CHAPTER XIX.
The Real Estate Fake—Booming a Town—Making a Fortune—Tricks of Other People—All This World Is a Fake and Every Person in It a Fakir—The Politician and the Widow—A Diamond Ring for Two Cents.
“Almost twenty years in the faking and book business. How times flies; and yet I have gained enough experience in those twenty years to last a lifetime.”
So I mused one day while tilted back in my chair in front of the “Ashland” hotel, the principal house in a western town, which perhaps you may recognize under the name of Buxton.
I remember, as distinctly as though the time was yesterday, all the surroundings of that little town. The place was on the eve of a boom, and the best informed were in a fever of excitement over its prospects. I took out my bank book and looked over its pages.
No. The past ten years of my life had not been wasted. Each succeeding page showed a record of profits and gains, even though it was only when I switched from street selling and the like to the handling of a general line of books, and a little later on to the exclusive traveling in the interests of the Banner encyclopedia, that fortune seemed really coming at my command.
I had then what was a fair little fortune laid by. Of late years I had been always a winner, and felt sure that I could carry the “Banner” successfully for many years to come. Even in the little bits of speculation in which, more for the sake of diversion than profit, I had been engaged success had invariably crowned my efforts. Why should I not launch out more boldly? I believed I saw a chance to make thousands in the time I was taking to make hundreds, and without the possibility of any great loss. And if I did lose, what matter, since I had strength and experience through which I could soon recoup myself?
The speculative fever had me, and sitting in that up-tilted chair I decided to hit the game for what it was worth before the fever rose with the rest of the world to its full height, thus giving me the best chance to be in shape and ready for the crisis. I bought a piece of land adjoining Buxton and had it cut up into building lots. I sold them all when the boom came for twelve dollars each. The deals were managed by local real estate agents, and after paying them their commission I found that on an investment of four thousand dollars I was six thousand ahead. Having bought at the right time there never was any danger that I would lose; while, as I had expected, I came out a handsome winner.
This speculation encouraged me to dabble in real estate on a larger scale. I realized that it was not like the old days when one waited for years while the land slowly grew into value, but that with smart, far-seeing heads at the front fortunes might be made in a single night. I looked over the map and kept my ear to the ground, waiting for another favorable opportunity.
I found it at Harwood, where I bought several sections of land, which I cut up into town lots, holding them, at the outset, at thirty dollars a lot. As before, I had local land agents interested, who, seeing big money for themselves, assisted me in all kinds of schemes to boom the property.
They built—on paper—three railroads, a magnificent union depot, machine shops and factories, an opera house, and a line of street cars. There was in reality as fine a bit of water power at Harwood as one would want to see, and the site had other advantages. We got the attention of the people of the state turned in that direction by advertising, hired a job lot of engineers to survey for the three railroads, and got as far as to start the foundation of a two million dollar college. The street car lines were brought to the attention of eastern capitalists, who own the franchise to this day. Outside people put in money and then came to look after it. One of the railroads was actually constructed, and another broke ground; the water power was turning the wheel of a real mill; a handsome court house stood in the public square; there was a hotel or two on Central avenue fit to grace any little city; there was a population that had risen from four hundred to four thousand, and more coming, and every evidence of prosperity, when I sold out my last lots. I had already seen some of my thirty dollar lots go up to three hundred, while the poorest land owner in the original town would have made a fortune if he had held on long enough. But I knew how to quit and when to quit. With a hundred thousand dollars to the good I retired gracefully, and before the turn of the tide. There were plenty of persons in after years to say, “If Weldon had stayed with us the boom would not have collapsed.” But Weldon did not stay. I knew it was only a question of time when the inflated values would take a tumble, so I stood from under and lost not a dollar in the wreck.
Since this successful venture I have been in numerous speculative deals, and the quality of being ever on the alert, acquired while faking in different capacities, has stood me well in my later career. I have always felt to a moment how long it was a sure thing to hold on, and have never been caught in a crash. Perhaps I have at times been too conservative, but I tell you, gentlemen, there is nothing like playing on velvet.
