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Show The syndicate wasn't losing los-ing any time. While the farmer's wife was eating - sherbets and lady's fingers. the man . his patriarchal it. white beard trimmed and ' brushed as it had not been for years on the home place, was being laken deeply deep-ly into the innermost confidence con-fidence of the secretary. This man knew that the farmer would never have millionairoe would bet any sum. After much persuasion I agreed to go to Omaha to see a match I was due for a vacation anyway and Stowe said 1 couldn't lose. A certain A. B. Shores was to wrestle the millionaires' man, who had agreed. Stowe said, to let himself be thrown. 1 took with me a check for $10,000 to make a showing. The millionaires 1 met were this Gordon and two others. 1 told Stowe, in Omaha, that 1 was 'next' and wouldn't bet my money, but would bet their money for them as I'd been asked to do. I deposited my checl in a bank. During the betting the leader - ' mrmmmm n NE MILLION DOLLARS squeezed from business men of unquestionable standing by means of I l aud methods, the strings of which were pulled from every big city of the Uuited States; probably probab-ly several millions more taken from contributors whose timidity prevented them from coming forth to testify at the Council Bluffs, la., trial. That, as far as is known, is the fruits of one of the most thoroughly equipped swindling organizations which the United Uni-ted States ever knew. The swindlers, captured recently west of the Mississippi river, were brought to book and the whole story came out at the jury investigation which returned In dictments arid In the developments which followed subsequently. subse-quently. Established in as handsome a suite of offices as J.Pierpont jjjj CAP TURlToF ' 7 "!v)Tf ffJfjT 1 Wi Gordon, asked me to place a bet of $8,000 Iml or $10,000 on the side. I deferred doing ijfljff it, however. Shortly afterward George frli Bennett, the private secretary, told me mwa lnat llis money which he had hoped to Si get in malla to Bet on the match, had vl'fi no'; come and 'nat might be declared VI nf oft if 1 woulcln't help. Stowe and Myers lffl and Shores, the wrestler, wept and plead-A plead-A ' ed with me to help them by putting up ;' the stakes they needed. Finally I consented. consent-ed. The money was to be merely an advance. ad-vance. I got the $10,000 at the bank and gave it to Stowe to hold, as he was the only man I knew well or thought I did. He gave me this receipt: Received of $10,000 which is not to be bet or hazarded in any manner. (Signed) LOUIS STOWE. "The wrestling began promptly. Our man, Shores, got the first fall. He was to get the second, too, because the millionaire's mil-lionaire's man, Gorman had agreed to give up. But in the second bout Shores fell, and apparently bursting a blood vessel, gave every evidence of dying in great agony. "Everyone was greatly excited. Gordon Gor-don wept because of.-the disgrace attaching attach-ing to his family in having him present at such a death. In the midst of the ex-citement, ex-citement, Bennett, the private secretary, rushed up and whispered that he was Jl. ruined. He had bet his employers' mon y- ey the stakes he held for them an? must now escape to Canada. I was hustled hus-tled out of the building on the plea that I was a guest and must be protected. One of the millionaires mil-lionaires remained with the supposed corpse. "Stowe professed to be ruined. I lent him enough money to get out of town. He said he was sick, so I gave him my overcoat. They all got away. I was glad to get out of town and into my own state. I never saw any of them again until now in the Little Rock jail. Stowe never has been caught nor has my $10,000." It is interesting that the case which resulted ultimately in the arrest of the swindlers, arose out of another friendship of several years' standing. This was the Sutor case. Mr. Sutor is known to many persons in Kansas City who have spent the summers at his resort, Cass I.altp Minn He hnd known one Rarnev Mar- untry, these fe,, ' After tl ar the use of cer- Sfr d Uie whoIe Party went led in palace cars at. . & mile outsit,e tne c ; bureau for the pur- g&n ta0 creek. There they I printed news items "'iliiiiiiyiiiil ni'isw"" and jockeys awaitii anything to do with a wrestling wrest-ling bout or a prize fight but he knew, also, that the farmer farm-er liked horses and had run them himself once upon a time. He touched him where he was weakest. ' Fie was willing to bet on a "fixed" race. The agriculturist agricul-turist met the and later he said there was fully a bushel of mon- jff ble when the millionaires quit betting. It included W $10,000 of his money. After this was fiuished the whole party went to a lonely road a mile outside the city near Fourche creek. There they found the horses and jockeys awaiting them. They j Morgan himself frT ' Jv wKKrw mii;lil choose, these I Mf , ' magnates in fraud iff lured their victims M towards the glitter 'IB' $fp of "easy money" M propositions a n d M ' then plucked their M feathers in such f & ffpV adept manner that B W, often the "Mikes" fWmW themselves could not JF K discern the swindle W ' ifii k and as a consequence R ; w' , they