HALL,
By WILLIAM C. UTLEY
VERY day the President of the
eed United States receives In the
¢ mail scores of letters from pri
vate citizens, some finding fault
with his administration, some cheerful
in their endorsement of his New Deal,
many with axes to grind. It is reason-
akle to suppose that plenty of them
seek money, especially since only re.
cently the Chief Executive has been
given a fresh roll of nearly $35,000.
680,000 to spend.
Of this latter kind, all too few have
# ught a sum so insignificant as a sin-
until the last
gle thin dime-—that is,
few days. Early this month ne
than 200 letters “Brother-can-
you-spare-a-dime?” variety popped up
in the Presidential And
one of them offered Mr. Roosevelt a re-
less
of the
post. every
turn on his investment that woul
startled the
1929 investor.
The
be recognized at
English-speaking
land:
imagi of
evYén 2
’
toy ans
text of an
“Faith—Hope—Charity.”
“This chain was started in the hope
of bringing prosperity
“Within three days,
of this letter, leaving off the
and address and adding your name and
address at the bottom of the I and
mail te five of your friends to whom
you wish prosperity
to you.
st,
to come.
person ten cents wrapped in
a charity donation.
“In turn, as
top, you will
with donations
“Now, Is this worth a dime to yon?
“Have the faith that your friend had
and this chain will not be broken.”
Aches and Aches.
paper a
leave
” eye
a 520
your names the
receive
amounting to $1,625.50
course, ordinary specimens of the
country by storm, thrown whole com-
munities Into frenzies of
given postal officials a
headache and postal carriers
tion-wide backache,
No White House
Specuiation,
secretaries an
tically all others, They were
over to Postmaster General James A.
Farley, with the possibili ensuing
use of the United States mails.
office officials sald that under the frand
and lottery laws the department could
hold up all mall addressed to persons
known to have written such letters. In
such a case, post offices would he re.
quired to stamp all such mall “frandy
lent” and return it to the senders.
Mathematically, If the chain were
carried through perfectly, and every
member sent out his five letters and
a dime, the originator would receive
his $1,625.50, sure enough. So far
despite the millions of such letters
which are known to have flooded the
malls, there has been not a single case
reported In which any participant ben-
efited to the extent of the full amount,
or anything like it. This element of
chance—that the chain may not be
completed—makes the scheme a lot
tery, and 1f the Post Office department
wants to get nasty about It, It lays
the participant, under Section 601 of
the postal regulations, based on title
18, section 396, of the United States
criminal code, open to five years In
the penitentiary or a fine of $1.000,
Drastle prosecution of such a scheme
would be nothing new,
“The endless chain schemes were
started for the purpose of selling mer
chandise, approximately 35 years ago,”
sald Henry L. Fuller, of the St. Louls
post office, where chain letters have
caused a 65 per cent Increase In the
first class mall. “They were consid.
ered fraudulent on account of the
fact that if the chain was broken, per.
sons who had made remittances to the
promoters neither received the mer.
chandise nor were they compensated
for the money spent. Fraud orders
were Issued, prohibiting the use of the
malls to endless chain systems.”
Fad Will Die Out.
The Post Office departmient, how-
ever, has no Intention of attempting to
seek the arrest of everyone who con
principal reason seems to be that if
/ all of them were arrested, there would
Chain-Letter in Japanese.
be nobody left to keep them in jall!
This latest and most fantastic
ali the fantastic share-the-wealth Ideas
lion's share,
office
get the
the post
earnest,
They are
discovered that there was
except the law-—to keep
sending out just as many
pleased, all with
names at the top!
It
has gone aft
er
the smart operators
nothing—
them
letters
their
renting offices and hiring help.
of them were arrested In
them £750.000 Several
were apprehended in San Antonio, De
troit, Cleveland, St
Mo.
net
more
Louis and
Authorities
others in other
are
for
the cot
In
started with large
intry.
recent weeks chains
AMOuUnts as
The
in this upper brac
the cheating occurre
letters,
Started in Denver.
Just who started the
letter eraze is not known,
origin seems to have been In
r unit
3 cents to £10,
unit
of
com.
£1
mon
Most
is
present
but its
Denver
dreds of extra
added to handle the heavy
the mall, which in a city of
is running
SHO.000 ple e% a day.
nal load Is about 180.000
In which normalls
about 900.000 pleces of mall dally,
employees have
increase In
about 300. .
inhabitants, approxi
mately The nor-
Det roit,
amount 100.000)
Mall
burdens
Jumped
carriers
in
by another
labored
Los Angeles
under
given a somewhat diverting
their
started a
cipient to
aperitif
labors when a wag
Instructing the
send a kiss to
days’
letter
the
among the 15000-0dd trading
Large increases In the daily malls
were worrying the Cleveland post
three
have malled
with their names
are alleged
of the letters
the top. Two
promoters who
30.000
nt
for
to
night and day to supply orders for
printed chain letter forms. In vir
tually every city of any size a set of
five chain letter forms can be purs
chased at any five.and-ten-cent store
for a nickel. Post office officials point.
ed out that racketeers are more likely
to use printed or mimeographed forms.
