Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen (36 page)

From humble beginnings in 1842 in Buffalo, New York, Big Ed, so called because of his robust physique, made his way to Chicago in 1861. There he found work as a stonemason—and moonlighted as a bunco artist. Soon he dispensed with the stonemasonry altogether, finding the work of fleecing people with loaded dice much more rewarding.

Adventure called and he heeded, becoming a mate on a private yacht on Lake Michigan. Then, in 1866 he choked a man to death and served a nine-year sentence in Joliet Prison in Illinois. Freshly released, he was shot in the back by a former victim but lived to tell the tale. He rose to a position of prominence in a bunco ring on Chicago's South Side.

Over time his gang grew bigger and more powerful, strong-arming voters, shaking down shop owners, and, presumably, kicking dogs for sport. Burns was shot again, this time in the leg, then came a series of arrests for buncoing, vagrancy, and robbery. He worked his way back onto the water and sold illegal booze from a boat on Lake Michigan. The law closed in, but he jumped overboard and the press stuck him with the name “Elephantine Edward of the Floating Palace.” He was arrested soon after on a different charge but was extradited to Detroit on a string of pick-pocketing charges.

It seems he'd run out his welcome in the Midwest. He decamped to Leadville, Colorado, where he fronted his own gang of thugs, thieving at will. Chased by irate citizens who wanted nothing more than to stretch his neck, the gang hit the railways and roved all over the West, from Colorado to Kansas to New Mexico, and then made their way down to Arizona.

Now known as the Burns Gang, Big Ed and crew plied their bunco crafts in Benson, Tucson, and Tombstone, where they earned the enmity of Wyatt and Virgil Earp, the law at that time in Tombstone. Eventually he overstayed his Arizona welcome and made his way to Denver, working for a time in Soapy Smith's gang.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Big Ed still popped up all over the US map, usually traced through the police blotter of local newspapers, from California to Florida to Washington State and over to Illinois, where he'd begun his bunco career decades before. The last mention of him in newsprint appears to be in 1918. Big Ed Burns, roughly seventy-six years old, was in prison in Indiana, a broken-down old scam artist who just couldn't keep his hands out of other people's pockets.

THE CONFIDENCE MAN

Sharp-dressed, dapper William Thompson was also a con artist of the very first order. Indeed, his exploits and deceptions are the basis for the popular phrase “confidence man,” from which “con artist” derives. And though he plied his sleazy trade in New York City, Thompson's sheer bravado—shall we say confidence—inspired a generation of slick characters who roved the West, liking nothing better than skinning suckers.

The genius in Thompson's tricks lies in their simplicity. Dressed impeccably, Thompson would approach a stranger, concoct a false acquaintance with him, claiming to know him through so-and-so, engaging him in erudite, friendly conversation, then worm his way around to ask a question, usually involving pocket watches: “Pardon me for asking, but I wonder if you would have the confidence to trust me with your watch, just until tomorrow?”

The unusual request, oddly enough, often yielded Thompson a fine watch, merely on loan, of course. But what the falsely confident mark failed to realize until much too late was that William Thompson had no intention of returning with the watch. Unfortunately for Thompson, though fortunately for the public at large, the chatty dandy was recognized by a former victim one day on the street.

Thompson's capture and final con were reported in the July 8, 1849, issue of the
New-York Herald
, the paper that also referred to him for the first time as the “Confidence Man”:

Arrest of the Confidence Man.

For the last few months a man has been traveling about the city, known as the “Confidence Man,” that is, he would go up to a perfect stranger in the street, and being a man of genteel appearance, would easily command an interview. Upon this interview he would say after some little conversation, “have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until to-morrow;” the stranger at this novel request, supposing him to be some old acquaintance not at that moment recollected, allows him to take the watch, thus placing “confidence” in the honesty of the stranger, who walks off laughing and the other supposing it to be a joke allows him so to do. In this way many have been duped, and the last that we recollect was a Mr. Thomas McDonald, of No. 276 Madison street, who, on the 12th of May last, was met by this “Confidence Man” in William Street, who, in the manner as above described, took from him a gold lever watch valued at $110; and yesterday, singularly enough, Mr. McDonald was passing along Liberty street, when who should he meet but the “Confidence Man” who had stolen his watch. Officer Swayse, of the Third Ward, being near at hand, took the accused into custody on the charge made by Mr. McDonald. The accused at first refused to go with the officer; but after finding the officer determined to take him, he walked along for a short distance, when he showed desperate fight, and it was not until the officer had tied his hands together that he was able to convey him to the police office. On the prisoner being taken before Justice McGrath, he was recognized as an old offender by the name of Wm.

Thompson, and is said to be a graduate of the college at Sing Sing. The magistrate committed him to prison for a further hearing. It will be well for all those persons who have been defrauded by the “Confidence Man” to call at the police court Tombs and take a view of him.

E
xtra! Extra! Read All About It—Politicians Caught in Scandal! Oddly enough, that's not a reference to modern headlines but those that were all too common a century ago. In fact, just after the dawn of the twentieth century, newspapers all over the United States thrummed with shocking headlines claiming well-heeled politicos had been swindling the US public for years. In 1905 nearly all of Oregon's US congressional delegation was indicted for illegally obtaining US government land grants, then selling them to the highest bidders—in this case big lumber companies looking for sources of cheap tracts of land rich in harvestable timber. Much money was made, few heads rolled. . . .

