Los Angeles herald., 1907-12-15

IN HOSE 12.500 depositors who. have lost
money in the wreck of the California
Il Safe Deposit and Trust company
have merely contributed portion of
their share to the heavy price of govern
ment by w, F. Herrin and the railroad
political machine,
! While Messrs. Brown and Bartnett
were busily squanderng the money of the
| depositors in speculative enterprises of
which Brown and Bartnett and few
other stockholders in the bank would
have got all the profits. had there been
profits, the state of California was pay
ing $4,000 a year and travelling expenses
to four bank commissioners whose duty
1t was, under the law, to watch the
banks for the protection of the public.
The act creating the bank commission
provides expressly that one or more of
the bank commissioners once in each
year. and as often as in their Judgment
shall be deemed necessary, shall, without
previous notice, visit and make personally
full examination of every bank in the
state; ito inspect all books, papers,
notes, bonds or evidences of debt Of such
corporation, and all securities; to ascer-
tain the condition of every such corpora
ton. its solvency, it's ability to fulfill its
obligations"
If the bank commissioners had done
| their duty. as commanded explicitly by
law, the California Safe Deposit and
| Trust company never would have failed
The speculation and mismanagement
which ruined the bank have been going
on for years. At any time within the
past five or six years the bank commits
sioners could have checked the course of
the concern toward bankruptcy and
saved their depositors had they done their
duty.
| The public trusted the California Safe
| Deposit and Trust company because they
| believed that the bank commissioners
were protecting them The public be-
lieved that the bank commissioners had
scruiinized the securities and examined
and approved the business methods of the
bank, as they were bound by law and
paid we'll to do. And it is a fact that
if the bank commissioners are compe-
tent, honest and attentive to their work
it is practically impossible for bank
to fail disastrously.
| But for many years, under the rule of
w. F. Herrin. 1t has been the custom
| to treat the office of bank commissioner
as political patronage. The position has
been given not to men who knew the
| banking business and who were upright
and insistent on the law. but to useful
servants of the railroad machine, regard
I
as man controlled district or a county
and obeyed orders with docility he was
deemed eligible to be a bank commits
sioner although he may not have known
| the difference between United States
bonds and the stock of the most noto-
rious wildcat mine.
One of the present bank commissioners
is John c. Lynch one of Herrin's first
lieutenants. Lynch is a politician. His
| ;NI ie low htnnr To rryoG
appointed in order that he might spend
his time doing Herrins politics.
| Governor Gillett appointed Lynch, the
same Gillett who RACES so righteously
against the men who gambled with the
money of the 1880 depositors. But be-
hind Gillett is Herrin the man who made
| Gillett governor and at whose bidding
Gillett made Lynch bank commissioner.
And behind Herrin' is--who? The Repub-
lican party, the people of California.
who voted for Gillett, with loud hur-
rahs. well knowing that he was Herrins
man. Probably 5000 of the depositors of
| the California Safe Deposit and Trust
company voted for Gillett
| But the trouble did not begin with the
election of Gillett. 1t goes back many
years in the history of California. 1t did
not begin even with Herrin. 1t began
with boss government. 1t began when
| the people, like sheep, following party
nominees. resigned their power into the
hands of few intriguers who respond to
public service corporations and not to the
people
The depositors of the California Safe
Deposit and Trust company are paying
for Herrin, just as the public of San
Francisco are paying for Abe Ruef; just
as delinquent citizens everywhere pay
for their neglect to perform their duty
to the republic by voting inteligently
both at the primaries and at the general
elections
Governor Gillett cries that the banking
laws must be amended; and in that he is