New Britain Herald Newspaper, January 8, 1926, Page 27

. EXPLORER By EST "WIFE, HELPS HE woman who scorned him in the mellow Tduyl of his prosperity has come to the ald of Df. Frederick A. Cook, convicted as an ol stock swindler and explorer, now thut other triends have deserted him Marle Cook ralsed $5000 to finance Dr. Cook's eppeal from the verdict of guilty in federal court et Fort Worth, He was accnsed of using the mally to defraud in connection with bis Petroleum Producers’ Assoclation. Tet it was but a short time before that she Merselt brought Dr, Cook into court, This is the story: Love between the coupls faded. Although they had been mairried for years and had ralsed a 1T-yearold girl, it was generally understoed among their friends that discord came with thelr recent financial successes, They were llving apart, Dr. Cook then at the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, the gathering place of the millionalres of the oll game, FOUND IN HOTEL At 10:43 p. m,, Jan. 31, 1923, Policeman Brisbay and J. H. Griffin, @ private detective, forced open the door of & room in the hotel. Behind them cams Mrs, Cook. The venerable seeker of the northemn axis was there, And & young woman fainted iInto the arms of the detective. Mrs. Cook took command of the situation. A search of the room was ordered and a bottle found. The doctor was taken to jail. He way released next morning on $500 bond. Friends charged that the affair was a frameup on the part of Mrs. Cook. Federal officials must have thought so, because they never pressed the charge against the doctor, But Mrs. Cook next day filsd a divorce suit, Bhe was granted the divorce and custody of the chlld, PRAISES EX-WIFE That happened when Dr. Cook was among the most favored oll promoters. He was on his way to milllons, his friends sald. And today he is broke and In jall. His most frequent visitor is Marle Cook. “She's a dear,” says Cook. When Dr. Cook fled his eppeal for a new trail, it was found that it would cost $5000 to have m copy of the record of his first trial made. Cook declared he was withcat funds. His attorneys declared that they were unable to get the money. Mrs. Cook came forward. “I'll get the money,” #he declared. She made a canvass of all of the former friends of the doctor, all those who still professed to belfave in his fnnocence. A few days later she came back with the nccessary money. It may bs a year before the eppeal s finally decided. Meanwhlle Cook is in prison in default ot $75,000 bonds. Mrs. Cook has been unable to ralse that. “It's hell up here,” declares the gumdrop-famed explorer in jail. “It {s comfortable. But far rather would I be uncomfortabls in the jun: gles or the polar wastes whera there Is frecdom.” Ha gazed out of the window. “I'll never make a long trip again.” He shook his head sadly. DR. COOK AGED AND GRAY And he won't, For age and comfinement have broken this man. He is 68 now, and he looks it. When he went on trial he looked younger than 40. His step is steady but slow, He walks itke & man who was not sure of himself, a man ‘who expected to totter, but who doesn't, His hair still “flops’" over his ears in the char- acteristic fashion. But it {s becoming quits color- less now—approaching the gray of a well-worn carpet., His skin Is puffy and red in spots, here and there are velns exposed. His eyes—which have the appearance of being slanting because the upper llds are drawn far down next to the noee, show worry and age. The eyes glisten—but it is the glistening of a flicker- Ing lamp. The constant beating agalnst the bars has bruised and numbed the spirit in the doctor that was once ready for any eort of adventure, whether a trip through Afrlca or a trip through high finance, “When I get out (that will bs In 14 years if the appeal falls) I will return to the practice of med- leine. TREATS PRISONERS “I am treating some of the prisoners here now. “That helps pass time. I must kil time. If I @o not, 1 will go crazy. After 1 am locked In at 4 o'clock I do my dally exercise. Then I write on my typewriter or read. 1 read anything. Any- thing to keep my mind bus Cook misses the mail service. He was denfed the privileges of the mail upon his conviction. Now even his daughter cannot write to him. He has not heard a word, save through triends, from the 12 assoclates who wers convicted with him. All of them are in Leaven- worth, where they elected to serve their term, belisving that they will be freed before an appeal Is declded. When Mrs. Cook won her divorce she was granted the doctor's expensive limousine. &he drove down to the jall in it one day and left it in front. Two men stepped up to the chauffeur and told him he was fired. “You can't fire me,” he replied. your car.” “It's Uncle Sam's now,” one of the men replied. The government had claimed the car for delin- quent taxes owed by the oil man. Mrs. Cook walked home. Cook believes that his neighbors in Fort Worth think him innocent. “It is the people outside of the state that think I am & crook,’ he says. r d “This lsn't ) I I DR. FREDERICK COOK'S LATEST PHOTO IS SHOWN ON THE RIGHT. IT WAS AS HE LEI'T COURT AFTER ONE OF HIS HEARINGS ON HIS APPEAL. THE ARTIST HAS BKETCHED THE HIGHLIGHTS OF }L!S CAREER, “I only wish I could get to let them know the truth." He has written several long statements about his case, but hes been unable to distribute them because of the lmitations of the postoffice de pertment, MONEY BURIED? But even In Fort Worth are those who do not believe in the doctor. They are those who believe that out of the tangled affairs of the Petroleum Producers’ Asscclation Cook made much money. And this money, they believe, is buried some Where, There are {ndications that, fanciful as this may seem, government investicators and at least one federal judge belloves the money exists. Not & clue has been found. When postal seized his books. inspectors arrested Cook they Every cent that he was known to have taken In was accounted for In the books. They even showed that Cook was behind fn his salary, and that the association owed him $20,000, But the theory grew that as head of this asso- clation Cook may have been in & position to make many deals on the side, or to make deals that were not entered on the hooks. 