li..c!i!!ii- victims R : " again i ' i C Tile heads of the M W swindle called I hem- ft selves "millionaires" B f J; with money to in- Hi J ; s ; vest and thus in x' 1 many instances ttlllll 'I- coupled their monev L-T pirTIIDF with that of the in- ) OF Jl FHKF nocent "sheep" and , ant the latter was fleeced WRES TLINQ in due time. HATCH. Every game known SW INQLtR AND A to the underworld p SWINDLED was theirs and new lSMfriQ HHHDSlf ones were invented every month. They had a perfect book-keeping book-keeping system; they employed agents In every part of the country, these agents paying royalties for the use of certain cer-tain swindles, they traveled in palace cars and established a clipping bureau for the purpose pur-pose of manufacturing printed news items about themselves. Agents were numbered, "Mikes" were numbered and the games they used were also known and used in numerical order. The head of the "fraud trust," when arrested, was residing in a palatial residence in the south with his wife and a cortege of servants about him. The swindles and the manner in which they "were pulled off showed ingenuity worthy of a hetter cause. There was no haphazard work in the operations opera-tions of the syndicate. It was a most careful ly managed organization. Its ramifications covered the whole country. A code book with a red cover a sort of "Who's Who in Grafting" Graft-ing" found in the leader's possession, contained con-tained the names and addresses of 306 of the syndicate's willing workers, agents or steerers In all the principal cities of the country. Every one of these agents had attached to his name a number. It was his duty to get up jobs or "plays," as the syndicate books call them. It didn't matter what the game, if the agent carried car-ried it through to success he got a percentage of the receipts. These agents were not thugs or pluguglies or saloon loafers. They were chosen with particular reference to their education, edu-cation, appearance, manner of dress, ability to associate with gentlemen. This fact is shown by most of the letters captured by the government. govern-ment. For nearly two years the syndicate had headquarters head-quarters in New Orleans, later moved to Seattle, Seat-tle, then to Council Bluffs and finally went to Little Rock, Ark. During all this time the agents were busy. Wherever an agent was stationed ihe books show that the syndicate had a "store," a genteel word to take the place of plant or "con game." Men with money were interested in proposed land deals. Horse racing or wrestling were not mentioned. Nothing Noth-ing was hurried. Sometimes it took months to land a victim properly. In one case on record the agent worked for two years and at length "tapped" the "Mike," as the victims are called, for $37,000. In some instances the fraud was so smoothly handled that the "Mike" went back a second time and gave up another $5,000 or $10,000 before he learned that it was loaded. The syndicate insured itself aeainst "squeal- tin for years, he said, and liked him. He knew him so well and liked him so well that he never supposed he would defraud him. When Barney gave him a "tip" on a supposed good thing Mr. Sutor saw no valid reason for turning it down any more than he would at a track with every day races. Four or five horses were to run in a race, at Council Bluffs this was in August, last and Mr. Sutor decided to go over with Barney and put down a bet. He did. He had to borrow $4,000 to make up the $5,000 needed. But it was a sure thing, Barney said, and Barney Bar-ney certainly knew. Of course Mr. Sutor's "sure thing thing" fell in the stretch or the jockey fell off and "bled" and scared everyone every-one awjiy as usual. Mi'. Sutor thought it over at home and decided de-cided to get busy. By the time he had so decided de-cided all the "millionaires" had fled from Council Bluffs, Barney with them. But the government was in it now. Barney had written writ-ten a letter helping Sutor to borrow the $4,000 and so had used the mails to defraud. The federal fed-eral officers got busy at once. Decoy letters were sent out by the postal inspector in Council Coun-cil Bluffs, J. S. Swenson, and the syndicate, so adroit in fooling others, swallowed the bait itself. In the closing days there came Inspector Swenson. In a few hours he had enlisted Sheriff Sher-iff B. L. Roberts, Deputy J. J. Hawkins, Du-rand Du-rand Whipple, the six-foot son and law partner of W. G. Whipple, United States district attorney. at-torney. Warrants were issued. Revolvers were examined and tested. The trap was ready. What warning the syndicate had may never be known, but it is true that when the officers approached ap-proached the mansion the syndicate was just getting ready to leave. The leaders were in the touring car with their valises. They knew instantly that they were in for it. They sprang from the car. "Hands up quick!" was Inspector Swen-son's Swen-son's crisp demand and up went two pairs of hands. One man's were elevated only to his waist. Whipple didn't like that. He searched the leader, hut finding no weapons was about to step back when a thought came to him, that may have saved his life. He seized his hands and pushed them up high. Then he lifted the man's