(2 of 2)
This week George Graham Rice will have on the newsstands a successor to his defunct Iconoclast—a weekly called Rice's Financial Watchtower, 25¢ the copy. Just what George Graham Rice will watch from his tower was not clear, but his sheet is "millitant and pro-Roosevelt." Leading editorial in the first issue: "POWER & RESPONSIBILITY." Excerpt: "Any man who wields power without recognizing his responsibility is a menace. Big Finance has been that. . . . [The Big Financiers] have cut away the sand from under their own feet and have dug their graves. In another year or so new laws and rapidly moulding public opinion will have pushed them into their graves and covered them up."
Another typical Rice thunder was a $5,000 standing reward for proof that any one connected with the Watchtower had any interest in the stocks that the Watchtower recommends—at the time that they are recommended.
To subscribers Promoter Rice wrote that if the Watchtower "does not prove to be worth $500 a year ... I will be inclined to grant . . . another year's subscription gratis." As a postscript he added: "I shall take occasion very frequently in the columns of the Watchtower to state my views as to the status of the Idaho Copper and Colombia Emerald Companies. I think what I shall have to say will prove of great interest to you."
Idaho Copper went into receivership in 1929, was pulled out, then slipped in again in 1932. Its stock last sold in 1931 at 2/5 of 1¢ a share. Its production is nil. Colombia Emerald has some emeralds but its mine in the Department of Boyaca, Colombia is closed and its shares were lately quoted at 10¢ bid.
†In 1931 Promoter Rice was brought under guard from Atlanta to Manhattan to stand trial for evading Federal taxes on an alleged income of $1,800,000 in 1925. As his own attorney he won an acquittal.