(3 of 4)
The entire story of my meeting with that estimable gentleman at a cafeteria on Broadway some two months ago, our riotous evening together, and his subsequent disappearance with every cent I had, would be too long to go into here. ... I may say, though, that in the course of the evening we bought a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer of May 17 in which there was published an article on the Matanuska Valley colony by this eminent authority on the subject. Too, he showed me numerous articles of the same nature which he had written, and which he had planned to peddle about to different papers. As he so originally expressed it, "they were going like hot cakes'. I can't write them fast enough!" All in all, it was an enlightening evening. . . .
But the two letters he wrote for me have languished in my desk this while, as well as one I wrote to him to Ketchikan which was returned forthwith marked simply, "not here." I had about decided to put the episode away and to think no more about it, but your piece has stirred me and I felt I wanted to write you of it. ...
Is Brown still in jail in New York City and would there be any chance of recovering any of my loss? . . .
ROBERT C. COLSON
New York City
Convicted of stealing a hotel stenographer's typewriter. Pledge Brown was this week sentenced to six months'-to-three years' imprisonment.—ED.
Sirs:
When a young man who said he was Pledge Brown from the Ketchikan (Alaska) Chronicle some months ago offered us a yarn on New Deal's Matanuska Valley as "new stuff . . . I'm full of it ... great for a Republican sheet," the Daily Courier's wise, white-haired Managing Editor E. R. Moore politely declined, later explained it didn't ring true.
Wondering why the office didn't can me and hire the recommendation-bristling Brown, I accepted his invitation to join him at a beer, paid for the three he drank (10¢ each), marveled at his tales of working with big-time newsmen on the old N. Y. World, pleaded insolvency when he wanted to borrow a dollar with a fine-looking gold watch as security.
Said he sold his Alaska stories to all wide-awake dailies, sent money to wife and baby in Alaska. Got two bits from Managing Editor Moore for a sandwich but nothing for his promised revelations about Matanuska Valley potatoes, so big and shiny, but "really just like mush."
VIRGIL L. LEWIS
Waterloo Dally Courier
Waterloo, Iowa
Sirs:
. . . Pledge ("Just call me Brownie") Brown had a lot of fun in Michigan too. Lasted nearly three weeks here in Jackson. Finally left because people objected to his use of their names on checks.
What I want to know is—where is that big bear skin he promised to send me when he returned to the Northland?
Everyone here loaned him money and bought him smokes. Great character—loquacious liar—good egg.
WM. A. CIZEK
Program Director
Station W.I.B.M.
Jackson, Mich.
Sirs:
. . . Long before I reached Delegate Dimond's identification of Wilbur Pledge Brown, I had identified the gentleman as Wilbur Pledge, phoney-check artist and alleged newspaper man.