbed of $35,000 by Pearson, while Sheridan engaged
the attention of the bank officials, and Hicks remained on guard
outside. Later Hicks was arrested, taken to Springfield, convicted and
sentenced to eight years in Joliet prison. Pearson fled to Europe.
Later Sheridan was arrested at Toledo, O., for this robbery, at which
time Mr. Pinkerton identified him, and $22,000 of the stolen money was
recovered. Sheridan was mixed up in a great many crimes, but in the
last years of his life was looked upon as being cleverer as a first
class bank "sneak" than in any other line, although he has been a
successful leader of bands of note counterfeiters.
"Billy" Coleman, undoubtedly one of the most expert "sneaks" of modern
times, who, between 1869 and 1904 was arrested thirteen times, and
who spent almost half of his lifetime in prisons, is now serving in
the Auburn, New York, state prison, a four and one-half-year term for
the theft of $30,000 worth of jewelry from a safe in the Clark Estate
building at Cooperstown. The stolen jewelry belonged to Mrs. Ambrose
Clark, a daughter-in-law of Mrs. Potter, wife of Bishop Potter.
LOOKED LIKE COLEMAN'S WORK.
Mrs. Clark arrived at Cooperstown to spend the summer only a few days
before the robbery, and placed the jewelry in a safe in the Clark
Estate building for safety. Investigation showed the thief had entered
this building, which in many respects resembles a bank, at the noon
hour, when all the employes were absent, opened the vault, the lock
of which had been left on the half-turn, taking therefrom a tin box,
which he carried to the cellar of the building and pried open with
tools found on the premises, taking therefrom all the jewelry and
also valuable papers. From descriptions of the thief we obtained from
witnesses who had seen him loitering in the vicinity of the Estate
office, and from the manner in which the robbery was committed,
we believed it bore the earmarks of Coleman's work. Subsequent
developments satisfied us that our conclusions were correct, and we
caused Coleman's arrest, two weeks after the robbery, in New York, by
Police Headquarters' detectives.
The tin box left by the thief in the cellar was covered with blood.
From this an incorrect inference was drawn, that the thief had cut
his hands with one of the instruments used to open the box. A careful
examination of Coleman showed no cuts or bruises of any kind, on any
part of his person, from which blood would have flowed. The grand
jury refused to indict him for the crime.
On his release, knowing that Coleman had most mysterious ways
of hiding the proceeds of his robberies, he was placed under
surveillance, which continued for some time without result, but
eventually he was traced and found quite early one morning, digging at
the side of a building through the snow into the ground, whereupon he
was re-arrested and, in uncovering the spot where he had been digging,
most of the stolen jewelry was found in an ordinary fruit jar, buried
in the ground about two feet.
DIAMONDS BURIED IN JAR.
In the jar were found several settings from which some of the diamonds
were missing; sixty-nine of these were found in Coleman's home, hidden
in a small pasteboard box in the earth at the bottom of a rubber plant
jar, and one of the largest diamonds removed from the ring was found
sewn in a ready-made four-in-hand necktie. After his second arrest
Coleman acknowledged committing the robbery, and explained that a year
previous he had made a tour through several New York State counties to
locate a bank which would not be difficult to "sneak" in the daytime.
He found the Clark Estate building in Cooperstown, which he believed
was a bank. He visited it at that time, while the employes were
absent, but did not obtain anything, although he made a note of it as
an easy place to rob some time in the future.
When he did commit the robbery, and did not find any money in sight,
he picked up the tin box, little suspecting it contained a fortune in
valuable jewelry. When Coleman was questioned about the blood stains
on the tin box, he explained that, as the day of the robbery was very
hot, and he had to work quick, in his great excitement his nose bled
freely, covering the tin box as it was found. Coleman has been a
professional bank "sneak" all his life, and in times past was renowned
for entering bank vaults and paying-tellers' cages in the day time
without being observed. He never used firearms, and there is no record
of his having shed blood of anyone in the commission of a crime. After
all of his years of successful stealing, he is again in Auburn (N. Y.)
prison, without means.
JOE KILLORAN'S SMOOTH WORK.
"Joe" Killoran, alias "Joe" Howard, a rather picturesque type of
criminal, came from good old New York stock, was a rather brainy
planner of bank robberies, and was usually the one of a band to engage
an employe in conversation while the "sneak" committed the robbery.
Killoran had the appearance of a well-to-do business man, such as
might negotiate a loan from the bank, representing himself as from
some firm of brokers. He has frequently played the part of the sick
man seated in the carriage with a crutch, and not able to go into the
bank. He is notorious as escaping from the Ludlow Street jail, July
4, 1895, with Harry Russell and Charles Allen, then United States
prisoners. He was in many "sneak" robberies in the United States, and
one which I especially recall was the theft of $22,000 by him from
the First National Bank, Plainfield, N. J., on July 2, 1895. He was
accompanied by George Carson, "Sid" Yennie and Little Patsy Flannigan.
Yennie, Carson and Killoran held the attention of the employes while
Flannigan committed the robbery. After Killoran's escape from Ludlow
Street jail he fled to Europe, and, strangely enough, met with an
accident which necessitated the amputation of one of his legs, which
made him in reality carry a crutch until those he operated with
supplied him with a wooden leg.
He was arrested about two years ago in New York City, decidedly broken
in health, and was sent to Illinois to serve a term for robbing the
government postoffice at Springfield. After his release he returned to
Europe, and was, in September, 1905, arrested at Vienna for stealing
$100,000 from a depositor in front of the paying teller's window in
the bank in that city, and was, on March 19, 1906, sentenced to six
years in an Austrian prison. It looks as though he had committed his
last robbery, and that this crime will cause him to end his days in
prison.
THE HOTEL SNEAK.
THE USE OF FALSE KEYS.
"Hod" Bacon is an illustration of the professional "sneak" who
confines his operations more particularly to the rooms of hotel
guests. He works systematically and prepares his plans as the skilled
detective works to capture the expert criminal. This thief frequently
would follow a victim thousands of miles to commit a successful
robbery. He would watch hotel guests continuously for several days,
until he observed them purchase theater tickets or going out for
the evening, first determining how many (if a family) occupied the
apartment, and how many servants they had, and assuring himself before
committing the robbery they were all absent. He enters the rooms with
false keys, locks himself in, and works at his leisure; also unlocks,
with false keys, the trunks, bureau drawers, etc., abstracting from
them such valuables as he considers worth taking. He invariably takes
from the ladies' trunks some ladies' wearing apparel, endeavoring
to cast the suspicion that the theft was committed by a chambermaid
or other employes in the hotel having access to the apartment. On
one occasion Bacon robbed a traveling jewelry salesman's trunk in a
Chicago hotel. Not satisfied with the valuable loot of jewelry he
obtained, he stole the salesman's overcoat, after which he secured
sleeping car passage from Chicago to Pittsburg via Pennsylvania
railroad. On the same evening's train, it so happened that the
salesman he robbed was then enroute east, and, peculiarly enough,
had been assigned a berth opposite the thief, in the same car. After
the train left Chicago, observing his stolen overcoat hanging in the
thief's section, he telegraphed to Pittsburg, and on arrival of the
train the thief was arrested, and identified as "Hod" Bacon.
[Illustration: CASE OF TOOLS AND RELICS COLLECTED BY DETECTIVE
WOOLDRIDGE
CAPTURED BURGLARY IMPLEMENTS AT CENTRAL POLICE STATION]
CELL TERMS FOR "CON" MEN.
FOUR ARE SENTENCED FOR LONG "GRAFT" RECORDS.
P. L. Tuohy, Philip Bulfer and L. E. Burnett Are
Found Guilty of Systematic Fraud by Means of "Fake"
Contracts--Their Clerk Is Fined $250--Many Poor People
Appear As Witnesses on Fraudulent Employment Bureau Also
Operated.
June 11, 1907, one of the most persistent and systematic "confidence"
gangs that ever operated in Chicago was broken up for a few years at
least, when Patrick L. Tuohy, Philip Bulfer, L. E. Burnett, and J. C.
Daubach were found guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses by
a jury in Judge Ball's court.
These men were organizers and managers of the Chicago Mercantile and
Reporting Agency, with offices at 171 Washington Street. It was a
"fake" employment agency with a side line of swindling by means of
getting contracts on carbon paper. Bulfer, Tuohy and Burnett were
sentenced to the penitentiary, while Daubach, who was only a clerk,
was fined $250. The sentence in prison is from one to five years.
TRIUMPH FOR WOOLDRIDGE.
The conviction was a triumph for Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge who
has followed the men for years. The raid which resulted in the present
trial was made by Wooldridge and his men on February 11, 1906.
Philip Bulfer. Bulfer's pedigree from his home town is interesting.
Philip Bulfer was born and raised at Marshalltown, Iowa. His parents
live there and have for forty years. The young man was educated,
and when still a young man left for Omaha, Neb. There he started in
business with his brother, and in a short course of time they were
doing a good business, but finally broke up in a dispute with his
brother, resulting in a "skin."
Later on he became a messenger for some express company, operating on
B. 7 M. in Nebraska, and he ran through the State of Iowa for a good
many years. He left that job or was discharged.
He left there anyway and finally came to Chicago and married a school
teacher by the name of Mrs. Crary, from Goshen, Ind. After marriage
he moved to Chicago Heights and edited a paper there for some time.
Moved back to Chicago and became a reporter on the Chicago Times, and
finally started in a loan shark business, loaning money at reduced
rates and making it a business to fight loan sharks, loaning money on
personal property, afterward going into court and enjoining them.
He finally was arrested on many charges before Justice of the Peace
Fred E. Eldred, at Logan Square, on charges of obtaining money by
false pretenses, embezzlement, larceny and on many other counts.
Was held to the grand jury and indicted in the case of Detrich,
which was finally nolle prossed before Judge Stein, after making a
settlement with Detrich, who promised not to prosecute and was taken
care of so he could not be compelled to appear as a witness in the
Criminal Court. This occurred about 1897 or 1898.
He was also indicted one time for assault or attempt to kill Oscar
or Frank Arnold. Another compromise was made. Many times he was
arrested before different justices: Underwood, Wolff, Hogland,
Woods, Prindiville, Caverly and many others. Cases were disposed of
in some way. He was held to the grand jury many times, and finally
was arrested charged with conspiracy to cheat and defraud a school
teacher. Was indicted and had an accomplice--Theodore D. Courtney.
He was convicted and sentenced for three years. Was taken to the
penitentiary and there served as bookkeeper and tally-man for about
five months. Later was released from the penitentiary on a writ of
habeas corpus by Judge Farlin Q. Ball. Was taken to the county jail,
his case being continued from time to time, meanwhile was obliged to
remain in jail for about a year. Arrangements were made that if he
gave evidence to indict John W. Ronksley, Thomas D. Courtney and Isaac
A. Hartman, the State's Attorney's office would in some way be lenient
with him, and this he did. He gave evidence that caused the indictment
of the aforesaid persons.
They were afterwards placed on trial. Ronksley was fined $100 and
sentenced to six months in the county jail by Judge Horton.
Hartman was indicted several times in the same proceeding and placed
on trial before Judge Horton and was acquitted. Many indictments
against Bulfer have been nolle prossed, due to a settlement of some
kind.
The records will show that they have been nolle prossed. The Detrich
case will show dismissal for want of prosecution, but it was really on
account of settlement having been made. After these defendants were
convicted he was released without ever having a hearing on the habeas
corpus matter and gained his liberty on account of the state losing
jurisdiction. Since organizing the Landlords' Protective Association
he was arrested on complaint of A. D. Smeyer before either Caverly or
Prindiville at the Harrison Street Police Station and there discharged
on account of no prosecution. It was brought about by a settlement.
The arrest was made on account of his taking $3 appearance fee, which
he should have paid and filed appearance in the Circuit Court in the
case of Chicago Press, R. D. Smeyers vs. Barry Transportation Co. He
was arrested a great many times for obtaining money by false pretenses
from poor and ignorant people, who gave him $2 to get them a job, but
he failed to do so.
Patrick L. Tuohy was born in Ireland; came to Chicago about forty
years ago and located in Rogers Park.
He was a member of the School Board at one time. He is a politician.
He is a professional bondsman and is manager of the Chicago Mercantile
& Reporting Agency, also an employment and collection agency and
professional bond agency at 171 Washington street. They take a fee of
from $2 to $3 and agree to get employment, but few are ever employed.
This money is put into his pocket.
He has been engaged in many questionable concerns. Among them he and
his pals secured a charter for the United States Express Company and
tried to shake down the company and prohibit them from doing business
in the State of Illinois. The matter was taken into court and a
Federal injunction issued against them.
They have a habit of looking up firms, for instance, say the
Blackenberg Express Company, and get someone to do business with them,
then they will go in and see if they use a corporate title and force
them to settle in some way.
Bulfer and Tuohy were proprietors of the Chicago Mercantile &
Reporting Agency: Daubach was a clerk in the office and Burnett was a
solicitor for the company.
Bulfer was the apparent head of the concern--in fact the brains and
dominating spirit.
Tuohy's name appeared as manager on the letterheads of the company and
he was plaintiff in all suits brought upon alleged contracts.
Burnett, as solicitor, called upon small merchants and solicited
accounts for collection upon representation that the Chicago
Mercantile & Reporting Agency would deduct 25 per cent in case of
collection.
If a merchant gave Burnett some bills to collect he (Burnett) would
ask the merchant to sign his name on a piece of paper giving authority
to the Chicago Mercantile & Reporting Agency to collect. Or if a
merchant upon whom Burnett called would say he had no bills, Burnett
would secure his signature upon representation that he must show his
company that he had called upon him and solicited.
Each witness with but one exception testified that no contract was
shown him and that he was not told by Burnett that in signing his name
he was putting it to a contract to furnish the company with at least
25 valid claims during the next thirty days following and to pay the
company a fee of $20.
Louis Perlman, the complainant-witness in the case tried, testified
that he gave Burnett a claim for $2 to collect and at the solicitation
of Burnett signed his name to a paper giving authority (as explained
by Burnett) to the company to collect. Nothing was said to him about
a contract, but at the expiration of 30 days he received a letter
from the Chicago Mercantile & Reporting Agency, signed P. L. Tuohy,
manager, that he was indebted to the company in the sum of $20. Upon
calling at their offices to ascertain the cause of such indebtedness
he was shown a contract signed by himself, agreeing to furnish the
company 25 claims and obligating himself to pay $20 on that day. The
victims were all men and women of the poorer classes, mostly small
shopkeepers, and such tradesmen in the outlying districts.
Perlman said that was the first time he had ever seen the contract,
for when he signed his name at the request of Burnett there was no
printing in sight and nothing was said about a contract. Although
Perlman had given but one claim to the agent of the company, and that
for the sum of $2, which had never been collected, he was threatened
with suit by Bulfer when he called at the office of the company, and
finally compromised by the payment of $5. No service had been rendered
him whatever and yet he was compelled to give up $5 to have the
alleged contract canceled.
The state called about 17 witnesses, all of whom had similar
experiences to that of Perlman. Several testified that they told
Burnett they had no bills to give him, but at his request signed
their names so that the company could know how many people he had
called upon in the course of a day, and yet each was notified at the
expiration of 30 days that he or she was indebted to the Chicago
Mercantile & Reporting Agency in the sum of $20, and each was
compelled to pay from $5 to $12 to have the alleged contract canceled,
although no service had been rendered to any of them.
One witness testified that he had refused to compromise and he was
sued before a justice of the peace friendly to the company and
judgment was rendered against him for $20 and costs, amounting in all
to $20.50, for which no services were performed and for which he got
not the slightest return.
Daubach was merely a clerk in the office, but when a victim called at
the office in response to a letter signed by Tuohy, Daubach would tell
him the amount must be paid, although the victim would declare to him
no service had been rendered to him and that he had no knowledge that
he had signed a contract. The victim would then ask to see Mr. Tuohy
and Daubach would take him to Bulfer's desk and say, "This is Mr.
Tuohy," and the victim would have to settle or submit to a judgment on
the alleged contract at the hands of the justice of the peace friendly
to the company.
Although the indictment charged a conspiracy to obtain the signature
of one Louis Perlman to a written instrument, the state introduced
evidence, and rightfully so, to show similar acts of the conspirators.
It was demonstrated clearly, by the evidence that Bulfer was the
leading spirit of the conspiracy; that Tuohy's name appeared on
the letterheads as manager and all letters sent to victims bore his
signature; that Burnett got signatures by means of false pretenses,
for each witness claimed that the "contract was covered up and they
were shown just the part of the paper on which was the space for
signature; and Daubach performed many acts in furtherance of the
conspiracy.
Bulfer and Tuohy did not go upon the witness stand. Burnett testified
that he always showed the full contract to prospective clients, but
was not called upon to explain its contents; he testified further that
he received from the Chicago Mercantile & Reporting Agency $2.50 for
each contract he brought in and he secured as high as six a day.
Daubach testified that when the objectors came into the office and
complained he would tell them they could compromise and get off
cheaper and admitted turning them over to Bulfer when they asked for
Tuohy.
So that it appeared conclusively that each in his turn performed some
act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
The case was called for trial on the 6th of May, 1907, and was
concluded on the 8th of May, 1907. The jury returned a verdict of
guilty as to each and fixed the punishment of Bulfer, Tuohy and
Burnett at imprisonment in the penitentiary, and fixed the punishment
of Daubach at a fine of $250.
PANEL HOUSE THIEVES.
Among the many dangerous and curious characters who live by their
wits in a great city none is more interesting to the outsider than
the blackmailer. To the reader of sensational literature the ideal
is a person who holds some great family secret which he turns into
money at rapidly narrowing intervals. Although this character is
generally overdrawn, no one familiar with city life pretends to doubt
his existence. The blackmailer is a well known character in all large
cities, and certainly the arch swindler of the day.
Blackmailers are ever on the alert to learn anything detrimental to
a person's character, and let them once obtain this, they fatten on
it. Men's passions are taken advantage of by that particular class
of thieves known as "badgers," and their operations are very rarely
followed by exposure or punishment. A pretty woman is the bait used
by these thoughtful rascals, who know full well that where a hundred
men will resist a burglar, scarcely one will resist a robbery where
disgraceful publicity must surely follow.
Briefly the mode of procedure is as follows: A house is rented in a
quiet side street, not far from the principal thoroughfare. One man,
occasionally two men, run the house--that is, they do the actual
stealing, while they have from three and often as high as a dozen
women out on the street picking up the victims.
MUST HAVE PRETTY WOMAN.
The qualifications necessary for the woman to have is to be pretty,
plump, wear good clothes, and understand the art of making herself
attractive. It is an understood thing that she shares one-third the
proceeds of the robbery. The house is arranged especially for the
purpose. The rooms on each floor are fixed so that the door separating
them has the panels cut out and put in again on hinges, and fastened
with a small button not noticeable. The hinges are well oiled, and a
small hole is bored through the door, so that the thief can see into
the room, or hear any slight signal given by the woman. The house
rented has a front and rear entrance, the latter for the thief or
thieves, who always station themselves on a corner of the street near
the house, by which the woman will always bring the victim, so her pal
can see him.
The woman goes out in the evening past the principal hotels and
through the principal streets, never speaking to a man, but if she
notices one who looks like a stranger and well-to-do, she will give
him a coquettish glance and pass on, looking sideways to see if she
is followed. If so, she will continue slowly, turning the first quiet
street, until the man who follows her has a chance to overtake her.
The chances are ten to one that he will address her. She will appear
shy at first, and not inclined to speak, but after a short time she
will talk, and after some conversation she will convey the idea to the
man that she is a married woman; that her husband is out of town and
no one is at home. If he will be discreet he may accompany her home,
she says, and have a talk. The pair then walk to the house, passing
the corner where the male accomplice is lying in wait, and the woman,
pulling out her latch-key, will open the door; and the fly is in the
parlor of the spider.
The male thief waits a few moments, and then makes his way into the
house through the rear. As soon as he enters he takes off his shoes
and in his stocking feet stations himself in the adjoining room,
and there bides his time. The woman is all smiles and affection.
She betrays an affected nervousness, which makes her all the more
attractive. She talks about the sudden fancy she took to the gentleman
who was weak enough to be inveigled, and in a thousand and one ways
manages to give the idea that he is, above all others, the very man
she could love. All this time she is gradually disrobing, and at the
expiration of about ten minutes she is ready to do her part in the
robbery.
MALE ACCOMPLICES GET BUSY.
Meantime her male accomplice has put on his shoes. He goes around to
the front of the house, opens the front door noisily, and, walking
heavily, he knocks loudly at the room door, and calls out, "Mary!" or
any name that may suggest itself. The woman will at once exclaim. "Oh,
that is my husband! Dress yourself quickly, and be ready to go out as
soon as I get him away from the room door."
The victim will hastily put on his clothes, and as soon as the woman
slips out and gives him the signal he escapes, only too glad not to
be caught. Before he goes, however, and while he is talking to the
woman, her pal has opened the panel, put his hand in all the victim's
pockets--(his clothes having been put in front of the door), and
nearly all his money is taken. A portion is left, so that he may not
immediately discover his loss. Jewelry is never disturbed, as it would
be missed at once. The favorite methods is to take out the middle of a
roll of notes, if in a roll, or if in a pocket book, the bottom notes
are removed, so that when the victim examines his purse hurriedly he
will not discover that he has been robbed. If the amount stolen is
large the house is vacated, and the woman skips the town for a time.
The women who work for these badger houses work in one city for a
time, then go to the next large city with a note to the chief who
runs the house there. The women generally wear wigs, so in case the
man reports his loss to the police he will, perhaps, describe a
fair-haired woman, when perhaps her hair is black. A blonde wig is
discarded, the case is fixed.
A female badger and her lover may be poor and unable to rent a house.
In this event they will rent a furnished room in a furnished-room
house. The bolt on the door is fixed by simply taking out the screws
from the nose of the bolt, and the screw holes are enlarged. The
screws are well greased and then put back, the key taken out of the
lock, so when the time comes for the thief in go in, as previously
described, he pushes in the door easily and quietly, as the hinges
are well oiled, and the victim is robbed while he is making violent
love to the supposed "married woman."
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CATCH.
Only a downright fool or egotist can become the victim of this scheme.
He deserves to lose whatever he has if he is foolish enough to be
taken in. The only way to protect yourselves against the work of these
thieves is to mind your own business.
The new panel and blackmail swindle called the "Photographic Catch"
is one by which dupes are frightened into paying hush-money, and
otherwise putting themselves in the hands of unscrupulous and
designing people.
The old panel game has been brought up to date and is being worked
vigorously. This new swindle is one of the coolest "bluffs" ever
attempted to be worked upon an unsuspecting person.
The victim selected by the coterie of choice spirits who work this
fraud is always a married man. The blackmailers learn about his
habits, and if his wife and family have removed to the country they
immediately set about landing him in their net. If the family remains
in town the swindlers spot their man and wait until his wife and
children go to the country or seashore, leaving him to "work himself
to death" in the bad, wicked city.
The bait used is a handsome young woman. She soon finds an opportunity
to attract the attention of the victim, who is always a business man,
generally of middle age and wealthy, for upon handsome but penniless
clerks they do not waste a moment of their time.
As soon as the intended victim has taken the bait he is enticed to
some luxuriously furnished apartment. It makes not the slightest
difference how long he may stay there, and it is not even important
what he may do there.
In the course of a day or two the victim is called upon at his place
of business by a tall, well-dressed young man of gentlemanly manners,
but with much firmness. This is one of the conspirators. He secures
a private interview with his unsuspecting victim, and as soon as the
door is closed he proceeds to outline his little game.
He pulls from his pocket an alleged instantaneous photograph
showing the victim in a compromising position, and for the sake of
appearances, make some broad hints about his outraged feelings as a
husband. It very soon develops that these outraged feelings can be
assuaged by the payment of money, and the sum mentioned is always a
large one.
SCARE MONEY OUT OF VICTIM.
The victim is thrown into a state of fright by threats of exposure
liberally made by the conspirators, and freely "gives up" in order to
put a stop to the matter. He gets a considerable reduction upon the
original sum demanded by paying down the cash.
Now, while this game is nearly always successful, it requires but a
moment's reflection on the part of any intelligent man to see that
it is a swindle, pure and simple, the exposure of which would put a
stop to it. The payment of the money is compelled by displaying a
photograph, with threats of sending it to the victim's wife.
Anybody who knows anything about photography will see at once that
such a photograph must be fraudulent. It is impossible to take an
instantaneous photograph in a room without a flashlight. It is
likewise impossible to photograph the interior of a room lighted by
gas without a very long exposure, and generally extending over hours.
No court of law would place any reliance upon an alleged instantaneous
photograph, of the inside of a house professing to show people who
were unconscious that they were being photographed. If any such
picture were to be used as a means of establishing evidence in court
it is not unlikely that the person so producing it would get into
prison as an impudent impostor.
The photograph which is used by the gang working this new panel game
is, of course, a fraud made up by the conspirators. It is an easy
enough thing for them to secure a picture of the interior of the
room, showing another person. But in order to get the victim into the
picture it is necessary that a photograph be taken of him elsewhere;
probably in the street.
Then his features are pasted on the photograph of the room, which is
again placed before the camera and reproduced complete. No matter how
skillfully such piecing is done, it always shows to the practiced eye,
and any professional photographer can detect the fraud.
With the guilty knowledge of such swindling in mind, the conspirators
who impudently produce such pictures can easily be "turned down" by a
brief explanation of their criminal proceedings and a threat to turn
them over to the police. They confine their operations to gentlemen
who have been indiscreet and who can be easily frightened into paying
money to prevent a scandal.
BLACKMAIL THE WIFE AS WELL.
Blackmailing the wives of business men is carried on to quite an
extent, and it is astonishing how many of them will pay blackmailers
to hush up something that really amounts to nothing if the game were
exposed. If you refuse to pay blackmail, that usually ends it. They
want money, and when they fail to get it, the matter drops.
The blackmailer operates on women in this manner: A man has an
accomplice, a woman who passes as, and probably is, his wife. She is
well educated, of refined appearance, and dresses fashionably and
well. The two work together. As the summer season comes on the wives
of business men, who cannot leave business themselves, start for
eastern resorts and watering places, the woman blackmailer joins the
exodus. She knows the people who are wealthy, and these she spots. She
watches their every movement, and if the slightest indiscretion is
committed it does not escape her eye. She knows the names, business,
and homes of all the gentlemen they meet, and when and where they meet
them.
The season ended, the facts she has obtained are in the hands of the
male partner, and he studies them. Selecting his victim, he arranges
to meet her, as if by chance, usually in one of the leading retail
establishments of the city where she resides. He approaches and
addresses her with the greatest cordiality, expressing surprise at the
unexpected meeting. She is generally surprised, and, of course, fails
to recognize him. Then he uses the name of one of the gentlemen she
has met in the east, recalls who introduced them, where the meeting
occurred, and, in fact, all about it. Then she recalls it, or thinks
she does, and it ends in her inviting him to call at her home. Here is
the web quite complete.
He calls, and, of course, when her husband is out, and may repeat the
call several times. Then he springs the trap. During one of his visits
a note arrives for the lady threatening disclosures unless paid, say,
$100. Even if innocent of any wrong, the woman is alarmed and shows
the blackmailer the note. He appears greatly alarmed also, declares
that he is a married man, and that to have his visits known would ruin
him. He argues that the money would better be paid. He has only $40
about him, but if the hostess will advance the balance of course she
shall lose nothing. She does it, and is thereafter in the power of the
blackmailer.
"BOGUS DETECTIVE" GAME.
A scamp, claiming to be a detective, often visits a reputable business
man, having gained knowledge of indiscretion early in life. To hush
it up they will demand from time to time money, under threats of
exposure, thus causing the person to commit crime after crime to
satisfy the heartless leech, who never stops until his victim is
ruined.
In a similar manner does the alleged detective blackmail a man who has
committed a crime and who has been imprisoned for it. Upon his release
the man may feel like reforming and becoming a good citizen if given
the chance, but this the detective will not permit, for as soon as
he notices the ex-convict he will say, "Look here, young fellow, you
know my name and address, and when I am in of an evening I want you
to come and see me or I'll have you run in." The fear of being "run
in" forces the man who has a desire to do right to steal to satisfy
the blackmailing demands of this corrupt class of people. If the
ex-convict obtains employment he is worked in a similar manner, under
threats of exposure to his employer, and so forced to steal, and then
the smart detective will exclaim, "There is no reformation in that
fellow; I knew he would steal. He will never stop."
STOREKEEPER SCAMPS.
One of the most contemptible of creatures is the storekeeper who has
caught some one (who has the appearance of having money), stealing
some trifling article, and will exclaim, "Here, here! I have had
stolen three hundred dollars' worth of goods by some one, and if you
will settle for all I have had stolen, I will let up on you, and not
prosecute."
These cowardly methods are simply mentioned to show to what depths
of meanness some men will descend, and are not to be classed with
the professional thief, with whom stealing is a trade. As to how the
female blackmailer can be foiled, the remedy is obvious, and no man
who possesses proper self-respect will ever become a victim.
HOW FAKE "JOURNALISTS" WORK.
The blackmailer first obtains some information about the early life of
the person he intends to approach, and there are very few men who have
not, in their youthful days, committed some indiscretion which might
be brought against them after reaching maturer years. An escapade with
a woman, or a mischievous boyish prank which proved more serious than
was intended, are the usual indiscretions selected, and there can
always be found plenty of gossips who are only too willing to relate
full particulars. The information thus obtained is written up in a
sensational style, and is taken to a cheap printing office, where it
is put in type for a trifling cost.
A slip, or what is known in a printing office as a "proof," is then
printed, and armed with this the blackmailer pays a visit to the
person he intends to fleece. He represents himself as being connected
with a reputable newspaper, and says that he has been sent to get
the "other side of the story," at the same time producing the slip
on which is printed the startling tale, which, if made public, would
in all probability seriously effect the social standing and the
commercial integrity of the intended victim. In the majority of cases
the person approached will at once inquire how much the newspaper
would pay for such an article, and the reply usually is, "From twenty
to twenty-five dollars." "Suppose I pay for the article instead of the
newspaper?" says the victim, "and I give you fifty dollars, wouldn't
that repay you for your trouble in writing the article?" This is
just what the blackmailer has been waiting for. He hems and haws for
awhile, so as not to appear too anxious, or for the purpose of getting
a higher bid, but the interview usually winds up in his securing a sum
of money to suppress the information.
As he is leaving the house it may occur to the victim that as long
as the story is known to the editor of the paper there may be a
publication anyhow, and on this point he makes inquiry. "Oh," says
the blackmailer, "there will be no danger of that. I will report that
I have fully investigated the story, and that there is not a word of
truth in it, and, of course, they will not dare to run the risk of
being sued for heavy damages for printing it."
FEW "BEATS" AMONG REPORTERS.
There is no necessity for any man being victimized by the "newspaper
beat." In the first place, no reputable newspaper ever puts a
damaging story in type before every side of it has been thoroughly
investigated. The very fact of a man exhibiting a "proof" is
evidence that he is a fraud and has no newspaper connection. It can
be said with truth that the repertorial profession of America has
fewer "beats" in it than any other profession or business that can
be mentioned. The majority of reporters are ambitious to gain higher
positions, and it is a rare thing to find a man regularly connected
with a newspaper descending to such trickery. If he is a genuine
reporter he will exhibit his credentials, and should he be assigned
to investigate a story that effects the standing of a respectable
citizen, and be offered a bribe, he would undoubtedly publish that
fact as an additional proof of the truth of what he has written. The
treatment for this kind of a blackmailer is to kick him out of the
house, and bid him do his worse. Depend upon it, the "scandal" will
never become public.
THE NEW YORK WAY.
They watch some disreputable resort of the higher order until they see
some respectable looking man or woman coming out of it. Suppose it is
a woman, who may or may not have gone there for an improper purpose.
The blackmailer follows her home, thus ascertaining her place of
residence. The next day he calls upon her. He puts on an air of deep
solemnity.
"I am an agent," says he, "employed by a society to ascertain the
character of certain suspected houses. I saw you enter one of them
yesterday and know that you remained there more than an hour. You know
its character, and I shall, therefore, subpoena you as a witness."
Then he puts his hand in his inside pocket, as if to get the subpoena.
Of course he hasn't any, but the woman usually faints about this time,
and on her recovering is usually willing to take the jewels off her
wrists and fingers, if she has no money, to buy her immunity from the
subpoena. Once she makes a payment she is lost and has to continue it
month after month, and year after year, till some kind of a scandal
breaks out and she finds, with shame and sorrow, that her previous
payments have only put off the evil day.
GAMBLING AND CRIME.
BEST CURE FOR GAMBLING: TEACH PUPILS IN SCHOOL LAWS OF CHANCE.
Gambling Device Swindle Is Exposed in the Army and
Navy--The Scope of Fraud Is World-Wide.
There Is No Such Thing As An Honest Gambler--Suicides Are
Common--Gambling Kings Go Broke, and Often Die in the
Poorhouse--It Is a Hard, Cold, Brutal Road the Gambler
Travels--It Ends Badly.
We do not believe that many young men DELIBERATELY take up the
gambler's career. They drift into it through weakness, temptation or
accident. If any young man DOES imagine that in the gambler's life
he can find more money, less work and more happiness than in honest
living and honest work, he is the victim of a dangerous delusion.
A most miserable creature is the gambler. He knows himself, and
therefore he hates himself.
No man can gamble and be honest, even with his friends, even with his
family. The idea of the gambler is to get from another man what he has
not earned from that man, giving nothing in exchange. And when a man
spends his time trying to get away the money of others with no return
he soon drifts into throwing aside ALL honesty, even the gambler's
brand.
The unsuccessful gambler is one of the worst of wrecks. He runs his
little course of dissipation, dishonesty, cheating and swindling. He
is over-matched and eliminated by the bigger, keener, self-controlled
gambler, who eats him up as the big spider eats up the little spider.
Hanging around saloons, begging for a little money with which to
bet, doing the dirty work of the bigger gamblers--that is the fate of
the little gambling cast-off. He is not worth talking about.
[Illustration: THE FOOLISHLY HAPPY LIFE.
ARTIST PALENSKE herewith forcefully presents the lamentable contrast
of the man who delights to play poker when his boon companions call,
and his other self when the wife pitifully and hopelessly pleads for
money to meet household expenses. The "poker fiend" will lose his
week's wages in a night. Sometimes, to boot, he loses money not his
own, but he thinks it the part of the "game sport" if he hides his
misfortunes behind the mask of a smile. "Be a good loser" is his
never-failing motto. In the long run it is the neglected wife and
family that are the REAL LOSERS.]
The gambler's life is simply the life of a criminal. And, like every
other successful criminal, the successful gambler has got to work
very hard. What the burglar gets, what the pickpocket gets, what the
gambler gets, is money painfully accumulated. The successful burglar,
or pickpocket, or gambler must work hard and be forever on the alert.
He must be remorselessly cruel in taking money from those that cannot
stand the loss. He must be indifferent to all sense of decency, for he
knows that he is robbing women and children.
The criminal in ANY line, gambler or other, cannot be a self-indulgent
man if he is to be successful. The young man who imagines that the
gambler's life is a gay and easy one is badly mistaken. If he tries it
he will live to envy ANY honest man who has a right to look other men
in the face.
WHY GAMBLING MAKES MEN COMMIT CRIMES.
The statistics of crime prove beyond all cavil that gambling is the
king's highway to fraud and theft. This is not merely because it
loosens general morality and in particular saps the rationale of
property, but because cheating is inseparably associated with most
actual modes of gambling. This does not imply that most persons who
bet are actually cheats or thieves; but persons who continue to be
cheated or robbed, half conscious of the nature of the operations, are
fitting themselves for the other and more profitable part if they are
thrown in the way of acquiring a sufficient quantity of evil skill or
opportunity. The "honor" of a confirmed gambler, even in high life,
is known to be hollow commodity, and where there is less to lose in
social esteem even this slender substitute for virtue is absent. What
percentage of "men who bet" would refuse to utilize a secret tip of
a "scratched" favorite or the contents of an illegally disclosed
sporting telegram? The barrier between fraud and smartness does not
exist for most of them.
[Illustration: (Gamblers cheating at cards)]
NO BASIS FOR LIVELIHOOD.
Serious investigation of the gambling process discloses the fact
that pure gambling does not afford any economic basis of livelihood,
save in a few cases where, as at the roulette table or in a lottery,
those who gamble know and willingly accept the chances against them.
And even in the case of the roulette table the profits to the bank
come largely from the advantage which a large fund possesses in play
against a smaller fund; in the fluctuations of the game the smaller
fund which plays against the bank is more than likely at some point in
the game to be absorbed so as to disable the player from continuing
his play.
If a man with $5,000 were to play "pitch and toss" for $5 gold pieces
with a number of men, each of whom carried only $50, he must, if they
played long enough, win all their money. So, even where skill and
fraud are absent, economic force is a large factor in success.
TEMPTATION TO EMBEZZLE.
Since professional gambling in a stock broker, a croupier, a
bookmaker, or any other species involves some use of superior
knowledge, trickery, or force, which in its effect on the "chance"
amounts to "loading" the dice, the non-professional gambler
necessarily finds himself a loser on any long series of events. These
losses are found, in fact, to be a fruitful cause of crime, especially
among the men employed in business where sums of money belonging to
the firm are passing through their hands. It is not difficult for a
man who constantly has in his possession considerable funds which he
has collected for the employer to persuade himself that a temporary
use of these funds, which otherwise lie idle, to help him over a brief
emergency, is not an act of real dishonesty. He is commonly right in
his plea that he had no direct intention to defraud his employer.
He expected to be able to replace the sum before its withdrawal was
discovered. But since legally a person must be presumed to "intend"
that which is a natural or reasonable result of his action, an
indirect intention to defraud must be ascribed to him. He is aware
that his act is criminal as well as illegal in using the firm's money
for any private purpose of his own. But in understanding and assessing
the quality of guilt involved in such action, two circumstances which
extenuate his act, though not the gambling habit which has induced it,
must be taken into account. A poor man who frequently bets must sooner
or later be cleared out and unable, out of his own resources, to meet
his obligations. He is induced to yield to the temptation the more
readily for two reasons. First, there is a genuine probability (not so
large, however, as he thinks) that he can replace the money before any
"harm is done." So long as he does replace it no harm appears to him
to have been done; the firm has lost nothing by his action.
HOW COMMERCE CONDONES CRIME.
This narrower circumstance of extenuation is supported by a broader
one. The whole theory of modern commercial enterprise involves using
other people's money, getting the advantage of this use for one's self
and paying to the owner as little as one can.
A bank or a finance company is intrusted with sums of money belonging
to outsiders on condition that when required, or upon agreed notice,
they shall be repaid. Any intelligent clerk in such a firm may be well
aware that the profits of the firm are earned by a doubly speculative
use of this money which belongs to other people; it is employed by the
firm in speculative investments which do not essentially differ from
betting on the turf, and the cash in hand or other available assets
are kept at a minimum on the speculative chance that depositors will
not seek to withdraw their money, as they are legally entitled to
do. In a firm which thus lives by speculating with other people's
money, is it surprising that a clerk should pursue what seems to him
substantially the same policy on a smaller scale? It may doubtless be
objected that a vital difference exists in the two cases: the investor
who puts his money into the hands of a speculative company does so
knowingly, and for some expected profit; the clerk who speculates
with the firm's money does so secretly, and no possible gain to the
firm balances the chance of loss. But even to this objection it is
possible to reply that recent revelations of modern finance show that
real knowledge of the use to which money will be put cannot be imputed
to the investor in such companies, and that, though some gain may
possibly accrue to him, such gain is essentially subsidiary to the
prospects of the promoters and managers of these companies.
[Illustration: (Group of gamblers commuting)]
WHEREIN SPECULATION DIFFERS.
It is true that these are not normal types of modern business; they
are commonly designated gambling companies, some of them actually
criminal in their methods. But they only differ in degree, not in
kind, from a large body of modern businesses, whose operations are so
highly speculative, their risks so little understood by the investing
public, and their profits apportioned with so little regard to the
body of shareholders, as fairly to bring them under the same category.
In a word, secret gambling with other people's money, on the general
line of "heads I win, tails you lose," is so largely prevalent
in modern commerce as perceptibly to taint the whole commercial
atmosphere. Most of these larger gambling operations are either
not illegal or cannot easily be reached by law, whereas the minor
delinquencies of fraudulent clerks and other employes are more easily
detected and punished.
But living in an atmosphere where secret speculation with other
people's money is so rife, where deceit or force plays so large a
part in determining profitable coups, it is easy to understand how an
employe, whose conduct in most matters is determined by imitation,
falls into lax ways of regarding other people's money and comes in an
hour of emergency to "borrow" the firm's money. This does not excuse
his crime, but it does throw light upon its natural history.
WHEN IT WILL CEASE.
Publicity and education are, of course, the chief instruments for
converting illegitimate into legitimate speculation, for changing
commercial gambling into commercial foresight. This intelligent
movement toward a restoration of discernible order and rationality
in business processes, by eliminating "chances" and placing the
transfer of property and the earning of industrial gains on a more
rational foundation, must, of course, go with other movements of
social and industrial reforms which aim simultaneously at the basis of
reformation of the economic environment. Every step which places the
attainment of property upon a sane rational basis, associating it with
proportionate personal productive effort, every step which enables men
and women to find orderly interests in work and leisure by gaining
opportunities to express themselves in art or play under conditions
which stimulate new human wants and supply means of satisfying them,
will make for the destruction of gambling.
GAMBLING DON'T PAY.
Two-fifths of all the crimes committed every year are estimated to be
attributable to race tracks. Five men have been convicted this year
of stealing money from the United States postoffice, and every one
of them confessed he lost the money at race tracks. The mania for
gambling is growing stronger, and as it grows the defenses of honesty
crumble away.
What may be called gambling thieves are not so numerous in Chicago as
in some other cities, for the reason that no race tracks are permitted
to exist in Cook county. But there are many gambling swindlers in
this city. A large proportion of the men in the county jail are there
because gambling wrecked morals in them, and hardly a week passes
that does not find at least one person before the courts charged with
robbery because money was wanted to bet.
This is not all of the injury that gambling does to the community.
Because the state's attorney's office and the police have not
suppressed gambling the city is full of sharpers who make their living
out of men foolish enough to think that they can get rich by betting
on horse races, faro or roulette. These sharpers are an organized band
of law breakers, preying on society, disorganizing it as far as is
possible, their whole existence a menace to decency and order.
The passion for gambling can probably never be eradicated from human
nature. But civilization should be able to prevent rogues and rascals
from profiting by it in the way usual in Chicago. Professional
gamblers--professional swindlers, should be sent to the penitentiary
and kept there. There should be some means under the law to send all
such to the penitentiary and keep them there.
HOW TO END RACE-TRACK GAMBLING.
Race-track gambling has unexpectedly become an issue of importance in
New York, and widespread discussion of means to rid the city of its
race tracks is taking place.
Discussion, however, is unnecessary. The way to end the plague of
betting on races is plain. Let the grand jury indict officials of
the Western Union Telegraph Company for complicity in bookmaking and
send them to jail. Without gambling race tracks would be deserted.
Without the aid of the Western Union there would be no gambling worth
mentioning. Strike at the Western Union and the race tracks would go
out of existence.
The Western Union Company is the one great encourager of gambling in
this country. But for its reports of races, hundreds of thousands of
young men would be saved from ruin every year. It is in partnership
with sharpers who fleece the foolish. It shares their gains in payment
for the use of its wires. The money that flows into its coffers from
that source is taken by trickery from the public. The race track
swindlers rob a man and hand over a part of their loot to the Western
Union, because without the Western Union's assistance they could not
have robbed him.
[Illustration: Do they think about us at home? We air having such a
good time hear a lone.]
But for the Western Union Telegraph Company not a single race track
would be in operation in the United States, for without the Western
Union's aid race tracks would not be profitable.
The way to stop race tracks gambling and drive race courses out of
existence is to compel the Western Union to observe the law which
forbids just such practices as those of which it is guilty every day.
That can be done only by sending a few Western Union officials to
jail and keeping them there until their company concludes to dissolve
partnership with crooks.
LEARN EARLY NOT TO GAMBLE; TEACH PUPILS LAW OF CHANCE.
Mere driftwood on a restless wave;
A shuttlecock that's tossed by Fate;
Year follows year into the grave,
Whilst thou dost cry, "Too late! Too late!"
A life that's but a wintry day,
Whilst chilling storms blow thee about;
A tempter thou durst not say nay;
A conscience long since put to rout.
Who gets by play a loser is;
The gambler stakes his very heart;
What's prodigally won's not his;
Who wagers takes the knave's foul part.
Thou shouldst not steal nor covet what
Another hath by labor earned;
No man who hath with wisdom wrought
But this base sport hath ever spurned.
Why haggard thus thy fair, young face
With vigils, passions, aimed at gain?
Is this thy mission in this place--
This idleness which brings disdain?
Be not a weakling, nor of wax;
Let mind be master over thee;
See that its shaping of thy acts
Prepares thee for eternity!
Art thou thy brother's keeper?
Most emphatically, yes, if he be not sufficiently strong to refrain
from doing that which is injurious to himself and those dependent upon
him.
PUBLIC LAX; GAMBLERS ACTIVE.
When the law declares against gambling, and advertisement and sale
of even "fair" gambling paraphernalia, why is it that the righteous
majority, which would not stoop to this form of speculation, sits
inertly by, allows crooked devices to be advertised and sold, permits
hundreds of men to waste their time and substance, and dozens to blow
out their brains as a consequence?
Why do "good" men prate on "personal liberty," which is merely their
way of washing their hands of the responsibility for good government.
Does it eradicate the evil to say a man is a free moral agent and need
not lose his money gambling unless he wants to; that "virtue is its
own reward;" that "honesty is the best policy," or that taking without
giving return is a sin?
Would it not be better for this inactive majority of talkers to elect
incorruptible men who can do something besides talk--men who would
enforce the laws and provide heavy punishments for concerns which make
gambling machines in which the unsuspecting have absolutely no chance
to win?
ARE WE FOLLOWING ROME TO THE PIT?
Are we going the way of Greece and Rome? Is there a menace in the
rapid increase of wealth in the United States? Are we allowing the
moral tone of society to sink?
The present tendency is toward speculation, even from childhood. In
most cities the child barely able to walk can find slot machines in
candy stores and drug stores from which he is made to believe he
can get something for nothing. Is this the proper training to give
children? Is it right to get something for which no return of money
or labor is given? And is it right to thus lure children when adults
know that their pennies more than pay for what they get--premiums and
all?
Children in school should be taught to calculate probabilities as a
part of their course in elementary arithmetic. Then they would know
better than to play slot machines or buy prize packages. And when they
grew up they would shun the bookmaker, the lottery, and the roulette
wheel.
The ordinary gambler speculates partly because he loves the excitement
and thrill of the game, but mainly, he will assure you, as he assures
himself, he is buoyed up by the hope of winning. He does not stop
to figure out his chances. If he sees a hundred to one shot he will
play it, seeing only that by risking a dollar he has a chance to win
a hundred. If he had been taught in school to see that really the
chances were 200 to 1 against him, and that he was betting a dollar
against fifty cents, he would keep his money in his pockets. Of course
the man who plays the races knows the odds of the book are against
him. He prides himself, however, that he is a wise reader of the "dope
sheet," and that can overcome the odds by a superior cunning.
He knows that he can't win on his luck, for this "breaks even" in the
long run.
FATE'S CARDS ALWAYS STACKED.
