GULLIBLE INVESTORS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1019, 7 January 1911, Page 13

GULLIBLE INVESTORS.

LOSS OF 000,000. . Th'o raid executed on November 29 at the' palatial establishment in New .York;, of a firm of company promoters alleged', to be of the "get-rich-quick" variety/ which for years has been selling shares in mining and oil companies advertised to yield 50 per cent, profit,' brought to light remarkable evidence of the ''gullibility of large sections of • tho American public. According to- the United States Post-. master-General, Mr. Hitchcock, small investors within the' last live years have been fleeced to tho extent'of at least .£25,000,000 by the officials of corporations bearing high-sounding s titles : whose only., business is to sell ornamental pieces of paper purporting to be shares in fabulously, profitable concerns." The people who invest in such concerns are technically known ill America, as "suckers," and it is a maxim-'with the "get-ricli-quick" promoter that there is a fresh "sucker" born every minute. A detective engaged in the exposures d<»clared that these speculators meet somewhere in the Adirondacks, exchange lists of "suckers," and propound fresh devices for-securing their savings. When the authorities searched the premises occupied by tho three, arrested directors they found fresh contracts for advertising involving an expenditure of ■£60,000. ■ At tho time of their arrest the corporation'- ofEcials were arranging at their own expense to send a private car with seventeen customers to California to inspect some oil wells. The police authorities allege that the only oil well owned by the corporation is worthless and that the prisoners' scheme was to exhibit to their, customers real spouting wells belonging to someone tlse._ Tho prisoners, despite their immense revenue, were unable to obtain bail, the Government having attached theiv bank accounts in some dozen towns. Every day postmen were bringing to tho raidtd offices letters containing post office orders amounting to some .£4OOO sent by peoplo of small means anxious to invest in one or other of the advertised .mines or wells. This money was being seized by-the Government.and will be returned to the owners. Widows and old men who have, it is said, entrusted all their, savings to the prisoners.formed a pitiably assembly outside the offices. One old lady who invested -SSOO of insurance money left by her husband in an oil companv refuses to leave the offices, declaring "tearfully "They told me just to wait and that" then I should get the money. Surely t.hey. wouldn't deceive aa old woman!"