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The Banks Will Cash Orders If Council Will Pay Interest

The Banks Will Cash Orders If Council Will Pay Interest image
Parent Issue
Day
20
Month
March
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

THE BANKS WILL CASH ORDERS IF COUNCIL WILL PAY INTEREST

The people may be deceived once in a while, but they cannot be deceived all the time. A great ado has been made because a small city order, duly signed by the mayor and clerk, was taken to the bank by Gruner & Lutz, and payment refused, on the ground that the city had no money.

Time has developed just how this came about and shows it up as another trick to deceive the people into consenting to the issue of bonds.

As the mayor acknowledged Monday night, it was the mayor himself who hunted up this order, drawn on an overdrawn fund and had it presented. The fact that it was not paid was immediately confided to his personal newspaper organ.

We inquired of the bank Wednesday why this order was not paid and was told that Mr. Hamilton, the chairman of the finance committee, had been told some weeks ago that the bank would take these orders if the council would pass a resolution paying interest upon them. But the council had not seen fit to pass such a resolution.

The Argus was also told that the bank would discount orders if presented for that purpose.

The above statements are facts. What is stated in the remainder of this paragraph is street talk for the correctness of which the Argus does not vouch. It is claimed that the mayor had seen the banks and that it was at his request that the banks refused to cash orders unless there was funds in the bank and that it was it his request that no bids were made on overdrafts.

But without vouching for the above, the correctness of which the Argus does not know, it does know that the president of one of the banks told the Argus that they had been given to understand when the trouble first began that the overdraft July 1 would amount to $60,000. This amount was clearly beyond the ability of the council to take care of. The bank president further stated that if it had been known that the bank overdraft July 1 would not be more than $20,000, no question whatever would have been raised by the banks.

The more the mayor and his advisers squirm, the more evidence comes out of an attempt on their part to deceive the public on the city finances.