Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1912 — Chicago Tribune Gets Alfred Hopkins in Loan Shark Raid. [ARTICLE]

Chicago Tribune Gets Alfred Hopkins in Loan Shark Raid.

The Chicago Tribune, aided by a number of attorneys who volunteerd their services Without charge, has been going after money lenders who charge a usurous rate of interest and in an article Sunday told of an alleged incident that a customer had with Alfred. W.' Hopkins’ agency in Englewood. According to the Tribune a man and his wife bad mortgaged their household goods to the Alfred W. Hopkins & Co. agency ten years ago for $l5O and that the rate of interest charged was 5 per cent per. month. The article shows that toe borrowers kept up the interest for some time but never paid any on the principal, that when they were threatened with foreclosure proceedings they consented to transfer the loan, to the South Side Savings Bank and that it was shifted over and back for several years. Finally there was trouble in the family of the borrowers, toe husband left the wife and she let the interest lapse and in seeking a-method of payment the transaction reached the knowledge of one of the volunteer loan shark attorneys who filed a bill of equity in the Cook county superior court. At the time of the action the loan was not in Mr. Hopkins’ company but with the South Side Savings Bank. The Tribune to.trying to secure toe passage of state* legislation that will make it impossible for loan agencies to conduct their’ ü btrsinesßeß along the present grasping ihethod.