planned to get out before the close of the market on Thursday, because I
did not want to run the risk of carrying the deal over the holiday. But
the weather map, just in from Kansas City, indicated clear skies for
Kansas over the week-end. This, coupled with the exuberant spirits of
the excited dealers on the Atchison Board, caused me to change my mind.
One more day of dry weather would likely double my earnings.
The weather man was wrong; horribly wrong.
It began raining in Wetmore about 10 o’clock that night. You’ve probably
been lulled to sleep by rain patter on the roof. Believe me, there was
no lullaby sleep in the constant rain patter on the roof over me that
night. It rained off and on here all day Friday. Everyone I met on the
street here exclaimed, “Fine rain, John!” I would say, “Yep”—and think
something else. It was truly a $4,000.00 rain, in reverse—so far as I
was concerned.
On Saturday morning, the speculators were back on the Atchison Board
of Trade floor—to a man. The rain had washed their faces clean of all
animation. Mr. Roper, working with telegraph instrument, rose and faced
the weary-laden boys. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’ve got good news — for
nobody.” The death-like quiet for a fraction of a moment, as if we
were standing in the Salt Lake Mormon tabernacle waiting for the usual
pin-dropping demonstration, gave way to a concerted sigh. It had rained
everywhere.
I sold 50,000 bushels at the opening. My profits were wiped out clean.
The extra 10,000 bushels short sale made me $63.75 in about three
minutes. And this, added to the return of my $100—and relief from
liability—made me feel rich.
Though little or no wheat was grown here at that time, the Kansas wheat
farmer was considered the biggest gambler of them all. Even so, having
just got out of a big wheat deal, by “the skin of my teeth,” would it
not be good business for me to take a “flyer” in some wheat land, and
try growing the stuff?
Land in the wheat country was going begging at $300 a quarter—the same
land that is now selling up to $200 an acre. Land agents were actually
fighting over prospective buyers. Bill Talley, born in Indiana and
reared here, was at this time operating a drink emporium in Wetmore, but
had lived, and dealt in land, at Cimarron, in Gray County. At the depot,
the day I started for the west, Bill told me to go to his friend, Johnny
Harper. When I got off the train at Cimarron at 2 o’clock at night,
Johnny was there to meet me. We by-passed the leading hotel—a rival
agent, F. M. Luther, lived at the hotel—and Johnny took me to a
restaurant three blocks away. The next morning Johnny and his partner,
Mr. Emery, ate breakfast with me at the restaurant. Mr. Emery was to
drive me across the river to look at land. Every parcel of land shown
was priced at $300 a quarter. And at every booster stop we visited, the
farmer would reply to Mr. Emery’s inquiry: “I would not take $25 an acre
for mine.” A few sandhill plums, a dilapidated barn, and weather-beaten
three-room house—made the difference. We got back to Cimarron about four
o’clock in the afternoon.
As if he were sure I had seen a plenty to interest me on the side of a
quick purchase, Johnny produced a map, saying, “Now, which piece have
you decided on?” I had made no decision. Mr. Emery then thought I might
like to see a big alfalfa field four miles up the river—not that it was
for sale, but just to show me how good it was. In truth, it was just to
get me out of town. The alfalfa looked good, but you know my mind was
fixed on wheat, and this big field did not interest me.
I had company again for supper, and either Mr. Emery or Mr. Harper
stayed by me until bedtime. It was Saturday. I needed a shave. Mr. Emery
took me through the main business part of the town to a barbershop on
the south side of the tracks. And here I came as near getting a skinning
as I ever did in a business deal. There were, of course, better shops in
town—but competitive real estate agents didn’t go across the tracks
for their shaves. In the meantime Mr. Luther had dropped in at the
restaurant. He was introduced by Mr. Harper. I asked Mr. Luther if he
were engaged in business in Cimarron? He replied, “Yes, the real estate
business.” Right away I had a notion that I should like to have a
private talk with Mr. Luther. Likewise, Mr. Luther. And don’t think that
Johnny didn’t catch on, too.
Mr. Luther bid us “good night,” and stepped outside. Mr. Harper bid me
“good night,” and started on his way out—and I went up to my room. We
were to start right after breakfast on a drive to Dodge City, thirty
miles down the river, where I would get a train for home. I did not
go to bed immediately. I went back downstairs for something, I don’t
remember what now. Maybe to pick up a little disinterested information
from the restaurant man. Mr. Luther came back in at the front door. Mr.
