Twenty years a fakir

by S. James Weldon

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.