But the man who plays against a machine, if he has taken the
elementary course in the law of probabilities, can suffer under no
delusions and cannot give himself any reasonable excuse. He is bound
to lose. The odds on the machine are against him. And even if they
were not, it is entirely likely that the machine would win. An old
gambler contends that if a man matched pennies all day every day for a
month against a purely mechanical device he would quit a heavy loser.
The only way he could keep even would be to start out with "heads"
or "tails," and then go away and leave the machine at work, never
changing his bet. If he remained to watch the operation he would,
be sure to lose his head and begin to "guess" against the relentless
mechanism, and then he would lose.
In the ordinary coin-paying slot machine, the dial shows alternate
reds and blacks, interspersed here and there with quarters, halves
and, perhaps, $1. The player wins 5 cents on the black, 20 cents on
the quarter, 45 cents on the half, and 95 cents on the dollar. The
dials differ, but suppose there are thirty reds, thirty blacks, ten
quarters, five halves, and one dollar. The chances are against you,
then, on the red or black, 46 to 30; on the quarter, 66 to 24; on the
half, 71 to 24, and on the dollar, 75 to 19. Most players, it is said,
prefer the larger sums as a hazard in the coin machines, although the
probabilities against them are much greater. Again, they are dazzled
by the chance of winning a large sum at a small risk. Really, they are
betting their nickel against 3 cents on the red or black, and against
2 cents or less on the larger sums.
CHILDREN THROW AWAY MONEY.
If the children knew this they would not fool away their money in
the machines when they go for a boat ride on the lake, and it is
reasonable to suppose that grown men and women would beware of them
if they had learned to figure chances when they were in school. In
the penny machines in the cigar stores the probabilities are harder
to figure. You play a cent in the machine, and if you get two pairs
from a revolving pack of cards, always exposing the faces of five, you
win a 5-cent cigar. In most of the machines you must get "jacks up
or better" in order to win. Any poker player will bet you a chip on
any deal that you will not have as good as a pair of trays, and the
chances that you will have two pairs as good as jacks up must be at
least twenty to one.
Some of the machines consist of wheels of fortune which revolve from
the weight of the penny dropped in the slot. In any event the child
gets a penny's worth of goods, and there are chances to get two or
five cents' worth. Gum machines give an alleged cent's worth of gum,
with a chance for a coupon, which is good for a nickel's worth without
extra charge.
[Illustration: (Men playing slot machine)]
How many steps is this apparently harmless form of amusement removed
from the deceptive slot machines in cigar stores? And, in turn,
how many steps are these cigar machines removed from those in the
saloons? The boy who wins five cents worth in the candy store will
take cigarette tobacco or a cigar, if the dealer be unprincipled.
Next he tries for a cigar in a cigar store, and then for a cigar in a
saloon. If he is lucky in the last named, he is asked to a friendly
game of poker. Beyond asking if it is a pleasure to either lose to or
win from a friend, and to express the opinion that even though the
game be perfectly square, and there be no rake-off, it still remains
true that the time lost, and money spent for drinks and cigars, far
outweigh in value any pleasure that may be experienced.
CONFEDERATES USED.
Men who make a business of conducting and playing poker games stop at
nothing to get the money. The expenses of running the place, and the
free lunches, drinks and cigars dispensed must be paid for by some
one, and the proprietor is not in business to lose money. The game in
which there is no rake-off cannot possibly be square, and where there
is a rake-off the odds against you are prohibitive, if you play fair.
With seven men in a game of "draw," three of whom are "house" men, the
amount which goes into the "kitty" nightly is usually about equal to
the losses of the other cheat who dares not be found out.
CHEATING DEVICE IN A SLOT MACHINE.
Ordinarily the owners and saloonkeepers divide the winnings of all
slot machines. In a fair machine the winnings fall into the receptacle
A. Most of the money gambled by players found its way into this
depository. It did not please the owner of this machine to share his
profits equally with the saloonkeeper. The winning player was paid
from the nickels which lined a zig-zag chute ending at C. The owner
changed this scheme by inserting the secret bag B. Then he cut a hole
in the chute at D. and arranged a spring which diverted one out of
three nickels into B. As long as the chute was empty below the point
of entrance of A the nickels kept on filling the zig-zag runway.
[Illustration: Slot Machine Proves a Fraud.]
When the machine was seized, in the box where all the gains were
supposed to be, $60.20 was found. These two sums represented the total
proceeds of a day.
Confederates, mirrors, words, signs and hold-outs are used. A player
dealing from a stacked deck will inform his confederate how many cards
to draw by uttering a sentence containing that number of words. Men
lounging behind a player will "tip off" his hand. Cards are marked in
a manner imperceptible to the eye of the novice, and sometimes liquid
refreshment is spilled on the table in front of the dealer, so that
his opposite can read the reflections of the cards as they are dealt
face downward across the board. The last-named scheme is used where
the table has no covering.
There are many who believe that talks of crookedness at card tables
are only sermons by "goody-goodies," who know not whereof they speak.
Let the following advertisement, recently sent broadcast over the
country by a large concern located in the business center of one of
America's largest cities, refute such claims:
HOLD OUTS.
"CORRESPOND WITH US BEFORE BUYING OF OTHERS."
We have the finest line in the country, and every machine
is made to get the money--not for ornament, and accuracy.
Is as perfect as a watch. Works with a knee movement, and
by a slight movement everything disappears. If they have
played cards all their lives they will stand it.
Our price only $125.00.
The circular also mentioned dozens of other crooked devices at lesser
prices, and contained illustrations showing how the machines work. Can
there be any doubt these are used when concerns devote their entire
time to manufacturing them and can get such high prices?
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Showing card held under the arm.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Ring Hold-out.]
[Illustration: FIG. 20. '_Table-reflector._--Fastens by pressing steel
spurs into under side of table. A fine glass comes to the edge of
table to read the cards as you deal them off. You can set the glass at
any angle or turn it back out of sight in an instant.']
[Illustration: (Reflector reflecting card)]
The sleeve hold-out above mentioned, is made of a hair cloth sideway,
about the same size as a deck of cards, with its narrow sides laid
in fine, plaited folds, so that it will either lie flat or expand.
This is sewed in the sleeve of the coat or shirt and reaches from the
cuff to the elbow joint. One of the wide sides is sewn or pasted to
the cuff, both ends being open. At the elbow a strap fits around the
arm, to which is attached a metal tube that reaches down to the near
end of the sleeve, with a pulley attached to the end. A short wide
elastic is also attached to the strap, and to the elastic is fastened
a metal clamp that holds the cards. A cord is attached to this clamp,
which runs down and over the pulley, then back to the elbow through
the metal tube, thence to the shoulder, through the clothing to the
body, thence down through the loop at the heel, with a hook attached
to the end. The cord passes through a flexible tube from the elbow to
the ankle. This tube will bend easily, but will not flatten, and is
attached to the clothing with string ties to keep it in line with the
body. Its use is to prevent the cord from ticking or binding.
To work this hold out the hook at the end of the cord is fastened to
the loop of the shoe on the opposite foot. When the feet are spread
apart the act causes the cord to draw the clamp referred to down
through the sideway and to the near end of the sleeve. Any cards that
are in it will reach into the palm of the hand, where they can be
taken out or placed back into the clamp. By drawing the feet together
again the cord relaxes, and the elastic will draw the clamp and the
cards it contains back up the slideway to its place near the elbow.
There are other similar hold-outs. Don't let them hold you up.
MARKED CARDS.
Marked cards are known among gamblers as "Paper," and are considered
an article of utility in draw poker. The dealer, should he be a second
dealer, will deal second to himself instead of reading the hand of his
opponent's, thus giving himself a pair, two pair, threes or whatever
he wishes. Marked cards are used by those who are not second dealers,
as they are often able to fill a hand by holding a card in the hand
to correspond to the card on the top of the pack, and in any case
enabled to read opponent's hands and play accordingly. They are
perhaps the greatest advantage to a professional second dealer, as by
drawing a bob-tail card of any kind he can spoil the chances of an
honest player, however, skillful. People at large are becoming aware
of many of the schemes used in swindling, but so fast as the public
becomes acquainted with a scheme, the shark invents something to take
its place or practices the old one until he has it so fine under his
manipulation it is hardly recognizable. A professional gambler is soon
known. Even if he is never detected cheating, he is given credit for
it.
[Illustration: Caught Working the Sleeve Hold-out.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31. Hold-outs.]
CARDS MARKED WITH FINGER NAILS.
This is a mark put on the cards during the progress of the game, with
finger nail or thumb nail. It is put on so that the gambler may know
just what his opponent holds. The ace is marked with a straight line
or mark in upper right hand corner. The king, is a straight line
about one-half inch long in the center of the card. The queen is a
straight line a half inch longer than the king. The jack is a straight
line about the center of the card. The ten spot is designated by a
straight line or mark in the same position as the ace. The nine spot
is a slanting line in position of king. The eight is a slanting line
in position of queen. Seven is a slanting line in position of jack.
The six is denoted by a straight line in position of ace, running
across the card at right angles to the ace mark. The five is same
as six in position of king. The four is the same as five and six in
position of queen. The tray is same mark in position of jack. Deuce is
a cross below the jack sign. The mark denoting the suit of the card is
placed in the center of the top of the card. Hearts are designated by
a perpendicular line at the center end of the card. Clubs are shown
by a horizontal line in the same position. Diamonds are shown by a
slanting line in the same position. And of course, as hearts, clubs
and diamonds are marked, a card without a mark would be a spade. This
is one of the most dangerous tricks, as it is done during the progress
of the game, and unless some one knows something about it, it would
never be detected.
THE DOUBLE DISCARD.
This is used by many of the gamblers, and is done through the neglect
of the players. The man doing this will always draw three cards, no
matter what he may hold in his hand. It is done by placing the cards
he wishes to keep on top of the ones he wishes to discard, and laying
them down beside him, ostensibly discarding them. As he is given his
three cards he looks them over and has eight cards out of which to
pick his hand. Suppose in his original hand he held three diamonds and
a club; he places the three diamonds beside him and calls for three
cards, holding one diamond and the club in his hand. When his cards
are dealt him he has five cards out of which to pick two diamonds. He
selects two cards and discards three cards; at the same time he picks
up the three cards that he discarded first. Very few are expert enough
to this trick without detection.
CHECK SIGNS.
This is a set of signs made with the use of checks. In making these
signs a white check counts one, a piece of silver or a colored check
counts five; often when colored checks or silver are not handy,
matches are used instead. The count of checks corresponds to the size
of the cards. One colored check would denote a pair of fives, or three
fives, when used in a certain way, which I will endeavor to explain
fully. Of course, all these different signs are used between two men,
who are in league with each other in order to cheat a game. The first
sign in this set is the sorting of cards, which means that the hand
is no good. Should this sign not be given, the partner will look for
the sign denoting what is held. When one man wishes to show that he
has a pair, he holds the check or cards in the right hand, slightly to
the left of his body. For instance, a white cheek held in the right
hand, nearly in front of the heart, would denote that a pair of aces
were held. Two checks, a pair of deuces, and so on to eleven, which
signifies jacks; twelve, queens, and thirteen, kings. For two pair,
the head pair is shown, the checks being held squarely in front. For
instance, aces up would be shown by holding one white check up in
front of the body. For three of a kind, the same sign is used, merely
the check is held a little to the right of the body. Three colored and
one white would signify that a straight was held; four colored and one
white would signify that a flush was held; five colored and one white
check would signify that a full house was held; six colored and one
white would mean four of a kind; two colored checks, together in the
palm of the hand, means a straight flush.
USES TO WHICH A PACK OF CARDS MAY BE PUT.
A pack of cards may be used as a Bible, a prayer book, and an almanac.
As a Bible and prayer book, the ace should remind you that there is
one God; the deuce, of the Father and Son; the tray, of the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost; the four, of the four evangelists--Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John; the five of the five virgins, who had filled and
trimmed their lamps; the six, of the command to labor six days a week;
the seven, of the seventh day, which God blessed and hallowed; the
eight, of the eight righteous persons who were saved in the ark, Noah,
his wife and three sons and their wives; the nine, of the nine lepers
who were cleansed by our Savior and never thanked Him for it; the
ten, of the ten commandments; the king, of the Great King Almighty:
the queen, of Sheba, who visited Solomon; Solomon was the wisest man
living, and she was as wise a woman as he was a man; the knave, of
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed our Savior.
As an almanac, count the spots, and you have three hundred and
sixty-five, the number of days in a year. Count the cards, and you
have fifty-two, the number of weeks in a year. Count the suits, and
you have four, the number of weeks in a month. Count the face cards,
and you have twelve, the number of months in a year. Count the tricks,
and you have thirteen, and you have the number of weeks in a quarter.
THE BILL HAND.
You have often seen a lot of poker players playing with a lot of
checks stacked up in front of them and a few bills or greenbacks
spread out in front of them, between checks and themselves. A player
having his checks in this manner needs watching, for it is easy to
slide a full hand or four of a kind under those bills whenever an
opportunity occurs. Whenever a good fat pot appears he can use this
hand which he has under the bills by simply putting his hand on top
of the bills and turning them over, which brings the good hand on top
and poor ones under the bills. He always makes a practice of laying
his cards down on the bills, and other players see it at different
times and will think nothing of it. The only way to detect this is by
missing the five cards out of the pack, and one has to be a expert
to miss five cards out of fifty-two without counting them, and after
playing a good hand in this way he must get rid of the deal hand,
which is under the bills, in order to get ready to collect another
hand for the next play. The principal thing about this work is to do
it at the right time and with the right people.
TOOTHPICK OR CIGAR SIGNS.
A gambler will use a set of signs made with a cigar, pipe or toothpick
to show his partner what he holds in his hand. The signs are as
follows: The cigar, pipe or toothpick placed in the left side of the
mouth signifies a pair. On the right side two pair; in the center of
the month means threes. To signify that a straight is held the cigar
is moved up and down with the fore finger. Working in the same manner
with the first and second finger denotes a flush. With the third
finger denotes a full house. With fourth finger means four of a kind.
To show the size of the hand the fingers are placed on the cigar,
pipe or toothpick in the following manner: Suppose a pair of aces are
held, the cigar is placed in the left hand corner of the mouth and
touched with the first finger of the right hand. Aces up or three aces
can be shown in the same way. The first finger denoting aces, the
second kings, the third queens and the fourth jacks.
GAMBLING DEVICE SWINDLE IN ARMY AND NAVY.
Scope of Fraud World-Wide--Soldiers and Sailors Victims of
Contrivances.
On May 19, 1906, Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, with ten men,
swooped down on: H. C. Evans, 125 South Clark street; George De Shone,
462 North Clark street; Barr & Co., E. Manning Stockton, 56 Fifth
avenue. The offices were raided and sure-thing gambling devices valued
at $5,000 seized and destroyed. H. C. Evans was arrested and fined
$200; George De Shone was arrested and fined $100, and E. Manning
Stockton arrested and fined $25. Afterwards E. Manning Stockton was
indicted, arrested and gave bonds, which he forfeited and then fled.
Disclosure of conditions which so seriously threatened the discipline
of the United States army and navy that the secretaries of the two
departments, and even President Roosevelt himself, were called upon
to aid in their suppression, were made in the Harrison Street police
court following this arrest.
It was charged that a coterie of Chicago men engaged in making and
selling these devices had formed a "trust," and had for years robbed,
swindled, and corrupted the enlisted men of the army and navy through
loaded dice, "hold-outs," magnetized roulette wheels, and other
crooked gambling apparatus.
[Illustration: Electric Dice]
[Illustration: The Way Some Cards Are Marked.]
The "crooked" gambling "trust" in Chicago spread over the civilized
world, had its clutches on nearly every United States battleship, army
post, and military prison; caused wholesale desertions, and in general
corrupted the entire defense of the nation.
[Illustration: REWARD TO THE PARTY BRINGING BACK CHICAGO'S GAMBLING
KINGS.--GRAND JURY.]
TRY TO CORRUPT SCHOOL BOYS.
Besides the corruption of the army, these companies are said to have
aimed a blow at the foundation of the nation, by offering, through a
mail order plan, for six cents, loaded dice to school boys, provided
they sent the names of likely gamblers among their playmates.
This plan had not reached its full growth when nipped. But the
disruption of the army and navy had been under way for several years,
and had reached such gigantic proportions that the military service
was in danger of complete disorganization.
Thousands of men were mulcted of their pay monthly.
Desertions followed these wholesale robberies. The War Department
could not find the specific trouble. Post commanders and battleship
commanders were instructed to investigate.
The army investigation, confirmed after the raid and arrests, showed
that the whole army had been honey-combed with corruption by these
companies. Express books and registered mail return cards showed that
most of the goods were sold to soldiers and sailors.
FORTS INFECTED BY EVIL.
Fort Riley, Cavite, P. I., Manila, P. I., Honolulu, the Alaskan army
posts, Fort Leavenworth, Fort Reno, Fort Logan, Columbus Barracks,
Fort McPherson, were among the posts where hundreds of dollars worth
of equipment was sent, and where thousands upon thousands of dollars
a month was the booty obtained by the Chicago trust on a commission
basis.
Battleships in every squadron, the naval stations of this nation
all through the world, navy yards, and other points where marines are
stationed, have been loaded with the devices.
It was found, upon investigation, that "cappers" were selected from
the enlisted men. Agents, who ran the games on commission, were also
found. These men, dazzled by financial prospects, deserted in droves.
MANY VICTIMS SUICIDES.
The men who were fleeced and had their small pay taken from them month
after month, became reckless. Some ended as suicides. Hundreds became
unruly and were subjected to guard-house sentences. They deserted in
their despair. The conditions in the navy were even worse. Scores of
the battleship crews would be in irons at a time.
To the honor of the service, it was found that no officers had ever
participated in the corrupting vocation. It was the rank and file
who "fell for it," as the gamblers said. They became either tools or
victims, to the extent, it was estimated, of 60 per cent.
KING DEATH.
AN AVERAGE OF 200 SUICIDES A YEAR AT MONTE CARLO--MANY BODIES ARE
SECRETLY THROWN INTO SEA BY AUTHORITIES OF THIS, THE WORLD'S GREATEST
GAMBLING HOUSE.
PARIS, Nov. 20.--Three thousand known suicides and murders have been
committed in Monte Carlo in the space of fifteen years. The known
suicides average fully 200 a year, and some weeks there have been as
many as three a day. The Casino authorities do everything to hush up
scandals and news of tragedies. A large force of plain-clothes men are
engaged to either prevent suicides or to hurry the body of the dead
unfortunate out of the way. It is estimated that more than one-half of
the tragedies of Monte Carlo are never heard of except by the Casino
staff. The corpse is rushed quietly to the morgue--a secret morgue.
Here it is kept some time to see whether relatives or friends are
going to interfere or kick up a row.
[Illustration: THE END OF THE ROAD]
BODIES THROWN IN OCEAN.
Every once in a while a small steamer slips out of the harbor at dead
of night. Its cargo is secured at the secret morgue. At sea the bodies
are thrown overboard, duly weighted, without toll of bell or muttered
prayer. There are countless graves of unknown dead in the Monte Carlo
cemetery. But these are only those whose death has become known to the
public. The Casino authorities have a special bureau, whose duties
are to relieve persons ruined at the tables. The ruined gambler can
get from this bureau enough money to take him to his home, or to some
spot far from Monaco. Few know of this, perhaps, or there would not
be so many deaths. The "dead-broke" gambler is taken through many
inner chambers and before stern-faced men, to whom he has to tell his
history in detail. He is also confronted with the different croupiers,
who testify as to whether he really lost as much as he may claim.
BANISH THE DEAD BROKE.
Then the wretched man has to sign a document banishing himself forever
from Monaco. His name and particulars are written in the "black
book," his photograph is taken and given to the doorkeepers and other
officials to study, and then the man is taken to the railway station,
a ticket bought, a few dollars given him, and an official escorts him
as far as the frontier. Should he return it would not avail him. The
police would turn him back again into France or Italy. It is related
that an American who was "broke" and anxious to get back to the United
States heard of this feature of Monte Carlo. He had not gambled there
because he had no money, but he managed to make his way to Monte Carlo
and demanded to see the authorities. He coolly asked for a steamer
ticket to New York. Inquiries revealed that he had only just arrived
in Monaco, and had never put a foot inside the Casino, but despite
this the authorities gave him a steerage ticket to New York and saw
him on his way.
BONAPARTES BIG STOCKHOLDERS.
There is also the case of an important Indian army officer who went
broke. The authorities gave him first-class passage to Calcutta, and
$250 expense money. He had lost several thousands. As much as $2,500
has been paid out to a big loser so that he could settle up his hotel
bill and take himself and family home. Should such money be paid back
the Casino might again welcome the man. The sums usually paid range
from $25 to $200, and an average of 1,000 people a year apply for this
relief. The profits of the Casino are immense. Last year they were
$7,500,000, an increase of $760,000 over the previous year. Seventy
per cent was paid to the shareholders. The majority of the shares are
held by the Blanc family, the leading member of which is the Princess
Marie Bonaparte, whose father was Prince Roland Bonaparte, and mother
the daughter of M. Blanc, the founder of Monte Carlo. She is the
wealthiest princess in the world, and was lately married to Prince
George of Greece, who is an impecunious princeling and needs the money.
PRINCE OWNS NO STOCK.
The prince of Monaco has not a single share in the enterprise. But
he derives his entire income from the sum paid him by the Gamblers'
Company for the lease of Monaco. The prince is of especial interest to
Americans, because of his American wife. She was Miss Alice Heine of
New Orleans. When she married the prince she was a widow, the Dowager
Duchess of Richelieu. The prince is a "divorced" man. He first married
Lady Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, and a son
and heir was born. But eleven years after the marriage the pair were
so unhappy that an appeal was made to the pope. The Catholic church,
of course, does not recognize divorces, but the pope issued a special
pronouncement declaring his 11-year-old marriage invalid, for the
reason that the Lady Mary's mother "over-persuaded her to marry."
RECEIVES ENORMOUS INCOME.
The prince, in return for the gambling concession, has been getting an
annual income of a quarter of a million dollars and all the expenses
of running the State of Monaco, including the maintenance of the
army and the royal palace. He recently granted a further contract to
the "Monaco Sea-Bathing Company," or to give the gambling concerns
the full title "La Societé Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des
Etrangers à Monaco."
This concession now extends to 1947, and the annual income of the
prince has been raised $100,000. Every ten years it will be raised an
additional $50,000. In six years time the Casino will also have to pay
him a lump sum down of $3,000,000. It is stated that the prince of
Monaco is by no means in favor of the Casino, and that he abhors the
gambling and the consequent scandal in his state, and that could he do
so, he would at once stop it. But in the old original contract it was
agreed that the concession should be extended to 1947, and the prince
is not rich enough to break this contract and pay the indemnity which
the law would quickly assess.
GAMBLING KINGS GO BROKE; OFTEN DIE IN THE POORHOUSE.
Some one has advanced the statement that every human being is
a gambler at heart. Yet for a man to go into the business of
establishing a card gambling house under modern conditions is to
attempt one of the riskiest businesses in the world. Recently one
of the most noted gaming-house keepers in the country seems to have
suggested a further anomaly in the situation in his utterance in a
court of record:
"When I conduct a house on a 10 per cent basis of profit it is only a
matter of time until my steady patron 'goes broke.'"
In the face of this statement, however, the innocent layman may be
still further at sea when it is recalled by old habitues of the gaming
table that nearly every gambling king of modern history has finished
close to the poorhouse and the potter's field! How is it possible that
the gambler with the insidious, certain 10 per cent which inevitably
wrecks the man who goes often enough to the green table almost
invariably dies in poverty?
MUST HAVE FORTUNE TO INVEST.
Today it is the gambler king who at least has an ephemeral show to
gain fleeting riches. But in order that these riches shall approach
riches as they are measured in other businesses, the man who opens the
gambling house must have a fortune for the investment. His outlawed
business itself will make it certain that he pays the maximum rental
or the highest price for the property which he chooses for occupancy.
To sustain this he will need to seek out the wealthy patron who not
only has money to lose, but who may have a certain influence which may
tend toward immunity for keeper and player alike. The "establishment"
will need to have the best cuisine and the best cellars, with palatial
furnishings and a retinue of servants in full keeping.
And somewhere money will be necessary in blinding officials to the
existence of an institution which is visible to the merest tyro in
passing along the street.
A constitution of iron, the absence of a nervous system, the
discrimination of a King Solomon and the tact of a diplomat are
requisites for the successful gambling king. Considering the
qualification of the man for such a place and the final ending of the
gambling king's career, it might be a sociological study worth while
to determine where, on a more worthy bent, such capacities in a man
might land him.
In real life, however, it must be admitted that the gambler king is
looked upon in exaggerated light. Almost without exception the big
gambler is posing always. Conventionality has demanded it of him.
But for more than this, in order to command the following which
he desires, he must have a certain social side which is not too
prominent, but which with tact and judgment he may bring out on
dress parade. To the layman the gambler is the dark, sinister figure
pictured in melodrama. He bears the same relation to gambling that
Simon Legree bore to the institution of slavery of fifty years ago.
STORY OF ONE GAMBLER KING.
One of the noted gamblers of his time in this country passed from
laboring on the docks into the prize ring. When his ring work was
ended the gambling house was an easy step onward in illegitimate
fields. On the docks his reputation was not above a bit of "strong
arm" work in separating a man from the money which the dock walloper
wanted. Naturally, under the Queensberry rules, there were things in
the ring which he could not do in overcoming an antagonist, and he
learned to make concessions to fairness--which was education.
Opening a gambling house that was adapted to the wants of a rich
clientele, it was a necessity that he preserve this educational
regard for his patrons, and that he should add to it. Soon he was
in a position where it was imperative that his reputation for fair
dealing be kept intact. He became the "gentleman gambler" whose "word"
carried all the accepted concomitants of his gentleman's business. In
the course of events he attained a high legislative office under the
government. But it may be said for those who knew the man as a man,
not one ever ceased to regard him at heart as the dock walloper, with
the inherent and unreconstructed disposition to regard other men as
legitimate prey. Had other conditions and circumstances made a card
sharp of him, he would have held to the promptings of his nature.
In the conduct of a gambling house of the first class, the gambling
king needs for himself and for his patrons the assurance of
uninterrupted play. Men of money and position will not go to a
house where there is menace of a police raid. The small gambler may
subsidize the policeman on the beat in which his house stands, but he
cannot placate the whole Police Department. And even when it is
thought that the gambler king is impregnable in his castle someone may
break over the barriers and raid the place in the name of the law and
order.
[Illustration: (Gambler passing card to partner by foot)]
[Illustration: (Man getting caught passing card)]
Within a few years New York has given to the world some of the inside
working of the gambling business. When Jerome raided the place of
places which had been considered immune, the proprietor of the house
was considered worth a million dollars. Before the litigation was done
and the fine paid the gambler king was out $600,000, his "club-houses"
were closed, and he had been branded officially as a common gambler,
pursued in the courts for payment of lawyers' fees, which he
designated as outrageous and a "shrieking scandal." Yet this man was
of the type whose word had been declared as good as his bond.
DICE, FARO AND ROULETTE.
Dice, faro and roulette are the principal games of the gambling house
and, considering these, the experienced player will tell you that he
is suspicious of a "petey" in the dice box, a "high layout" in faro,
and a "squeezed wheel" in roulette, in just the proportion that the
gambling house keeper has not recognized that he cannot indulge them
because of the fear of detection. The gambler holds to the gambler's
view of the gambler--and it is not complimentary to the profession.
That the gentleman gambler is justified in his attitude toward the
gentleman player, too, has been shown in the New York revelations.
There one gentleman player, loser to the extent of $300,000.
compromised with the "bank" for 130 bills of $1,000 denomination.
There a gentleman player who had lost $69,000 to the bank tried to
compromise on $20,000, but was in a position where the bank could
hold him. How much the gambler king may loan and lose in the course
of a year scarcely can be approximated. The gambling debt is "a debt
of honor," and even in business not all such debts are paid. Whether
a borrowed debt or a debt of loss to the bank, this honor is the
security, unless in emergency the gambler king discovers that he can
blackmail with safety to his interests as a whole.
In general, the gambler who is "on the square" operates on a 10 per
cent basis for his bank. In addition there is the "unknown per cent"
which is his at the end of the year. The roulette wheel, for example,
presents to the player just one chance in thirty-seven of winning on a
single play, while the winning on that play is paid in the proportion
of only 34 to 1.
MORE NERVE TO WIN THAN LOSE.
The one great characteristic in human nature on which the gambler
counts is the fact that it requires more nerve in a man to win than
is required of him to lose! It is startling for the layman to be told
that $5,000 in a night is a big winning for a player, while $5,000 is
only an ordinary loss in a big establishment.
This fact is based on subtle psychology. There are two types of
players, one of which gambles when it is in a state of elation and
the other when in a state of depression. With either of these types
winning, it is a gambler's observation that the man who will play
until he has lost $25,000 when luck hopelessly is against him cannot
hold himself to the chair after he is $5,000 winner.
Gamblers have made money--fortunes--in times past, only to be buried
in the potter's field. There are several reasons assignable for this
end. Extravagant living appeals to the gambler, and when he has left
his own special line of gaming it does not appeal to him strongly as
either pastime or means for recouping his fortune. If he turns to
gaming at all it is likely to be in fields where he does not know the
game. Sometimes he goes to the Board of Trade--sometimes to the stock
market. Playing there he is without system and without knowledge of
conditions. He is likely to bull the grain market two days after the
weather conditions have assured the greatest grain crop in history.
Once a gambler, always a gambler, is his condition; and it is only a
matter of time until someone has a game which beats him out.
IT'S UP TO YOU, YOUNG MAN.
There are two trails in life, young man.
One leads to height and fame,
To honor, glory, peace and joy,
And one to depths of shame;
And you can reach that glorious height--
Its honors can be won--
Or you can grope in shame's dark night.
It's up to you, young man.
Stern duty guards the upper trail--
Exact obedience, too--
And he who treads it cannot fail
To win if he be true.
But tickle folly, gay with smiles,
Rules o'er the other one,
And leads to ruin with her wiles.
It's up to you, young man.
At parting of the trails you stand.
At early manhood's gate;
Your future lies in your own hand--
Will it be low or great?
If now you choose the trail of Right.
When you the height have won,
You'll bask in Honor's fadeless light--
It's up to you, young man.
A HEARTLESS FRAUD.
SCHOOLS TO TEACH SHOW-CARD WRITING CATCH MANY VICTIMS AMONG THE POOR
GIRLS.
December 5, 1905, J. H. Bell, the proprietor of a SHOW-CARD COLLEGE at
21 Quincy St., was arrested and the place closed. Bell advertised for
students to learn to write show-cards and signs. He is said to charge
$1 for a course and to promise positions at large salaries as soon as
the course is completed.
After the course has been finished and the tuition paid Bell is
declared to have refused to give the graduates employment on the
ground that their work is unsatisfactory.
A great many girls are attracted to the scheme, and sign contracts
to pay Bell for the instruction in the belief that they will be
benefited. Bell tells them that he has customers who will purchase all
the cards they can make. They are to receive a few cents for each card
as soon as they learn the business, but they are required to pay a
fine of 2 cents for each card they spoil.
"They are set to work painting gold borders such as are seen in the
windows of the department stores, but the task is so difficult that
only a finished artist can do the work. Bell has a woman accomplice
who hustles into the office when it is filled with women and girls and
tells how she makes from $25 to $30 a week painting cards. Her talk
encourages the girls to keep on spoiling Bell's cards and increasing
his income.
SWINDLER JUMPS BAIL.
"When taken before the court, Bell made a hard fight for freedom,
but he was held to the Criminal Court on five charges of obtaining
money under false pretenses. Bonds were placed at $300 in each case by
Justice Prindiville.
"He was unable to do the work he was requiring the girls to do, so
when the grand jury saw through his scheme the five indictments were
promptly returned.
"J. H. Bell jumped his bail, fled to Minneapolis, where he conducted
the same business. Here he was again arrested, fined and given so many
hours to leave the city."
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the next place Bell opened his Show-Card
College. On the 28th of September, 1906, he was again arrested for
operating a confidence game and fined $80.
He then went to St. Louis, Mo., and opened an office in the Century
Building, under the name of the Clark Institute. Charges of swindling
women who applied to learn card-writing were made against him and he
was arrested, but later released through some technicalities set up
in the warrant of his arrest; also lack of evidence to support the
charges made in the warrant.
The newspapers published his swindling operations and on this account
Bell threatened to sue both the publishers and the police officials.
Detective Wooldridge located him through an article which appeared
in the St. Louis paper, which gave a description of his Show-Card
College, which was being carried on there.
John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, sent Bell's picture
and his Bertillon system of measurements to the Chief of Police in St.
Louis, and requested him to make the arrest. On the following day John
M. Collins. Superintendent of Police, Chicago. Illinois, received the
following letter from E. P. Creecy, Chief of Police, St. Louis, Mo.:
St. Louis, Mo.,
Dec. 22, 1906.
JOHN M. COLLINS, ESQ.
Superintendent of Police,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
Replying to your letter of Dec. 21, relative to J. H.
Bell, wanted in your city for obtaining money by means of
a confidence game, will say that W. H. Clark, office 354
Century Building, this city, was in the Court of Criminal
Correction this morning charged with larceny by trick, and
a _nolle prosequi_ was entered by the prosecuting attorney.
He answers the description of Bell and is undoubtedly the
same person, but I would suggest that you send someone to
identify him before the arrest is made, as he is making a
fight here on his case. Clark is carrying on the same kind
of business here as he did in your city.
Very respectfully,
E. P. CREECY,
Chief of Police.
Detective Harry Harris of Chicago was sent to St. Louis to identify
Bell, and swore that in his belief Clark was Bell. The detective
department wanted the case continued until Friday, but Clark insisted
upon immediate trial. Judge Sale held that the detective had not been
positive enough in his identification.
Detective Wooldridge arrived on the scene as Bell was leaving the
court room after being discharged the second time by the court.
Detective Wooldridge seized Bell and turned him over to a St. Louis
police officer and filed a new affidavit of positive identification
that Clark was Bell.
His lawyer demanded an immediate trial, but Detective Wooldridge
secured a two-day continuance to bring witnesses from Chicago to prove
the identity of Bell. This so enraged the attorney that he turned upon
Wooldridge and informed him that he would again free Bell and even
offered to bet $200.
He further stated that he had asked Governor Folk not to grant
requisition papers for his client. Detective Wooldridge replied, "Do
you remember Admiral George Dewey at Manila Bay who told Captain
Gridley to fire when he got ready?"
Wooldridge further told him he didn't care any more for him than the
dew that dropped on the jackass' mane. Wooldridge told the attorney
that Bell had defrauded over two hundred working girls in Chicago,
Illinois, and that the Cook County grand jury had investigated the
matter, and returned five indictments against Bell, and the Honorable
Charles S. Deneen, Governor of the State of Illinois, had caused to
be issued requisition papers for the arrest and apprehension of J. H.
Bell, and he had made Detective Wooldridge a special messenger to go
to St. Louis, Mo., and bring Bell to Chicago where he could be placed
on trial to answer to the indictments that had been brought against
him.
Detective Wooldridge stated that he had come three hundred miles
to perform that mission and he intended that Bell should return to
Chicago with him.
The attorney replied "he hardly thought the Honorable Governor Folk of
Missouri would grant requisition papers on Bell."
Detective Wooldridge told the attorney that he came for J. H. Bell
and was fully determined to take him back to Illinois to stand trial
and that he would cross the bridges as he came to them and burn them
behind him. He told Bell's attorney if the Honorable Governor Folk
refused to grant the first requisition papers, he would try on each of
the other indictments asking for requisition papers.
If this failed there was five forfeited bonds by which Bell could be
brought back to the State of Illinois on extradition papers.
If all this failed he had made arrangements to have him brought
back by the strong arm of the United States Government, through an
Inspector of Mails and United States Deputy Marshal for using the
mails for fraudulent purposes.
Wooldridge called up John M. Collins, General Superintendent of
Police, Chicago, Ill., by the long distance telephone and requested
the second set of requisition papers, certified copies of the five
forfeited bonds, and that the bondsman be sent to St. Louis at once,
which was done.
Thirty minutes after he left Bell's angry attorney, Wooldridge was
aboard a Missouri Pacific fast train, bound for Jefferson City,
Mo., to see Honorable Jos. Folk and lay before him the reason why
requisition papers should be granted. Arriving at Jefferson City at
10 P. M., the following morning (which was Sunday morning) he made a
demand upon Jailer Dawson for the body of Bell. Jailer Dawson referred
him to Judge Sale. Wooldridge found Judge Sale at his home, who, after
examining his papers, found them all right and ordered the jailer to
turn over Bell to Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
Bell was again brought to the office of the Chief of Police and
confronted by Wooldridge and Harris who arrested him.
When J. H. Bell was arrested in Chicago December 5, 1905, Mr. Turner
defended him and afterwards went on Bell's bond for $1,500. Bell was
turned over to Wooldridge who slipped a pair of handcuffs on him as he
was boarding a street car, landed him in East St. Louis, Ill., none
too soon, as Bell's attorney had sent out a writ of _habeas corpus_
and would watch all trains and stop the detective from taking Bell
from the State of Missouri.
Wooldridge requested the Chief of Detectives to inform Bell's lawyer
that both he and Bell were now in the State of Illinois and their
address would be in Chicago, Ill., if he wished to see either of them.
One of the police officers at East St. Louis overheard Bell tell his
cell-mate he would make his escape before he reached Chicago, and told
him to watch the newspapers the next day.
This information was given to Wooldridge.
Detective Wooldridge had tickets over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois
Railroad.
This train left at 11 P. M. at night and the first stop it made was
twenty miles north on the Missouri side of the river.
Wooldridge could not take his prisoner and board the train there on
account of _habeas corpus_ writs for Bell. Officers were watching all
trains expecting him to leave St. Louis. Wooldridge outwitted them
by taking interurban street car, traveling some twenty-five miles in
company with two officers whom the Chief of Police had sent along with
him. Upon arriving at the station in a heavy rainstorm he found the
agent had deserted his post and gone home.
The headlight on the Eastern Illinois fast express train showed up
in the distance. What was to be done to bring the train to a stop so
that they could board it? At this important moment Wooldridge's eye
rested upon a switch lamp under a switch only a few yards from him;
with one leap across the track he secured the lamp and began to swing
it across the track to and fro with a red light pointed towards the
approaching train. This was a signal for the engineer to stop. But
would the engineer see the signal in time, or would the rain which was
beating down in torrents prevent the engineer from seeing the signal?
It was an exciting few seconds to pass through. But the engineer
did see the signal to stop, he blew one long blast of his whistle,
reversed his engine, applied the air-brakes which brought the train to
a stand-still right at the station door.
A conductor and brakeman had alighted and run forward on the sudden
stop of the train as they thought some accident had happened, inquired
of Wooldridge what was the trouble. He replied, "Nothing but two
passengers for Chicago." At this time he and Bell were aboard the
train. The conductor told Wooldridge that he had no right to flag
the train. Wooldridge told him that he had purchased two tickets
to Chicago with the understanding that the train stopped there to
let on and off passengers, furthermore the card stated that this
train stopped there, and arriving there he found that the agent had
abandoned his post and gone home, and he had taken it upon himself
to act as station agent for the time being and stopping a train. He
told the conductor that he had to be in Chicago the following morning
as his business was urgent, furthermore he could not afford to stand
there all night in the rain without shelter because the station agent
had neglected to do his duty.
On gaining admission to the car Bell was made comfortable: By turning
two seats together he had two big pillows on which he might rest his
head.
Wooldridge then stooped down and unlaced Bell's shoes so he could rest
his tired feet, he then called the porter and gave Bell's shoes to him
with orders to shine them up and keep them until the detective called
for them next morning.
Wooldridge then reached down into his traveling bag, took out a pair
of leg-irons which he placed around Bell's legs, and locked them
securely. Bell made a protest and assured the detective that he would
not give him any trouble or make any attempt to get away. Wooldridge
told him the first law of human nature was self-protection and he was
exercising that precaution in this case.
Only a few weeks prior to this time an officer was returning from New
York with a prisoner and neglected to take these precautions, dosed
off into a little sleep, the train had just then stopped to take on
coal, the prisoner only had handcuffs on, and in the twinkling of an
eye passed the officer who was asleep and succeeded in getting off the
train just as it started. His escape was not noticed by the officer
until they had gone several miles; it was then too late, the bird
had flown, and having money in his pocket found a man who filed the
shackles off his hands. He made good his escape and the officer lost
his job.
After Bell had been securely shackled and made as comfortable as
possible, Wooldridge turned two seats together on the opposite side
of the car, never closed his eyes until they reached Chicago the
following morning, taking Bell to the Bureau of Identification, had
his measure and picture taken. He was then turned over to Cook County
Sheriff.
A few months later J. H. Bell was arraigned for trial and confronted
by over thirty angry women, whom he had robbed, as witnesses. After a
long trial he was found guilty of obtaining money under the confidence
game. He asked for a new trial which was denied and on March the 9th,
1907, he was sentenced to Joliet Penitentiary for an indefinite time
by Judge Brentano. His counsel asked for the arrest of judgment so he
might have time to write up the record and present it to the
Then the Bell luck, which could beat even detectives, broke Bell's
way. Also the Bell honesty suffered a recrudescence. It so happened
that while Bell was in the County Jail a plot was set on foot to make
a big jail delivery.
It was planned, and the plans seemed to have been well arranged, to
smuggle enough dynamite into the jail to wreck even that formidable
building. The plot was hatched by George Smith, Eugene Sullivan,
Morris Fitzgerald and Alfred Thompson.
On March 2, 1907, this precious crew had been arrested for robbing a
mail wagon. They were apprehended and taken to the County Jail. There
they hatched the plot for the introduction of the dynamite. Many other
prisoners were admitted to their secret, among them Bell.
Smith, who was as big and powerful as Bell was little and
insignificant, threatened to choke Bell to death in his cell if he
told of the dynamite plot.
Bell's spirit appeared to be as big as the other man's body. This
may have been due to the fact that he saw that "peaching" on his
confederates was the only method of escape. Anyway Bell "peached."
He told of the dynamite plot and the dynamite was seized. Dr. J.
A. Wesener afterward declared that there was enough of it to have
destroyed the whole building.
It was so undoubtedly true that Bell had been of service to the state
in revealing this plot that a plea for clemency was made for him and
so he escaped the penalty for his crimes.
But the experiences of Bell, and the fear of Detective Clifton R.
Wooldridge had the salutary effect of putting a stop to the "Show-Card
Writing" fraud in Chicago.
THE BOGUS MINE.
$100,000,000 EACH YEAR LOST BY INVESTMENTS IN FAKE MINING SCHEMES.
To what extent investment swindlers have operated in Illinois will
never be known, for some of them have so thoroughly covered up their
transactions that it will be impossible to disclose them. This is
especially true of a class of mining companies, the promoters of
which remained in the background while their dupes were gathered
in by seemingly respectable residents. These concerns operated by
giving blocks of stock into the hands of unscrupulous men with good
or fairly good reputations, and the latter disposed of it to such
unsophisticated acquaintances as could be easily gulled.
Gold and silver mines in Colorado, Nevada, and Utah furnished the
basis for most of these swindles. Sometimes the company really had an
old mine or claim that had been abandoned, sometimes it had a lease
on some worthless piece of property that was "about to be developed,"
but frequently it had nothing more than its gaudy prospects and its
highly decorated shares of stock to give in return for the money it
received. Money-grasping church deacons were the favorite agents for
these swindles and widowed women without business judgment their most
common victims.
It is estimated that in this country every year nearly $100,000,000
are taken out of the savings of people of limited means by financial
fakers, especially mining and oil fakers. During the last five years
Detective Wooldridge has observed the "financiering" of several
thousand fake companies, each of which secured a great deal of money
from ignorant people.
Bands of swindlers repair to mining camps and establish branches
there. They expend a few hundred dollars for shreds and patches of
ground void of present or prospective value.
They then form a mining corporation, place its capital stock at some
enormous figure--a million, two or three million dollars--appoint
themselves or some of their confederates, or even their dupes,
directors, and sell the worthless claims to the company for a large
proportion, or perhaps, all of the capital stock of the company.
The stock must be disposed of with a rush. It must all go within a
year or shorter time. When it is gone the suckers who get the stock
for good money may take the property of the company. They always find
an empty treasury, worthless claims, and the rosy pictures that led
them astray, smothered in the fog.
During the last five years the advertising columns of leading
newspapers have been full of offers of mining stocks as "sure roads to
fortune." Nearly all of these mining companies, into whose treasuries
the public has paid millions, have either been abandoned or the
properties have been sold for debts, and invariably they bring very
little. The major portion of receipts of these companies from the
sales of stock is stolen by their promoters.
Official statistics of the mining industry show that out of each one
hundred mines, only one has become a success from a dividend-paying
point of view. About five earn a bare existence, while the balance
turn out utter failures.
PROMOTER'S WORD VALUELESS.
Investors will do well to consider that stocks of mines which are
only prospective are the most risky form of gambling. In buying
stocks of the undeveloped mines offered to the public on the strength
of statements the only substance of which is the imagination of
promoters, one runs up against a sure-thing brace game.
Don't take the promoter's word for it. When you wish to place money
where it can work for you, don't bite at the first "good thing" you
see advertised. It is to the interest of the man who wants to sell you
stock to place it before you in the rosiest light. Otherwise he knows
you would not buy it. If you want to buy stock, don't rely upon what
the seller says, but consult others.
Before consulting persons whom you think may be able to express an
honest and intelligent opinion, ask the promoter to furnish you a
statement of the condition of the company, showing its assets and
liabilities, profits and losses, and an accurate description of its
property.
You will then be able to judge whether the company is
over-capitalized; whether it is incumbered with debts (for debts may
lead to a receivership), and if its earnings may lead to permanent
dividends.
Also ask for a copy of the by-laws of the company. If, with such
information at your disposal, you cannot get a correct idea as to
whether the stock is desirable or not, consult your banker or somebody
else in your community who may be able to advise you.
If some one offered you a mortgage on a certain piece of property,
common sense would tell you to ascertain whether the property is
sufficient surety for the loan, or if the title to the property is
good and there are not prior incumbrances on it.
The man who would buy a mortgage without ascertaining the value and
condition of the surety, would be considered an idiot.
Why not use the same precaution when buying stock? Don't believe what
the promoter tells you about the value and prospects of the stock he
wants to unload on you. Don't take it for granted the stock offered
you will turn out a great money-maker and dividend-payer because the
promoter tells you so.
The promoter, generally a person from another city and entirely
unknown to you, has no interest in you, but is prompted by his own
selfish interest to sell you something which, in many cases, he
himself would not buy. He may Offer you a good thing, but it is up to
you to find it out.
INVESTIGATION NECESSARY.
In most cases, an intelligent investigation will prompt you to let
alluring offers of great wealth for little money severely alone.
The observation of the common-sense rules outlined above will save
investors bitter disappointments and heavy losses.
It is safe to say seventy-five per cent of the so-called "Mining,
Plantation and Air Line" schemes and "Security" companies now paraded
before the public in flaring advertisements in the daily papers, and
through glittering prospectuses sent through the mails, are vicious
swindles. Men who operate these frauds pretend to be honest and
high-minded. By constant practice of their wiles upon others they
develop self-deception and come to believe in their honesty to such an
extent that when questioned, they assume a good counterfeit of honest
indignation.