Harper followed immediately. I went back up to my room.
The following morning three real estate men ate breakfast with me. Mr.
Harper, Mr. Emery, and I started for the livery stable a block away,
while Mr. Luther lingered awhile over his coffee. Bill Talley’s friends
owned their driving team, and did their own stable work. When they got
their fractious horses partly hitched, I made an excuse to run back to
the restaurant. Mr. Luther said, “You were over in the neighborhood
of the Kelly school house yesterday, I believe. I can sell you three
quarters in the same section as the Kelly school house for $200 a
quarter, or $600 for the three quarters.” I promised to write him—or see
him later.
Mr. Emery drove me to Dodge City, showing me a big 30-acre cottonwood
planting on the way, which purportedly was the reason for the drive. It
did not interest me. We had cottonwoods at home. Mr. Emery stabled his
foaming horses at a livery barn on the south side of the tracks, near
the river, a good quarter of a mile from the Santa Fe depot. We ate
our dinner at a restaurant close by the depot. It was Sunday. Mr. Emery
showed me the town. We visited “Boot Hill” Cemetery, the only visible
reminder now that Dodge City was once the wildest and toughest spot
in the Old West, and other semi-interesting and some non-interesting
places. After walking our legs off, we were now near the depot again.
Mr. Emery wished to look in on his erstwhile steaming horses. Yes, I
would go along with him. On passing the depot I dropped out of the line
of march on the pretense of wanting to get a line on the through train
I was to take that evening. This done, I hiked back to the restaurant,
inquired for a real estate office, and was told the Painter Brothers in
office above the restaurant were the men I should see. A poker game was
in full swing, but one of the brothers—I couldn’t for the life of me
remember which one now—took time out to tell me that he could sell me
land as good as the best for $200 a quarter. He gave me some literature.
We planned to meet again.
I rushed back to the depot in time to meet Mr. Emery on his return from
the stable. We walked some more. A local train from the west was due at
3 o’clock. Johnny Harper got off this train—and took over. Mr. Emery bid
me “good-by” saying he would now drive his team back to Cimarron. Johnny
proposed a walk. We took in the town again—always by our lonesome. He
saw me off on the train. I did not learn how Johnny planned to get back
to Cimarron. And I didn’t care.
Bill Talley was at the depot when I got back home. He said, “Well,
did you see Johnny Harper? Fine fellow, isn’t he?” And, “Did you find
anything to suit you?” Yes, I had seen Johnny; fine fellow, too. No, I
had not bought anything—yet. But I planned to buy three quarters in the
same section as the Kelly school house, from F. M. Luther, for $600.
Bill popped his fist in the palm of his left hand, and bellowed, “Damn
Luther!”—with shocking prefix.
It is only fair for me to say that ordinarily Bill was not given to the
use of such language. But the exigencies of the situation were very much
out of the ordinary. With prospect of a cut in commission—and his fear
that I might run afoul of Mr. Luther—Bill had gambled the price of a
telegram to Johnny Harper. I did not learn the why of this explosion for
a little over one year. My brother Frank was considering a trade for a
quarter of irrigated land south of the river, two miles from Lakin,
and had written from Fresno, California, asking me to look it over, and
report to him. On going through on the train, I stepped off at Cimarron,
and inquired for Johnny Harper. A by-stander said Johnny was not among
the people on the station platform—but, he said, “Here’s his brother.”
Johnny’s brother stepped forward, saying he was going west on the train.
On the train, he said, “You were out here last year driving with Johnny.
Why didn’t you buy, then?”
I told Johnny’s brother that they had “herded” me so closely as to make
me suspicious. He said they had to do that to keep their competitors
from blocking their sales. He said the competitors would quote a low
price on tracts in the neighborhood of the places visited by Johnny’s
prospects—and then, if the prospect decided to buy, the competitor would
discover that his partner had just sold it to another—but he always had
other bargains to show him.
Johnny’s brother also told me that our friend Talley had gotten into an
altercation with Mr. Luther, and that the Cimarron man had knocked the
whey out of our Wetmore boy—all while the latter was connected in the
realty business with brother Johnny.
