The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-01-28

Edward P. Moxey, an expert exam
liner for the comptroller of the cur
rency at Washington, says the great
majority of bank employees in this
country are absolutely honest. Those
who have yielded to the temptation
have generally done so owing to the
ease with which they could cover up
their deficits under our faulty sys-
tenn OF banking And when you get
up to the man of millions, handling
large trust funds, the ease with
which he Is able to cover his tracks.
If he wants loan for a few months
or even year, is notorious. But
there areI thousands of good, stanch
and true men who would never dream
of such thing as taking advantage
of trust. and if they did they would
take it out in dreaming. while
handling other peoples money" said
the manager of a big New York
surety company to me the other day,
the man who 'borrows' from it is
generally the victim of misguided
ambition. He is a man who wants
thinks is a chance to make a lot of
money with a little ready cash, and
SO he begins his populations. Nearly
every embeZzler thinks he is safe in
his ENLIGHTENMENT. He plans to buy
this or that. If a report comes in to
me that a wo-thousand-a-year en-
ploye in a bank has bought three
thousand dollar car | make it point
to find out all about it, I have a
suspicion at this moment of such a
man and am going to watch him.
I asked a surety manager what
advice he would give to cashier
who is tempted to help himself to a
firms money. We'll, of course" he
replied, 1.-The simplest advice would
be don't But that doesn't cover
the case He is peculating, as I say,
that he may speculate. That means
that he is ambitious. Now, | would
not wish to curb the ambition of any
man, but to all men who are tempted
in this way | would give this advice:
Say to yourself and say it every day
as you are handling the firms cash.
Here is this money 1t is good
money, but I am not going to think
for a moment of what | could buy
with any of it if I had it. 1t does
not belong to me, any more than it
belongs to that man out there
sweeping the street. Other men may
have made money by borrowing"
as they call it, but I am not one
of that kind, as their borrowing"
was, in plain English, no better than
grand larceny. If l speculate, it is
going to be with my own money. If
/ have none now, | am going to wait
until | have some, and | am going
to do that by living within my
means.
In California one rarely sees
bank note. The money in general
circulation is all gold and silver. 1t
is a common sight to see collector
walking along the street with a bag
of gold on his back. Curiously, the
very weight of the money-one per-
son can hardly carry more than forty
thousand dollars in gold-often acts
as deterrent feature in embezzlement.
A New York cashier can easily walk
out of a bank with a suit case con-
tanning a million dollars, but in San
Francisco he would have to hire an
express wagon. A receiving teller
who filled his pockets with gold,
taking only a few thousand dollars,
could not muster up courage enough
10 go out of the bank with it, as ne
feared that the sagging of his pockets
would be noticed. If gold We're the
universal medium of exchange there
would be far more honesty.
are weighed and counted, women
are always preferred to men; not
so much because of the lesser wage,
for Uncle Sam is a liberal paymas-
ter. but because years of experience
have seemed to demonstrate that
women are somewhat more honest
than men. In the treasury depart
ment at Washington women are en-
ployed to separate and count the
newly printed money. If sheet is
missing at the close of the days
work no women is allowed to leave
the room until it is accounted for.
But this rarely occurs. The women
handling these treasury millions say
that they DO so with no thought
that they are anything more than so