Most of them do not own the furniture in the offices they occupy
while swindling the public. It is a common practice for them to rent
offices in national bank buildings and to furnish them with rich
furniture bought on the installment plan, to make the necessary
"front." They spend their cash capital for flaring advertisements,
sell as much stock as they can induce the gullible public to buy,
and then decamp, leaving unpaid bills for advertising, if they can
get credit after their cash is exhausted, and their furniture bill
unpaid. The absconding swindler is usually succeeded by an "agent" or
"manager," who repudiates the bills against his rascally predecessor
and continues the work of fleecing the gullible under some new title
or by means of some new trick.
KEEP LISTS OF SUCKERS.
Every well-equipped fraudulent concern acquires the names and
addresses of susceptible persons. Painstaking revisions of the
lists made up of these names and addresses form an important part
of the labor of the principals or employes. The lists grow as each
advertisement brings inquiries from persons who, either through
curiosity or desire to invest, write for particulars. Affiliated
swindles operated in succession by a gang of "fakers" use the same
list of "suckers."
In affiliated swindles if the "sucker" does not succumb and remit
his money on the inducements offered by one concern, his name is
transferred to the lists of another, and he is then bombarded with
different literature. Thus a man must pass through the ordeal of
having dozens of tempting offers made him before he demonstrates that
he is not a "sucker," or has not got the money. His name is then
stricken from the list.
There are so many "get-rich-quick" operators at present that
competition between them has become strenuous. They are now infesting
the entire country with local solicitors, who frequent saloons,
hotels, and even residence districts, where victims are found in
foreigners, ignorant servant girls and inexperienced widows.
These solicitors get 50 per cent commission on all sales of stock.
This fact in itself is evidence that the propositions are rank
swindles. When the swindling operator finds things getting too hot he
disappears from his office and bobs up in some new place with a new
proposition.
PECKSNIFFIAN TEARS DELUDE.
A few attempts have been made to prosecute the swindlers, but for the
most part the local officials have failed. In but few instances have
the victims been able to give anything like intelligent statements of
the representations made to them. Where the right sort of agents have
been used the people who have lost their money have not awakened to
the fraud passed upon them. A few Pecksniffian tears have deluded them
into the belief that the swindlers as well as themselves were victims
of some third party who is in another state and out of reach.
Where cases have been brought to trial it has been a difficult matter
for juries to understand how the persons aggrieved could have been
caught with the sort of chaff thrown to them, and there has been
little disposition to show charity for the victims. Then, too, the men
hauled before the courts have always made it appear they were in the
same boat with the complaining witness, and that the culprit was many,
many miles away. So, usually, they have escaped.
DIFFICULT TO CONVICT.
Even in the most flagrant cases and where every advantage was taken
of the ignorance, inexperience or trustfulness of the person deluded
it has been difficult to bring the offense under the state statutes.
It requires more than ordinary misrepresentation and lying to make
out a criminal case, and under the rules of evidence which prevail
it is almost impossible to overtake a cheat who has not put his
misrepresentation into writing or made them in the presence of third
parties.
Where the swindlers have used the mails, however, it is not such
a difficult matter to convict. The United States is scrupulously
jealous of its postal service, and under its statutes every fellow who
undertakes to utilize it for improper purposes can be brought to book.
He can not hide behind some one in another state, for the federal
jurisdiction is general and the other man can be brought in. Nor can
he plead that the business was legally licensed in another state, or
that its incorporation was regular. If it was a cheat and the mails
were used in furtherance of its design, no corporate cloak thrown
around it by any of the commonwealths can save the promoters.
POWER OF UNCLE SAM.
An example of the power of the federal authorities was given when
Secretary of State Rose of Illinois was trying to keep the swindling
investment companies out of the state. This was before the enactment
of the present law regulating the licensing of corporations. A
number of concerns had been formed in southern states, and they
were insolently demanding licenses to do business in Illinois. The
secretary of state was powerless under the Illinois statutes, but when
the matter was called to the attention of the federal authorities they
wiped out the whole lot of companies with a postal fraud order.
WOOLDRIDGE FINDS SMOOTH SCHEME.
Detective Wooldridge, in looking into many of these mining frauds,
discovered one or two which proved quite a revelation even to the
United States authorities. This was a system of "kiting" stocks, just
as other fraud concerns have been known to kite checks. The method is
very simple.
James Johnson, of Indiana, is "roped in" by one of the smooth young
men who operate for the schemers. James buys 500 or 1,000 shares in
the Holy Moses mine, located in or near Goldfield, Reno, Rawhide,
Cripple Creek, or some other well known mining camp. The "Holy Moses"
is a hole dug in the side of a hill, and all that will ever come out
of it is soil. But that part does not matter. Under certain strict
laws now prevailing only so much stock can be issued even by the
schemers.
James Johnson holds his thousand shares for three months. By this time
all the stock has run out and the firm is at the end of the rope,
apparently; but no, they have found a way to stretch that rope.
William Wilson, of Michigan, is clamoring for a thousand shares of
the "Holy Moses." There is no stock to sell him, and if any more is
printed and issued the waiting detectives will swoop down at once, for
word has gone forth that the "Holy Moses" is a non-producer. How to
get that thousand shares for Wilson is the problem.
"HOLY MOSES" RISES?
Aha; it is easy. A letter is drafted to James Johnson, bearing to him
the gladsome news that "Holy Moses" has gone up, away up, and that the
stock is mounting by leaps and bounds. Does James Johnson wish to sell
his stock at a substantial advance? James Johnson does.
Well, the philanthropic owners of the "Holy Moses" will put that stock
on the market for him at once and send him the proceeds, if he will
kindly send in his stock with authority for transfer in blank.
The Indiana sucker bites at the bait and sends in his thousand
shares to be sold. No sooner do they reach the office than they are
immediately started off to Michigan to Wilson, after the precaution
has been taken to remove Johnson's name from the face of the stock and
substitute Wilson's. The authority for transfer in blank, and the fact
that the transaction is a transfer of stock, is thus kept from Wilson.
In due course of time a fat check from Wilson finds its way into the
coffers of the "Holy Moses" promoters. And also, in due course of
time, Johnson wants to know something about that sale.
"HOLY MOSES" FALLS.
He is met with the doleful news that while his stock was on the way
to Chicago, or elsewhere, the stock in "Holy Moses" had experienced
such a decided slump that it was impossible for them to sell it at a
profit. If he desires, they will hold the stock for a raise, which
they expect as soon as the present unfortunate financial panic has
passed, or until industrials begin to go up. The drop in "Holy Moses"
is not due to any slump in the production of the mine; far from it. It
is only the unfortunate financial depression which is to blame, and
there is no doubt but that "Holy Moses" will go up a-whooping very
soon.
Naturally Johnson bites again, and says hold the stock for that raise.
Meanwhile the stock has been procured again from Wilson and sent to
Baker, in Kentucky. And so on, indefinitely. It is only when some of
the swindled ones become particularly savage that their stock is
returned to them. And then it is not their original stock at all, but
a new thousand shares which some sucker has sent in.
One block of stock in one company was sold in this way in 1907 by a
Chicago mining company, no less than twelve times.
The activities of Detective Wooldridge afterward put this firm out
of business, and the head promoter was arrested in the West by the
federal authorities.
It is well that all these facts should be taken into consideration by
the public before investing in mining shares.
FIRST PRINCIPLES IN MINING PURCHASES.
Here are a few good leads to follow in buying mining stock. First
make sure that there is a producing mine. Then make sure that the
stock you get is not kited stock. But, above all, make sure of the
responsibility, respectability and solidity of the firm from which you
make the purchase.
A GIANT SWINDLE.
BANKS IN CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND LONDON BADLY FLEECED.
Bogus Notes and Stock--Many Firms Are Victims--Prisoners
Said to Have Practiced Frauds Under Titles of
Corporations--Chicago, September 14, 1906, Detectives
Wooldridge and John Hill Uncover the Fraud--Five Men
Arrested.
A remarkable story of swindling which, extended to many cities in
America and to England, was disclosed, uncovering a gigantic forgery
and check kiting plot as well as several fraudulent stock selling
schemes.
CHICAGO CONCERNS ARE VICTIMS.
Banks and business concerns, especially in Chicago, suffered through
the operations of the men. Their methods came to the attention of John
Hill, Jr., connected with the Board of Trade, and Detective Wooldridge
learned enough to convince them and the men behind institutions the
objects of which were to obtain money fraudulently.
Some of the places which have been mulcted are:
Commercial National Bank, August 15; bogus note for $1,078. Stromberg,
Allen & Co., printers, 302 Clark street; bogus note for $206. R. B.
Padgham & Co., packing boxes, 59 Dearborn street; bogus note for $300.
Matthew Hallohan, 42 River street, September 12; bogus note for $190.
LOSES ALL OF SAVINGS.
Julius Radisch, 2509 South Halsted street, a German who lost $700 in
the wreck of the National Fireproofing Company, told the police of the
unique methods used by Johnston in selling him the stock. He asserts
that Johnston told him that the stock would pay at least 8 per cent
dividends, and as proof of the prosperity of the company took him
to the downtown district and showed him several skyscrapers which he
claimed were owned by the corporation. Radisch also says that Johnston
also pointed out a bank where he said the company had immense sums on
deposit. The story told by Radisch is peculiarly a sad one, as the
money lost by him in the crash of the Fireproofing company represented
the savings of a lifetime of hard labor. Shortly after the discovery
that his money was lost his wife died.
[Illustration: _FORGED NOTES CAUSE FIVE ARRESTS_
$10,000 STOLEN FROM BANKS
THROUGH PLOT OF SWINDLERS
Prisoner accused as principal in mammoth swindling plot in which many
banks are victims, and a facsimile of one of the notes by which money
was obtained.
_BOND USED BY THE SWINDLER._ GEORGE F. JOHNSON]
ONE CAPITALIZED AT $1,000,000.
The concerns most frequently used by the men in their transactions,
the police say, were known as National Fire Proofing Company of New
York and the Federal Trust Company of South Dakota. The fire proofing
company was stated to be capitalized at $1,000,000 and the trust
company at $100,000.
Offices for each concern were at 1138 Broadway, New York. From there,
it is charged, circulars and pamphlets were sent out to investors
in all parts of the country, and it was also a practice of these
concerns, it is alleged, to open accounts with banks and exchange
bogus notes for good ones.
SHERIFF IN CHARGE OF AFFAIRS.
About one week before the arrest the concerns were placed in the
hands of the sheriff of New York County, and, following this, it is
declared, disclosures were made which hastened the arrest of the men
involved.
Banks and firms in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and London, it is
declared, are known to have suffered through the alleged operations of
the men, who were aided by companions in the different cities.
Most of the concerns, of which there are at least twelve, all declared
to be fraudulent, are in Chicago.
LIST OF BOGUS FIRMS.
The following is a list of the concerns, the names of which have been
learned by the police:
National Fire Proofing Company, New York and Chicago.
Federal Trust Company, New York and Chicago.
Keystone Structure Cleaning Company, Philadelphia.
McGuire, Johnston & Co., New York and Chicago.
Hessley, Johnston & Co.
Hessley & Johnston, Chicago.
A. A. Hessley, Chicago.
George F. Johnston, Chicago.
C. F. McGuire, Chicago.
F. L. Cunningham, Chicago.
Chester E. Broughn, Chicago.
Lincoln Gas Light & Coke Company, Lincoln, Neb.
Another concern dealing with alleged spurious bonds of Custer County,
Idaho, the police declare, was under the direction of these men.
It was the old-time favorite method of kiting checks and drafts
among the banks and private individuals of the city and country that
was used, and there is no doubt that it proved successful in this
instance. Although it is believed the men did not obtain great riches
in their operations in Chicago, it would have been only a question of
time when they would have become wealthy, so apparently easy was it
for them to get funds.
OPENED MANY BANK ACCOUNTS.
Accounts in banks in Chicago and other cities were opened and then
exchanges of checks were made among them. Only the over-boldness of
their operations caused their downfall.
An instance of their methods would be the following: The Federal
Trust Company, one of their "paper" concerns, would deposit a check
in a Chicago bank made by the Keystone Structure Cleaning Company of
Philadelphia, another of their alleged firms. The check would be sent
east for collection, and in a few days it would be returned marked "No
funds."
OFFER BOND IN A SETTLEMENT.
Meanwhile the trust company had checked against its account, to which
the Keystone Structure Cleaning Company's check had been credited.
When the check was returned from the eastern bank the Chicago bank
would notify the Federal Trust Company of the non-payment of it. The
Chicago firm would then offer explanation and apologies and give a 5
per cent to concerns that cashed the checks.
When they came back, the men who got the money were shocked beyond
measure and at once offered stock and bonds of twice the face value of
the money involved as security. This quieted the fears and enabled the
schemers to go on.
FIVE MEN ARE ARRESTED BY DETECTIVES WOOLDRIDGE AND BARRY.
Five men were arrested by Detectives Wooldridge and Barry, charged
with operating twelve concerns. The Commercial National Bank was one
of the victims. The men arrested are as follows:
Chester A. Broughn, broker, 218 LaSalle street.
S. L. Cunningham, 56 years old. 1009 West Jackson boulevard.
C. F. McGuire, 40 years old, arrested at the Great Northern Hotel.
George F. Johnston, 36 years old, arrested at 185 Dearborn St.
Alvin A. Hessley, 48 years old, arrested at 185 Dearborn St.
TOOL TELLS TRUTH--USHER OF CHURCH IN CRIME CLOUD.
At the age of 50 years, S. L. Cunningham, vestryman and Sunday School
teacher and chief usher in the Jackson Boulevard Christian Church, has
come to the conclusion that he is "just an old fool, after all."
Mr. Cunningham was arrested recently on the charge of being one of
a gang of forgers and "get-rich-quick" men who have been swindling
Chicago and New York business houses and banks during the last few
months. He says his only connection with the gang was in selling stock
until a short time ago for the National Fireproof Paint Company, one
of the concerns raided, and lending his bank account to George F.
Johnston, said to have been one of the prime movers in the gang.
Mr. Cunningham looks like a bishop. His hair is white and his
appearance distinguished. His story is an illustration of the manner
in which swindling concerns procure one or two men of weight and
respectability in a community to act as their advance agents and
establish confidence.
As he sat on the white-pillared porch of his residence, surrounded by
his wife and sympathetic neighbors and church members, his face in the
gaslight showed the marks of grief through which he has passed since
his arrest.
CUNNINGHAM TELLS THE STORY.
"Yes," he said, "we of the fold often go astray, but I am
innocent. I have a Sunday School class of young girls that
I am going to take out into Lincoln Park tomorrow. I hardly
know what to say to them. I can't bear to think of taking
my place as head usher on Sunday, although my pastor tells
me to march down the aisle with my head erect. I am getting
to be an old man, you see, and I have never wilfully
wronged a person in my life." His voice trembled, but his
wife laid her hand on his arm and he straightened up.
"I know nothing of these men except Mr. Johnston," he said.
"I was introduced to him by a friend of mine three months
ago. I have sold stock and insurance for the last twenty
years, and I thought he had a good thing in the National
Fireproof Paint Company, so I started selling stock for
him. I could not sell the stock, as I could not show enough
assets, so I quit two weeks ago. I was a fool, and a dupe,
all right.
BANK ACCOUNT OVERDRAWN.
"Johnston, a young man, told me he was hard up and asked
to use my bank account at the Commercial National. I let
him and endorsed his checks. My wife told me not to do it,
but I thought he was all right then. Well, he overdrew the
account, the check was protested, and when my name was
found they arrested me. I never knew any of the other men,
although I saw them around the office. They did too much
whispering, and I thought it did not look well."
Then, in a simple way, he went on to tell of his wife and his work in
the church. He produced a letter from the pastor of his church, the
Rev. Parker Stockdale:
"This introduces Mr. Cunningham, a member of my church. He
enjoys among us the reputation of a thorough gentleman and
a conscientious business man. He is a highly respected and
useful citizen. His honesty is beyond question."
He also had a letter from Col. Jonathan Merriam, former United States
pension agent, which was along the same lines.
OFFER OF BRIBE ALLEGED.
Broughn, the broker, is a man of a different stripe, according to
Detective Barry, who arrested him. When he was informed of his arrest
he is said by the detective to have replied:
"Come down to the saloon next door. I will settle the case
at once. Name your price."
When arraigned before Justice Cochrane the cases were continued until
September 24. All the men were released on $1,200 bonds each, with
the exception of Broughn, whose bail was fixed at $800. The bonds
were signed by a professional bondsman at the Harrison Street Police
Station.
C. F. McGuire forfeited his bond and fled to New York City, where he
was apprehended and arrested by New York authorities at the request
of John M. Collins, the Chief of Police. The information which led to
his arrest was secured by Detective Wooldridge, WHO WAS MADE A SPECIAL
MESSENGER BY CHARLES S. DENEEN, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS.
C. F. McGuire was a powerfully built man, weighing 240 pounds and
standing over 6 feet tall. He was turned over by the New York
authorities to Detective Wooldridge, who slipped on him a pair of
handcuffs and crossed over to Jersey City on a ferry, and from there
took a section in a Pullman car on a fast train on the Pennsylvania
Railroad.
McGuire was put to bed in the upper berth, after he undressed.
Detective Wooldridge told him he was bringing him back like a
gentleman, but the first law of nature was self-protection. The
detective then requested him to turn over all his clothes except his
night shirt, which was done. Wooldridge then placed the clothes under
the mattress in the berth below, which he was to occupy. He then took
out a pair of leg irons, tied a strong cord to them, placed the leg
irons on McGuire, threw the cord back behind the berth below, and
this was tied to his hands after he had buttoned the berth curtains
and pinned them with safety pins all the way down. The curtains were
then stuffed in under his mattress. After all this was done Wooldridge
then laid down with his clothes on and laid awake until morning, but
managed to get some rest by laying down.
Chicago was reached in safety. After taking McGuire to the bureau,
where Bertillon measurements were taken and his finger prints
recorded, he was turned over to the sheriff of Cook County.
The trial was set, which lasted five days. Witnesses were brought from
the banks in New York City and Philadelphia which had been victimized.
February 7, 1908, found guilty.
CHECK "KITERS" HEAVILY FINED--GEORGE F. JOHNSTON AND C. F. MCGUIRE
ASSESSED $2,000 EACH.
A jury in Judge Kersten's court later returned a verdict finding
George F. Johnston and C. F. McGuire guilty of swindling and imposed
a fine of $2,000 each. If the fine be not paid the defendants will
be compelled to serve the amount at the rate of $1.50 a day in the
Bridewell. Chester A. Broughn and A. H. Hessley entered pleas of
guilty at the last minute and their cases will be disposed of later by
Judge Kersten. State's Attorney John J. Healy and Assistant State's
Attorney Barbour expressed themselves as pleased over the outcome of
the trial.
QUACKS.
RASCALS WHO PREY UPON THE IGNORANT.
The "Specialist," the "Optician," the "Doctors' College"; All Frauds.
Blackmail Helps Medical Scamps--Poor Girls Victims of "Doctor" Thieves.
The history of quacks and quackery includes some of the most glaring
frauds ever perpetrated on a credulous people. In all ages of the
world's history down to the present day, these humbugs have cut an
important figure in their day and generation. They are numerous in
almost every line of business, serving God when it pays them to do it,
and assisting the devil when their interests demand it. In these pages
I propose to deal with medical quacks only.
The advent of every discovery in medicine, slight though it may be,
has brought to the front a ring of pretenders in the healing art.
These fellows catch the multitude. The poor, the ignorant and the
credulous are their followers. It has been so in every age of the
world's history. The man or woman with broken health will catch at
every straw that offers hope of recovery, and so they drift from one
quack to another, until ruined in fortune and oftentimes made worse
in their physical ills, they at last pass to the silent home where
the pain and joy the cunning and simplicity of the world are alike of
insignificance.
The desire to live lurks in the heart of nearly every human being.
And no matter how wretched they may be, how poor in pocket, broken in
spirit, whether suffering from real or imaginary ills, thirsting for
relief, they have gone from quack to quack, giving of their meager
savings for some vaunted elixir which in all probability only hastens
their journey to the grave.
One reason why quackery flourishes is the fact that medicine is not
a science. Ask any honest physician and he will tell you the same. A
drug that will help one person will have no effect on another. There
are in the realm of medicine no such things as "cures." People who are
sick recover, but they would do so whether they took "dope" or not.
All disease is self-limited. The doctor who talks of curing smallpox,
measles, typhoid fever, is a fool. Natures cures, not the doctor.
People get well of these complaints, and many others who take no
medicines and employ no physicians.
PHYSIC TO THE DOGS.
Followers of the late "Elijah Dowie" relegated physic to the dogs,
where it properly belongs, and yet enjoyed good health. Mrs. Eddy's
converts take no drugs, not even simple household remedies.
Here is a body of people numbering millions, entirely repudiating
physicians, yet their health is as good, if not better, than those who
continually take drugs. Doctors make war on them. Why? It interferes
with the medical graft.
Don't think for a minute that advertising doctors are the only
grafters in the medical profession. Many of them are bad, very bad,
but there are men right here in Chicago, as well as other big cities,
who never advertise in papers, yet they are as notorious swindlers,
and will as quickly take advantage of the ignorant and credulous, as
the man who flaunts his skill in the daily press. To fall into the
hands of these fellows is to be despoiled in pocket and ruined in
health. Operations that are uncalled for and not needed are performed
almost daily.
Only a short time ago I heard a doctor boast of having removed the
ovaries of two thousand women. How many of these operations were
actually necessary? Probably very few, but each case enriched him to
the extent of several hundred dollars.
Women more frequently than men are the victims of unscrupulous
doctors. People do not often question the skill or the opinion of the
fashionable physician; they take for granted the truth of all he may
say, forgetting for the time that he has a pecuniary interest in the
work that may possibly result in the death of the patient.
UNNECESSARY OPERATIONS.
How many people die from wholly unnecessary operations? Only the
hospital records and the immediate friends of the patient can tell.
These words are written to put people on their guard. Dishonest
doctors are everywhere, especially in big cities. Chicago is full
of them. They may be strictly ethical and affect to despise the
advertiser. They do so, however, only from a business standpoint. They
hate opposition, and somehow the advertising doctor manages to get a
goodly share of the business, and is oftentimes the superior in skill
in his particular line or specialty to his ethical brother.
There are good doctors and bad ones, just as there are good and bad
men in every walk and business of life.
In my experience as a detective I have met with both kinds. In these
pages I will deal with the advertising doctor only. I will do, and
have done, what I can to drive the dishonest ones out of the business.
The eye doctor, professing to cure blindness or other diseases of the
eye without the knife, is one of the most dangerous and dishonest men
in the medical profession. Chicago has its full quota of this form of
quackery. There are two men in this city--Dr. M---- and Dr. O----, who
are national advertisers.
Both have been exposed in a recent New York weekly paper at the
instigation of the American Medical Association. It is noteworthy,
however, that this same paper accepted a full-page advertisement from
Dr. O---- only a few months before the expose, thus deluding thousands
of its readers. The price paid for one page and one issue was fifteen
hundred dollars. This sum, paid to but one paper, will give the reader
some idea of the vast expense to which the quack is put to place his
name before the public in his effort to rob the blind. This same Dr.
O---- pays out annually sixty thousand dollars for advertising alone.
He employs twenty typewriters--mostly girls. The correspondence is
handled entirely by the clerks, the doctor rarely ever seeing a letter.
He employs but one assistant, a young man fresh from college. No
personal interviews with patients are asked for or desired. It is a
mail order business almost exclusively. Occasionally a patient comes
to the city to see this great oculist.
Dr. O---- himself is hardly ever in evidence. He spends most of his
time in summer resorts and European capitals.
The only medicine used is a solution of boric acid in water. The same
can be bought at any drug store for a few cents. His charges are ten
dollars per month.
This man's mail is enormous. I have known him to take in twenty
thousand dollars a month. One of the catchy lines in his advertisement
says he cures crossed eyes without the use of the knife. This is true,
but he uses scissors instead. Cross-eye can only be straightened by
severing the muscles of the eye. All physicians know this, but the
people do not; hence the success of this robber of the blind.
Dr. O---- is a devout church member. He is one of the largest
contributors to the Christian Church, to which he belongs. Nearly all
church papers carry his advertisements, though they must know him to
be a fraud of the first water.
SLEEK AND UNCTUOUS CHURCH MEMBER.
Personally he is sleek and unctuous, is always found among the godly,
takes more interest in foreign missions than the every-day affairs of
life, and fully expects to occupy a seat in the parquet of the New
Jerusalem.
The money wrung by the basest of false pretenses from his poor
unfortunate blind victims, does not disturb his slumbers. If he has
any conscience at all he fortifies himself with the thought that
"Jesus will bear it all," and lets it go at that.
Blind people, or those with failing eyesight, beware.
A close second to the above-named grafter, and in the same nefarious
business, is Dr. M----.
This man's advertisements read very much like those of others in the
same line of work. He also cures without the knife, but uses the
scissors. His treatment is the same--boric acid and water.
This can do no possible good except in slight inflammations. It
cannot cure cataract. It may be set down as a truth (ask any honest
physician) that cataract is incurable except by surgical operations.
Yet these men continue to advertise its cure, claiming to have a
specific remedy that will absorb it. Dr. M---- is wealthy, all made
out of the blind. While other men are giving of their wealth to ease
the lives of these poor unfortunates, they are being systematically
robbed in the most heartless and shame-faced manner.
Priceless is sight. A man or woman threatened with loss of it will
give up their last dollar for a prospective cure. In this way these
so-called "eye doctors" fatten on the credulity of their victims,
doing them absolutely no good and quite often a serious injury.
Dr. M---- is also a devout church member. He can be seen hanging over
the pew of a fashionable West Side church every Sunday. There he is
hailed as a good brother by his fellow members, many of whom are as
great, if not as successful, a grafter as he is. They use the cloak of
religion in which to serve the devil.
THE "OPTICIAN" FAKE.
In connection with this subject let me warn you of the existence of an
army of "Opticians." These men are often swindlers of the first water.
Their misrepresentations as to the money value of glasses amounts
to grand larceny. They charge all the way from ten to seventy-five
dollars for a pair of lenses that usually cost seventy-five cents
each. There are honest men in the business, but beware of the grafter.
There are many lesser lights engaged in the eye business, but the
examples given above will serve to place you on your guard. Take no
treatment by mail. Less can be done for the eye than any other organ
of the body, unless it is the ear. Both are so complex in their
anatomy and the symptoms so obscure that it is an impossibility to
make a correct diagnosis without seeing the patient and using the best
instruments that science can bring to the aid of the physician.
CONSUMPTION CURES.
A few years ago Dr. Koch, of Berlin, Germany, announced that he had
discovered a cure for consumption. The same announcement has been made
thousands of times before by more or less illustrious physicians.
Dr. Koch's cure was a gas, requiring more or less elaborate apparatus.
Several years' trial of this supposed cure convinced the medical
profession, and Dr. Koch himself, that he was mistaken.
He retracted his statements and acknowledged he had been in error.
Yet in every large city of the country, Chicago, of course, included,
there are established "Koch Institutes" for the cure of consumption.
A more brazen fraud was never perpetrated on an ignorant public than
the claims which these so-called institutes advertise. They are
patronized chiefly by the poor--those who have been told by honest
physicians that they are incurable. Having no means with which to take
trips to the mountain or sea shore, they grasp at every quack medicine
or institute that offers hope of recovery.
I have visited the Chicago branch of this miserable fraud. Invalids
who can scarcely walk are to be seen there daily inhaling mixtures of
nauseous gases that have no more effect on the germ of consumption
than a popgun on one of Uncle Sam's ironclads. By means of paid-for
testimonials and a couple of "cappers," people from all parts of the
country are brought here, oftentimes taking the last dollar of the
family exchequer to pay for the so-called treatment. These frauds
have been exposed time and again. However, a new crop of victims are
gathered in every day and the game goes merrily on.
HUMAN GHOULS.
The human ghouls in the guise of doctors are meantime living in
luxury, and fattening on the misfortunes of their already half-dead
victims. You might ask why does not the law step in and protect the
sick. If you had seen as much of the law as I have you would discover
that it too frequently protects the doctors and not the patients.
The men running this and other similar frauds are all licensed
physicians, and have the authority of the great State of Illinois to
pursue their calling. If you have consumption spend your money in
getting good air, not dope. Drugs never yet cured consumption. That is
the testimony of all honest doctors, and there are still a few of them
left.
THE MORPHINE CURE.
Forty years ago Dr. C----, of Laporte, Indiana, a bricklayer by
profession, conceived the idea of selling morphine as a cure for the
opium habit. Morphine is the essence of opium, just as cocaine is
the essence of the coca leaf. It was a brilliant idea and brought
Dr. C---- (he afterward bought diplomas galore) a mint of money.
C---- constructed himself a mansion in Laporte, which stands today, a
splendid specimen of the builders' art. He was the first man to put on
the market an opium cure.
The poor wretches who are addicted to this habit would make any kind
of a sacrifice for a cure. The whiskey habit is not a circumstance
to the opium or morphine fiend. There is no habit which so enslaves
the victim as the drug habit, and they are seldom cured. C---- ran
along for many years with but few imitators. The many victims of
morphine whom he has gathered into his net were pouring in their
wealth until it amounted to thousands daily. As long as they took the
C---- remedy they had no desire for morphine. The "remedy" contained
morphine--more, usually, than they had been taking before.
"Dr." C---- had thousands under treatment, but made no cures. At last
the so-called remedy was analyzed and its true nature discovered.
At once an army of imitators sprang into existence in all parts of
the country, and morphine cure became as common as other cures. They
all had and have as a basis opium or some of its salts. The extent of
these drug addictions is hardly realized. Chicago alone has thirty
thousand of these unfortunates, and the trade in opium and allied
drugs is immense.
ENCOURAGING THE MORPHINE HABIT.
Many of these victims date their downfall from some sickness in which
a physician prescribed the drug--perhaps to allay pain or produce
sleep. When they recovered they found they still had to have it. The
habit grew and finally fastened itself with such a deathlike grip
that they were unable to shake it off, and so they totter through
life, unfitted for anything except to beg, borrow or lend some of the
dope. Men and women once high in the business and social world are
frequently found in the police dock accused of some petty theft in
order to satisfy their craving for these destructive drugs.
Chicago has its quota of doctors who "cure" the morphine habit, but
always in the way that "Dr." C---- did. Most of them are "fiends"
themselves who eke out a living selling the drug to other victims in
the form of a "cure." If by any chance you have contracted the habit
steer clear of all so-called cures. The remedy is worse than the
disease.
THE CANCER CURE.
One can hardly pick up a paper or magazine that does not carry
the advertisement of Dr. B----, of Indianapolis, Ind., with branch
institutes at Kansas City and other places. Dr. B----'s remedy is an
oil for which he claims wonderful properties.
In reply to an inquiry the doctor sends out a little book, filled
with testimonials from grateful patients, dependent preachers and his
fellow church members. The book tells you that the doctor has even
built a church all by himself and maintains it at his own expense,
even paying the salary of the pastor out of his own pocket.
It will be noticed that all successful quacks appeal to the religious
element of the community. A man who is really religious is honest;
having no tinge of dishonesty himself, he suspects none in others. He
therefore falls easily into the net of the charlatan.
The quack knows this, hence his use of the religious press in which to
exploit the virtues of his medicines.
Does Dr. B---- cure cancer? Yes. There are seven varieties of cancer;
two malignant, which all physicians agree are incurable, and five
non-malignant, of which the wart and wen are good examples. Dr. B----
cures the non-malignant varieties only, and you can do the same
yourself by the application of a few drops of glacial acetic acid to
the growth once a day.
This is the whole secret of the so-called cures wrought by these men.
Dr. B---- never cured a genuine malignant cancer in his life, and
never will until a specific is discovered that will combat it. He has
grown very rich, is known as a public-spirited gentleman and to say
aught against him in his native town is to bring down on one's head
the wrath of the business community. Why?
PATIENTS FROM EVERYWHERE.
Dr. B---- has patients coming from all parts of the country. They
bring and spend money at his sanitariums. It is "business," and I am
only sorry to say that what is known as business is too often larceny.
If you have a growth you do not understand, trust it to your family
physician, if he is an honest man, rather than to one of the many
cancer sharks that infest the country.
THE RUPTURE CURE.
This, when offered by mail, as it is in almost every magazine that
accepts medical advertisements, is also a glaring fraud upon a most
helpless class of people. While it is true that a well fitted truss
will retain and often cure a rupture, yet the quacks who advertise the
rupture cure propose to cure you by mail, then by application of a
wonderful oil which they sell at ten dollars per bottle, they propose
to close up the opening through which the rupture descends and effect
a permanent cure. A few years back the surgical treatment of rupture
was not always a success, hence people so afflicted had reason to
avoid operations.
Today the cure of rupture is not attended by any danger. Surgery has
made many advances in the past few years. People who are ruptured
should avoid any other means of cure than the operations.
There are not less than twenty-five advertising specialists in Chicago
who profess to cure rupture without operation.
They only succeed in separating you from your money. My advice is not
to go near them, lest you regret it.
FEMALE DISEASES.
It is well known among the readers of the daily press that all the
advertisements of a medical nature addressed to women are meant to
cover the nefarious business of the abortionist.
The commissioner of health in a recent interview stated that not less
than fifty thousand abortions are committed yearly in Chicago. It
is well to state that only a small number of these are performed by
the advertising abortionists. Most of them are the work of regular
physicians.
Indeed, in no other way could this immense destruction of infant life
take place. I know of physicians here in Chicago who have and do no
other business. I have in mind one palatial residence on Michigan
avenue patronized exclusively by the rich. It is presided over by a
strictly ethical physician. This man's fee is from one thousand to
five thousand dollars.
The poor content themselves with less pretentious places and prices.
I know of physicians on the north side and the west side who do this
work for five and ten dollars. They have as many as ten and twelve
cases a day.
Up to a few weeks ago all of the Chicago papers contained a list of
advertisements under the classification of medical, about as follows:
"Maternity Hospital--Ladies taken care of before and after
confinement."
"Mrs. Dr. B----, licensed midwife, takes ladies for
confinement, etc."
"Dr. Anna B---- Elegant home for ladies expecting
confinement, etc."
The above are only samples of a long list of advertisements of similar
tenor which appeared daily in the Chicago press for twenty-five years.
These advertisements attracted the attention of people in the country.
They were not designed to attract city people. People residing here
seldom patronize them on account of the high prices usually charged.
They know cheaper doctors. Girl from the smaller towns and the farms
are the ones sought.
The girl applying for relief at any of these places was usually told
that abortions were unlawful and dangerous to life. She was strongly
advised to stay in the hospital, which offered perfect seclusion,
until the full period when the child would be naturally born and
without danger to either of them. This advice was generally accepted
and the price agreed upon paid. This was always all the girl had with
her, and the promise of more. The amount ranged from one hundred to
five hundred dollars.
The money paid over, the girl was shown to a pleasant room, and
invited to make herself at home. There were always other girls there,
usually under assumed names. They kept coming and going every few
days. None remained longer than ten days.
After the girl had been there a couple of days the madam announced
that the doctor would call on her that day and make an examination, so
as to approximate the time of baby's arrival.
With a very small instrument the abortion was produced while making
the examination, the patient knowing nothing of it. This is done
so deftly that labor pains do not come on for sometimes two days
afterwards.
In ten days the patient is ready to leave the hospital. The fee having
been paid, both parties are usually satisfied, and the girl, if she is
wise, makes her misfortune a stepping stone to something better.
If the amount paid has been too small to satisfy hospital funds, an
effort is made to collect more, but usually not from the girl.
The madam gets the patient's confidence and discovers, if she can, the
man responsible for the girl's condition. A bill is then sent him for
several hundred dollars. Should he ignore it or refuse to pay, he is
politely told that the account will be placed in the hands of a lawyer
in the town where he resides and the matter can be adjusted by a "jury
of his fellow citizens."
Imagine the consternation of some business man or church deacon in a
small community over the receipt of such a letter.
If guilty, and they are as a general thing, they take the next train
for Chicago and pay the bill. Parties running these establishments are
money makers. I know of one on West Adams street whose owner has made
a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all accumulated
in twenty years.
THE ELECTRIC BELT FRAUD.
This is another one of the many humbugs that seem to have fastened
themselves on the country. Chicago is the center for this as well as
every other fake of a medical character.
These belts are of the cheapest construction and are made at a cost
of twelve and one-half cents each. They sell for anything, up to
three hundred and even five hundred dollars. There may be virtue in
electricity, properly applied, but there certainly is none in the belt.
Dr. McL---- is located in Chicago, and has branch offices in almost
every state in the union. He takes pages in the daily press to tell of
the virtues of his belt. It cures everything from lumbago to corns.
He usually pictures a man in a half-stooping position, holding his
back with one hand, while with the other he is getting a belt from a
sympathizing doctor.
Dr. McL---- has made big money duping his fellow men. Recently he
opened an office in the City of Mexico. There the government protects
people somewhat from their own folly.
A Mexican bought a belt, guaranteed to cure his disease: it failed.
The doctor was promptly arrested for obtaining money under false
pretenses. He was sent to jail, where he remained sixteen months.
The offices were closed and have not since been reopened. The best
evidence that electric belts are a useless article is to be found in
the fact that physicians neither use nor prescribe them. They are an
adjunct to quackery.
THE VARICOCELE CURE.
To begin with, varicocele is a surgical disease and is only cured by
an operation. Yet the daily papers teem with advertisements offering
cures by drugs, appliances and external washes.
It is needless to say that all of these are fakers. Chicago has more
than twenty specialists who profess to cure varicocele. Only two of
them fulfill their promises. The rest take your money and render you
no service.
Nearly every paper advertises these men, such headlines as "Cured in
Five Days," "Cured Without Pain."
"Five-day varicocele cure" meets the eye of the reader on nearly every
page. It is true that varicocele can be cured in five days; it can and
is cured in one treatment, but always by surgical means. The headlines
above are simply baits for the afflicted.
The main idea of the so-called specialist is to get the victim into
his office. Here he will tell him that he has two methods of cure. One
is an operation, which necessitates the patient going to a hospital,
remaining there for five days in order to effect the cure. The other
is a suspensory and a liniment which, applied daily, will do just as
well, but it requires three or four months to get the cure.
The patient wishes, of course, to avoid an operation. He is always
told there is some danger from the chloroform. He usually takes the
"slow cure," parting at the same time with a good, fat fee, usually a
good deal more than he would have had to pay a reputable man for an
operation. At the end of the period fixed for the cure the patient
finds himself no better and finally in disgust places himself in the
hands of a man who does operate and is promptly cured.
Among the many men engaged in the cure of varicocele is Dr. Mark
K----, of Cincinnati and Denver. This man's advertisements adorn every
page of papers that will take them. His fee is $2.00; his remedy a
suspensory and a wash. Both are utterly useless. After you have paid
your money your name or original letter is sold to someone in the same
business.
In a little while you are surprised to receive mail from all parts
of the country--all wanting you to purchase a varicocele cure. This
applies to vacuum pumps, the superior system, the Parisian system and
other fakes of a like nature. They are all frauds. In the past few
years I have raided their places many times, seized their literature,
which is always obscene and indecent, and arrested the proprietors.
The game, however, still goes on.
THE "NERVOUS DEBILITY SPECIALIST."
"Lost Manhood Restored" is probably the greatest of all medical
grafts. These men succeed simply because of the total ignorance of the
people on matters pertaining to the sexual system.
If sexual physiology was a part of the studies in the public schools
for pupils at the age of fourteen there would be no cases of nervous
debility, and the "lost manhood" physician would have to seek other
fields for the display of his talents.
One of the saddest of all the habits that young men drop into at some
period of their lives is the secret vice. Until quite lately prudery
has prevented its proper discussion and about the only literature on
the subject was to be found in that issued by advertising doctors who
treat the effects.
One thing is certain--no one ever acquired the habit by reading one
of these "scare" or quack books. John Stuart Mill, in speaking of
this vice, says: "The diseases of society can be no more checked or
healed without publicly speaking of them than can those of the body."
To ignore or deny the prevalence of the evil is sometimes honest
ignorance, but is more often hypocrisy.
A little scientific discussion on this subject is not out of place
here. It will put young men on their guard against themselves, and cut
off in some degree the income of that class of doctors who live on
their credulity.
So far as I have been able to trace its origin it has always been
with us. According to Ovid, Horace and Aristophanes, it was a curse
in ancient Greece and Rome. Even Hippocrates, the father of medicine
380 years before Christ, considered it a subject worthy of his pen. Of
modern writers the greatest was Tissot, in 1760, who issued a classic
on this subject whose object was to stay, if possible, the abuses and
vices which threatened the ruin of the French people. Lurid as the
little book distributed by specialists usually is, the effects of this
vice depicted by Tissot puts them all into the shade. If not exactly
scientific, it at least exerted a large moral influence which was
beneficial in the then state of public and private morals.
In the discussion of secret sin let us make it plain that the evil
effects are not immediate, as is often thought and frequently
taught by school teachers and writers. The brain is not palsied at
once. Dementia, palsy and sudden death are not likely to occur. The
erroneous idea that it does, accounts in a great measure for the
terror, the bashfulness and the love of solitude exhibited by this
class of sufferers.
It is enough for the purpose of this article that in the course of
physical decay, gray hair, baldness and enfeebled gait, weakness
of the muscular and nervous system, in fact, a general lowering of
the tone of the bodily health, appear. Life has been lived out with
abandon, its energies have been overdrawn and its wheels have run down
like the mainspring of a clock whose regulator has been lost.
The sporty and fast life led by reckless youth is making him pay the
penalty. And what is the penalty? Look at the daily papers, see the
brazen medical advertisements, "Manhood Restored" staring at you from
every page. These advertisements are costly. They run up into the
thousands of dollars a month. One man, a doctor of Chicago, formerly
paid the daily press eight thousand dollars a month for advertising;
his "Lost Manhood, Varicocele and Hydrocele Cured" appeared in almost
every paper in this city.
And the people who needed the treatment paid the bills. So powerful
was this man's influence that he was enabled to stave off undesirable
legislation at Springfield. In this he was aided by the newspapers,
who did not wish to lose this princely revenue from quack doctors.
This doctor is still in business, but on a small scale compared to
former times. Competition and the advent of more mendacious liars have
reduced his income to more modest proportions than it once was.
A MONUMENTAL SWINDLE.
MEN who need treatment or advice concerning their health
or any weakness or private disease should, before taking
any treatment whatever, go to Dr. S. for consultation,
examination and advice; free.
DR. S.--Longest Established, Most Successful and Reliable
Specialist in Diseases of Men, as Medical Diplomas,
Licenses and Newspaper Records Show.
Dr. S. first came to Chicago about the time of the World's Fair. His
home office was supposed to be in Philadelphia. While Philadelphia has
the reputation of being slow, yet the methods of Dr. S. were decidedly
swift, so much so that he almost took the breath away from the Chicago
specialists.
He was the first to charge for medicine in addition to his fees. It is
a well-known fact that a man having been under the treatment of Dr. S.
for a week or a month never seeks the aid of another one.
He has been cured? Not on your life. He has been robbed. I have known
this "Doctor" to charge as much as one hundred dollars for two small
bottles of dope. This is in addition to a fee of twenty-five to five
hundred dollars. He always operates a "drug store" in connection with
his office.
The patient, having undergone an examination and having been
thoroughly frightened, is told what the fee will be. This being paid,
he is given a prescription and sent to the "drug store."
This is so written that no other drug store can fill it. In a
short time he is handed two or three small bottles, and on asking
"how much" is told a sum varying from ten to one hundred and fifty
dollars. Surprised and indignant, he hastens back to the "Doctor" and
complains. He is told that the medicines are cheap at that price; that
they are expensive drugs and very necessary in his case.
If the patient has the money he pays it, resolving that he will have
no more to do with Dr. S. If he lives in the country he is surprised
the following week by getting notice from the express company that a
C. O. D. package awaits him at the office.
It is the second week's supply of medicine. Charges from twenty-five
to ninety-eight dollars. He at once writes to the "Doctor" and says he
doesn't want the stuff.
The first supply has done him no good. It's too expensive and he can't
afford to continue it.
The "Doctor" writes back and says that he must pay for it. It will
require three months to effect a cure, and the whole treatment has
been prepared. If he does not take it the office will be subject to a
loss of many hundreds of dollars. They also threaten him with a suit
for the recovery of the amount.
BLACKMAIL AN ADJUNCT.
The poor victim, almost frightened to death at the prospect of
exposure, usually compromises and pays all the money he can raise,
taking the three months' "treatment" which he is assured has been
specially prepared for his case.
It is not an uncommon thing for Dr. S. to get several thousand dollars
out of one patient. Men have been known to mortgage their farms to
get out of the clutches of these cormorants. They never let go until
the last dollar has been extracted from the poor patient. After his
experience with Dr. S. he wants no more. He thinks that they are all
alike and carefully avoids them in the future.
Dr. S. himself is not in Chicago. He is said to live in Philadelphia.
He operates offices in this city and several other places. Three men
comprise the office staff--one man who "takes" the case, another a
physician, usually a dummy engaged at a salary of fifteen to twenty
dollars a week, and a druggist.
The main guy of every medical quack office is the "case taker." He is
always a "confidence man" skilled in the business. He plays upon the
fears and credulity of his victims. He pictures the most dreadful
fate awaiting the unfortunate patient. If a case of private disease,
he knows that the patient will rot on his feet and become a charnel
house of infection.
If a "Lost Manhood" case, he pictures the horrors of impotency, a
trusting girl deceived, a divorce, together with the scandals that
precede and follow.
The old Reliable B---- Doctors Cure Men--Men only.
NO PAY UNTIL CURED. $5 FEE FOR CURE, $5. NEWLY CONTRACTED
SPECIAL DISEASES.
Consultation and Examination Free Whether You Take
Treatment or not. Come to Expert Specialists.
We cure Varicocele, Nervous Debility, Urethral Troubles,
Blood Poison, Private Diseases, Phimosis, Piles, Skin
Diseases, Rupture and other Wasting Diseases of Men.
Call or send for free question list. Hours--Daily. 9 to 8;
Sundays, 10 to 2. J. B. McG----, M. D., Medical Director.
B---- MEDICAL INSTITUTE.
Chicago, Ill.
The above advertisement appears right along in the Chicago dailies. If
Dr. S---- is the "Prince of swindlers" the B---- Medical Institute is
a good second.
It is owned and run by a Bohemian, who changed his name from an
almost unpronounceable one to that of Hansen. He employs cheap
doctors--mostly dope fiends--men who could not get employment
elsewhere. His pay is about fifteen dollars per week. This man also
runs a "dental" Institute where equally cheap dentists are employed.
Both institutes rob the unsuspecting.
Hansen was sued by a former patient and nearly four hundred dollars
recovered, quite recently. The man was absolutely free from any
disease, but was frightened into paying that amount to get rid of an
imaginary one.
He is a common, cheap, medical swindler.
These are Positive Facts.
MEN $10.
CURES YOU.
"DON'T PAY MORE."
Under scientific treatment all diseases peculiar to men are
thoroughly cured.
Nervous Debility, Blood Poisoning, Lost Vitality,
Prostatic, Bladder and Kidney Troubles, Varicocele,
Hydrocele, Contracted Diseases, Urethral Obstruction, Male
Weakness.
Dr. C----'s Medical Offices are the most reliable and
permanently established specialists in Chicago. See them
before commencing treatment elsewhere. Advice, consultation
and examination FREE.
