1908 Honolulu League: The Saints stumble

In this post I'll give a game-by-game account of the 1908 Honolulu League and recount some of its statistics at the end, just as I did for the 1907 Honolulu League. 

A little information about the league: The Honolulu League consisted of four teams; three, the St. Louis Saints, Kamehameha, Punahou, were alumni teams of Honolulu prep schools. The fourth was Diamond Head, an athletic club, nicknamed the Jewels. The league played doubleheaders every Saturday at the League Grounds in Honolulu. Its season was typically divided into two nine-game halves. 

The 1908 Honolulu League opened its season May 3rd. The great star Barney Joy was back with the St. Louis Saints after his season with San Francisco, the doubleheader was well-played, and the crowd was by all reports large and appreciative. 

"The crowd was an enthusiastic one, particularly in the makai bleachers. All the old fans and rooters were on deck and many new ones."

And this is how they rooted:

Advertiser, 1908-5-03, p.3.

But those who cheered for the St. Louis Saints, reigning champions of the Honolulu League, must have been sorely disappointed on opening day. The Punahous, the worst team in the league in 1907, shut out the Saints 4-0 on the strength of Bill Hampton's pitching. 

The Saints had recovered their great star Barney Joy, who instead of signing with the National League's Boston Doves, who owned him, demanded a contract too great for him and elected to stay home in Hawaii but that stroke of luck would avail them nothing if his teammates could not hit. 

Strangely, Joy, who had won 17 games the previous year for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, did not pitch on opening day, and would not pitch in a league game until the second half of the season. Jimmy Williams, who had not pitched in the League since 1906, pitched in his stead on opening day; he did well but the Saints' defense was poor behind him. The only bright spot of the game for the Saints came in the fourth; their star left fielder En Sue threw out Jack Kia at the plate, who had been trying to stretch a triple into a home run.

Evers, who had played shortstop so beautifully for the Saints in 1907, was now playing with the Diamond Heads. The Jewels had also retained their captain and shortstop from last year, Eddie Fernandez, who in 1907 hit .328 and was probably the best player in the league. Fernandez, who was a better slugger than fielder, moved over to first base to make room for Evers. Akoni Louis, the Saints' right fielder, and Joe Fernandez, the Saints' left fielder, also signed with the Jewels. 

Bolstered by the former Saints, and having retained all their stars from 1907, the Diamond Heads began their season by beating Kamehameha 5-3. Eddie Fernandez "did some mighty good base-running and handled his team well. Evers, at short, put up a crack game and made some beautiful stops."

Sadly, I have no illustrations with which to spice this account of the 1908 season. The Honolulu Advertiser's cartoonist who had enlivened the sports pages with his work in 1907 was gone. At the same time the Advertiser ceased to publish pictures of Honolulu League players. A great loss.

On May 9th the Punahous and Diamond Heads won again. For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The Advertiser had predicted a day before that a big crowd was looked for, but it was a sparse crowd that saw the afternoon's interesting games. 

The Punahous scored two runs in the first inning off Kamehameha's star pitcher Dick Reuter. Reuter gave up just one more hit the rest of the game but the damage was done; Punahou pitcher Bill Hampton limited the Kams to one run and two hits and the Punahous had won again. 

The second game began with a bang when the Diamond Heads scored three runs off Andy Bushnell in the first inning, all unearned. After the first inning Bushnell and Bill Chillingworth traded zeroes to the game's end, and the final score was Diamond Heads 3, St. Louis 0. After having only been shutout once in 1907, the Saints had been shutout in their first two games of the season. They were still a fine-hitting team on paper, but at the plate they were wheat before the pitcher's scythe. 

The Saints' fortunes turned abruptly on May 16; facing Dick Reuter of Kamehameha, who had previously been "pitching grand ball," they scored 14 runs on 13 hits, nine errors, eight stolen bases, and a walk. The Saints themselves played errorless ball, and their pitcher, the eighteen-year-old future major leaguer Johnnie Williams, held the Kams to a scanty two runs and five hits. Barney Joy went 5 for 5. 

In the second game the two undefeated teams, the Diamond Heads and the Punahous, battled. The Diamond Heads scored two runs in the first inning and never looked back, winning by a final score of 3-1. Bill Chillingworth and Bill Hampton both pitched fine games, but the Punahous were weak with men on base. The Jewels' catcher, Sam "Phony" Davis, did his part, giving "perhaps the best exhibition of throwing to bases that has ever been seen in Honolulu."

For a third straight week the Jewels had taken the lead from the start of the game and never relinquished it; they now stood alone in first place with a 3-0 record. 

On May 23, for a second straight week, the Saints and Diamond Heads won. The Saints scored five runs off the previously dominant Punahou pitcher Bill Hampton. Barney Joy continued his torrid hitting by socking two doubles, and Andy Bushnell pitched a fine game. 