If I could have gone out there wholly on my own—that is, without any
helpful interference from Mr. Talley, and maybe got lost on the big flat
beyond the sandhills just south of the river for a week, I could have
made a potful of money. I had planned to buy two sections. But, instead,
I bought 80 acres of rather swampy bottom land here for the same money,
$2400 — and then spent $1800 more to install five miles of drain tile.
This tiling was a gamble that paid big dividends.
Michael Worthy, my late semi-partner in the grain business, had better
luck than I. He bought Gray County wheat land in the neighborhood of the
Kelly school house — which was to be passed down as a huge profit-making
legacy—even to the third generation.
Oscar Porter was a track buyer at Bancroft until Jim Wilcox, elevator
owner, crowded him out. Being a track shipper, Oscar was not eligible to
come into the Association — nor was I, but somehow I had been roped in.
Porter wanted to know how I did it, that he might do likewise. I could
give him no helpful information. His next step was to start legal
action to compel me to divulge the secret. I was subpoenaed to appear
in court—supposed to be the star witness—in a complaint lodged by Mr.
Porter against the Association.
County Attorney S. K. Woodworth called me aside, said he knew I had the
information to smash the Association, if I would just give. He said I
could tell the truth—he added, “and I know you will,” without fear of
having it used against me. I asked him if he were thinking of the time
when I had slightly stretched the truth—but I really had not done this —
in behalf of his candidacy, in my newspaper? He laughed at that.
I told Sam that he could depend on me to answer his questions
truthfully, as always—he laughed again—but that I would not make
a statement. He said he would not ask me to do that. I was not
particularly in sympathy with the Association, but I did not want to
volunteer information against it—and then, too, my Atchison friends and
my partner Michael were entitled to some consideration.
I answered the County Attorney’s questions truthfully, and I believe
satisfactorily—but still they did not get what they wanted. I had the
information, of course, but Sam and Oscar knew too little about the
business in hand to formulate the right questions. I believe they did
not know about that illegal contract.
If they could have had Michael and our illegal contract, written in
violation of the Sherman Act, brought into court, they would have had
a case. But then it was I, a lowly track buyer comparable to the
complainant, who had by some hook or crook, aided by a swift kick in
the pants, bolted through the barrier that was keeping Oscar out of the
Association.
LOCAL “BOARD OF TRADE” Not Hitherto Published—1947.
By John T. Bristow
This, a continuation of the preceding article, brings us up to the
second phase of my grain dealing experience. The businessmen, and some
who were not so businesslike, organized what they called a Board of
Trade, purportedly for the enhancement of the town’s interest—but,
in reality, as events proved, to locate an outside man in the grain
business here.
Goff had two merchants advertising in my newspaper — one a particularly
live businessman—quoting prices, and drawing trade away from this
territory. Even people living right here in town would go up on the noon
train, and come back at four o’clock, loaded with purchases.
There had been discussions as to whether or not it was morally
legitimate for the local paper to accept outside advertising when in
competition with the home merchants—and the publishers all around had
decided that it was quite legitimate, especially when the home merchants
did not make liberal use of the paper’s space. Yet, I doubted if it was
wise for me to do so. However, I do not think I was violating the code
of loyalty when I prayed for a live merchant like Mr. Abbott.
The Board of Trade had come to life in Moulton De-Forest’s office
across the hall from my printing office, on a Thursday night. My name,
mentioned for possible membership—I was told, later—was discussed at
length. I was the culprit, at least it was I who owned the vehicle
carrying the price-smashing ads which were making them unhappy. And
though I was at the time publishing The Spectator, doing job printing,
buying and shipping grain, writing fire insurance, selling real estate,
and making more farm loans than both the other assembled loan agents,
there was doubt if I should be classed as a businessman, in the true
sense. Stupid as this may seem, it is a fact. The reason for it is not
apparent—yet.
There were in this organization men who had been at odds, even fighting
mad, over other activities. It seemed as though something nasty was
always brewing then. The man who had not so long before been petitioned
to leave town, and the fellow who had borne the liberally signed
document to the printing office for public exposure, were now working
together in an effort to push me around, simply because I had been so
indiscreet as to accept outside advertisements.
The leading Prohibitionist had been especially active in trying to clean
up the town. It had provoked the imbibers and the “blind-tiger” boys.
