Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/303

 "C. A. Smith, a Minneapolis lumberman, who has just returned from the Pacific Coast, figures he has lost between $150,000 and $200,000 as a result of his acquaintance and business deals with Stephen A. Douglas Puter, the fugitive from justice who escaped from a United States secret service officer at Boston yesterday by making a "gun-play" in the public street in front of the postoffice.

Mr. Smith considers himself a pretty good judge of human nature, but admits that he was completely taken in by Puter, whom he met in the city some six years ago. At that time, Puter called on Mr. Smith to offer for sale some Pacific Coast timber land.

"I will give Puter credit," said Mr. Smith today, "for being one of the smoothest individuals I ever met. He puts up a splendid front, has an unlimited amount of nerve, and is a shrewd business man—but apparently absolutely unscrupulous.

"'I look on most of these Pacific Coast men who want to sell timber tracts as crooks,I said to my lawyer after drawing up a contract with Puter, 'but that man who has just left us I believe to be absolutely on the square.' 'I heartily agree with you,' replied my attorney. And so we were both taken in."

"The largest deal I had with Puter was for the purchase of some 30,000 acres of timber land on which he held options, located on the Pacific Coast. I was to pay him a flat figure an acre. It eventually turned out that he gave me clear title to the poorest lands, but those on which the best timber stood I never did get title to. In other transactions where he acted as my agent in direct purchase of land, I afterwards found he cheated me out of $30,000 or $40,000 in actual cash by reporting the prices he paid in excess of the actual figures.

"A year ago this month was the last time I ever saw Puter. He met me here in the Hotel Nicollet. 'I am in a position where I must have $2,000,' he said, 'and I want you to give it to me on account of deals which are still pending between us.' I was at that time looking up his crookedness, and although I suspected him, I had no proof. 'I can't let you have a single cent,' I replied. 'Why,' said Puter, 'I have just returned from Washington where I have done things to clear title to lands that would put me behind prison bars. You must give me $2,000!'"

"'I bought lands from you in good faith,' I replied, 'and without any trickery or dishonesty on my part. If you have been dishonest and have done wrong it is all your own doing, and none of mine.' He finally left me without getting any money, and I haven't seen him since. One of my men, however, told me he saw Puter in Minneapolis on the street about two months ago. I imagine the fellow has about got to the end of his rope. He has a family in Oakland, California.

"The fact that Puter is not only smooth, but a man of great nerve, is demonstrated by the way he escaped from the Government officer in the public streets of Boston; and I understand United States Marshal W. J. Burns, of Washington, D. C, is one of the cleverest men in the employ of the Federal Government.""

If a person were to judge from the above, he would quite naturally conclude that C. A. Smith was somewhat of an angel without wings, and altogether too honest and sublime to engage in any shady transaction, or even become associated with one whose tendencies might be inclined that way.

But I wish to state for the benefit of all whom it may concern, that Smith is noted for just such outbursts of assumed holy righteousness whenever it suits his convenience to play the hypocrite, which is equivalent to saying that this is his normal condition. In this attitude he bears a striking resemblance to the jackass that arrayed itself in a lion's skin, and undertook to create a deep impression by its imaginary roar; and in this instance also the disguise is too apparent to deceive anybody or anything excepting his own egotistical instincts. Page 297