Valentine Democrat., January 27, 1910, Image 3

About Valentine Democrat. (Valentine, Neb.) 1900-1930

Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE

                
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. ' , Dr. Frederick A. Cook is not tho
' "first and very likely : will not be the
'last to offer the public a "bold brick , "
"
, in the way of great discoveries , says
; ; : the Washington Post. The fakers :
.
: have ; been found in all lands , and In
* 'almost all times , and their dealings
: -have , been in fake discoveries in
'
'science , , in medicine , in literature.
, _ , Some were successful in fooling the
! public for long periods ; others were
Soon caught and exposed. For three
' , centuries we have had among us
b.04" "
persons persistently claiming that
Shakespeare was a colossal faker ,
and palmed off on , a credulous
. . . .
public the writings of one Bacon ,
. , ) of his
. , as being the productions
_ own brain and pen. The Baconites
' . are still very strong in numbers and
literary ability. Dr. Cook has had
.
' many predecessors and will no doubt
have many , successors -in the years to
: ' -come , and the people will continue to
, be gullible. P. T. Barnum , the great
' .shownjan , said the people liked to be
humbugged. That may be putting it
pretty strong" but when we have once
been humbugged it delights our souls
to see somebody else get into the same
category.
One of the greatest , if not the great-
est , com.aer&rdti li.\ : a : cH perpe . .a . . " , u
upon the public was that of John Law
In his famous Mississippi bubble , dur-
ing the reign of Louis XV. France at
that time was bankrupt , when along
came a canny Scotchman , John Law ;
with his scheme to make all French-
men roll in wealth , and presented his
plan to colonize Louisiana. Paper
money , or rather paper promises , was
to be the basis of this wealth , and he
flooded the nation with his paper.
I
Princes and peasants , nobles and
clergy , men and women fought for
the chances to subscribe for this stock.
J In one day he had all France rolling
. in wealth and on the next steeped
t worse than ever in poverty. Before the
collapse , however , all Europe was in
in the Mississip
a craze to buy shares
pi company , ancl history says that at
one ! time there were half a million
foreigners in Paris eagerly speculat-
ing in the stocks and the prices rose
, to 15,000 francs a share. But the end
came , and it came suddenly. No one
except Law was looking for a break.
He saw It coming and fled the king-
, , flom. '
, flom.Law
' , : , Law found his example in what his-
tory knows t as the "South Sea Bubble. "
This was a scheme that found its birth
' f : , In the active brain of William Pater-
t\ son , during the reign of Queen Anne.
-t-- Paterson was the founder of the Bank
of England , and had won high fame as
I a sound financier , so it was easy for
" him to find buyers for his shares when
he placed the glittering South Sea
scheme of colonization before the eyes
' \ . . of the people. He selected the Isthmus
. . of Panama as the place to plant his
colony. : Advertisers of gold mines and
s schemes wight
. . - other set-frich-qtiick
' : ; : find it to their advantage carefully to
, 'peruse the flamboyant pamphlets is-
(
- sued by Paterson nearly two centuries
; ago. After a while the end came :
the colonists sickened and died , money
became scarce in Scotland , and nobody
wanted to purchase any more of the
shares , and Panama was left to its fe-
vers.
. . vers.There have been fakers of history ,
; and the name of Herodotus , like that
_ , ' . of Abou ben Adhem , leads all the rest.
jl " He has always been called the "Father
of History , " because he'was the first.
" ' to. attempt to put into concrete form
the story of what the world had done
and what it was then doing. For near-
, . ly 2,400 years he has been read with
delight by scholars , and they freely
' , admit that his historical "gold bricks"
- . . . ere so well garbed that they are almost
" as good as the genuine article.
; ' Among the hosts of literary gold
.
