Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 156, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1912 — Parker and Bader Cases Not Parallels. [ARTICLE]

Parker and Bader Cases Not Parallels.

There is nothing similar about the cases of Robert Parker and Clinton L Bader. Parker ran a private bank, employed every means .? to deceive thole with whom he did business into making them think his institution was solvent and himself honest. Made false reports of the condition of the bank’s affairs to the auditor of state, altered the books of the bank to deceive Inspectors, gave depository building and loan certificates instead of deposit slips, defrauded old people out of their last penny and succeeded in getting away with SIOO,OOO or more. He was paroled at the end of a year and went to California to join his wife and married daughter and possibly to live easily on the money stolen from those who had trusted him. There were none associated with him in the crime. He worked single handed. Bader was a member of a company. He could not have been guilty alone. Others in his company must have known that the bridges did net comply with the specifications. He shared in whatever illgotten profit there was only as a member of the company, the other partners of which went unpunished. At most the county did not lose SI,OOO on him. He’is a bankrupt. His business has failed. His children and his invalid wife need his companionship and whatever income he can make. His prosecution was caused at first by a member of a rival bridge company, who was disappointed because his company was shut out of a

lot of fat profits in this county. He has suffered much more by his incarceration for his crime than did Robert Parker or Tom McCoy for having stolen a hundred fold of what Bader did. His further imprisonment will not strengthen the lesson of hon,esty in the fulfillment of contracts. He is, so far as we have knowledge, the only man convicted in Indiana of fraud in public contracts, when doubtless there have been numerous cases much worse. 1 -

The Republican has always believed that many of the bridges built in Jasper county were built on a “pooled” plan. The prices were much higher

before’ Bader’s company~~entefed the' field. Bader was outside the crowd that had secured the business before he filed his first bid. He was a thorn in their sides. They missed their big profits. They,brought down their, bids. So did he. He finally got the price so low that he could not build the bridges for the money. Then the skimming of specifications began. Wallace Miarshall, of the Lafayette Bridge Co., the prosecuting witness, whose testimony about the bridge measurements was accepted as expert, said that the bridge in question was cheap at the price paid for it.

This discussion ait. this time, however, is scarcely germain to thait of Bader’s parole. The jury found him guilty an'd he was sentenced and has served more than .a year. The board should pardon him without further loss of time and members of the board should pay no attention to the opinion of one man who wants the sentence carried out in full for the purpose of persecution.