And the public isn't "on." Shrewd schemers on Wall Street keep pulling the wool over the eyes of the "sucker-public," and not only see no reason why they should discontinue the practice but find it very lucrative to continue doing it.
As a rule, it takes much money to make a paying mine out of a promising prospect. Later on in the mine's progress, through the constructive period, other very large sums are generally required to pay for the blocking out of an ore reserve and to supply milling facilities for the reduction of the ores.
The peripatetic mining prospector of our Western mining empire--the dauntless finder of mines who laughs at hardship and ridicules the thought of danger, who makes companions of Gila monsters and the desert rattler, whose only relief from the everlasting silence of the untrodden reaches of arid wastes is the sex-call of the coyote--has the choice of just two markets for the sale of his "find." He may either accept a comparatively small sum from the agent of a powerful mining syndicate for his prospect or he may receive a fair speculative price from the professional promoter.
The great mine financiers of this country rarely compete with one another for the purchase of any mining property. This is particularly true if one of the others happens to be operating in the district where the small mine owner's property lies.
As a rule, the original owner, whose entire fortune is perhaps tied up in the property, then finds himself in the position where he must either accept the first offer, however small, which is made to him by one of these dominant interests, or find that market closed to him.
His alternative, as mentioned, is a sale to the independent mine promoter of comparatively small means, who incorporates a company to own and develop the property and finances the operation from start to finish by selling stock in the enterprise to the general public.
The method of this class of professional promoter--the hope of the small mine owner--in marketing stock, usually involves the liberal use of the advertising columns of newspapers. He lacks "pull" or power sufficient to get his stock and mine talked of favorably in financial literature of the day to a degree that will excite public interest, and so he must construct his own publicity forces.