; brick peddlers , Thomas Chatterton will
- : ' s ever stand at ' the Head. "The marvel-
. ous boy that perished in his pride "
when only 14 years of age , fooled all
: the literary people 'of England. Upon
some old parchments he found among
, , . , the things his father had left he pre
: . . ; tended to have discovered fragments
of ancient ; poems , sermons , and articles
, ' . ' descriptive of the city churches , all
- " " written in the old lettering and spell
: ing. They showed remarkable pow-
' " ers , both for a poet and a descriptive
,
writer , and at" once had all literary
; f' . . . . . London agog. It was not long , how-
: j ever , before the literary world found
; i
, : .t that it had been hoaxed by a boy.
' 7' " ' Chatterton went to London at the age
7 , " of 17 to make his way as a writer , but
Y . , soon fell into habits of intemperance ,
; ! and at the -age of 18 he ended his life
-
drinking poison.
. . . , . ' " , )
j One of the popular poets of the pres-
, . . .
. _ v ent day in his early career handed out
. , 'I to the public a specimen gold brick
, ' which was so much like the genuine
. ' '
article that most of the literary crit-
, r - ics were taken in. James Whitcomb
/ Riley said in a conversation with a
( . ' < t friend , that he could , write a poem
: , s that would be readily accepted as be-
; : - ing an original by that master poeti
_ _ L ' _ ' . ' cal genius \ > f 'America ! ' , Edgar Allan
" , - Poe. A few'vdays later a paper in a
l"I ' small Indiana town
, . } ' announced that
: : ' among . some nub'bish in an attic an old
'J book had been \ found that once belong
ed to Poe , and on the fly leaf was an
,
original and unpublished poem by that
author. ' It attracted wide attention ,
and was almost universally accepted
by the critics as genuine , but . when
an offer of a large sum came for the
manuscript by a collector the fake. was
acknowledged.
It is hard to determine to what
class the great Moon hoax properly be-
longs , whether among those against
science or literature. So complete was
it as a treatise on science and astron-
omy that , it entrapped the great Ara-
go into accepting it. Its author was a
literary genius , with a very large
knowledge of science and astronomy.
It purported to be the story of how
Sir John Herscheii had constructed a
powerful telescope , and had been able
to bring the moon in so , close a range
of vision as to be able to distinguish
animals and men moving on its sur-
face. Known truths of science were so _
cleverly interwoven with the imagi -
nary that the closest observer had
hard work to distinguish between the
false and the true.
The people of England have had at
least two gold bricks offered them in
the shape of spurious claimants to the
crown. At least half a dozen claim-
ants to be the Dauphin of France , the
son of Louis XVI , who was supposed
to have been starved to death during
the French Revolution , have appeared
at one ti.me or another. . In 1603 Otre-
fief , a monk , pretended to be Demetri-
us , son of the Czar Ivan , who had been
murdered. We know little of any re
ligious impostors prior to the coming
of Christ , although the Bible tells us
that several false Christs had arisen I
before the coming of One now acknowl-
edged by the Christian world as the I
real Redeemer. But since his day
claimants of divine rights have been '
many. Mahomet , perhaps , is clearly
entitled to stand at the head , and to-
-day his followers are counted by the
millions.
Evidently getting his , inspiration
from the story Mahomet , Joseph
Smith , the father Mormonism , dis
covered his Bible written on plates of
gold , which had been hidden for ages
until the angel guided him to the hid-
ing place. The first book of Mormon :
did not contain all the present creed
of that sect , but was added 'to from
ti.me to time by Smith , who , like his
prototype , Mahomet , had visions many
in which he talked with God. In the
year 743 one Adelbert , a Gaul , pre-
tended to have received a letter from i
Christ , which had fallen down from
:
heaven as he walked the streets , and I
was picked up by him. He soon ob-
!
tained many followers , who went out
into the wilderness and lived as John
\ .
the Baptist had lived , on locusts and I
wild honey. They soon fell under the
ban of Rome and were put down. I
Spain furnished one of the most
successful and most impudent of his
class of impostors in one Gonsalvo I
Marten , who in 1360 claimed to be the
angel Gabriel who had been sent down
.
to earth to reform the churches and
drive out error. Lady Hester Stan-
!
hope , the favorite niece of William I
Pitt , the great minister of Great Brit-
ain , withdrew to Syria : , and there de- .
clared herself to be the bride of the
Messiah. -
'AmerIca has furnished its share' of
religious enthusiasts. Among them
William Miller stands out the jmost
prominent , because of the number of
converts he made. In these later days
we have had Alexander Dowie , Elijah
II , with his noted city Zion and his
many troubles with the courts. But
it would take page after page to tell of
all the religious fakes that have led
the people at one time or another.
