To be on the safe side Mr. Scheftels, accompanied by an attorney of high standing, visited Washington. They went direct to the Department of Justice, where Attorney-General Wickersham's private secretary, after a friendly conversation, referred them to the chief clerk. He reported, after a search of twenty-five minutes' duration, that there was no charge against B. H. Scheftels & Company. He even volunteered the information that he did not know that such a firm was in existence.
It afterward developed that at the very time Mr. Scheftels and the attorney were at the Department of Justice a special rubber-shoe investigation was on under the dual direction of a young Washington lawyer on Attorney-General Wickersham's personal staff, and a Special Agent of the Department of Justice. The latter had been given extraordinary powers as a special agent of the Department of Justice, ostensibly to "clean out Wall Street."
Satisfied they were in the wrong place, Mr. Scheftels and the counsellor departed from the Attorney-General's office for the Post-Office Department. They were referred to Chief Inspector Sharp. The lawyer requested that the Scheftels corporation be given a hearing before any action was taken on any complaints that might reach the department. Mr. Sharp agreed to this on condition that the attorney would agree for the Scheftels company that an inspection of the books of the corporation would be permitted on demand at any time. There was a ready assent. A memorandum to this effect was left with Inspector Sharp.
Mr. Scheftels left the Department with positive assurance that no snap judgment would be taken. Edmund R. Dodge of Nevada, personal counsel of B. H. Scheftels & Company, then addressed a letter to U.S. Senator Newlands with the request that he take the matter up direct with the Postmaster-General.
Senator Newlands, under date of July 2, wrote Mr. Dodge that he had addressed a letter to the Postmaster-General with the request that notice be given to Mr. Dodge in case any complaint or information was lodged against the Scheftels corporation. A few days later Senator Newlands sent Mr. Dodge a letter from Theodore Ingalls, Acting Chief Inspector of the Post-Office Department, in which Mr. Ingalls said it was the practice of the Department in case of alleged use of the mails for fraudulent purposes to give individuals against whom complaint has been made full opportunity to be heard either through person or counsel, should adverse action be contemplated as a result of the investigation of such allegation.
Feeling that our house had been securely safeguarded against surprise parties, I at this junction took a trip to Nevada, where urgent business matters required my attention. While I was in the West telegrams were sent me that the premier mail-order mining-stock bucket-shop firm on Broad Street was flooding the mail and burdening the telegraph wires with urgent appeals to stockholders of Rawhide Coalition, one of our specialties, to sell out their holdings, as a severe break in the price of the shares was impending. Forewarned of this attack, I telegraphed instructions from Reno to meet the onslaught with a notice in the Mining Financial News addressed to investors, telling them to be on their guard.
My trip to the West made a pocketful of money for investors by my purchase of the control in the Jumbo Extension company on a monthly payment plan. The price of the stock tripled in the market. My re-entrance into the Goldfield camp was especially distasteful to the Nixon-Wingfield interests. Before I left Goldfield I was actually warned that the vengeance wreaked on the Sullivan Trust Company would be visited on the Scheftels company for daring to reinvade the Goldfield district.
Late in August the Scheftels company endured what was probably the most severe strain it had been put to since its incorporation. We had been making heroic efforts to rally the price of our specialties on the New York Curb market. We were meeting with unusual resistance from professional sources. At the period of which I narrate, Ely Central had registered a low quotation of 62½ cents and we had successfully strengthened it to around $1. All the way up we met with heavy sales. One day deliveries crowded in so fast that three cashiers working in the "cage" were unable to keep up with the transactions. The business of the corporation had been heavy in the general list as well as in the house specialties. There was more than sufficient money on hand to finance all the transactions that day, but not, however, unless deposits were made in bank as rapidly as our own deliveries were made and collected for by our messengers.
About 2 o'clock in the afternoon a report reached the Curb that the bank checks of B. H. Scheftels & Company were not being promptly certified. As this rumor gained currency the excitement on the Curb increased. The Curb concluded that we were at last "busted." Motley throngs began to assemble in front of the offices. The fierce yells of brokers could be heard bidding for and offering Scheftels checks below their face value. A throng of the riffraff of the Street swarmed in front of the building.
One or two individuals, implacable enemies who had repeatedly led the market onslaught against the Scheftels stocks, offered Scheftels checks for small sums at as low as 50 cents on the dollar. These were licked up by our friends who had been assured that we were financially all right and that some mistake must have been made at the bank.