10,000 tn another ofl I before the one that caused his arrest. What appened to this momey {s not known, but it is ssible that Cook spent it. Cook laughs at the story that he has secreted millions of profits. Caok, it is declared, made § “Would I for & minute hide mo; when for $75,000 I could be free? much for bhail and I ean't get it.” But thers are some who thinl in the ground I meed that that Cook 1Is too clever to have worked for two years on his oll deals without putting by eomething for & rainy day. UIEN BY WoRRIES,(0NF ANGED| B e e e e 1 e e e e e e P e e 1 e e o e 1 e e e e 8 et e e e e P et e o e e P et et e Y e i | | b EDITOR'S NOTE: & Texas ofl swindler this operated In Fort W oil boom, the heyday The writer made his m He was arrested by gover ed guilty. He has certified to the truth of his con- fessfon and govornment Investigations of his records have substan it. The promoter re- ferred to, of course, 18 not Dr. Cook. Following s a confession of The promoter who wrote rth at the helght of Dr. Frederick A. C —and paid the pena ment agents and ple AM an oll promoter. For two years I mada 1 would yet it money. game stopped me, 1 organized several ples. Altogether 1 realized $165,000 from the sale of stock. Ci brokers probably sold another ma. ba making money the at the hadn't oked $100,000 short on I never saw that money. T used to be & hotel man in Montana. I pat $12,000, all I was worth, into an oil company. I spemt my last cent coming to Fort Worth to find out why I didn't get divi I found out. The company was crooked. ends. I was broke, so I went to work as a carpenter. As I sawed, I thought a lot. It others could get rich selling ol stock, why couldn't 1? When I had §108 saved I took the step. I sumk the whole pot In one advertisement, stating that I had organized an oil company, was going to sink wells and wanted the public to buy stock. OOULD RUN RESTAURANT There was no blue sky law in Texaas then, so [ operated under a declaration of trust. This gave me power to do anything, even run a restaurant, with the money pald me by it 1 wanted to. It put me in absolute control. investors, 1 could declare any and such dividends at any tims I wanted. I could keep any emount of oll revenue for my #elf. It gave me everything and wy stockholders nothing. Of course, I didn't say that in my . All the organ fzed a company under a declaration of trust and promoter tells the fnvestors fs that he h intends to start drilling when he gefs his atock 1 had put my ad in a local paper MONEY POURS IN The n £100 wa xt day there was @ flock of checks for g in my mail ough with carpente; s asier golng to the posto! 0 a trip working eight hours a day in I kopt on advertising and got a wanted. Then I went out and dril the money 1 d a well, and what was left over I pocketed. I didn't stri What did I want oll for, an operator. All I wan was to sell stock in one companw, drill > ofl. any how? I wasn 4 to do a dry hole, and then get my Investors to go with me in a new company and sell them some more &tock. The government couldn't prove I did not t to hit ofl. They calld me a go in Fort Wortt People wrote that they wers naming their chil dren after me. They thought I was a god be cause I advertised that I was one. tter Women who bought my stock wrote proposals of marriage. That used to make my wife angry. But she knew I was a true-blue feliow. But what I'm driving at is that the oil promo tion game is largely & skin game from start to finish. A small man can't make money in ofl—it's im- possible. It costs almost $1,000,000 to strike a CONFESSED OIL SWINDLER TELLS HOV ‘ HE MILKED FORTUNE FROM SUCKERS | good well. The only ones who c&n make money are the big fellows—millionaires who can afford to lose, But I was no worse than tha rest of the i moters. All I learned was from watching o oters., NOT ASHAMED OF 1 stung the Investors, but I DEALS t ashamed it. You may think I am hard i, but a fellow who hasn't any more sense than to buy oil &to without knowing the game ought to losa. It teach him a lesson. And what difference does 1t make gt the money or someona e The folks who buy oil & on the promote ing luck stories are usually fishing around to sea if the promoter would be foolish enough to tell them his game was crooked. They'd send five and t and then pull their gags. I'd keep tho money, and knowing what they wanted, write back pany—whichever and say my com one 1 was then promoting— was the best littla company idn't they fall who was going to mor to buy in the whole count And wo any more stock some place and shoot it in. Thera have been They Sometimes a hole has heen some small ¢ made money have tween the hope and prayers