The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-07-14
Beets, Politics and Progress
By Byrd Trego
A Bank Story
CHAPTER III.

There has been great deal O.
contention over the price of sugar
beets, and the price that would bt
paid by the Independent sugar com
pany and by the trust. A great dea
has been said about the bank fight al
Rigby and Idaho Falls in connection
with an effort to crush the new in.
dependent company known as the
Beet Growers Sugar company Of
Rigby. Not very long ago some
bankers were put on the stand and
an effort was made to have them
tell what they knew about matters
that constituted part of the eff.
fort to crush the Beet Growers Sugar
company. That is story by itself
but men were so incensed at the ex-
posure OF some of the banking. op-
erations that they became enthused
and overstated matters. One thing
they sometimes remark is that as
a result of the bank fight, the old
Anderson bank of Rigby stirred up
the resentment Of the people of the
Rigby country, and when George Hill
and his friends started a new bank
in Rigby they flocked to it in such
numbers that the deposits in the
Anderson bank dropped from $780,
600 to less than $500, 900, and the
deposits in the Hill bank, known as
the Jefferson National, rose to about
half million.
That sounds as If men can start a
new bank and attract the business
from an old bank and keep it. !
did not think it could be done, so
looked up the reports made to the
government for the past year, and
am making you present of the in
formation I got.
There are three banks in Rigby
now. That fact is of no consequence
excepting as it carries a lesson to
know what becomes of them under
certain conditions that affect you
and me as beet growers and mem
bers Of society. One is the Ander-
son bank, esta blished in 1902. Then
came the First National operated by
the Hart crowd. Last August the
Hill crowd started the Jefferson
County National, the Que that was
reported to have attracted half of
the business from the Anderson
bank.
The sworn statements to the gov
eminent show that the Anderson
had more money on deposit in Sep
TENDER, few weeks after the JEFF
ferson bank started than they had
before. They touched the half-mil-
lion mark in September, 1919, and |
the new bank gradually increased till
they had $4,000 in November,
$245,000 in December, and then ia
pered off to $4,000 in May, 1920.
The Anderson ban ktapered off to
1914, 200 in the same month, the |
period when deposits run low with
all our banks. During the same time
the Hart bank gained in deposits
from $405,00O in July, 1919, to
$479,000 in September, s533,00O in
December, and then only tapered off
to $50S,o00 in May, 1920. So while
the Anderson bank and the new
bank, the two that were opposing
each other, both did very we'll, the
Hart bank made a heavy gain.
Banker Committed Suicide
The Anderson bank of Rigby is
branch of the Anderson bank of
Idaho Falls, whose president recently
committed suicide following the in
vestigation of the way the Utah
Idaho Sugar company operated in
it's alleged efforts to crush the Beet
growers Sugar company of Rigtv
while building its factory Minnie
Hit is the cashier of the Anderson
bank of Idaho Falls and has been
for twenty-eight years, and the Fed
eral trade commission summoned her
to the witness stand when the COM
was sitting at Rigby. Her
testimony showing the attitude of
her bank in blocking the operations
of the Beetgrowers Sugar company at
Rigby was sensation, but there was
a point in her testimony, beyond
which she declined to go. When