Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1905 — NERVE OF INSOLVENT BANKERS [ARTICLE]

NERVE OF INSOLVENT BANKERS

People Who Have Proved Recreant To the Trust Imposed In Them and Kept Their Nerve Right Up to the Hour of Exposure.

W. H. Blodgett, special correspondent of an Indianapolis paper, writing from Elkhart regarding the feeling there towards the “busted” bankers who are now serving time in the government prison at Leavenworth, Kan., has the following interesting reading about the nerve of bankers who have proven treacherous to the trust the public had placed in them and went on with the work of relieving people of their money with hypocritical smile and cant up to the very hour of the crash that carried sorrow desolation and financial ruin to the homes of thousands: The people of Elkart are not anxious to have Walter Brown released from the Federal prison at Ft. Leavenworth, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding. The fact is that his attorneys oply are making efforts to secure his pardon. The same feeling exists toward Broderick, but since the day Collins was arrested the sympathy that was expressed for him has grown. Of all the bank wreckers who caused so much suffering in this community the only one believed to have been punished enough is Collins. He was the “weak brother” of the combination was a mere tool. Before the bank examiners notified the authorities at Washington that Collins ought to be removed as cashier of the Elkhart National Bank, they informed Collins of their intended report. Collins meekly consented to resign, and would have done so had not Broderick wrote to comptroller telling him that Collins would resign as soon as a suitable man could be found to succeed him. Broderick continued these letters to the department and held Collins in the position of cashier until the crash came. The result was that the trio went to the penitentiary. “Talk about men with nerve,” said a government officer who is here making a quiet examination of matters connected with the broken bank, “the chaps who wreck banks or who rob them while in official positions have more nerve than the holdup men the safe blowers. In the ‘yellowback’ romances, the man with the nerve is the the man quick with the pistol, but the real nervy man, in my estimation, is the banker, who robs under the cloak of business. Take Broderick and Brown, for instance. They knew for years what was coming, but they bluffed the thing through, though they knew the settlement day would be disastrous for them. Collins, of course, weakened at the start and gave the Government a good deal of information that was of great to the officers. “There have been a good many cold people in the banking business,” continued the Government officer,” but Cyrus E. McCrady, cashier of the bank at Seymour, was about as chilly a proposition as I ever knew. He was prominent in church circles, was a teacher .in the Sunday-school, acted as guardian for a number of wards, and was the administrator of numerous estates. In fact, he was a man in whom every one had confidence and to whom all went with their troubles. “The pastor of his church used to visit him frequently in his office, and one day when the pastor was sitting beside McCrady’s desk chatting with him, the president of the bank walked in with a newspaper giving an account of a defalcation in another State. The defaulter was just such a man as McCrady. ‘That description fits you exactly,’ laughed the bank president. McCrady read the article, handed it over to the minister, who also read it, and then the three laughed, aud McCrady said he wondered how that man felt, with the constant fear of exposure before bim. He was as cool aud unconcerned as a cake of ice, and at that very moment he was short in his accounts with the bank and knew that exposure was only a few weeks away at the most. And that is not all. Only a few hoars before his defalcation became knowrt, McCrady was told of the wrongdoings of the cashier of a Newark (0.,) bank, and remarked that the Ohio banker ought to have had more sense than to get

into such trouble—that the only way was the honest way. A few days later an examination was made of the books of the Bedford National Bank. The examiner before beginning his work, had a social chat with Albert O. Parker, who was the bookkeeper of the bank. In the course of this talk he had told him of the wonderful nerve displayed by McCrady at Seymour. "That man Burely must be a wonder,’ remarked Parker. ‘I could not do that way. If there was anything wrong with my books I would show it at once. ! How do you suppose McCrady i felt when they were going over his books. I would not have such an experience as that for anything,’ and Parker chatted along i about men with nerve and how defaulters could face the public for years and never give a sign of weakening. Well, the examiner had not been at work long until he found that Parker’s books were wrong, and when he charged him j with crookedness, the bookkeeper laughed and admitted it, saying that he would save the examiner the trouble of going over them all and would show him how much he was short. The remarkable thing about these two nervy men wa3 that they went to the penitentiary together, and are still there as fellow convicts. “Another man of nerve was Dickie Davis, of Washington, Daviess county, who will finish his term next September. Evejy one in Washington knew that he was a gambler, and had lost large sums of money, but no one ever suspected that he was using the bank’s funds. After a night in the gambling house he would be at his window in the bank, bright and cheerful, greeting everyone with a smile of confidence, and there was nothing in his actions or demeanor to lead ono to suspect that he had frittered away thousands of the bank’s money the night before. He was spoken of as a nervy gambler. I do not think he displayed nearly as much nerve as a gambler as he did as a defaulting bank cashier. He played in desperation and with the infatuation of a man who does not care what comes to him, like the man who draws the opium that is certain death to him. I think he' displayed his nerve when he kept his reckless manner of stealing from the public, and when his face was able to deceive the officers of the bank. Talk about the nerve of the oldtime Western ‘bad man,’ it was nothing compared with the nerve of Dickie Davis. “Johnny Johnson, of Logansport, was another nervy man. When his bank, in which the poor people of Cass county had the utmost confidence, went under, Johnson quietly explained that the failure was caused by his inability to pay off his father’s debts. But the work of the bank examiner proved that this was not the case, and then it cam,e out that all the time he was supposed to be an honest, business man he was gambling in the Chicago wheat pit, and when Judge Baker sentenced him for ten years his face never even changed color. It took nerve to live among the people of Logansport and wear the mask he did. Now, Wood, of the Matthews bank, was a quitter. He weakened at the start and displayed no nerve at any time.” “Who do you consider the nerviest defaulter of them all?” Was asked the Government officer, whose business it is to protect certain banking associations. “You refer, of course to Indiana. The nerviest man I ever came across was the chap who started the bank at Andrews, Ind., on a cash capital of 36 cents and skinned the people oat of almost that many thousand dollars. And he would have got away, too, if he had not got drunk and missed his train. He is serving time in Michigan City prison and will soon be free. I suppose when he gets oat he will start another bank somewhere. H 6 surely has the nerve to do so.”

Full line of Carpets, in ingrains velvets, axminster and wiltons, at Rowles & Parker’s.