There were literally millions of dollars poured into Goldfield
and Tonopah for claims which never had any careful examination by
competent men. Fortunes were made by local promoters and
"operators" out of claims which could not show ten feet of actual
work. Sometimes the entire capitalization was sold out, and the
promoters put the money in their pockets. One operator of this
kind sold $130,000 worth of stock, and omitted the precaution of
putting even ten per cent. of it in the treasury. Fortunately, he
got into the penitentiary. Many of his fellows never had actions
brought against them except under the postal laws, which
naturally are inefficient. There was one shaft of a hundred feet
which cost twelve thousand dollars, charged up to the
stockholders, the names of dead men being used on the pay rolls
as "laborers." The mine boss and the local officers got big
salaries to keep their mouths shut. The real mine was in the
savings banks of America, in the pockets of non-residents. In
Nevada alone, in the past four years, more than twenty million
dollars have been invested in WORTHLESS properties. One engineer
with a government certificate could have saved the clerks,
stenographers, widows, washwomen, and orphans of America fifteen
million dollars at the cost of, say, five thousand.
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