One of the most impudent as well as
successful fakes ever perpetrated * was
that of the Cardiff giant , or petrified
man. In making some excavations
near the town of Cardiff , in Onondago
County , New York , the workmen un
earthed this supposed petrifaction , oi
at least this was the claim made oy i
those who were engineering the thing.
It was taken over the country and put
on exhibition in all the large cities ,
proving to be a drawing card for the
exhibitors , who reaped a comfortable
fortune from it. The whole thing was
a fake. ( It had been cut in Chicago
out of a block of 'gypsum.
Forgeries , for ' political purposes have I
been quite common in America. The I
most noted , of these is the Morey let-
ter of 1880 , when Gen. Garfield was the
Republican candidate for the presi-
dency. The letter nretended to have
been written in reply to one addressed
I to him by Morey , in'which Gen. Garfield
took strong grounds against the ex-
clusion . of the Orientals.
A few years later another political
letter , which , however , was not a forg-
ery , caused a widespread commotion in
this country and resulted in the call
ing home of the British minister at the
suggestion of President Cleveland. Mr.
Cleveland was a candidate for re-elec-
tion , and the tariff was in issue. A
pretended former subject of Queen
Victoria wrote to Mr. Sackville-West ,
the British minister , saying that .while
he was an American by adoption he de
sired to vote in the way that would
do the most good to , Great Britain , and
asked for his opinion as to what - ef
fect the tariff would have on the moth-
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er country. It was a political trap
and ought not to have deceived even
a tyro in politics , but the minister fell
headlong into the trap and replied ,
advising his correspondent to vote for
Mr. Cleveland.
'I
I The most infamous of all such forg
* '
eries was that perpetrated in May ,
1864 , by two newspaper men of New
York City. The two parties were pre
paring to enter upon a new political
campaign , and the government was
putting forth its strongest efforts to
put an end to the Civil War. One
night , just as all the morning papers
were about -to go to press , a procla-
mation , written on Associated Press
I
paper , and purporting to come from
the office of the association , was de
livered at all of the New York news-
paper offices. The proclamation bore
the signature of President Lincoln , and
was written in the most depressing
spirit , giving new details of the horri-
ble slaughter on the Southern battle-
fields , and calling for a new levy of
400,000 men. The effect of such a
proclamation , written in such a vein ,
may well be imagined. .
How many Philadelphia capitalists
mourn the dollars which disappeared
from their coffers into the cavernous
and rapacious maw of the Keeley mo
tor , that mysterious invention that
was to revolutionize the mechanical
world ! A twin brother to the Keeley
motor was the Logansport , Ind. , lamp
that , once lighted , was to go on and
on , like the brook , and never need re
plenishing or trimming. The light
went out , and so did the inventor , tak-
ing with him the good hard dollars of
a hundred or so of his dupes.
Pittsburg . millionaires , Cleveland
bankers , New York capitalists and dia-
mond dealers all paid tribute , and
heavy tribute , to the brilliant and mys-
terious schemes of Cassie Chadwick ,
just as the Parisian money-makers
did to the Humbert family.
Since history first began to be writ-
I ten there have been fakers ready to
make diamonds out of charcoal and
transmute base metal into the purest
of gold , and they all found willing
dupes.
Americans of the last generations
laughed and grew fat over the fakes
offered them by that prince of show-
men , Phineas T. Barnum. The world
will never again see his like. There
was Joice Heth , the negress , 161 years
old , who had once , belonged to Augus-
tine Washington , the father of the im-
mortal George , and who was an eye-
witness to the cutting down of the
cherry tree. Dis de Bar , with her
spirit pictures , has been exposed time
and again. Of faking travelers we
have had hundreds of them. Witness
Americus Vespusius , who gave- to our
continent its name. He faked the hon-
ors which belonged to Columbus , and
saw many lands no one else has seen.