The Diamond Heads beat the Kams 8-3 in the second game. For a second straight week Dick Reuter was lit up, giving up ten hits and walking six Jewels. His defense didn't help him out, either, as his shortstop Miller made three errors. Bill Chillingworth "pitched a well nigh perfect game," the former Saints' star Akoni Louis made three hits, and catcher Sam "Phony" Davis threw out four base-runners. 

On May 30 Robert "Clown" Leslie returned to the mound for the Diamond Heads after a few months' absence from Honolulu. He faced the St. Louis Saints and did well, giving up one run on four hits, but his delivery prompted the Saints to badger umpire Bert Bower that Leslie was balking. When Barney Joy told him that in the sixth inning, Bower replied that Leslie was not balking. Barney Joy replied "You're playing," a phrase was which apparently disrespectful because Bower threw Joy out of the game for using it and fined him $5. 

Kamehameha beat Punahou 9-5 in the second game for their first win as Reuter struck out 10 Pun batters. It was a close game until the 7th inning when the Kams scored six runs off Main, a new man who the Puns were trying out. Bill Hampton closed the game with his customary grace, but Main's mediocrity had left the Puns with no chance to win. 

Two home runs - the first of the 1908 season - were hit in the first game of June 6th. Punahou center fielder Jack Kia hit a two-run homer "almost to the cigar sign" in the second inning off Bill Chillingworth, and Diamond Head catcher Sam Davis hit a two-run shot himself in the sixth inning off Bill Hampton, tying the game at 5-5. In the seventh inning Diamond Head starter Bill Chillingworth, who had been pitching a fine game all things considered, was removed in favor of "Clown" Leslie, who blew the game. Leslie allowed only one hit in his three innings of duty but walked six, and the two runs he allowed in the eighth inning meant the ballgame. The Jewels rallied in the ninth but were only able to score one run, and the final score was Punahou 7, Diamond Head 6. It was the Diamond Heads' first loss of the season. 

Evers made a great play at short and Eddie Fernandez "played his usual heady game"; it was not their fault that the Jewels lost in the end. 

The second game of June 6th was a tight, well-played game, won by Kamehameha over St. Louis by the score of 2-1. The Kams scored an unearned run in the first and a second run in the fifth when their right fielder John Fern hit a triple and was driven in by pitcher Dick Reuter. Reuter played a great game all-around, going 2-for-2 at the plate with a stolen base and striking out 13 Saints. 

The Advertiser noted that Kamehameha left-fielder "MacKenzie, champion sprinter of the territory, was there with some phenomenal bursts of speed between bases."

The annual track & field championship of Hawaii was held on March 21, 1908, and MacKenzie had been one of the brightest stars. Running for Kamehameha, he won the 100 yards with a time of 10.2 seconds, and according to the Advertiser tied the world record in the 50 yards with his mark of 5.2 seconds, a record En Sue had previously set. (Running for the Chinese Athletic Club, En Sue finished third in the final having gotten out to a bad start.) McKenzie also jumped 21' 7", and in the Advertiser's eyes had earned the title of "best and most versatile athlete in the Territory, and he is only a boy at that." But he was only a fair baseball player, hitting .179 in 1908, an acceptable but unremarkable batting average for Honolulu League standards. He did lead the league in at-bats, batting 1st or 2nd in every game he played in. 

A number of other Honolulu League players starred in the meet. Oscar Jones, Kamehameha catcher and holder of the island record for the twelve-pound shot put, set a new record for the sixteen-pound shot put by throwing it 38' 6.75". A. Lota, Kamehameha third baseman and pitcher, set a new record in the 120 yard hurdles with a mark of 17.2 seconds. Charlie Lyman and William Desha also competed for Kamehameha in the 100 yards. Kamehameha won the meet by 18 points; only the Y.M.C.A. came close. 

The Diamond Heads were anxious to win June 13th against Kamehameha. Their 5-1 record was just a game ahead of Punahou's 4-2; a second loss could mean sharing first with Punahou, and anything could happen after that. (Kamehameha and St. Louis were both 2-4, practically eliminated from the first half pennant race.)

The start of their game was delayed by an hour due to by the tardiness of some of Kamehameha's players, but the Diamond Heads were not dismayed. They got off to a roaring start, scoring two runs in the first and four in the second. But after that Kam pitcher Dick Reuter settled down and no-hit the Jewels for the rest of the game, and Jewel pitcher Bill Chillingworth fell apart. After having been no-hit by Chillingworth for the first four innings the Kams broke loose. They scored four runs in the fifth, another in the six, and a final two in the eighth to come from behind to win 7-6. They made twelve hits in the last five innings. 

The second game of June 13th was called off by rain - and it was a lucky thing for the Saints, for they were missing En Sue, Jimmy Williams, and catcher Louis Soares. 

