Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1908 — TRUE STORY OF BANK’S FAILURE [ARTICLE]

TRUE STORY OF BANK’S FAILURE

Bad Loans, Faulty Investments, and High Interest Rates Combine to. Wreck the Institution. NO MONEY SQUANDERED Nr. Parker Answered All Question?' Put to Him Without Hesitation [Giving Detailed Account of the Failed Business. The Republican editor found Pobert Parker perfectly willing to talk of the Remington Bank failure and he unhesitatingly related the struggles he had experienced in keeping the bank running for the past three or four years, or since the McCoy lailure. “If I had squandered the money or used it up in extravagant living,” said Mr. Parker, “I should feel that my course in continuing the bank during the last few years was not justified, but both my family and myself have been economical and we have struggled to recuperate the losses sustained in unfortunate business investments, but the tide was too stong and I was finally compelled to give up hope and the last few weeks it was very certain that the end was near at hand.” Mr. Parker’s financial losses date back to the years that he backed the Hartley Bros, in the grain business, William Shepherd, in the grocery business, and other unsuc cessful business men. From these sources he sustained in round numbers the following losses: Hartley Bra®., $15,000, '2 William Shepherd, $7,500, Tom Mullen* $6,000, P. E. Carson, $5,000, J. H. Tribby, $2,500. .. And there were many others smaller losses resulting from misplaced confidence, and many of these men have left Remington honored and respected. All of $50,000 was thus sustained and as the money that was left was money that Mr. Parker was paying 5 per cent on, the loss did not end with their failure to repay him, but he has been carrying this burden of interest ever since. Within the last five or six years the bank has paid out in'interest [520,000 more than it has taken in from money loaned. Seeing shat these things were placing 'him in a bad way Mr. Parker sought inves|£Sentß that would make back He was induced to buy the Texas rice landsjand after the proposition had been thoroly investigated by himself and other reputable and cautious business men from Remington who thought they saw a fortune in the investment he put considerable money [into this in vestment. While the money invested was’not lost, the expense of farming the land; by the methods they undertook was another drain on the funds of the bank. Some mining stock and some oil stock was recommended to him, and he sent reliable parties to investigate the propertiesl and they brought back glowing accounts of the hidden wealth an# he invested several thousand dollars in these stocks, not as a wild speculative chance but after the most careful and thoro investigation* They went wreng, and again'he lost what was invested. TThea he with other parties helped, I the inventor*. Ruetenberg build "automobile engine and thejbusinees of its manufacture looked so promising that a great

amount of cash was put into this. The business succeeded but the plant constantly had to be enlarged • to meet the increasing demands and no revenue was withdrawn from the business. Mr. Parker said that for twelve months business the plant, now under the name of the Western Motor Company, made $60,000 for the stockholders, and he had one-flfth of the stock. But this was not to item the

tide even had it been in cash but it was replaced into the business. Sfe Parker built his house in Remington«in 1894, and it cost about $8,500. r lt has never been elaborately furnished and there has been nothing in the Parker family way of living that has been extravagant. Among the depositors in the bank were two widowed sisters of Mr. Parker, one having $2,100 and the other S4OO on deposit, and his Arise and crippled daughter and his little granddaughter all had small deposits there, but he <jid not prefer these. He talked freely of the matter of prefering public funds depositors, and said he did It after mature consideration, because of the harships it would cause to the general public and to the men who had not entrusted their own money to his keeping. He preferred the Remington public school fundslbecause he did not want the schools to be closed. Mr. Parker owned nine tenths of the stock of the bank at Kouts, but he did not draw money out of that bank and he did not draw money out of the Remington First National Bank in an effort to keep his private bank ou its feet. The bank failed because of bad" loans, bad investments, excessive rates of interest paid, and while Mr. Parker'has been solely responsible for the failure he has undoubtedly struggled earnestly from the time he first found that he was insolvent to recover, and now he has done everything in his power to atone for the loss those who trusted him have sustained, by deeding all his property to the examiner in trust for the debts."" Mr. Parker realizes that he will be prosecuted, and he regrets it exceedingly, and will, no doubt, do all that he can do to keep from being sentenced, and he has hired Fpl|g & Spitler, of Rensselaer, and Truman F. Palmer, of Monti cello, to defend him in whatever criminal proceedings are brought. The Re publican is reliably informed that he has no means whatever] with which to pay his lawyers, -but that friends are advising him out of sympathy aud that money will be raised by them to pay for his defense. Among other things that Mr. Parker discussed was the Fountain Park affairs. He said, no careful account had been kept of that institution, but he believes the losses had not been more than SIO,OOO or $12,000, and some of this sum was in ground improvements. It develops that Trustee Albert Fell, of Carpenter tp., and Trustee Gilbert, of Gilboa, did not have nearly so much money deposited as has been published, the former having only about S3OO and the latter only S2OO. This was good news to Mr. Fell’s many friends in Rensselaer. The first official meeting of the creditors will be Leld on Saturday, Jan. 18, at 10 o’clock, a. m., in the Bank of Remington building and notice from Referee Bowers is published iu this issue of the SemiWeekly Republican.