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JOHN BREIDENTHAL Talks of His Work, the Last Four Weeks as Bank Commissioner. From the Newton Republican. John W. Briedenthal, the state bank commissioner, was in the city a short time this morning. While here he was interviewed by a reporter for the Republican and in speaking of the work he had been doing in regard to the settling up the Salina State bank and State bank of McPherson, he said: "The new banking law which was passed last winter by the legislature is proving to be a God send to depositors in banks which fail. Under this law we are allowed to appoint a deputy bank commissioner who can have charge of the bank for ninety days and is allowed to use his own judgment in settling up the bank's affairs. "Immediately upon the failure of the Salina State bank, I appointed George Rodgers of Abilene as deputy commissioner and placed him in charge of the bank. He went to work to settle all the claims. Most of the large claims he settled by trading real estate and when necessary would give a cash bonus to equal the value of the claim against the bank, in this way all the large claims against the bank were settled in a few weeks. "In with the assets we took a store, that the president of the bank W. C. Pierce had been running and we placed a man in charge of it and ran it for several weeks, doing a very good business. Several weeks ago the man in charge thought the business was slacking up and shut up the store for several deys. giving it out that he was marking down the prices, when in fact he raised the prices on many goods. The store was opened and in two days we cleared $1,400. The bank will be settled up some time this week and the depositors will get a hundred cents on the dollar when a few months ago when the bank failed a number of the depositors sold their claims for less than 50 cents on the dollar. "The affairs of the State bank of McPherson are coming out all right Mr. Rodgers has charge of this bank also. It will pay out also I believe without loss to the depositors. Senator Matthews' failure was due to the failure of the Salina bank."