The crowd was "better than usual" - an ominous phrase - on June 20th. What there were of the fans watched Diamond Head beat St. Louis 8-6 in the first game. Though Leslie beat the Saints, he "allowed himself to be rattled by the rooters" and walked seven batters. Eddie Fernandez played a spectacular game for the Jewels, going 2-for-3 with two stolen bases, three runs scored, and flawless play at first.

After having thrown three straight good games, Dick Reuter was practically annihilated in the second game: though he struck out ten batters, Punahou made ten runs and fourteen hits off him. Bill Hampton pitched a fine game, allowing the Kams only one run and four hits, and pulled off some spectacular base running in the ninth inning. 

Hampton hit a harmless ground ball and after running halfway down the first base line turned back, as if in despair. The fielder, thinking his job was done, threw the ball back to the pitcher instead of the first baseman. This accomplished, the heady Hampton turned right around and made first base. The umpire called him safe, and while the Kams argued with the umpire he took second and third base. 

The first half of the season closed on June 27 before an "average crowd." Kamehameha beat St. Louis 3-0 in the first game. After Reuter had been hit so terribly the previous week he was replaced in the box by A. Lota, who scattered seven hits and three walks over nine scoreless innings. The Advertiser suggested that Reuter was benched only to give him a rest now that the Kams had no hope for the first half, not because he was demoted in any way, but I wonder. 

Oliver Jones, Kamehameha's catcher, hit a solo home run "over the left field fence for the longest hit of the season" in the fifth inning. With that he had collected a home run in all three of the Honolulu League seasons I have compiled statistics for, 1906-08, the only player to do so. 

Part of the reason for the Saints falling prostrate before the typically mediocre Lota was that they lacked their customary line-up. "Jimmy Williams, En Sue and Aylett were missing from the ranks of the Saints yesterday. Plada and Markham were given a chance to shine, but their brilliancy isn't known to have affected anyone's eyesight." But the Saints' usual line-up didn't gleam much either; their record for the first half was 2-6. The Advertiser eulogized: "How are the mighty fallen. Poor old Saints!"

As always, the Diamond Heads got off to a great start in the second game, scoring three runs in the first inning against the Punahous. But Bill Hampton blanked them the rest of the way and Leslie, despite striking out 13 Puns, allowed two runs in the fifth and blew the game by allowing another two in the 9th. 

Bill Hampton helped his own cause with his chutzpah: "In the first of the fifth Hampton bluffed his way to first on three balls. There is little of that kind of work done here compared with what happens at a Coast game."

There wasn't very much spirit in the stands apart from the ever-loud Jack Doyle: "Doyle's voice gave out and thereafter a gloom pervaded the bleachers which could be cut with a knife." 

On that cheerful note the first half ended.

The first half's final standings ran as follows:

Diamond Head, 6-3
Punahou, 5-3
Kamehameha, 4-5
St. Louis, 2-6

The second half of the season would not start until September. In the meantime two college teams from west and east, Keio University of Japan and Santa Clara University of California, converged upon Hawaii, and played a series of games with the teams of the Honolulu League dubbed the Triangular Series. The series was a lot more lively than the regular Honolulu League, and I'm planning to write a post on it soon. 

The second half opened on September 5 before a "miserably slim crowd." After two months of games between the visiting teams and miscellaneous combinations of the locals, Honolulu's fans were surfeited with baseball and had no passion left for the League. 

The first game of the doubleheader was not very competitive as Punahou beat Diamond Head 8-1. Many regular players were missing from both line-ups. Alfred Castle, Punahou coach and former Harvard star, pitched for Punahou and struck out seven batters, allowing only five hits and walking none. 

The second game was a great one: Lota of Kamehameha and Barney Joy of the St. Louis Saints matched each other 0-0 until the twelfth inning when the Kams finally scored. Joy, who had only begun pitching again in the Triangular series, gave up just three hits and struck out ten in defeat. The Kams turned three double plays after having turned just one all first half. Lota had picked up where he had left off at the end of the first half - throwing shutouts - and his scoreless streak was now at 21 innings.

His streak would pause there. The Honolulu League would play no more games in 1908; fan interest was dead. The Honolulu League would not begin play in 1909 until August, and then only played a six-game schedule. In 1910 it was superseded by the Oahu League. 

The final standings of 1908:

                          W L RS RA
Punahou             6  3   43  29
Diamond Head   6  4   47  40
Kamehameha     5  5   32  51
St. Louis             2  7   27  29

I'm not sure which team deserved the championship, Diamond Head for winning the first half or Punahou for having the best all-around record. Formerly invincible, St. Louis was the only team to finish below .500. They scored the fewest runs in the league by five, and fourteen of their runs came in a single game.

Even stranger than St. Louis scoring half its season's runs in one game was Diamond Head's dominance in the first inning. They scored fifteen of their forty-seven runs in the first inning. The only game in which they failed to score in the first was that of June 6th.

