Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1918 — A “BLUE SKY” LAW IS NEEDED [ARTICLE]

A “BLUE SKY” LAW IS NEEDED

Indiana the slumping Ground of Questionable Skinners. Indianapolis, May 17.—“ Blessed Illinois; Unlucky Indiana,” was the heading of an editorial which recently appeared in one of the leading financial journals of the country. That is just the feeling that has animated the Better Business Bureau of the Indianapolis Advertisers club and the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, which has headquarters in this city, in strongly advocating the passage, at the next session of the Indiana legislature, of a “blue sky” law. Illinois has such a law, whi?h has just begun to operate, with the I result that Indiana, one of the few states of this general section of the country that does not have such legislation, is becoming the mec;a for sellers of “blue sky” stocks who cannot get licenses in Illinois. A number of promoters who are selling stocks which cannot be approved by the Illinois “blue sky” department are opening offices in northern Indiana cities, and some of them are moving to other cities in the state. The northern cities are especially attractive to them because their -homes are in Chicago, and they can go back and forth to their offices across the state line. “Unless Indiana does pass some law* on this subject,” said David Porterfield, secretary of the Better Business Bureau (the truth in advertising movement), “this stat J will become the dumping ground for all sorts of fraudulent schemes, for such legislation is being enacted in adjoining states.’’