They got up a petition asking the Prohib to leave town, and brought
it to the Wolfley printing office, where I was in charge during the
editor’s absence. I refused to print it. They berated me plenty. But
they got handbills printed elsewhere—now signed “Committee.”
The Prohib did not choose to leave town.
One of the “boys” got gloriously drunk—and bragged a little. The Prohib
and the Drunk met in the middle of the main town square. There were a
lot of people on the street. Ed Cawood, quite young then, is the only
one now living that I recall. The Drunk struck at the Prohib, missed,
and fell flat in the street. He had to have help to get up.
Years later, I heard a brother of the Drunk, a highly respected, and
ordinarily very truthful man, in telling the story, say that his brother
(called by name) beat the Prohib up scandalously. You can’t rely on what
the old fellows tell you. You’ve got to know it—or let someone who does
know it, tell it. Hearsay, after it passes through a generation is not
reliable.
Here I wish to say that, except the grain business, the sidelines
enumerated herein were acquired from the long established agency of S.
C. Shuemaker, at the same time I bought the newspaper after his death,
and that I was not butting in on anyone’s prior rights. Also, I want to
say that the ones having those unreasonable notions, had axes to grind.
However, a committee came over to my office, and asked me to join them
in Moulton’s office. I gave them $1.00 membership fee, and noted the
freshly written by-laws calling for an additional dime for each and
every time I might be absent from the regular Thursday night meeting.
Keep this in mind.
The members who had no axes to grind were pretty decent. They felt the
need of something to counteract the inroads the Goff merchants were
making on the local merchants’ business, and decided that a full
front-page write-up in The Spectator was desirable. It was promised
for the second week ahead. Nothing was said about paying for this
service—and no payment was expected.
Henry DeForest told those dominating members that they were acting like
spoiled children, or worse—imbeciles. It is really surprising to what
absurd lengths some fairly just people will sometimes go in trying to
force their will upon others.
Now, Thursday night was always a busy night with us — but it was doubly
so the next Thursday night. The Board fellows decided that they could
not wait two weeks for the write-up, and asked me to advance it one
week. I told them that we would accommodate them it we could get Mr.
Abbott to reduce his space, or forgo the advertisement altogether. Mr.
Abbott would oblige. And this was the straw that ultimately broke the
spinal column of the Board of Trade.
Our full office force burned the midnight oil that Thursday night—and
then some. The Board members trudging up to Moulton’s office could have
looked in on us and seen that we were having no picnic. But, by golly,
we were a little proud of our accomplishments, hoping it would please.
And it did. The thing that caused me to lose faith in the Board was that
paltry dime assessed against me for missing the meeting.
The prime purpose of the Board was to locate an outside man in the grain
business here, backed up by a stronger purpose of one of its members
to sell an old canning factory building to be converted into an
elevator:—plus one up-and-coming young doctor who was crying for an
opposition paper, with political slant. The business was delegated to
a committee of four—the canning factory owner, a relatively new doctor,
and two other men.
At this time doctors, after petty politicians, were the bane of the
local papers. It was considered by the profession unethical for them
to advertise—yet, too often, they craved top newspaper recognition when
only minor mention or none at all was due. The case in hand was the
third, with as many different doctors, with which I had to contend—in
every instance for what the paper failed to say about them, or what
it did say about some other doctor. But I want to say that our old
reliables, Dr. J. W. Graham, and Dr. Thomas Milam, did not fall into
this category.
However, the cases I had t o deal with were really mild — mild indeed
to the one which threatened to do mayhem, or worse, to the whole office
force, when I was printer on T. J. Wolfley’s Spectator. A doctor who
had come down from Granada and located in Wetmore, sent word that he
was going to pay us a visit at 10 o’clock of a Saturday morning for the
express purpose of cleaning out the whole office. The offending item was
a week old, and the demanded retraction in Friday’s paper had, as viewed
by the Doctor, added “insult to injury.”
Theodore Wolf ley really enjoyed a scrap—and managed to have something
on tap nearly all the time. He represented one faction of the local
Republicans, and Moulton DeForest, when not a pronounced Prohibitionist,
essayed to control another faction. The Doctor, a husky farm-bred boy
in the Granada neighborhood, now on honored citizen of Wetmore, was
a rantankerous Republican allied with the De-Forest faction—until
he switched to the Populist party without losing any part of his
rantankerous attributes.