Statistical notes: 

The 1908 Honolulu League was incredibly pitcher-friendly: the league batting average was a scanty .188, and the league slugging percentage was .247. 

Barney Joy led the league in batting average with a mark of .387, and tied Bill Hampton for the lead in slugging percentage with .452. Bill Hampton just hit .258, but three of his eight hits were triples. 

Eddie Fernandez, Diamond Head first baseman, was the best all-around player, leading the league with 14 hits, 13 runs scored, 16 total bases, and 10 stolen bases. 

Akoni Louis, whom the Jewels had snatched from the Saints, hit .344. 

Nani Lemon hit .257 and led the league with four doubles. The Advertiser said of him on June 7th that "Lemon is the same finished player that he ever was. He seems to improve with age, if anything."

Sam Davis, Diamond Head catcher, hit a homer, a triple, a double, and no singles in thirty at-bats. 

The top ten in batting:
.387, Barney Joy, utility, St. Louis, 12 for 31
.379, Harry Bruns, left field, Punahou, 11 for 29
.378, Eddie Fernandez, 1b, Diamond Head, 14 for 37
.344, Akoni Louis, outfield, Diamond Head, 11 for 32
.281, Olmos, right field, Diamond Head, 9 for 32
,259, George Bruns, utility, St. Louis, 7 for 27
.258, Bill Hampton, p-if, Punahou, 8 for 31
.257, Nani Lemon, center field, Kamehameha, 9 for 35
.250, Evers, shortstop, Diamond Head, 8 for 32
.250, Charles En Sue, left field, St. Louis, 7 for 28

Dick Reuter led the league in losses (5), strikeouts (59), innings (70), games started and games (8), hits (60), runs (51), and complete games (8). In other words, the same categories he led the league in in 1907. His 6.56 RA was the worst by 2.47 of anyone who pitched in more than one game.

His replacement, Lota, set a new league record with his RA of 0.00. 

Bill Hampton of Punahou led the league in wins with 5:  he had a 5-2 record, 2.71 RA, and gave up just 34 hits while striking out 44 batters in 63 innings.

Bob Leslie led the league in walks with 26 but allowed just 16 hits - he only pitched in 33 innings. 

Barney Joy only pitched in one game but because it was an extra-inning game and his team only played nine games, he actually qualified for rate statistics. He led in WHIP, with 0.42. 

The fielding was about the same as 1908; the league average went up a tick, from .918 to .919. The Saints had the highest fielding percentage (.936), just like 1907, but they turned the fewest double plays (2) - they had turned thirteen in 1907. Punahou had the second highest fielding percentage (.925), Kamehameha followed them with .912, and Diamond Head, despite its excellence in batting and pitching, brought up the rear in fielding with a mark of .906. 

Here's a link to the stats I compiled if you're interested: https://1drv.ms/x/c/007874164ce0374a/EXOK7cacst5Eg-m0rEmFTi0BKC6oGyRV__l9JnzNUnnZJg?e=o4fKPW

The Gospel of Orlando K. Fitzsimmons

 This is the tale of Orlando K. Fitzsimmons, pitcher, proto-Ponzi, and prolific utterer of fragrant idiocy. Possessing a healthy ego and limitless chutzpah, his life traced a story that is absurd above all else. 

Orlando Kellogg Fitzsimmons was born January 5, 1866 in Reading, Michigan, the last of Jane and Andrew Fitzsimmons' three children. He was named after Orlando H. Kellogg, who ran a general store together with his father.

His parents divorced sometime between 1866 and 1869. Orlando acquired a stepmother when his father married Elizabeth Dixon in 1869. 

His baseball career began as a shortstop in 1883 with the Park nine of Pleasant Lake, Indiana. He continued playing with the club in 1884 but signed in August with a team from Lexington, Kentucky. 

Angola Steuben Republican, 1884-8-13, p.5

He played with the Parks of Pleasant Lake again in 1885, and near the end of the season pitched in some practice games for the National League's Detroit Wolverines. He signed with Detroit in 1886 but didn't pan out. Detroit spent their pre-season in Georgia, and Fitzsimmons pitched twice against Southern Association teams. On March 19 he beat Macon 21-0 before a crowd of 1500, but his next start on March 23 did not go quite so smoothly as Savannah defeated him 13-5. Detroit released him, and by March 28 he had signed with the Augusta Browns of the Southern Association. Pitching for Augusta, he beat Pittsburg of the American Association 2-1 in a pre-season game, March 30.

He pitched fairly well with Augusta in the regular season, winning three games and losing four with an ERA of 2.00 and fifty strikeouts in seven games. His 7.1 strikeouts/nine innings were the fourth highest in the league but he wasn't given the chance to qualify; Augusta released him in late May. He quickly signed with the St. Paul Freezers of the Northwestern League. 