St. Louis has been a veritable hot-
bed of the “chain gangs” In a sin
gle day more than 330.000 chain: let
ters went through the mails there: if
all of them went through the five steps
without the chains being broken, this
single day's mail would grow to more
than 5000000000 letters. That would
mean that the members would have to
dig up $3500,000.000 to pay their chain
letter bills and another $£100.000.000
for postage. Mall collections there
were several hours late, William H.
Noah, chief postal inspector at St
Louis, said that “It 1s like any other
species of mass hysteria which will
run its course as soon as the novelty
wears off. With so many chains In
circulation soon the market will be
saturated and the thing will fall off of
its own welght”
Chain Letter Wild.
But nowhere In the country has a
community gone quite so chain-letter
wild as in Springfield, Mo. The town
simply became one: grand clearing
house for the schemes, And down In
the Ozarks they don't fool around with
trinkets so trival as dimes, either.
Exchanges have been opened which
will handle noth ng less than a dollar
and which claim to “leave nothing to
chance.”
In Missouri tle people have to be
“shown,” and they will pay their
money and Join the chains only when
there Is a notary public's seal on the
letter, There were no less than ten
exchanges in the town, all doing a
land office business. Stenographers,
for whom the depression had In many
| cases brought lean years, thought the
millennium had arrived. Every avall-
able one had been pressed into service
and was working Notaries
were receiving letter.
Fypewriters, ordinarily for 85
for three months, were gett
as $2.50 a day.
were gain es
the they
{ down their hard-earned dough and pro-
mote some easy money,
overtime,
cents n
rented
25
ing as much
Great lines of people
stampeding to trance to
exchanges where could lay
One account
sald nothing like It had happened since
the Confederates rode into town in 61
A which
of the
typleal
called its
Crop.” Ten
To join
at the exchange with his 83 put
exchange was one
letter the “Cream
names appeared on the
one had to eall
it in
and
list, the chain
{ A letter addressed to the top man,
| have the and seals attested
tes }
t i
mailing g
¥ the ever present
He was then given tv
attested by the notary
wo others, bring 1}
n order to ¢
the lint
This
I little
They
haunted
Vise wandered
with looks |
dragging workers
city
from offices, wives
gchool ma'ams
It
Inspired
ironing boards,
there
citizens
would have fought mb their poles
Real have
| frothed with envy at the spectacle of
A x
their classes,
| from
flagpole
wire
glitters the
to cli
estate promoters would
the most intense concentration of high.
pressure salesmanship this much-solle.
ited world has ever seen.
A brisk business was conducted for
a time at the “Pot of Gold”
change, where £5 was the entree
beneficent organization an
immediate return of the original In
You paid 85, got two let.
ters, then went out and sold them for
£5 aplece, sending $5 on and keening
$5. Even people on relief were sink-
ing their checks In this one
Where the Catch Came,
The catch of course was that pretty
soon everybody In Springfield and its
| environs within 40 or 50 miles had
| been “sold” As a matter of fact,
strangers were virtually the toast of
the town. Localities pounced upon
them eagerly In almost undeniable
efforts to sell them chain letters
chain ex-
This
promised
vestment.
Down in Nashville, Tenn. a chain
letter fan finally saw the light. He
was Dr. C. R Fountain of Peabody
college, who began thinking hard and
heavy about a dime letter that came
to him In the morning mall. It said
that he might get as many as 15.000
dimes. Doctor Fountain began te fig-
ure out just what would happen If
everyone in Davidson county
for the craze and played fair,
it was confined to Davidson county,
and If everyone was fair about it.” he
would eventually get 15.000 dimes,
ing until it reached everyone 15.000
give back all the dimes he takes in.
body has a lot of fun and excitement,
and Uncle Sam winds up $300 to the
good for every soul In Davidson county,
If yon think it's not possible for
practically everybody in one ecom-
munity, you simply don't realize the
lengths to which this gag has gone, and
don't try to tell your views to Post
master Nelson of Denver, In fact
don't try to tell anything to Postmaster
Nelson, He fsn't in a speaking mood,
A Lox Angeles woman who had re.
ceived some chain letters wrote to him
recently asking him for an authentic
list of the names of people who were
members of the chains In Denver. He
mailed her a copy of the city direc
tory.
© Western Newspaper Union,
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Selection
for Your Quilt
By GRANDMOTHER CLARK
Make
Each patch work or applique quilt
requires quilting, and a design |
should be selected that harmonizes
with the design used in the patches
Space for quilting also varies, and
the women who do this work should
have quite an assortment of quilting
designs on hand from which to make
a selection. We have pictured three
different sets of perforated quilting
patterns in past issues.
The above twelve patterns are not
perforated, They are, however, print.
ed In dots on perforating bond paper
and must be perforated with a pin,
which can be done in about ten min- |
utes for each pattern. The patterns
are eight times as large as the illus
trations above, |
Package No. 81A contains these |
twelve patterns, with cotton and blue
powder for also full in- |
structions how to perforate and |
stamp them will be mailed to you
postpaid upon rece pt of Ihe.
Address—HOME CRAFT
PANY, DEPARTMENT D,
teenth and 8t. Louls avenue,
Louis, Mo.
Enclose a stamped addre ssed
velope for reply when writing
any information.
stamping :
COM- i
Ni
ine
St.
en-
for
:
b sores $0 total BS cash Pay
FLORIDA FARMS £27rs #2 total 8 cant Pay |
Sslng Viorida, Blox 81 H, Jacksonville, Fin. |
Wh——
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