Dr. C---- MEDICAL OFFICES,
Hours: 8 a. m. to 8 p. m.
Sunday, 10 to 3 only.
Chicago, Ill.
SWINDLER A "DOPE" FIEND.
The above advertisement is that of Dr. C----. C---- himself is out of
the game. He is a dope fiend. A few months ago he narrowly escaped the
penitentiary for taking $225 from a sixteen-year-old child. He was
fined $200 in the Municipal Court, paid it and quit the business.
Previously, however, he had sold the use of his name to Dick Williams,
owner of several of the so-called medical offices along State street.
Williams changes his doctors every few days, so that a patient hardly
ever sees the same man twice. Each man makes an effort to "re-fee"
the patient--that is, they try to extract more money in the way of
fees, claiming that the other "doctor" did not grasp the severity of
the case. It is not unusual for a patient to pay half a dozen fees
in the same office before he drops onto the fact that he is being
systematically robbed.
The main object of advertising cheap is to get the people into the
office and started on the treatment. Money is demanded at every visit
and new "diseases" discovered as long as the credulity of the patient
lasts.
CONSULT DR. R----
A graduate and Regular Licensed Physician. Dr. R---- is
qualified through twenty-one years of practical experience
to give you the best medical advice and treatment in
ALL DISEASES AND WEAKNESSES PECULIAR TO MEN.
The oldest established and most reliable specialist,
who sees and treats patients personally. Dr. R----'s
Home Treatment Cures Weak Men. If you have Varicocele,
Hydrocele, Weakness, Drains, Lost Vigor, Losses, Blood
Poison, Kidney, Bladder or Any Chronic Nervous, Private or
Urinary Disease, consult the reliable specialist, who will
cure you quickly, permanently and cheaply.
CONSULTATION FREE AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL, as the doctor
never makes a professional charge unless you desire him to
treat your case until cured. Remember, you see Dr. R----
personally. If you cannot call, write a description of your
case and he will send you symptom blank and book, "VITAL
FACTS FOR MEN," FREE.
Dr. R---- is no better and no worse than others who have similar
advertisements. They all practice the same game.
He is not, however, on very friendly terms with other specialists.
A few years ago when some adverse legislation was threatened at
Springfield it was necessary to raise a fund to check it. R----
subscribed one hundred dollars, but never paid it. There must be honor
even among thieves.
I CURE IN FIVE DAYS VARICOCELE AND HYDROCELE without
Knife or Pain. I want to cure every man suffering with
Varicocele, Stricture, Contagious Blood Poison, Nervous
Debility, Hydrocele or a disease peculiar to men.
This liberal offer is open to all who have spent large sums
of money on doctors and medicines without any success,
and my aim is to prove to all those people who were being
treated
CONSULT DR. R----
by a dozen or more doctors, also without any success, that
I possess the only method, by means of which I will cure
you permanently.
DON'T PAY FOR UNSUCCESSFUL TREATMENT, ONLY FOR PERMANENT
CURE.
I will positively cure diseases of the stomach, lungs,
liver and kidneys, even though very chronic.
PRIVATE DISEASES OF MEN cured quickly, permanently and with
absolute secrecy. Nervous Debility, Weakness. Lost Vigor,
Strains, Losses, Urinary Losses.
DISEASES PECULIAR TO WOMEN--Pains in the Back. White
Discharge and other ailments cured permanently.
BLOOD POISON--And all kinds of skin diseases, like Pimples,
Swollen Glands, Wasting Diseases, Lingering Diseases.
CONSULTATION AND EXAMINATION FREE.
CURE ONCE FOR ALL.
DR. L. E. Z----, Chicago.
Office Hours: 8 a. m. to 8 p. m.
Sundays: 9 a. m. to 4 p. m.
"I cure in five days." So says Dr. Z---- and several others in the
same business. However, when you offer to take the five-day cure
you are told it is an operation. "I have a slow cure," say the oily
"doctors," "just as good, which requires three months." As the one
operation itself is a little alarming, most men take the "slow cure."
At the end of three or six months they find they have been victimized.
They are no better, and often worse.
JUST PLAIN FRAUD.
Among other advertisers are Dr. L. R. W----, Dr. H. J. T---- and Dr.
D----. The last named was recently arrested and held to the grand jury
on the charge of defrauding a patient. It might be asked in the light
of the above exposés of so-called specialists, are there no honest
ones? Detective Wooldridge says yes, there are several in Chicago who
deliver the goods. To any earnest seekers after the truth he will be
glad to give the names of several men of whom he can say, "They do not
misrepresent."
FABULOUS LOSSES IN BIG TURF FRAUDS.
"INVESTMENT" COMPANIES OF LAST FEW YEARS NETTED $10,162,000.
This is a sad, sad story, because it is an obituary, the death notice
of one of the meanest and most abominable frauds that has ever taken
the hoarded pennies of children and working girls, the "late lamented"
"turf syndicate."
Several years ago the turf syndicate was in its glory. A poor girl,
fresh from the old country, would scrub floors for a week or take in
washing for a month in order to pour money into the pockets of these
swindlers. Thanks to the efforts of Detective Clifton E. Wooldridge,
of Chicago, and others, this particular fraud is now a thing of the
past.
[Illustration: (Horses racing)]
But the enormity of this tremendous crime against the poor may be
appreciated from a study of the following figures.
Turf "investment" companies that have failed, absconded or have been
driven to the wall by prosecutions during the last few years and the
amount of money estimated to have been lost in the swindles give the
following astonishing record:
E. J. Arnold & Co. $ 4,000,000
John J. Ryan & Co., St. Louis, Mo. 1,500,000
Brolaski & Co., Chicago 200,000
Benedict & Co., Chicago 200,000
The Mid-Continent Investment Company, Chicago 150,000
The Mason-Teller Company, Chicago 50,000
The Douglas-Daly Company, R. S. Daly and N. C. Clark,
Chicago 125,000
The Armstrong-Baldwin Turf Commission, J. P. McCann
and O. L. Wells, Chicago 100,000
The Money-Maker, C. A. Pollock, manager, Chicago 15,000
Gulf Pacific Trust Co., F. Lehman and R. G. Herndon,
Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco 50,000
Investors' Profit-Sharing and Protective Association, Chicago 12,000
J. J. Shea & Company, Chicago 10,000
Standard Investment Bureau, Chicago and San Francisco 25,000
The Security Savings Society, W. R. Bennett, Chicago 1,500,000
The Investors' Protective Association, Frank E. Stone,
Chicago 200,000
D. W. Moodey & Co., Chicago 50,000
Co-Operative Trust Co., L. M. Morrison, Chicago 150,000
Edward L. Farley & Co., Chicago 75,000
Inter-Ocean Commission Co., J. T. Mitchell, Chicago 75,000
Hugo Morris & Co., Chicago 50,000
Al Fetzer & Co., Co-Operative Turf Pools, Hammond, Ind. 500,000
Co-Operative Investment Association, L. H. Myers, New York 150,000
American Stock Co., W. M. Nichols, New York 100,000
Mutual Security Co., C. Dudrey, New York 100,000
Henshall, Bronner & Co., New York 75,000
W. W. O'Hara & Co., Cincinnati 50,000
Crawford & Co., New York 35,000
Paul Pry's Investments 70,000
The Belt Company, N. S. Goodsill, Hammond, Ind. 150,000
Drake, Allison & Co., Hammond, Ind. 175,000
McClellan & Co., John McClellan and John Murphy,
proprietors, New Orleans, absconded 50,000
New York Co-Operative Company, New York 20,000
W. J. Keating Company, New York 20,000
The Fidelity Trust, Wm. J. Young, San Francisco 25,000
C. E. Cooper & Co., Cincinnati 15,000
C. E. Cooper & Co., Covington, Ky. 10,000
C. E. Collins & Co., George D. Jones and Charles
Thompson, New York 30,000
------------
Total $10,162,000
GIGANTIC TURF SWINDLE.
Among the first of the get-rich-quick schemes into which the public
poured millions was the "turf investment" concern. The "literature"
of probably no other class of swindle was so plausible as this. The
promise was to pay 5 and in some cases 10 per cent on the investment
each week. The method by which the promise was to be fulfilled was
this: The money invested was to be placed in a pool and used as
capital in playing the races. A standard bet of a certain amount was
to be made. If this wager was lost, enough money out of the pool was
to be bet on the horse picked by the managers of the concern in the
next race, to recoup the loss on the first race, win the amount set
out to win on the first race, together with a like amount on the
second race. If this wager was lost, the process was to be repeated
on the next race, and so on until a wager was won. Each time there
was a winning, a large enough sum would have been bet to recoup all
losses on previous races and win a fixed amount on each of the races
played. Some concerns claimed to play the favorite horses in the
betting, others the second choices to win and others to bet according
to "inside information" derived from horse owners and jockeys.
Regardless of the variations of the scheme, the general plan was the
same. The prospectuses, in a most plausible way, set forth the claim
that "beating the races" was merely a matter of having a large enough
capital at hand to continue the progressive betting plan.
By the claim that horse racing was as legitimate a calling as dealing
on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange and possessed the additional
advantage of being open to persons of small means, a strong appeal was
made to the poor.
Of course, none of the money that poured in ever was bet. Had 5 per
cent a week on all the millions contributed by the public to this form
of swindle been actually derived from the bookmakers, every penciler
in the country would have been bankrupted in a month. The remarkable
feature of the "turf" investment scheme is that this phase of the
matter seemed never to occur to investors, and the other palpably
impossible phases of the operators' claims were also overlooked in the
effort to secure 260 per cent a year on the investment made.
GET-RICH-QUICK SCHEMES.
As in the horse swindles, the older investors were paid their
dividends from funds sent in by new ones. No attempt was made to win
dividends in the market. As the gullibility of the "suckers" became a
little dulled, innovations to increase the plausibility of the schemes
were made and new forms of bait devised.
"Turf swindles" have flourished, while the victims, who number tens
of thousands, dare not raise their voices in protest or complaint,
well knowing that they would not only be the butt of ridicule in their
community, but also that the world at large would rather rejoice
at their losses, and courts and juries would probably waste little
sympathy on them. Consequently the safest swindles operated today are
those having race-track betting for their basis.
In the latter part of 1902 there were upwards of twenty-five of these
schemes in operation in the United States. New York City was the
headquarters for about ten, and the balance were located in St. Louis,
Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Brooklyn.
Their prosperity was evidenced by the ability of managers to buy
advertising space in the leading newspapers, to pay the printers
for the most elaborate booklets, circulars, etc., and Uncle Sam for
postage stamps, with which they were extremely liberal, usually
sending a stamped envelope, for reply, to prospective investors.
Extracts which I give below from the literature of five of these
concerns offer a fair criterion for the whole mass which I have before
me, and demonstrate the turf swindlers' method of extracting money
from the unsophisticated. Fully 25 per cent of their "investors" are
women, while the whole number who contribute to their scheme is made
up of persons who would not be seen betting at a race track or pool
room, but who have consciences that will permit them to make money
"honestly or otherwise."
[Illustration: WHO SAID I LOST TWENTY DOLLARS?]
HERE ARE PLAUSIBLE ARGUMENTS.
This is one argument of a firm of so-called "Expert Handicappers" of
New York City, who bet on the races:
"There has never been a week since we started in business
when we did not pay a dividend. The smallest dividend we
have ever paid for any one week was $6.50 for every $100
invested. We average about $9.50 per week on each $100."
"An investment with us is safer and brings better returns
than bookmaking or any other form of speculation."
Here is an argument of a firm of so-called "Turf Commissioners" of San
Francisco, which claimed to be betting on the races, guaranteeing 4
per cent weekly:
"There is no kind of speculation that affords so great an
opportunity for making money rapidly on a small capital as
playing the races on a business-like and systematic basis.
Our average weekly profits usually range from 4 to 8 per
cent."
Another argument, that of a so-called "Bookmaker" of St. Louis, who
guarantees 5 per cent weekly dividends to investors:
"We make books and allow the betting public to place the
money. The man who bets has one horse running for him--the
bookmaker has the rest. For this reason the odds are all in
favor of the bookmaker and if he understands his business
he is certain to make money."
Argument of a firm of so-called "Turf Commissioners" of Chicago, who
claim to make books on the races:
"Our plan insures a steady income on a small capital, such
as no other company offers, and far eclipses any mining,
oil, or other stock investment."
Argument of so-called racing stable concern of St. Louis, guaranteeing
3 per cent per week to investors of $50 and upward:
"We have a large stable of race horses, which we run at all
tracks, winter and summer; we make books wherever racing
is conducted, and the proposition we manage pays so well
because we know how to run it to that end."
One of the variants of the old turf scheme is the venerable "Two-Horse
Special," a fraud that is so old that its whiskers drag about its
knees. Here is a sample of the two-horse literature:
"MY TWO-HORSE SPECIAL PLAN."
(Send this slip with remittance.)
NO ACCOUNT RECEIVED OF LESS THAN $50.
GEORGE F. STONE,
Turf Specialist.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
I hand you ---- Dollars to be used by you in speculating
for me, according to your TWO-HORSE WIRE plan of Turf
Speculation. You are to play one-fifth of the amount of
capital on each special, placing the money to win and also
for place. You are to mail for me your selections each
day, mailing the same NOT LATER than 1 P. M. You agree to
operate the account, MAKING NO CHARGE until winnings equal
capital invested. After that 20 per cent of all winnings
you are to deduct, and send me the balance by money order,
with statement, each week. I can close my account and
withdraw any balance due me on demand. My liability is
strictly limited to above amount.
THE POLICE, AROUSED BY TURF SWINDLERS, RAID AND CLOSE UP THEIR PLACES.
Detective Wooldridge led the officers on February 23, 1900, when the
following concerns were raided and closed up:
Co-Operative Trust Company, 80 and 84 Adam street.
Turf Investment Company, 84 Adams street.
Inter-Ocean Commission Company, 66 Wabash avenue.
Security Savings Company, Madison street and Fifth avenue.
Investors' Protective Association, 510 Realty Building.
D. W. Moody, 182 and 184 Dearborn street.
The papers, books and "big-dividend" circulars of these concerns
filled several wagons. The police estimated that over $500,000 had
been lost by the investors in these concerns, which, notwithstanding
some of the high-sounding names adopted by them, were all turf
swindlers. Raid after raid has resulted in practically ridding Chicago
of these vampires, but they seem to thrive wherever they are permitted
to exist.
FAKE TURFMEN INDICTED.
Gambling and Bookmaking Charged Against the "Get-Rich-Quick"
Syndicates, Including Bennett's.
True bills were voted against proprietors of "get-rich-quick" turf
concerns by the grand jury. Indictments were returned in court, and
capiases for the arrest of the accused persons placed in the hands of
the sheriff. Those against whom bills were voted are:
Frank E. Stone, alias Eddie Dunne, Security Savings Society, for
bookmaking. W. R. Bennett, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking.
W. I Bennett, Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. D. W. Moody,
Security Savings Society, for bookmaking. Louis Morrison, alias L. M.
Morrison, Co-Operative Trust Company, for bookmaking. Edwin E. Farley,
for keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. Charles Carroll, for
keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. J. W. Turner, alias J. W.
Taylor, for keeping a common gaming house and poolroom. Miss S. Beck,
stenographer for W. R. Bennett, for bookmaking.
One puzzling feature of the prosecution of the turf people is that
although the bills accuse them of keeping common gaming houses and
operating poolrooms, officers and lawyers interested in the cases say
the promoters of the concerns never really attempted to win their
advertised profits by betting on the races. It has been alleged that
not one of them speculated with deposits, but simply sent dividends
back to investors out of their own money. It is now suggested that
the accused persons will either have to admit they were gambling or
confess that their alluring statements about winnings on the race
tracks were glittering frauds.
The turf swindle was prosperous until February, 1903, when the crash
among the St. Louis contingent precipitated a "run" on all of the
concerns then in operation. As it was not the policy of the swindlers
to pay, they either closed their doors and fled or the police
conveniently interfered with their business.
Prior to the crash at St. Louis there were several notable failures
and disappearances. On July 9, 1902, the Al Fetzer Co., of Hammond,
Ind., "failed," and about a week prior Turf Commissioner W. W. O'Hara,
of Cincinnati, absconded. Both of these events shattered many dreams
of riches. In the Fetzer case heavy rains were said to have broken the
sure-thing combination by which the company was to win fortunes from
bookmakers on the race tracks.
The amounts lost by the credulous investors in Fetzer's scheme,
which, it was declared, "could not lose," reached into the hundreds
of thousands. The towns that suffered the most were Hammond, Ind.,
and Appleton, Wis. It was reported that the people of the latter town
had suffered to the extent of $50,000, and dozens of small cities are
believed to have fared almost as badly.
The clients of the concern in Appleton included a number of well-known
business men and people of all classes. They lost from $25 to $200
each. A poor widow who had put in all her savings was left penniless
and was obliged to seek aid from the city authorities.
Fetzer conducted a large part of his business through the mails. He
advertised extensively in the newspapers and found many who were
willing to "play the game." Dividends of $5 a week for $100 invested
were promised and were paid punctually up to about July 1, 1902. He
said he had a system of playing the races that could not be beaten,
and the success of the early investors convinced the doubting ones
that his system was all right. The information of the "snap" spread
rapidly and Fetzer's business increased accordingly. No one thought
that dividends of 260 per cent were improbable when they read of the
"long shots" that won races on the Chicago tracks.
Fetzer attributed the downfall of his business to the rainy weather
and said that he had been unsuccessful in picking "mudders." His
system of betting, which was to make everyone rich by the end of the
summer, went to pieces with each succeeding thunder shower, and the
investors received the doleful information that the company had lost
its own capital, as well as the money entrusted to it.
An investigation into the affairs of O'Hara at Cincinnati revealed a
state of affairs almost beyond belief. More than 4,000 letters which
were received within a week after O'Hara's disappearance were opened.
They were from every state in the country, and many were from Canada.
Amounts from $5 to $500 in checks and mail and express orders were
enclosed. The total amount of the money in the letters opened was
$5,518, and Inspector Holmes stated that O'Hara got away with $7,500
which came in the mail the same week, making a total of over $12,000
for one week's business. O'Hara's books showed that from July, 1900,
when he commenced operations, until he skipped out in June, 1902, he
had received from credulous "investors" the enormous sum of $465,000.
The inevitable crash came early in February, 1903, and the police
and grand juries at Chicago, St. Louis, New York and other cities
got busy, but the money had been transferred to the pockets of the
swindlers, who had the choice of paying lawyers and possible fines or
traveling in foreign climes until the excitement blew over.
February, 1903, Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge raided and closed the
following named turf investment companies in Chicago:
H. B. Blackstone, E. J. Arnold, 95 Dearborn street.
Harry Brolaski, "Brolaski & Co.," 356 Dearborn street.
Henry Thompson, "Brolaski & Co.," 356 Dearborn street.
Mattie Woodin, "Benedict & Co.," 225 Dearborn street.
M. J. Beck, "Benedict & Co.," 225 Dearborn street.
W. J. Mason, "Benedict & Co.," 225 Dearborn street.
"Mid-Continent," 185 Dearborn street.
PREY ON CHICAGO TEACHERS.
From papers found in the Mid-Continent offices it appears this company
had been doing a loan as well as an investment business. A letter
addressed to Chicago school teachers invited deposits for investment
on which 2-1/2 per cent monthly interest was guaranteed.
If the teachers needed money it was offered them at 3 per cent a
month. The company's methods and those of the banks were compared in
the letter, to the disadvantage of the banks.
Medical students, stenographers, maids in hotels, women of various
classes, farmers in many sections of the country and hundreds of men
in different employments in the city were disclosed as the dupes.
The following telegram from St. Louis to a Chicago paper briefly
outlines the situation on the second day of the raiding there:
St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 11, 1903.--Runs were made on the
E. J. Arnold Turf Investment Company, the International
Investment Company, The Christie Investment Company and
John J. Ryan & Co. yesterday by hundreds of men and women
who during the last six months have invested their savings
with these co-operative bookmaking concerns in the hope of
enormous profits. The International and Christie companies
paid all the stockholders who appeared, at first. Then they
decamped.
Arnold & Co., in accordance with their announcement which
caused the panic among the "turf speculators" yesterday,
refused to pay back any stock certificates, although still
claiming to be perfectly solvent, and determined to pay the
usual weekly dividends until affairs of the company are
wound up.
At the offices of John J. Ryan, owner of the Newport (Ky.)
Race Track, a riot was averted by the presence of the
police; and the excited investors, who were reminded that
their stock certificates are payable only on thirty days'
notice, went off in a state of rage and anxiety at once
amusing and pitiful.
HOW ARNOLD INSPIRED CONFIDENCE.
Arnold was a wise one. He knew how to work the game. First he sent
to New York and bought the famous race horse Gold Heels. This horse
had won many of the great Eastern classics. He broke a tendon and was
useless, but Arnold's investors did not know that. They would swear
by Gold Heels. Then he caused his "bank" to issue a letter along the
following lines:
American Central Trust Company.
Capital--$1,000,000. Surplus--$500,000.
S. Schnurmacher, President.
Wm. S. Simpson, First Vice-President.
Joseph Wachtel. Second Vice-President.
Franklin P. Hunkins, Third Vice-President.
Edward Bauder, Secretary and Treasurer.
DIRECTORS.
Shepard Barclay,
Edward Bauder,
G. A. Bauder,
John N. Drummond, Jr.,
Henry W. Gehner,
Morris Glaser,
Frank Griesedieck,
G. A. Gurner,
Franklin P. Hunkins,
John D. Manley,
H. I. Mills,
John A. Nies,
H. F. Powitzhy,
Leo S. Rassieur,
B. Schnurmacher,
Wm. S. Simpson,
Joseph Wachtel.
St. Louis, Mo., May 15, 1902.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
The firm of E. J. Arnold & Company, of this city, is one
of our largest depositors, and we consider them amply
responsible for every obligation they may assume.
AMERICAN CENTRAL TRUST COMPANY,
By EDWARD BAUDER,
Sec'y & Treas.
The disaster was brought about by the appointment of a committee
by the Missouri legislature to investigate the "get-rich-quick"
situation. St. Louis had become the haven of every conceivable class
of swindlers, who swarmed there in such numbers that the legislature
deemed it wise to look into the matter. What motive inspired it to
take this action was a mystery. Sufficient, however, to observe that
when it came to following out its own recommendation to pass laws that
would drive the "get-rich-quick" companies of all kinds out of the
state something stopped the legislation.
The investigation of the "get-rich-quick" concerns in Missouri by the
State Senate Committee resulted in an elaborate report, which was
presented March 3, 1903. This report had the following to say of the
turf investment companies:
"These institutions are of modern origin. The pioneer
in this field, especially in this state, seems to have
been E. J. Arnold & Co. Then followed Ryan & Co., the
International, The Christian Syndicate, Brolaski, Thomas
Walsh, Maxim-Gay and others.
"These concerns were presumably prosperous until the
examination which was begun by the grand jury, instigated
by the circuit attorney of St. Louis, Hon. Joseph W. Folk,
and your present committee. When the crash came, company
after company closed its doors or refused to pay back
to depositors on demand, and upon examination of these
companies, we found them to be mere shells, with little
or no money or available assets on hand, and the millions
of dollars handled by them either paid out in dividends,
squandered and gambled away on race tracks, or absorbed by
the officers and managers of the said companies.
"The evidence discloses the fact that E. J. Arnold is
supposed to be in Mexico, the books of said company being
in the hands of the grand jury. So far as the search under
legal process has developed, no assets of Arnold & Co.,
except a stock farm and stock thereon, office furniture and
fixtures, and a few hundred dollars in cash, were found.
"Ryan & Company claim that they have on hand $200,000,
which has been attached and garnisheed, in the hands of the
depositories, and the same process has been used to take
possession of the real estate holdings and other personal
property.
"George A. Dice, inspector of the postoffice, in charge of
the St. Louis department, testified that he had made an
examination of E. J. Arnold & Co. and John J. Ryan & Co.,
and that on their showing Arnold & Co. had on hand $160,000
more assets than their liabilities; that two different
examinations of these concerns were made by him and his
deputies, and that in the last report of November and
December, 1902, his report to the department recommended
that they be cited to appear before the department and
answer as to their liability for criminal use of the mails,
and that so far as his report went they were notified
that there was a case pending against them; that the
ruling of the department was not in accordance with his
recommendation; that from the evidence it appears that
the department at Washington, by some process or other
unknown to your committee, overruled the recommendations of
the inspector, dismissed the cases pending against these
companies, and they were allowed to proceed with their
process of absorbing the people's money. Had the department
at Washington acted promptly and properly upon the
recommendation of the inspector, millions of dollars would
have been saved to the people of the State of Missouri and
other states.
"In order to protect the people who are attracted by the
fair promises and the payment of extraordinary profits
or dividends, and to prohibit the improper and vicious
misapplication and absorption of the money of the people
who confide in the representation of investment companies,
your committee recommends that a law be passed which will
prohibit the doing of business by said turf investment
companies or other like institutions in this state."
If one should moralize on the turf swindles it would only be to repeat
the old story--avarice. Nothing else explains why they are permitted
to flourish and rob, and then a newspaper story and no more.
Justice, blind and decrepit, is unable to scale the insurmountable
barrier of the swindlers' "bank roll." But there is still hope, for
from Washington we hear from day to day that another boodler has been
landed in the grand jury net--thanks to President Roosevelt, who, if
he knew all, would do more.
When the last paragraph was written the finale had not been reached.
But the strong arm of the federal government has at last been felt
and the turf investment companies are no more. It is impossible for
even the veriest sucker to be taken in by them any more, and their
literature would be barred from the mails in an instant. It is all
over with the turf investment companies. "_Requiescat in pace._" May
they rest in peace.
FAKE DRUG VENDORS.
A MOST DANGEROUS FORM OF RASCALITY.
Drugs Worth $30,000 Seized.
War on Makers of Imitations of Medicines Begun by the Chicago Police
in Charge of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
In all the history of fraud, imposture and graft, there is no story to
parallel that of the "fake drug clique." There is no means of finding
out how many thousands of lives are annually sacrificed in consequence
of its nefarious practices, and the strong arm of the law while it can
reach out and prevent further crime, can not call back to life those
who have been offered up on the altar of greed.
Sensational raids made in the effort to clear Chicago of its numerous
"Fake" patent medicine concerns, occurred on the morning of Nov. 29,
1904.
The raids followed a long conference between Chief of Police Francis
O'Neill and Col. James E. Stuart, Chief Inspector of Chicago Postal
Department, and for the first time in the history of the city, the
Federal and City forces worked in unison. They decided that Chicago
should be cleared of "Fake" Patent Medicine Concerns which for years
had been using the mails to defraud hundreds of thousands of sick and
weak persons.
George G. Kimball, U. S. Inspector of Mails, and Detective Clifton R.
Wooldridge were assigned to gather the evidence and prepare the cases
for prosecution. The work was no easy task. Both officers went about
the work of gathering the evidence in a thoroughly systematic manner.
Inspector Kimball discovered the mails were employed extensively by
the agents in disposing of their spurious drugs. Investigation proved
that large orders were sent to small suburban towns and cities weekly.
The correspondence, circulars and goods were secured.
The breaking up of the drug ring, however, was a delicate task. It was
strongly backed financially, and it was aided and abetted, throughout
the United States, by political rings galore. Chicago was the
headquarters, and it was natural that to the police department of this
city, ever-famed for its hatred of "grafts" big and little, should
fall the lot of exterminating the traffic.
Detective Wooldridge gathered the information in Chicago, the names of
the firms, location and the men who owned them.
The men are charged with making and selling a spurious preparation of
aristol, a product made in Germany, and valued as a substitute for
iodoform. Their products were represented as genuine, were said to
differ from those handled by the wholesale drug trade, only in the
fact that they were imported from Canada and England instead of from
Germany.
Here are a few of the things discovered in the course of the
investigation by Detective C. R. Wooldridge. The statements are
printed from an interview with the great detective.
"As we have progressed the work has broadened and grown
to proportions never anticipated at the start. Among the
goods seized were found boxes, the labels of which bore the
chemical name and formula of trional, and which gave an
exact description of the chemical and physical properties
of trional and the medicinal indications of this drug.
"On examination it was found that these boxes contained
pure acetanilid. The dosage of drugs recommended upon the
label was fifteen to twenty grains, and it was stated 'that
night sweats of phthisis are promptly arrested by eight
grains."
"I am informed that it is within the professional knowledge
of every druggist as well as every physician that the
substitution, grain for grain, of acetanilid, for trional,
is a most reprehensible fraud, which might cause the death
of the patient to whom the drug was administered.
"As indicating the commercial fraud connected with this
substitution, it should be stated that the price charged
for this drug by the defendants in this case, as shown by
the price list, was 95 cents per ounce, commercial value of
acetanilid is one and one half cents per ounce.
"But by far the largest fraud found was in the counterfeit
label business. There were 2,400 metal caps for bottles
stamped with the name of a Swiss manufacturer. There were
also labels purporting to be German or Swiss labels. A
number of half filled bottles, waiting for the adulterants,
showed conclusively the use to which these labels were to
be put.
"We were fortunate enough to find certain cards and bills
in this place indicating that the makers of these metal
caps and labels had never been nearer Switzerland or
Germany than Clark and Harrison streets. Acting upon this
information we secured evidence that these articles were
made in Chicago and never imported.
"These entire preparations including the mixing, boxing,
labeling and placing upon the market was done by these
parties here in Chicago, and the goods, much of it
undoubtedly, placed in the hands of innocent purchasers,
who were deceived by the external appearance of
genuineness, into purchasing the adulterated and fraudulent
goods, without analysis or investigation of any kind.
"The great public, the individuals who use these drugs when
prescribed by their physician, are themselves in total
ignorance of the fact, not only that they have defrauded
and cheated, but perhaps placed in jeopardy of their lives.
"There were found among these boxes seized, certain
receptacles which bore labels stating that aristol was
contained therein. On examination by reputable chemists at
the Columbus Laboratories, the powder in these boxes was
found to be fullers earth, colored with oxide of iron,
not containing a single trace of aristol. The aristol,
which was quoted on the price lists as 'equal to Bayer's'
was sold at 80 cents per ounce, at which almost a ton of
fullers earth and oxide of iron could be purchased.
"The evidence was procured and chemical tests made which
proved the presence of alien matter in the prescriptions
which called for pure drugs. In nearly 20 per cent of the
samples obtained there was not even a trace of the drug
called for in the prescription; Acetanilid as a substitute
for trional-aristol, which is an antiseptic wash much used
by surgeons.
"Prescriptions were sent to 139 druggists signed by Dr. J.
Scott Brown, calling for pure aristol. Dr. J. A. Wesener of
the Columbus Laboratories conducted the tests.
WHAT THE TEST SHOWED.
(The results) Dr. Wesener showed the following:
23 prescriptions No trace of aristol
66 prescriptions 80 per cent impurity
10 prescriptions 20 per cent impurity
9 prescriptions 10 per cent impurity
31 prescriptions pure
"Druggists have been misled into purchasing this substitute
for aristol by unscrupulous salesmen, who have palmed off
on them a substance which in many cases is nothing more
than 'fuller's earth,' said Dr. Wesener. This stuff was
sold to them cheap.
"The druggist can have no excuse for selling this stuff,
which is injurious, because it is an easy matter for him to
test it to find out whether it is aristol or not. Aristol
is soluble in either, and makes a dark brown solution. Some
of the powder which we have obtained on these prescriptions
is not soluble at all. We have not completed the chemical
analysis of all the precipitates, but those which we have
tried consist of chalk mixed with an iron oxide to give it
the color, or some other mineral substance."
The two leading imitations are as follows: Spurious preparation of
aristol, and an imitation of triethylate which is a substitute for
trional.
Aristol sells at $1.85 an ounce and triethylate retails at $1.50 an
ounce. The cost of manufacturing the two imitations is about 2 cents
an ounce.
DANGER TO THE PATIENT.
"The adulteration of aristol is liable to be fraught with
serious consequences to the patient. It is extremely
dangerous to introduce a mineral substance into an open
wound, and many surgeons who have used this adulterated
antiseptic, having bought it in good faith for the pure
drug, have been at a loss to know why the wounds have
suppurated. It is possible this adulterated drug may have
caused numberless cases of blood poison with consequent
loss of life."
HASTENED McKINLEY'S DEATH.
It is even whispered that one of the products sold by this gang as
a counterfeit of a standard article hastened the death of President
William McKinley. The story goes that when the physicians sent to the
nearest drug store for a certain kind of medicine they were given a
substance which resembled it in every way but which was spurious. It
is said the drug had exactly the opposite effect upon the president
from what the doctors had reason to suppose it would have. Some there
are who even declare that the application of the genuine article at
that critical time would have saved the life of William McKinley.
Otta G. Stoltz, druggist at 60 Rush street, Chicago, Ill., assisted by
his porter, manufactured the spurious drugs in his basement for E. A.
Kuehmsted.
In manufacturing the standard remedy of aristol, he used fifty per
cent of various ingredients, and fifty per cent of rosin. It was
called "Thymistol, manufactured by the Mexican Chemical Company,"
and substituted for aristol. There was no such a company in Mexico.
The goods, boxes and labels were made in Chicago, Illinois, and the
stuff was sold to the druggists for one half the price of the genuine
aristol.
The gang was ostensibly engaged in selling to the retail drug trade
infringements of a large number of patented drugs, manufactured in
Germany. Their products were represented to be genuine, differing
from those handled by the legitimate wholesale drug trade only in
the fact that they were imported by them direct from Canada and
England, thereby evading payment of royalty to the American patentees.
As a matter of fact, the peddlers used the cry of monopoly under
the patents merely as a pretext for ingratiating themselves with
the retail druggists, and then foisted upon them many adulterated
and spurious imitations of the imported preparations. The drugs
imitated are standard medical preparations, dispensed on physician's
prescription by every retail pharmacist. These remedies are in so
general use that at least one-half the prescriptions written by
physicians call for one or other of them.
LETTER FROM EDWARD A. KUEHMSTED, THE PRINCIPAL DEALER IN SPURIOUS
DRUGS; IT IS SELF-EXPLANATORY.
Chicago, Ill.,
July 24, 1902.
MR. M. R. ZAEGEL.
Sheboygan, Wis.
My Dear Mr. Zaegel:
Although I have been selling bogus Phenacetine and a lot of
other bogus goods for over three years. I have never had
the pleasure of selling you any of them. I should very much
like to do so, and feel that I can give you satisfaction
both in goods and prices.
Some time ago I perfected arrangements to get my supplies
direct from Europe, where the supply is not so limited as
in Canada, and I can do much better in price.
The enclosed list gives my complete line. All items with
prices attached I have in stock and can supply without
delay. Other items are continually arriving.
The prices I have made you are, I think, exceptionally
low, and I trust they will induce you to give me a trial.
Express charges I prepay. Trusting I may be favored with
your valued orders, I am,
Very respectfully,
EDWARD A. KUEHMSTED.
6323 Ingleside Ave.,
Chicago, Ill.
THE STATE LAWS COVERING THE FRAUDULENT ADULTERATION OF DRUGS AND
MEDICINES FOR THE PURPOSE OF SALE, READS AS FOLLOWS.
"Section 10, Chapter 38 of Hurd's Revised Statutes of
Illinois for 1903. Whoever fraudulently adulterates, for
the purpose of sale, any drug or medicine, or sells or
offers or keeps for sale any fraudulently adulterated drug
or medicine, knowing the same to be adulterated, shall be
confined in the County Jail not exceeding one year, or
fined not exceeding $1,000, and such adulterated drugs and
medicines shall be forfeited and destroyed."
After the great mass of evidence had been gathered it was submitted to
the Chief of Police, Francis O'Neill, who instructed Detective Clifton
R. Wooldridge to lay the matter before John K. Prindiville, Justice
of Peace, and if he would issue warrants to go ahead and search the
premises and make arrest.
Desk Sergeant Mike White looked upon as an expert by the police
Department drew the complaints and warrants which were duly signed and
a detail of 20 picked men was assigned to Detective Wooldridge with
instructions to go ahead, and on Oct. 29, 1904, they were divided into
four squads and they swooped down on the five Medicine concerns at one
time without giving them any warning.
The following is a list of the parties arrested:
W. G. Nay, alias S. B. Soper, 1452 Fulton street; over $2,000 worth of
spurious stuff seized. Nay and wife arrested.
Burtis B. M'Cann, alias George A. Barton, 6113 Madison avenue, $2,500
worth of stuff seized. McCann arrested.
J. J. Dean, 6123 Ellis avenue; $5,000 worth of spurious medicines
seized; Dean and wife arrested.
J. N. Levy, 359 Dearborn street; $500 worth seized.
Edward A. Kuehmsted, 6323 Ingleside avenue, and Isabella Kuehmsted
were arrested; over $12,000 worth of spurious drugs were seized by
Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, Sergeant William M. McGrath, Sergeant
Thomas Fitzpatrick, Officers Terence N. Kelly, Mathew J. Reilly,
Michael O'Neill, Thomas Ready, Michael McGuire, August C. Dolan,
Patrick Quinn, Thomas Daly, Bernard Conway.
V. Goldberg, a partner of Edward Kuehmsted, appeared on the scene and
tried to prevent the officers from taking the goods. He was locked
up on the charge of disorderly conduct and on the following morning
entered a plea of guilty before Justice John R. Caverly and was
fined $1 and cost. John G. Campbell, alleged attorney for Edward A.
Kuehmsted, appeared upon the scene and tried to force his way into the
house while the drug was being removed. He also tried to prevent the
officers from taking the drugs and threatened to whip them, pulled his
coat off and assaulted Detective Wooldridge. He too was sent to the
Harrison Street Station and locked up.
The prisoners arrested in the raid were sent to the Harrison Street
Police Station together with eleven wagonloads of drugs seized, which
were valued at $30,000.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners and the drugs, a United States
warrant was served upon them, charging the defendants with using the
mails to defraud, also a duces tecum subpoena was served for the
drugs seized in the raid to be brought into the United States court
forthwith, was served upon Detective Wooldridge, and other officers by
United States Marshal.
The two ex-convicts were Levy, who was also known under the aliases
of Charles Meyers, R. Waldron, and R. Cassat and George Edwards.
Under the latter name he served a year in Joliet. Hass was the
other ex-convict. His Sing Sing number was B 5574. Yet under the
administration of the law under the justice shop system these men,
who sold chalk and water mixed with idorn oxides for an antiseptic,
finally managed to get out of the clutches of the law on a compromise
adjudication, concerning which the State's Attorney alone knew the
details.
Then the insolent vendors of fake drugs thought they saw a chance
to get back at the officers of the law. They found a nice little
loop-hole in the fact that when the raids were made a few chemicals,
which were not contraband had been seized, in the rush and scurry of
the raid.
Therefore a suit was brought against Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge,
Charles M. Carr, editor of the N. A. R. D. Notes, a police
publication, Henry D. Morton, Chief of Police Francis O'Neill, the
Farbenfabriken Co. and Wooten. The suit called for heavy damages.
After going over the evidence the court of first resort awarded
damages of $1.00. Rather than be put to the cost of an appeal this
$1.00 was paid by the defendants.
But the business of vending fake drugs in the city of Chicago had been
broken up and the city made unsafe for this most detestable class
of swindlers, who prey upon the sick and wounded and endanger human
life by the sale of their nostrums. "It was worth $1.00 to put the
rascally crew out of business," said Detective Wooldridge afterward in
discussing the matter. "It is surely worth a dollar to a man to know
that he has been instrumental in saving thousands of human lives." And
there the matter rested.
BUCKET-SHOP.
Every day the American people squander $100,000 in fictitious
speculation in grain.
There are 1,000 bucket shops operating in the United States at this
time, their geographical distribution marked by the boundaries of the
country.
For each of these 1,000 shops an average of $100 a day gross income is
necessary to meet its expenses, chief of which are for wire and ticker
service and blackboard writers.
Thus, in order that 1,000 of these shops may live and remain open,
they must have $100 a day each, which, in a year of 300 days, means
an income of $300,000,000 annually. Many of these bucket shops fail
for lack of money, while others "fail" in order that they may keep
the money of the investor. While $100,000 a day as the losses of the
people in the illegitimate speculation in grain is very conservative,
one must add another $100,000 a day as tribute which the gullible
pay to the fake "get-rich-quick" and kindred sharper concerns of the
country.
"SPECULATION" AN UNMEANING TERM.
Yet with this $100,000 a day going into the hopper of frenzied
speculation of all kinds, Bradstreet's for the year 1907 showed
business failures from speculation as one-eighth of 1 per cent of the
total failures of the country.
Whatever may be Bradstreet's definition of the word "speculation,"
as used in his lists, the word to the average business man who
knows whereof he talks is as unmeaning as any other in the business
dictionary. Suppose a man somewhere in a country town loses money in
any speculative venture anywhere under the sun. If it is a few dollars
only, he may not speak of it at all. If it is enough to embarrass
him, perhaps he may have to speak. Under these circumstances the best
possible thing to do is to explain that he lost it "on the Chicago
Board of Trade." If he has no credit at stake in the matter, and is
sore, he may yell murder over his losses "on the board." But hundreds
of such men have lost their money in bucket shops, and scores of them
have lost it at poker or some other gambling game.
"BOARD OF TRADE" FALSELY BLAMED.
Every little while a banker somewhere goes wrong with funds that are
intrusted to him, and in the telling of the story the "Chicago Board
of Trade" is the secret of his undoing.
One of the marked cases of the kind was that of the Aurora banker who
defalcated with $90,000, "lost on the Board of Trade."
But when the story was run down it was discovered that his money was
lost in a bucket shop in Hammond, Ind., which had been driven out of
Chicago through the efforts of the Chicago Board.
When $100,000, at a conservative estimate, every day, is lost by the
American public in bucket shops, just the thing that such a shop is
"in being" should be of economic interest and consideration.
Within the knowledge of tens of thousands of citizens some
acquaintance or person of whom they have had personal knowledge has
gone "broke" in grain speculation.
Yet to find a man who has lost his fortune on the race tracks or in a
gambling den is not at all an easy task.
Without a question the gambling losses in the bucket shop are more
serious in consequences the country over than the losses in any other
one kind of gaming, for the reason that the man who could afford to
confess losses at horse racing or at cards may retain his character
as a business man to a far greater extent by having lost at a "little
flyer in grain."
WHAT IS A BUCKET SHOP.
I have frequently been requested to define bucket shops--a most
difficult task, owing to the variety of disguises which they assume
and the outward similarity which they bear to legitimate brokerage.
The following definition covers the essential features of bucket shops
from the standpoint of an expert.
A bucket shop is an establishment conducted nominally and ostensibly
for the transaction of a grain, cotton or stock exchange business.
The proprietor, with or without the consent of the patron, takes one
side of every deal that is made in his place, the patron taking the
other, no article being bought or sold in any public market.
Bucket shops counterfeit the speculative trading on exchanges.
Continuous market quotations of an exchange are the essence, the very
sinew of the gambling business carried on in a bucket shop, being used
as dice are used, to determine the result of a bet.
The market quotations posted in a bucket shop are exactly similar to
those posted in a legitimate broker's office, but they are displayed
for a different purpose. The broker posts the quotations for the
purpose of showing what the market has been on the exchange as a
matter of news.
The bucket shop posts them as the terms upon which its patrons may
make bets with the keeper. A bucket shop is destroyed if it loses its
supply of quotations.
Margins deposited with the bucket shop proprietor by the patrons are
nothing but the patrons' stakes to the wager, and are appropriated
by the proprietor when the fluctuations of the price on the exchange
whose quotations are the basis of the bet, reach the limit of the
deposit, one party (the proprietor) to the bet acting as stakeholder.
The commissions charged by the bucket shopkeepers are odds in its
favor, and necessary in order to maintain their pretense of being
legitimate brokers making the transaction on an exchange.
READY TO MAKE ALL DEALS.
The bucket shop proprietor is ready to make all deals offered in any
commodity that fluctuates in price. He may call himself banker and
broker, or commission merchant, or disguise his business under the
form of an incorporated enterprise or exchange. But he is still a
common gambler. The interest of the proprietor of a bucket shop is at
all times opposed to that of his patrons, as the profits of the shop
are measured by the losses of the patrons.
Bucket shops should not be confounded with the great public markets
of the world, where buyer and seller, producer and consumer, investor
and speculator meet in legitimate trade; for the pretended buying of
millions of bushels of grain in bucket shops will not add a fraction
of a cent to the price of the product of the farm, nor will the
pretended selling of as much increase the supplies of the consumer or
lessen the cost of his loaf a farthing. Nor should they be confounded
with the offices of legitimate brokers which they endeavor to imitate
in appearance.
NAME COINED IN LONDON.
The term "bucket shop," as now applied in the United States, was
first used in the late '70s. It was coined in London fifty years ago,
when it had absolutely no reference to any species of speculation or
gambling. Beer swillers from the East Side (London) went from street
to street with buckets, draining every keg they came across and
picking up cast-off cigar butts. Arriving at a den they gathered for
social amusement around a table and passed the bucket as a loving cup,
each taking a "pull" as it came his way.
In the interval were smoking and rough jokes. The den came to be
called a bucket shop. Later the term was applied, both in England and
the United States, as a byword of reproach to small places where grain
and stock deals were counterfeited.
Yet the bucket shop is a gambling den par excellence, with all the
paraphernalia necessary for the deception of the unsuspecting. One may
place a $10 bet in the bucket shop, pay a commission of 25 per cent to
the "bucket shopper," who may so shuffle the "cards" that the bettor
may have to lose, even after he has won. As an example:
GAME NEATLY FIXED.
The one thing absolutely necessary to the bucket shop are quotations,
never from a legitimate board of trade, but through leased wires, or
wire tappings, or from some other fake source. For the instant that
the "quotations" cannot be written upon the blackboards the betting
must cease. The bet of the customer is that before a certain grain
drops off a point against him, it will advance a point or more in
his favor, and the bucket shopper takes the bet, holding the stake
himself. Frequently the bettor may realize that he has won a point, or
two, or three, and may insist upon the bucket shop selling for him.
Perhaps the victim lives at a distance from the shop and must write or
wire his "broker." He wires for the "broker" to sell, and perhaps gets
a message in reply to the effect that the market must go much better
than that; that he refuses to sacrifice his patron's best interests in
that way, and will hold on for the certain rise. In most cases this
patron is immensely flattered, until within a few days the market is
"off" again, wiping out not only his profits, but his original margins
as well.
HOW THE SUCKERS ARE SKINNED.
Or if on a certain day the customer takes advantage of a rise in the
commodity bet upon, and insists upon closing out the deal, it is most
frequently settled by the bucket shop upon the lowest figure for the
day. Occasionally, indeed, where a bucket shop keeper has allowed one
or more customers to "win" a considerable figure from it through some
untoward turn in figures, the whole shop closes up and disappears,
leaving the victims no redress at law for the reason that they have
left the money voluntarily in the hands of the sharpers. Occasionally
the country branch office of one of these central bucket shops may
clean out a town of its currency until the scarcity of money in the
place may demoralize the every-day business of the town.
That the man who tries to beat the bucket shop has an impossible task
in front of him in investigating the $10 bet, the commonest in the
shop. The man with the bill steps up to the window and asks to buy ten
shares of American Sugar at $110 a share, paying 25 per cent out of
the $10 as commission. Then, counting that the bucket shop might be
as nearly straight as such an institution can be, remember that the
decline of Sugar three-quarters of a point will wipe out the bettor's
$10, while for him to win another $10, Sugar will have to advance to
$111.25. In short, the customer is betting against a proposition which
will lose him $10 if Sugar declines 75 cents, while to win $10 it must
advance $1.25, in either case the bucket shop holding his money and
taking 25 cents in tolls.