The St. Paul Pioneer Press was excited at his advent, saying: "He is unquestionably an A - No. 1 pitcher. He has great curves, and a most wonderful drop ball. His command of the ball is also good, while he is daily recovering the speed he lost early in the season, when pitching for Detroit." 

One of his games for St. Paul would continue to be recounted in newspapers for another thirty years. On June 18, pitching against Duluth pitcher Mark Baldwin, who would go on to earn 154 MLB wins and the nickname "Fido," Fitzsimmons struck out twelve batters and Baldwin struck out eighteen for a remarkable 30 combined strikeouts. It wasn't exactly a pitcher's duel, though: Duluth collected sixteen hits off Fitzsimmons, beating him 13-4. (Note that in the box score only one run of the seventeen scored in the game is considered to be earned.)

Saint Paul Globe, 1886-6-19, p.1

Hugh Daily

Fitzsimmons overstayed his welcome in St. Paul and was released on September 13. (In his stead they signed Hugh "One Arm" Daily, a surly thirty-eight-year-old Irishman who struck out 483 batters in the Union Association in 1884.) As a parting gift, manager John Barnes fined Fitzsimmons $50 for losing 7-6 to Milwaukee on the frigid Sunday of September 12. The Duluth Jayhawks signed him on the rebound and he stayed with them until the end of their pennant-winning season.

Saint Paul Globe, 1886-10-10, p.5

Fitzsimmons pitched for five different teams in 1887. He spent most of the year in the Western League, going 9-5 for the Leavenworth Soldiers, 5-4 for the St. Joseph Reds, and 5-1 for Denver. He finished the year back in the Northwestern League and pitched miserably: On September 14 he pitched for the Milwaukee Cream Citys but had no control and was hit hard; he left the game after four innings. On September 17 he pitched for Duluth but was so wild he had to be taken out after seven innings. An ignominious end to his season. 

In 1888 he was briefly with Jackson of the Tri-State League but was back in his hometown, Reading, by July, pitching for the town team. He lost 16-4 to the Angola Grays on July 13 in the one game I can find a score for. 

By the end of the season he had come full circle in his baseball career: again he was an infielder,  a second baseman this time; again he played for Pleasant Lake, Indiana. 

As far as I am aware he never played baseball again. Business henceforth would be his realm. He began it inauspiciously: in the winter of 1889-90 it was noted that he was "on the road selling fruit trees." 

From 1890 to 1892 the newspapers declared not his name but it was not an uneventful time for him: in 1892 he married Mary Green of Dexter, Michigan, a lady close to eight years his junior. 

He popped up again in Owosso, Michigan, in 1893. He was hired as an agent of the American Express Company. As of June 30 1893 he had handled about 400 crates of strawberries, whatever the significance of that is. 

On June 8th 1894 it was reported that he was a member of the fledgling Silver Dandruff Cure Company which the Owosso Times heartily endorsed. 

Warranted to cure all skin diseases? I bet.

Whatever its merits or lack of them, the Silver Dandruff Cure Co. does not seem to have survived past 1895. 

Fitzsimmons' newspaper trail runs cold for a half decade after that until December 6, 1900, when the Victoria Daily Times reported that he had arrived in Victoria, British Columbia on the steamer Charmer from Vancouver.

I have no idea why he was in Victoria.

He volunteered to coach Victoria's baseball team in 1901, and the team was very happy to have an old pro like him at the helm. The Victoria Daily Times described him at various times during the season as "energetic and capable," and "experienced and level-headed."

The team had one future pro: Thomas Holness, who would win two games and lose nine for the Victoria/Spokane team of the Northwestern League in 1905. 

No further trace of Orlando can be found until November 1902, when advertisements of his began to appear in the Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. 

This is where the bizarre part of his story begins. Brace yourselves, folks, for a lot of nonsense. 

The advertisements promised that the reader could earn 8% to 10% profit a month by depositing a mere $1.00 per week with Orlando K. Fitzsimmons. 

His headlines blared the plan's virtues: "RAPID MONEY," "INDEPENDENT MONEY," "MONEY COMES EASY," etc.

"Don't be timid," Orlando said. "Fear destroys opportunities and undermines success." But there was no need to fear, anyways: the plan was "absolutely safe and sure." 

"Don't be afraid," Orlando said, "for there is no hidden monster; only first truth." "I would not mislead you for the state of California. I have no incentive for misleading you." 

"Be like Napoleon" and do "not tremble before that old bugaboo, 'IMPOSSIBLE.'" 

'kay. 

The Los Angeles Herald got in on the act with an interview of him published on December 21, blithely presenting his twaddle as news and calling his Tontine Investment Company of California "up-to-date and apparently reliable." 

From the interview:
Q: "What is the nature of your business?"
A: "It is hard to explain clearly in a very few words, but, were I to attempt it, I would say that we keep money constantly moving in such a way that one dollar will cancel many dollars' worth of obligations in a short space of time."

