The San Francisco call., 1904-11-12
OPEN BANK
TO FLEECE
FARMERS
COaChella Growers
Are the DupGS Of
a Clever Pair.
BOd0nhamef and Miller
Are Shown Up as Team
Of SWindlHrS.
Recent Developments Reveal How
RaneherS Of Valley Were Robbed
of Hard-Earned Money.
Special Dispatch to Tn. Call.

Special Dispatch to The Call.
Los ANGELES. Nov. IL. = Six
months ago when the most promising
cantaloupe season ever known was
opening on the irrigated southwest
ern spur OF the Colorado desert. Paul
Bodenhamer and z. S. Miller ap-
peared in the thriving new town of
CoacheIla. Without cent of capital.
as it now develops, they established
the Coachella Valley Bank. To-day
Bodenhamer. who became president
OF the institution, is enjoying liberty
under bonds: Miller. the erstwhiIe
cashier, is fugitive from justice,
supposedly in the East. The bank is
wrecked and the people of the val
ley lose practically all the money they
had
Bodenhamer and Miller. it now trans
pires, tried 10 borrow money 10 start
the bank. Failing in this. one of them
resorted to the trick Of forwarding his
check To friend or accompIice in Riv-
erside and having ii cashed with the
understanding that it was not TO be
presented for payment for a week. A
few piles of glittering gold the pro
ceeds from this trick, were displayed
on the bank tables, and Bodenhamer
and Miller, ensconced in an unpaid
for new brick building, were ready for
business
Such an institution was needed, and
the patronage Sree good Trainload
after trainlDAd OF melons moved 3ut
and the golden returns flowed in TO
the growers, who cleaned UP over $50 =
GEO. Conhdingly they deposited in this
new bank. Even the Indians on a
nearby reservation who had fiourished
as cantaloupe growers were roped in
as depositors-
The check in Riverside was redeemed
with the deposits of the banks first
customers and apparently everything
went swimmingly The bank prosper
ed so that enlargement was talked Of
by its management. When the last
quarterly report was due Bodenhamer
and Miller worked late one Friday
night: the whole town knew, while it
watched the glimmer of their oil lamp,
that it's financial wardens were terrib-
ly busy making up a great balance.
Saturday afternoon Bodenhamer and
Miller, jaded from their hard work.
strolled TO the railway station. They
were going out of town to rest over
Sunday they told their friends Trains
east and west were due to pass at the
same hour. 1t was noticed that Miller
went east and Bodenhamer west. Mon
day the bank did not open. II was
found. too, that the fashionable house
keeper Of its two managers had de-
parted
Bodenhamer was arrested trying to
get out of the country, but Miller was
not caught. The melon growers have
receipts for their money. Miller Is
supposed to have the cash. Not so
much as a pair of cast off trousers
Gid the bankers leave in CoacheIla-
The pile of bricks that composed the
hank building is for sale and the ua-
paid man who made the bricks finds
he must pay the banks receiver $500
for an overdraft.
Before trying to get away Boden-
hamer had gone TO San Bernardino
and filed a schedule in bankruptcy.
The document was duly recorded and
il read in the papers as a very re-
spectacle bankruptcy-not more than
a few hundred dollars shy.
Only the good folk in the canteloupe
town knew that the bankrupt's liabil-
money, while his assets are mostly
shares In a projected ice plant, paid for
by a check on his own bogus bank
It is said the law cannot touch the
bankruptcy banker. No magnate of
frenzied finance could have been more
careful in keeping on the right side Of
the legal fence.
BOOenndnneE Is 10 appear IN san
Bernardino for examination on an en-
bezzlement charge next Friday. He
charges all the trouble TO Miller.
A special dispatch from Cleveland.
Ohio, giving Miller's record says:
"F. S. Miller, the cashier of the de-
funct Hot Air bank at CoachelIa- has
a bad financial record here. He was
an officer Of two institutions that went
to pieces in Cleveland, the Superior
Street Savings Bank and the Northern
Ohio Building and Loan Company.
Poor investors and depositors lost
heavily by these failures and there was
hot indignation against Miller and the
other officers, one of whom subsequent
ly committed suicide. Although the
two concerns were rotten from end
to end the schemers who worked them
kept shrewdly within the law and at
tennis to prosecute them criminally