Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1894 — NEVER INDORSE ANY MORE. [ARTICLE]

NEVER INDORSE ANY MORE.

Mr. Depew Has Forty Thousand or More Reasons Why. New York Sun. Chauncey M. Depew has been associated all his life, from the very day he left Yale College, with rich men. He was one of Commodore Vanderbilt’s “boys,” and has been the intimate of the Commodore’s sonsThe Garretts, the Scotts? the Morgans and the kings of all the railroad and banking world for twenty years and more have been among Mr. Depew’s friends. AH these gentlemen have been tackled by the fellows who are proverbially “short." There is a class of borrowers who want to exchange checks—that is the borrower wants the cheek of a sound man to use immediately. and in return gives a check dated ten or more days ahead, when he expects that his own bank account will be rich enough to meet it. There is in this fraternity a set of downright swindlers, whose checks are returned with that exasperating stamp, “no funds." As Solomon said: “My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with astranger,thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.”

Solomon evidently knew something about “handshakers.” Mr. Depew has come to some conclusions also, and here they are: “Never indorse an accomodation note. If you wish to help your friend, make up you mind how much you can afford to lose and lend him that. He will consider seriously the payment of this money, while your name on his paper will not receive a second thought. If his venture is a failure and your money is gone, you will not be greatly disappointed and your compensation will be an approving conscience and the satisfaction of having done the best you could for one whose appreciation of your effort you value. But your endorsement he reyarls as a mere formality. He believes in himself and has great contempt for your fears. At each renewal of the note he will want the amount increased, or an additional note, on the plea of increasing business or opportunities. When you have become frightened at the sum for which he has made you responsible, and find that you must stop or be ruined, he will say that unless you aid him further he will be forced into bankruptcy and you will be the cause. When he fails, as he inevitably will, you find that the money raised on your notes has paid enemies and strangers who insisted on his dealing with them on business principles, and that you are his largest and perhaps sole creditor. You are crippled financially for a time, and perhaps for life, by meeting the maturing obligations which you have indorsed, and your former friend, now your bitter foe. is loudly proclaiming in his own justification that you are the author of his ruin. The result of your excursion in the caFeless lending of your name will be that you have lost both friend and fortune, and have discovered, perhaps too late, that you are a fool. I have had in greater or less degree several such experiences." It is said on good authority that Dr. Depew lost 140.000 last year by indorsing notes. He will never do it again, he says.