Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-03-07
DELIVERED BY CARRIERS
Al sOc. per Week. or soc. per Month.
The "Daily Heraldv
FRIDAY. MARCH I. 1890.
Animus OF the Fight Against tht
CITY Bank.

FRIDAY, MARCH I, 1890.
Animus OF the Fight Against the
City Bank.
The President of the City Bank read q
remarkable paper before the City Council
yesterday in reference to the peculiar
opposition developed against awarding
the contract to deposit the city moneys
with his bank. The paper of Mr..
Childress will be found printed at length
in the proceedings of the Council pub
lished elsewhere, and we ask our readers
to give it careful and serious perusal.
1t is evident to everyone that the per-
sistent and factious opposition to the
carrying out of the law is one of personal
and private interest all round. The pub
lie advantage and the public security has
no place whatever in the extraordinary
devices that have been resorted to to
defeat the requirements of the charter to
deposit the public funds with the bank
offering the city the highest interest for
their use. When the Council was forced,
through the pressure of public opinion,
to advertise, as the charter provides, for
public bids, and the City Bank offered
the highest rate Of interest, all sorts of
dilatory moves were made. The sue
cessful bidder was required to file good
and sufficient bond in the sum
of $500, 900, and such bond was filed
and referred to a committee that re-
ported favorably upon it. Now mark
the methods adopted by the interested
parties to defeat the carrying out of the
plain letter of the law. Mr.. Jesse Var
nell, stockholder in the bank which
has the use of the city funds for nothing,
and which gives no security whatever to
the city for their safety, sues out an in
junction against the Council to prev ent
them from transferring the municipal
funds to the City Bank, This injunction
failed on the ground that the Treasurer
aud not the Council should be enjoined.
1t will be further noted that at every
stage of the proceedings in the Council
Mr.. Franken6eld, the Vice President of
the California Bank, which uses the pub
lie funds without security and without
price, has done everything in his power
to prevent the city from taking the funds
out of his bank.
Now, let us look at this matter from
the impartial standpoint of the safety
of the public moneys and the best in
tereats of the city. The City Treasurer,
who deposits the public funds in Mr..
Frankenfiel DIS bank, furnishes bond of
$150,000 II by any untoward circum-
stance the Ca lifornia Bank could not
pay over the city moneys when they are
required, the only recourse the city
would have would be upon the bonds of
the City Treasurer. His principal bonds
men are Fl. @. Wilmer, President; 7. J.
Welton, Vice-President, and Jesse Var
nell, stockholder Of the California Bank
If the rule which Mr.. Franken6eld pro
poses to apply to the bondsmen offered
by the City Bank is applied to
two of these bondsmen of the
City Treasurer, viz; their assessment on
the tax roll, we shall find that there
would be very little chance for the city
to recover after the HON estsads OF these
gentlemen had been taken out of the as
sessed valuations of their property. But
even waving this not very reassuring
aspect of the case, the law says that the
Treasurer shall not deposit the public
moneys in private banks in any other
manner than as special deposits, and
that means that they shall bs counted
and sealed up. His deposits with the
California Bank are not such deposits.
Hence the Treasurer is violating the
Law, and it is questionable whether the
city-having full knowledge of this fact
and consenting to it by it's passive acqui-
escence-could recover a single dollar
from any Of his bondsmen if the money
should not materialize when wanted.
Yet Mr.. Franksnfeld, President of the
Council and Vice-President of the Cali
fornia Bank, who is proiting by this
violation of the law, has the hardihood
to interpose his po xsr and influence to
prevent the lawful depositing of the
city's moneys in bank that will secure
their safety by approved bond in the
sum of 100000, and pay the city ~
per cent. per year for the privilege of the
deposits, against nothing now paid by
the bank which holds them without
securing the city.
The mere statement of these facts
shows that there is something rotten in
Denmark. 1t shows that the interests of
the city are being trifed with that men
elected to guard those interests are sub
verting them to private gain; that the
trick Of parliamentary device is availed
OF to lengthen out the time in which the
California Bank can have the free use of
the public funds, and that the unworthy
conspiracy has thus far worked to the
injury of the city and to the insecurity of
the moneys by permitting their free use
by bank that has not indemnifed the
city against their loss or misapplication.
II is not only the city moneys that are
thus risked, but the county moneys-now
to several hundred Thousand
dollars-as well. Every dollar of the
public funds of this city and county,
aggregating nearly one million dollars,
is now entrusted to that institu-
lion without security save the I