of tha promoter th would be found, only to find oil An acquaintance of mina struck oil. was former! He h about geology or ofl production. a real estate geles. little education. He knew nothing His entire stock in trade wa ity to sell. He {Copyright, 1924, by NEA Service, Inc. No. T) . N could sell any Ha drifted to Fort Worth, ed $200,000 from his suckers and procceded 0. or ed a company He told me when planned to sink §75,000 snd selling expenses ed dr n the hole. I ere approximately §25,000. He intended to pocket tho rest, But his hole hit ofl. Not a very big one, to be 7 to make it profitable, had marketed his own oil, he could have 1t in $500,000 over a perlod of three years. not want that, That was not his t know the ol business, bestdes 1 a quick turnover, sure, but enou 11 Sl Ha dic 1 his property for $300,000. this point, would have pocketed ng it off the books to their v to hinder any investi- Many my triend was a littlo bit clared a 150 per cent dividend and pald out v cent of the proceads to his suckers. He even wiser. waid tho fees connected with the sale out of his vn pocket, Then he organized a new company. He couldn’t keep his old clients away! In one short month he gold $1,000,000 worth of ok, Ha drilled another hole In record time, It was dry. He couldn’t keep his old cllents away! He kept most of the million, much more than (£ he had quit at the end of the first deal. Now this i6 fair enough warning. Go out and n folks that the ofl promotion game is a skin game from start to finish. They haven't a And the promoter them—1 didn't— chance on their investment never t one hoot about after their money is in his hands. of Swindle | RTIST8 of swindle—adroit ex- ponents of the something-for- nothing, get-rich-quick scheme of things—have an axiom: “Once & sucker, alwayw & sucker.” It Is thelr little joke, told among themselves in their inner offices, in hotel lobbles, Is there another axiom, just as selfevident {n the getrich-quick gamo: “Once & ‘bun Iwe: DR Dl’.. FREDERICK A. COOK, eon- victed of using the malls to de- fraud A ‘bunk'?" is In his Texas cell, his oll promotion schemes history, But this has not been the first time he was accused of having at- tempted to “bunk” the publie, Once he gave glowing accounts of having reached the peak of Mount McKinley, Later he thrilled the world with announcement that he had attained the North Pols. In Fort Worth he sought—HE DID—-extract more money from peo- pla who had already lost money in wildeat ofl promotlons. Philip v A NEWSPAPERMAN, Gibbs of the London Chronicle, “blew up” Cook's claim of North Pole discovery. Gibbs met Dr. Cook's ship at sea. on the return voyage, and obtained an Interview with the explorer hours ahead o 71l the other newspaper men who werc awalting him in Copen hagen, Dr. Cook's contradictions and the fact that he had absolutely no rec ords to prove his claim of discovery, aroused Gibbs' susplcions. Gibbs esked him for his diary. Cook replied with “a strange, de fensive look" in hiy eyes that he had no dlary. “But surely,” wald Gibbs, “you have brought your journal with you? The essential papers?” I have no papers,” replied the ex. plorer, and his mouth hardened. “Perhaps I could see your astro nomical observations suggested the newspaper man. “Haven't I told you that I have brought no papers?’ came the an: swer In violently angry tone. “You believed Nansen, and Amundsen and Sverdrup. They had only their story to tell. Why don’t you believe me?” When Dr. Cook's boat neared Co- penhagen, thousands of peopls had gathered to greet him. The water was crowded with craft of every »ize and type, from steam yachts to rowing boats, with flags aflutter. But Dr. Cook was hiding in his cabin, and had to be dragged forth. When he appeared on deck he had a livid look, according to Gibbs. From thereon & coil of evidence was woven about him. Consistently it wag shown that Dr. Cook had ne papers nor no sclentific proof that he had reached the North Pole, And in time the whole world was laugh- ing at him, .« o R. COOK'S conviction in the eil swindle cases at Ft. Worth, Texas, was accompanied by one of the most gcathing denunciations ever uttered from & federal court bench. “So you have nothing to say,” Judge John M. Klllits told him. “You have come to the point where your peculiar personality falls you. The 20th century should be proud of you. History gave us Ananlag and Bap- Mira. They are forgotten, but we still have Dr. Cook." While he may never have had linowledge of the adage, Dr. Cook, too, seems to have worked on the principle of “once & sucker, always a sucker.” As president of the Petroleum Pro- ducers’ Assoclation, he worked a scheme of extracting more money from men and women who already had lost fn oil “investments.” He sent out letters to stockholders of various oll eompanies informing them, as they already knew, that thelr stock stood agalnst assets which had not been profitable. He would tell them further: “In the present endeavor te pro- tect and make profitable your Invest- ments, your lot has been cast with the Petroleum Producers' Assocla: tion because of the advantage of greater united action and better financial and operating facilities,” .« R. COOK, exploiting his schemes, would advertise: “How Would You Like to BSee & Gusher Flowing Profits Directly Into Your Pockets?" “That sounds like a foollsh ques- tion, doesn't it, my dear friend? And I guess it is foolish question number about 3,499,923!"