The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-04-22

rest, Will Lu6 Qusb VI uldly Va ulo lOl ueI
comrades, in Greenwood Cemetery.
The brilliant record OF Hays. brigade
will show no name more fit to adorn the
niche of fame than that of Lieut.. Charles
Hatch Pierce.
The Freedmen and Their Savings.
Hon. M. P. O'Connor, of South Caro-.
lima, and Hon. E. John Ellis, of Louisi-
ana, have prepared aud submitted a bill
to Congress looking to a return to the
freedmen of the South of their savings
deposited in the Freedman's Savings
and Trust Company. The bill recites
certain facts and conveys such intelli
gence as cannot but prove important to
all concerned. Everything is done by
this bill to reimburse the freedmen and
to protect them against fraud in securing
their claims.
In connection with the bill, Messrs.
O'Connor and Ellis recite some facts in
the history of the Bank, which are worth
repeating. The Freedman's Bank was
incorporated by act of Congress in 1865
and collapsed in 1874. The original de-
sign was benefcent one but it was hor-
ribly and abominably perverted. At the
time of its establishment, the freedmen
were just emerging from slavery, and,
weak and dependent, they were easily
persuaded to favor anything that bore
upon its face the symbols of United
States protection and authority. 1t is
certain that the agents Of the Bank rep.
resented to the freedmen that the Gov
ernment had established the ".Freedman's
Savings and Trust Company" solely in
their interest, and for the purpose of
protecting and defending their material
rights. It was held out to the freedmen
that the Government was responsible
for whatever deposits might be made
with the company; indeed, on many of
the pass books which were issued to the
depositors it was plainly printed that the
Government was responsible for the de-
posits. Besides this, on the covers of
these same pass.books were pictures of
the well-known faces of Abraham Lin
coin, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley,
o. O. Howard, VIM. Cullen Bryant, and
others who had been the most prominent
and avowed champions of The rights and
interests of the freedmen.
Trusting blindly to these promises and
inducements the freedmen of the South
posted, from 1866 to 1874 the sum of
S57, ,9l5, ,857.73.
Soon after the act of incorporation the
principal Office was established at New
York. There was no provision for branch
banks. There was one bulwark in the
charter against peculation and fraud, as
follows:
"SEcr1oN 5. Be it further enacted that
the general business and objects of the
corporation hereby created, shall be to re-
ceive on deposit such sums of money as
may from time to time be offered thereto
by or on behalf of persons hitherto held
in slavery in the United States and in
vesting the same in stocks, bonds, Treasury
notes or other securities Of the United
States"
An adherence to this provision would
have made deposits safe. But in 1869
the principal Office was removed from
New York to Washington and reign of
speculation, amounting to insanity, be-
gan. To get at the Government securi
ties of the bank an act was hurried
through Congress, on May 9Th, 1870,
which provided that the deposits of the
company instead of being invested in the
safe securities of the United States should
be loaned upon real estate. This received
the approval oft the President, and was the
death blow to the concern. Valueless
real estate and wildcat stocks were ex-
changed for the hard earned cash of the
freedmen, in way that is monstrous to
contemplate. A more barefaced and
shameless swindle never was perpetrated
upon so defenseless and confding peo-
pie.
No immediate notice was taken by
Congress, but repeated exposures of the
concern by the press at last shamed the
National Legislature into an attempt at
remedy, in 1875. 1t was too late.
The actual loss of the company, when
it suspended, was about 81 1858, ,981 ,39.
It is probable that $5O0,01O of this
sum is due to white depositors. The OBJ.
iect of the bill is to indemnify only freed
men. About s., ,ooO,o 900 would refund the
present total loss.
The payment of this sum is based upon
the responsibility of the Government for
the creation of the bank; that the Gov
ernment assumed toward the freedmen
in 1865 the position of guardian that
Congress was responsible for the litigation
that ruined the Bank; that an attempt
at remedy was tardy; and that after the
charter was 30 amended and the carnival
of wrong and plunder began, and contin-
ued in manner 80 open, shameful, and
glaring as to attract the attention and
challenge the criticism of the newspaper
press and public, and that, too, right in
the capital of the nation and Immediate
ly under the eye of Congress, it failed to
notice or 10 attempt to save the company,
and never even ordered an investigation
until 1876, more than two years after
the failure occurred. Congress carelessly
turned over the company to an army of
well-salaried and useless com mmissioners,
clerks, attorneys, and messengers, who,
like vultures, for six years past have been
fatteuiDg upon the carcass OF the iDsti-
tuition, and who in these siI years, in
the shape of salaries and expenses, have
eaten up more than s240, 900 of the de-
posts of the plundered freedmen.
The legal argument supporting these
propositions is absolutely irresistible, and
ine1orably leads the Committee to con.
clude that "the Government should in
demnify the freedmen depositors for the
losses they have sustained in the failure
of the "Freedman's Savings and Trust
Company" and they therefore report
the substitute for II. R. No. 499 and No.
2500, with the recommendation that the
same be passed"
There is a mass of evidence fortifying
the positions taken by the Committee,
whose report has been SO ably prepared
by Messrs. O'Connor and Ellis. We do
not see how the Congress of the United