OTHER "FAKES" "BOOST" THE GAME.
In the machinations of the bucket shop interests and those of kindred
concerns that are garnering this $100,000 a day from the American
people, the fake trade journal has had much to do; the fake mercantile
agency, reporting extravagantly upon the responsibility and wealth
of the schemers, has played extensively upon the credulity of men
and women; fake banks and bankers have come into existence for the
completion of the work of the others, and have been by no means the
least in the category of rascality; the whole aggregation has been
lending back and forth the "sucker lists," which is an interchangeable
lists of names and addresses of men and women who have "bitten" at one
scheme and may be promising of a rise to another of different type
under a new title.
On file in the office of a Chicago man of affairs at the present
moment is a series of interesting letters, which he shows occasionally
to a friend. These letters are especially eloquent of a spirit of
investment which is in the country today and which prompts the
"biting" at almost any sort of flaunting announcement of quick riches.
The letters are from a young man holding an official job under the
government at Washington.
BIG DIVIDEND PROMISES FALSE.
The first letter is apologetic for reminding the addressee that he is
an old friend of the writer's family; but it recites that the young
man has about $200 in bank which he has saved from his salary, and
which he is disposed to invest with a certain company if his friend
in Chicago thinks the prospects are in line with good business and
responsibility.
Evidently the Chicago man does not regard the concern as dependable,
for the next letter expresses thanks for saving the writer loss, but
asks a further question of a concern that promises 20 per cent a month
on cash investments in grain.
The third letter, recognizing all that the old friend from Chicago
has done, explains that he has only a fair salary from which it is
hard to save much money, and this fact has led him to the necessity of
considering an investment of his savings that promise large returns,
and yet at the same time promise the maximum of safety. Having
established his reasons for such ventures, he suggests to the friend:
"Perhaps you can answer all I want to know in a single reply. 'Are any
of these concerns promising dividends of 50 per cent and such to be
depended on'?"
And the Chicago man's letter, in substance, reads: "No!"
"OUTSIDER" HAS NO CHANCE.
Speculation, for the most part, as in the case of this young man,
means for the average intelligence a possibility for placing money in
a side line where quick and profitable returns may be expected, wholly
independent of the person's occupation. To the man who knows what the
best of the speculative market is, the necessity for all of the time
and attention and best judgment of the speculator is imperative. It is
a business in which only the best business methods succeed.
On the boards of trade the commission merchants may be wholly apart
from any risk in even the legitimate trading, taking the commission
of one-eighth of a cent a bushel in buying and selling. On the Board
of Trade of Chicago the designated leading speculative articles, in
their order, are wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, mess pork, lard,
short ribs, live hogs and cotton.
A year's grain crop may be 650,000,000 bushels of wheat, 2,500,000,000
bushels of corn, 900,000,000 bushels of oats, 150,000,000 bushels of
barley, and 30,000,000 bushels of rye.
Bucket shops have been condemned by statutes as criminal and
pernicious in many states in the Union, but anti-bucket shop laws are
rarely enforced by public servants whose duty it is to enforce them.
Prosecutions thus far, except in Illinois, have been left to private
citizens or associations for the suppression of gambling.
The "bucket shop" has, within a few years past, sprung from
comparative inconsequence into an institution of formidable wealth and
threatening proportions. There are nearly a thousand in the United
States. Every large city in the west has at least one. Having banded
together in a strong combination they sneer at legislation. Opulent
and powerful they scoff at antagonistic public opinion.
ON LEVEL WITH LOTTERY AND FARO BANK.
The "bucket shop," like the lottery and the faro bank, finds its
profits in its customers' losses. If its patrons "buy" wheat and wheat
goes up, the "bucket shop" loses.
Many a bucket shop commission merchant would hardly know wheat from
oats, and none of their grain and produce "exchanges" ever had a
sample bag on its counters. Their transactions are wagers and their
existence is an incitement to gambling under the guise of commercial
transactions. The pernicious influences of the gaming house are,
in the bucket shop, surrounded by the allurement of a cloak of
respectability and the assumption of business methods.
The legitimate exchange is a huge time and labor saving machine. Its
benefits are universal. While its privileges are valuable they have
been rendered so only by hard work, and its members are entitled to
the protection of the state against thieves. The "bucket shop" is
a thief. The quotations upon which the "bucket shop" trades are the
product of the labor and intelligence and information of the exchange.
The exchange gathers its news at great cost from all over the globe
and disseminates it for public advantage. But its quotations should
be its own property. They are the direct product of its energy, its
foresight and its business sagacity.
The "bucket shop," at no parallel cost, usurps the functions of the
exchange and endeavors to secure for itself the returns for a labor
performed by others. Were it to use honorable methods with its patrons
it would be a dishonorable institution. Using the methods it does, the
"bucket shop" is twice dishonored.
As a matter of fact, all other forms of gambling or swindling are
commonplace and comparatively innocent when compared to the "bucket
shop" which has caused more moral wrecks, more dismantled fortunes and
made more of the innocent suffer than any other agency of diabolism.
Just why so brazen an iniquity in the guise of speculation should be
allowed to exist it is difficult to explain.
OPEN GAMBLING UNDER BAN.
Open gambling has been placed under the ban of civic reform. While the
policy shop, the lottery and other less dangerous methods of swindling
have been effectively stamped out of most cities, the "bucket shop
tiger" continues to rend the ambitions of young and old, dragging them
down to forgery, embezzlement, suicide,--or that which is quite as
bad,--broken spirit for legitimate endeavor. Under the circumstances
the sympathy of the public should be with the movement to drive
"bucket shops" out of business, to close them along with all other
gambling institutions.
It is time that something was done to check the growing evil of
gambling on produce, cotton and stock exchange quotations. A beginning
has been made, but the movement has not gone far enough. These
excrescences on the body politic have multiplied rapidly and so
dangerously near do they come to being popular that the mercantile
community owes it to itself to apply the knife at once.
Moreover, there is no form of gambling more disastrous to the player
than "bucket shop" gambling. Its semi-respectability and likeness in
many outward features to regular and reputable commission houses makes
it the most insidious of all temptations to the young speculator and
aspirant for wealth. It is the open door to ruin.
[Illustration: THAT NEW LEAF]
OPEN DOOR TO RUIN.
Men do not blush at being seen in a "bucket shop" as they would if
caught in a faro bank or poker room though they are drawn thither by
the same passion for gambling that takes them to the regular gambling
den. The "bucket shop" successfully carries on a worse swindling game
than the "blacklegs." The wealth the chief "bucket shop" men of the
country have acquired proves this. Men can be pointed out in Chicago,
New York and other cities of the country who have amassed fortunes at
the business while their thousands of victims are impoverished and
ruined.
Persons desiring to speculate or invest can avoid "bucket shops" and
"fake" brokers by making a preliminary and independent investigation
into the character of the broker and the merits of the enterprise.
If they accept the statements and references of promoters of schemes
without making such investigations they are not entitled to sympathy
if they are robbed.
Legitimate brokers do not resort to sensational advertising; they do
not guarantee profits; nor do they solicit funds to invest on their
judgment. The functions of a broker or commission merchant are to
receive and execute the order of his customers. When he offers to do
more (except in the way of giving market news, advice or conservative
opinions) he should be avoided. Promoters of pools and syndicates and
disseminators of advance information should be carefully avoided.
ON "SURE THINGS."
HOW TO LEARN THEIR REAL CHARACTER.
The cleverness and boldness with which the up-to-date investment
swindler plies his craft are almost incredible. Wherever you find a
fraudulent scheme you will find both of these elements present in
some degree--but the comparative proportion of one to the other is
generally determined by the element of time of operation.
For example, if the projectors of a scheme are old hands at the game
and have established records of the wrong sort, then the idea of quick
results is not only attractive, but often imperative. There are many
"old offenders" in the profession of investment swindling who have
been convicted and have "done time" in jails and penitentiaries, but
have not yet learned to prefer straight to crooked finance.
Men of this character realize that a "quick getaway" is a cardinal
essential of success; they must complete the transaction and get in
the harvest before there is time for the public to wake up and do any
investigating.
The length to which the bolder spirits in this class will go almost
surpasses credibility. Here is an example, discovered by Detective
Wooldridge of Chicago, of the tricks to which they will resort in
order to create the impression of having the backing of men or
institutions of strength and character:
Through introduction by social friends, the local representative of an
investment scheme was able to open a checking account with a banking
and trust company in a big city--a company of such high standing
that it is very widely known outside of financial circles and among
people of small means. Its endorsement was worth "ready money" to
any enterprise, and the fact was keenly appreciated by the "fiscal
agents" of the Brite & Fair Bonanza Company.
After the opening of his personal checking account the fiscal agent
lost no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the trust officer
of the banking institution, which did a very large business in the
discharge of trusts. One day the depositor came to this officer and
explained that he had a very simple little trust which he wished to
have executed. Finding it necessary to leave the city for a few days,
he wished to provide for the delivery of a sealed package, containing
"valuable papers," to a man whose name and personal description was
given. The person to call for the package would leave a certified
check, in the amount of $1,000, which was to be placed to the credit
of the "fiscal agent" of the Brite & Fair Bonanza Company, whose
business connections were unknown to the trust officer of the banking
and trust company.
ALL "BRITE & FAIR."
Weeks later the trust officer was astonished to receive from an old
personal friend, who was knocking about in the west, a circular of
the Brite & Fair Bonanza Company, in which the big trust company was
designated as "trustee" for the "B. & F." stocks. As the friend who
forwarded the circular knew something of the wildcat nature of the
Brite & Fair enterprise, his comments on the folly of the bank's
accepting such a "trust" had an edge on them.
When the matter was investigated it was found that the whole plot had
been carefully concocted and worked up; that the circulars had been
printed and put in directed envelopes ready for mailing in advance of
the placing of the so-called "trust," and that when the trust officer
of the solid financial institution had given his receipt for the
"sealed package said to contain valuable papers," a telegram had been
sent by the "fiscal agent" to "mail out trustee circulars." The man in
this scheme, of course, believed that, as the circulars were being
mailed out into a territory about a thousand miles from the city in
which the banking and trust company was located, the trust officer who
had been imposed upon would never hear of the misuse of his receipt
for a "dummy" package which actually contained certificates of the
mining company's stock.
Why did the men who worked this scheme to steal the moral support of
the big trust company go to so great pains to get it? Because fake
investment operators have found it profitable to take every precaution
to give the color of legality to their acts, they have found it
profitable to hire shrewd legal pilots to tell them just how far
they may go in a given direction without running upon the reefs of
the United States postoffice's "fraud order" or upon the rocks of a
"conspiracy" prosecution.
DODGE UNCLE SAM AND CONSPIRACY LAWS.
Take it in the incident above related: Had these men been prosecuted
for falsely using the name of the trust company or for obtaining money
by misrepresentation (the claim that the trust company was acting as
trustee for the Brite & Fair securities), an able lawyer could have
made out of the "trust" to transfer a package of unknown contents a
very plausible defense. Again, the mining company was able to make
valuable use of the trust company's receipt for the package by having
fac similes of the receipt printed and distributed among solicitors
for the stock who were canvassing persons not at all familiar with
legal documents--and who, under the statements and arguments of the
agent, would see in the receipt an acknowledgment that this great
trust company and its millions were behind the securities of the Brite
& Fair Company.
This brings us straight to the practical point in the matter. Never go
into an investment until you first find out for yourself, by direct
and first-hand investigation, what the "references" named in the
literature or advertising matter of the company have to say about it,
and how much the references themselves amount to.
WILDCATS GIVE GOOD REFERENCE.
Promoters of wildcat investment enterprises have used hundreds
of names as references which they had not the shadow of right to
use--calculating that persons credulous enough to be interested in the
proposition would also be credulous enough to say, "These references
will speak well enough for the enterprise, else their names would
not be given out for this purpose," and to act without making any
inquiries of them.
Again, some man of prominence and great faith may have been, at the
start, a believer in the enterprise and willing to say, within certain
limitations, that he believed the venture could be made a success if
conducted according to certain plans and under given restrictions.
This does not signify that he will continue to retain that confidence
or that he is willing to be understood as giving the venture his
unqualified endorsement, or to say to the public which respects his
name and position:
"Come and share this enterprise with me; put your money into it, for
it's a good thing."
Detective Wooldridge, who has examined many of these concerns, desires
to place special emphasis upon the crafty use which these companies
make of the names and services of reputable "trust" companies. He uses
the word "services" because a trust company may execute a "trust"
in connection with bonds, stocks, property or securities without
really assuming any general financial or moral responsibility for
those securities or without becoming a sponsor for them. In a word,
the trust company may engage to act as an escrow agent to see that a
certain technical transaction is completed, and nothing more. That
means this: The trust company consents to hold the stakes between two
parties, but without the slightest responsibility as to the value of
those stakes or what may be done with them after the stipulations as
to the conditions precedent to delivery have been fulfilled.
Because a trust company acts as the trustee of a certain bond issued
there is no warrant for a prospective investor to feel that the
resources of the trust company are in any sense behind these deeds as
a guarantee of values.
Another word of caution: Whenever you see the name of an educator, a
pastor or a popular politician, or any other leader having a hold on
the sentiment of a community used in connection with an investment
offering, look into it carefully and take no step until the person
mentioned has been questioned directly by you.
HUGE SWINDLES BARED.
Officers of Four Underwriting and Guarantee Companies Arrested by
Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
Charges Are Bogus Underwriting and Fraudulent Inspection of Properties.
All the officers of the four biggest underwriting and guarantee
companies in the west, with headquarters in Chicago, were arrested.
They were charged with having engineered the boldest and most
comprehensive swindle ever exposed in this country.
[Illustration: GETT, RICH & CO. PROMOTERS OF "GOOD THINGS"]
The following are the names of the men arrested for running The
Central State Underwriting and Guarantee corporation room 1306,
Tribune building:
W. H. Hulbert, H. B. Hudson, Francis Owings, M. J. Roughen, W. H.
Todd, were arrested for running a confidence game. W. H. Todd jumped
his bond and fled to St. Louis, Mo., where he was apprehended and
brought back by Detective Wooldridge.
$300,000,000 CAPITAL.
The book of the Central State Underwriting and Guarantee corporation
had promoted 300 corporations and companies which were capitalized at
$300,000,000. Stock bonds were issued which was guaranteed by this
company. This company further agreed to sell these bonds and stocks to
raise the money to financier these companies.
The complaint was made by the Compensating Pipe Organ Company, through
C. V. Wisner. The firm is located at Battle Creek, Mich.
W. H. Todd & Co. was employed by the Pipe Organ Company to make a bond
issue of $150,000. The brokerage firm, he said, demanded a 1 per cent
deposit, amounting to $1,500.
This was paid, according to Wisner's complaint, and Todd & Company
undertook to deposit the money with another underwriting company.
Then, he asserts, the bond issue was never made, and Todd & Company
failed to repay the $1,500.
The firm conducts a banking, brokerage and underwriting business at
room 803, 112 Dearborn street.
DID HEAVY BUSINESS.
Rare oriental rugs, the most costly tables and chairs, and elaborate
grandfather clocks, together with an amazing amount of polished brass
work and plate glass, were found in each of the imposing offices
raided by the deputy marshals.
The Central States Underwriting & Guarantee Company did a business
commensurate with the costly environment. The books of the concern
show that from February 1, 1903, to August 5, 1906, 643 corporations
throughout the United States paid money to the Central States concern,
and the aggregate amount paid was $340,000.
[Illustration: AT LAST!]
Advertisements were placed in all the leading papers throughout the
country, circulars were distributed broadcast with propositions
that capital could be obtained for corporations and manufacturing
enterprises by addressing this company.
The officers of corporations replying to these advertisements would be
asked to call at the Chicago offices of the companies.
The brokers acquainted with the scheme would then introduce the
corporation officials to alleged capitalists who represented they had
available capital to finance business propositions, and would buy the
underwritten stock, provided the corporation officers would have them
underwritten by responsible guarantee companies.
It is asserted that these alleged capitalists would then advise that
the work be done by the Central States Underwriting & Guarantee
Company, the American Corporation & Securities Company, or the
National Stock & Guarantee Company of San Francisco.
SCHEME OF THE COMPANY.
The brokers in the alleged fraudulent transactions would represent
to the proposed victim that they would get no returns for their work
unless they actually sold the stocks, and that they would be content
with a commission of from one-half to 1 per cent on such stock as
they sold. They assured the victims that there could be no doubt that
the stock underwritten would be sold, as the capitalists to whom the
victims had been introduced would be certain to buy them.
The brokers would then take the men seeking the underwriting to the
offices of the guarantee companies and arrange for guaranteeing the
bonds on payment of a fee of 1 per cent of the amount of underwriting.
The men arrested never entered into a proposition on which less
than $100,000 was involved, and that they, in some cases, obtained
$5,000,000 worth of stock to underwrite.
Detective Wooldridge secured proof that the application fee which
was paid by the officers of the corporations to the underwriting
companies was always divided among those companies and the fraudulent
brokers who had sent the corporation's officers to the supposed
underwriters.
THE GUARANTEE CO. METHODS.
The Guarantee Company system is a new phase of "promotion" that has
come to the surface during the past two years, but which, through
police and legal investigation, has about reached its limit.
A strictly legitimate guarantee company is modeled much after the
Fidelity and Insurance Bond corporations. They issue secured bonds for
all necessary business purposes, and are reputable and responsible.
About 1903 a promotion gang in Chicago stole the name "Guarantee," and
half a dozen fake guarantee companies were started.
In all the phraseology of tricky finance there is no word so
overworked as "guarantee." And this means that experience has proved
it to be highly effective in the hooking of "suckers." Depend upon it,
that no word or phrase achieves marked popularity in the literature
of the "small investments" appeal which has not demonstrated its rare
effectiveness as an agency of deception; the phrase that does not draw
the money is promptly thrown out by these shrewd fishers of men, who
check up their returns as accurately and systematically as the most
legitimate mail order business.
If the small investors of this country could reach anything like a
fair knowledge of just how much and how little there is in each of
these appealing "catch words" in each phrase, the plausibility of
which has been scientifically tested, they would be well on the way
toward being able to protect themselves against the cleverest and most
convincing of these appeals. Perhaps the writer can do the public more
service in analyzing a few of these "star phrases" than by any amount
of denunciation of the wildcat schemes and schemers which deserve as
harsh a characterization as any man can frame.
[Illustration: RURAL RESIDENTS CANNOT BE TOO PROMPT IN TYING DOWN
THEIR PROPERTY.]
But, to return to the word "guarantee," which has attained first rank
in the terminology of the investment trickster, there is scarcely a
circular, folder or advertisement, or any other piece of literature
put out by the pot hunters of small savings which does not display
the word "guarantee" in big type, and with reiterated emphasis. If
this institution chances to be of a financial character itself, rather
than a mining, oil or industrial concern, the word "guarantee," or its
twin, "security," will be found incorporated in the name chosen for
the company.
Get a list of 100 wildcat investment schemes which are dead beyond
hope of resurrection, and it is a safe prediction that one-half the
names will contain the word "guarantee" or "security." These two words
are as common to the eye in the graveyard of fake investment schemes
as is that of Smith, Jones or Brown in any country cemetery; they
adorn practically every other tombstone in the last resting place of
defunct financial frauds.
The question of the value of either of these words in the title of
a corporation or concern is disposed of by the statement that there
is no legal restriction in the choice of names of companies; the
organizers are as free to name their flimsy creation "The Rock of
Gibraltar Guarantee Security Company" as the parent is to saddle a
weak, under-sized male child with the name of Samson. And, as a rule,
there is as much license or propriety in giving the name of the mighty
enemy of the Philistines to a stunted boy as there is for applying
the name "guarantee" or "security" to a company which is brought into
being for the purpose of going out after the savings of the "small
investor."
Why? Because the companies which are really warranted in making either
of these words a part of their corporate name do not have to go into
the highways and hedges and beat the bushes for their business; it
comes to them by force of their "financial strength." They have no
need to drum it up.
GOOD ADVICE ON "GUARANTEE."
However, scores of oil, mining and investment companies which do not
use either of these clever catchwords in their corporate titles cannot
be charged with undervaluing the "pulling power" of such phrases; in
their literature this kind of bait is employed with the greatest skill
and plausibility.
One of the most common ways in which this idea is dressed is this:
"We guarantee you, under all conditions and at all times, to get
you, without cost to yourself, the highest market price for your
holdings." This sounds very assuring; it carries with it a protective
and almost paternal atmosphere and seldom fails to inspire in the
trusting investor the feeling that there is a strong hand always ready
to take the investment off his shoulders the moment it threatens to
become a burden.
This particular phrase is especially fortunate and typical, by way of
illustration, for the reason that it couples with the word "guarantee"
another term which is a warm favorite with the word artists of the
get-rich-quick studies. I allude to the phrase, "highest market value."
Wherever either of these clever signals to credulity is displayed the
possible investor should invariably remember these points:
=First--A guarantee is never stronger than the guarantor.=
=Second--A security only has a "market value" in the fair and true
sense of the term where a large demand for it meets a large supply;
there, and there only, exists an active market and a genuine "market
value."=
Let these two propositions (which any reputable banker or broker
will tell you are axiomatic) be considered separately. There is no
virtue in the word "guarantee." If this simple fact could have been
firmly fixed in the minds of the small investors of this country
they would have been saved the loss of millions of dollars since
our present period of wonderful prosperity began. In these days of
highly perfected business organization the process of finding out the
responsibility of any financial or business concern has been reduced
to an exact science and made available to all. Is it reasonable to
suppose, under these conditions, that any company or corporation
which cannot stand on its own feet can get any responsible concern
to guarantee its bonds or other so-called securities? Never! Such a
supposition is absurd on the face of it, and an instance where it has
been done is not, so far as is known, to be found in actual practice.
Dig down under the "guarantee" of the company which asks you to
invest your savings and what do you find? That if you do invest you
and your fellow victims are really your own guarantors; that the
financial strength of the concern is really the money which you and
your associates pour into it; that its only financial life blood comes
from the purses of the small investors, and that when the stream
of vitality from this source begins to dry up, the services of the
financial undertaker are in near and inevitable demand.
Reduced to its last analysis, the blacktype declaration of a
"guarantee" in the literature of the "get-rich-quick" concern simply
means that it has something to sell you. Generally, it is also an
invitation to you to pay in advance for the flowers to adorn your own
financial funeral.
As to the other pet phrase, "highest market value," or market value of
any kind, for that matter, a very few words will suggest the situation:
Excepting where a very large demand meets an insufficient supply in
a free, open and comparatively unmanipulated market, where sales are
regularly made of record and those records command the respect and
confidence of the legitimate financial public, there is no "market
value" save that which is arbitrarily made by the broker. He is the
market; he makes the price by the simple process of "thumbs up" or
"thumbs down."
The man who is on the "sucker" list of a wildcat concern receives an
announcement that "all indications point to the conclusion that next
week the stock of the Honor Bright Company will sell at not less than
five points advance of the present price."
The next week he gets notice that the prediction of an advance
had proved true. If he is unsophisticated enough he receives the
announcement with solemn credulity and credits the author of the
promotion literature with great acumen and shrewd prophetic powers. He
figures up the profits he would have made on the advance and condemns
himself for not heeding the "confidential" advice to "buy quick."
What he does not consider is the fact that he is dealing with a
fictitious market, where the seller simply makes up his mind how much
he will advance the stock in question and then, when the time comes,
marks it up and makes the announcement of the "sharp advance." This
trick is turned not only for the purpose of getting a larger price per
share, but mainly to tickle the cupidity of hesitating investors and
making sales which otherwise could not have been made.
In order to understand how these companies operate, the actual
experience of one victim will serve to explain the whole system.
A country manufacturer, rated at $50,000, read an advertisement in a
financial journal about as follows:
"Capital Supplied--We have the means of furnishing
any amount of capital for any meritorious industrial
proposition. Address Lock Box XX, Chicago."
The manufacturer wrote he wanted to raise $100,000 to increase his
business, and offered to put in all his effects, stock and good will.
He received a letter asking him to come to Chicago and visit the
firm, which, for convenience, shall be described as "Cold Cash & Co."
He did so. Cash received him in an elegant office with open arms.
The manufacturer there re-stated his necessities. The affable broker
informed him his proposition was a fine one, and said he could have
the desired $100,000 within thirty days.
"What would be the broker's fee?" he inquired. Only 5 per cent when
$100,000 was in the hands of the manufacturer. Certainly an alluring
prospect. But how was the money to be raised? The manufacturer was to
incorporate his business for $200,000, and the broker would sell half
of its capital stock at par.
As the delighted "sucker" was about to leave the broker's office
the latter, in the most off-hand manner, said: "Oh, by the way, Mr.
Manufacturer, what arrangements have you made to guarantee your
capital stock?" "Guarantee it? I don't understand you," replied the
victim.
"Bless you!" said the broker, "modern methods demand that all stock be
guaranteed--quite the new order of things. We couldn't sell a share of
stock nowadays unless it was guaranteed."
"Explain!"
"I will. You go to some guarantee company and have them agree to
guarantee the payment of the principal of each share of stock sold
at thirty years. Don't you see that makes your stock as solid as a
government bond?
"The guarantee company takes a certain portion of the proceeds of
the stock, invests it for thirty years. With interest and compound
interest, in 1935 the stock has accumulated its par sum. It is a
beautiful system."
DO BOOMING BUSINESS.
"Very plausible, but where are these guarantee companies?"
"Why, there are The National, The States, and The Industrial. We hear
The States is doing a booming business. Go and see them. They are at
such a number."
The victim went to the richly furnished suite of offices occupied by
the guarantee company and met its dignified "president," to whom he
explained the purpose of his visit.
"Very good," said that official. "We will accept your risk. We will
issue you an option agreeing within one year to issue you bonds
against your stock as sold, you to pay us an advance fee of $1,000."
The "sucker" demurred. He had only $500 spare cash. The president
suggested that as the broker would make a liberal commission out of
the deal he might put up the other $500. The manufacturer 'phoned the
broker, who promptly agreed to pay one-half of the fee. The broker
gave the victim a worthless check for $500, which he gave, together
with $500 of his own good money, into the hands of the "guarantee"
company. The company thereupon issued a certificate, or option, for
bonds that were never called for because the broker never sold any of
the stock.
The victim went home loaded down with promises. The broker "strung"
him along for a month or two, but sold no stock. Finally the
manufacturer realized he was buncoed. The broker and the "guarantee"
company divided the $500, and proceeded to find other suckers.
March 17, 1906, E. C. Talmage, who conducted the National Underwriting
& Bond Co., of San Francisco, Cal.; the Pacific Underwriting & Trust
Co., of San Francisco, Cal.; the Imperial Bond & Trust Co., of New
Jersey City, New Jersey; the International Trust Co., of Philadelphia;
the Chicago National Bonding Co., of Chicago, at 52 Dearborn street;
E. C. Talmage; E. S. Barnum, 103 Randolph street; and M. J. Carpenter,
of the First National bank, were arrested.
George D. Talmage, another member of the firm located at Kansas City,
Mo., was afterwards arrested and brought to Chicago, charged with
obtaining money under the confidence game. The warrants on which they
were arrested were taken out by E. J. Denison and Rev. Peter A. Baart,
a Methodist minister of Marshall, Mich., who were officers of the La
Vaca mines and mills, of Joplin, Mo.
Rev. Mr. Baart first went to E. C. Talmage.
Talmage sent him to E. S. Barnum to have the stock guaranteed. Barnum
charged him a fee of $500 and agreed to sell the bonds, which he
failed to do. They just simply divided this fee between them and made
no effort to float the bonds.
Among the persons alleged to have suffered losses are the following:
Victoria A. Toole, 396 55th street $500
Dr. C. J. Grey, 103 State street 250
Miss Frances Mason, sister of Hon. W. E. Mason 1,000
A. C. Nelson, 1057 Addison avenue 150
J. W. Wilson, Opera House block 100
G. G. Eustis, Melrose, Ia. 100
Lalorena Gold and Copper Mining Company 100
Wortham Bros. Company 150
Golden Ranch Sugar and Cattle Company 9,000
Frank McCuddy, Clinton, Ia. 7,500
Dr. E. Hall and J. Brown 125
E. C. Talmage, S. D. Talmage and E. S. Barnum were indicted by the
Cook county grand jury.
George D. Talmage fled to Kansas City, Mo., where he conducted a
branch office in the same business. He was arrested at Kansas City,
Mo., on request of the chief of police of Chicago, for operating
the confidence game. Extradition papers were secured and Detective
Wooldridge brought him back. When his father's office was raided, at
52 Dearborn street, a number of letters was seized, among them were
several written from George D. Talmage, at Kansas City, Mo.
The following extracts are taken from George D. Talmage's letter to
his father:
"Saw old Blank today. He was easy. Inclosed find his check
for $1,000"; and, "When I mentioned bonds to old Tightwad
he fell over backwards and swallowed a set of false teeth."
One from a town in Kansas is said to have read: "Nothing
doing in this joint. The people here wouldn't buy gold
dollars for 90 cents."
One letter which reflected particularly upon the cupidity of our K.
C., U. S. A. citizens, runs: "I am giving it to these little Kansas
City suckers strong. I expect to be able to send you $1,000 the last
of the week."
E. C. Talmage, George D. Talmage and E. S. Barnum were placed on trial
before Judge Brentano for swindling the Rev. Peter A. Baart, Marshall,
Mo., out of $500.
E. S. Barnum was discharged and the Talmages found guilty.
A new trial was secured for George D. Talmage. His father, E. C.
Talmage, on May 10, 1907, was sentenced to an indefinite term in the
Joliet penitentiary.
THE SOCIAL EVIL.
The treatment of the social evil is one of the most difficult problems
with which society has ever been confronted. Until society is
thoroughly regenerated and the consequent purity, both of manhood and
womanhood, has become a permanent fact, illicit relationship between
man and woman will exist.
The attraction of the sexes is as mighty as it is mysterious. No
legislation will weaken its inherent force.
The man who can come forward with a cure for this great curse is, I
fear, yet to be born.
[Illustration: (People running by heart)]
In common with other vices the so-called "social evil" is as old as
mankind, and it will probably remain as long as vice and sin are
found in the human heart. Its complete eradication will, perhaps,
never be accomplished solely through the process of law, yet it seems
to me that the law and its administrators should not lessen their
efforts to destroy this evil.
In Norway, and in Switzerland, are the conditions most favorable to
virtue and independence, the absence of extreme wealth and poverty.
Both countries are comparatively isolated from the rest of the world.
In Switzerland, as well as Norway, there is an absence of large masses
pent up together in cities, the population being distributed in small
numbers about the country. Sir John Bowring, sent from England to
investigate Swiss society, found that "a drunkard is seldom seen,
and illegitimate children are rare." As a people these Swiss are
a testimonial to the doctrine of equal distribution of wealth and
temperate habits as preventive of immorality.
AMERICA FOLLOWS OLD LINES.
The history of the United States is the history of all countries
as regards prostitution. The population is made up of all nations,
civilized and semi-civilized. In the majority of cases poverty is
the greatest incentive to prostitution. Permanent prostitution has a
numerical relation to the means of occupation.
At the present time in all parts of the United States the lower strata
of men and women are deprived of the results of their labor except
in quantities barely sufficient to retain life in their bodies. They
are huddled together indiscriminately as to sex, in close, crowded
quarters, so that the ordinary delicacies of life cannot be practiced
even if there should be a desire.
The chiefest and often the only form of pleasure within their reach is
that given by nature for the purest and best use in life, but which
comes to be the veriest debauchery. Children and youth growing up
among adults, depraved because no ray of light was shed to show the
way for moral and physical uplifting, must naturally imbibe the miasma
of social impurity. From the very cradle through life their influence
is to further degrade themselves.
On the other hand are the extreme rich, who, not being compelled to
labor for sustenance, spend their time and money in selfish enjoyment.
In contrast with the extreme poor, they have every possibility to
cultivate the good in themselves, but will not, and it grows pale and
sickly among the rank weeds of their selfishness.
Chiefly, among self-gratifications, are social evil habits, especially
on part of the men of wealth. Their manner of life, the food they eat,
creates a fictitious force which must expend itself. They may have a
chivalrous regard for the women of their class, but consider all women
below them to be legitimate prey.
Relying on their wealth to insinuate themselves into the good graces
of young women by supplying them with such things as will gratify
vanity, the offspring of rich parentage find fascination in pursuit
of their object. When she is at last won, and her virtuous scruples
overcome, she is thrown aside like the wilted flower which has yielded
all its perfume. The brothel is open to receive all such, particularly
if she be handsome of face or form.
ONLY BURNED ORPHAN ASYLUM.
New York, Chicago, St. Louis, any great city will furnish examples
by the thousands. Where one girl enters this life from choice
(through sensuality inherited from the lust of her father, no doubt),
ninety-nine are sucked into its whirlpool by force of circumstances.
The young woman who is a clerk is paid an amount which will barely
cover the cost of living. She is expected to dress well, and if she
protests that she can not, is told to rely on some "gentleman friend"
for other expenses. Likewise in factories and shops. Only she who is
protected by home associations, and whose labor is done to add to the
general home comfort, can hope to escape, and then not always.
The grim, irrefutable facts in connection with the thrusting of the
working girl into prostitution by the wealthy owners of department
stores, was never better expressed than in a recent story by O. Henry,
in McClure's Magazine.
Henry dreamed that he had been dead a long while, and that he had
finally arrived at the Judgment Day. An Angel policeman was haling
him before the Great Court of Last Resort. As he was forced into the
waiting room the Angel policeman asked him kindly if he belonged with
a certain crowd which he saw near him. The members of this coterie
were dressed in frock coats, gray trousers, spats, patent leather
shoes, and all of them boasted of high silk hats.
"Who are they?" asked the trembling Henry. "Oh, they are the men who
ran big department stores and paid their poor girls five dollars a
week in order that they themselves might belong to clubs, go to Europe
and own fine residences and automobiles," replied the angel.
"Not on your life," replied Henry. "I'm only the feller that murdered
a blind man for his pennies and burned down the orphan asylum. I don't
belong with that bunch."
With the present system of government, each year tends to annihilate
the middle class, in which lies a nation's strength.
"Ill fares the Hand, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
While extreme poverty exists on the one hand, and extreme wealth on
the other, it would be as plausible to dam up Niagara Falls as to stop
prostitution by legislating against it. The current, checked in one
course, is bound to break out in another, and with all its pent-up
force. Human life, like the river, is bound to flow in the channel of
the least resistance.
Nature planned the association of the sexes as surely and as
inevitably as any other of her laws. Whenever her laws are trespassed
upon in any way there is suffering. The wretched conditions of the
poor and the perverted natures of the wealthy turn sex association
into social evil.
GIVE ALL HONEST CHANCE.
Giving to all young men and women honest means of livelihood with
extra times and resources for the cultivation of their talents
and their better selves, honorable marriage would be preferred to
prostitution in nearly every case.
[Illustration: THE PACE THAT KILLS]
There is no hope for moral purification among the wealthy until such
time as they will use their time and talents in useful work. An
enormous field for missionary work would be for some one of ability
to convert the wealthy world to the religion of useful work. As a
self-evident truth, no able-bodied person has the right to live off
the labor of another person. Instead of the many working to the last
notch of human endurance that the few may live in luxury and idleness,
there should be labor for all, and enough for all. Money, however,
is without love, or patriotism, or kindness--is all-powerful, and
is fawned upon, and catered to by those possessing it in limited
quantities.
The remedy for prostitution, as well as other evils, lies in the hands
of the American people themselves, if they only knew it. Just a few
years of intelligent voting and legislating for better conditions for
the many, instead of for the few extremely wealthy, would tend to
overcome all injustice and inequality. The social evil would be weeded
out because people would then have time to obey the injunction, "Know
Thyself."
AVERAGE EVIL LIFE VERY SHORT.
According to statistics the average life of a prostitute is four years
after entering the maelstrom of such a career. The life is never such
as to be recommended even by its followers. It is moral as well as
physical death when followed, and is well-nigh impossible to escape
once having bowed to its seeming fascination.
As to the libertine, he "sells himself for what he buys." He may
enjoy pleasure, but not happiness. Happiness comes from within, in
the consciousness of doing right. Pleasures come from without, in the
gratification of self. In addition to the hollowness of the enjoyment
in the lives of prostitute and libertine, is always the danger of
loathsome disease which tortures body and brain, lowering them in
their own minds. It is about the only ill in the category that does
not command sympathy, but it should.
The evils of drunkenness, theft, or prostitution are on the same basis
as far as the "necessity" for their existence. All are more or less
the result of a badly adjusted economic condition of whatever nation.
They can be reduced to a minimum, if not eradicated, by removing the
cause.
ARGUMENT AGAINST SEGREGATION.
The first and most convincing argument against the segregation of vice
is found in the fact that the law expressly condemns crime of all
kinds and requires its relentless prosecution in order to effect its
destruction. Besides, vice districts would shortly become breeding
spots for the propagation of crime of every kind. Here would be
attracted the criminal classes from all parts of the country, because
here they would be protected by the very law which they violate.
Not only would the inhabitants of such districts regard themselves
within the law, but others, who now fear to enter these resorts
because of the probability of arrest and public exposure, would
patronize the district, armed with the knowledge that non-arrest was a
certainty and exposure highly improbable. The locality and extent of
such districts would soon become a matter of common information, and
young men would thus find easy access to disreputable resorts which
otherwise they might never find.
EVIL NOT NECESSARY.
Many advance the argument that the evil is a necessary one and must be
tolerated, else the safety of virtuous women upon our streets would
be seriously threatened and imperiled. The fallacy and absurdity of
this contention is proved by the conditions which exist in many of the
large cities of Great Britain and Canada, where houses of ill-fame
are practically unknown, and where women are as safe as in cities
where the segregation of vice prevails. This result has been obtained
by persistent effort on the part of officials whose duty it is to
suppress and punish crime. Such a condition can never be secured here
if districts are established where this particular form of vice may
flourish with the tacit approval of our public officers. Surely we in
Chicago are not willing to admit that which has been done elsewhere
cannot be done here.
Chicago could not legally license or regulate this evil, for our state
law forbids license. The moral sentiment of our people is also against
it. Several years or so ago, when a resolution was introduced into
the city council looking toward segregation, medical examination and
license, a vigorous protest was made by the Chicago Woman's Club, the
Evanston Woman's Club, and other such organizations. The good women of
Chicago will not tamely submit to such additional degradation of their
wronged sisters.
NOBLER WOMANHOOD THE GOAL.
Chicago women are working hard to protect innocent women from lives
of infamy and to help the repentant to a nobler womanhood. If there
were men working among their own sex with equal devotions there would
be a lessening of the social evil. If physicians would teach men the
safety of chastity and the horrors of licentiousness, if preachers
would train their guns against impurity, if popular clubs would expel
licentious men, if the mayor would order the arrest of every person,
man or woman, found in these houses, apparently so well known to the
police, and have such arrests continued night after night, these
methods would cause a marked lessening of the social evil.
The police of Chicago have done much in recent years to make it a
better city. To them is due the credit more than to anyone else for
better conditions in our moral life. If they are encouraged and
allowed to work out these problems in their own practical way they
will do more for our city's good than all the theoretical reformers
combined.
Many conditions ought not to exist, but they must and will remain
for the present. Your reformer, so-called, writes and pleads for the
ideal. The police force deals with what is and knows best what can be
done.
SUPPRESS MANUFACTURE AND SALE OF DANGEROUS
WEAPONS--THEY ARE A CONSTANT MENACE TO LIFE AND GOOD ORDER.
MADE SOLELY FOR UNLAWFUL USE--ENGENDER CRIME, INCREASE ACCIDENTS
AND MAKE SUICIDE EASY--CARRYING CONCEALED WEAPONS A VICIOUS AND
INEXCUSABLE HABIT.]
[Illustration: LAW TO REGULATE SALE OF FIREARMS]
The "lid" should be put upon deadly weapons--pistols, revolvers, dirk
knives, brass knuckles--not merely to hide them, but to prevent their
manufacture and sale.
While serving as police officer I could not fail to observe that
substantially all of the crimes committed with the pistol or
revolver resulted from the practice of carrying the weapon upon the
person. There would be a controversy in a bar-room, on the street or
elsewhere, followed by a fight and ending with a shooting by someone
present who had the weapon conveniently concealed upon his person. But
for the presence of the weapon on the scene there would have been no
shooting.
I recall but one case where the defendant left the scene of the
controversy to procure a weapon. Murder committed by lying in wait
or with premeditation for any length of time is extremely rare. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the crime is committed on the spur
of the moment.
Statistics furnished by the police department show startling facts.
Citizens do not realize the number of persons who are either wounded
or killed every year by shooting with the revolver. One can hardly
pick up a metropolitan paper without finding an account of a shooting,
either by accident or design. We have laws forbidding the carrying of
concealed weapons, which are to a certain extent effective, but to
a very small extent, because it is practically impossible to search
every man on the street--and keep him searched. The law, no matter how
rigidly enforced, can do but little substantial good.
We must also consider other deadly weapons, such as dirk knives and
brass knuckles. So far as these are concerned, they are manufactured
solely to be used as instruments of crime. The brass knuckle is never
used as a weapon of defense, but always as one of offense. The dirk
knife has no use other than as a weapon to be used against human
beings. It is not used either in war or for any domestic purpose.
So far as the revolver is concerned, it has no proper use anywhere in
the world. It is carried either as a weapon of offense or defense;
but as a weapon of defense it is only possibly effective when there
is a revolver in the hands of the antagonist. If he has none, none is
needed for defense.
An attack made upon a man at close quarters by the use of a sandbag
or any other weapon in the hands cannot be met practically with a
revolver. There is no time or opportunity for its use.
The proposition is therefore sound that, if no one carried a pistol
for offense, none would be needed for defense.
Shotguns and rifles are used in hunting, but not the revolver.
The ordinary revolver of commerce, the one which a man can carry
concealed, has no use in modern warfare. There is no legitimate use
anywhere for such a weapon.
September, 1907, officials of the New York police department, acting
under Commissioner Bingham's orders, took 5,000 revolvers out to sea
beyond Sandy Hook and threw them overboard. The literary secretary of
the commissioner said it reminded him of the Doges who used to wed the
sea with rings. If the New York ceremony was not so richly symbolical
it certainly was vastly more sensible.
These revolvers were the results of eighteen months of police
seizures. Some of them were automatic weapons in the $28 class, and
others were of the common variety used by small boy initiates in
crime. Together they were worth at least $15,000. Not so very long
ago New York City held an auction sale every year just before the
Fourth of July at which all confiscated weapons were sold. Thereby
Fourth of July killings were made easy and cheap, and crime at all
other times of the year was encouraged, for most of the weapons went
to pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers, who put them back in the hands
that would use them worst. The police have one instance of a revolver
that to their knowledge came back into their possession four times in
this way.
It is wise to destroy these weapons, but consider how little good is
accomplished compared with what might be accomplished by original
control of the sale of weapons. The city sacrifices the $15,000 or
something less which it might have got for these weapons, but if it
would take $15,000 and spend it vigorously in regulating the sale
of weapons, in licensing and perhaps heavily taxing all dealers, in
requiring the keeping of complete records of sales and in prosecuting
all persons carrying concealed weapons, it would accomplish very much
more to the same end.
Chicago is a city in which unlimited laxity is allowed dealers
in pistols. The way is made easy for the criminal who wants to
arm himself. Despite the successful experience of other cities in
regulating the sales of weapons, the council is reluctant to give the
city a stronger ordinance.
Suicide with the revolver is a favorite method of self-destruction
with men. Press the muzzle against the head or heart, a slight
pressure of the forefinger--instant oblivion follows.
The bandit who holds up the railroad train and robs the passengers
almost invariably uses a revolver. With this small weapon he
terrorizes and robs an entire trainload of travelers.
The vicious carry pistols with criminal intent, but there is also
a very large class, which might be designated as a "weak" class,
which carries the pistol without any criminal intent, but under
the influence of a fascination for the handling of deadly weapons.
Among certain classes of negroes it is the habit to carry pistols or
other deadly weapons to balls, parties or other places where they
congregate, and they carry them, apparently, to a certain extent, as
a matter of ornament, something on the principle of our gentlemanly
forefathers of a few hundred years ago, who considered no full-dress
equipment complete without the rapier. The very fact that these
weapons are present leads to brawls and quarrels, which result only
too frequently in killing, or an attempt to kill.
It is dangerous to put into the hands of a weak person a weapon which
may carry death and destruction by the small pressure of the finger.
The very handling of such weapons seems to breed the desire to use
them. The situation is something similar to that of a man who gazes
over the brink of a precipice and to whom there comes an almost
irresistible desire to throw himself over.
There would be some force in the argument that the law-abiding citizen
has the right to carry a revolver to protect himself from thugs if
his pistol were any real protection; but it is not. The attack from
the thug on the highway comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that there
is rarely an opportunity to use a weapon in defense; and, even if
it should occasionally happen that a man would be at a disadvantage
because he had no pistol, this loss to the community is outweighed a
thousand to one by the evils which follow its use.
Why should we permit men to manufacture and sell instruments of
crime--weapons which are designed for no other purpose? We do have
laws which prevent the free sale of poisons, based upon the fact
that poisons may be used as a means of self-destruction or in the
destruction of others. But we have no safeguards against the purchase
and use of these other deadly agencies.
A brilliant display of deadly weapons may be found in any first-class
hardware store, one which is peculiarly tempting to the young, the
weak and the vicious. Pawnshops are heavily stocked with weapons of
this character.
There are a hundred places on the streets of Chicago, particularly on
Clark and State streets, where may be found in cases standing in front
of stores a display of brass knuckles, dirks and revolvers, which
can be purchased at a very small price--and without restrictions of
any kind. Yet they are purchased, almost exclusively, to be used as
instruments of crime.
Experience has demonstrated that the laws which forbid the carrying of
concealed weapons are not effective; and it is not possible that, in
the very nature of things, they can be entirely so. There is only one
sure and effective way of preventing the criminal use of these deadly
weapons--that is, to make it impossible for men to get hold of them.
This can be done only by forbidding their manufacture and sale. The
State, in the exercise of its police power, has authority to pass laws
of this character.
I submit that it is the duty of the community to demand the passage
of such laws. There seems to be no answer to this proposition when
you consider that these articles are not manufactured to sell for
any legitimate purpose, and that to deprive men of the privilege of
manufacturing and selling deadly weapons does not, in any degree,
deprive the community of anything which may be of any real use or
benefit.
It is the duty of the State to prevent as well as to punish crime
and to protect its weak and vicious citizens, so far as it can,
from the temptation to do wrong. We would not tempt men to steal by
affording them easy opportunities for theft, especially if we knew
that they were either weak or wicked. And yet, we make absolutely no
effort to keep deadly weapons out of dangerous hands. We do attempt
to forbid their concealment. Practically this attempt is a failure
and, in effect, we permit men to carry deadly weapons which may be
successfully concealed until the very moment they are brought into use.
A great deal of the lurid literature has grown up around the
pistol. The cowboy with his gun play has always been an attractive
character in fiction. No doubt there is a time in the pioneer life
of a community when there seems to be some excuse for the use of the
revolver. But a dispassionate view of this subject, having in mind
the welfare of a settled, organized State, every part of which is
pervaded by law and within its restraining influence, points to the
conclusion that the time has come to legislate revolvers, dirks and
brass knuckles out of existence.
