From papers found in the Mid-Continent offices it appears this company
had been doing a loan as well as an investment business. A letter
addressed to Chicago school teachers invited deposits for investment
on which 2-1/2 per cent monthly interest was guaranteed.
If the teachers needed money it was offered them at 3 per cent a
month. The company's methods and those of the banks were compared in
the letter, to the disadvantage of the banks.
Medical students, stenographers, maids in hotels, women of various
classes, farmers in many sections of the country and hundreds of men
in different employments in the city were disclosed as the dupes.
The following telegram from St. Louis to a Chicago paper briefly
outlines the situation on the second day of the raiding there:
St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 11, 1903.--Runs were made on the
E. J. Arnold Turf Investment Company, the International
Investment Company, The Christie Investment Company and
John J. Ryan & Co. yesterday by hundreds of men and women
who during the last six months have invested their savings
with these co-operative bookmaking concerns in the hope of
enormous profits. The International and Christie companies
paid all the stockholders who appeared, at first. Then they
decamped.
Arnold & Co., in accordance with their announcement which
caused the panic among the "turf speculators" yesterday,
refused to pay back any stock certificates, although still
claiming to be perfectly solvent, and determined to pay the
usual weekly dividends until affairs of the company are
wound up.
At the offices of John J. Ryan, owner of the Newport (Ky.)
Race Track, a riot was averted by the presence of the
police; and the excited investors, who were reminded that
their stock certificates are payable only on thirty days'
notice, went off in a state of rage and anxiety at once
amusing and pitiful.