Anticipating in advance the proposed call from the Doctor, Wolfley
procured a revolver, and he and I practiced shooting the thing in the
office, from a distance of ten feet, with target pinned on the leg of
the imposing stone. He never hit the target once, but he broke a window
pane all of two feet above the stone. He always shut his eyes and
flinched before pulling the trigger.
I was supposed to be stationed at the imposing stone, in pretense of
performing my regular duties, with iron side-stick—a lethal weapon when
expertly wielded—in readiness for my part of the defense, if, and when,
the Doctor might extend his belligerence thus far.
The printing office at that time was over the old Morris store on the
north side of the main street. A stairway went up on the outside, with
turnback to the front porch above. At the appointed hour, heavy feet
pounded on the stairs. I had all of one minute in which to visualize
my precarious position. With each step on the stairs my nervousness
mounted. The irate intruder would of necessity be stationed somewhere
between the editor and his foreman. The thing that worried me was my
boss’ unpredictable marksmanship.
But it was not the Doctor’s heavy feet on the stairway. He had sent his
understudy, Joe Eyman, who also was a husky bigfooted farm-bred boy from
up in the Granada neighborhood. Joe fixed matters so that the Doctor and
the Editor could talk it out between themselves. And in good time Joe
became eligible to write MD after his own name. He then married Hattie
Smarr, and they went to Sundance, Wyoming, to hang out his shingle. She
was known in later years, in Wetmore, as Mrs. Stalder.
I am not sure if the belligerent Doctor’s grievance was professional
or political. Probably the latter—but I do know that he was touchy in a
professional way, for he later accounted for one-third of my unfavorable
experience with doctors, as earlier mentioned in this writing. His
successor in the Granada field had sent in by our Granada correspondent,
a dollar’s worth of advertising, in the form of a personal, which had
piqued the Old Doctor, causing him to do a bit of rantankerous snorting
at me. But I did not rush out and buy a gun. I used the weapon I already
had. The paper ignored him—and that whipped him into line in about one
year. And he was ever after that my friend—with full ‘appreciation
of the silent power of the press. He was a good doctor, and a good
fellow—when he was good.
As Populist crusader, the Doctor was a success. His advertised meetings
drew big crowds. He always brought in a principal speaker. One time he
had two billed for the same night—”Sockless” Jerry Simpson and “Peruna”
Jerry Botkin—but he got Mary Ellen Lease, instead. The Doctor and his
two very fine little girls, Bertha and Belle, led the singing. The
Doctor himself was not a noted vocalist—but he bore down heavily on the
refrain of his favorite Populist song, “Turn The Rascals Out.”
Also, let me add that any time the editor of a local paper lets the
politicians handle him, he is going to be woefully out of luck. Politics
was dirty then. If an editor was a Republican, he was expected to engage
in mud-slinging, shying the muck at all and sundry Democrats, regardless
of their standing as citizens. The mere favorable mention of Republican
candidates was not enough. And if he were true blue, he must keep up a
barrage against editors of Democratic papers, and vice versa, a sort of
nonsensical exchange of blasts. I steadfastly refused to be drawn into
their political scraps. They called me a “mugwump.” But Gov. E. N.
Morrell said—put it in writing—that inasmuch as I had succeeded in
keeping my political skirts clean that I was a high-minded Republican.
My hardest task was to hold down a brilliant and goshawful sarcastic
local politician who wanted to engage in muck-raking, over the assumed
name “Samantha” in my paper.
Politics was something to be shunned by me—that is, from a business
standpoint in connection with the publication of the newspaper. I
once went over to Edgerton, in the Missouri hills beyond Rushville,
to investigate an offer of $1,000 bonus for the establishment of a
newspaper. I struck the town at a time when a teachers’ convention was
being held there. The banker, who was on the committee welcoming the
teachers, was also on the committee pulling for the paper, and he had
arranged the appointment with me. Mistaking me for a professor, he gave
me a hearty handshake, and welcomed me along with the teachers getting
off the same train. When I got up town, I called at his bank—and was
“welcomed” again.
“What’s your politics?” he asked.
“Republican,” said I.
“Your train leaves in one hour,” said he.