QUEERS THE TOWN.
The elaborate display of revolvers, dirks and brass knuckles in shop
windows creates a most unfavorable impression on visitors. Many
travelers like to walk to their hotels for the exercise after the long
journey from the east.
They get their first impression of Chicago from a walk up Clark or
State street.
On all sides they see revolvers, bludgeons, sandbags and slung-shots.
"Ah! This is the West at last," say many. "Now look out for Indians
and grizzy bears."
Upon Chicagoans who witness these exhibitions of criminal tools daily
the effect is most depressing. It makes them think that civilization
is still far off. In New York there is an ordinance forbidding
pawnshops to display such weapons in the window.
The accidental shootings, alone, caused by the careless handling of
pistols, would justify a law preventing their manufacture and sale.
What possible benefit can be suggested to offset the evils which we
have spoken of? Certainly the idea of individual liberty cannot be
carried to the extent of making it the duty of a State to afford a
man the facilities for the commission of crime. There is no right
involved in the matter which is worthy of respect. Let me give you a
few illustrations:
A negro carried his revolver with him to a ball. This was customary.
During a lull in the dance, while talking with his companions--men
and women--he pulls out this revolver and shows it around for the
admiration of his friends. He is under the impression that it is not
loaded. He places it playfully at the head of his sweetheart, pulls
the trigger, and she drops dead.
That chamber happened to be loaded. It was determined to be a case of
wanton carelessness on his part and he was sentenced to two years in
the penitentiary. Why should a man like that be allowed to carry a
pistol at all? Under what possible circumstances could he use it in
any legitimate way?
A few months ago the cashier in a bank, a valuable citizen, in a
neighboring town, sat down at his desk in a despondent moment. He
opened the drawer, saw the revolver lying there, and, overcome by an
irresistible impulse, he placed the muzzle to his head, pulled the
trigger and--he is a dead man! There is not one chance in a thousand
that this man would either have taken poison, with its lingering
agonies, cut his throat, hung himself or jumped off the bridge.
The other day, in the country near by, a man with his hands in his
pockets stepped up to a wagon standing in front of his door and said
to the driver: "You made an insulting remark about me to my wife a few
weeks ago. Will you apologize?" The driver replied: "I do not know
that I made such a remark." "Well," the man replied, "your time has
come." He pulled out his pistol, which he had held concealed all the
time in his hand, and fired the shot; the driver of the wagon fell
over the dashboard--dead. Here, without warning, without the slightest
ground to expect such an act, the man, who might, under any other
circumstances, have had some possible chance for defense, was hurled
into eternity, apparently, to gratify the mere desire to kill.
A few nights ago a lone robber boarded a railroad train and with a
revolver compelled the conductor and porter to walk through the car in
front of him and demanded of the passengers that they surrender their
money and jewels--which the passengers promptly proceeded to do. The
entire train was held up by a single pistol, a thing which would be
absolutely impossible with any other weapon. A revolver enables the
highwayman to use one of his hands free, which he could not if he had
either a shotgun or a rifle.
And so it goes. Instance after instance is within the recollection of
everyone where crime is made possible by the easy possession of this
deadly weapon--the revolver. The point I wish to emphasize is, that
there is no legitimate use for the revolver anywhere in the world; no
reason for its existence; no legitimate use for the dirk knife or the
brass knuckles.
All these things are manufactured and sold as instruments of crime.
And, although their deadly use is familiar to everybody, yet we
seem to take it for granted that the right to manufacture and sell
them and the right to own them are rights which the law is bound
to protect. We seek only to impose a restriction that is vain and
ineffective.
Pistol carrying is an American habit; one which is comparatively
infrequent abroad, and there is in Europe--particularly in
England--compared with us, a proportionately small fraction of
shooting affairs. Even policemen in London do not carry revolvers.
It is time for us to take this evil seriously in hand and effect a
cure, which, to be effective, must be radical.
I favor a law restricting the display and sale of firearms. Carrying
a loaded revolver concealed ought to be made a felony. For carrying a
concealed weapon--firearm, dirk, brass knucks, razor, knife, etc.--the
penalty cannot be too severe. I would cut out the fine and make the
penalty for carrying a concealed weapon three to twelve months in the
Workhouse and from two to five years in the penitentiary.
A severe penalty would help the police to break up this criminal
habit. It would help to tame the ex-convict who returns to a life of
crime. It would aid in overcoming the influence of the cheap novel
among light-minded youth. Sale of weapons which can be concealed on
the person ought to be restricted to officers of the law. If permits
are issued at all, they ought to be given by a responsible officer of
the law.
Concealed weapons are the cause of a large per cent of the crimes
committed in which weapons are used. There were many arrests for
carrying concealed weapons in the last official year. Thousands of
people carry them. Every man with a concealed weapon, unless he has
a right to carry it to serve the public peace, is a danger to the
citizens of Chicago. Men who carry concealed weapons imagine they
would protect themselves with them; often they would, but more often
the weapons serve no good purpose. Make the law against promiscuous
sale and carrying of concealed weapons so severe that it will be
necessary for the officers of the law only to carry them.
GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
HOW THE WORTHLESS CERTIFICATE WORKS.
Stock Transfers From Worthless Stock to Worthless Stock a Game That
Fools the Uninitiated.
How the Rhodus Boys Worked the Old "Come-On."
One of the most open frauds, one which should not for a minute have
deceived any investor in "securities" and things, was unearthed by
Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, and the results of his work were
shown in Chicago when Thomas Rhodus and Birch F. Rhodus were indicted
by the federal grand jury.
The Central Life Securities Company in Chicago was apparently a sound
concern. The managers were always careful to keep money in the bank
and any insinuation that this was not a sound company was immediately
refuted by bankers who were handling the Rhodus money.
But Detective Wooldridge had seen so much of "guaranty" and "security"
that he was suspicious of all companies which made this name a
rallying point in their literature.
Also the Rhodus brothers seemed to be using the same old catch-words
which had beguiled men into the fake underwriting schemes. So the
detective was not impressed by "security" or "guarantee." He proceeded
to investigate the record of the Rhodus brothers.
And ere the great scandal began to open out and assert itself,
Wooldridge found that the Rhodus brothers had been in the lottery
business in Denver in 1889 and 1890. Now it does not conduce to belief
in the soundness of a firm to find that its managers have been
common, cheap lottery workers. So Wooldridge went into the record.
In the course of his examinations he discovered that the Chicago
Independent in January, 1899, contained the following notice:
In 1889 and 1890, Thos. Rhodus and Birch F. Rhodus were operating the
Denver Lottery Company, later called the Denver State Lottery. The
following are extracts from the Chicago Independent, January, 1899,
number: "The attention of the postoffice authorities was attracted to
this scheme by seeing circulars of the Denver Lottery Company about
August 20, 1890, saying, 'All remittances to be addressed to A. C.
Ross & Co.,' who were none other than Thomas F. Rhodus, Jr. Ross, or
Rhodus, Jr., was arrested by postoffice authorities October 5, 1889,
fined $100 and costs, which was paid November, 1889. A. C. Johnson,
alias A. C. Ross, alias Thomas F. Rhodus, Jr., was arrested March,
1890, and was at that time running what was called the Denver State
Lottery Company, having changed its name from Denver Lottery Company.
They kept arresting him daily for over forty days. The federal grand
jury found five indictments, with over one hundred counts, against A.
C. Johnson, alias Thomas Rhodus, Jr., for fraudulent use of the United
States mails. He then changed his business to the name of Bank of
Commerce. Was arrested several times, and then sold out, or pretended
to do so, to Birch F. Rhodus.
TRYING THEIR HAND AT LIFE INSURANCE.
"The Western Mutual Life Association of this city has been weighed in
the balance by the Missouri and Michigan State Insurance Commissioners
and found wanting. An examination of the concern by these officials,
made as of August 31, 1898, has recently been reported upon. On that
date a deficiency of assets under the most favorable showing of
$55,635.36 was shown to exist. In other words, the association was
impaired that amount.
"President Thomas F. Rhodus and Vice-President Birch F. Rhodus each
received a salary of $10,000 a year, and there seems to have been
a handsome expense allowance besides. Secretary Charles S. Johnson
received $7,000 annually; Second Vice-President John B. Kirk, of James
S. Kirk & Co., and Treasurer J. V. Clarke, President of the Hibernian
Bank, under an arrangement, the annual sum of $27,000."
The facts here cited were disclosed by the investigation made by the
Insurance Commissioners mentioned above. The association did not long
survive this incident, and its assets were soon taken over by the
Illinois Life Insurance Company.
When the records of these men are considered, it is believed that
the boldness of their operations, the ease with which they have
obtained the endorsement of representative business men in Chicago and
elsewhere for their various schemes, and the way in which, unchecked,
they have personally profited from their operations in the name of
legitimate business, are absolutely without a parallel in the history
of this city.
Any number of stockholders in the different companies stand ready to
testify to the correctness of the foregoing. Every company started
and operated by these men appears to have been exploited for the sole
benefit of themselves. The stockholders have, with a few insignificant
exceptions, lost every dollar invested.
This was the opening gun in the Rhodus campaign. When Detective
Wooldridge began boring in he found that in addition to the Central
Life Securities Company (whatever that might mean), the Rhodus
brothers were promoting the moss-grown mining proposition, and that
the Mina Grande Mining Company, with certain holes in the ground
located in the State of Sonora, Mexico, was also a Rhodus Company.
The Mercantile Finance Company, which was capitalized at the sum of
$1,000 in the State of Maine, Maine being almost as easy as New Jersey
as a corporation state, was the basis for the manipulation of all the
other companies. Even Maine would not stand for a big capitalization
of penniless adventurers, so to make the capitalization bug the
services of the Mina Grande and the State of Sonora, where things are
still easier than in Maine, were called in and the capitalization of
the Mina Grande was rated at $2,000,000.
This did not look nice to the detective. There was too much hunting
of easy ground. He bored in further. Then he discovered the true
inwardness of the situation. Around Joplin, Webb City, Carterville
and other cities in Southwest Missouri, are certain very fine lead
and zinc mines. Joplin is the first zinc producing city in the world.
It has been known as such for a number of years. The lead from this
district is second only in output to that of Leadville, Colo. Here was
another easy chance.
Of course any one who knew anything at all about the lay of the land
in Jasper County, Mo., knew that all the possible lead and zinc lands
had been snapped up years ago; that "Pat" Sullivan of Joplin had been
a political boss on the strength of his turning monopolist of the very
districts which produced the lead and zinc. But the public did not
know it. At least not the great, gullible public. They only knew that
Jasper County was full of lead and zinc and they in some way formed
the conclusion that the whole county was underlaid with the precious
metals.
Therefore it was easy for the Rhodus "companies" to start the
"Independent Zinc Securities Company," bore a few holes in the ground
which would produce fish-worms and black ants and nothing else, and
"transfer the stock of the 'Mina Grande' to the 'Independent Zinc'."
This only was used as a safeguard where a stockholder of Mina Grande
began to get peevish because the holes in the hillsides of Sonora
produced nothing.
But the Rhodus game was not yet complete. The Mercantile Finance
Company, with its thousand-dollar capitalization in the State
of Maine, might get into difficulties transferring stock to the
"Independent Zinc," because somebody might know enough about Jasper
County to realize that there was not enough lead in that county
outside the control of the lead trust to make a small-sized pea.
Therefore it needed another company to "transfer" the peevish
stockholder to. So the Mexican Development Company was formed by the
Mercantile, the capital of the new company being $1,000,000, and its
assets 90,000 shares of the "Mina Grande" stock, the par value of
which would not buy a cigarette paper.
The literature of the new company also carried the literature of the
"Mina Grande," with a glowing account of how the new company was
going to turn Mexico upside down and enrich the whole world from the
scorpion holes in the Sonora hillsides.
The stockholders in the Mexican Development are still waiting for
returns on their investment. But the American people were getting
wise to the mining game, even when the magic name of Jasper County
was used. So to supplement Mexico and Jasper County the Mercantile
Finance Company, the old reliable thousand-dollar concern, organized
in rapid succession the Boise King Placers Company, which was going to
wash fortunes out of the inoffensive mud of Idaho rivers, the Moose
Creek Placer Company, which had the same end in view, the American
Fibre Company, which had about as much fibre about it as a paper candy
box, The Illinois Finance Company (frenzied finance, all right), The
Indiana Securities Company, which "secured" the money of the investor,
but secured nothing else, The Minnesota Securities Company, and then
with a great play to the galleries, The Finance Company of America.
From one to another of these absolutely bankrupt and worthless
concerns the investor was thrown back and forth like a shuttlecock. If
he was sore on Independent Zinc he got American Finance. If he became
convinced that American Finance was worthless paper he got Idaho mud
in the shape of "Moose Creek Placers."
Interest-bearing bonds with coupons attached were floated on a number
of these companies and sold largely through the mails.
Just here Uncle Sam, urged on by reports made to the Chicago
Postoffice Inspectors by Wooldridge, took a hand. When Wooldridge
began boring in the bankers and other influential friends of the
Rhodus people, who had been wise enough to get good political
affiliations as an adjunct to their business, became extremely busy
and influences were brought to bear to call Wooldridge off the case,
because he was the most feared man in America on a fraud game.
Wooldridge accepted the recall gracefully, but immediately stepped
over the way to the Federal Building, and called upon Postoffice
Inspector William Ketcham, who is acknowledged by everyone in the
secret service of the United States and the general public to be the
shrewdest, most astute, and most indefatigable man in the service
of the United States Government. Wooldridge convinced the great
inspector that there was something doing in the "Rhodus" line. Ketcham
complimented Wooldridge highly on the manner in which he had gathered
the data together. Then Ketcham got busy himself. When two such men
as Wooldridge and Ketcham get busy it is not long until the explosion
comes.
Nor was it long coming in the Rhodus case. First came the receivership
of the Central Life Securities Company. And here another big man
and an incorruptible one got into the game--none other than John C.
Fetzer, founder of the "Fetzer System" of receiverships that receive
for the victims of defunct concerns, in place of and for the receiver.
This man was fresh from the great Stensland Bank fraud, where as
receiver he had paid 72 cents on the dollar and wound up a record
receivership in less than one year, whereas the usual time taken in
such cases was ten years.
[Illustration:
With some of the water out of her food,
All profits milked out, too,
With little to eat and going dry,
What is the poor beast to do?
]
When Fetzer's name appeared as receiver there was dismay in the
Rhodus camp. The triple combination was enough to frighten anyone,
especially where the guilty conscience was a factor. Fetzer
immediately went to work. He called in his fighting aids. He told
Ketcham and Wooldridge to "keep it up." When the Rhodus people began
to give evasive answers before the Referee in Bankruptcy, it was a
short step, with the information which had been gathered, to bring
the matter before the Federal Grand Jury. And the indictments of the
Rhoduses followed.
The investigation of the Rhodus manner of doing business showed
that the shrewd manipulators of fish-worm holes and scorpion nests
had not neglected the feminine element. The treasurer of the old
thousand-dollar stand by hailing from the pine tree state, the
Mercantile Finance Company, was Mary C. Scully, who had been with the
Rhodus gang since 1894. Katherine T. Scully, a very young woman, who
had recently appeared on the scene, was listed as treasurer of the
good old "thousand-dollar" medium. She came into the secretaryship as
a result of a shuffle of officers of the Rhodus companies, the shuffle
of officials being found to be as necessary as that of the shuffled
stock.
It was also found that the Rhoduses came to Chicago about 1894 and
organized the Western Mutual Life Association. This company had a
stormy career and was finally merged into the Illinois Life Insurance
Co. The methods of the Rhoduses were severely criticised in connection
with this company and all confidence in it was destroyed.
Prior to coming to Chicago, Thomas and Birch F. Rhodus operated a
lottery at Denver, Colo., and in 1889 came in conflict with the
Federal authorities. Indictments are on record against them and it is
claimed that they used various aliases. Thomas Rhodus was convicted at
Denver in November, 1889, and fined.
During the past four or five years the Mercantile Finance Co. has
offered the stock of numerous mining schemes, none of which has shown
any merit, but were officered and owned by the Rhoduses and their
associates. The methods employed to sell stock in these enterprises
were (according to bills filed in court by the persons victimized)
those of the ordinary swindler, and a close study of the schemes and
the manner in which they are floated leads to the conclusion that the
Rhoduses are not entitled to any confidence.
At the time of going to press the Rhodus brothers are still under
indictment. The tangle in their affairs seems to show conclusively
that the matter will be long and bitterly fought, but the facts that
have come to light make matters look very dark for the manipulators of
the moss-grown stock-kiting game.
Samples of the literature secured by Wooldridge and Ketcham prove very
enlightening to the general public as to the methods of the Rhodus'
and kindred concerns. Here are a few of them:
"It is a rule of this company," one pamphlet of the company reads,
"not to act as fiscal agent for any corporation unless this company is
prominently represented in the management, so as to be able to protect
the interests of our clients."
ASSURANCE GIVEN INVESTORS.
The cover of the pamphlet bears the assurance:
"Are your interests protected? They are if made through
the Mercantile Finance Company. Avoid risk of loss; make
certain of gain."
On another page is a list of high-class railroad stocks to the amount
of $100,000 which the company is declared to be the possessor of in
addition to assets in stocks, mortgage loans, cash on hand and other
collateral. Careful reading of the pamphlet, however, shows that these
stocks are not a part of the exchange list.
An explanation of the system, which probably will be a part of the
testimony submitted to the grand jury in conjunction with the tales of
luckless investors, as printed, is:
"Its plan is to create profits for its customers by aiding
in the intelligent development and working of legitimate
mining enterprises. Through this system its customers
become careful and conservative investors. Furthermore,
they are given an opportunity to participate in the vast
wealth created in these industries, having at the same
time such assurance against loss as would not otherwise
be possible. It is a rule of this company never to handle
as a fiscal agent stock in any property until after a
careful and thorough examination has been made. It rejects
those properties which do not come up to the high standard
required. This accomplishes for the customers what the
individual investor by himself, unaided, cannot afford to
do, for his own investment is usually too small to justify
his having this done on his own account.
PURCHASES "GUARANTEED."
"The Mercantile Finance Company positively guarantees to
allow its customers the privilege of exchanging any stock
purchased from it for stock of any other company which may
be in the said guarantee fund. Such exchange may be made
and repeated as often as desired during a period of five
years following the date of the original purchase."
The tremendous activity of Inspector Ketcham, ably assisted by
Wooldridge, has been at the bottom of the exposure of this whole
abominable swindle. But this is by no means the first case in
which these two men have joined hands and caused an upheaval in
pseudo-financial circles.
These two men first began to work together in the famous Wild Cat
Insurance raids. These raids furnish one of the most dramatic chapters
in the financial history of the United States if not of the world.
The Wild Cats had stolen millions of dollars. Their methods involved
brutal filchings from the poor, heartless commercial brigandage and
finally the running to earth and conviction of the ringleaders and
promoters of the concerns. The work was all done by Wooldridge and
Ketcham.
It would be improper to close the story of the great Rhodus frauds
without some mention of Attorney Patrick H. O'Donnell, who, by his
wise counsel and careful review of the matters submitted in evidence,
materially assisted the two men who had most to do with the unearthing
of the frauds.
WANT AD. FAKERS.
THE PETTY DOLLAR SWINDLERS PUT OUT OF BUSINESS IN CHICAGO BY DETECTIVE
CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE.
The cheap little grafter who takes dollars, dimes, nickels and pennies
from the poor, while not exactly a great financier, is one of the
smoothest propositions with which secret service men and federal
inspectors are confronted. His main hold is on the public press,
because he operates through the seemingly innocuous want advertisement.
The statements of some advertisers may be taken literally; some should
be taken with caution, and some should not be taken at all. In the
postoffice department at Washington, in the files of the assistant
attorney general, one may study the methods of the black sheep of the
advertising fold against whom fraud orders have been issued. A fraud
order is an order directed to a postmaster forbidding him to deliver
letters to a certain person or concern or to cash money orders for
them.
If a man swindles his neighbor without using the mails the postoffice
department will not interfere with him, although the police may, but
if he attempts to make Uncle Sam a party to the swindle, the old
gentleman lets loose on him a horde of postoffice inspectors, who
not only put a stop to the business, but frequently put the swindler
himself behind the bars. The department issues year in and year out an
average of one fraud order a day, and an examination of the reports of
the inspectors who have investigated these cases is apt to convince
one that the long-accepted estimate that there is a sucker born every
minute is much too low. The schemes most commonly employed are here
set forth.
HOME WORK SCHEME CATCHES MANY.
The chance to earn a few dollars a week without leaving home appeals
to many women whose household duties occupy the greater part of their
daylight hours. Unfortunately the work-at-home scheme catches not only
the woman whose object is merely to earn a little pin money and who in
many cases can afford to lose a dollar or two without suffering any
hardship as a consequence, but it gathers in as well the working girl
eager to add to her scanty earnings by engaging in some remunerative
work at home.
The work-at-home scheme is operated in a variety of ways, but the
underlying principle is the same in all cases. Sometimes the work to
be done consists in embroidering doilies or in making lace, and in
other cases it consists in filling in with gilt paint price tickets
printed in outline. In all cases the work is described as easy, the
advertisements assuring the reader that experience is unnecessary.
In all cases, too, the victim is obliged to buy, from the promoters
of the scheme, "materials" or a lace-making machine or some other
object before she is given any work. The following description of
a scheme against which a fraud order was issued last May will make
clear the methods pursued by all fakers of the work-at-home class. The
advertisement in this case reads as follows:
Home Work, $9 to $15; No Canvassing.
$5 to $6 weekly working evenings; experience unnecessary.
Inclose stamps for instructions, sample, etc. Address B.
Wilson & Co., 603 Walnut street, Philadelphia, Pa.
MONEY CHARGED FOR FAKE "OUTFITS."
To those who reply to this advertisement a circular letter is sent
stating that the work required consists in filling in with bronze
paint store-window price tickets printed in outline, one of which,
partly filled in, is inclosed as a sample.
[Illustration:
If you don't know just where to go
Or how to do the thing that you
May have in mind--or if you find
That you can't rise--then advertise,
A "Business Chances" ad advances
Your desires to many buyers--
And our Want Ads, if you use them,
Bring so many--you can choose them.
]
The circular states that the work is easily done, requires no previous
experience, and that all that is necessary, is to do the work in a
neat manner. Two dollars and a half a hundred is offered for tickets
filled in as described, and the prospective victim is assured that
she can easily gild at least 100 tickets a day. She will require an
"outfit," of course, the cost of which is generously put at the
remarkably low price of $1.10.
In return for her $1.10 the victim receives a handful of window
tickets, a small bottle of bronze paint, and a brush for applying
it--the actual value of the articles furnished, including postage,
being fully covered by the extra 10 cents.
The worst is yet to come. When the woman, having parted with her money
and having spent her time in filling in the handful of tickets sent
her, returns them, at her own expense, she receives, not a check in
payment for the work done, but a circular letter stating that her work
is "unsatisfactory." She may possess the talent of a Rosa Bonheur and
a department store ticket writer rolled into one, but she will never
succeed in selling a cent's worth of bronzed price tickets to the
fakers who sold her the "outfit." Their business is not to buy but
to sell, and her fate is not to sell but to be sold. Similar to the
work-at-home scheme is what may be described as the letter-writing
dodge. The following is a typical advertisement of its class:
LADIES--Earn $20 per hundred writing short letters. Stamped
envelope for particulars. Gem Manufacturing Company,
Cassopolis, Mich.
When the woman anxious to earn an honest penny replies to this ad. she
receives the following letter:
Dear Madam:
We pay at the rate of $20 per hundred or 20 cents for each
letter sent us in accordance with our printed circular of
instructions, and make remittances to you of all money
earned by you at the end of each week. The letter which we
send you to copy contains only eighty words, and can be
written either with typewriter or with pen and ink, as you
prefer, and you can readily see that you can write a number
of letters during your leisure time each day.
You do not pay us one penny for anything, except $1 for
the instructions and for packing and mailing the Ideal
Hoodwinkem which we send you.
There is no canvassing connected with the work, and if you
follow our instructions you can earn good wages from the
start.
When the victim sends her dollar for the instructions and for the
Ideal Hoodwinkem (or whatever the name of the article the fakers are
selling happens to be), she discovers that the 20 cents is not to be
paid merely for writing a letter. Oh, no! The 20 cents will be paid
only for such letters as induce some other woman to part with a dollar
for one of "Our Ideal Hoodwinkems." The following letter, which is
sent after the unsuspecting one's dollar has been safely salted down,
lays bare the true inwardness of the scheme:
Dear Madam:
We herewith hand you trial blanks, also copy of letter
which you are to write. You are to send these letters out
to ladies, and for every letter which you write and send
out and which is returned to us with $1 inclosed for one of
our Ideal Hoodwinkems, with your number on the letter, we
will send you a cash commission of 20 cents.
It is needless to say that the fakers do not expect their victim to
be so stupid as to send out the letters on the terms indicated. The
object of the plan is accomplished when "dear madam" parts with her
dollar for the letter of instructions and the Hoodwinkem, which would
be dear at 10 cents.
A SMOOTH SCHEME.
One of the simplest and most effective schemes for hooking new
"suckers" was adopted by a Dearborn street "investment" concern.
This consisted in sending to a prospective victim a check for $100,
made payable to some other man, and accompanied by a brief letter
telling that recipient would find inclosed his weekly dividend on
his investment of $1,000. Of course the marked "sucker" knew nothing
of the deal, and, believing a mistake had been made would return the
check and letter. He at once received in reply an apologetic letter,
stating that the first letter and check had been inserted in the wrong
envelope through the carelessness of a clerk, it having been the
intention to mail to the recipient a circular instead of another man's
check for dividends. It was enough. Ten per cent a week was not to be
resisted. The "sucker" almost invariably opened negotiations on his
own initiative and was landed.
FINANCIAL "JOURNAL" FRAUDS.
The multiplicity of these schemes led to the establishment of the
"financial paper," designed, according to the publisher's statement,
to guard investors against get-rich-quick frauds. To the police these
papers are known as "special form papers." The editor comprises the
staff. The contents consist of financial matter usually stolen from
reputable journals, a formidable array of financial advertising, and,
most important, "reports" on investment concerns. For a consideration
the "special form" paper tells its readers that the "Cotton Mutual
Investment Company" is sound and reliable. The manager of the "Cotton
Mutual" buys as many copies of the paper as he wants, as it has no
regular time of publication, and can be run off in any quantity at any
time with the article boosting the "Cotton Mutual." The get-rich-quick
manager then sees to it that the paper finds its way into the hands
of his "sucker list," or list of names of persons whom he hopes to be
able to induce to "invest."
Therefore, when reading want ads. in the newspapers, consider
carefully the nature of the promises made. If they are too rosy, too
high-flown, have nothing to do with that ad. or the man who inserted
it. You may depend upon it that it is a fake. There are no great
armies of persons walking about this country seeking to give away
something for nothing.
MILLIONAIRE BANKER AND BROKER ARRESTED.
Ramifications of the Bucket Shop System Revealed by Detective Clifton
R. Wooldridge.
George T. Sullivan, the millionaire stock, bond, grain and cotton
broker at 159-161 LaSalle street, Chicago, Illinois, was arrested May
23, 1906, with 60 inmates. Twelve patrol wagon loads of books, records
and papers were seized and carted off to the Harrison Street Police
Station.
Mr. Sullivan at the time had one of the finest, best-equipped offices
in Chicago, which was located in the Traders' Building, opposite the
Chicago Board of Trade. He occupied several floors, and they were very
elaborately furnished. Part of the third floor was used as a telegraph
office, where forty men were constantly at work at the telegraph keys.
His private telegraph wires reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific
ocean, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the British possessions in the
north.
Mr. Sullivan paid to the Western Union Telegraph Company for the
privilege of using their wires and services $150,000 per year.
Mr. Sullivan had 111 branch offices, located in the principal cities
of the United States. Each of these branch offices evidently was
equipped with all the paraphernalia used in the bucketshop, and was in
charge of one of Mr. Sullivan's representatives.
Mr. Sullivan owned the entire equipments of the offices and dictated
the policy and work to each manager, which had to be carried out
to the letter. The following is a list of the branch offices and
locations which were operated by Mr. Sullivan:
[Illustration: GEORGE T. SULLIVAN]
[Illustration: OFFICES OF GEORGE T. SULLIVAN AFTER THE RAID]
LIST OF BRANCH OFFICES.
The Sullivan letterhead gives branch offices in the following cities:
Altoona, Pa., Arcola, Ill.; Aurora, Ill.; Avoca, Ia.; Boston,
Mass.; Buda, Ill.; Burlington, Ia.; Cambridge, Ill.; Chicago,
Ill.; Cleveland, O.; Davenport, Ia.: Decatur, Ill.; Des Moines,
Ia.; Detroit, Mich.; Earlville, Ill.; Effingham, Ill.; Elkhart,
Ind.; Fairfield, Ind.; Fostoria, O.; Fort Madison, Ia.: Galesburg,
Ill.; Geneseo, Ill.; Gibson City, Ill.; Goshen, Ind.; Grand Rapids,
Mich.; Greenville, Ill.; Grinnell, Ia.; Iowa City, Ia.; Ivesdale,
Ill.; Johnstown, Pa.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Keokuk, Ia.; Kewanee, Ill.;
Lancaster, Pa.; Mansfield, Ill.; Mattoon, Ill.; Michigan City, Ind.;
Milwaukee, Wis.; Monmouth, Ill.; Monticello, Ill.; Morris, Ill.;
Mount Pleasant, Ia.; New Castle, Pa.; New York, N. Y.; Niles, O.;
Omaha, Neb.; Peoria, Ill.; Pittsburg, Pa.; Plano, Ill.; Princeton,
Ill.; Racine, Wis.; Roberts, Ill.; Saybrook, Ill.; South Bend, Ind.;
Sheffield, Ill.; St. Louis, Mo.; Tolono, Ill.; Tiffin, O.; Toledo, O.;
Tuscola, Ill.; Waukegan, Ill.; Wyanet, Ill.
EXCLUSIVE OFFICES FOR LADY SPECULATORS.
Chicago--225 Dearborn street, National Life Building, 16 Imperial
Building, 51 Dexter Building, 84 Adams street, South Chicago--9138
Commercial avenue.
Mr. Sullivan had his correspondents and solicitors in all of the
leading stock, bond, grain and cotton markets of most of the foreign
countries. On May 23, 1903, he was doing a business of from $300,000
to $500,000 per year. His weekly expenses ran from $15,000 to $20,000.
Mr. Sullivan advertised extensively in the leading newspapers
throughout the United States and in foreign countries. Many of his
advertisements would cover an entire page. These advertisements
brought him many inquiries from persons either through curiosity or
desire to invest, saying nothing of the cash customers secured.
[Illustration:
SULLIVAN'S
RED
LETTER
TIPS
]
Mr. Sullivan made special effort to buy or acquire every mailing
list to be found in the entire country which had been used by other
fraudulent and get-rich-quick concerns.
It is said that he had secured over 20,000 names, which he had on
his mailing list. These men were bombarded from day to day with his
literature and his _red-letters_, giving the forecast of the market.
These letters were very ingeniously gotten up by himself and a
clairvoyant fortune teller named Madame Dunbar.
His methods were absolutely devoid of even a pretense of sound
business ethics, sensationalism and red ink being his only stock in
trade.
The class of literature and telegrams he sent broadcast and regardless
of expense is well illustrated by the following:
Telegram sent January 1, 1903, to hundreds of persons throughout the
country:
"Am going to run three-cent turn in May wheat. Let me act
for you heavy. I will take loss if any. Mail three-cent
margin.
George T. Sullivan."
In his "Red Letter" of May 18 he makes the following statement:
"There is only one thong about this wheat, and that is, a
bull market is at hand; and those who buy cannot lose, and
if they buy on my advice and buy quickly, I will pay the
loss if there should be any."
He had four offices in Chicago aside from his main office, these being
designated by him as "Exclusive Offices for Lady Speculators." When
about to open one of these offices he addressed a circular letter to
the wives of many prominent citizens announcing the opening of same.
The first paragraph of this letter reads as follows:
"I have opened superbly appointed offices on the ground
floor of the National Life Building, Room 120, where I
accept accounts from ladies of $100 or upwards for marginal
speculation in stocks, bonds, grain and cotton.
"George T. Sullivan."
George T. Sullivan, who frequently signs himself "Red Letter
Sullivan," is by occupation a telegraph operator. He was first heard
of in Boston during the year 1899 and the early part of 1900.
ON THE "OIL EXCHANGE."
On May 17, 1900, Sullivan was admitted as a member of the Consolidated
Stock and Petroleum Exchange of New York and under the firm name
of Sullivan & Sullivan advertised extensively and had a system of
wires through New England. It was noticed that his business on the
exchange was very small and upon the complaint of a customer his
trading methods were investigated, with the result that on the 11th of
October he was adjudged guilty of obvious fraud or false pretenses and
expelled from membership in the exchange. He made some threats of a
suit against the exchange, but the firm of Sullivan & Sullivan failed
in November and nothing was heard of him in New York. His customers
and correspondents never received any statements of their accounts and
Sullivan fled the state.
He seems to have come direct to Chicago, and was employed for several
months by bucketshops and private-wire houses as a telegraph operator.
In the fall of 1901 he associated himself with E. F. Rowland,
ostensibly to do a commission business in stocks, grain and cotton.
His methods of advertising were extremely lurid, and he flooded the
country with literature and letters printed in red ink. The employee,
Sullivan, soon forced Rowland out of business and continued under the
name of Rowland until the first of January, 1903, when by degrees
he had worked the name of Sullivan into prominence and the name of
Rowland had gradually been eliminated from his signs and literature.
REASONS WHICH CAUSED INVESTIGATION, RAID AND ARREST.
The raid by Detective C. R. Wooldridge on the Lincoln Commission
Company, a race track scheme, in the Portland Block, 115 Dearborn
street, May 14, 1903, developed the peculiar relations between this
concern and Sullivan, and the police department was somewhat astounded
to find among the papers of the Lincoln Commission Company conclusive
evidence, in the shape of telegrams and correspondence, proving that
Sullivan's agents on his private wires were acting as the agents of
the turf scheme, and that the employees and private wires of the
Sullivan concern were used in common by the Lincoln Commission Company
with the consent and approval of Sullivan.
More than twenty of Sullivan's agents were posting in his various
offices the tips sent out by the Lincoln Commission Company and
accepting bets which were transmitted over Sullivan's wires to be
placed ostensibly by the Lincoln Commission Company on the horses
which they tipped off as sure winners.
The mixing up of a turf scheme with a so-called grain and stock
business was something new to the police, and Detective Wooldridge
prosecuted the investigation, and, upon becoming fully acquainted
with Sullivan's methods, concluded that he was not only running a
bucketshop, but was interested in the turf scheme to a greater extent.
The evidence gathered in the raid on the Lincoln Commission Company
fully established the fact. The Cook County Grand Jury was in session
at the time and the evidence was presented to them. Detective
Wooldridge was ordered to make a full investigation and report to
them, which he did.
The Grand Jury instructed Wooldridge to lay the matter before the
General Superintendent of Police, Francis O'Neill, and say: "The Grand
Jury requested immediate action should be taken by the police to
enforce the state law, which was being violated."
Wooldridge submitted the case to Chief O'Neill. He asked if
Wooldridge had secured the necessary evidence to prove that Sullivan
was conducting an illegitimate business. He was answered in the
affirmative.
WOOLDRIDGE'S RAID.
On the morning of May 23, 1903, ten picked detectives were secured
from the Detective Bureau to accompany Wooldridge in the raid on
George T. Sullivan, which turned out to be one of the largest as well
as one of the most sensational raids and arrests that had occurred in
Chicago for years.
Sullivan did an extensive business. The offices of the company which
were raided were elaborately furnished, and there was a complete
assortment of tickers, blackboards and like paraphernalia. At the time
of the raid the offices were crowded, the operations on the open board
and the Board of Trade being remarkably exciting. The officers who
assisted Wooldridge in the raid were Detective Sergeants Howe, Mullen,
Quinn, Qualey, Miskel, McLaughlin, Weber, Flint and McLane.
OFFICES FILLED WITH PATRONS.
It was at 10 o'clock in the morning, when the largest throng of
speculators can be found in the offices at 259-261 LaSalle street,
opposite the Board of Trade, that Wooldridge and his men swooped down
on the place and proclaimed "every one there a patron of a bucketshop
and under arrest."
The wildest excitement prevailed. Telegraph operators, messenger boys,
pit men and persons of every station in life were caught. Some of the
traders, thinking of their wives and children, pleaded frantically
for their freedom. Some attempted to force their way from the betting
rooms, but, meeting with armed resistance, they desisted.
"I don't belong here," said one man, indignantly. "I only dropped in
here to see a friend." His plea was unavailing.
Another man, attired in a frock coat and a silk hat, attempted to
bribe one of the detectives. "I can't have it get out that I was
arrested," said he. "State your price and I will give it to you
gladly."
[Illustration: He'll have to act faster, or somebody will slip between
his fingers.]
The only persons allowed to escape were three women stenographers, who
fled through a rear window.
Advertising matter, private correspondence, telephones, tickers,
telegraph instruments and everything of consequence was seized and
loaded into twelve patrol wagons and taken to the Harrison Street
Police Station.
Four hundred and twenty telegraph wires were cut which connected
Sullivan's bucketshops in Chicago and through the country. It took the
Western Union Telegraph Company two weeks to get the wires in working
order.
NAMES OF PRISONERS ARRESTED.
At the Harrison Street Police Station those arrested in the raid gave
their names as follows:
G. T. Sullivan, W. D. Hart, John Conway, L. J. Hoff, Charles Barth,
William Wilson, E. E. Matwell, J. A. Hogadorn, E. L. Wilson, T. N.
Lamb, R. J. Brennan, Ralph Cunningham, Fred Boller, John Whitmar, E.
F. Black, John A. Manley, Ernest Gerard, John Lawson, J. K. West,
George Rodger, Henry Miller, J. A. Crandall, Y. R. Pearson, George
Wilson, Harry Van Camp, George T. Kelly, J. P. Morgan, Joseph Cohen,
Butler Coleman, Arthur McLane, George Frederick, A. L. Kramer, M. J.
Franklin, Edward O'Connell, Oren Mills, W. H. Kelley, O. S. Reed, F.
Foley, I. J. Kennedy, Robert Delaney, Joseph Bowers, John Black, L.
Frederick, B. C. Cover, George Johnson, G. Weightman, H. C. Boder,
Samuel E. Brown, Joseph Smith, C. E. Tracy, W. Jones, J. W. Kennedy,
John P. Garrison, Al. Dewes, Elmer C. Huntley, T. A. Duey.
CROWD GATHERS.
The fact that a raid was being made became known outside the offices
and in a short time several thousand persons gathered. Crowds peered
through the windows and doors. The Chicago Open Board of Trade is
directly across the alley in the rear of Sullivan's offices, and
business there was at a standstill for a time. The traders gathered
about Sullivan's offices and remained until the last prisoner had been
taken away in the patrol wagon.
Sullivan himself was in his private office when the raid was made.
Wooldridge broke open the door and faced the man at the desk.
"You are under arrest, Mr. Sullivan," said the detective. Sullivan
grew pale and then reached his hand to the telegraph instrument which
stood on the table. He started to work it.
"Stop that!" ordered Wooldridge. But Sullivan continued. Wooldridge
made a leap for the trader and forced him away from the instrument.
But the trader was not to be thwarted. He reached over the detective's
shoulder, and again the click began. Wooldridge then seized the
instrument and hurled it into the desk.
"Cut all telephone and telegraph wires," was the order given by
Wooldridge, and the frenzied occupants of the place were thrown into
terror. There was a mad rush for the door, but the detectives stood
in the way. Every inducement was offered the policemen, but efforts
failed.
Then Sullivan claimed that he had an injunction issued by Judge
Elbridge Hanecy forbidding the police from raiding his place.
"I have an injunction from Judge Hanecy to stop you!" yelled Sullivan.
"Show me the injunction, then," replied Wooldridge, "and I will obey
it. If not, I am an officer of the court and have warrants here
charging you with keeping a bucketshop and gambling house."
The injunction which Sullivan claimed to have was found by the police
in one of his drawers in blank form, without any signature, together
with the following letter to one of his managers:
May 19, 1903.
MR. CHARLES A. WARREN,
New York.
Dear Mr. Warren:
Your friend Wooldridge was in all day Monday. We had
four detectives here all day investigating my guarantee
plan, and they showed up again today and held several
conversations with Miss Lorentzen before we realized who
they were. It looks like they were trying to make a case.
In looking up the injunction papers, find you neglected
to change them to read The George T. Sullivan Company and
The George T. Sullivan Elevator & Grain Co. I took them to
Morris and he rehearsed them, patched them, etc., and they
are now ready to play ball with.
Morris is very busy and it looks as if we might need
someone else on the scene of action to watch things.
Hope you arrived O. K., and with best wishes, I remain,
Yours very truly,
GEORGE T. SULLIVAN.
However, it was not until 11 o'clock and more than an hour after the
raid had been made that Attorney Edward Morris filed the injunction
bill in the Circuit Court.
The injunction was finally issued by Judge Abner Smith at 12:30
o'clock. It restrained Chief O'Neill and Detectives Hertz and
Wooldridge from interfering in any way with the property contained in
the offices occupied by the concern or cutting the telegraph wires
leading to them. It is represented in the bill that the company has
offices at 259 LaSalle street, Bush Temple of Music, 60 LaSalle
street, 16 Imperial Building and 84 Adams street; but the damage had
already been done.
Sullivan was practically out of business, and was being bombarded and
seized by a horde of infuriated patrons who demanded their money,
entrusted to him to invest. Sullivan could not return the money, as he
had spent it and was bankrupt.
"RED LETTER" WELL KNOWN.
PATRONS TOLD THEY WOULD NOT LOSE IF ADVICE WAS FOLLOWED.
In Sullivan's office the detectives found great quantities of
advertising matter. This matter was thoroughly gone over in the search
for evidence against the grain and stock broker. Pile after pile of
Sullivan's "red letter" circulars were found.
Sullivan's "red letter" was issued daily, and printed in red ink.
The circulars were written in a manner characteristic of all the
advertisements, printed matter and correspondence to patrons.
In telegrams to patrons and the "red letters" Sullivan often made the
proposition that he would make good all loss sustained by patrons
while they were making purchases upon his advice.
The detectives were somewhat surprised when they saw at the top of
the circular in bold, red type that "four exclusive offices for lady
speculators" were being operated in Chicago, one in South Chicago and
one in St. Louis. The addresses given for the Chicago offices were 225
Dearborn street, 159 LaSalle street, 260 Clark street and 84 Adams
street. Women speculators of South Chicago had the opportunity of
making their purchases at 9138 Commercial avenue.
Wooldridge was asked by the press what justification he had in making
the raids, and by whose orders they were made. He said that he raided
the Lincoln Commission Company at 115 Dearborn street, May 14, 1903,
which was conducting a turf investment company, and found that George
T. Sullivan was operating the same in connection with his bucketshop;
that George T. Sullivan and 60 inmates were arrested, and eleven wagon
loads of books, letters, papers and records taken to the Harrison
Street Police Station. Wooldridge said that he had evidence to indict
them on 50 charges, and he intended to deliver the goods, and he would
not be pulled off by any man in the State of Illinois.
Wooldridge immediately took steps to get his evidence in shape.
He called on John Hill, Jr., who had charge of the Board of Trade
quotations and who was an expert on bucketshop methods.
Wooldridge, Hill and two clerks went to work gathering evidence for
the trial; eleven wagon loads of books, papers, letters and records
had to be gone through, which was done in the most careful, systematic
manner.
They worked from 2 p. m. until 12 o'clock and the evidence gathered
was placed in a vault.
After they had secured something to eat in a nearby restaurant and
taken two hours' sleep, they resumed their work, which was carried
on until 7 o'clock Sunday morning. This evidence which was secured
was locked up in another vault for safe keeping. After they had eaten
their breakfast they resumed work again and worked until 6 p. m. This
evidence gathered was placed in another vault. After they had eaten
their supper they resumed work again and worked until 1 o'clock Sunday
night, when they succeeded in going through every scrap of paper which
was seized in the raid. This evidence gathered was placed in another
vault.
The placing of this evidence in different vaults was for the purpose
of preventing George T. Sullivan or any of his friends from securing
it on a writ of replevin.
Wooldridge slept until 5 o'clock, then went to the residence of
Charles S. Deneen, State's Attorney. Arriving at his house and finding
that he had not arisen from bed, Wooldridge pulled up a settee which
he found on the veranda and placed it in front of his door where it
would be impossible for him to get out of his house without first
awaking Wooldridge.
Wooldridge laid down and went fast asleep and was found there when
State's Attorney Deneen was making his departure next morning for
his office. Wooldridge, upon being aroused from his sleep, told Mr.
Deneen of the raid made and the evidence gathered and showed him some
10 or 15 telegrams from reputable Board of Trade men who were worth
over $20,000,000 collectively. The substance of the telegrams was as
follows:
"Officer Clifton R. Wooldridge: We are informed that you
raided George T. Sullivan's bucketshop. You have done your
duty and been criticised and assailed for doing it. My name
is ---- and my attorneys name is ---- and we are at your
service night or day, without any expense to you."
Mr. Deneen asked Wooldridge how soon he would be ready to present his
evidence to the Grand Jury. Wooldridge replied that he had two cases
already prepared before he made the raid and would be ready in six
hours with a number of additional cases.
Mr. Deneen told Wooldridge to accompany him to his office, which was
done. He called Assistant State's Attorneys Albert C. Barnes, F. L.
Barnett and Howard O. Sprogle and instructed them to assist Wooldridge
in preparing the cases for the Grand Jury and give him a clean road
just the minute he was ready. They were further instructed to give him
all the assistance and advice he should need in the matter.
The special complaints were drawn, the telegraph wires became busy and
at 10 o'clock Wooldridge and witnesses went before the Grand Jury and
George T. Sullivan was indicted for keeping a bucketshop and common
gaming house.
George T. Sullivan was also active from Saturday until Monday morning.
He had prepared writs of replevin and warrants for larceny for
Wooldridge and officers who were with him.
Wooldridge was called up over the telephone by Sullivan's friends and
offered a bribe of $5,000 if he would release and turn over the books,
letters and records which were seized in the raid, so Sullivan could
resume business. This offer was refused by Wooldridge and the matter
reported to the State's Attorney.
Sullivan then resorted to sending various friends and powerful
politicians for the paraphernalia seized. Still Wooldridge turned a
deaf ear to their requests and entreaties.
Wooldridge was a very busy man at the County Court Building on Monday.
Before the George T. Sullivan bucketshop raid and the indictment
before the Grand Jury, Wooldridge had the case of J. J. Jacobs,
manager of the Montana Mining, Loan & Investment Company, which was a
lottery, on trial before Judge Chetlain.
While in the courtroom he was informed by officers that they had a
writ of replevin for the goods seized in Sullivan's bucketshop; that
they also held warrants for Wooldridge and the officers who were with
him, but if he would surrender the goods seized they declared the
warrants would not be served and there would be no trouble.
Wooldridge called on the State's Attorney and informed him of the
demand made upon him. State's Attorney Deneen called the officers in
his office and told them that Wooldridge was there in attendance in
the court and he would not permit the warrants to be served on him
until after court adjourned. Further, he had instructed Wooldridge not
to turn over any of the property.
