Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [145]
96
they might steal it: “Ponzi Tells His Story,” Boston Evening Transcript, November 27, 1922, p. 1.
97
“They could not limit the number of coupons”: Ponzi, p. 69.
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“Environment had made me rather callous”: Ibid., p. 70.
98
Uncle Ned’s Loan Company: “Ponzi Pawned Watch, Rings to Get Start,” Boston Sunday Herald, August 15, 1920. The story does not say the diamond rings belonged to Rose, but it is reasonable to infer that they were hers, in light of a separate story, “Mrs. Ponzi Would Not Take Gems,” Boston Post, November 22, 1922. In that story, Lillian Mahoney, the wife of one of Ponzi’s salesmen, testifies that Rose had three diamond rings when she lived in Somerville. Also: Rosenberg’s first name and background, which were not included in the Herald story, come from U.S. Census records obtained through www.ancestry.com.
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debts approached three thousand dollars: “Made All His Money in Past Seven Months,” Boston Sunday Globe, August 8, 1920, p. 17.
99
Seeing the angry look on Daniels’s face: Ponzi, p. 73. The account of Daniels’s December 1919 loan, which would play a pivotal role in Ponzi’s downfall, was pieced together from numerous sources, including: “Ponzi Partnership and Receiver Hearings On,” Boston Traveler, October 1, 1920; “Ponzi Criminal Trial to Start Soon, Belief,” Boston Traveler, October 2, 1920, p. 1; “Ponzi to Tell More on ‘Partnership Deal,’ ” Boston Traveler, October 5, 1920, p. 1; “Insist Daniels Tell Disposition of $55,000,” Boston Traveler, October 9, 1920, p. 1; “Bar Witnesses as Spectators During Trial of Ponzi Case,” Boston Traveler, October 26, 1922, p. 1; “Ponzi Sent No Representative to Europe,” Boston Globe, September 29, 1920; “Ponzi Tells How He Borrowed Millions,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1920; “Figures of Auditor Rittenhouse,” Boston Globe, October 5, 1920.
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extracting gold from seawater: The story of the Reverend Prescott Ford Jernegan comes from sources including “Get Rich Quick Schemes of Boston Yesterdays: Gold from Sea Water,” Boston Herald, August 2, 1920. Also Diana Ross McCain, “Fortune Sucked from the Sea Was a Golden Scam,” Hartford Courant, November 18, 1998, p. 11, and Shoshana Hoose, “All That Glittered in Lubec,” Portland Press Herald, November 5, 1995, p. 1G.
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a smooth talker named Ferdinand Borges: “Get Rich Quick Schemes of Boston Yesterdays: Rubber, Coffee and Pineapples,” Boston Herald, August 3, 1920.
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robbing Peter to pay Paul: John Bartlett, comp. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed., rev. and enl. by Nathan Haskell Dole. Boston: Little, Brown, 1919; found at Bartleby.com.
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The ad had been placed by Sarah Howe: “Get Rich Quick Schemes of Boston Yesterdays: Mrs. Howe’s Bank for Ladies Only,” Boston Herald, August 7, 1920.
105
William Franklin Miller: Robert Jay Nash, Hustlers and Con Men. New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1976, pp. 195–203. Also “Get Rich Quick Schemes of Boston Yesterdays: 520 Per Cent,” Boston Herald, August 3, 1920, and Mary Darby, “In Ponzi We Tru$t,” Smithsonian, December 1, 1998, p. 134.
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C. D. Sheldon: Morgan Marietta, “The Historical Continuum of Financial Illusion,” American Economist, March 1, 1996, p. 79; “Montreal Detective Believes Ponzi’s Story; Always Thought Him Guiltless; Cordasco Says Scheme Was That of Zarossi,” Boston Globe, August 12, 1920; Herbert Baldwin, “Ponzi No Martyr,” Boston Post, August 13, 1920, p. 10.
107
International Security Company: “Know Today Receiver in Ponzi Case,” Boston Post, August 18, 1920, p. 1. On p. 72 of his autobiography, Ponzi mistakenly says he included two other names on the original registration papers, when in fact he did not add the names until March. The question of whether he had silent partners would become significant months later at his trial, but the general consistency between his trial testimony and the account in his autobiography suggests that his erroneous statement about when he named the partners was an innocent mistake. Indeed, there are several instances in his autobiography where his sequence