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oldest institution in the town, closed its doors. Tied to this ak was the First Trust Company, organized under the state law, to take up the musty paper that had been accumulated thru years of bad loans by the First National. Fresh deposits were desired for the First National, and the only way these could be got was by the organization of the subsidiary company. One of the devices of the First Trust to coax new deposits, was to send out several hundred pass books to people of small means, inviting their deposits. A credit of one dollar was written in the pass book, providing the recipient of the book became depositor of the bank. This pass book a credit "come-on" system worked with a great many, with the result that a large number of people are now patiently awaiting the promised re-opening of the bank. The First National Bank was a favorite of the officers of the State Rural Credits Board. One of the members of the Rural Credits Board, Albert Zosky, was a director of the bank. How much Rural Credits funds, borrowed by the State on bonds sold to furnish loans on land to farmers, are tied up in the failure, nobody but the insiders know. The Rural Credits Board is a closed corporation, divulging nothing it can conveniently keep from the public. Panic Grips Sioux Falls. The acute stage of the panic which has been approaching for months, broke in Sioux Falls, with the failure of the Sioux Falls National Bank on the 10th of January. This bank had deposits of two and a half million dollars, and with it went a number of its satellite banks in the smaller towns. This failure was followed two days later by the failure of the Sioux Falls Trust & Savings Bank, with deposits of between four and five million dollars, and with this institution also went a number of its country correspondents. In the interim, other smaller banks in the State, having no relations with these banks, "went South." These huge failures startled the big boys at Washington, and last week we were informed that Coolidgequick to come to the aid of the banks but slow to recognize the farmer distress as the cause of the troublehad instructed the War Finance Corporation to come to the rescue of the banks of North and South Dakota and Minnesota, with a thirty million slice of War Finance Corporation funds. Eugene Meyer is now on the ground with the alleged purpose of plugging the financial storm sewer with public money, one third of which is to go to this State, and the balance to North Dakota and Minnesota. Coolidge Didn't Save Them. This promise of the administration to come to the rescue could not been taken seriously, however, for on Monday the Western National Bank of Mitchell, with deposits of nearly a million dollars and five branch banks, closed its doors. This bank is headed by W. S. Hill, who was formerly president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation. He was a prospective "dirt" farmer choice for member of the Federal Reserve Board and later for an appointment to the Shipping Board. On the same day the International State Bank of Sioux Falls, with deposits of $1,300,000 turned the key in its doors. This makes the third big failure in Sioux Falls within ten days. The combined deposit obligations of the three failed Sioux Falls banks amounts to over eight million dollars, which makes the Coolidge donation of ten million dollars for South Dakota look like a drop in the bucket to the distressed bankers who are not yet closed, but are shivering on the brink. Banks Failed Mondav. The daily press of this section is running a "closed shop" on news of bank failures generally, but from current information available at this writing, eleven banks closed their doors in this State on Monday. It was Black Monday for South Dakota's financiers. Nobody can tell how many more banks will tumble within the next few days or weeks. ,Depositors are quietly withdrawing their funds from all the banks now open, so that a continuation of the bank explosions may be expected. Nobody, not even the bankers themselves, appear to believe that the dumping of thirty or even fifty million dollars into the banks of the northwest to take up the bad paper of the banks, would now do any
