Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-02
A PUSSYFooTERS' REUNION
AT THE NORTH PENN BANK
Colonel Puseys Investigation Is Far Too
Polite TO Be Quite Efficient or Salts
factory to Duped Depositors

factory to ouped Depositors
| COLONEL PUSEY, Mr.. Fisher and
- their associates have pussyfooted and
whispered and tptoed enough amid the
wreckago of the North Penn Bank,
Somebody ought to tell them that
! they aren't at a pink tea. And some
body ought to tell the Governor of the
State and his Attorney General that
secrecy and ineptitude in this instance
are giving undue advantages to a de-
| testable lot Of criminals and bringing dis
credit to the State Department of
| Banking.
An astonished and disgusted public
| isn't waiting for Colonel Pusey's eXplana-
tions and promises. Nor is it satisfied
with the duel Of words between Mr.. La
fean and Mr.. Fisher, who, as State Com
missioners, appear to have slumbered
calmly while a bank filled with poor
peoples money was being raided in broad
daylight. 1t is aware that the investiga-
tion has proceeded consistently down
ward. The probe always hesitates when
it is turned the other way. Even the
bank runner seems to have had access to
the safe. We yet may hear Of a janitor
with weakness for white lights and
automobiles. But the amateur bounders
| who were in charge or the banks affairs
could not have spent all of the missing
money or the largest part of it. Who,
then, did?
The men higher up, of whom Moyer
talks, cannot be far away. The bank
examiners seem to have opened COM
munications of one sort or another with
them. 1t is presumable that they hope,
by compromise and patience, to reclaim
a larger part of the assets for the benefit
of depositors. But conspiracy to wreck
a bank is a serious crime and it is safe
to presume that a few patrol wagons
would serve in this instance far better
than the telephone.
The occasion isn't one for polite ques-
tioningS and cautious compromise. 1t is
one for arrests, indictments and the
third degree
The doors of the North Penn Bank
were closed two weeks ago. There has
been one arrest. Moyer who knows more
than any other man of what went on in
his bank, who took the money of deposit
ors when he knew it was to be cast to
the four winds, is out, complacently, on
bail Strang, the much married eX-otfice
boy, who joined the crowd and became a
man-about- town with the earnings of the
poor in his neighborhood is on a vacation.
He is to be "invited" to tell what he
knows of the orgy. Presumably he will
motor from Atlantic City while the mys-
tilted depositors wait in desolate lines
for information that has been withheld
from them for two weeks.
Somewhere behind the veil guarded by
Colonel Pusey and his associates the
raiders who showed Strang and Meyer
the ways of frenzied finance are still
hidden. 1t may be presumed that they
are busy with the alibi-makers.
Corporations or people of the sort who
can survive the shocks of a bank failure
were not involved in the smash of the
North Penn Bank. Virtually all of the
money in the bank was wrung out of the
sweat of men and women and children
who work-and work hard. 1t is this
fact that made the wreck particularly
cruel. Those who handed over their
savings to Meyer who depended upon the
laws of the state to protect them, do not
yet know whether they have lost every
thing or nothing.
There is plenty of evidence to show
that rumors of the banks instability
were current for almost a year. These
rumors seem to have reached everybody
but the State Commissioners of Banking.
What allied their ears?
If the banking department is under
manned or inefficiently organized why
was not the resultant danger bluntly
stated to the people? If a bank can
totter and fall and fail to attract the
attention of the state authorities until
it is fiat in ruins, the public which puts
its money in banks ought to know why
such a thing can be. IT, after a smash,
only the petty thieves are arrested, while
the men higher up are given time to
adjust and arrange their affairs, we
ought to know what rule of logic or JUS
tice is made to apply in their behalf.
Who corrupted Meyer? Who wasted
the money or hid it away? What are
| the names of the raiders-in-chief and
what is to be done with them? Mr..
| flShef Is ueCldIeu W nave hIO"n ldSC
January that the bank couldn't survive.
What was he doing in the interval until
the bank was closed on July 18? Was
any effort made to protect the depositors
before the doors of the institution were
closed? The understrappers appear to
have gone along spending madly until
the very day when the state authorities
took the affairs of the bank out of their
hands. We're the men higher up, who
seem still to have been the most indus
trious looters, permitted to do the same
thing?
| It is a bit odd now to find the State
Banking Commissioner solemnly refusing
| to reply to questions like these and taking
1 ~o<,,sa habipd a law made for ohsax,,