Realizing it had an obligation to help populate with settlers its vast westward holdings, the US Congress devised and passed the Oregon and California Railroad Act in July 1866. Suddenly up for grabs were 3,700,000 acres of prime land specifically for the building of a rail line stretching from San Francisco northward to Portland, Oregon. With most of the land in Oregon, that state would be responsible for doling out the land grants in huge 12,800-acre tracts, one tract for each mile of completed railroad track.

Three years later, in 1869, in a further effort to attract more settlers to the region, Congress altered the terms of the initial grants. This time the tracts were not only reduced in number to 160 acres, but also came down drastically in price to the ultra-affordable price of $2.50 per acre. This alteration began to show the initial desired effect of increased settlement.

In what appeared to be healthy competition, two companies adopted the title of “Oregon Central Railroad,” each operating just across the Willamette River from the other, on the east and west sides. From this odd start, the lines merged in time and became the more appropriate Oregon and California Railroad.

Over the next few years, the rail line expanded and the wisdom of the Congressional intention was apparent—towns along the line grew, developing commerce and providing upriver access to the far ends of the river valleys previously unreachable by steamship.

The rail line also provided ample ingress to vast tracts of land rich in timber but difficult to farm, settle, or use in ways potential settlers might profit from. It was remote, thickly forested land, so rugged and raw that settlement was all but inconceivable. But that untouched timber sent speculators into paroxysms of gleeful apoplexy.

It was true the railroads were stuck with this land, but those speculators (who also happened to be the railroad's executives) began to ponder the possibilities . . . what if the railroads devised a way to sell vast chunks of this land—tracts no one was settling on anyway—to the very people who could make use of it? And what if, in the process, the railroad executives happened to turn a tidy profit?

Alas, the massive land grant seemed locked up tight by bureaucratic restrictions. Still, what if there were a way to sidestep the stipulations of the government land grant that prevented the railroad from selling the land at a higher rate? One can only imagine Southern Pacific Railroad's president, Edward Harriman, stroking his chin while a sly smile slowly worked its way on his face and a lightbulb popped into view over his head. . . .

“Stephen, good to see you again. I'm glad you could come down.” Harriman rose from behind his desk and shook hands with the man who'd just been escorted into his office.

Stephen A. Douglas Puter was a shady character of his acquaintance who Harriman knew would, for a fee, be willing to do his bidding. And what was that bidding?

“I want you and your men to head down to the waterfront. You know the places, Stephen. The saloons, that's where you'll find the most likely candidates.”

“What is it you'd like me to do with them, Mr. Harriman?” But Puter was familiar enough with the situation that a knowing grin worked its way onto his face.

“They need to make their way to the land office.”

“And once there?” Puter canted his head, enjoying the way this proposition was unfolding.

“Once there, Mr. Puter, those men will have an undeniable urge to become settlers.” He raised a finger in emphasis. “Short lived, mind you. But settlers nonetheless. You see, they'll sign up for sections, each receiving the minimum 160-acre parcel.”

“I had no idea you were so concerned about populating that land.”

But Harriman ignored the man's sarcastic jab and continued. “They'll transfer title to you and your crew, as representatives of the railroad.”

“And that,” said Puter, nodding, “is where the ‘short lived' part comes in.”

Harriman nodded. “Those small parcels will be bundled with others, then those bundles will be sold at auction to whoever bids the highest amount.”

Harriman's railroad would stand to make a huge amount of money from the sale of these timber-rich parcels, lots that together totaled much of three million acres of land owned by the government, and therefore owned by the public. His railroad had only been given a grant to run their rail line through it. They did not own the land and so it was not Harriman's land to sell. But sell it he did.

Once bidding kicked off, the land, now bundled in significantly larger chunks, sold for up to $40 per acre—a far cry from $2.50 per acre. And for years the O&C Railroad proceeded to sell this land that was not really theirs to sell, profiting handsomely in the process.

It wasn't until 1904, when a bookkeeper for a lumber company grew suspicious and tipped off a reporter, that an investigation by the
Oregonian
newspaper revealed the long-embedded land scheme by what had become known as the Southern Pacific Railroad (the larger entity that bought the O&C in 1887). The investigative piece revealed that more than 75 percent of the land sold under the guise of the Oregon and California Railroad Act of 1866 was in violation of federal law.

In hindsight, it is likely that in all that time someone must have become aware of the widespread wrongdoing and would have grown suspicious when vast tracts of land were logged by massive timber outfits. As it happened, plenty of people were well aware of the situation, but it was easier and far more lucrative to accept bribes and look the other way.

The
Oregonian
's investigation kicked off a massive federal investigation, beginning in 1904, that resulted initially in one thousand indictments. By 1910 this figure simmered to a cozy one hundred indictments, then reduced further to thirty-five indictments of the most culpable persons.

Chief among them were US Senator John H. Mitchell, two US representatives, Congressmen John N. Williamson and Binger Hermann, and US Attorney John Hicklin Hall. Of Oregon's US Congressional delegation, only Senator Charles William Fulton was found to have been unaware of the fraud and thus was uninvolved.

These guilty men and numerous others knew full well what had been occurring. They not only looked the other way, they actively solicited hush funds and helped usher the transfer of land grants to timber concerns.

Oregon's Governor Oswald West, appalled at the situation that had developed right under his nose, was famously quoted as saying, “These looters of the public domain—working with crooked federal and state officials—through rascality and fraud, gained title to thousands of acres of valuable, publicly-owned timber lands, and at minimum prices.”