Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1877 — THE CHICAGO BANK FAILURE. [ARTICLE]

THE CHICAGO BANK FAILURE.

Scenes in Front of the Bankrupt Institution- The Wrettehed and Beggared Depositors. [From the Chicago Tribune.] The news of the failure of the State Savings Institution took all the depositors by surprise. Nearly all of them had recovered from the July scare, and were firm in the belief that the bank had succ< ssfully weathered the storm, and that their interests were secure. So firm were, they in the faith that some of those who had drawn out small amounts during the scare regretted their action, by which thev had cut off what interest was due on their deposits. There were more careful ones who closed up their accounts during July and August, fearing to run what seemed to them a dangerous risk. But there was that other class, utterly unsuspecting, whose previous doubts and fears had been quieted, and who were living along in fancied security. To them the news of the failure came with all the suddenness and crushing effect of a blow in the dark. Trusting, they had been deceived; and the savings of years, often of a lifetime, scraped together from the results of weary toil, seemed gone forever. Such was the picture they painted to themselves in the first moments of anger, sorrow and disgust following the general spread of the news. Then they began to reflect. Something might be saved from the wreck. Hope, which is said to be the only medicine for wretched souls, began to dawn on their minds. With the feeling of those who would know the worst and build their hopes on the smallest chance, they resolved to visit the place where their little wealth was locked up, and learn on just how slender a thread these hopes might hang. Accordingly, the sidewalk in front of the State Savings Institution presented, as early as 7 o’clock, a scene wholly unusual at such or any other hour. Men and women, boys and girls, some apparently well-to-do, and others with the signs of poverty depicted on their pinched, wan faces, and their mean, well-worn, threadbare garments, were there; some of them modest and sad, more of them brawling and mad. Here was a poor woman who took in washing. In her hand she carried a pass-book wrapped in a dirty handkerchief. With her pass-b ok—the title to wealth stowed away in the vaults—she pressed forward and sought to gain what satisfaction she could out of a fat policeman standing on guard at the door and keeping out all outsiders except those who had keys to the safety-deposit boxes. She didn’t get tne satisfaction she wanted, and had to fall back. Then a man whose clothes seemed to say he had seen better times came up and recited his griefs to those around him. He had managed to save §1,200 in gold, he said, when he was out in California, had put it in that bank, and now it was ail gone. And here were these bank officers going scot free. Why, if he’d, stolen a loaf of bread, he’d been jugged for it. And his voice grew thick, his tones more angry a d excited, and it is more than probable that the tears would have flow ed had not a burly Irishman behind him, in a redchecked flannel shirt, put a damper ou him by singing out: “Oh, you needn’t talk; there’s many poorer n you as has lost every cent they had. We’re all in the same boat.” A newspaper man, as he contemplated the loss of his careful savings, muttered: “ Wouldn’t I like to seek a Sioux Indian, that had been fed ou raw beef about two months, on that 4—d old reprobate Spencer.” “ Wish we had him here,” said a roughlooking workingman, who had overheard a knot of men talk ng about Spencer and his absence in New York, “ we’d fix him on the nearest lamp-post, the thief.” A job-printer on Clark street told the reporter tli.it he and his mother had managed to put away §4,000 for a home, and to keep them during a rainy day. It was all they had, and now they would have to begin over again. Two Irishmen, who had been taking care of gentlemen’s horses down on Wabash avenue, and doing any odd jobs they could get, said they had saved §2,000 between tlu m, and now the savings of twenty-seven years were all cleaned out. An old German walked up to the door and demanded to see the cashier. When informed that that gentleman was not around, the old fellow started out on a fierce tirade against the bank officers, telling the crowd he had been working for years, and had saved up a little money, but now he supposed he’d have to start again. “ Never mind,” said he, “ I’ll be rich in ten years, and it’ll be all right.” In closing his harangue, he sarcastically advised his willing hearers to take a piege of the bank’s doors or the stone walls home with them to feed their wives and children on. At a later hour in the day a little old woman, poorly clad, but of respectable appearance, her features sharp and thin, her eyes snapping fire, and her arms flourishing a very dangerous-looking umbrella, bitterly denounced the bank-officers for what they had brought upon ner. “I had my last dollar in the world here,” she said, “ and those sharks have ruined me. Talk about mobs! Why don’t you mob the rich men’s houses, the castles of those who rob the poor, instead of fighting and killing each other ? Oh, God, is there no mercy, no pity for the poor ? Must we grow poorer that they may become richer?” There were murmurs in the crowd of ‘ ‘ You’re right, mum,” but, for the most part, the losers and the curiosity-mongers looked stolidly on, realizing that denunciation would do no good, and that the only thing to do was to wait and see what the assignee could get out ofjhe wreck. There were a great many sad sights to be seen in the vicinity of the doors, and a great many sad stories heard among these woe-begone depositors. There are few more piteous sights in life than that of some aged and infirm creature who, after years of sore toil and privation to hoard up enough to smooth his way to the grave, suddenly finds the prop knocked from under him. Not a few such sorry spectacles were witnessed yesterday. One old couple came up whose case excited general sympathy. They were a pair of aged brothers, who have for years past bean earning a scanty pittance by doing chores, running messages and the like for families along Wabash and Michigan avenues. By dint of keeping down expenses next to nothing, they had managed in the course of several years to scrape together between them about §2,000. The look of blank misery and utter helplessness they showed was enough to melt a heart of stone. And this was only one of numerous incidents of a similar character which came to light. Most of those who were seen at the bank were poor working people, young and old, who have the winter before them and no work in prospect to keep the fire burning. A considerable number of colored folks were among the groups, and they appealed to accept the situation with more cheerfulness than any of the others. They were anxious to find • ut just what kind of a dividend was to be doled out to them, and, when quietly assured by some gloomy brother that they need hope for nothing, they wQnld walk off with the remark that

they would take care and not get bitten again. These are only a few instances out of many which could be furnished to show that the failure fell heaviest on the poorest and least-suspecting class.