What Has Been Utah and Idaho’s Loss?

What has been Utah and Idaho's Loss? BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

When Postmaster General Burleson issued his annual report of the postoffice department for the year 1914, this most interesting document set forth a peculiar system of frauds which has led to the loss of many millions of dollars by the unsuspecting victims of newspaper and circular advertisements. To understand the swindling operations now carried out in the United States, it should be said that our government has passed stringent laws against the use of the United States mails by promoters and operators of schemes intended to swindle the American public. Our postoffice department has in its employment an army of detectives and experts who are running down all kinds of swin- dlers who make use of our mail service. As an example it may be said that men advertise patent medicines warranted to cure almost every known disease. These medicines are seized, tested by experts, and found to have no medicinal value whatever. Those who thus advertise such medicines are arrested, and upon con- viction, severely punished. These swindlers, however, have grown in their cunning, and it is not easy always to convict them, and often it is impossible to catch them. Then there are land schemes advertised that are wholly without merit, and intended to deceive the public who buy stock in land corporations. The postmaster general gives a list of the amount of money actually obtained from the American public by these mail swin- dlers during the last five years.Here is his table

1909-1910 $100,000,000 1911 77,000,000 1912 52,000,000 1913 54,000,000 1914 63,000,000

During these five years 2,861 of these swindlers have been arrested. Those who have been convicted have defrauded the American public during that time out of $351,000,000. If these dishonest games were divided equally among these swindlers each one would have received, as his share, $122,684. It will show

that such a business has been a very lucrative one. The list of arrests and convictions, for these years, as given, are as follows

Arrests. Convictions. 1910 520 Not stated 1911 497 184 1912 572 263 1913 510 304 1914 762 370

These schemes for swindling the public are stated to be ap- proximately of about one hundred different kinds. The remarkable thing is that the $351,000,000 of which the American public has been defrauded is the amount which the prosecutions have actually accounted for. As will be seen from the tables given above, large numbers were not convicted out of those arrested. Besides, there must have been large numbers who were not even arrested. Then again, there are schemes that are not exactly a swindle, within the meaning of the law. To the unsuspecting public, how- ever, many of these schemes are really a losing game. They may have merit in them, just enough merit to keep their promoters from prosecution, but not enough merit to bring in profit to the investors. Perhaps never before in the history of all the world have so many schemes been launched to swindle unsuspecting men and women out of the small savings they have made from their years of labor. One witness giving an account of the methods by which a certain swindling scheme was carried on, stated there were two classes of victims that might be divided as "trout" and "suckers," according to the methods by which they were caught. The un- suspecting trout took the whole bait at one bite and was easily drawn in the suckers nibbled at the bait and all sorts of schemes ;

were resorted to, to get the sucker on the hook. Sometimes he would nible by writing a letter asking for a little more information than that contained in the circular. Sometimes in reply to these letters the swindler would promptly return a box of medicine by express C. O. D. The sucker not certain, perhaps a little afraid, paid the express and the price of the medicine even when he did not order it. The medicine was worthless, the swindler had his money, and when he awoke to a realization of the fact that he had been duped, as a rule, he charged up to experience the amount he had paid for the worthless medicine and said nothing about it. Only now and then did the sucker make any trouble for the swin- dler, and in a few instances, very rare, the money was returned. It would be interesting to know what of this enormous sum of $351,000,000 accounted for has been the loss of the people in the states of Utah and Idaho.