Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1917 — A Word of Praise For The Late Fred Gilman. [ARTICLE]

A Word of Praise For The Late Fred Gilman.

The following article takfen from the current issue of the Fowler Tribune commenting on the life of the late Fred D. Gilman, pays honor and tribute to him—something that he never received from the majority during the last years of his life. Mr. Gilman was well known here and the article as it appeared in the Tribune may prove of interest: “Fred D. Gilman died at his home Sunday night and his funeral was held Tuesday. A few years ago Gilman’s name was heralded about this section of the state until it was a household word. He owned and operated the Home Bank there and after a pyrotechnical career of several years, failed for $240,000. “The prince to whom all had done homage was a financial pauper to whom none did reverence. The men who had trusted to the integrity of his business and lickspittle who profited by his prodigal methods of business, condemned him. The Christianly admonition of charity had no lodgement in their hearts of either the loser or the gainer. Bitter censure prevailed everywhere; from the honest loser, because he felt that his confidence had been betrayed; from the ingrate who had fattened at the crib of plenty, because the supply had ceased, or for the reason that it was ‘popular’ to travel with the hounds. And, yet, those people themselves were to blame -for the failure of the Home Bank. “We lived for thirty-five years in the community where this man-lived and died, and where he started out with one of the most promising futures of any young man in the country. Col. S. C. Spoor, father of the writer’s wife, was then in the banking business at Goodland; he called Fred Gilman into the bank from the farm and made him assistant cashier. Fred had “ ability, character and integrity and the people liked him. He was accommodating and accurate and earned the confidence of both employer and • public. Then Mr. Spoor, whose long residence, careful methods and personal integrity, made competition undesirable, sold the bank to other parties, who still kept Fred Gilman as cashier, and the fact that it retained its patronage intact was owing to Gilman’s popularity and the confidence of the people in his ability to care for their moiiey and investments.

Then Mr. Gilman’s friends determined that he should have a bank of his own. He had a few hundred dollars saved up from his salary, but not sufficient capital to start a bank, even as banks were started those days. Then ten men, possessing property and credit, signed a note with him for ten thousand dollars, and the Home Bank so Goodland was launched. From the start its success was phenomenal; and in one day nearly forty thousand dollars was withdrawn from other places of security and placed in the Home Bank. “But this evidence of prosperity made fools of the very men who expected to profit by Gilman’s success. They became to believe Fred was invincible; that he was the acme of everything that was financially safe and good in the communi y. Good men worth $50,000 to SIOO,O j 0 living in the community, got so they would drop into the Home Bank, lay down four or five thousand dollars on the cashier’s desk, ask Fred Gilman to buy some notes or other securities, and go home with the conviction that Fred, like Caesar, could do no wrong, and all would be well. “And now some of these same men are condemning him after the first debt has been paid, because their expectations were not realized. Why" “When all men kowtow to you, ambition knows no limit. To Fred, aspirations, like those of Alexander when he wlked the avenues of Babylon, soared byond his environments. Other people had confidence in him, why should he not extend his confidence to others? And he did; b*g business concerns were kept up with capital from his bank; they failed to reach expectations and more was added in the hope of saving the original; this failed, and the finale. “We had nothing in common with Fred Gilman in his days of prosperity; in fact, we were anything but friends, and this is, therefore, no biased comment actuated by friendly interest. It is the truth as an intelligent man must see it. Now that he has paid his last great debt that he owed humanity, we remember Fred Gilman as he stepped int othe arena unknown and untried, into the business world of that community. Young, the bloom of health upon his cheeks and his keen, black eyes alert with ambitious hopes and evident purpose to follow the j-ignt, he represented all that could be hoped for from the best aspiring youths of our land. Yet the forcing upon him of too much responsibility, of the exercise of too much lachrymose sentimentality instead of safe business methods, brought about the inevitable results. , “And neither the fault or all the responsibility is all buried m the grave of Fred Gilman.”