He said, further, that the mines would ultimately earn at the rate of
$1,000,000 a month. This statement also has fallen far short of
fulfillment.
Soon after George S. Nixon, as president of the Goldfield Consolidated
Company, gave out this interview for public consumption he, according
to his own later admissions, disposed of all of his holdings, and at an
average price, it is believed, of less than $8 a share.
This is only a superficial rendering of the big event in Goldfield's
history, but it is sufficient to furnish an example of the effect of
Get-Rich-Quick influences that radiate from high places and separate
the public from millions upon millions, without being called to
account.
The dear American public has been falling for this kind of insidious
brand of Get-Rich-Quick dope for years. It is being gulled into losing
millions through its fetish worship of promoters with millions, who are
really the Get-Rich-Quicks of the day that are very dangerous.
Greenwater, a rich man's camp, in which the public sank $30,000,000
during three months that marked the zenith of the Goldfield boom, is
another case in point where a confiding investing public followed a
deceiving light and was led to ruthless slaughter.
CHAPTER IV
THE GREENWATER FIASCO
When the excitement was at fever-heat in Goldfield over the stupendous
rises in market value of Goldfield securities which were being
chronicled hourly, news came to town of the successful flotation in
New York of the Greenwater & Death Valley Mining Company. The
capitalization was 3,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 each. The
stock had been underwritten at $1 a share by New York and Pittsburg
Stock Exchange houses, had been listed on the New York Curb, and
had climbed to around $5.50, or a valuation for the property of
$16,500,000. Among the officers of this company were M. R. Ward,
brother-in-law of Charles M. Schwab; T. L. Oddie, now Governor of
Nevada, and Malcolm Macdonald, later president of the Nevada First
National Bank of Tonopah.
Greenwater is situated about 150 miles south of Goldfield, across the
State line in California. No one ever went to or fro without passing
through Goldfield. If there was a Greenwater boom, how was it that we
in Goldfield, who were in touch with all Nevada mining affairs, did
not know about it? Goldfield promoters soon began to give attention.
Shortly they caught the infection. A stampede from Goldfield into
Greenwater ensued. In fact, people flocked to Greenwater from every
direction. A bunch of Tonopah money-getters, headed by the indomitable
Malcolm Macdonald, were grabbing the money on Greenwaters in New York,
and Goldfield was not in the play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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