But what of the public? It played $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 into the
game, and has never yet learned who got it. Who did get it? Some of the
details of the grand separation scheme have been set forth in the
foregoing, but nothing like enough to satisfy the curiosity of the
public who footed the bill, paid the freight, contributed sucker-toll
for the whole prodigious sum.
Did the author of the report on the strength of which tens of millions
were plunged on Nipissing by an army of deluded investors and
speculators ever suffer in fortune by the mischance or misshot, or
whatever name you may give the "come-on" document? Not that you could
notice. True, he gave up his alleged $1,000,000 job with the
Guggenheims. But is he not a heavy contributor to the Republican
national campaign fund, a close personal friend of the Administration,
and did he not represent this great Government as Special Ambassador at
the Coronation of England's King? Was he not talked of as running mate
for Mr. Taft, and did he not organize the National League of Republican
Clubs two years ago? He is tremendously rich and round-shouldered under
a mountain-high burden of honors.
Every mother's son of the old Nipissing crowd is at this very hour up
and at it in regions where the public's money flows. Many of them still
have a grip on the property. It was a good old cow to milk. E. P.
Earle, who was president of Nipissing in 1906, headed the company four
years later. Captain Delamar slipped down and away (he's now in on the
extravagantly touted Porcupine Dome Mines Company), and so did E. C.
Converse, whose time is all taken up managing the Stock Exchange
banknote engraving monopoly and a couple of banks and trust companies.
W. B. Thompson, who came into the Nipissing directory in 1907, still
sticks in spite of the awful experience of 1906-07.
Has an outraged Government ever raised hue and cry against these
eminent captains of industry? Not yet, nor soon.
What difference is there between the respectable multi-millionaire
bankers putting across a losing promotion and the little fellow? Both
may be equally honest or equally crooked, yet in equity both are
entitled to the same treatment and the same consideration. Their
operations differ only in degree. The aim of each is to get the
public's money. And the big fellow is more dangerous by a hundred
thousand degrees.
Where does real tangible evidence of a conspiracy to defraud in
Nipissing exist? Does _any_ exist? Now I venture to say that you
could put on the scent any young man who is a graduate of the public
schools, and within thirty days he would obtain enough evidence to
prove to any jury in the land that the manipulators of that stock used
improper measures to get the public's money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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