Time and again the Scheftels company found among stocks delivered to it, against purchases made in the open market, the identical certificates it had pledged with loan-brokers as collateral for loans, and which had been hypothecated by it with the specific proviso that the certificates were not to be used. It opened our eyes to one of the most commonplace practices, not only on the Curb, but also on the Stock Exchange. Hardly a failure occurs on any of the Exchanges or on the Curb that does not reveal customers' certificates, which were originally pledged with the understanding that they were not to be "used," in the strong-boxes of others.
The first grievous offense of the publicity forces of the Scheftels corporation against Wall Street's "Oh-let-us-alone" promotion combine was a wallop in April and May, 1909, through the Scheftels market literature, at Nevada-Utah.
The combination which owned control took with bad grace the strictures on the property. We heard an awful underground roar. At that time the price of Nevada-Utah stock was around $3. The Scheftels Market Letter said that there was probably not 30 cents of share value behind the property. The price immediately began to crumble. It has been tobogganing ever since. The stock at the beginning of September of this year was quoted at 37½ to 50 cents.
Such a thing as printing facts which would enlighten stockholders and the public as to the actual value and condition had not before been heard of when such enlightenment ran contrary to the plans of strongly entrenched promoters on the Street.
The campaign against Nevada-Utah, therefore, directed widespread attention to B. H. Scheftels & Company and the Mining Financial News.
Following the Nevada-Utah disclosure, the Daily Market Letter and the Weekly Market Letter of the Scheftels corporation and the Mining Financial News took a good, strong, husky "fall" out of the La Rose Mines Company, capitalized for $7,500,000. The La Rose owns one of the greatest producing mines in the Cobalt silver camp. A market scheme was in progress, with La Rose as the medium, and W. B. Thompson, of Nipissing fame, as a chief manipulator. We called a halt to the game when the price reached a "high" of $8.50, and saved the public a huge sum of money. Under our campaigning the stock declined to $4, a decrease of $6,750,000 in the market value of the capitalization. This made W. B. Thompson and his associates the implacable enemies of the Scheftels company and myself. We didn't worry much. We were catering to the public. Indeed, we were pleased with our work.
Following this incident, the Scheftels Market Letter and the Mining Financial News took a smash at a mining-stock deal in which W. B. Thompson and the Guggenheims were jointly interested. It was the now notorious Cumberland-Ely-Nevada Consolidated merger. Later the merger was enlarged and took in the Utah Copper Company, or rather the Utah Copper Company took in the others, and the Scheftels propaganda found another opportunity to do a great service for the stockholders of Nevada Consolidated.
Our attack hurt the Guggenheim reputation among investors all over the country and contributed to reduce their influence over the large stockholding body—more than 6,000 men and women—of Nevada Consolidated. Though finally successful, the Guggenheims were sore from the lashing and exposures to which they had been subjected. As for the Scheftels company and the Mining Financial News, they had still further established the honesty and value of their publicity service.
A market scheme to balloon the price of Ray Central Copper Company shares to several times their value was a precious enterprise against which we trained our publicity guns and fired several effective broadsides. The effort of the promoters to connect with the public purse here would not have been half so sensational if men of lesser prominence were identified with the operation. In our "bear" publicity on this one we minced no words. In doing so we again hit another powerful interest—the Lewisohns.
Later the exposure by the Mining Financial News and the Scheftels Market Letter of market manipulations of the Lewisohn-controlled Kerr Lake still further "endeared" the members of these two organizations to that powerful faction, and more closely cemented the ties of fellowship between the ruling powers.