MAN WHO COOKED
UP SHELBY PLOT
STRANDED THERE
Sampson, For One, Is Paying
Price Of Midsummer Mad
ness Of Montanans
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
( LmbcI Wire to The Aure-Herald)
MINOT, N. DAK., ON BOARD OR
IENTAL LIMITED, July 6.—As
Tommy Gibbons rolls across the
northern prairies in the luxury of a
private bungalow on wheels ac
claimed like a president at every stop,
the man who first provoked Shelby's
midsummer madness remains behind
stranded in the appalling wreckage
of a boom town that backfired. Lyman
Sampson of Pipestone, Minn., was
the man with the original idea. Last
February .8 he sent the telegram
to Jack Kearns in New York offering
$200,000 for a fight. A friend in
Shelby had asked him what was the
best way to get Shelby into print and
to call attention to the possibilities
of oil there. Sampson replied by
wire, prepaid, that the orthodox way
to achieve that result for a small
town was to offer a lot of money
to a champion; the cost, he pointed
out, would be no strain on the treas
ury of the smallest community, being
no more than the price of a telegram
to Kearns in New York. Sampson
was authorized to make the offer,
and he then wired Kearns, prepaying
the message.
These two telegrams, the one to
the friend in Shelby and the second
to Kearns in New York, were the
first expenditures of an account
which finally ran up to $1,600. Samp
son took part in the early negotia
tions, paying his own railway f®-re
and other expenses, being assured
that he would be given a share of
the profits, if any, and that in any
case hU expenditures would be re
funded.
O O O
Sampson Sidetracked.
