Joe Moffatt, who operated the electrical shop where the suckers parted with their money for expensive-appearing gadgets for tapping telegraph wires, dealt with only a few of us. There were not more than a dozen top con men who had entree to Moffatt’s shop. I might add that his business was legitimate. The laws relating to confidence games were different in those days.
Today almost any sort of conspiracy to separate a man from his money is illegal under the confidence laws. But in those days a confidence game was defined under the law as taking “unfair advantage of an unwary stranger.” This was generally interpreted as a person from the bucolic areas. Any Chicago business man, presumably acquainted with city life and its pitfalls, was presumed to have entered a deal such as a wire-tapping scheme with his eyes open, and the courts refused to recognize him as an “unwary stranger.”
Every profitable idea I ever originated for trimming wealthy men was sooner or later copied by others. This was the case with wire-tapping to get race information. At one time hundreds of small-time con men were working it in one form or another. They advertised openly for victims. I recall one day when a leading Chicago paper ran more than two hundred of these ads in its classified section.
These men did not have access to Joe Moffatt’s place. The equipment they put together was crude and makeshift. Some of them actually believed that they could stop messages by attaching a wire to a telegraph line. Their suckers were barbers, waiters, bartenders, and others who could raise only a few hundred dollars at most.
The effect of all this was to arouse both the Western Union and the police. I had accumulated a tidy sum and decided to change my modus operandi, though I had no particular desire to change my clientele. Horse-race suckers were - or so I thought at the time - the most gullible of all. Without exception, everyone was interested in making a killing, though each knew that the big profit he hoped for would be strictly dishonest.
After purchasing a couple of horses, I arranged to enter them in competition at the Chicago racecourses: Hawthorne, Harlem, Washington Park, and Robey.
I stabled my horses at Jackson Boulevard and Homan Avenue, not far from the Garfield Park course. This was a five-eighths track for trotters, but owners who wished to pay the fee could exercise their horses there. The five-eighths track served my purpose admirably.
From the start I did not become a horse owner because of a notion that I might win purses. I had already learned that it could be more profitable to lose. That is the system I devised for “beating the horses.”
I always maintained the finest tack-room at any racecourse where my horses were running. A tack-room is a place where an owner keeps his saddles, weights, jockey uniforms, etc. Mine was outfitted solely for show purposes. Anybody who saw it immediately concluded that the owner certainly must have fine horses.
As a matter of fact my horses seldom ran in the money. One of them, Mobina, was an old plater that would never even show. But I put fine saddles and a well-dressed jockey on him and to the uninitiated, he looked like a good bet.
There was a man whom I shall call Epping who lived on Jackson Boulevard and was a frequent visitor to the Garfield Park race track. He saw my boy exercising Mobina and became interested.
Knowing Epping’s background, I was interested in him, too. He was wealthy and had a prosperous business on Chicago Avenue. In those days a man could keep all his money. There was no income tax and he did not have to account for where he got his money or how he disposed of it.
Epping’s employees were often hard pressed for ready cash. They had a habit of going to the paymaster for an advance until payday. This gave Epping an idea. Why not set up a place where anybody who was regularly employed could obtain a small loan?
Until then the only people who made loans were the banks and the “loan sharks.” This latter group not only made you mortgage your life but charged unbelievable rates. Epping altered this by making regular employment the chief qualification. And he charged rates that were considered reasonable - six per cent a month. His lending business was the beginning of the present-day small loan concern.
I already knew of Epping’s wealth, and it did not take me long to discover that his chief aim in life was to accumulate more. He was interested in my horses because he had heard that there was considerable money to be made in winning purses. I soon learned that he knew very little about race horses. I told Epping that the five-eighths course at Garfield Park was a three-quarter track, and he didn’t know the difference. But what a difference it made in the running time of a horse like Mobina!
“That horse will make me a lot of money,” I told Epping, “if I can raise the money to get him in shape.”
“How much money do you need?” he asked.
“I’d have to do some figuring,” I replied. “Why?”
“Would you be interested in a partner?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. What do you suggest?”
He proposed that he make me a loan, to be repaid out of the profits. He would get a cut of the winnings. We discussed this at some length and decided that 20 per cent would be a fair split for Epping. I did some figuring, and explained that it was an expensive proposition to stable a horse and to pay a trainer and jockey. I finally arrived at a figure - $3,700.
Epping was a hard-headed business man and insisted that we draw up a contract. He agreed that it could be done by my own lawyer, who was in on the deal and knew the kind of contract that I would need. It was duly signed and witnessed, and Epping advanced the money. Then he waited for Mobina to start winning purses.
But there was no chance that Mobina would win. I didn’t even enter him in a race. After about thirty days, Epping began to get impatient and asked for an accounting.
I told him that it takes time to get a horse in shape to race and reminded him that I was waiting for a good purse. This stall did not satisfy him. A few days later he demanded that I repay the loan.
I pointed to the contract. It provided that “When Mobina shall have raced and won, then the monies advanced by Party of the First Part (Epping) shall be paid by Party of the Second Part (Weil), plus 20 per cent of the gross winnings.”
Epping saw the joker in the contract and knew that he couldn’t get anything by bringing suit. But he did swear out a warrant charging me with operating a confidence game.
The judge threw the case out, holding that “the contract was based on a future event and that no crime had been committed or could be committed until the event had taken place.”
Epping didn’t bother me any more, and I don’t recall that I ever saw him again. As a matter of fact, I never saw most of my victims again, once I had taken their money. This is strange, too, considering that I have been around Chicago for all these years. I probably have passed them on the street many times.
Meanwhile I met a man named A. B. Watts, who was a breeder of blooded horses. I made a deal with him to increase my stable, and thereafter all the horses I bought came from Watts. These included Title, Black Fonso, Thanksgiving, St. Durango, Sir Christopher, Dan Joe, Meddlesome, and Zibia.
These were fine-looking horses and made an excellent showing when I had exercised them for the benefit of suckers. The latter fell into several categories. Those like Epping advanced money to help train the horses and win purses. Others were led to believe that we were training a “ringer” which would later win and make it possible for them to clean up on wagering. The most gullible were those at the tracks
