Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-04-02
ARCHBISHOP PURCELL.
THE STORY OF A GREAT FINANCIAL
CATASTROPHE.
What Came from Paying Interest-Money
Without Stint Until the Hard Times Ar
rived-Father Edward PurcelPs Novel
Style of Doing Banking Business-Inex-
tricab1e Confusion Worse COMPOUNDED
Three or Four Million Dollars Lost.

oCyA0 VI OO1nS n n0uA1uS A0u0Auc6o-1ucA-
tricable Confusion Worse Confounded-
Three or Four Million Dollars Lost.
A recent Cincinnati letter to New York
paper gives the first clear and Ineligible
account of the financial disaster which has
overtaken the archbishop and his brother,
Edward Purcell. No one for moment
attaches any faint of dishonesty to the
archbishop or his brother, but the case is
as severe, nevertheless. It is some forty-six
years since the archbishop went to Cincin-
natl.
So far as can, at this time, be definitely
ascertained, his financial operations did not
assume any importance until after his broth
er Edward was ordained priest, in 1888.
Up to that time he had been receiving some
deposits that were forced upon him, but had
not made any use of them, and paid no in
terest on them. He simply acted as their
custodian for the benefit of poor persons to
whom they belonged. He was poor then
as poor as any of his flock, almost-for he
had to borrow in the East the means where
with to travel to his bishopric, and, arriving
there, had to ask months of credit for the
simplest necessaries of life. To his honor,
be it ever remembered, that Notwithstanding
/
ingly poured into his hands, there has never
been time since those early days of his
episcopacy when he was not just as poor as
he was then, except that he has been out of
debt.
At first the Rev. Father Edward Purcell
paid no interest but finally he began to pay
4 per cent. and at last per cent. on de-
posits. The payment of 6 per cent. brought
a perfect torrent of money from those who
! thought the church more safe than the
banks. The bishop bought superb site
and erected truly magnificent cathedral
upon it, with a plain but commodious epis-
copal residence in its rear. What the cost
{ was nobody now knows, for Father Edward
simply paid all the bills as they were pre-
sented, kept no accounts, and doesn't re-
member much about that, or indeed about
, anything else. But it could not have been
5 less than half million that was thus ex-
pended here. No needy, struggling congre
7 cation appealed in vain to the
i bishop for aid. Father Edwards money
bag was always open. Up on Mount Adams
where the people were not able to build 8
: church for themselves, the bishop ordered
8 a handsome one for them, and Father Ed
! ward paid its cost. The orphan asylums anC
4 the institutions of the Sisters of Charity
!. and q convent up in Brown county all came
in for liberal shares of the bishops munif
cence through the Father Edward channel
; The bishop was in the position of a chemis
s. engrossed in some important experiment
d who calls upon his assistant to fill certain
vessels with water, and dreams not of inter
rupting his process to inquire whence tn,
II water came.
I Father Edward was all the time doin,
- things that looked like business. He wa
receiving much money, paying interest on i
in very practical seeming way, supplying
y money in any needed amount for any charit
able or religious purpose that met with tn
bishops approval, buying real estate her
and there, in and about the city, often at ap
parently good bargains, and investing none
y in manufacturing and mercantile concerns
/ But, as it now turns out, much of the none
IL he received as deposits went Immediately t.
d pay interest, and when required prin
ipal of previous deposits: the loans al,
gifts made with the bishops approval brough
a. back no returns; the real estate purchased b
1t chung to when offered five times its value TO
v. it-as, for instance, the old United State
bank property-and retained possession Q
until it has deprecated below it's origine
ly cost to him. the business investments wer
made, not to reap profit from already sue
N cessful enterprises, but to save strugglin
I'd firms and individuals from failure.
ut Father Edward accumulated as little {
a this worlds goods as his brother. Much a
Id he received and much as he paid out, non
= stuck to his fingers. He got the same salar
~ y as the other priests attached to the cathedr:
ID and the episcopal residence, $500 year. b
30 had room in tbs episcopal residence, it'll
O. if any, better than the average third-stol
back room of second-rate New York boart
ing house. He pulled through the crisis (
or 1857, and even saved certain banking inst
of tutions that we're threatening collapse, for tt
q people, frightened by the failures all abo1
n. them, rushed to him to deposit their none
er He never troubled himself to keep any boo
he so that he could have had nothing approx
m mating to an accurate idea of what he owe
a: or what was owing to him. Going upo
q the wildly fallacious theory that everyboc
ooee meant honestly, he scarcely more thought
% expecting security from those to whom l
~ lent money than he did of gi
Sc ing security to those who mac
10 deposits with him. When deposit.
"a brought him money he snatched up IL
~ ~ handiest scrap of paper on his desk al
o oo noted down the date, amount, and nam
o os and that scrap was held as the deposition
90 certificate. When such scrap was presen
I'll ed for payment he unquestionably paid: al
40 when it was offered as the evidence of
6S claim for interest, if the party producing
a did not want the money, he just dott,
~ ~ down wherever there was clean spot
AZ the paper the amount of interest DUE VIII
"a more money was deposited he marked
81 down as so much 'tpaid in and when mon
was draw he scrubbed the entry as so mu'
II "paid OUT upon the same scrap of pape
In course of time these entries would con
~ to cover the paper with zigzag, criss-cros
). up-and-down, tangled lines of words a,
; aa- figures in almost inextricable confusio
r .ee His handwriting was very irregular in j
In. degrees of ELIGIBILITY, but at either its be
or worst could easily have been forged, ar
lis he, having neither books nor me1
be DRY, would have paid unhesitat1ngly a forg
on as well.as genuine certificate. 1t is, i
,ti- deed believed that he has Iost considerat
aid 800 =, ,hat NOV Tan raara 900 ,,o.t