From Governor to Real Estate Booster
Scott Cardelle Bone is again in
the limelight, and the Democratic
press of Alaska is busy bolstering
up his new cause.
These Democratic editors who
have Dencfitted thru his official
financial and political patronage
are not content to allow the for
mer Governor to quietly carry on
his machinations in other localit
ies. Oh, no. They must continue
to play up to his vanity and assist
him in advertising his latest role
of real estate booster, with the
possible result of misleading inno
cent investors.
Alter seeking a position ior
more than three long months after
he was deposed as Governor of
Alaska, Mr. Bone finally induced
the reorganization managers of a
badly wrecked boom town in Cali
fornia to take him on. And
henceforth, until the wind balloon
is finally punctured, he may be
expected to write plausible and
optimistic articles that may tend
to make profitable the renewed
effort to direct a new flow of
gold into the now emp‘y coffers
of an unfortunate concern. And
of course incidentally provide a
fund from which may be drawn
the salaries of Scott C. Bone, Capt.
S. N. Dancey and other promo
tors. Capt. Dancey will be rem
embered as a Chatauqua lecturer
in Southeastern Alaska, who is
vouching for Mr. Bone.
The town where Alaska’s former
Executive now operates is situate
half way between Paso de Robles
Hot Springs and San Louis Obis
po. The newspaper of the com
munity, The Atascadero News,
felicitates itself in flowery lang
uage over “A Real Gain,” from
which we quote the following
lines:
Scott C. Bone, ex governor ot
Alaska, is coming to Atascadero
to live. That is worth more than
thousands of dollars in actual
cash to Atascadero. Big men do
things apparently without effort
and Governor Bone will soon have
his shoulder behind the movement
of putting over the New Atascad
ero. That will not be his primary
work here, for he is to edit the
great Americanization Magazine of
Western Publishers, Inc."
For the sake of the aspiring
gentleman who made a failure of
practically all bis ventures during
a life of OG years, let us hope
that the former Governor’s de
clining years will not become
enmeshed in any greater fiascoes
than it has been his misfortune
to engage in recent years.
In many ways he is a likeable
Bone, and now that he is no
longer in a position to injure the
best interests of Alaska, we all
wish him well. Even tho his offi
cial acts as Governor brought him
into disrepute with the Depart
ment of Justice, the Department
of the Interior, and with President
Coolidge resulting in the appoint
ment of his sucessor four month’s
before Bone’s tenure of office
expired, his departure has paci
fied most of those who were sub
ject to his vindictive and destruc
tive methods.
Even Bone’s critics in the recent
Territorial Legislature were will
ing that his- chagrin and disappoint
ment be eased thru passage of a
resolution of “Godspeed” and well
wishes for the future. We are all
willing to forget and forgive, but
the old Governor and his fawning
sycophants will not have it so.
They insist upon keeping him in
the limelight, when they well know
that his record has relegated him
to obscurity.
Now that former Governor Bone
has cast his lot with Atascadero,
California, it may be interesting
to the people of Alaska to know
something of that town and of
E. G. Lewis, the man who created
end ruined it. A well known writer,
Walter V. Woehlke, has made a
close study of all the circum
stances connected with the oper
ations of Lewis. He has written
four lengthy illustrated articles on
the subject, which are being pub
lished in the Sunset Magazine.
The first appeared in the issue of
December. We herewith print a
few excerpts from one of Mr.
Woehlke’s articles:
FROM SUNSET MAGAZINE
The most remarkable financial
career of any living American is
that of Edward Gardner Lewis,
in the last twenty-five years he
has borrowed, mostly on his per
sonal notes, at least twenty mil
lions of dollars from fifty thousand
persons, half of them women, most
of them persons of ^mall means;
In other way? he ha* raised prob*
ably fifteen million more.
He has managed to procure these
huge sums despite the fact that
bankruptcy proceedings against him
or his leading enterprises were in
itiated three or four times, that
the Post Oflice Department issued
fraud orders against him and sev
eral of his undertakings, that he
was indicted on numerous charges
of fraud.
The story of E. G. Lewis and
his promotions is amazing, incredi
ble; it sounds like the hectic dream
of a pathological imagination. One
looks at his career, then rubs one’s
eyes and declares that it can’t be
true. One can’t believe that this
smallish man with his long-winded
letters and circulars, with the
tricks and methods and the phras
eology of the ordinary land, oil
or mining faker should have gained
the blind loyalty not only of trust
ing widows and inexperienced far
mers, but should have obtained
and retained the confidence of
shrewd business men and wary
bankers. Yet he did it, is doing it
right now, and yet after his last
failure in December, 11)24, with
liabilities of more than ten millions
and no assets except real estate
mortaged to the hilty he called
for contributions to a “defense
and reconstruction fund” with which
to acquire some wild-cat oil leases
into which the receiver had declin
ed to pour any more funds. As
a result of this printed appeal
Lewis within a few weeks received
between $50,000 and $60,000 for
which he did not even give his
note!
How did he do it? How could he,
adjudged a bankrupt in St. Louis
come to California in 1913 with
$2000 of borrowed money, buy a
ranch of 23,000 acres at a cost
of a million dollars with his last
five hundred dollars, complete the
deal, subdivide the ranch, take in
$23,000,000 in ten years, be adj dg
ed a bankrupt again and once
more borrow thousands of dollars
merely by asking for it? With a
twenty-year record of broken prom
ises and unfilled pledges, how was
it possible to find enough trusting
souls to pour their savings into
his bottomless pocket?
Go to Atascadero, the community
he built on the cattle ranch ho
bought in 1913, a community with
a bold frortf hiding cobweb?, bln&t’