There was Sir John Mandevllle and
Marco Polo They had their believers
in their day , but inthis iconoclastic
age they are put down as fakers :
It is not so many years ago that the
false Roger Ticheborne handed out to
the English people a first-class gold
brick when he set up his claim to vast
estates. He won notoriety and a long
term in prison. There was Peter Ney.
the North Carolina school teacher , who
some fourscore years ago had nearly
all' the people in the two -Carolinas
ready to back him as Napoleon's great
est marshal , Michael Ney.
There have been deceptions which
accomplished a gopd purpose. Take
that of the , Cid , who died on the field
of battle , , and his officers tied him ,
clothed in full armor , on the back of
his , war steed , sitting upright with
sword clasped IIK his mailed hand ,
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, DR. COOK'S NOTORIOUS FORERUNNER. -
. '
Nearly three centuries ago there was a great explorer , who sought the
Northwest passage , which was the dream of explorers in the seventeenth
century as the North Pole has been the dream of explorers of a later gen-
. .
eration. He had made several attempts to find that mysterious and ever-
elusive passage to Cathay ' , and at last had been told of a mighty river far
in the interior of the new continent , which would lead him to the salt sea
of the West. This great explorer was Samuel de Champlain , the founder of
Quebec and the discoverer of the Great Lakes.
At the same time' there was another who was ambitious for fame as a
great and successful explorer. This ambitious young man spent a winter
in Canada among the Indians. One day he suddenly appeared at Quebec ,
just as a ship was sailing for France. He arrived in France , and had won-
drous tales to tell of great discoveries , of hardships endured , of difficulties
surmounted and dangers dared. He was received by the King and Queen
and all the notables of the kingdom , and again and again told the story of
how he had succeeded where Champlain and Cadillac and Cartier and a host
of others had failed. He was the hero of the hour , the pet of Paris and of ,
France. Honors were showered upon him. He told how he had paddled up
this river in his canoe , and down that ; how he had threaded his way through
dense forests , and fought with wild beasts , and with wilder , and more savage
men ; how at last he had come to the shores of a great salt sea , a boundless
ocean stretching ever and ever westward. All this , and much more , glibly
fell from his tongue a dozen times a day , and the King and nobles vied with
one another in their haste and liberality to fit out a new expedition under
Champlain to complete the discoveries and set up ' a claim to the land and the
ocean for the kingdom of France.
Much against his will , the "discoverer" was forced by the King to go
with this'new expedition as its pilot and guide. Champlain landed at Quebec ,
and almost immediately started on his quest for the ' salt sea. Day after
day he pushed his little force through the wilderness , until at last he came
to a tribe of Indians , who recognized his guide.
Then came the end. It was developed that the guide had spent the
winter with Jhese Indians , and had not been a mile farther west. He had
never seen the salt sea , and the Indians themselves had never -heard of any
such sea within thousands of leagues of where they were. Champlain
turned back toward Quebec , and Nicholas Vignau , the great fakir of the
seventeenth century , quietly dropped out of sight.
I
that his soldiers might not know he
was dead. Being led by a dead general
they won the battle. Had they known
of his death they would have been
disheartened and lost a victory.
Only three or four years ago the
good people of Washington and Alex-
andria were handed a first-class gold
brick from the historic Carlyle man-
sion house , in the shape of a "petri
fied" head , supposed to be the head of
a British soldier. It was pronounced
genuine by a distinguished antiquar-
ian of the Smithsonian Institution.
The "discoverer" coined quite a few
museum dimes before the fake was ex-
posed. Of nature fakers , according to
our late chief magistrate , the very
woods are full.
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
NOW TO BE : WRECKED.
I
New York's Madison Square Gar-
den , designed by the late Stanford
White and erected at a cost of $3,000
000 , has been sold to a real estate syn-
dicate and will be torn down and re-
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MADISOX SQUARE GARDEN.
placed by : a modern office building.
