Chapter 3: Dear Friend: Lurid Tales of Junk Mail America

Read Chapter 1: Scheme to Defraud

Read Chapter 2: A Nation of Petty Gamblers

Known for their beauty and even more for their vast ore deposits, the hills around Laramie were in 1868 the scene of almost daily knifings. But things calmed down when the Union Pacific arrived—by1875, passengers were rushing off trains to dine on dishes like minced liver on toast and calves tongue with tomato sauce, and there was one other element of civilization: A lottery run by a man billed as “Pattee, J.M., capitalist.”

Pattee had left Omaha—some say he was run out—in the summer of 1873. The Nebraska legislature had outlawed lotteries, and that law took effect on September 1, one day after his Temple Lottery drawing was held without his presence in a back room. Worse, people throughout the West had seen this story from Leavenworth: "J.M. Pattee, a well known lottery man, who figured conspicuously in an Omaha gift enterprise, was arrested here last night, in answer to a telegram from Omaha, on charge of obtaining money under false pretenses."

Pattee regrouped in New York, where he owned a "fine brown stone residence" near Central Park. But his vacation was interrupted on Sept. 18 when, as Theodore Dreiser wrote, "one of the most startling financial tragedies that the world has ever seen had its commencement"—the collapse of Jay Cooke's banking house, and the resulting panic.

Many men were ruined. Others found ways to exploit the situation. "The financial panic which has for the last two months, paralyzed the business of every section of this country and of Europe has prevented thousands from investing in tickets," the Kentucky Lottery said in a December mailing, implying that the odds of winning had improved.

City Novelty Co. of Philadelphia took a similar approach: “The Crisis that has so suddenly burst upon the Country and so rapidly extended to every branch of Business, has particularly affected manufacturers of Jewelry, and we find ourselves carrying a very extensive stock of FINE GOODS for LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S WEAR,” it said in a brochure, adding that the offer was “PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE, AND NOT A LOTTERY.”

For his part, Pattee worked the suckers through his "brokerage " on lower Broadway—with limited success. He needed a new premise, and he found it, after months of research, in the Wyoming territory.

He arrived in Laramie late in 1874, and as he had in Omaha ingratiated himself with the right people. The Wyoming legislature passed a bill granting him a ten-year lottery license that could never be altered, and he acted on it before the governor could even sign it. But he had learned his lesson: There would be no public drawings in Laramie, or anywhere else.

On the contrary, the so-called Wyoming Lottery would operate entirely by mail. He retained the Laramie Daily Sun as printer, and started mailing circulars to his list. "Every ticket a prize! No Blanks! NO BLANKS!" he wrote, failing to mention that most prizes were for fifty cents, half the price of a ticket. Yet he could get away with it,for lawmakers had failed to keep lotteries out of the mail, or even control them.

First came the 1865 law defining "nonmailable matter"—everything from explosives to lottery materials. It failed to specify letters or circulars, and what it meant the courts could never figure out.

Congress clarified things three years later by prohibiting the mailing of "any letters or circulars concerning lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or other similar enterprises." But this bill, too, was flawed in that it failed to set penalties; the lottery men ignored it.

So the politicians tried again. In 1872, they forbade the mailing of "any letters or circulars concerning illegal lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or other similar enterprises, offering prizes, or concerning schemes devised and intended to deceive and defraud the public for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretenses."

This law allowed postmasters to hold up payment of money orders to the frauds. But it was almost as if they wanted to fail. The blunder this time was that they had added the word "illegal." How could a lottery chartered by a state or an institution be considered illegal?