Moore, Mrs. B.; Letter to Directors Withdrawing Aid
RID OF KEELY AT LAST
HIS GREATEST BENEFACTOR WASHES HER HANDS OF THE “INVENTOR.”
PHILADELPHIA, DEC. 17, 1890. - Mrs. Bloomfield Moore of 510 South Broad Street to-day sent a letter to the Board of Directors of the Keely Motor Company. After expressing pleasure in the announcement that Mr. Keely's present position was such that the company has no further need of his assistance, she says:
"It relieves me of the responsibilities which I have so long carried at the cost of placing a barrier between myself and all the members of my family, who did not approve my course in assuming obligations which belonged to the company to fulfill under its contract with Mr. Keely. By referring to "Keely's discoveries" you will find that my engagement with Mr. Keely, made April 12, 1890, to furnish him to the end of his work with funds for his house-hold and shop expenses and for instruments of research, expired when he had gained sufficient control of the unknown force to enable him to resume his work under the direction of the management of the company upon a provisional engine. As this time has arrived, I feel myself to be at liberty to hand over to you all bills that have been presented since the expiration of Mr. Keely's contract with me.
"My legal and material rights were taken from me in 1888 on account of my efforts in 1887 to assist the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company, not because I had rescued Mr. Keely from the deplorable condition in which I found him in the winter of 1881-2 under the management of that company. My family (knowing that this enterprise was built upon possibilities, with no other foundation) felt no sympathy with those who were managing a company the shares of which possessed no commercial value, and they quite naturally feared that my ignorance of business transactions might lead me into becoming one of the victims of this speculative management.
"I am gratified not only that I am relieved of the load that I have carried alone, but to know that I have been able, by the timely aid that I offered last March, to save for the third time the often-jeopardized interests of the long-suffering stockholders, who have unwisely invested in the Keely Motor stock before there was any quid pro quo to make the investment a safe one."
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