Whitaker Wright immigrated to America from England as a young man. His first mining promotion was the Denver City mine in Leadville, Colorado. The silver mine never paid a dividend, but the promoter’s profits made Wright rich.
Lord Dufferin was Wright’s prize guinea pig director. Dufferin capped his distinguished career of public service with the disgrace of helping lure investors into Wright’s fraudulently-run mining companies.
Many of Wright’s mining companies, such as those at Rossland, British Columbia and Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, were genuinely rich, but misrun for stock manipulation purposes.
Wright at his trial for fraud in London.
Wright’s conviction in London led Americans to reflect that the methods of American financiers J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab were much the same as Wright’s.
American cartoonists lamented that Wright’s American counterparts went unpunished.
