Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-09-08
THE BANK BURGLARS UNION.
honest, Hard.wOrking Men whe
Are Suffering Under Heavy
Competition.

/ The last meeting of the Bank Burglars
Amalgamated Benevolent and Protective
Union, says the New York Times, was an
excessively gloomy one, although at
tended by all the more eminent members
of the profession who were not engaged
upon government contracts and unable to
tear themselves away. The pervading
spirit of the gathering seemed to be a
feeling of bitterness engendered by the
present dullness of trade, aggravated by
| the total lack of sympathy with which
their misfortunes were regarded by the
public. As the president remarked in
his opening address, the fact that a few
beggarly, unskilled laborers were being
thrown out of work by the closing of mills
and factories was considered worthy of
expressions of regret and coincidence from
the public and the press, while the ex-
tremity of a body of the most expert
mechanicians in the country called forth
not even passing remark, and years of
study and assiduous attention to business
threatened to go for naught.
The union was unanimous in the
opinion that the present wretched outlook
for the profession was due entirely to the
deplorahle frequency with which bank
officers and confidential agents of financial
institutions betrayed the confidence re-
posed in them, and it was declared the
sense of the meeting that such conduct
was prejudicial to the best interests of
the union, was opposed to the well-being
of the public at large and against the
proper maintenance of law, order and
morality in the community. A prominent
member of the union told with tears in
his eyes how he had been defrauded by
the cashier of the Frankfurter Sausage
Bank, in which many wealthy brewers
were heavy depositors. The member
stated that he located the position of the
safe, after overcoming many obstacles,
last January, and labored until June tun-
neling underneath the vault form a cellar
two squares distant The bottom of the
safe was then discovered to be of chilled
steel, and it was necessary to wait a month
for the construction of the instruments to
be used in boring through the plates.
The work was so difficult and labor and
material SO high that it was scarcely eX-
pected to realize more than enough from
the operation to pay expenses, and the
opening of the vault was deferred until |
after the payment Of July bills in order !
that the deposits might be as large as
possible. The prominent member of the |
union broke down entirely and sobbed |
aloud as he related that on the day pre-
ceding the very night the haul was to be |
made he read in the newspapers that the |
cashier of the bank had fled with half q |
million in currency and unregistered |
United States bonds, and when he called |
upon him at his elegant mans. Gn in Que
bee the cashier not only refused to allow |
him 10 per cent. of the gross receipts,
but declined to pay the expense of the
and did not even ask him to
dine. The union unanimously agreed |
that the cashiers conduct was sickening
and calculated to call forth reproach
upon mankind.
An even more distressing instance of
official perfidy was narrated by the chair
man of the Committee on Watchmen and
Time Locks. He stated that he made
contract with the president of the Bread
and Milk Savings Institution of a neigh
boring city, by which the vault of that
was to be broken into on
the same day that the president hypothe-
Gated the funds, thus removing suspicion
entirely from the office. The terms of
CllC NOlIldS mSlO IllC OpGIdUOi upOu
the safe was to receive one-half of the
but the contemplate wretch
who in reality took the money, not only
refused to divide with the burglar, but
actually placed the police upon his track,
and he was obliged to split upon the men
who had cracked the safe with him to
avoid prosecution.
The secretary of the Union presented
statistics showing that the recent trans
actions Of James D. Fish and Ferdinand
Ward had thrown q score of honest, hard
working burglars out of employment,
and kept hundreds of thousands of dollars
out of circulation among them, to draw
interest for capitalists already sufficiently
bloated. A committee was appointed to
draw up preamble and resolutions en-
bodying these facts and suggesting
method for the righting of wrongs suf-
ferAd by the Union, which will be acted
upon at the next meeting.