River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-05-18
0RSON SMITH

100000 has been discovered at our
| bank"
"Who is guilty?" was finally asked.
Crank G.. Bigelow," responded
| Pfister, impressively.
The directors were literally struck
speechless for moment. Then sew
eral expressed disbelief, and asked
what proof existed.
| "Mr. Bigelow has confessed to me
himself" declared Pfister. "He says
his shortage is $1,2O0,OO0."
| A meeting of the directors, with
President Bigelow present, was hastily
arranged. The defaulter seemed re-
lieved by the discovery, and appeared
before the directors and calmly spoke
his confession.
Another story has it that William
Bigelow, vice president of the looted
bank, and brother of the defaulter, ex-
posed the shortage, although at the
time he suspected other officials of the
bank instead of his brother.
Bankers Save the Day.
When the extent of the defalcation
started on the bank and to meet the
emergency and restore confidence,
more than $1O,OOO,O0O in actual
money was raised within two days to
stop the run of frightened depositors
and save the greatest bank of Milwau-
kee from being swept from existence.
The panic was stopped by the formid-
able array of money, but to accomplish
this there was the most remarkable
rapid assembling of cash in decades.
Chicago bankers contributed 81 ,00O,-
900 of the total, the metropolitan finan-
ciers being first to go to the rescue of
their imperiled brothers of Milwaukee.
Another million was furnished by
the Milwaukee clearing house. In ad-
dition the other banks of milwaukee,
called in $2,OOO,OOO of their reserve
funds for emergency purposes
The II directors of the robbed bank
contributed total of 81 ,635, 900 by per-
sonai pledges from their private for
tunes, which aggregated more than
S2O,OO0,000.
Only last September in addressing the
American Bankers association in the
Waldorf-Astoria New York city. Bank
er Bigelow, who at that time was
looked upon as one of the lights and
authorities of the banking world, said:
However much prejudice there may
appear to be at times against bankers,
our business is of the utmost useful
ness and Importance and the right pur-
1Nv~
poets, requires all the courage and all
the conservatism we can demand"
Then he recited Robert Louis Stew
enson's prayer:
To be honest, to be kind; to earn little
and to spend little less; to renounce when
that shall be necessary. and not to be en-
Filtered; to keep few friends but those
without capitulation: above all, on the same
grim condition to keep friends with himself
here is a task for all that man has OF
fortitude and delicacy.
To-day he stands self-confessed to
having done all that his utterances OF
last year forbade.
Then he quoted the old lines:
Our little systems have their day:
They have their day and cease to be.
Now for the Reckoning.
His system" has had its day and
come to the full light of the law-he
before the bar of justice; at home,
wet-eyed wife; on the streets, dishon-
ored friends; in the distance, the gates
ajar of prison.
A Friends Testimony.
Yet in his darkest hour a friend
writes OF him:
He was a humanitarian Of the
broadcast type. He has made more
young business men than any man in
the middle west. He loved young men.
He loved children. Never yet have l
heard of a worthy young man in bust
ness trouble being turned away by
him.