As to the methods by which I made my fortune, I have no desire to offer an excuse for them, and yet a few words may here be in order, to call attention to the fact that there are other fakirs in the world besides the man who travels with microscopic look-backs and goldentine pens. Before the reader undertakes to criticise me harshly let him look and see what is done every day in channels of “legitimate trade.” I admit that I practiced trickery during my years on the road, but I claim that any man is justified to use it in gaining his point, providing he does not misrepresent merits and gives value received. Show me the man who has not the ability to draw customers to him, or sense to employ business tact and trickery, and I will show you a man who will never amount to much in the world. His brethren in the trade are using them every day, and they are the ones who succeed.
If a merchant advertises a special sale, and gives you a yard of calico for three cents which cost him five, does he not throw out a leader to lure you into his store so that he can sell you something else at a profit? I remember once, walking down a business street in a large city, I saw twenty dummies in front of a clothing store, each of them cased in an overcoat of extra fine material. Hung to each one was a large placard:
“Special Sale of Overcoats Today.Your Choice $4.98.”
“Special Sale of Overcoats Today.Your Choice $4.98.”
“Special Sale of Overcoats Today.
Your Choice $4.98.”
I picked on one I thought would suit me and went inside to buy it. When I told the salesman what I wanted he said, “Those goods on the outside are not in the special sale; but here are the $4.98 coats,” and he pointed to a pile of inferior garments. Of course, they caught customers by the scheme, and was it not trickery?
Once I asked a preacher who was managing a church fair why it was they talked so strongly against lotteries and gambling, and then had so many schemes of chance at their fair, and so many of the young ladies working among the boys to catch their little ten cent pieces. He replied that without special features of some kind a crowd could not be drawn and the effort would end in failure. Isn’t this trickery?
Do not understand me to be against the preachers. I am now a member of the church and an earnest advocate of religion. I am simply showing up the true side of life and human nature.
Is there any bigger grafter for fees than the average lawyer or doctor? Go into his office and before he will name a price he will size you up and soak you accordingly.
Once I shipped a crate of picture frames to a town, the shipping agent telling me the rate was fifty-three cents. When I came to pay at the other end the rate was one dollar and six cents. The freight clerk told me that when shipped at owner’s risk the rate was fifty-three; otherwise it was one dollar and six cents. Was not that trickery—and robbery besides?
Did you ever see a more unprincipled trickster than the average politician? Here is an illustration. In a certain county of a great state there were two candidates for the nomination for the office of county superintendent of schools; one, a man without a family; the other, a widow lady with two children. They were about equal in strength and it was uncertain which would win. The man, wanting to get his opponent out of the way, made her the proposition that if she would withdraw and support him, and he was elected, he would make her his deputy and divide the proceeds of the office equally between them. She accepted and gave her whole time to the campaign. After the election he tried to ignore her entirely, swore that he had never entered into such an agreement, and on top of that circulated all sorts of scandalous reports concerning her. The poor woman took all this so to heart that she committed suicide, throwing two orphan children upon the world—and they were girls at that. Was not that the worst kind of trickery, treachery, knavery and hypocrisy? I call it murder in the first degree.
Once, when I was in the west, I stopped at the only hotel there was in the town, the proprietor being also a banker. The hotel made me a rate of ten dollars a week, and at the end of the seven days I tendered a draft for twenty-five dollars, which I had received from my firm that morning. The banker claimed I could not be sufficiently identified and refused to cash my paper, but agreed to send it in for collection. He kept me there three days, waiting for money, and at the end of that time charged, in addition to the ten dollars for the week, two dollars per day for the extra three days, and seventy-five cents for collection. Now, wasn’t that robbery as well as trickery? I knew he had “worked” me, for he could not send the draft to New York and get returns in three days.
In North Dakota there were two undertakers. One was poor, the other rich and owner of the only hearse in town. A poor man’s wife died. He found that he could buy a coffin at the smaller establishment for a great deal less than from the other. He ordered it, but when he called to make arrangements for the hearse the proprietor would not let him have it, because the coffin was not bought at his place. The poor man was forced to go to the next town and procure a hearse. That seems even worse than trickery.
There is a large concern in Chicago which advertises to send you a one hundred dollar diamond ring for a two-cent stamp; and they do it, too. Here is the way the scheme is worked: An agent of the company sells you a ticket or coupon for one dollar. You send the ticket and nine dollars in cash to the firm, which in turn sends you ten other coupons. You sell these coupons to your friends for one dollar each, thereby getting your money back. Your friends must each do the same as you did, selling their coupons to their friends. As soon as your friends send the money they have collected you get your diamond, and when their friends do likewise each one of your friends gets his. So, you see, while the company is paid for the goods sent out, each man actually gets a hundred dollar diamond ring for a stamp. Now, isn’t that up-to-date trickery? It is a sort of endless chain scheme, and is actually being carried on by a responsible firm in Chicago.
