Letters of this character were sent to large numbers of our customers, many of whom simply sent them to us. In some cases, however, customers who had read the attack in the Engineering & Mining Journal or quotations from it in widely circulated daily newspapers, needed but the letter from the lawyers to induce them to come forward with a complaint.
On the whole, this fishing expedition must have been something of a water-haul and a disappointment, for the attorneys of the Engineering & Mining Journal.
The Post-office Department at New York, in January and February, sent letters broadcast to readers of the Scheftels Weekly Market Letter, asking whether the business carried on was satisfactory—the usual form that is used where a firm is under investigation. Scores of these letters were forwarded to us by customers with remarks to the effect that evidently "somebody was after us." An inquiry of this sort is calculated to do terrible damage to the reputation and standing of any house that does a quasi-banking business. Our attorneys complained to Inspector Mayer of the New York division of the Post-office that an injustice was being done. No more letters of the character described were sent out, because the early replies that were received by the Inspector to his circular letter brought forth no serious complaints. However, it was afterward disclosed that the investigation did not cease here and that the Post-Office Department continued to conduct a searching inquiry only finally to abandon its enterprise.
Enters upon the scene an associate of the Engineering & Mining Journal's lawyers defending that publication against our suit for libel. He called at the Scheftels offices and demanded from Mr. Scheftels information with regard to the account of C. H. Slack of Chicago. He got it. It showed that Mr. Slack had purchased 50,000 shares of Bovard Consolidated at 10 cents per share, for which he had paid cash, and that Mr. Slack had purchased an additional 100,000 shares at 14¼ and 14¾ cents per share; and that Mr. Slack had refused, after the market declined to below the purchase price, to pay the balance due, because of delayed delivery.
The delay in delivery was accidental. The Scheftels company actually had in its possession two million shares of the stock or more, and the delivery would have been tendered earlier but for the fact that the raid on Ely Central had piled up so much work for the clerical force that everything was set back. We knew of no legitimate excuse for Mr. Slack, because he could have ordered the stock sold at any time, delivery or no delivery. The Slack transaction receives amplification here, because later, when the Scheftels corporation was raided by a Special Agent of the Department of Justice, it figured as one of the cases cited by the Agent in the warrant sworn to by him against B. H. Scheftels & Company as proving the commission of crime.
Another case about which Mr. Scheftels was asked to give full information was that of D. J. Szymanski, a corn doctor at 25 Broad Street. Mr. Scheftels had urged the Doctor to buy Ely Central when it was selling at 75 cents before the rise. Later, when the advance was well under way, above the $3 point, the Doctor bought some stock through the Scheftels corporation. When the price hit $4 he was urged to take profits. He refused to do so. When the attack began and the price broke badly the Doctor saw a big loss ahead.
He called at the Scheftels' office and begged for the return of the money he had lost in his Ely Central speculation.
The investigation was heralded among the brokers and caused much market pressure on the stocks fathered by the Scheftels company. We were not dismayed. To strengthen our position and to give added token of our good faith we increased our development operations at the mines. Our expenses in that quarter were swelled to the limit of working capacity on our underground explorations, as I realized that our salvation might depend on making good in quick order with Ely Central from a mining standpoint. We knew the ore was there and that it was up to us to get it before our enemies got us.
A GOVERNMENT RAID IS RUMORED
Out of a blue sky late in the month of June came news to the Scheftels office that a newspaper reporter on the New York American had stated that he had seen a memorandum in the city editor's assignment-book to watch out for a Scheftels raid by the United States Government. The information was reliable and it gave us a shock. Yet the thought that the powers of a great government like the United States could be used to crush us without giving us a hearing seemed unbelievable.