News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-01-29
An Object Lesson on Hasty Money
Getting.


The American National Bank, of
Kansas City, Missouri, has followed
ia the wake of many other lesser
western luminaries of finance. and
closed its doors. This institution
started some three years since with a
magnificent flourish of trumpets as
a. the largest national bank west of
the Mississippi river Its projectors
were two Vermont boys: W. 2. Rice,
at one time and for several years
superintendent of Vermont States
Prison, at Windsor, and HI. 2. Stin-
son, of Ludlow, Governor Proctor's
Secretary of Civil and Military At
fairs. These two gentlemen came
back to Vermont, and placed several
hundred thousand dollars of this
stock. of which Lamoille County has
its share
We cannot feel otherwise than
sincere regret at the financial down.
fall of our Vermont boys who seek
their fortunes in the west. But these
two young men are simply a fair
illustration of that craze which pos
sesses so many to get rich quick
Going from Vermont with $4,000
each, borrowed from Vermont banks
upon the endorsement of their polit-
zeal friends here, they started a little
bank in Kansas. They were success
full. The boom of that section car
ried them up like an inflated balloon,
and they started other banks Their
profits were the result of gambling
on the future development of those
booming young towns of the west
Not content with the ordinary
slow-cOach methods of country fl
nance, they went to Kansas City,
where they had the qualification of
knowing that they controlled the
largest bank in the west. Careful.
prudent, conservative investors in
the east We're pointed to these young
men as models of business sagacity.
1t was said of them, and we think
truthfully, that they had the control
of eastern money to the extent of
nearly $8,000,000. Everybody, it |
seemed, was anxious to rush in and |
place their money in the hands of |
these young Napoieons of Finance
Rice came back east and multi
tudes Of Vermonters focked to him I
as he informed them of the wonder
full possibilities of Fort Payne, but
Fort Payne is now Fort Pain to
many investors therein. 1t is not
four months since Rice decided to
start a national bank in Boston
with a million dollars capital, but it
did not materialize He started the
Union Investment Company of Kan
sas City with a million or so capital.
He opened fine banking office in
Boston under the firm name of Vim.
p. Rice & Co., bankers and brokers,
which for aught we know is still
doing business there. He went to
Europe, and we do not know but he
has banking institution there; for
he seemed to have conquered the
United States. and, like Alexander,
was seeking other worlds to conquer.
That VIM p Rice is brilliant, ener-
getic, pushing, cannot be questioned.
That he is a splendid fellow, and
honest, we have no reason
TO doubt, but that his venturesome,
visionary schemes of
controlling the whole earth should /
have SO far captivated so many
eastern victims is beyond our com !
for it has seemed to us
or months that his system was '
gambling, Simon pure; nothing
more. nothing less. He bet upon the T
uture development of this country, :
md for "A few years he won, for it's +
development was beyond the expec- r
alton of everybody. ?
OF course no one human being is ;,
o much brighter than everybody t
Use as the blind followers of Rice t,
Believed him to be, and the only sur &
rise to us is that this South Sea ID
bubble did not burst earlier. Moral
lake haste slowly Don't try to fl
Jet rich in day. p