Sullivan during the meantime had learned that there was an indictment
against him by the Grand Jury and withdrew the order for serving of
the warrants. He was indicted, convicted and paid a $500 fine.
After the police had secured the evidence, his books, letters and
records were returned to him. He tried to start up in business again;
also to get other parties interested with him who had money, but in
this he failed. He was forced to refund $150,000 to his patrons who
had advanced money to him to speculate in grain and stock. He expected
financial assistance and hoped to resume business, but nothing
materialized.
There were thousands of other creditors throughout the country who
were not so fortunate in obtaining a settlement. These creditors
combined and forced him into bankruptcy.
He was then cited in the United States Court for violating a federal
injunction.
He quietly folded his tent at night and left Chicago without leaving
his address. He was next heard of in England six months later. All
traces of him were lost until, in August, 1907, at Pittsburg, Pa., he
was arrested for running a bucketshop.
George T. Sullivan, of George T. Sullivan & Co., brokers, with
offices in the Bijou Building, Pittsburg, and was arraigned before
Magistrate F. J. Brady at Central Police Station, charged with a
misdemeanor and violating a city ordinance.
SULLIVAN HAS RECORD.
The misdemeanor was based on Sullivan's doing business without being
properly registered at Harrisburg, and he was charged with violating
a city ordinance for running a brokerage office without taking out a
city license. He was held, for court in $1,000 bail on the misdemeanor
charge and was fined $25 on the other.
George T. Sullivan, the Napoleon of frenzied finance, cut a large
figure in Chicago. From a telegraph operator in the pool rooms and
bucketshops at a salary of $18 per week, he acquired enough in the
short space of two years to own and operate the largest bucketshop in
the United States.
He soared high in the money circles, but at last was brought crashing
to the earth, a financial wreck. He was convicted of keeping a
bucketshop and gambling house. He went bankrupt, hounded to death by
his creditors, many of whom he had wrecked.
He was cited to appear in the United States Court for violating an
injunction, and warrants had been sworn out by the postal authorities
for using the mails to defraud the public.
He took his freight from Chicago to new fields of pasture. Wine, women
and high financing brought his downfall.
[Illustration: DORA McDONALD.]
DORA McDONALD.
MILLION-DOLLAR GAMBLER'S WIFE ARRESTED FOR MURDER.
Webster Guerin Murdered February 21, 1906--The Arrest
of Dora McDonald for the Murder by Detective Clifton R.
Wooldridge and J. F. Daugherty a Few Minutes After the
Tragedy.
Spectacular Case--Battle Bitterly Waged.
Important Dates in Mrs. McDonald's Life Tragedy.
Important dates in the trial of Mrs. Dora McDonald:
February 21, 1907--Webster Guerin shot to death in room
703, Omaha Building, where he was closeted with Mrs. Dora
McDonald.
March 5, 1907--The Coroner's jury returned an open verdict,
failing to find Mrs. McDonald responsible for Guerin's
death.
March 30, 1907--Mrs. McDonald released from the County Jail
under bonds of $50,000.
August 9, 1907--Michael McDonald died, reconciled to his
first wife through the efforts of the church.
August 12, 1907--"Mike" McDonald's funeral, one of the
largest ever known, held.
January 20, 1908--Mrs. McDonald placed on trial before
Judge Brentano.
January 25, 1908--Jury completed and sworn.
February 11, 1908--The jury returned a verdict of not
guilty.
[Illustration:
Judge Theodore Brentano
Webster S. Guerin
Assistant State's Attorneys Edwin S. Day and William A. Rittenhouse
Sam Berkley
Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge
Col. James Hamilton Lewis and P. H. O'Donnell
Michael C. McDonald
Dora McDonald]
The murder of Webster Guerin occurred on the morning of February 21,
1906, at his office, room 703 Omaha Building, 134 Van Buren street.
Detectives Clifton R. Wooldridge and J. P. Daugherty were on their
way to see Guerin about a complaint made against him when they ran
into the shooting. They had been there before, but were not able to
find the man. Under the name of Fisher, Guerin had another office in
the same building. The complaint was from Mrs. G. Boynton, 903 East
Fifty-fifth street, who said she had been forced into buying a picture
frame through the promise of the managers of the Harrison Art Studio
that they would enlarge the picture free of charge.
Upon reaching the building Detectives Wooldridge and Daugherty heard a
pistol shot ring out which sounded as if coming from the upper story
of the building. Springing into the elevator, they soon reached the
top floor, where they were directed to room 703, where a number of the
tenants of the building had already gathered. Stretched upon the floor
lay the body of Webster Guerin with the blood oozing from his mouth
and a bullet wound from a 32-caliber revolver on the left side, just
above the heart; the bullet had passed through his lungs and caused a
hemorrhage; from his mouth came nearly one-half gallon of blood.
When Wooldridge and Daugherty reached the side of Guerin he was past
human aid.
NO WITNESSES OF KILLING.
There were no witnesses of the killing of Guerin. He was in his office
with Mrs. Dora McDonald. Several persons heard a shot, and a moment
later the glass door was broken and the head of Mrs. McDonald came out.
The condition of the studio, in room 703 of the Omaha Building, shows
that a violent quarrel took place between Guerin and Mrs. McDonald.
Mrs. McDonald left her residence shortly after breakfast. She arrived
at the building about 11:45 o'clock. Guerin expected her, for he told
his office boy, Thomas Hanson, who lives at 265 West Ohio street,
to leave the room and not come back until 1 o'clock. Before the boy
left the room Mrs. McDonald entered and the two immediately began
quarreling, it is said. Guerin shouted to Hanson to leave and nothing
more was heard until the shooting at 11:50 o'clock.
[Illustration: Persons and Places Involved in the Killing of Crayon
Artist Guerin by Mrs. "Mike" McDonald.
MRS. M. C. McDONALD
WEBSTER S. GUERIN
ROOM IN OMAHA BUILDING IN WHICH SHOOTING OCCURRED.
DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE IN CHARGE.
THE McDONALD RESIDENCE
4501 DREXEL BOUL.]
Lorenzo Blasi, who lives at 73 West Ohio street, and who is employed
in room 608 of the same building, heard the shot and the sound of
breaking glass. He was in the corridor on the seventh floor. He
hurried to the scene and on the way heard the glass breaking again and
a woman screaming: "He shot himself! He shot himself!"
WOMAN CUT BY BROKEN GLASS.
When Blasi reached the studio he found Mrs. McDonald with her head
partly thrust through the broken glass. Her face was bleeding from
cuts. In her hand she held a revolver. She was trying to break more of
the glass with her revolver and escape.
A moment later Eric Allert and Charles B. Williams, who work across
the corridor, rushed out to Blasi's aid.
Mrs. McDonald was pulled through the door and the revolver was
secured. In the office, men found Guerin lying dead in the room
leading off from the main part of the office.
A torn picture and some hatpins were on the floor. There were finger
marks on her throat.
When Dora McDonald recovered consciousness she shrieked: "Oh, God! Get
a doctor; he has shot himself."
Where the revolver may have been at that time it was difficult to say.
Several witnesses said that it was lying at the right side of Guerin,
who was dying. Others said that the woman held it in her hand, waving
it above her head as she screamed out: "He has shot himself."
Who this strong, handsomely garbed woman was who had either witnessed
a suicide, committed a murder or participated in an accident no one
knew, but she was hurried off to the police station by Detective
Wooldridge.
"Daddy, oh, daddy, forgive me!" she kept screaming out. She was
recognized, however, and it was found that "Daddy" could be none other
than the big gambler and political boss, Mike McDonald. So they sent
for Mike, and he gathered into his arms the woman who in that moment
broke his heart and sent him to his grave in sorrow.
An inquest was begun before Coroner Peter J. Hoffman in the Harrison
Street Station on March 1, 1906. After five days an open verdict was
returned, in which the jurors declared themselves unable to determine
the cause of the death of Guerin.
The Coroner's jury consisted of the following named persons:
Joseph Willis, 43 Cass street; Frank O. Borhyar, 6142 Madison avenue;
William Merker, 263 Seminary avenue; William C. Hollens, 6418 Rhodes
avenue; David A. Smith, 3843 California avenue; George F. Cram, 4166
Drexel boulevard.
On March 16, Municipal Judge Newcomer went to the jail hospital, where
Dora McDonald, still in bed, was formally arraigned and held on a
charge of murder. Two weeks later she was indicted by the Grand Jury.
All of the evidence so gathered was embodied in the report of the
Coroner, and the names of the witnesses were thereto attached, all of
which were made public at the time. The State and the defense secured
a copy of the same.
MYSTERY TOO MUCH FOR CORONER.
All the additional evidence and the preparation of the case was made
by the State's attorneys, William H. Rittenhouse. Edwin S. Day, Frank
Comerford, City Police Attorney, and other officers. All the names of
new witnesses (some twelve or fifteen in number) and the evidence were
concealed from Detective Wooldridge, and at no time was he present, or
did he hear to what the witnesses would testify. Therefore, he had no
knowledge of any new facts when the case was called for trial.
The mystery of Guerin's death proved too much for a Coroner's jury.
More than two weeks after the artist was slain the Coroner's panel
returned an open verdict. It merely found that Guerin had died from a
bullet wound in a manner which the jury was unable to determine. This
same verdict Colonel Lewis sought to introduce at the trial in Judge
Brentano's court. Such a move was new in criminal annals, and it was
some time before the court decided that it should be ruled out.
Mrs. McDonald was meantime transferred to the County Jail from the
Harrison Street Station. She was broken in health and a confirmed
invalid. Two persons, however, were faithful to her, Mike McDonald and
Miss Amanda Beck, her nurse.
FRIENDS GET BUSY QUICKLY.
A few hours after the tragedy of Webster Guerin all the influences
and machinery at the command of Mike McDonald were brought to bear
to save the life of Dora McDonald. A. S. Trude, one of the greatest
criminal attorneys in Chicago, was employed, besides several other
noted lawyers, to defend Dora McDonald. Mike McDonald's political
friends soon became active. Everything was done to gather evidence in
Dora McDonald's case, and everything was done that could be done to
suppress any evidence that was injurious to her.
There was one witness who was greatly feared, and that was Detective
Clifton R. Wooldridge, who made the arrest.
Several days after the shooting A. S. Trude, Mike McDonald's attorney,
met Wooldridge in the Criminal Court and shook hands with him. He said
that he was very glad that Wooldridge was interested in the case for
one reason, for he knew he would get a square deal. He also stated
that there was another reason why he was sorry that Wooldridge was in
the case, because he had too many eyes and too many feet to be on the
opposite side of any case in which he (Trude) was interested. This
view was shared by Mike McDonald and his friends, who became active to
get Wooldridge out of the way.
Mike McDonald first paid a visit to John M. Collins, then General
Superintendent of Police, and one of his warm personal friends, and
Frank Comerford, City Police Attorney. What occurred in that office
will never be known, unless Collins chooses to make a statement, as
McDonald has since died.
Detective Wooldridge was called to the office of John M. Collins,
General Superintendent of Police, and told not to talk to any
newspaper men or anyone else about the McDonald case. He was further
told not to make himself too officious, and not to be too active in
the case.
Several days later he was again called to Chief Collins' office and
told that Frank Comerford, then acting as City Police Attorney, and
a warm friend of Mike McDonald's, was to take charge of the case, so
that he need not bother himself further with the matter.
Mr. Comerford became very active, securing the names of all the
witnesses and all evidence to which they would testify, together with
other facts. All this matter eventually found its way into the hands
of the defense long before the trial.
Mike McDonald and his friends thought that Wooldridge would become
active again in the case. Therefore Mike proceeded to get busy
himself. No one seems to know the ins and outs of the case, but
it is nevertheless a fact that soon after the election of April,
1907, Wooldridge was transferred from the office of the General
Superintendent of Police, where he had served since 1889, to the
Cottage Grove Avenue Station. No reason was assigned for this transfer.
GUERIN'S LIFE STORY.
Webster Guerin, who lived at 655 West Harrison street, was well known
on the West Side, where he was born thirty years ago. He kept a
haberdashery on West Madison street a few years before the murder, but
left it to go to California. On his return he went into the picture
business. Guerin was a tall, splendid-looking fellow more than six
feet in height.
Guerin was known at the offices in the Omaha Building as Louis
Fisher, and it was under that name that he operated the Harrison Art
Company.
DORA MCDONALD DIVORCED WIFE OF "SAM" BARCLAY.
Dora McDonald, 35 years old, was the divorced wife of "Sam" Barclay, a
former professional ball player and Chicago saloonkeeper. They had one
son, Harold Barclay, who was later legally adopted by "Mike" McDonald,
and who was at school in Florida at the time of the murder. He was 15
years old.
She had separated from Barclay shortly prior to her divorce and had
been on the stage for a short time under the name of Mme. Alberta. She
was married to Mike McDonald a week after her divorce and was taken by
him to his home at Harrison street and Ashland avenue.
BEAUTY OF WEST SIDE.
Dora McDonald was one of the beauties of the West Side in her day, and
many admirers hovered about her threshold. The lights of the midnight
hours charmed her then, and she dashed off to marry Sam Barclay, a
professional baseball player.
Into that home came Michael Cassius McDonald. He was a gambler and a
politician and a man of great wealth.
For the second time his wife had left him; run away, people said, with
a man who had been a guest at their home.
Mike was lonesome. He saw the bride of Sam Barclay and loved her. He
dined with her, and perhaps he paid for her divorce trial. At least
she separated from Barclay and when Mike went a-wooing again he won
this pretty woman.
In a west side home of some pretensions Mike established his new wife.
He thought so much of her that he sent his sons away when she could
not agree with them. He gave her money and finery and servants and
carriages, and thought that she ought to be happy.
BOY OF 14 ENTERS.
Webster Guerin lived across the street. He was a boy of attractive
manners and he won the affection of Dora McDonald.
Slander gives one reason for that affection; the woman gives another.
STOLE HIM AS A BOY, SLEW HIM AS A MAN, SAYS ARCHIE GUERIN.
Archie Guerin, Webster Guerin's brother, told how Mrs. Dora McDonald
had taken a violent fancy to Webster when he was a boy of 14, and
Archie 13, or thereabouts; how she would meet them on their way home
from school and whisk Webster into the mansion, keeping him two,
three or four hours; how she used to waylay Webster on his way home
from church; how she followed him through the years until she got
the notion that he was falling in love with Avis Dargan; how she put
detectives on the boy's trail and sat for hours in a cab opposite the
Omaha Building to see whether Miss Dargan entered; how she threatened
to shoot him; how she would break out into wild and vehement
declarations of her love, wailing that she "worshiped every hair of
his head," and that she would kill him before she would lose him.
How she came into the studio on the day Webster was shot, asserting
that she had "told that old slob everything" (meaning her husband),
and said she was going to New York; how Webster had replied that he
was "through with her," to which she retorted, "I am not through
with you; do you think I would kill myself without first putting a
bullet into your head?" How Mrs. McDonald had requested him to leave
the studio, and how he had refused to do so until Webster joined his
request to hers; how Archie and the two boys employed in the studio
had gone away and left them to act out the tragedy by themselves
behind doors that were closed and locked; how Archie had gone to
the Windsor Clifton Hotel to meet Harry Feldman, with whom he had a
business appointment; how Feldman had become alarmed when he heard
that Mrs. McDonald and Webster were alone in the studio, urging
Archie to call Webster on the telephone; how he and Archie stepped
to the 'phone, called up the studio, and after a gruff "hello" from
a policeman got back the staggering news: "Your brother has been
murdered."
MIKE MCDONALD DELUDED BY WIFE.
"Mike" seemingly was deluded. He may have had suspicions of his wife,
but his suspicions seem to have been quieted by the woman.
Even when Guerin followed her to California she dared to wire Mike:
"Web Guerin is coming; fear I shall be compromised; shall I come back?"
It was such a frank admission that the gambler urged her to have
mettle. "Stick," he sent back word. "Don't let anyone bluff you."
Things went on this way until the morning of February 21, 1906. Then
something happened, the climax occurred and Guerin was shot.
PROVIDES FOR THE DEFENSE.
After the arrest of his wife, "Mike" McDonald announced that he
believed in her integrity and declared he would spend every cent of
his fortune to save her. The former gambling dictator was almost 70
years old and his health was failing rapidly. Four months after the
event he was taken to the St. Anthony de Padua Hospital, where he
remained until his death, August 9, 1907.
McDonald was still passing to his death when there crept into his room
a little, white-haired woman who had come from Newark, N. J. There
she was known as Mrs. Grashoff and a great charity worker, especially
in the interest of fallen girls in the Crittenden homes. Years before
Mike McDonald had called her his first wife.
DRAMATIC MEETING OF MCDONALD AND FIRST WIFE.
By the laws of the church she was still his wife, no matter what the
years had brought forth. So Mike took her hand and held it and spoke
softly to her in a breath of full forgiveness and passed away. Without
the door sat the woman whom he had called his wife--Dora, whom he had
won from a husband and to whom he had been faithful until he stepped
to the brink of his grave.
This was the last straw that crushed the spirit of Dora McDonald.
The body of Webster Guerin was removed to McNally & Duffy's
undertaking rooms at 516 Wabash avenue.
Detective Wooldridge took up the work of gathering the evidence and
prepared the case for the Coroner and Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury indictment placed Dora McDonald seemingly beyond the
pale of bail, but Mike worked assiduously and finally secured her
release from prison on $50,000 bonds. Then Mike became ill and died in
St. Anthony's Hospital.
Before he gave way to his broken heart McDonald drew up a will. He
set aside a defense fund with which the woman might be given adequate
chance for freedom in the court, and left her "such rights and only
such rights as she may be entitled to as widow."
TRIAL BEGINS.
Mrs. McDonald was put on trial January 20. The jury was completed
January 25 and the taking of testimony began at once. The case of
the State was made as complete as possible and the defense began
an exhaustive array of testimony. The defense, however, came to a
surprisingly sudden end. It had been feared that Mrs. McDonald might
not live through the trial and there was every desire to have a
verdict before she might give way to heart trouble.
The case was heard before Judge Theodore Brentano, and it lasted
twenty-one days.
Dora McDonald was represented by Colonel James Hamilton Lewis, Chief
Assistant Patrick H. O'Donnell, Attorneys Benjamin M. Shaffner, Frank
R. Cain, Gabriel Norden, Clarence Shaffner and Forest G. Smith.
[Illustration: LOVE TRAGEDY JURY
HARRY CORCORAN.
JOSEPH KOEHLY.
ARNE PETERSON.
CHARLES R. JOHNSON.
HERBERT R. GARN.
CHARLES M'GRATH.
HUGH H. FULTON.
GEORGE W. MILLER.
ROLAND F. GRAHAM.
JAMES J. NOONAN.
OTTO H. NELSON.
JOHN C. ANDERSON.
]
The State was represented by Assistant State's Attorneys William A.
Rittenhouse and Edward S. Day.
NAMES OF THE JURY.
Harry Corcoran, Joseph Koehy, Arne Peterson, Hugh H. Fulton, George W.
Miller, Roland F. Graham, James J. Noonan, Otto H. Nelson, Charles R.
Johnson, Herbert R. Garn, Charles McGrath, John C. Anderson.
PACKED COURTROOM.
With the courtroom packed to the doors and several hundred men
and women struggling to gain admission, the actual trial of Mrs.
Dora McDonald, widow of Mike McDonald, commenced. Assistant State's
Attorney Edward S. Day made an opening statement of the case.
Trembling and his eyes flashing, he pointed a finger at Mrs. Dora
McDonald and in a ringing voice denounced her as the murderess of
Guerin.
"Dora McDonald became acquainted with Guerin, who was about 14 years
old. His parents lived a short distance from the McDonald home.
"A friendship between Mrs. McDonald and the boy began, which his
mother and other relatives later tried to end. Three years later the
McDonalds removed to the Drexel boulevard home, but the intimacy of
Webster Guerin and Mrs. McDonald continued.
"At any event, as time passed on, dealing meantime gently with the
woman and developing Web into a young man of more than six feet in
height, the two were seen frequently together. Relatives of both
testified that the two kissed each other; that at times Mrs. McDonald
grew jealous, in all apparent intent, over him; that she wrote poems
and set them to music to show what seemed to be the very depths of a
despairing heart.
"The woman was insanely jealous over him." "He had wandered out from
her love into the light of other women's eyes. Driven to distraction
by the thought that the boy she had taught to love had grown up to
love another, she murdered him."
"No," said the defense. "This woman was the victim of blackmail. First
she had been hounded until she gave way to the big youth, and then
she had paid him money from her hoard in the hope that she might free
herself of him."
Testimony on the blackmail point was clouded by the maze of
recrimination, but the State could not deny that Mrs. McDonald had on
several occasions given the young man money with which to leave the
city, but that each time he had returned "broke" within a few days.
Mr. Day's denunciation of Mrs. Dora McDonald was bitter, but the
defendant appeared to take no notice of what the lawyer was saying.
Dora McDonald sat quietly as if in a trance; the bitterness of
failure, the weariness of defeat, was expressed in every flutter of
her purple-shadowed eyelids as she came before the bar to answer for
the murder of Webster Guerin, January 20, 1907.
Dora McDonald presented a pathetic appearance before the jury.
She was dressed all in black. Not a single bit of lace or white
relieved the somber effect of her funereal widow's garb. In arranging
her hair Mrs. McDonald exhibited a novel idea. The long, deep-auburn
strands were braided into one plait and this was wound over her
temples in a single coil and fastened with coral pins.
In its unaffected artlessness Mrs. McDonald's entry into the courtroom
and her removal of her hat as she sank into her chair was an act of
almost girlish grace. Her long black cloak, satin lined, was thrown
carelessly on a chair.
When she had removed her hat and cloak she looked squarely into the
faces of the jury.
DRAMATIC SCENE IN COURTROOM.
The face that was turned piteously toward the jury was deeply lined
with the furrows of physical and mental suffering.
The eyes drooped constantly, and there were times when she closed them
for a full minute.
Every movement of the lips or eyelids, every arrangement of dress and
costume, was either studiously planned or pathetically dramatic.
The weariness and bitterness were marked in the droop of her mouth,
in the perplexed wrinkling of her forehead, in the stoop of her
shoulders, in the relaxation of her hands, lying heavily on the table
before her.
A long, long line of battles she has behind her, with her good name
torn to shreds in the fight; and nobody can guess at the scars and
open wounds in her soul. No matter how great may have been her fault,
how untrammeled her impulses and wishes, how wild and defiant her
spirit toward the law and society, now she is a tired, broken woman,
who has lost the day.
BLOOM GONE FROM CHEEK.
There are many who say that the beauty of which Dora McDonald was
once so proud has departed entirely. The eyes were heavy, the skin no
longer showed the pink of health, but was a dead white, her figure had
fallen away until she was almost emaciated, but there was a beauty in
her sadness and despair that the triumphant woman never possessed.
She seldom looked at the veniremen, nor did she appear to be following
the questions put to them. Occasionally she glanced at a possible
juror as he stepped up to be sworn, but for the most part she sat with
her head resting on her hand, or looking ahead at some mental vision.
Is it the face of young Webster Guerin she sees, as he lay dead, or
the face of old "Mike" McDonald as he smoothed her hair and loaded her
with caresses? Is it remorse for a crime, or longing and grief for a
dead admirer? Or is it despair for a wasted life, a hopeless future, a
thousand lost opportunities?
NO MADNESS IN HER EYES.
If the defense expected to utilize the plea of insanity it would have
had some difficulty in inducing a jury to believe that Mrs. McDonald
was greatly deranged. There was no gleam of madness in her eyes. They
were dark-circled and languid, but not at all staring or strange. She
seemed unusually self-poised and collected.
Without any artifices of dress or cosmetics, without any gleam of
gaiety or vivacity, it was not impossible to understand why this woman
wielded the great influence in the lives of three men that she did. In
the first place, her features were regular and fine. Her eyebrows were
delicately penciled and her eyes large and dark.
TRACES OF SIREN LEFT.
The contour of her cheeks was soft and round. But one can imagine,
in happier days, that there was a captivating play of expression, an
esprit, a beauté de diable, that would be particularly fascinating
to a man like old "Mike" McDonald. And upon such a woman would the
self-made man, the gambler, uncultivated and rough, fast approaching
old age, delight to heap luxury and adoration, as there is no doubt
"Mike" McDonald did.
And is it not easy to imagine that such a woman would have a powerful
attraction for a young man, with her sophistication and experience
matched against his ignorance? And now one of the men is dead of a
broken heart, and the other struck down in the very first flush of his
youth, and the instrument of pleasure and destruction stands at the
end of a shattered life.
Until a jury should decide, in so far as human fallibility may decide,
just whether or how Dora McDonald shot down Webster Guerin, that
victim of tangled love and jealousy, a waiting city hung expectant on
every incident bared since the day that the artist toppled before a
pistol ball in his studio with a woman of furs and furbelows standing
sobbing above him.
A "SAPPHO" AND "SALOME."
A "Sappho" in a grimy city she was called because her heart was
touched by the strength of youth; a "Salome" because she planted a
kiss on his dying lips, but whether she was victim or vampire, sinner
or sinned against, was solely for the jury to say.
Cries of blackmail, of bribery, of frenzied jealousy, of shameless
love and daring intrigue, rang around the courtroom for the long days
of the trial, but for the jury it was only to look behind the locked
door of the artist's studio and see whether the revolver with which
Guerin was shot down was held by the woman or the young man; whether
there was malice or accident or self-destruction, and what the motive
for either might be.
The shot that sounded his death was the climax to an
attachment--guilty or not, as the case might be--that began when Dora
McDonald was a wonderfully beautiful and younger woman, the wife of a
wealthy gambler, and the lady of a mansion, and Webster Guerin was a
mere lad, just old enough to doff short trousers for manly attire.
Affection, money and attention were lavished on the young man by this
woman. At banquet board and in the theater box they passed their hours
together. Of this there was no dispute. The sole question was whether
the woman gave way to the lure of a boy, or whether the boy was
importuned by the woman; whether in after years that boy blackmailed
that same woman, or whether she loved him to a distraction that
brought the madness of jealousy and the revolver.
And what of the love attachment? the police wondered. But as they
delved a little they unearthed strange and tender things, but nothing
more strange than poems written by the woman and apparently dedicated
to the youth.
The tragedy of a soul was bared when Assistant State's Attorney Day
read to the jury poems of passion found in the reticule taken from
Mrs. McDonald on her arrest.
The State regarded the declarations contained in the verse as
disclosing a dual motive of murder and suicide, and introduced them as
circumstantial evidence. One entitled "Mistakes" was written on the
day of the Guerin love tragedy.
Here is the first one read:
TRAGEDY OF A SOUL IN POEMS OF PASSION BY DORA MCDONALD.
Put the word "finish" down by my name:
I played for high stakes, but I lost the game;
I played for life, for honor and love:
Well, I am not the first mortal who has lost all.
I have made up my mind to care not a bit;
Let honor and love sink to the bottomless pit.
Pull down the curtains, bring in the lights,
Put from my memory horrible sights
Of treachery where there should have been love,
Of red blood where should have been whiteness of dove;
The past, the present and the future are done:
How different, O God! had it been had I won.
WRITTEN AS TRAGEDY APPROACHED.
We are drifting apart,
Though from no change of heart:
But we cannot agree,
And the end we can see,
So the bonds of our love we will sever;
And I wonder if we
Will, alas! too late see
That our happiness lay in each other.
For when soul finds its mate
It is often too late
To struggle and fight against conquering fate.
And what does it mean?
This parting, I ween;
I'll leave you, but, well.
Neither heaven nor hell
Will make me forget you.
Nor save you should I find
Another holds the place that was and is mine.
POEM WRITTEN ON DATE OF THE GUERIN TRAGEDY.
This poem, entitled "Mistakes," is dated February 21, 1907. 11:20 a.
m.:
Said he: "Where is my sin?
I'm only as men have ever been.
I'm not so bad, I'm not so good,
And I'd be as you'd have me if only I could.
But you are strong and good and brave.
Surely for me a road you can pave,
A road which shall be my happiness, my very soul save.
After all, it's for you and you only that I crave."
She waited a moment, then came her reply:
"To the old adage, that women are weak, you can give the lie.
Not only you, others as well,
All through life have the same tale to tell.
I didn't mean to do it--I didn't, I swear,
But you can forgive me; your loss I cannot bear.
Can I forgive you? Well, that's not so clear,
Though you certainly were to me very dear.
I think, after all, now that I am awake.
I think it was I who made the mistake.
I thought of you ever as a flower rare.
With whom other flowers could not even compare.
Alack and alas! I find, after all,
You are only a sunflower, of which there are many,
Who take all the elements have to give
And give nothing that creates or causes happiness to live."
"KILL ME IF YOU WILL," SHE SAYS IN A VERSE.
Another of Mrs. McDonald's poems, written on the day of the killing,
is as follows:
Kill me if you will, for all is well.
I know that to Satan your soul you can't sell,
And I've saved you from everlasting hell.
I had lifted you up, when, lo! I found
Slowly but surely you were dragging me down.
Out of space thus came a warning
Soft and clear as the breath of the morning.
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE.
Have you learned the old saying of pearls before swine?
I gave every pearl that ever was mine.
I've nothing more to give.
And it's hardly worth while for me to live.
More blessed to give than receive, they say.
I followed that teaching in my poor way.
I wanted returns, I'll have to confess,
And I had to be cool, and firm and brave,
For I knew 'twas my duty your soul to save.
And I've set your feet on the path of right,
And from now till the end you shall see but the light
And turn from it to pitfalls and terrors of night.
Turn to the right, to the wrong you may sway.
From black imps' vile rottenness I've snatched you away,
And though I fall slain at your feet with a moan,
I care not, for evil from you has flown;
And, by all the glory of God above,
I've proven the strength of a weak woman's love,
And I thought my pearls would bring love that was blessed.
I did so want love that was loyal;
'Twas more to me than a diadem royal.
But I found too late that I was wrong,
That love but existed in hopes and in song.
What became of those pearls of mine?
Oh, nothing! I just threw my pearls to the swine.
ANOTHER POEM OF PASSION.
I waged a battle fierce and long,
I fought to know the right from wrong.
Did I succeed? I cannot tell,
Yet when I met sin I knew full well
That fight's not over. 'Tis scarcely begun,
And I struggle again to win, one by one,
Steps on the ladder that mounts to great deeds,
Where the path to the right unfailingly leads.
As I gazed at the battlefield, flooded with gore,
Where the path to the right unfailingly bore,
I knew that the wounds came from contact with sin.
'Twas demons let loose that float in the air;
But the fight's worth the while, for when
Misery and heartaches shall all pass away
Right has full sway.
The reading of the poems was followed intently by the big crowd in
Judge Brentano's courtroom. Mrs. McDonald appeared uninterested.
From poetry the step was easy into song. Accomplished and educated as
Dora McDonald was, with time hanging, sometimes, heavy on her hands,
what more natural than that she should set her verses to music of her
own composing?
NEVER AGAIN.
(Song written, composed and published by Mrs. Michael C. McDonald.)
'Twas only a story of a woman's love, a tale that has often been told.
She gave a love that knew no bounds; the rest of the story is old.
Again he had strayed, and this time had made a mistake she could never
forget;
In a voice that was dense with a grief intense she mournfully did say:
I gave you sweetest love, you gave me naught but pain;
Oh, I forgave you more than once but to be hurt again.
This time it means the end, for I could never forget.
I shall never see you again, although I love you yet.
With tears in his eyes the man replied: "I know that I have gone astray;
Remorse will last till life is passed; forgive me, don't send me away.
Oh, let me atone, live for you alone; just once more have pity on me."
But, bowing her head, with its look of one dead, she softly but firmly
said:
I gave you sweetest love, etc.
The mother of the woman, an aged orthodox Hebrew, never went near Dora
McDonald until the trial was nearly done, though that same old woman
bent her knees as she day and night raised her voice to Jehovah in
lamentations.
Ill health, mental and physical, followed. All the sorrows of a
shattered life befell her.
SOUGHT VINDICATION TO SPARE HER AGED MOTHER.
For Dora McDonald, life had been lived when Guerin died. It mattered
not after that whether she went to the gallows or to freedom. But for
one reason she would not have cared a whit whether her case was fought
before a jury or not. The one reason was vindication that her mother
might be spared something of shame.
The vindication, however, was sought at a costly price--the price of a
life and heart and love bared to a gaping world. It was an expensive
effort to wash off the stain of an indictment.
At the trial Assistant State's Attorneys Edward S. Day and William
H. Rittenhouse wrangled with their own witnesses and tried one after
another to have them testify to things they never saw or heard.
They attacked Inspector John Wheeler, Officer J. G. S. Peterson,
Thomas F. McFarland, Detective Wooldridge, Police Matron Elizabeth
Belmont, Charles Freudenberg, an old soldier 60 years old, and
threatened him with an indictment; Louis Jacobs, Lorenzo Blasi, Herman
Hanson and Charles B. Williams.
All of those accused except Detective Wooldridge considered the
fulminations of Attorneys Day and Rittenhouse a good joke. They
regarded them as the vaporings of temporarily disordered intellects,
minds that had become rattled by a case which was too big for them.
Owing, however, to the peculiar position in which he was placed as the
officer who made the arrest, Wooldridge was forced to take cognizance
of the matter.
Wooldridge denied the statements made against him and branded them as
malicious lies manufactured out of whole cloth. He asked for a hearing
before the Civil Service Board, which was granted to him after the
trial was over.
It was fully shown at the investigation how Wooldridge had been
treated in the matter, and the motive for his transfer; it was also
shown that he knew no new facts, neither did he meet or know any
witnesses except those who had testified to the Coroner and Grand Jury.
The motives for his transfer and the reports were fully uncovered and
exposed.
Detective Wooldridge was exonerated by the entire Board of Civil
Service Commissioners.
Day and Rittenhouse simply sewed up the case in criminations and
recriminations.
Assistant State's Attorneys Day and Rittenhouse were outgeneraled,
outclassed and whipped, and wanted to throw the blame for the
acquittal of Dora McDonald on the Police Department and failed. They
did everything but try the case.
STRONG DEFENSE BY LEWIS.
Colonel Lewis said that the State had not denied that the revolver
with which Guerin was shot was his own. He called for the weapon and
showed the jury how Guerin might have shot himself if Mrs. McDonald,
in her struggle with him, had merely pushed the revolver around in the
palm of his hand.
Again he called for the blood-stained coat that Guerin wore when he
was killed. It was too good an opportunity to be overlooked by the
fine dramatic eye of the Colonel.
"You remember the speech of Mark Anthony," he said; "how he produced a
tremendous effect with the robe of the great Cæsar? I will not ask for
more than the robe that this Cæsar wore."
Thereupon he spread out the grewsome relic on the railing on the jury
box to show what he said were powder marks. In his mind, there was no
doubt about how the tragedy worked out. Guerin, enraged and terrified
when Mrs. McDonald told him that she had told her rich and influential
husband everything, attacked her. He got the revolver out of his
drawer, probably to frighten her. Mrs. McDonald, half choked, saw it
gleam and pushed it away from her.
STRIKES HARD AT ARCHIE GUERIN.
More striking than the beautiful imageries and the wealth of quotation
from ancient and modern authors with which the Colonel embellished
his speech was his strong play upon "that fifteen minutes," which,
according to his interpretation of the evidence, elapsed between the
time the boys in Guerin's studio were ejected and the time when Archie
came out, leaving his brother and Mrs. McDonald alone, behind locked
doors.
"There need be nothing else in this case for you," exclaimed the
speaker, "than this fifteen minutes unaccounted for. Archie Guerin
knew what was going on there, and before God he should tell, but
he did not. He hurried away and cleared the corridors. Nervous and
confused, he hunted up Harry Feldman in the Windsor-Clifton Hotel, so
that if anything happened, he could say:
"'I didn't do it. You know I didn't, Feldman. I was right here with
you.'"
O'DONNELL MOVES TO TEARS.
There were wet eyes in the courtroom as the real Dora McDonald
was brought to life in the closing address of Mr. O'Donnell. The
bickerings and the charges and the abuse that had made the courtroom
like a pothouse brawl all day were forgotten. The woman's black clad
figure and her white, despairing face became the living picture of the
world-old tragedy of the judgment and the problem of pardon.
"The tragedy was in that room," said Mr. O'Donnell, pointing to a plat
of room 703 of the Omaha building, "and no one knows how the life of
Guerin was ended.
"I am not going to place a wreath upon the brow of this woman. She is
not all that a man would wish his wife to be. She has traveled the
devious pathways and her eyes have fallen upon the shifting scenes of
life.
"The Sabbath is coming on. Her ancestral people lit the candles at
sundown last night. Somewhere in this city a light is burning where a
Jewish mother is praying and hoping for her erring daughter. You are
approaching the moment when you must do your great duty. You are here
only to say whether she killed Guerin with a criminal intent in her
heart.
QUOTES THE GOSPEL.
"A daughter of Israel coming to judgment. She may have been wayward,
but we are not here to judge her past life. In a temple of Jerusalem
many years ago the Saviour of us all stood before the multitude and
they brought him a woman and said:
"'She has been taken in sin and she must die.' And he said:
"'Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.' And they
walked away and left him with the woman. Then the Master said to the
woman:
"'Go and sin no more.'
"Let us pass judgment upon this woman as the Son of Man passed it upon
the woman of old that we may expect mercy when we stand at last where
the fallen woman of Jerusalem stood."
Mr. O'Donnell created a scene of profound dramatic features when he
based his contention that Guerin blackmailed Mrs. McDonald upon a
letter written by Guerin. He called the ghost of Guerin to take the
witness stand and testify against the state's attorneys.
ACQUITTAL CREATES THRILLING SCENES.
These were the scenes which attended the rendition of the Dora
McDonald verdict:
"Bring in the jury," said Judge Brentano, as he dropped into the big
leather-upholstered chair behind the bench.
Bradley was waiting for the word at the door to the Judge's right.
Looking very solemn and sphinx-like, the twelve men filed in and took
their usual places.
At the same time Mrs. McDonald came through the corridor from the
custodian's room, accompanied by her nurse, Miss A. K. Beck. Miss Beck
was trembling, but there was not a tremor in Mrs. McDonald's hands or
a movement of the facial muscles to indicate that she felt the least
excitement.
Attorney Norden pulled out her armchair for her and pushed it under
her again as she sat down. Every man in the courtroom felt a choke in
his throat, but if Mrs. McDonald felt it she gave no evidence of it.
"Gentlemen," said the judge, turning toward the jury, "have you agreed
upon a verdict?"
At first there was no answer, and the judge had to repeat the
question. That interval was like a lapse of a week or a month.
Mrs. McDonald, who had not been asked to rise, sat facing the jury and
looking straight at them. She considered it only polite to keep awake
and to forego those beloved "dreams" of hers in honor of the verdict,
whatever it might be.
SUSPENSE FRIGHTFUL.
"Have you agreed upon a verdict?" repeated Judge Brentano, a little
impatiently.
"We have," replied the foreman, Hugh H. Fulton, rising and displaying
a paper which he held in his right hand.
"Let the Clerk of the Court read it."
A. J. Harris, the Clerk, was already in front of the railing to
receive the paper. He took it to his desk, and holding it under an
incandescent lamp, for the courtroom was dark, he read, in a loud
voice:
"We, the jury, find the defendant, Dora McDonald, not guilty."
It was as though you had touched a match to a pile of gunpowder. The
people in the courtroom seemed to explode. They did not cheer, or
applaud, or shout, and yet they appeared to be doing all of them. The
tension was broken and a sort of bubbling effervescence took its place.
MCDONALD JURORS TELL OF THE VERDICT.
"The jury found Mrs. McDonald innocent because they could not feel
sure that she did not act in self-defense, and, following the
instructions of the court, gave her the benefit of the doubt."
This was the opinion voiced by Juror Charles McGrath. Mr. McGrath said
that the jury presumed the defendant sane, and that the matter of
possible insanity was not considered at any time.
"I think that the jury attached a great deal of importance to the
testimony of Dr. McNamara," continued Mr. McGrath.
"He was the only physician that had made a thorough physical
examination of the defendant subsequent to Guerin's death. We
especially paid a great deal of attention to that portion of his
testimony that told of the marks found on Mrs. McDonald's neck,
indicating that she had been choked. This evidence, taken with that
relative to the finding of the hairpins on the floor, showed that
there had been a struggle, and the court had instructed us that if we
found that there had been a struggle we would be justified in finding
a verdict of acquittal.
"Although I, perhaps, ought to speak only for myself, I will say that
I do not think that the members of the jury were much impressed with
the expert testimony."
Another juror said that those favoring an acquittal based their
arguments largely on the fact that most of the evidence in the case
was circumstantial, and that there was no absolute proof that Mrs.
McDonald fired the fatal shot at all, and that if she did it was not
shown that it was not in self-defense.
"It was mostly by argument along these lines that the conviction men
were won over, one by one," said this juror. "The subject of the
unwritten law was not gone into at all."
WOMAN SERENE AS VERDICT IS READ.
Dora McDonald, in a state of serenity and composure that is baffling
even to those who are nearest her, was surrounded after her acquittal
by friends and relatives, who were weeping for very joy at her
acquittal.
She seemed quite unconcerned about it all, but when they took her
to one side and asked her how she felt about it, she said, in the
amazingly simple way she has:
"I am pleased. Do you want me to tell you the five reasons why?"
They said yes, and though she lost herself several times in the
attempt, for she was very tired--these were the reasons she gave:
1--Because no Jewish woman could ever do a deed like that
of which I had been accused.
2--Because it removes the stigma from dad's (Michael C.
McDonald's) name.
3--Because of my boy.
4--Because of my darling old mother.
5--Please believe it, last and least--absolutely least of
these--because of myself.
"The only real disappointment to me is that dad did not live to hear
that verdict, and that is my bitterest disappointment."
It had been the belief generally among those who followed the case
that the woman would not outlive the verdict long, no matter what
it might be. The original plans were that she would be sent to a
sanitarium in case of acquittal. She herself is said to have planned
that if let go she would make a journey to Jerusalem, and there end
her days in prayer with her chosen people, in an effort to blot out
her past. "Life can never have any more meaning for her," Colonel
Lewis said when the jury first retired. "No matter what the verdict,
it is of little consequence to her, though she will die happier,
maybe, if she is acquitted."
In Jerusalem there is what is known as the "Wall of the Wailing of
the Jews." In the Valley of Tyron, at the foot of Mount Moriah, on
which now stands the Mosque of Omar, but where formerly the Temple of
Solomon stood, there are five enormous stones built into the foot of
the hill. A little courtyard beside these stones, which Solomon laid
as the foundations of his Temple, is set aside for the Jewish race.
Each Friday this courtyard is filled with Jews wailing for the sorrows
of Israel. Every type of Jew, from the hunted Russian to the wealthy
American, may be found there, reading from the Book of Lamentations,
and sending the cry of sorrow to the skies. It was here that Dora
McDonald proposed to weep out her ruined life.
But no, it is not the Place of Wailing in Jerusalem to which Dora
McDonald has gone. Hard as it is to believe of the woman who so
bravely passed through this tremendous ordeal, she has stooped,
stooped lower than one would believe humanly possible. She has
returned to the stage. She is now engaged in attempting to have a
play based upon the tremendous tragedy of her life placed on the
boards in New York.
She is attempting to lay bare to the gaping audiences of cheap
theatres the sores upon her soul. She has been calloused to publicity
to such an extent that she now hungers for the public eye. She has
placed herself in the same class with the lepers outside the walls of
Jerusalem who display their horrid sutures and demand a penny before
they replace the bandages. To this petty end has come this greatest
and most spectacular of modern trials, this heart-shaking romance of
love and life.
[Illustration: THE VAMPIRE
FROM THE PAINTING BY BURNE-JONES]
The Vampire.
After Painting by
SIR ED. BURNE-JONES
Verses by
RUDYARD KIPLING.
A fool there was and he made his prayer--
(Even as you and I.)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair--
(We called her the woman who did not care)
But the fool he called her his lady fair--
(Even as you and I.)
Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste--
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know--
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand.
A fool there was and his goods he spent--
(Even as you and I.)
Honor and faith and a sure intent--
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant)
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(Even as you and I.)
Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost--
And the excellent things we planned
Belong to the woman who didn't know why--
(And now we know she never knew why)
And did not understand.
The fool was stripped to his foolish hide--
(Even as you and I.)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside--
(But it isn't on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died--
(Even as you and I.)
But it isn't the shame, and it isn't the blame
That sting like a white hot brand--
It's coming to know that she never knew why--
(Seeing at last she could never know why)
And could never understand.
MIKE McDONALD.
"King of Gamblers," Supreme in His Day, Relentless
Nemesis of Old "Clark Street Gang," Brings
His Gray Hairs to Grave
With Broken Heart.
Rises From Newsboy to Gambling King and Becomes Millionaire.
Mike McDonald's career in Chicago has been spectacular and sensational
to a degree.
The present-day generation in Chicago cannot appreciate what the name
Michael C. McDonald meant twenty years ago in Chicago. There is not a
single man today in Chicago, or in any city in America who occupies
relatively the position that Mike McDonald did in the old days in
Chicago.
He never held office, but he ruled the city with an iron hand. He
named the men who were to be candidates for election; he elected them;
and then, after they were in office, they were merely his puppets.
While in recent years Michael C. McDonald has shown little activity
in Chicago political and sporting circles, living quietly at Drexel
boulevard and Forty-fifth street, in a costly mansion, his name twenty
years ago was a power in both.
Born in 1840 in Niagara county, New York, he came to Chicago in 1854
and was a newsboy with John R. Walsh and other pioneers, in the city's
infancy. Before the war a business venture took him to New Orleans,
and when the south began to become inflamed he returned to Chicago
with enough money to purchase the sample room of the Richmond House,
Michigan avenue and South Water street.
Here a spectacular career began. McDonald became the big gambler of
all the host of gamblers that were then growing rich in Chicago. He
also became one of the leaders in the democratic organization. He made
money hand over fist.
[Illustration: Michael C. McDonald's wheel of fortune, showing his
progress from bootblack to gambling king, and the woman's face that
brought him to the tragic present, causing him to exclaim: "My riches
have brought me only sorrow."]
BEGINS LIFE AS "CANDY BUTCHER."
Mike McDonald began life as a "candy butcher" on railroad trains
before the war. He sold peanuts and popcorn and mysterious packages
not to be opened on the train, and fine gold watches at $3.75 apiece.
Mike ran on many different railroads, although it must be said for
the sake of truth that his customers were often very sorry to board a
train and find that the energetic little candy butcher who had sold
them jewelry on the last trip they had made had left and gone over to
some other railroad. Mike's old customers used to beg him to return to
them. They even dared him to come back.
PATRIOTIC FOR A PRICE.
The candy butcher made money and saved it, and during the war he
settled down in Chicago. Mike was very patriotic. He sent many men
around to the enlistment offices, especially when big bounties were
offered for volunteers. The trouble with the gallant soldiers that
Mike put into the service was that after they got their bounty money
they lost their enthusiasm and faded from view, like an evanescent
mist.
Mike made much money out of his bounty-jumpers, but lost a good deal
of it gambling. At this time he trained with "Tip" Farrell, Charley
Miller, John Sutton and Matt Duffy, who figured more or less in the
police records of that time. Sutton was shot and killed in front of
Pete Page's saloon, on Clark street, in 1864.