A great many times in my travels I have noticed that the Salvation Army are particularly fond of holding meetings in front of those hotels which are most patronized by traveling men. The reason is obvious. They have an eye for the collections they invariably take up, and there is not a more cheerful giver on earth than the traveling man. I remember once seeing the Army collect twenty-eight dollars in front of a certain hotel, and then march up the street and work the next one. I do not censure them; I approve of their work, but I say this is trickery just the same.
One of the worst things in the line of trickery and fraud is the system of paying in scrip by certain corporations. These companies have their own stores, and in order to force the men to buy at them they pay wages in scrip, which is virtually only an order for goods at the company concern. Is not this an outrage? Officers and managers who are honored and respected wherever they go have the men work like slaves, and instead of paying in cash give them a due-bill, good in trade alone, and only at the company store at that. By going through a lot of red tape, waiting perhaps three or four weeks, these due-bills can be cashed at ten per cent. discount. That is the best that can be done. Usually the laborer needs his money and thinks he is lucky if he can find some member of the company who will cash his order individually and on the spot at a discount of twenty-five per cent. Again, I call this robbery and trickery combined.
When I first landed in San Francisco a hack-man led me to believe that he was a hotel runner and created the impression that I would get a free ride. All houses there run a free bus. When I reached the hotel he charged me two dollars. Without a kick I paid it, as I might have known better than to trust him.
In another city I noticed a case filled with a beautiful line of photographs. The following sign was in the center:
“These Elegant Cabinets Just$1.00 Per Dozen. Come Up and HaveYour Picture Taken.”
“These Elegant Cabinets Just$1.00 Per Dozen. Come Up and HaveYour Picture Taken.”
“These Elegant Cabinets Just
$1.00 Per Dozen. Come Up and Have
Your Picture Taken.”
You go upstairs and after the operator gets his camera fixed on you he tells you, by the way, that the photos are $1.00 per dozen unmounted; if you want them put on cards they are two dollars a dozen. Now, who in the world would want photos unless they were mounted on cardboard? If you don’t put up the two dollars you get no pictures.
An enterprising restaurant man put a sign in front of his place, advertising “Ham and eggs at ten cents. Beefsteak and potatoes ten cents, including coffee, bread and butter, etc.” You go in to eat and on the bill of fare printed in very small letters you find the following: “All single ten cent dishes twenty cents; all twenty cent dishes twenty-five cents.”
I have seen instances on the road where hotel proprietors send their porters to the depot to yell at you when alighting from the train, “Free bus for such and such a hotel.” When you ride from the depot to the hotel the ride is free, but when you go back from the hotel it costs you twenty-five cents. I know of hundreds of hotels that charge their transient trade two dollars a day and their local patrons three dollars a week. Every traveling man on the road will tell you this is true. Some landlords even seem to go beyond this. I knew of one who was fond of getting up raffles, on perhaps a watch or a diamond ring, selling tickets only to transient customers. The raffle never came off, though this landlord would always claim that it had, and give the name of some fictitious person as the winner. I am glad to say that he was eventually sent to the penitentiary.
I could spend hours in calling attention to incidents like the foregoing, but what is the use? You can see, and you must know, that everybody is looking out for number one—every move, every thought and every word uttered seems to have a selfish motive back of it. You must look out for yourself, or go under for sure. A great author once said that all the world is a stage, and all the persons in it merely players. He might have said, “All the world is a fake and all the persons on it merely fakirs.”
Draw your own conclusions, then, from what I have written. Call me an unvarnished liar if you will, a dissembler, a hypocrite, a cheat, a dead-beat, what you like. To the untutored masses a successful fakir may seem to be all of these. You think his occupation is simply skinning the public. I know that his largest triumphs are in giving every man the full value for his money, and yet securing good profits for himself. Reconcile the two if you can; I did it long ago. Whether you succeed or not, if these pages have furnished you fair amusement I will be content. For no other reason were they written.