RUN ON AMERICAN BANK

Evening Star, Issue 20292, 28 September 1929, Page 23

RUN ON AMERICAN BANK

CAUSED BY CARBUNCLE [From Our Own Correspondjent.] SAN FRANCISCO, August 29. A carbuncle on the hack of the president’s neck indirectly helped to start a run on the Bay Ridge Savings Bank in Brooklyn, New York, when two thousand depositors rushed into the placp and, before they had quietened down —and before some of them rathei sheepishly had gone back and reopened their account —they had drawn out 2,000,000d01. Several days previously Dr Maurice T Lewis, president, went to a hospital in Connecticut, to have a carbuncle removed from the back of his neck. False rumours wore circulated that ho was dead, and that his death had caused a run on the bank. Rumours of a run started the actual run. In addition officials of the bank said a man who had tried to borrow 16,000d0l on only 10,000dol collateral, went to an adjacent illicit drinking “ apeak-easy '* and said he had been unable to get any money because the bank was short of funds.

Being warned, the bank’s officials set about in a methodical why to take care of tho rush They hired nine extra tellers, making a total of seventeen. They stationed attendants at the door to hand out withdrawal slips to the depositors, and they carried over from the Brooklyn Trust Company in an armoured truck 14,000do] that they bod in reserve there. Police were called to keep tho milling crowd in order.

Everything went off smoothly, nobody worried or delayed in getting his ( money, and f r om time to time, Dr 1 Lewis read to the crowd reassuring statements that the money was there, that there was no dangei. and that the bankVas perfectly willing to let them close their accounts if they desired. By closing time on© of the seventeen tellcs had been transferred from a paying window to a receiving window.

Four Long Island banks, whose aggregate resources are 1,250,000,000 del, offered to place all its resources at the disposal of the Ray Ridge Bank and to help its officials to run down the persons who started the rumours

While the run was at its height, other banks in the vicinity refused to accept for deposit money that had been drawn out oi; the Bay Ridge Bank.