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TOURISTS OFFER AID IN RUN ON FLORIDA BANK
Additional Funds Awaited in Palm Beach From Jacksonville.
WEST PALM BEACH. Fla., March 9-(P)-Ready money Ass incident heretofore in this resort for the wealthy of prime concern today The man in the street regarded apprehensively an abrupt suspension of three banks. Millionaire winter visitors, attracted momentarily from their sports and tea dances, paused to offer financial assistance to two banks that had the burden of keeping the dollar in Citizens bank and the Farmers Bank and Trust Co.-as solid as Gibraltar officials said, awaited additional funds from Jacksonville with which to augment a special consignment of $2,000,000 that yesterday enabled them to meet withdrawals and remain open until 2 o'clock the regular closing time. The three banks, with cap. ital aggregating $500,000 awaited inspections by state bank examiners. The First American Bank and Trust Co. and the First Bank and Trust Co. of Palm Beach failed to open yesterday. The Northwood Bank and Trust Co. suspended business "in the interest of depositors" an hour after opening. Offers of assistance were made by several prominent tourists, some of whom had pressed through long lines of anxious clients, bent on withdrawing accounts, to make comparatively large deposits. T. T. Reese, president of the Farmers bank, said that among those who volunteered support were E. R. Bradley, Lexington, Ky., E. Stotesbury, Philadelphia, Davies Warfield, Baltimore, John S. Phipps, Pittsburgh, A. J. Brexle- Biddle, Thomas A. Clarke, Brooklyn and F. C. Butler, Chicago. Mr. Reese, attributing the failures to several causes, said there was no real emergency. Whether the volunteer millionaires put their shoulders under the financial burden was not made known. Depressed land values contributed originally, bank officials said, but a combination of difficulties running through the failure of bank chain, a devastating hurricane, and an internal difficulty that brought criminal charges against city officials, finally had their climax. Last June the Palm Beach Bank and Trust Co. closed its doors after the Bankers Trust Co. of Atlanta, Ga., failed. The Atlanta company had sponsored a chain of 83 banks, several of which were in Florida. The Commercial Bank and Trust Co. and the Palm Beach National bank, members of the chain, also closed. Two months later a hurricane swept the section, causing considerable evacuation and consequent business depression. The city hall then involved in contractor's fight over street paving contracts and when the smoke had cleared city officials were charged with graft and a movement was under way to recall the city manager and four commissioners. Citizens voted the recall down in a special election last January, but the opposition tied up city books and tax collections were negligible for the time. Uneasiness was felt generally still later when officials of the Palm Beach Bank and Trust Co. and the Commercial Bank and Trust Co. were indicted by a grand jury for alleged violations of the state banking laws. A charge of conspiracy to defraud the city of $200,000 was entered in criminal court action against the city manager, a former city engineer and treasurer, and two contractors. The case awaits trial. Bank deposits have dwindled throughout the section in the last six months. Officials of the First American Bank and Trust Co., an institution with deposits of $13,500,000 early in 1926, reported that deposits now were approximately $3,000,000. Losses to depositors hardly will result from the latest difficulty, bankers said.
