Gas Man's Trial

Investigators had never heard of him and Henry Latham Doherty knew him only as a brash young gaspipe salesman when, in 1928, Frank Preston Parish founded Missouri-Kansas Pipe Line Co. When newspaper editors looked at his smooth young face they dubbed him "The Boy Wizard of Finance" only to learn that he had been bankrupt two years before. Oil and gas men who took the trouble to inquire about his life found great gaps in the Parish career. He had bummed his way around the West riding the rails. He had set himself up in machinery business in Chicago. The War dumped fat marine contracts into his lap. but the post-War collapse nearly ruined him. He and his brother had procured an old sailboat, picked up peaches at night in Michigan for 90-c- a bu. and sold them in Chicago next morning for $3. Finally Frank Parish had turned up in Kansas City selling gas pipes. What gas men wanted to know, was a 32-year-old pipe salesman who had made his comeback in peaches going to do with a company like Missouri-Kansas? The answer was simple, said Frank Parish. He was going to build the second longest gas pipe line in North America, from Amarillo, Tex. to Indiana 930 mi. away.

Then & there Frank Parish and his cronies began selling stock, millions of dollars worth, which was to make everybody rich. It made Frank Parish rich enough to buy the old Presidential yacht Mayflower for $16,000. The pipe line crawled northward out of Texas, headed for the Kansas City territory controlled by goateed, alert Henry Doherty. What happened after that and why, was the subject of a four-week criminal trial concluded last week in Chicago's Federal Courts. There Frank Parish and an associate were on trial for using the mails to defraud in selling Missouri-Kansas stock before the company toppled into receivership in 1932 with losses to investors of $35,000,000. Highlights of the trial:

P: Claiming that Missouri-Kansas had grossly misrepresented its stock to the public, the Government called a witness who testified that the company had claimed to have $27,000,000 in cash in 1930 whereas actually there was less than $4,000,000. Another declared that Frank Parish and the stock-selling company he organized to sing the praises of Mo-Kan securities had used company money to manipulate the stock. That was the" real reason for Mo-Kan's downfall, said the prosecutor, who added that Frank Parish & wife had taken secret profits of $950,000 in stock manipulations.

P:To deny these charges the defense put Frank Parish on the stand. The blond, blue-eyed, good-humored promoter who has spent the last three years trying to get Missouri-Kansas out of receivership spent three days reinforcing the chief argument of his defense: that Missouri-Kansas had been deliberately scuttled by the predatory attacks of its enemies, chiefly Henry Latham Doherty's Cities Service Co. and Standard Oil of New Jersey, who resented Mr. Parish's invasion of their territories. On Saturday, June 14, 1930 they warned him, said Witness Parish, that if he did not sell out they would start a bear raid on Missouri-Kansas stock the following Monday. Mr. Parish promptly boarded a train for New York to call on Vice President Christy Payne of Standard Oil. When he arrived the raid had already begun. Vice President Payne refused to see him until after the market closed. When Mr. Parish walked into his office, Mr. Payne said: "How do you like it?" Missouri-Kansas stock had plummeted 15 points. To recoup his losses Pipeman Parish had to sell a half-interest in a Missouri-Kansas subsidiary. Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line, to a subsidiary of Columbia Gas & Electric Co.

P: Sequel to this dogfight came in the testimony of a handsome brunette named Elsie Walker who said that a Cities Service Co. undercover agent had planted her in Frank Parish's office. She explained that the agent had promised to help her out of certain financial difficulties if she would crib information from Frank Parish's business correspondence. She got a job in his office in August 1930 and for over a year stuffed carbon copies of his letters into a zipper compartment of her purse. Juicy bits of information were forwarded to Cities Service by means of an elaborate code. Mr. Parish was referred to as a "persimmon." Vice President S. J. Maddin was a "pineapple.'' an other official a "gooseberry." Missouri-Kansas was called "lemons." The Chicago Stock Exchange was "blackberries," the New York Stock Exchange "dewberries." In 1931 Frank Parish began to grow suspicious. Spy Walker contrived to have a nervous breakdown the following year, hurried to Kansas City where Cities Service paid her $1,900 back salary and bonus, dismissed her.

P: Damaging evidence for the defense was the testimony of Lammot du Font's cousin and brother-in-law, Francis I. du Pont, stockholder and director of Missouri-Kansas. Several "victims" of the Missouri-Kansas crash testified that they had bought the stock because salesmen told them the du Pont companies were backing Missouri-Kansas. Director du Pont emphatically declared that his dealings with Missouri-Kansas were entirely personal, that no oth er member of the family and no du Pont company was interested. There, said the prosecutor. Was that not clear proof that Frank Parish's salesmen had misrepresented the stock they sold?

Last week when the case was completed the judge instructed the jurors to bring in a verdict of guilty only if they were sure the defendants had consented to the alleged misrepresentations. The jury de liberated less than five hours, then found Frank Parish "Not Guilty."

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