Constantly moving money around apparently delivered 100% profit, for Fitzsimmons went on to explain that patrons receive $160 for every $80 they put in. He explained that all this was merely the law of evolution at work, the law of evolution comprising two forces, growth and change, which when working in harmonious unison apparently bred money like rabbits. 

It didn't take too long for him to get called out. The Los Angeles Times published an article on February 17, 1903, summing up his pamphlet "How to Make Money Quickly, Honestly, and Legitimately" as a get-rich-quick scam for suckers. Fitzsimmons was now promising to bestow 15% to 25% profit upon his patrons each and every month. 

All by moving money around. The Times quoted the pamphlet's explanation: 

"Now, we return the 'profit' to our patrons under a perfect coöperative system, whereby, under certain fixed laws, we move or circulate among our members the money received in such a way that $1 produces many dollars' worth of 'profit' in a very short time." 

"Clear as mud," the Times replied, "and equally attractive to the normal intellect." 

Fitzsimmons quickly fired back with advertisements in the Post-Record challenging those "ignoramuses who like to pose before the general public as thinkers" to a debate, but nothing ever came of it. 

All was relatively quiet on the Fitzsimmons front until June 14, when the Los Angeles Times exposed the "BRAZEN BLASPHEMY OF 'RICH-QUICKSTER.'"    

The Times was referring to the May issue of Fitzsimmons' new mouthpiece, the Federation Herald, published by the Rev. E.H. Brooks, later described by the Times as "clerical floater and persistent beggar." A picture of Christ graced the cover; within were pages upon pages extolling the greatness of Fitzsimmons' Cumulative Credit Company. It was "a door of hope to the struggling millions," delivering the downtrodden and disheartened out of destitution and into prosperity not by cutthroat capitalist competition, not by the adoration of those "two mighty kings... Selfishness and Greed," but by the Golden Rule. 

The company's logo

Practical details sullied not the publication's pages: "Space here will not allow an explanation of the details, but the main point is that we dethrone money as master and make it man's servant. It is faithful, willing and obedient when properly used, for is it not a creature of man's creation? Our mission to the material plane is what Christ's was to the spiritual." 

The Times noted that "Believers in omnipotence may well wonder why lightning does not strike the propagators of the Federation Herald."

The Los Angeles Post-Record, no doubt uninfluenced by the fact that Fitzsimmons was a steady advertiser in its pages, devoted its entire sixth page on June 20 to parodying the Times and uncritically quoting Fitzsimmons. 

E.g.: "THE TIMES HAS NOT INVESTIGATED THIS CURSED INSTITUTION FURTHER THAN TO READ ITS LITERATURE IN A DESULTORY MANNER, BUT EVERY UNTHINKING, PARROT-LIKE MAN SHOULD KNOW THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO WHAT THIS CONCERN IS DOING AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE FOR MANY YEARS.    

    "WHEN A NEW IDEA LOOKS AS THOUGH IT MIGHT BE SUCCESSFUL, IT IS TIME TO SQUELCH IT, FOR MOST PEOPLE DO NOT WANT ANYTHING NEW."

Etc. 

The Post-Record's response to the Times was infantile. The Times' article was based upon prior articles establishing that Fitzsimmons' company was a scam. The Times called Fitzsimmons blasphemous not merely because he was promising to apply the golden rule to business and comparing his work to Christ's, but because the business he was pretending was Christ-like was a fraud. By taking the Times' article out of context and then drowning it in reams of Fitzsimmons' eloquent emptiness, it exercised no impartiality. It was simply an attack on the Times and a defense of their advertiser. 

The Times published a reply on June 24 further skewering Saint Orlando Fitzsimmons' (their phrase) pretensions to unworldly righteousness which flavored his "$2 for $1" siren-call. The article makes plenty of good points, though its headline "CLAIMS TO BE THE MESSIAH" is pretty misleading - what Fitzsimmons said was that his material mission was akin to Christ's spiritual mission. Isn't that ridiculous enough without having to distort it? 

The Post-Record did not take this lying down, and devoted a second full page to Fitzsimmons' defense. Its centerpiece is this lovely depiction of the Times as a great ugly mud-slinging lover of big business futilely endeavoring to destroying such unworldly institutions as the Cumulative Credit Company and the Point Loma Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society.

The main thrust of the Post-Record's arguing was that Fitzsimmons' enterprise was like the New York Life Insurance Company, only better. Or rather, the Post-Record printed Fitzsimmons' bizarre and long-winded arguments to that effect. 

The newspapers' cat-fight petered out after that, thank God, not before I lost a lot of brain cells. 

By September 9 the Federation Herald was defunct. It went out with a bang, according to the Times, composing in its last issue a new "Credo" that began "I believe in Orlando K. Fitzsimmons." 

