Ponzi's Scheme_ The True Story of a Financial Legend - Mitchell Zuckoff [2]
From his perch in the back seat, Collins’s boss could see that some men in the street were holding copies of that morning’s Boston Post. The banner headline trumpeted a victory in one of the America’s Cup races by the American yacht Resolute over its British challenger, Shamrock IV. At a time when anything seemed possible except a legal drink of whiskey, elite sports like yachting and golf had captured the public imagination.
If one subject interested Bostonians more than rich men’s sports, it was the prospect of becoming rich themselves. Undeniable evidence could be found in that morning’s Post, just below the yacht race story. On the left side of the front page, in bold black letters, was the headline that had filled School Street to bursting:
DOUBLES THE MONEY WITHIN THREE MONTHS
A Post reporter had visited 27 School Street a day earlier and acquired a basic understanding of how the Securities Exchange Company claimed to create spectacular profits for its investors. The unbylined story even described the Locomobile limousine and the boss’s Lexington home, which was “furnished with the best” and “does not give the impression of nouveau riche either, for the fine Italian tastes of the owner fixed that.”
The man who owned the fine home, the flashy car, the Securities Exchange Company, the adoration of the people on School Street, and anything else he cared to buy was named Charles Ponzi.
Reading the Post story that morning, Ponzi could chuckle with appreciation of his good judgment in granting the reporter access to his office and home. He had handled the interview himself, but from now on he would rely on advice from a publicity man he had just hired, an ex-reporter named William McMasters. At first, Ponzi had been skeptical about publicity—he had not needed much to achieve success that approached his wildest dreams—but his gentle treatment by the Post made it seem as though every card he turned would be an ace.
The front-page Post story eclipsed two previous stories Boston papers had printed about him and his business. The first, six weeks earlier in the Boston Traveler, had described his company in flattering terms but never mentioned it or him by name. Still, word had spread as to the identity and location of Ponzi’s operation, and hundreds of thousands of dollars had poured in during the weeks that followed. The second story, three weeks earlier in the Post, had been a brief item about a million-dollar lawsuit filed against Ponzi by a furniture dealer. That, too, had helped. The fact that he was rich enough to be sued for a million dollars had attracted swarms of new investors.
The brief account of the enormous lawsuit had piqued the interest of the Post’s young acting editor and publisher, who had ordered the follow-up feature story that appeared this day. In it, the Post reporter printed Ponzi’s comments at length and without challenge, as though Ponzi had delivered them with his hand on a Bible. During the course of several hours of discourse, the thirty-eight-year-old entrepreneur had offered a condensed, sanitized version of the seventeen years since he had emigrated from Italy. Then Ponzi had explained his business in broad, confident terms, telling how it was built on a modest and unlikely medium: International Reply Coupons, slips of paper that could be redeemed for postage stamps. He’d described his company’s growth—from pennies to millions of dollars in seven months—and had boasted of the opening of branch offices from Maine to New Jersey. The reporter had filled a notebook with Ponzi’s comments and played the notes back to Post readers as clear and sweet as a song from a Victrola.
Ponzi had capped the interview with a priceless assertion, and again the reporter had obliged him by printing it: “I get no pleasure out of spending