Omaha daily bee., 1896-06-11

| hitherto said in reference to Oriental
competition, there is no reason for pres
ent alarm.
DEFAULTINti TREASURERS AND BANK
VRECkERS
Covert attacks on the courts are being
| made by a good many newspapers of the
| type so common these times that seem to
be devoted to the object of fomenting popu-
lar discomfort and suspicion, in connection
with the trial and sentence of Henry Bolln,
the defaulting treasurer of Omaha. 1t is
paraded that he ''got it in the neck with
sentence of nineteen years in the peni-
tentiary, while sundry other offenders who
wrecked banks and defaulted to even a
larger amount have been escaping with
lighter sentences.
But there is great, difference usually
in these cases. The defaultng treasurer
always begins with a penal offense, in con-
verting to his own use for speculation
money belonging to people, which is pri-
marily dishonest. But in most cases of
bank failures the initiatory offense has been
nothing more serious than an error Of judg-
ment in discounting loans or carrying
business man who ultimately fails in his
projects or proves dishonest. .-. ..
The money in the treasury is sacred.
1t is not to be loaned as an accommodation
or invested in any sort of venture, and the
treasurer is guilty from the very inception
CT the msfortunes that result in his dis
comfiture and inability to SHOW up" With
the banker, however the depositor of money
either subject to sight checks or drafts or
on time expects that the banker will use
his money in his business. 1t is only on
that condition that banks are possible and
that the banker will consent to take your
money.
1t is only in rare cases that bank is in
the first instance involved through the de-
liberate dishonesty of it's president or cash
ier. But in the course of it's business it
runs against hard luck, resulting either
from the want of skill in it's managers or
from the ordinary risks of the business, and
in endeavoring to extricate themselves from
difficulties that are not the consequences of
criminal acts or dishonest intent, the bank
ers have taken bigger risks and have
plunged themselves into greater difficulties.
Lincoln State Journal.
This is nothing more nor less than
an ingenious plea on behalf of the
bank wrecker. The groundwork upon
which it rests is not borne out by the
irresistible logic of experience. During
the past ten years bank wreckers, en-
bazzlers and defaulters have robbed
the people of this country of over $780,
100000, and the volume of these rob-
berries has increased materially within
the past three years.
Banks are public institutions, and
the public is vitally concerned in the
integrity of their :Innagers Formerly
the greatest danger was 10 !Je appre-
hended from the skilled bur;;lr who
could blow open vault doors, crack the
bank safe and make off with the money.
Now it is the skilled financier who
coolly and deliberately abstracts and
misapplies funds and falsifies accounts.
The burglar, when detected, brought to
trial and convicted, gets twenty years
in tho penitentiary. The bank wrecker
generally manages to hang the jury or
gets off with Il light sentence.
A national bank examiner Of many
years experience has this to say con
ber of a magazine: MANY banks have
been started in fraud, the capital stock
being paid for by the individual notes
of the stockholders these notes never
being paid, but renewed when the
bank examiner is expected. Yet it Is
reported as capital stock paid in
the whole scheme being to start Il bank
for the purpose of obtaining deposits,
and thereby getting funds with which
to speculate. Banks have been robbed
by the fraudulent use of certificates of
deposit, and double sets of ledgers have
been kept, one representing the true
condition of the bank, the other falsi-
fled so as to cover the frauds, the bank
examiner seeing only the falsified set"
Is not this an X-ray photograph of the
bankwreckers who have robbed and
ruined depositors and creditors at Lin
coin, Omaha and other points In this
state? What difference Is there be-
tween these professional cracksmen
and the defaulting treasurers who gen
orally have been identified with them?