AFTER THE BOOM

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 58, 6 September 1926, Page 10

AFTER THE BOOM

AN AMERICAN FAILURE

BOOST: BOAST: BUST.

"No investor ever lost a dollar in Miller first-mortgage bonds.". This is one of the advertising slogans of the G. L. Miller Company, United States, whose failure ("the most sensational in the last decade") is announced in * New York Press Association cablegram. v The company's nffairs have been "placed in the hands of a receiver," and it remains to be seen whether the first mortgage bonds will live up to the slogan. The following conditions, under which money for investment is receivable from the public, figure in the G. L. Miller Company's inducements:— Each issue of Miller Bonds is secured by a first mortgage on an independently appraised office building, hotel, or apartment structure. Interest up to 7 per cent. .. . Genuineness of each bond certified by a bank. Denominations, 100 dollars, 500 dollars, 1000 dollars. Bonds with an unconditional guarantee of principal and interest available, if desired." Another of the company's boast- was a chart showing its progress graphic* ally. The progress line rises as steep as the side of a mountain. . It "sho„rf that during the last five years of the company's long existence the sales of Miller Bonds have mounted steadily— on the average of 100 *per cent, each year. And during this period -capital and-surplus have enjoyed the. same healthy growth—an average increase of approximately 100 per cent, each year." Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. Probably the company's advertising writer had no idea of double meaning when he wrote: "It will pay you, now that we are in the reinvestment period, to find out more about investing in Miller Bonds. Write for Booklet I and descriptions of current offerings paying interest up to 7 per cent." The failure of this company (with outstanding securities of 50 million dollars) raises a doubt as to whether the following recent pronouncement of an American financial authority is absolutely correct: — "The way in which the Florida boom has quietly flattened out without serious consequences is a reassuring demonstration of the influence of an easy credit situation in facilitating orderly liquidation."