Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1920 — MCCRAY A BROKER AND NOT A FARMER [ARTICLE]

MCCRAY A BROKER AND NOT A FARMER

Spent Life In Banking and Grain Business and Not In Tilling Soil Say Old Neighbors. Kentland, Oct. 4.—An anomalous note is struck in the Indiana gubernatorial campaign within the borders of Newton county where, Warren T. McCray, the Republican nominee, is best known by virtue of his long residence. McCray and his managers and the Republican state committee have asidiously cultivated the- idea that he is a farmer, a “dirt farmer.’’ in fact the nominee himself has capitalized his agricultural talents almost to the exclusion of all other qualifiicatlons that he might possess. Here, however, where he is personally known to almost every man, woman and child, his chief fame lies, not in the fact that he owns a big stock farm, but in the general knowledge that he has amassed a fortune through connection with a brokerage firm that deals in grain futures on the Chicago board of; trade. Mr. McCray is not a farmer, 'nor has he lived on a farm since his i early youth. He is a banker, a 1 grain dealer and a stock broker. According to his friends in Kentland he “never followed a plow in his life,” and they express great i surprise that there is a prevalent notion in Indiana that he is a “farmer candidate.” “You had better refer to him as the “board of trade candidate,” these people say, “for that is his real profession. I Mr. McCray has lived in Kentland since early in his youth and before 'he was 19 years old conducted a grocery store there. He early become Identified with the grain business and the rich productiveness of this country enabled him to prosper. , Became Bank President Following the death of his father he took the presidency of the Dis- 1 count and Deposit bank of Kentland and has maintained offices in the, bank building for years. - | At one time he controlled several elevators in this county, although it is said he has disposed of his grain interests within the last year or so, with the exception of his connection with the board of trade. Mr. McCray owns 891 acres of land in his Orchard Lake stock ( farm and has an expert manager in charge of the farm and the pedigreed cattle raised tliere. The farm Is several miles from Kentland. The assessment sheet in the county auditor’s office shows that Mr. Mc-

Cray’s residential connections with the farm are very remote. He listed at the farm, which is in Grant township, six beds and bedding and 12 rocking and other chairs, valuing them all at $45. At his residence in Kentland, however, he paid taxes on household furniture valued at SBOO. Billiard Table Is Listed Among the interesting articles listed on his personal sheet in Kentland, Mr. McCray gave In a billiard table valued at S7O. He -also listed S3OO worth of diamonds and-jewelry and gave $1,840 as the amount of cash he had on hand Meh. 1, 1919. He gave in for assessment 2% automobiles, valued at S9OO. A notation in handwriting in connection with the automobiles reads: “% rs Buick to sister.” The total of h > personalassessment Ur Kentland it $4,320. ' , ■ In this connection it is interesting to note that while the total assessment of personal property on his farm is given as $120,325, the amount of insurance carried there is $150.000-. '