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Show GODMAN ON TRAIL t OF LOAN SHARKS" License Assessor Writes to the City Council Concerning Them. Salt Lake, March 9 Tribune: Back of a communication by License Assessor As-sessor Samuel 1. Godman to the city council Monday evening is a determination determi-nation to go after the salary loan sharks operating In Salt Lake City and compel them to "come across'' to the city with the annual license tax. $100 each, which all except one so far have evaded, or face prosecution to put them out of buslntrss. The mat-tor mat-tor went to a special committee composed com-posed of Martin, Fernstrom and Kan-dall Kan-dall for Investigation. License Assessor Godmaa sets out In his letter to the council that oving to the secretlvenc-ss of the loan "sharks" about their business methods meth-ods he has been unable either to collect col-lect the license or to get any convicting convict-ing evidence against them for violating violat-ing tho ordinances hi operating without with-out a license, and suggested either that a special committee be appointed to make an investigation, with a view of suppressing the business entirely, or that an ordinance be enacted which will compel the payment of the license without expenditure of the taxpayers' money to collect evidence upon which to base prosecutions. The letter to the council follows: "Owing to the becretivenees of the business of the "loan agencies" they having refused to pay their license tax, claiming that they are not assessable , I am unable to get convicting evidence evi-dence against them without funds, which this department has not authority auth-ority to spend. I therefore ' request your honorable body to appoint a committee com-mittee to Investigate this matter with a view of either suppressing this business bus-iness or enacting an ordinance that will compel them to comply with the ordinance of the. city without the tax-pa) tax-pa) ers expeudlng sums of money to collect evidence to prosecute them." It has been insistently and rather authoritatively reported that these salary loan "sharks" have gathered a "slush" fund with which to flght the collection of the license and to keep the legislature from enacting measures meas-ures inimical to them. The "slush" fund idoa apparently originated lu Ogden. The manager of a brokerage company of Ogden and a man who operates a similar agency there, are said to have come to Salt Lake City, and, with a man who runs an agency in this city, circulated among tho nine or ten loan "sharks" operating here in violation of the ordinances In an effort to form a "pool" or "6ki8h" fund to fight the city's collection of the license and to keep the legislature from passing measures Inimical to their Interests. How successful they were is unknown. J I |