Show ANENT THE HOWL AGAINST BLUE SKY LAWS the opponents of so called bule sky legislation and commissions charged with the enforcement of such laws will find little comfort in the perusal of the following artile article which appeared in the engineering and mining journal press of the it is illustrative of the class of argument that goes out from so many promoters and crooked stock brokers and alleged newspapers that we reproduce he here re the article relates to a case in kansas the te logan kan kan republican Is a versatile sheet in a recent issue we find in the middle of bf the first page front flanked on of church revival services much wis either side by an advertisement domas to the ravages of the fraudulent stock selling sharks modern highwaymen it says operating as salesmen of fraudulent in this depressed stocks appear to have had a rich harvest country and promoters of get rich quck schemes have had no occasion to complain of hard times scarcely a city of any size has escaped while many sequestered villages inhabited by retired farmers have been victimized and the largest harvest of all have been reaped from the prosperous farming districts of the middle west the conventional reaction is to feel righteous indignation against the stock sharks certainly they are a despicable tribe wholly outside even that criminal class whose boldness and adventure sometimes compel admiration the old highwayman took a risk the real robber stakes his life and liberty these thieves of old men mens s savings and widows insurance moneys are not in that c lass class at all and so on for two columns good strong language T this his is copied from an article by henry ford in the dearborn independent but if we reverse the paper the logan republican we find in the middle of the back page a full length advertisement advertis ment of the colorado utah mines holding co of which chas E havener is president this advertisement contains the following gem government statistics show the following returns on capi capital tall invested vested d railroads 3 per cent national banks 61 per cent insurance 11 per cent lumbering lum berng 14 per cent manufacturing 14 and mining per cent the farmer readers of the logan republican are further informed that only 36 per cent of all legitimate mining falls fails against 54 per cent in all other commercial lines of business we gather from the advertisement that the company owns a mine of hematite in utah willard iron mountain and a very advantageous contract to furnish this ore is published made with the mineral metal byproducts by products co of denver whose president is dr charles H gage gag e one of the leading metallurgical experts of this country dr gage quotes the utah company 61 to 65 per ton f 0 b mines for its hematite we find that this is a very desirable ore for the manufacture of soil pipe and machine tool steel which we will ill produce in our electric furnaces dr gage further finds that your iron ore will have a value of a ton f 0 b the mines for the special purpose of manufacturing these prices do not include the values of rare and precious metals such as gold silver titanium nickel platinum or copper values which are contained in your utah property all of which will be settled for at the prevailing prices at the reduction works As an afterthought mr havener sticks in the news paragraphs this advertisement the arizo arizona na co with over tons of surveyed 2 per cent copper ore is now part of our holding co the logan republican is thus a dr jekyll and mr hyde the doings at the churches and the wise warnings of mr ford against buying worthless stock occupy the front page while it sells its back page for questionable stock selling purposes yet in some of our mining communities there is an element which opposes all and every form of bluesky blue sky legislation which is designed to prevent just this form of fraudulent stock promotion their plea is that such restriction interferes with business what kind of business have they in mind do they want to be confused with the business getter who preys on the unwise investor |