Toward the close of the war McDonald and a notorious St. Paul crook
lost $600 in the famous game that Colonel Cameron was running in
Chicago. McDonald found out that the cards were stocked against him,
and it discouraged him with having anything more to do with poker
playing from the front of the table. Colonel Cameron had taught him,
at the expense of $600, that the money in gambling was in running the
game, not playing it. From that day Mike McDonald never gambled. He
straightway opened his own game.
With Dave Oaks he started a game of faro at 89 Dearborn street. It was
a nice, little, modest game, with only those two as the entire crew of
the place. They took turn alternate days as dealer and roper in. The
suckers who played the game used to complain frequently that the firm
of Oaks & McDonald worked sleight-of-hand tricks with the faro deck,
and the unkind police used to raid the game every day.
SOLVED GAMBLING PROBLEM.
This frequent raiding cut frightfully into the profits of the
enterprising firm of Oaks & McDonald, and set the junior member
thinking again. He had already solved the great problem that it is
better to run a brace game than to play one, but he found there were
thorns even in running a game. Therefore he set to work to discover
how these thorns could be removed.
The thorns that beset his career as a gambler were the police. But
the police acted under instructions from the chief of police. The
chief of police acted under instructions from the administration.
Therefore, McDonald figured out that he would have to control the
administration. So he straightway blossomed out as a politician, and
grew in importance until finally he ruled Chicago, and realized the
great ambition of his life, to make and unmake things like chiefs of
police, with a curt nod of his head.
ONCE RULED ALL CHICAGO.
Mike McDonald never got over his hatred for the police that was born
in the days when they used to raid his little game at 89 Dearborn
street. He probably would have abolished the police department
entirely when he finally found himself on the throne of Chicago,
had it not been that he found the police useful in making the other
fellows behave, while he could do as he pleased. And then, it was such
a joy to make the police bend the knee and acknowledge him as Lord and
Master.
Generally the superintendents of police knew what was expected of them
before they accepted the office, but once in a while one of them had
foolish notions about duty and law, and had to be taught his place.
Poor old Simon O'Donnell, when he became superintendent of police,
in the days when Mike McDonald ran "The Store" and ruled Chicago,
got the idea, because of numerous complaints of many patrons of the
gambling games in "The Store," that the place should be raided. So he
raided it.
It was a most impious act. It was like laying hands on the Ark of the
Covenant. Superintendent Simon O'Donnell lost his job so quickly it
made his head ache, and William J. McGarigle, whom McDonald afterward
made warden of the county hospital, and who was indicted and convicted
of boodling, was installed as superintendent of police in place of the
simple-minded Mr. O'Donnell.
Mike McDonald's hatred and contempt for the police is preserved in
a joke that the few minstrel companies still left on earth continue
to cherish as one of their best beloved jests. It originated with
McDonald. One day, when he was in the zenith of his power, a man came
into "The Store" with a subscription list.
"The boys are raising a little money, Mike," said the man. "We'd like
to have you give something. We are putting our names down for $2 a
piece."
"What's it for?" asked Mike, suspiciously.
"Why," answered the man, considerably confused, "We're burying a
policeman."
"Fine," said Mike. "Here's $10; go and bury five of 'em."
NEAR TO PENITENTIARY.
While Mike was running the place at 89 Dearborn street he became
involved in an affair that put him in jail for three months and made
the portals of the penitentiary loom up largely across his path. It
looked for a time as if his career was about to be nipped in the young
bud.
In 1869 Charles Goodwin, assistant cashier of the Chicago Dock
Company, was found to be a defaulter to the extent of $30,000. He fled
from Chicago and went to California, but in a few months came back and
surrendered himself to the authorities.
He testified that McDonald had lured him into the game at 89 Dearborn
street, where he had played and lost his money in a series of brace
games that lasted during a period of several weeks. At first he lost
a few hundred dollars, and he was persuaded to go back to the Dock
company's office and get money out of the safe in order that he could
return the next evening and win back the money he had lost.
He never won anything back, but kept getting in deeper. At length the
poor, deluded victim was told to make a big haul and skip the town.
He made a last pull at the strong box for $15,000 or $18,000, and his
friends at 89 Dearborn street let him play one last farewell game, at
which they took the trouble to see that the boy should not be bothered
in his flight from justice by lugging a big bag full of money around
with him.
CASE FINALLY "FIXED."
McDonald was arrested, and the Dock company also proceeded against him
civilly, as it was not certain he could be held on a criminal charge
owing to the guarded manner in which he had conducted his operation.
McDonald was put under bail of $60,000, and, being unable to supply
it, remained in jail for several months. Things were finally "fixed"
all right, though. A few days before his trial he was released from
jail, John Corcoran and Alderman Tom Foley going on his bail bond.
The trial was a farce. All the gamblers, "con" men, bunko steerers
and strong-arm men in Chicago lined up in court and told how the
defaulting clerk had begged to be permitted to play the brace game,
with tears in his eyes, and that most of his money had been spent on
wine, women and song. The jury solemnly declared McDonald innocent.
The expense of his trial on the charge of stealing the Dock company's
$30,000 had made McDonald poor, and he had to get out and do a
little "hustling." Soon after his release from the county jail John
Donaldson, a California gambler and a high roller, made a winning in
McDonald's place of $2,200 at poker. He took the money back to the
hotel with him and was robbed of it and $500 besides before he had
been in bed ten minutes.
A cracksman by the name of Travers was convicted of the crime.
Donaldson used to go to Joliet every day or two to interview Travers.
Finally he came back from Joliet and never ate nor slept until he had
run McDonald down. Tweaking his nose he shouted:
"Travers has confessed. You are a thief. You are a coward. Within
twenty minutes after I was robbed you were dividing my $2,700 with
Travers and his pal."
McDonald did not deny the charge or strike back at Donaldson, as the
latter apparently hoped he would. Donaldson was a slight man, almost
dead with consumption, but he was famous as a man killer, and while
with one hand he tweaked McDonald's nose, the other hand was jammed
down in his coat pocket, and McDonald knew that if he made a move or
said a word he was a dead man.
Donaldson's hatred for McDonald became a mania with him. He was a
doomed man, anyhow, and he wanted to kill McDonald before he went. So
for the three years before death finally claimed him he would drag
himself about the streets until he could stand in front of his enemy
and slap him in the face and curse him, and beg him to raise his hand
or say a word, or give him the slightest pretext for killing him.
It was a great relief to McDonald when grim death finally claimed
Donaldson.
RISES IN HIS PROFESSION.
After the fire McDonald opened a place on State street, in partnership
with Nick Geary, a celebrated thief, who was subsequently killed in
Philadelphia. McDonald next moved to the West Side, and was taken
in by John Dowling, who gave him a third interest in his game in
consideration of indemnity against police interference, McDonald's
political star at this time being on the rise. The firm cleared
$100,000 in less than a year.
[Illustration: (gambling with skeleton)]
About this time McDonald formed a partnership with Harry Lawrence and
Morris Martin, and for four or five years they had supreme control of
the bunko business. None others could work excepting those who took
the trouble to see the firm of McDonald, Martin & Lawrence. Among the
gang who worked under the protection of the firm were Tom Wallace,
John Wallace, "Snitzer, the Kid," John Martin, "Snapper Johnny,"
"Kid Miller," "Sir James" Arlington, or Gannon, "Appetite Bill," and
"Hungry Joe."
There is no telling how much money these individuals took away from
the unsuspecting public, but it is estimated at over $1,000,000. Of
this, 20 per cent went to the police, 40 per cent to the roper, and
40 per cent to the firm. The latter furnished straw bail, witnesses
and juries, and other protection, and the confidence gangs reported to
it and received orders. In 1875 "White Pine" Martin shot and killed
"Sir James" Gannon in front of "The Store" while quarreling over the
division of the proceeds of some job.
THRONE IN "THE STORE."
The firm of McDonald, Lawrence and Martin had opened up the resort
known as "The Store" on Clark street, on the northwest corner of
Monroe street, where the Hamilton Club stands today. The first floor
was operated as a saloon, and the floors above as gambling rooms.
After public sentiment became aroused over the bunko business of the
firm, Lawrence and Martin drew out, leaving McDonald to run "The
Store" alone.
"The Store" was the most famous place in Chicago in those days. It
was not only the rendezvous of all the sporting men, politicians and
denizens of the underworld in Chicago, but it was virtually the city
hall, for from his little office in "The Store" McDonald managed the
affairs of the city.
Every form of gambling known flourished on that wonderful second
floor. The most expert manipulators of cards that ever dealt a second
or shifted a cold deck sat behind the tables. They were Clif Doherty,
Frank Gallon, Billy Tyler, Charles Winship and George Noyse.
High-ball poker, in which the roller holds the high ball in his fist
and rolls it to the cappers continuously, and faro, with fifty-three
cards in the deck, so that the odd could be dealt, were said to have
always prevailed in "The Store."
"There never was an honest card dealt in the place," is the epitaph
one old-time gambler has written on its dead proprietor.
Big as the place was, it was always crowded. McDonald is said to have
coined a very common phrase when, on one occasion, one of his dealers
protested against putting in more tables and increasing the size of
the gambling rooms.
"I tell you, Mike," he said, "we won't have enough players to fill up
all the games."
"Ah, don't worry," McDonald is said to have replied, "there's a sucker
born every minute."
In politics McDonald's first great triumph was when he elected Colvin
mayor on the democratic ticket. Then he put the elder Harrison in the
mayoralty chair, and after that he had plain sailing. His control
lasted during the entire Harrison administration of eight years. In
all that time there was no bigger man in Chicago than Mike McDonald.
The only time he met with a serious set-back was in 1882, when he
tried to elect William J. McGarigle, then chief of police, sheriff of
Cook county.
THE BIG COURTHOUSE "JOB."
Another disappointment of McDonald's political career was when he got
a bill past the county commissioners and city aldermen authorizing
Harry Holland to paint the outside of the City Hall and County
Building with a mixture which was guaranteed to prevent the stone from
decaying.
Holland applied his marvelous preparation, but when the time came
to pay the bill a newspaper man, John J. Lane, who died only the
other day in St. Louis, had dug up evidence tending to show that
Holland's preparation was nothing but water and chalk, and not quite
so efficacious in preventing the decay of stone as prune juice or ice
cream would have been, but much cheaper. The county has never yet paid
the $80,000 that Holland wanted for the job on the county building.
After the close of the Harrison administration a new day began in
Chicago. The independent voter broke the power of party bosses. Mike
McDonald's rule was broken. He could no longer do what he pleased with
city administrations and be unofficial chief of police.
He bowed pleasantly to the inevitable, and stepped down and out. He
was wise in that he saw the handwriting on the wall, and gracefully
submitted instead of "kicking against the pricks" and wasting his
time and his money, as did other gamblers and sports, who were
finally crushed out simply because they could not recognize that new
conditions and new men had come.
McDonald quit every sphere of his old life and went into business.
It was he who, with William Fitzgerald, built the first elevated road
in town, the Lake street "L." Then, in 1891, he thought he would like
to be an editor. He bought control of the Globe, a daily morning
paper, and ran it for over two years. It was not a financial success,
and finally McDonald gave it up. "I guess I was never cut out for a
literary man," was his laughing remark. "There are other things I know
more about."
DOMESTIC LIFE ROUGH.
A great deal has been said about McDonald's domestic unhappiness, but
it was not until his body had been buried that the truth was known.
His first wife was Mary Noonan, whom he married in the days when "The
Store" was the sporting and political Mecca of Chicago.
It was a great scandal in the community later when she suddenly
disappeared, and it was reported that she had run away with "Billy"
Arlington, a minstrel man. It was the greater shock because her
devotion and loyalty to McDonald had been the talk of the town.
One time she had stood, with a pistol, in her husband's gambling
house, and defied the police when they raided the place under
instruction of some blundering chief of police, who did not realize
that he was toying with the lightning when he laid violent hands
on anything that belonged to McDonald. Mary McDonald had held her
ground at the door in "The Store," and declared she would shoot the
first policeman that attempted to enter. She was as good as her word,
and one of the officers was carried to a hospital with a bullet
through his arm. Mrs. McDonald, through her husband's pull, was never
prosecuted.
McDonald went to San Francisco and brought his wife back and installed
her in the house he had built at Ashland avenue and Harrison street,
considered in those days a veritable palace. McDonald gave it out to
the world that he had built the mansion for his wife, and his taking
her back after she was reputed to have run away with another man
was accepted as a wonderful instance of his great-heartedness and
magnanimity.
SAM BARCLAY TELLS "HOW MIKE MCDONALD'S COIN WON DORA AWAY."
"Sam" Barclay (Harry is supposed to have been his baptismal name) was
one of the great ball players of the long ago, and the shadows of the
drama that wrecked his life are, therefore, interwoven with the world
of sport, and even with the career of Charles Comiskey, "the master of
the White Sox."
Barclay, a trim and graceful fellow, came into prominence twenty years
ago and played with Pittsburg and St. Louis. At St. Louis he was under
the command of Comiskey, who therefore knew him well, and was always
interested in his doings.
On two or three occasions quarrels over the contracts of Sam Barclay
nearly wrecked organized base ball. He was a wonderful second baseman,
and one of the fastest and most scientific players of the day.
In 1889 Barclay's knee went back on him, and, while he regained full
use of the leg, he was never fast enough to play his former game. He
also began to take on flesh, and was glad to retire from the diamond.
[Illustration: HOME MCDONALD BUILT FOR HIS FIRST WIFE HARRISON ST. AND
ASHLAND BLD.]
OPENS SALOON IN CHICAGO.
Coming to Chicago, Barclay opened a saloon on West Madison street.
Back in 1894, West Madison, from Halsted to Elizabeth, was the real
red-light district, full of saloons and concert halls. Barclay's place
was the headquarters of revelry, but Sam himself kept a good name for
personal honesty and unbounded generosity to his friends.
When the red-lights went out on Madison street, Sam leased a saloon at
15 North Clark, where for some time he held the same kind of sway he
had maintained west of the river. This place was ultimately lost, and
he went over in Garfield park district, without much success.
"Sam" Barclay, former husband of Mrs. "Mike" McDonald II, 451 West
Lake street, freely discussed his life with Mrs. McDonald.
It was an interesting story, in which he told of Mrs. McDonald's
attempt to commit suicide once in Kansas City, of brawls in his
saloon, the "Half Moon," and of how "Mike" McDonald, assisted by
"Bunk" Allen, lured his wife away from him. Here is what he said:
"They have printed stories that are not true about this
case. Mrs. McDonald's mother was a Mrs. Feldman, who at one
time lived at 619 Harrison street. At the time I knew her
Mrs. Feldman had been divorced from her husband and he was
living in the Ghetto.
LIKELY LAD OF 200 POUNDS.
"It was in '89 that I met Dora. I was in the Kansas City
ball team, and was a likely lad. I weighed 200 pounds,
trained down, and it was a good man who was able to floor
me.
"Dora came to visit her brother-in-law in Kansas City. He
is Dick Vaughn, and a very good 'pal' of mine. I met her
there at his house.
"We took a liking to each other, so I used to have her in
the best seat every day at the games when we played on home
grounds.
"And she never was slow, I tell you, of giving me credit
when I made a double play or lined out a hot one.
NOTHING LIKE REAL LOVE.
"Well, the season came to a close. I liked the kid, but I
didn't feel nothing like real love for her. I was going to
leave Kansas City, and nothing was said about taking her
with me. I noticed that big tears came in her eyes when I
told her, but she didn't say much. That night they sent for
me. They told me that Dora was dying.
"I got to Vaughn's house and found her unconscious. She
had taken laudanum, the doctor said. She was in a stupor.
The first chance I got, I asked her what was the matter,
and she said to me, as the tears rolled down her cheeks:
"'I don't want to be left alone.'
"That, you know, touched me. We got married. I've got the
license right here. It was all doped up by a fellow in the
Washingtonian Home, who thought he owed a lot to me. He
certainly did some fine pen and ink decorating with birds,
and shadings and such things.
"So, after I quit the national game, I went into the saloon
business at 292 West Madison street, first, and then
started the 'Half Moon.'
"I'll tell you the truth about how Dora met Mike McDonald.
She went to McVicker's theater one day with Harry Summers,
who is now treasurer of the Illinois theater.
"Dora was with Mrs. Elliott. She used to be a model in
Ryan's store, at Madison and Peoria streets. Summers
introduced Dora to Mike McDonald, and that's the way they
started.
DAY OF HARRISON FUNERAL.
"Well I remember the time--it was on the day that Carter
Harrison's funeral went past the house, at 319 Washington
boulevard, where we were living at that time.
"'I met an old gentleman today who has lots of money,' Dora
said to me, as we looked out of the window.
"'It's funny how a man gets up in the world and then loses
it all when he's laid away in the narrow box,' I said,
keeping my eyes on the hearse.
"I was thinking, then, but not about what my wife said.
Afterward the words came to me, but I didn't realize the
meaning of her expression or what it had in store for me
then.
DEEP GAME WELL PLAYED.
"A few years passed. They went quick, then. Money made the
time fly, and Dora certainly was a spender. Then one night
they pulled off the game that was to separate us and give
Mike McDonald a young wife.
"I was boozy with wine. Bill Hoffman and 'Bunk' Allen were
masters of the ceremonies. They bundled me in a cab and
drove me to a place on Wood street. Detectives came in, and
my wife, too, and they there and then laid the basis of the
divorce suit which ended the game between Dora and I."
Barclay then told of a fight in his saloon, in which one man was
almost killed and another badly wounded. Then he said:
"That's how they wound up the 'Half Moon.' Jimmy Quinn said
he was my friend, but he stabbed me in the back. I was
getting too strong in politics, so he got me and I was put
down and out."
Barclay had seemed perfectly happy with her, but one night when he was
living in rooms over his saloon at 15 North Clark street he learned
that Mike McDonald had come into her life, and it was not long before
the ball player's romance was ended.
WIFE GETS DIVORCE.
Mrs. Barclay obtained a divorce--with McDonald's money, so Barclay
always said--and the ball player was left alone. The blow proved his
utter undoing. Barclay lost ambition and energy. He spent hours in his
rooms, gazing mutely at a huge crayon portrait of his wife, taken a
year before she left him, and he seemed to have no desire or ability
left for business.
SECOND WEDDING IN MILWAUKEE.
Mrs. Barclay was married to McDonald in Milwaukee. At the time she was
in the chorus of the Chicago Opera House. Her mother is Mrs. Fanny
Feldman, 338 South Marshfield avenue. She has two brothers, Harry and
Emil Feldman, both known in West Side political circles. Harry Feldman
was employed in the city clerk's office during William Loeffler's term.
When McDonald took his new wife to his house on Ashland boulevard
there was a red-hot family row. Guy, the elder of the two sons of
McDonald, had a pitched battle with her, and the fight was carried
into the street. The boy was victorious at first, but his father sided
with the stepmother, and eventually the boy left home.
Harold Barclay, 10 years old, Mrs. McDonald's son by her first
marriage, was adopted by McDonald, and with his two sons, Cassius and
Guy McDonald, has an equal share in the estate.
INDUCES HUSBAND TO DISINHERIT SON.
Shortly after her marriage to McDonald, Dora became angry at her
husband's son, Harley. The latter objected to his father contracting
further matrimonial alliances, and did not hesitate to say so. Mrs.
McDonald prevailed upon her husband to disinherit the son, and later,
of her own initiative, caused the arrest of the young man.
The charge was threats against her life. The case came up at the old
Armory police court, and the young man was placed under bonds to keep
the peace.
The breach between father and son is said never to have healed. Young
McDonald went into the sign painting business soon after the episode.
Guy married Miss Pearl Flower, and lives in Chicago. Mrs. McDonald
once had Guy McDonald arrested on the charge of writing threatening
and obscene letters.
The case was hotly fought in the United States court. A juryman, and
warm personal friend of Mike McDonald, saved him from conviction,
which would have carried with it a penitentiary sentence.
THE STING AND CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN MONEY.
"Mike" McDonald, the king of gamblers, was buried like a king of men.
There were flowers, tears, friends, orations and processions. But as
clothes are not, neither is a funeral, an index to character--nor even
is the obituary column.
Strangers, reading the story of the last day above the sod of
McDonald's body, might has thought that Chicago had lost a leading
good citizen. They were told that McDonald had amassed wealth, but
they were not told how he got it. They read of the great men whom he
had befriended, but they were not told of the men whom he had ruined.
They were not told that Mike McDonald living, had violated the laws
of the land, of society and of the home.
"Mike" McDonald died worth a million dollars. A young man beginning
life, familiar only with the post-mortem, story of McDonald, and
seeing no condemnation of his method of getting rich, might feel
encouraged to hold to the idea that the accumulation of money bars all
criticism for the way it is acquired.
Though the publicity of cold type has put no brand on the dead
McDonald, the story of "Mike" McDonald's life and fortune is not yet
finished.
Suppose he did die worth a million dollars, whom will it benefit? What
good will it do?
There will be a fight in every dollar, a quarrel in every penny.
There will be a strife among men and women over this fortune.
Much of it will go to lawyers to defend a woman charged with murder.
Much more of it will go to other lawyers who will try to break his
will. As McDonald's money was ill-gotten, so will it be spent to no
good purpose.
In a few years McDonald will be forgotten except by those whom in life
he ruined. His fortune will be gone. No one will remember him for the
good he did, if he did any good.
Let not "Mike" McDonald's success in securing money encourage you to
follow his method.
If you, young man, had an opportunity of entering a gambling venture,
with a certainty of securing for yourself a fortune of a million
dollars, you would be a fool to take advantage of that opportunity.
There is nothing in the life of even a successful gambler worth
imitating and nothing that he does worth admiring.
"Mike" McDonald may have been better than the ordinary class of
gamblers, but the occasional good deeds that men of his character do
are always exaggerated.
Ninety-nine gamblers out of a hundred that amass fortunes die paupers.
The money that a few accumulate, even as McDonald did, is, as a rule,
a curse to those that inherit it.
But if McDonald had sense--and we believe he did have sense--in the
closing years of his life he cursed the day when he started on a
career that wrecked him, socially and morally, and left him in his
dying hour a bankrupt in everything but the possession of a few
hundred thousand dollars, which he could not take beyond the grave.
And what has happened after McDonald's death, and what will happen in
the courts of law, will prove to men that ill-gotten money carries a
sting to its possessor and a curse to those who inherit it.
WIFE NO. 1, WIDOW; NO. 2, REPUDIATED.
BURIAL OF "MIKE" MCDONALD SERVES TO OPEN NEW CHAPTER IN HIS
TROUBLES--OLD SCANDALS DENIED.
MARY NOONAN NOW CLAIMS INNOCENCE AND FIGHTS TO PROVE DIVORCE ILLEGAL.
The grave out at Mount Olivet that closed over the body of "Mike"
McDonald refused a final sanctuary to the life-tragedy of the
political boss and millionaire gambling king.
The same hand of death that closed his eyes on his triumphs and
afflictions raised the curtain on an unforseen last act in this drama
of Chicago life.
In this new part of the plot Mrs. Dora Feldman McDonald, who turned
the old gambler's head and broke his heart through the shooting of
Webster Guerin, appears as a wife solemnly repudiated in death-bed
rites. At the same time Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald, the divorced and
exiled first wife, steps upon the scene to cleanse her name of the
scandals to which it has been linked for twenty years.
While the two wives and the relatives stood before the coffin it came
out that McDonald, shortly before his death at St. Anthony de Padua
hospital, had uttered a formal repudiation of his second marriage, in
the presence of the Rev. Maurice J. Dorney, pastor of St. Gabriel's
Catholic Church, and several witnesses, in the persons of hospital
attendants. This having been done, McDonald was permitted the last
sacraments of the church and burial under the Roman ritual.
FIRST WIFE DENIES CHARGES.
As the second wife passed under the ban, the first one came forward
to claim that of which she had been dispossessed by human passion.
Sitting in her apartment last night at the Vincennes hotel, Vincennes
avenue and Thirty-sixth street. Mary Noonan McDonald gave her version
of the romance and tragedy that have measured forty years of her life.
"For the sake of my two boys, it is now my duty to tell the
world the truth about the slanders with which my name has
been blackened," she said. "I am not perfect, and I have
done things for which I am sorry, but I am guiltless of the
charges with which I have been hounded about the world for
twenty years. This I can prove, and to do so I shall remain
in Chicago as long as necessary."
REPUDIATION OF SECOND WIFE.
It was after the solemn requiem mass over McDonald's body in the
Church of the Presentation that the Rev. Father Dorney consented to
tell the story of the gambler's dying repudiation of his second wife.
"I told 'Mike' McDonald before his death," said Father
Dorney, "that in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church
there was no such thing as divorce; that he had but one
wife, the mother of his children--Mary Noonan. I told him
he must publicly repudiate this other woman, and only when
he said he did so could he receive the last sacraments,
penance, holy eucharist, and extreme unction.
"Although he was critically ill, he said, firmly, that he
would do as the church wished: that he was sorry for his
sins, and he wanted to receive the last sacraments. Then,
in the presence of witnesses, as is required, he made the
repudiation. Later he went to confession, but what he told
there I can never reveal.
"Afterwards the other woman, Dora Feldman, came to see
him at the hospital, but if he was conscious he never
recognized her. He was true to his promise, true to his
resolution to put her out of his life."
CHURCH NOT INTERESTED IN WILL.
Father Dorney's attention was called to the fact that McDonald
probably had left a considerable portion of his estate to his second
wife.
"I suppose he did, but this is a legal matter in which the
church is not interested. Mike McDonald and Mary Noonan
were legally married in the eyes of the law, and the
church, in a Catholic church edifice. We never recognize
divorce. Of course, we know it is impossible at times for
men and women to live together, and the church permits them
to reside apart, but remarriage is impossible as long as
both of the parties are still alive.
"McDonald never remarried in the eyes of the church,
because his first wife was not dead. By his actions with
Dora Feldman he gave great scandal, but before his death
he repented of it. If Dora Feldman followed Mike McDonald
to his grave, she could not do so from an ecclesiastical
standpoint, and in my sermon this morning when I referred
to the wife of the dead man I meant Mary Noonan McDonald,
the mother of his children."
MRS. MARY MCDONALD CHANGED.
No greater contrast could be conceived than that between the woman
reputed to have deserted her husband in turn for a renegade French
priest and a minstrel, and the woman who rose to greet the interviewer
who called at the Vincennes hotel for Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald.
Twenty years of sorrow have left snow white hair that still crowns her
head with the same wealth as that of younger days, and twenty years
of struggle to support herself have dulled the fire of those gray
eyes that once looked over a smoking revolver with which the girl wife
held at bay the police raiders of her husband's gambling house. But
the slender figure appeared as erect as ever, though standing forth
with an added frailty beside her stalwart, brown-faced son, Guy, and
her face, though pale and sad, scarcely confessed to her 60 years of
age.
[Illustration: MARY NOONAN McDONALD, MICHAEL C. McDONALD, MRS. MICHAEL
C. McDONALD]
This is the woman who began her career in Chicago as the helpmate
of an old-time gambling king, and is ending her days in the work of
rescuing wayward girls; this is the woman who was driven to abandon
the name of McDonald and bury her identity for the last fifteen years
under the alias of Mrs. Grashoff, holding communication only with her
children and secretly visiting Chicago periodically to see them.
TELLS HER STORY AT LAST.
"It is sixteen years since I have talked to a newspaper
reporter," said Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald. "Again and
again have I been besought to tell my story, but long ago
I determined to remain silent until after the death of Mr.
McDonald. For the sake of my children's relations with
their father I held my peace, and now, for the sake of my
children's name, I have decided to give my story to the
world.
"The lies that have been printed about me for the last
twenty years are but a feeble testimonial of the tremendous
power wielded by Mr. McDonald and his friends. None knows
better than I how he made and unmade public officials, set
judges on the bench, determined public politics in the old
days, and fought his enemies with a ruthlessness that made
him feared far and wide. When I became his enemy, I, too,
began to feel his power, as it was manifested in the public
press.
"The lies have multiplied day by day, but I have so far
refused to answer them. Only during the last week the
papers have said that Dora McDonald, who ruined Mike
McDonald's life, and I, met at the bedside of the dying
man. We have never met. The only time I ever saw her was
in a Providence (R. I.) hotel, ten years ago, where I was
stopping while at a convention of charities. We sat at the
same table, and I heard her say to a girl with her that I
looked like Guy's mother. Then I knew who she was. I have
not seen her since, not even at the grave today, though I
was told she was there."
Guy McDonald interposed to explain that his stepmother had not been
allowed to attend the funeral service at the church, being taken
directly to the cemetery.
SAYS CHARGES WERE INVENTED.
"The statement I want to make to the world," resumed Mrs.
McDonald, "is that all the stories told of my conduct at
the time I was separating from Mr. McDonald, are absolutely
false, and were maliciously invented and circulated.
The trouble between my husband and me grew out of his
brutality. He was a big, red-blooded man, but when under
the influence of liquor he was rough and disorderly. He
often struck me at such times, and mistreated me in other
cruel ways.
"I finally came to the conclusion that I could stand the
life no longer. So I ran away. But I went alone, and not
with Billy Arlington, the minstrel, as the story was told
afterwards. I went to San Francisco and visited with
friends, and while there I met Arlington. He was only a
casual acquaintance, and I never saw him after I left San
Francisco. I went from there to Cincinnati, and thence to
New York, with friends. We stopped at the Gilsey house, and
there William Pinkerton, Al Smith, the old-time gambler,
who had a resort at 86 Clark, and Mr. McDonald, coaxed me
to come back home.
"But it was not long before the old trouble began again.
Mr. McDonald was extremely abusive when in liquor, and Mr.
A. S. Trude will tell you that I went to his office one
day and asked him to get me a divorce. He tried to smooth
matters over, and succeeded for a time.
NO CHAPEL IN HOUSE.
"Then we went to live in the new house at 308 Ashland
avenue. There my troubles began afresh, and grew until
1888. The newspaper stories have dwelt at great length on
insinuations of my conduct with a priest for whom I was
said to have built a chapel in my house. Nothing could be
more preposterous on the face of it, as any Roman Catholic
will tell you. The church does not sanction the erection
of altars, the giving of communion, and the receiving of
confessions in private homes. Dispensations for temporary
masses can be obtained in rare instances.
"There was a priest named Father Price, from Asheville, N.
C., who was raising money for his church in Chicago. We
gave a recital that netted him $500, after which he was a
guest for two weeks at our house.
"He obtained a dispensation to say mass a few times, and
did so before a temporary saint's altar set on a bureau.
When he departed the altar went with him, and that is as
close as we ever came to having a private chapel in our
house.
"The French priest with whom I was said to have eloped was
Father Moysant. He never said a mass in our house, and I
never knew him except as one of the priests of the parish
who were entertained frequently by Mr. McDonald.
LEAVES HUSBAND; GOES TO SISTER.
"I did not run away with Father Moysant or any other
person, the fact being that, unable to stand Mr. McDonald's
treatment, I left his house in the fall of 1887 and went to
live with Mrs. Peter McGuire, whose house stood on the site
of the present Studebaker building. I begged Mr. McDonald
to let my boys come to me, but he refused. At the end of
three weeks I went to New York alone, sailed for Havre,
still alone, and went to visit my sister, Mrs. Catherine
Phillpot, who lived in Paris.
"I remained there eleven months and returned to New York.
At the Fifth Avenue hotel, where I stopped, I found
Pinkerton detectives, hired by Mr. McDonald, watching me.
I complained to Mr. Philips, the house detective, of the
annoyance, as he will tell you. I was traveling under
the name of Armstrong, my mother's maiden name--she was
English and my father, Irish, you know. The annoyance of
the detectives became so great that I returned to Paris on
the same boat on which I had come to America. That was the
middle of October, 1888.
"After six months with my sister in Paris I returned
directly to Chicago. When I arrived I found my daughter
dead and with my own hands I buried her baby the next day.
I found also that I had been divorced by Mr. McDonald in
proceedings before Judge Jamieson, though no notice ever
was served on me."
PAWNS HER DIAMONDS.
Mrs. McDonald spread out her ringless fingers significantly, and
continued:
"I went to a pawnbroker that day and sold my diamond
rings, ear-rings, and cross, and with the proceeds opened
a rooming house at 1235 Wabash avenue. Mr. McDonald often
came to see me and dine there, and it looked as if there
might be a reconciliation. But soon after that he met Dora
Barclay, and from that time we were friends no longer, but
bitter enemies.
"The reputation of my house was ruined by the arrest of
Mike Coleman, alias Charles Wilson, the safe-blower, who
had lived there a few weeks, and at first I thought Mr.
McDonald was behind this plot to ruin me. I went to the
Animosa, Pa., penitentiary, saw Coleman, and learned that
Mr. McDonald was innocent. But after that a story was
started that I lived with Coleman for years. I never saw
him after that time at the penitentiary.
"After the World's Fair I removed to St. Louis and
started a boarding house at 2686 Locust street. But soon
Mr. McDonald's detectives were hounding me there, the
newspapers began to print stories of our troubles, and my
business was ruined.
DRIVEN TO HIDE IDENTITY.
"I saw that if I was to live peacefully I must bury my
identity, and so, assuming the name of Mrs. Grashoff, I
went to New York, and obtained employment with the Board
of Charities at Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street, of
which Mr. Van Vordenberg was the head. For fifteen years I
have been in charitable work. I founded the Destitute Old
Ladies' Home at Paterson, N. J., and at present my work is
with the Crittenden Rescue Homes for Unfortunate Girls. It
is not the least solace for my many misfortunes that I have
been able to save many girls from continuing their wayward
careers.
"So much for the lies circulated about me for twenty years.
I never saw Father Price after he left Chicago, nor Father
Moysant after I went to Mrs. McGuire's. Both are living, so
far as I know, but where, I do not know."
But the records show, according to Mrs. Mary McDonald, that her
husband repented of the wrongs he had heaped upon her, and called her
to his bedside when he was dying, acknowledging her as his wife, and
begging her forgiveness. They were reunited, and a few days later
McDonald died.
OPPOSED BY DOCUMENTS.
For Mrs. Dora McDonald, on the other hand, an entirely different
case is made out by her attorney, Colonel James Hamilton Lewis. He
said that he had procured new evidence in the shape of affidavits
and sworn statements of witnesses in the suit for divorce brought by
"Mike" McDonald against Mary C. McDonald in 1889, and letters in the
handwriting of Mary McDonald, and others.
The divorce bill, according to Colonel Lewis, was filed in the
Superior Court of Cook County on September 11, 1889. In the complaint,
McDonald alleged that he married his first wife November 20, 1870,
and lived with her until May 1, 1889. He alleged misconduct in the
complaint, naming Joseph Moysant, or Father Moysant, a renegade
priest, and gave dates and places of alleged misconduct. He also
alleged that Mrs. McDonald had fled to France with Moysant, and that
she was not a resident of Chicago, or the State of Illinois.
JOINT LETTERS IN EVIDENCE.
Letters were offered in evidence which were alleged to have come from
Mrs. McDonald to women friends. Some of these are said to have been
signed Mrs. J. Moysant, and to have been partly in the handwriting of
Mrs. McDonald and partly in the handwriting of Moysant. These letters
are said to have shown that Mrs. McDonald had a knowledge of the
divorce suit pending against her.
An attempt was also made to prove that Mrs. McDonald was deeded
certain property by McDonald in connection with the divorce
proceedings, and that she negotiated and disposed of that property in
part, thus, acquiescing in the terms of possession and establishing
the legality of the divorce.
Mrs. Mary McDonald, now a white-haired woman upward of sixty, declares
that she has brought suit to establish her legal status as the widow
of "Mike" McDonald for the sake of her two sons, Guy and Cassius, for
whom she desires to clear her name of any stain. Her petition for an
injunction restraining the trustees of the estate from paying to Mrs.
Dora McDonald any money as dower rights was heard by Judge Barnes on
November 18.
The contest was long and bitter between the attorneys. Crimination and
recrimination flew thick and fast. In the end, however, Judge Barnes
decided that the divorce of Mike McDonald from Mary Noonan McDonald
was legal, that the law could not go back of the records, and that,
therefore, Mary Noonan McDonald was not entitled to any share of the
McDonald estate.
But the sordid contest over the ill-gotten money of the gambling king
was not yet at end. Dora McDonald failed to pay her attorney's fees,
and the estate was again brought into the courts on an injunction
obtained by James Hamilton Lewis, who threatens to throw the estate
into involuntary bankruptcy.
Thus the long battle over tainted gain goes on. Let those who think
gambling an easy way to wealth and power read aright the lesson of
the life of Mike McDonald; one continual tissue of law-breaking,
imprisonment, divorce, scandal upon scandal, murder, adultery, leaving
a name covered over and associated with all vileness, all the mud and
slime of society, to go down to the grave with a broken heart. Is that
an alluring spectacle? Is such a life worth living? Who would emulate
it?
[Illustration: The DEVIL and THE GRAFTER]
HAVE YOU READ
The Devil and the Grafter
And how they work together to Deceive, Swindle and Destroy Mankind. A
Thrilling and Graphic Story of Truth Stranger than Fiction.
How a great army of 600,000 criminals in America, under the influence,
guidance and leadership of Satan wage continued war with justice, law,
society and religion.
BY
Clifton R. Wooldridge
The World's Great CRIMINOLOGIST AND DETECTIVE
After twenty years of heroic warfare and scores of hair breadth
escapes, in which he suffered wounds and bruises by the hundreds, and
baffled death so often that his criminal enemies declare "he leads a
charmed life." Mr. Wooldridge, while still "in the harness," has given
this volume to the public with the belief that he is sending forth a
book with a mission of good to the world.
No man in all our country is so feared by evil doers of all classes
as the author of this revelation of the ways and wiles of wicked men
and women, who graft and swindle, rob and corrupt their fellows in
defiance of law and justice.
"The Incorruptible Sherlock Holmes of America" is the title by which
Mr. Wooldridge is favorably known. Hundreds of times large and
tempting bribes have been offered him by wealthy criminals; thousands
of dollars at a time might have been his for a "wink" at a nefarious
practice, or for the loosing of his hold upon a rich criminal's
wrist. But like Cæsar's wife, he stands "above suspicion." He is
still a poor man, but deeply and earnestly studying the science of
criminology, laboring and lecturing for the cure of crime by wise laws
and scientific means--declaring himself to be the enemy of crime, but
the friend of the criminal, whose disease of crime he believes can be
cured, and that it is his mission to help the world suppress crime and
find out the way for its elimination.
With an aim so lofty, and a motive so pure, the good people of every
religion, all trades, all professions and all classes are in hearty
sympathy, and the circulation of this book will not only serve to
warn the people against the snares and pitfalls of the Devil and the
Grafter (into which thousands of new victims fall and one hundred and
sixty millions of dollars of the people's money are lost every year),
but it will tend to make Grafting impossible and turn the Grafters
into honest, legitimate channels and good citizenship.
This Book should be in the Hands of Every Minister, every doctor,
every student, every teacher, farmer, business man, mechanic and
laborer, every wife and widow--statistics show that ninety widows out
of every hundred are swindled out of what their husbands leave them.
It should be in the reach of all, male and female, for there is not a
postoffice in all the land where the mail, every time it comes, does
not bring the alluring literature of the Grafter to swindle or tempt
the unwary.
PRICE CLOTH, ILLUSTRATED $1.00
[Illustration: HANDS UP! IN THE WORLD OF CRIME]
HANDS UP
IN THE WORLD OF CRIME OR 12 YEARS A DETECTIVE
by CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE
Chicago's Famous Detective
A BOOK OF
Thrilling descriptions about the capture of Bandits, Robbers, Panel
House Workers, Confidence Men and hundreds of other criminals of all
kinds.
TELLS IN GRAPHIC MANNER
How Criminals of all classes operate, illustrations showing arrests of
Murderers, Safe Blowers, Diamond Thieves, Procuresses of Young Girls,
etc., etc.
The contents of this book is a narrative of the authors twelve years'
experience on the Chicago police force. His long and successful
experience with the criminal classes justly fitted him for the work
of bringing before the public in presentable form the many and
interesting features of a detective's life.
In detail he tells the story of his life, and without coloring of any
kind produces an accurate account of his twelve years' experience,
many times under fire; his famous efforts to apprehend criminals, who,
by means of revolvers and other conceivable methods tried to fight
their way to liberty.
=The book contains over 500 pages=, is profusely illustrated from
specially drawn pictures and photographs of desperate criminals and
law-breakers, such as murderers, highwaymen, safe blowers, bank
robbers, diamond thieves, burglars, porch climbers, shop lifters,
bicycle thieves, box car thieves, lottery swindlers, gamblers,
women footpads, panel-house thieves, confidence men, pickpockets,
procuresses of young girls for immoral purposes, women gamblers, levee
characters, etc.
This great production is not a ponderous volume filled with dry
statistics, but made up of thrilling accounts which depict the most
noteworthy incidents in the lives of criminals in large cities.
During Detective Wooldridge's service on the force he has made 20,000
arrests, secured 125 penitentiary convictions, recovered $75,000
worth of lost and stolen property, which was returned to its rightful
owners; seventy-live girls under age were rescued by him from houses
of ill-fame and a life of shame and returned to their parents or
guardians or sent to the Juvenile School or House of the Good Shepherd.
It is well known in police circles that Detective Wooldridge has
refused at many different times, bribes of from $500 to $4,000;
$10,000 was offered for his discharge or transfer from the levee
district by criminals against whom he had waged a warfare.
_He has letters from Carter H. Harrison, the mayor, three state's
attorneys, eight chiefs of police, three assistant chiefs, six
inspectors, nine lieutenants, six police justices and others too
numerous to mention, which testimonials are printed in the book
together with their autographs. The book contains all the General
Superintendents of Police of Chicago from 1855 to 1901._
Detective Wooldridge has a wonderful record in police annals.
PRICE
CLOTH, ILLUSTRATED $1.00
PAPER, ILLUSTRATED 50c
Transcriber's Notes
Minor punctuation errors have been silently corrected. Some
illustrations have descriptions added for the benefit of the plain
text version readers.
Title Page: Changed "COVICTIONS" to "CONVICTIONS."
(Orig: 200 PENITENTIARY COVICTIONS)
Title Page: Changed "CRIMINAL" to "CRIMINALS."
(Orig: AN ARMY OF 600,000 CRIMINAL AT WAR WITH SOCIETY AND RELIGION)
Table of Contents: Added listings for the last 15 chapters.
Changed "Wails" to "Wiles" and "Tellers" to "Telling" to match the
chapter title: "Wiles of Fortune Telling."
(Orig: Wails of Fortune Tellers)
Page 28: Changed "acomplished" to "accomplished."
(Orig: it was acomplished successfully.)
Page 28: Changed "connetion" to "connection."
(Orig: he severed his connetion with the railroad)
Page 32: Women's names omitted in original book after the sentence:
(Orig: The following are the names of the women arrested:)
Page 38: Changed "rerevolver" to "revolver."
(Orig: he pushed his rerevolver in Wooldridge's face.)
Page 46: Changed "Woolridge" to "Wooldridge."
(Orig: One of the last exploits of Detective Woolridge)
Page 51: Opening quotes retained; no closing quotes in original.
(Orig: "A 'grafter' is one who makes his living (and sometimes his
fortune) by 'grafting.')
Page 71: Retained "salonkeepers," possible typo for "saloonkeepers."
(Orig: salonkeepers and others that buy them)
Page 92: Changed "phychological" to "psychological."
(Orig: what he considers the right phychological moment,)
Page 97: Changed "knowns" to "knows."
(Orig: it isn't because the public knowns any more than)
Page 110: Retained "senualist;" possibly a typo for "sensualist."
(Orig: it is the senualist whose vice is read in his lips,)
Page 114: Changed "POSSSESED" to "POSSESSED."
(Orig: THE BANKER WILL END LIFE POSSSESED OF WEALTH)
Page 115: Changed "OFERED" to "OFFERED."
(Orig: IN WHICH THEY WERE MAILED ARE OFERED WITH THEM.)
Page 125: Changed "allegitimate" to "illegitimate."
(Orig: he was in an allegitimate business,)
Page 134: Changed "weathy" to "wealthy."
(Orig: ten or twelve weathy ladies,)
Page 136: Changed "Los Angelese" to "Los Angeles."
Page 137: Changed "is" to "it."
(Orig: give it the consideration is deserves.)
Page 140: Retained "Caverley," possible typo for "Caverly."
(Orig: was arrested and fined $15 by Caverley.)
Page 173: Changed "shoudl" to "should."
(Orig: to find if there shoudl be a chord)
Page 203: Changed "vigliance" to "vigilance."
(Orig: he is under the eternal vigliance of our police)
Page 222: Changed "snoke" to "smoke."
(Orig: I don't snoke.)
Page 240: Changed "nof" to "not."
(Orig: "Sophomoric" period is nof fully passed.)
Page 283: Changed "Dicharged" to "Discharged."
(Orig: Insane asylum, Nevada, Mo. Dicharged after several escapes.)
Page 294: Changed "indentification" to "identification."
(Orig: the finger print indentification.)
Page 296: Changed "lot" to "lost."
(Orig: sailor has lot his honorable discharge paper)
Page 301: Changed "rougues" to "rogues."
(Orig: spreading through the rougues' galleries)
Page 347: Opening quotes retained; no closing quotes in original.
(Orig: each witness claimed that the "contract was covered up and
they were shown just the part of the paper on which was the space for
signature; and Daubach performed many acts in furtherance of the
conspiracy.)
Page 351: Changed "slighest" to "slightest."
(Orig: It makes not the slighest difference)
Page 360: Changed "is" to "it."
(Orig: This is not merely because is loosens general morality)
Page 370: Changed "cildhood" to "childhood."
(Orig: toward speculation, even from cildhood.)
Page 373: Changed "nickle's" to "nickel's."
(Orig: good for a nickle's worth)
Page 378: Retained "sideway," possible typo for "slideway."
(Orig: clamp referred to down through the sideway)
Page 382: Sentence possibly missing "do" after "to."
(Orig: Very few are expert enough to this trick without detection.
Page 387: Changed "sailers" to "sailors."
(Orig: the goods were sold to soldiers and sailers.)
Page 406: Changed "torents" to "torrents."
(Orig: the rain which was beating down in torents)
Page 408: Incomplete sentence in original book.
(Orig: His counsel asked for the arrest of judgment so he might
have time to write up the record and present it to the)
Page 419: Changed "mammonth" to "mammoth."
(Orig: Prisoner accused as principal in mammonth swindling plot)
Page 462: Changed "numerious" to "numerous."
(Orig: clear Chicago of its numerious "Fake" patent medicine)
Page 465: Changed "Lavatories" to "Laboratories."
(Orig: Columbus Lavatories conducted the tests.)
Page 465: Retained "either," possible typo for "ether."
(Orig: Aristol is soluble in either, and makes a dark brown)
Page 467: Changed "sppply" to "supply."
(Orig: I have in stock and can sppply without delay.)
Page 468: Changed "Sargeant" to "Sergeant."
(Orig: Desk Sargeant Mike White)
Page 471: Retained original 300,000,000 but the math is incorrect.
Page 494: Changed "felling" to "feeling."
(Orig: the trusting investor the felling that there is a strong hand)
Page 514: Retained "grizzy," possible typo for "grizzly."
(Orig: look out for Indians and grizzy bears.)
Page 563: Retained Joseph Koehy/Koehly variations.
Page 565: Changed "answr" to "answer."
(Orig: to answr for the murder of Webster Guerin)
Page 568: Changed "women" to "woman."
(Orig: Dora McDonald was a wonderfully beautiful and younger women)
Retained spelling variations: R. W. McClaughrey and R. W. McClaughry.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World" ***
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