New-York tribune., 1874-12-17
TIE FREEDNEN'S TRUST.

At the close of tho war savings bank was
established in Washington expressly for the
freedmen. 1t was not like other banking in
stitutions, q mere financial venture for the
profit of its shareholders, but a philanthropic
impulse directed its foundation and was long
srpposed to preside over its management.
Good men in the Republican party believed
that they could teach the liberated slave habits
of industry and thrift by persuading him to
intrust his savings to the care OF his best
friends, and that while he might suspect the
honesty of the ordinary savings banks in the
Southern cities, managed by the men who had
been in the habit of apprOpriating all his earn
ings to their own use, he would have unlim-
tied confidence in an institution sanctioned
and, so to speak, supervised by the National
Government. This expectation proved to be
well founded. The Freedmcn's Savings and
Trust Company soon had branches in all parts
of the South, and the deposits of the poor
negroes reached the aggregate of several mil
lions of dollars.
For number of years the business seems
to have been honestly conducted, but at last
the taint of fraud which has blighted every
thing in Washington in these latter days of
Republican administration, fell upon the Freed
mems Trust also, and the petty savings of
Uncle Tom and Aunt Dinah went to swell the
plethoric pockets and furnish forth the supper
tables of O gang of the most vulgar rogues
the National Capital has ever seem Of course
the money was not stolen; thieves do not
steal now; it was merely loaned on worthless
securities or on none at all; and when the
final explosion came and the Bank closed its
doors, a score of tho agents and hangers-on
of the great Ring were found to be in
its debt. We published last April the
same catalogue of the "assets" of the
bank which the Commissioners have just trans
mitted to Congress- and 1t would seem that
there was hardly q rascally scheme or wild
speculation in the District of Columbia which
did not obtain share Of this trust money.
The Finance Committee OF the Bank were
Henry ID. Cooke Chen Governor of the Dis
tricD; William s. Huntington, the great de-
pository of the Ring secrets; Lewis Clephane; I;
and L. X. Tuttle. Mr.. Cooke ought to have
known the value OF District securities, and yet
large sums of money were advanced to the
Ring contractors on the deprecated GER
tifcates of indebtedness of the Board of
Works. Shares in the notorious Seneca
Sandstone Company were fOisted upon the
Bank, and to cover up this transaction fict-
tous loan was made to John o. Evans and
Hallet kilbOurn. The well known j. Is. Stewart
got S3,2jO on certain bonds of the Union
Pacific Railroad Company of which the own
ership is disputed. j. f. Brooks obtained
$1,000 upon the stock of that purely visionary
concern the international Steamship Company
Attorney General Williams borrowed $4,000
on land which is said to be worth about one
third of that sum, being included in one of
the famous real estate speculatiOns of which
Kilbourn and Latta were the agents. Every
doubtful or dishonest scheme in the District
seems to have depended upon the Freedmen's
Savings and Trust Company for help. How