The property has been on the market
for some , time at $3,000,000.
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GOBKY NOW IN DISFAVOR.
Ru , , i21n Wrller to Be Included from
Revolutionary Party.
The pleasant life led by Maxim
Gorky at Capri , beneath the warm
Italian skies , does not meet with the
approval of his comrades of the Social
Democratic oj Revolutionary party.
They resent the manner in which he
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MAXlil : GORKY.
welcomed a change from his former ex
treme poverty. He has been arraigned
for a "tendency to good living and a
love of comfort , " and the former cob-
bler's apprentice , butcher's ' boy , kitch-
en scullion and tramp , who is now the
most famous of the younger Russian
men of letters , is to be excluded from
the party for which he has sacrificed
so much. Admirers of Gorky in this
country ; : and in England do not approve
of the attitude taken by the revolu
tionists.
Even after he had won literary fame
as the "prince of pessimists" Gorky
had a hard struggle for liberty and a
living. In 1905 be was imprisoned in
the Peter and Paul Fortress at St.
Petersburg , arid but for an agitation
throughout Europe would doubtless
have lost his head
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POOL COST Of MEALS :
' : Carthage ; , Mo. , Women Co-Operatoi
' and Believe Have Solved
Servant Problem.
a
THEY LIVE WITHOUT COOKS"- " -
Co-Operative Kitchen Where Eaci 1
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Member Shares the Expense
, Proves a Success.
The co-operative kitchen , founded
recently by Carthage women , has pass-
ed the ; experimental stage and ' . . .illllOW-
become a permanent Institution , a cor-
respondent of the Kansas City Star
says. A number of 'Women , who had'
been troubled by the servant problen -
decided about three months ago -to-
pool their interests , or rather their (
troubles , and endeavor by their com-
bined efforts to secure servants aId
gratify their appetite without contam
inating the feminine portion of their "
reveral ! families with the odor of the-
l-.itchen.
Many were skeptical when the idea
of the undertaking first suggest
ed , but those even most positive of the
failure of the undertaking have now'
applied for admission to the dream
ful kitchen , where servant troubles
are only horrid nightmares , delicious-
meals the regular order and content-
ment reigns supreme.
It was decided to lease a residence-
and convert it into the co-operative
kitchen. Three large rooms were made
into a dining room. Each family
furnished its own table and chairs ,
and every one "chipped in" to furnish
the kitchen and second floor , where
one large roofn is used for the chil
dren. A nurse is always waiting to
take ; : the crying baby while the "old
folks" are enjoying their meal. Th&
balance of the second floor is used
as the servants' quarters. , A regular
menu is served , but should any fam-
ily wish something special it is-
bought and charged extra. Each mem .
ber bears . hertpro rata of the expense-
OUSTED FROM CHIEF FOR-
ESTER'S POSITION BY TAFT ;
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Gifford Pinchot , who was released
from the service of the government ,
has made the study of the conserva-
tion of forests his life work. His fath
er was interested in forestry , and it' ,
! , was Pinchot money that endowed at
\ 'ale. the first chair for the study of"
forestry established in any American
university. He is a man of large
means and it is said that he always-
his sub-
distributed his salary among -
ordinates , and at various times went
into his own pocket to carry out im
portant work for the government. Aft-
er being graduated at Yale Mr. Pin-
chot went abroad , where he studied'
methods of forest , . ,
European preserva
tion. Upon his return to this country
he became chief forester of the great
Vanderbilt estate , Biltmore , and , after
spending four years in private life , he ?
, was in 1897 made special agent of the
.
Interior Department to report on for
est preserves.His advancement was
rapid , and in 1898 President Roosevelt
appointed him head of the forest serv ,
I ice. Mr. Ballinger at that time was
chief of the land office , and Mr. Pin--
chot was his superior. WbenIr. . , . Bal- - -
linger became Secretary of the Interior-
positions were reversed. Mr. Pincho
is 45 years old.
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