The early months of 1904 brought the Cumulative Credit Company nothing but woe. In January the company became the subject of an investigation by a grand jury. Some interesting facts were brought out. Since the company's start it had issued 46,000 weekly certificates - not taking into account certificates that had matured or lapsed, that represented $46,000 a week, a quarter of which was set aside for the company's expenses. Though that figure was an exaggeration, it helped explain the company's opulence, which was described by the Times thusly: 

"That it is a real good business - for the company - has been apparent for some time. The offices on Broadway are extensive, well appointed, and in a measure luxurious, and the cost of keeping the broad span of window space in such a polished condition that the suckers may see themselves as they pass cannot be a trifle."

A disconcerting clause was discovered in the certificates themselves. The certificates promised to pay to their bearers at their maturation $2 for every $1 they had invested provided - here's the catch -  "Provided that there shall be sufficient money in said Mutual Benefit Credit Fund available for that purpose to pay said amount." If there wasn't enough, that would just be too bad. And it was very likely there would not be enough. As Judge Wellborn of the United States Circuit Court would explain in March, about 30% of the $80 from each certificate was set aside for the company's use, leaving just $56 to pay the $160 promised. The shortfall could only be made up by the hooking of two more suckers; and they in turn could only be paid by hooking four more suckers, etc. In other words, Fitzsimmons was Ponzi while Ponzi was still in Italy, though he operated on a smaller scale than Ponzi would. 

Investigation by grand jury did not go well for the company. On February 22 the Assistant United States Attorney General declared the company a fraud, and barred it from using the mail. No letters addressed to it nor to its president (Fitzsimmons) or secretary (M.E. Johnson) would be delivered. It could neither give nor receive money with postal money orders.

Predictably, the great Orlando declared himself and his associates to be martyrs, and complained that the rights of the company's patrons were being trampled under foot. 

But he was not deterred; no amount of oppression at the hands of a government in the pocket of Big Insurance could quell his salvific fire. In a circular mailed out to his followers, presumably before March 1 when the order to stop his mail became official, he included a poem of his own composition entitled "Too Fast" which went like this:

The poem reminds me of the songs Toad sings in The Wind in the Willows. Its shameless egotism is reminiscent of "The Song of Toad" while its ending refrain echoes "When the Toad Came Home." 

But Fitzsimmons did not confine his defiance to doggerel. 

The Cumulative Credit Company expanded into Iowa, opening an office in Cedar Rapids; the Cedar Rapids Gazette published an article on June 16th, 1904, deriding it as a get-rich-quick scheme, and panning the book Fitzsimmons had recently published. After quoting the book extensively they concluded: "it is inane stuff, to say the least." That book, a slim thirty-eight page volume entitled Financial Ideas Worth $5000 to You - If You Can Comprehend Them! can actually still be read on archive.org, not that I recommend it - it's just an extensive advertisement. Any morbid curiosity you might have about it can be sated at: https://archive.org/details/financialideaswo00fitzrich/mode/2up

The company also opened up offices in San Francisco later in the year that occupied "half a dozen rooms in one of the best office buildings in San Francisco. The rooms are fitted up like a bank. [Fitzsimmons] has a large staff of stenographers and clerks.... His business shows every sign of prosperity notwithstanding the painstaking efforts of Uncle Sam to drive him out. He has the most astonishing flow of language. He has got hold of the jargon of insurance and actuarial science and will reel it off to you by the hour. It is an awful death if you can't escape in time." (Stockton Evening Mail, 1904-12-10, p.4)

But the beginning of the end was nigh. He was arrested January 7, 1905, in San Francisco. He gave his name as Adolph, and was let free on a bond of either $2,000 or $5,000.

His arrest was due to his refusal to stay away from the mail; he had worked around his postal proscription by having his mail sent to him under miscellaneous Chinese names at his office in the Callaghan building of San Francisco. 

Inappositely, at almost the same time he was arrested a new book of his entitled Financial Ideas was published. On one of the leading pages these words were emblazoned in large type: "We need not worry about the sun's cooling off, nor the depopulation of the earth, neither need we fear the time when the Cumulative Credit system will commence to retrograde, for that is only when its blessings have covered the entire earth, and there are no more people to reach."

On page nineteen he drew a verbal "likeness" of himself:

 "Here is the staunch business man. Through the broad shoulders and fully-developed chest can be seen great physical endurance, while the keen, bright eyes, the clear-cut features and strong, heavy jaw indicate executive ability and the indomitable will power that has characterized his life.

 "But these qualities, valuable as they are to the head of a great enterprise, are not sufficient to carry to successful issue the stupendous plans conceived by him. To these must be added those of the philosopher and teacher - the man who can conceive a great idea, and present it intelligently to the masses."

You can't make this stuff up. 

Meanwhile, in reality, in May he was granted a divorce from his wife, Mary, for her desertion of him. By the terms of the divorce she received $3,000, $100 a month, and their daughter Virginia. 

