Business & Finance: American Tragedies

Gary, Ind., is essentially a steel city, its murky horizon is sliced jagged by towering smokestacks. An efficient Chamber of Commerce boasts to visitors that Gary has 515 acres of golf links, parks and playgrounds, a $1,000,000 community Church, a model public school plan. The visitor will listen politely. But he will always remember Gary as a grey city of steel and flame and smoke. At No. 1112 Broadway, Gary, a few blocks from the business district, is Central Trust & Savings Bank. Its location is in that part of Gary known as "across the tracks," the great flat area where thousands of steelworkers dwell. The bank was established 21 years ago, and there are only two larger ones in the city. Several years ago it was rebuilt, given a black marble front, four marble pillars two and a half stories high. Its interior was redecorated. The steelworkers' accounts seemed safe in the hands of President C. Oliver Holmes, in his so's, member of many clubs and societies, a State Senator, an aggressive reformer of banking laws. And one of its directors is Dr. William Feder, a pioneer citizen respected by all Indiana Jews.

Yet last week Central Trust & Savings Bank suspended. Deposits of $900,000 were tied up. Industrial Gary did not stop. Steelworkers took their places as usual in the morning, came home weary at night. But a major tragedy had occurred "across the tracks."

In Colorado, Brighton is a neat little town with 2,715 population. Its air is crisp and cool, a lot of motors are seen on its streets. One of its busiest corners is at Main & Strong Streets. There in a two-story brick building is Farmers State Bank. In the back of the same building the Adams County Republican is published weekly. President of the bank is Herman Schloo, onetime cattle trader. L. D. Kranbeck, the butcher, and W. W. Gaunt, the lawyer, are directors. So is Elmer Jennerich who clerks in the hardware store.

Last week Brighton was shocked when the bank failed to open. Its deposits came to $429,000.

If you lived in Wheaton, Kan., you would be well aware of the 1Depression. For two years the crops have been failures. The farmers have no buying power. Things have been slow in the business district. Even the biggest businessman in town, H. S. Kusahl, has felt the Depression. His hardware, furniture and undertaking establishments have not done well. And neither has Farmers' State Bank of which he is president.

Last week the bank, located in an $1,800 building on Front Street between Center and Railroad Streets, closed. In the bank was $123,225 of Wheaton money. Frozen loans caused the trouble. It was not that the bank had not been shrewd. Two of the directors, John Moran and Henry Keating, were good farmers and judges of value. It was just as Mr. Kusahl said: "Our reserve got low and we were unable to collect loans."