I have thus far not given space to one of the greatest wrongs connected
with this disgraceful proceeding--the wrong and damage inflicted upon a
multitude of helpless stockholders. While the Special Agent of the
Department of Justice and his armed followers were wrecking the
Scheftels offices and terrorizing the place, the Scheftels group of
mining stocks was being savagely raided on the Curb and enormous losses
were inflicted on the public. Thousands of margin accounts were wiped
out in less time than it takes to tell of the massacre. Declines in Ely
Central, Jumbo Extension, Rawhide Coalition and Bovard Consolidated
exceeded $2,000,000. This loss was distributed among approximately
fourteen thousand shareholders of record and as many more not of
record.
This large army of innocent shareholders was helpless. From such
species of confiscation the law affords no relief or recourse, except
actual acquittal of the arrested persons, in whom lies the confiding
investor's only chance for the market rehabilitation of his securities.
A TOOL'S CONFESSION
The signed confession of the Tool of the Special Agent, who appeared
before Assistant Attorneys Dorr and Smith at the United States
Attorney's office in New York, which says he gave false testimony, and
the voluntary statement of John J. Roach, a stock broker who was
employed by the now defunct firm of Frederick Simmonds, regarding the
relations between the Special Agent and that firm, while Special Agent
of the Government, reveal the weak foundations of the Government's
charges.
The Tool, prior to the raid, had been in the Scheftels employ. For a
few months he had been a traveling business-getter for the firm. Then
he was discharged. He associated himself with Frederick Simmonds, a
member of the Consolidated Stock Exchange. Mr. Simmonds was badly in
debt. The Tool had no money. The Agent, when he was trying to get the
United States Attorney's office in New York to agree that the
information collected was sufficient to warrant a raid, prevailed upon
the Tool to appear before the assistant attorneys and give testimony.
In this story the chief value of the Tool himself is that he has no
value. He made his statements against us to Mr. Dorr, assistant U.S.
district attorney. Then he gave me a statement, signed in the presence
of witnesses, recanting the statements made to Mr. Dorr. To this he
later added a written postscript enforcing his recantation. Then he
re-recanted and said that a large part of his first recantation, signed
by him and initialed by him on each page with his initials was false.
The reader is left to judge just which one of the Tool's three
positions is the one in which he tells the truth. It is obvious that he
must be lying in the two others, and it is not impossible that he may
be lying in all three--except that some of the stuff in his first
recantation, which he later denies in his second, has been verified
from other sources.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account