Adolph Spreckels had decided to kill the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The year was 1884, and the 27-year-old Spreckels wanted revenge over an article the Chronicle had published about his familys company, the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company. Spreckels father was known as the Sugar King because hed grown rich by monopolizing the sugar trade between Hawaii and the West Coast. The Chronicle regularly denounced the Spreckels monopoly, and a recent article charged that the company was insolvent and that Spreckels and his father had misled and defrauded shareholders.
Dont make a fool of yourself, a friend counseled as Spreckels followed Mike de Young, the editor-in-chief…
Read the full article at: https://priceonomics.com/how-the-original-sugar-daddy-got-away-with-murder/
