Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1910 — TAX SUIT TO BE PUSHED. [ARTICLE]

TAX SUIT TO BE PUSHED.

Commssioners Listen to Inside History of Ambia Bank Failure and Deny Petition. Logansport. Ind., Nov. 23. Light was thrown on the starting of the defunct Baldwin & Dague Bank at Ambia. Ind., when William Randall. nephew of the late Judge Daniel P. Baldwin and cashier of the old bank, appeared on the witness stand yesterday in the Baldwin tax case, which was before the board of county commissioners. Attorneys for the estate were endeavoring to have the county commissioners wipe from the tax dup’icate the 536.000 of alleged unpaid taxes, suit for the recov- y of which is now pending in the l ass circuit court. Mr. Randall, who is cashier of the reorganized Ambia bank, was called as a witness for the estate. He said that Daniel P. Baldwin and William H. Dague never put a dollar of their money into the Ambia bank; that business was done simply on the deposits, and that whenever a demand was made and he did not have funds with which to meet it, he called on Judge Baldwin and the needed amount was borrowed. Mr. Randall said that at no time from 1897 until the time the bank was dosed, in 190/, along with Baldwin-Dague banks at Goodland and Fowler, was the Ambia bank solvent, and asserted that had Judge Baldwin withdrawn the bor-owed money which he had put into it, there would not have been enough left to pay depositors. Much of the money was sunk by Baldwin and Dague in Arkansas timber land. The testimony of, other witnesses shows teat Judge Baldwin ran his bank-, on ttte “borrow from Peter to pay Paul” basis, and that while he was supposed to be a man of much wealth, in reality, he was poor. While he dealt in big projects, he was always borrowing money to finance them and his debts generally equalled the value of his assets. The commissioners decided against the petitioners and ordered the county attorney to proceed with the suit in the circuit court. v