vest, and there in the trousers band, was a revolver. It had been within a few inches of his fingers all the time. The syndicate books were very carefully kept. A large envelope labeled and bearing the name of the victim, the numbers of the streets and the amount was kept for each case. There were 100 or more of these envelopes. Each contained the minutes of every meeting with the "Mike," showed who was present and how the money was handled and also the original origi-nal agreements signed by the "Mike" and the syndicate members. This was necessary, notwithstanding not-withstanding its danger in case of arrest, because be-cause of the extensive operations conducted. In such affairs there could be no arguments or disputes. ing Mikes" another name for victims who complain by photographing every event. At some time in the contest a picture would be taken, and always these pictures contained faces of the syndicate leaders and the victim close together, usually shaking hands. These pictures could be shown to a family, if necessary, neces-sary, to prove what father had been doing when he lost his thousands. They were very valuable. Several of them were found. Land propositions were the favorite bait for men with wealth. The sporting event came in casually, as a side play such as they declared de-clared any party of millionaires might choose to arrange. The leader and his companion millionaires mil-lionaires never by any chance induced the "Mikes" to bet on an event. That was left in the hands of the agents. The case of a wealthy farmer in Illinois, will, perhaps, serve, as well as any of the 400 or more recorded, to show how the swindle was worked. The farmer wished to buy land as an investment. One of the syndicate'sagentsknew of 5,000 acres that could be bought for $1.50 an acre, and if bought at once, might be sold immediately for $7.50 an acre. That sounded good. The farmer and his wife accompanied the agent to Little Rock to see the land. On the road down south the agent showed supposed newspaper clippings describing the westward trip of his principals and other "millionaires" in a private car. The government found a bundle of these clippings in the leader's valise. They evidently were made in a job printing office, but they impressed im-pressed the farmer and his wife and made them feel important in being allowed to meet such large men. There was much delay in arranging a trip to see the land. The owners were away somewhere some-where they usually were hard to find but everything would soon be all right. The farmer proved, with a draft for $10,000, his financial standing, a requirement never neglected by the millionaires, and were shown every courtesy by the receiving party. He was a daily visitor in the excellently equipped offices in Ihe Southern South-ern Trust building and became well acquainted acquaint-ed with the private secretary. His wife was taken out in the touring car to the beautiful mansion rented where she met the leader's wife, and had a lovelv time. were to race to the foot of a hill about one-half one-half mile away. The farmer liked the appearance appear-ance of the sorrel mare on which he and the millionaires had bet their money and he was justified, because the sorrel really was a magnificent mag-nificent animal. They got away in good shape, the sorrel in' the lead. The other man, the friend with the losing horse, was sad. The Illinois farmer threw his hat in the air and yelled. But ah, as they say in novels, what's this? Something had happened to the jockey on the sorrel he had fallen suddenly forward he was off down on the ground and the millionaires and the "friend" were running down the road toward the spot. When they reached him they found his face covered with blood, it was flowing from his mouth, he was injured internally, be was dying. Fright seized everyone. Of course the Ulinoisan didn't know, he learned only a few days ago, that the syndicate jockeys and wrestlers and boxers always bled much at the mouth. He didn't know they carried car-ried little thin rubber sacks filled with blood, or something resembling it, in their mouths; that sometimes they bit the sack and sometimes some-times burst it against their ears to show how dangerously they have been injured. The millionaires said it mustn't get into the papers. The farmer's wife said slie wanted to go home. Then she thought of her husband's $10,000. When they turned to see the stakeholder, stake-holder, one George Wilson, he had disappeared. The millionaires were furious. So was the "friend" whose horse certainly had won because be-cause of the accident. "I am a lumber dealer," said a Minnesota man. "I am not 30 years old. I used to go up to Minneapolis occasionally and there met an old acquaintance, Louis Stowe, whom I hadn't seen for years. My family had known him for 20 years. His father is an Episcopal rector. rec-tor. I took this fellow to my home often after I met him. One day he said he had a friend, Frank Myers, an instructor in physical culture, whose cousin, George Bennett, was private secretary for three or four millionaires in Pittsburg. Pa. These millionaires had developed devel-oped a wrestler. Gorman by name, whom they would match against anyone. Stowe said the |