Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-11-05
GAY LIFE BANKS DEATH.
"Great White Way" Declared Cause
o. Epidemic OF Failures.

o. epidemic o. FAILURES.
Gothams RialtC-that portion of the
white light district of Broadway which
begins somewhere along oath street and
ends somewhere the other side of Long
Acre Square-came in for a castigatiGGl
at the hands of Edward Z. MoXey. ex-
pert bank examiner for the United
States Department of Justice. Mr..
Moxey's business is to fit about the
country and peer unexpectedly over
shoulders of cashiers of national banks
here and there in order TO find out il
their cash balances are all right. Nj.
Moxey recently found a number Of
these gentlemen with cash balances all
wrong and put them in the peniten-
tiary
You mean the Broadway New
York; he was asked when he sad said
New York was the couse of it all.
II mean the Broadway New York"
he answered. quietly. Il mean the gor-
geous hotels and restaurants. the bars,
gambling houses, the myriad of thea
tiers, palatial apartment houses, turning
night into day. | mean the food Of
money in New York upon which this
life is borne along, the craving for vast
incomes by which alone such life can
be lived
ITO say that even a bare majority
of the tens of thousands of men who
nightly swell the crowd of amusement
craZed spenders. who live in 5000
apartments and whose touring cars con-
gest the streets, are doing this with
| money which is honestly theirs is alb
| surd. They are not earning this mon
| ey; they are either juggling other peo-
pies cash or they are gambling with
| their own.
when you can go into a restaurant
at 2 o'clock in the morning and behold
| 100000 worth of women's gowns at the
| tables and $1,000 worth of food in pro-
| cess of consumption, something is
| wrong. And when you observe $4,000
| worth of automobiles waiting to take
| this one supper crowd to their homes
or elsewhere may be sure there is
QuccI DoOhhetpIHS SoIItN Ieie.
1T is not only this sort of life in
| New York but in more sinister way
| the sight and example of it which are
| bringing about Il degradation Of sense
| of common honesty throughout the
| country. That American asset, the New
| England conscience has become an OBJ
| ject of jest. And, as | said, New York
| is to blame
1.-THE young banker and business man
| of the smaller community comes to New
| York. He is taken in hand by his bust
ness acquaintance here and shown
about town. His hosts spend money
on a scale which dazzles him.
"He wonders how his friends manage
to share in this prodigality, and bit by
hit he finds out. They tell him funny
stories of transactions, which, reduced
to proper financial analysis are defal-
| cations pure and simple, or at best
| plain gambling. Everybody does it.
they say; it's part Of the game and
back to his home town goes the young
banker filled with dreams of sudden
wealth and all the gay life that goes
| with it.
TOO often this person starts to lead
gay life before he has got the sudden
| wealth. He sees the rich customer Of
his bank riding up to the door with a
| big deposit or to get a letter of credit
| for a trip abroad. Perhaps, he tells
| himself, it isn't the customers money ut
| all. Why, then, shouldn't he manipu-
late it for his own gain? Why isn't
it anybody's to play with who can get
his hands ON it? The life he has seen
and the methods he has learned are de-
stroying his sense of property
| ''E{e is somehow getting it into his
head that this money placed in his
| keeping is a sort of common property,
and that as long as he can keep his
books looking technically right he may
| juggle with it for the benefit of his
own personal pocket. He really comes
to believe, seriously. that this is so''