At the same time, M.E. Johnson, Fitzsimmons' former partner, filed a suit against him for nonpayment; in 1904 Fitzsimmons had bought Johnson's stock in the company but had yet to pay either $6,500, according to Fitzsimmons' statement, or $17,500, the LA Times' statement. Whatever the figure was, Fitzsimmons said he didn't have enough money to repay Johnson.

I don't know how that suit turned out, but Fitzsimmons spent a few months in Chicago and published a new booklet called "What Has Been Done and Why." He returned to California on September 16 for his trial. The court had a difficult time picking out a jury, but Fitzsimmons was eventually convicted on eight counts of using the United States mails for a lottery. 

On reporting his conviction the Post-Record referred to him with chill sarcasm as "the man who conceived the brilliant scheme of bettering the condition of the poor by giving them $100 for $50." Apparently they had forgotten their rabid support of him a mere two and a half years prior; but perhaps it was not so obvious then that shuffling around money and talking up a storm does not make 50 equal 100. 

On October 9th Fitzsimmons was sentenced to six months in jail, accompanied by a $250 fine. His two business associates, John W. Neighbors and E.A. Arnett, were also convicted and were fined $250 each without jail time. 

They got disgustingly light sentences, really -  for context, F.B. Parker, the local manager of the Cumulative Credit Company in Washington, was sentenced to a year in jail and a $1000 fine in August, and even that was far from the maximum sentence  - but the trio appealed their sentences. Fitzsimmons was let free on a four-thousand-dollar bond. 

In early 1906 he published yet another book, this one called Metamorphose: Involving Regeneration of Individual and Race, and Also the Solution of the Great Problem of Poverty. 

The Fresno Morning Republican called it "an interesting sort of fraud. On its face, it appears to be a fantastic jumble of Socialism, mysticism and greenbackism, written in the turgid and meaningless style affected by devotees of freak cults.... There is also much blasphemous appeal to the sanctions of religion and impious misquoting of the words of Christ." 

In mid-1906 Fitzsimmons founded a new organization  called the World Betterment League with offices in Chicago and Buffalo. He hooked about 200 followers in Buffalo on the promise that $5 a month or more would get them from 50% to 120% profit, and left town before his flock got back a dime. 

He married the 27-year-old Amy L. Brown in 1906. 

His appeal was denied by the United States circuit court of appeals, October 7th, 1907, Judge Gilbert ruling that he had indeed used the mails for his lottery schemes. It's odd that apparently the only law that could be used against Fitzsimmons was a law against conducting lotteries by mail. Judge Gilbert said the Cumulative Credit Company was a lottery because there was a discrepancy between the money put in and the expected prize, explaining that:

"The subscriber to the scheme knows full well that no increment is to be earned by his money, but that all returns are to come from his own contributions and the contributions of others. The chance of getting back from these sources double the sum that he pays in, and getting it soon, is the prize which lures him to make the payments."

But that was a completely false description of what Fitzsimmons' patrons believed. Fitzsimmons did not advertise his certificates as lottery tickets but as guarantees to pay their owners $2 for every $1 they put in. The Cumulative Credit Company preyed upon "those of little means and less business acumen," according to the front page of the Los Angeles Evening Express of 1907-11-18. His patrons did not "know full well that no increment is to be earned by his money" - they were clueless and desperate, in need of the financial salvation Fitzsimmons promised them. Some continued to give money to Fitzsimmons even after the Cumulative Credit Company was put out of business in Los Angeles, apparently not being close readers of the newspapers. They were suckers, not gamblers prepared to lose.

On August 24th, 1905, the Los Angeles Times told the story of G.W. Packer, a sober, dedicated, middle-aged carpenter who was driven insane after he lost all his life savings investing in Cumulative Credit. He had hoped for some financial independence in his old age.

Fitzsimmons was a liar and a thief, a proto-Ponzi, not a lottery conductor. 

Laws are strange things. 

When Fitzsimmons heard his appeal had been denied he gave himself up to a United States marshal, paid his $250 fine, and headed to jail for a six-months' stay. He was released from jail on May 20, 1908. 

There is little of news of the great Orlando past 1908. He had a son, Fielder Dwight Fitzsimmons, born unto him in 1912 in Portland. 

In 1914 he was indicted, along with five other men, as the secretary of the National Mercantile company of Vancouver. The charge? Using the mails to promote a lottery. He was described as a resident of Vancouver at the time. 

The last mention of him in a newspaper alive is a article from May 1, 1931, in the Los Angeles Southwest Wave, describing a speech he gave to the Los Angeles Realty board in which he detailed how all the money moldering away in American savings accounts was bogging down the economy. Sounds Keynesian, actually. The newspaper described him as an "author and economic specialist."

In 1940 he copyrighted the phrase "Direct way to business betterment";  it seems like he was keeping busy in his old age. 

He died August 23rd, 1950, in Pala, California. He was 84, an inappropriately ripe old age for such a sinner. Who can ken the world's workings?