Volume II Part 57 (2/2)
--------------- ------------- ------------- ------------ 1866 $305,167 00 $105,883 58 $199,283 42 1867 1,319,686 33 1,152,631 42 167,054 91 1868 1,957,525 03 1,685,564 36 271,960 67 1869 3,675,420 27 3,240,253 96 435,166 31 1870 5,347,983 32 4,764,441 88 583,341 44 1871 7,347,165 41 6,548,336 05 798,829 36
The total amount of deposits received from the organization of the company to October 1, 1871--six years from the opening of the first branch--was $25,977,435 48 Total drafts during the same period were 22,850,926 47 -------------- Leaving due depositors October 1, 1871 3,126,509 01 The _total a.s.sets_ of company on same day amounted to 3,157,206 17 -------------- The interest paid during this time amounted to 180,565 35
In 1872 the trustees made the following interesting statement:
THE FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST, 1872.
Deposits for Drafts for Total amount Total amount Balance due BRANCHES. the month. the month. of Deposits. of Drafts. Depositors.
----------------------- ------------ ---------- ------------- ------------- ----------- Atlanta, Georgia $9,419 68 $11,242 30 $245,200 27 $223,020 17 $22,180 10 Augusta, Georgia 10,771 99 9,217 94 367,653 16 284,406 14 83,247 02 Baltimore, Maryland 29,755 52 18,644 57 1,278,042 32 996,371 98 281,670 34 Beaufort, South Carolina 189,600 74 184,924 40 2,993,873 30 2,944,441 88 49,431 42 Charleston, South Carolina 67,668 83 84,464 53 3,100,641 65 2,795,176 24 305,465 41 Columbus, Mississippi 2,426 15 4,364 34 132,036 46 121,776 67 10,259 79 Columbia, Tennessee 2,552 55 2,086 05 34,088 97 15,738 76 18,350 21 Huntsville, Alabama 7,343 50 10,127 61 416,617 72 364,382 51 52,235 21 Jacksonville, Florida 67,292 09 57,307 54 3,312,424 55 3,234,445 72 77,978 83 Lexington, Kentucky 14,383 85 11,221 13 238,680 22 188,308 76 50,371 46 Little Rock, Arkansas 7,871 27 9,506 37 172,392 10 154,914 42 17,477 68 Louisville, Kentucky 18,311 01 17,535 74 1,057,587 71 914,504 61 143,083 10 Lynchburg, Virginia 3,104 48 1,242 56 36,880 98 18,354 87 18,526 11 Macon, Georgia 6,808 98 7,061 52 197,050 01 156,308 75 40,741 26 Memphis, Tennessee 20,045 40 27,197 06 970,096 09 840,218 91 129,877 18 Mobile, Alabama 11,136 05 18,645 62 1,039,097 05 933,424 30 105,672 75 Montgomery, Alabama 8,522 90 8,679 60 238,106 08 213,861 71 24,244 37 Natchez, Mississippi 25,548 53 15,005 17 649,256 70 612,985 74 36,270 96 Nashville, Tennessee 15,731 46 17,098 58 739,691 88 625,166 40 114,525 48 New Berne, North Carolina 38,113 83 37,775 73 1,057,688 32 1,001,645 74 56,042 58 New Orleans, Louisiana 193,145 48 207,878 53 2,393,584 08 2,171,056 95 222,527 13 New York, New York 133,209 58 74,461 61 1,673,249 36 1,227,449 57 445,799 79 Norfolk, Virginia 16,771 88 17,757 38 1,048,762 05 916,047 59 132,714 46 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 11,451 12 9,887 49 357,924 89 278,641 10 79,283 79 Raleigh, North Carolina 5,663 28 4,660 18 231,685 82 202,032 44 29,653 38 Richmond, Virginia 64,112 51 53,900 72 1,082,152 71 912,933 45 169,219 26 Savannah, Georgia 30,951 23 27,066 33 1,031,173 38 893,321 30 137,852 02 Shreveport, Louisiana 20,688 72 21,105 59 299,428 39 264,707 78 34,720 61 St. Louis, Missouri 26,323 93 20,599 02 615,876 74 526,490 86 89,385 88 Tallaha.s.see, Florida 4,589 45 4,526 75 361,614 57 329,618 33 31,996 24 Vicksburg, Mississippi 61,691 73 60,068 28 2,962,235 58 2,823,700 87 138,534 71 Was.h.i.+ngton, Dist. Colum'a 323,555 79 296,321 26 7,438,918 17 6,406,092 39 1,032,825 78 Wilmington, N'th Carolina 10,714 10 12,632 65 457,360 75 407,512 51 49,848 24 Alexandria, Virginia 1,929 91 685 80 14,091 77 1,626 35 12,465 42 $1,461,207 52 $1,364,899 95 $38,245,163 80 $34,000,685 77 $4,244,478 03
Total amount of deposits for the month $1,461,207 56 Total amount of drafts for the month 1,364,899 95 ------------- Gain for the month 96,307 61 =============
Total amount of deposits $38,245,163 80 Total amount of drafts 34,000,685,77 -------------- Total amount due depositors $4,244,478 03 ==============
This first experiment of the new citizen in saving his funds was working admirably. Each report was more cheering than the preceding one. The deposits were generally made by day laborers, house servants, farmers, mechanics, and washerwomen. Two facts were established, viz.: that the Negroes of the South were working; and that they were saving their earnings. Northern as well as Southern whites were agreeably surprised.
But bad management doomed the inst.i.tution to irreparable ruin. The charter was violated in the establishment of branch banks; ”persons who were never held in bondage and their descendants” were allowed to deposit funds in the bank; money was loaned upon valueless securities and meaningless collaterals, and in the fall of 1873, having been kept open for a long time on money borrowed on collateral securities belonging to its customers, the bank failed!
During the brief period of its existence about $57,000,000 had been deposited. The liabilities of the inst.i.tution at the time of the failure, as corrected to date, were $3,037,483, of which $73,774.34 were special deposits and preferred claims. The number of open accounts at the time of the failure were 62,000. The _nominal_ a.s.sets at the time of the failure were $2,693,093.20. And in the almost interminable list of over-drafts amounting to $55,567.63, there appeared but one solitary surety!
On the 20th of June, 1874, Congress pa.s.sed an act permitting the very men who had destroyed the bank to nominate three Commissioners, who, upon the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, should wind up the affairs of this insolvent inst.i.tution. Section 7 of the Act reads as follows:
”SEC. 7. That whenever it shall be deemed advisable by the trustees of said corporation to close up its entire business, then they shall select three competent men, not connected with the previous management of the inst.i.tution and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, to be known and styled commissioners, whose duty it shall be to take charge of all the property and effects of said Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, close up the princ.i.p.al and subordinate branches, collect from the branches all the deposits they have on hand, and proceed to collect all sums due said company, and dispose of all the property owned by said company, as speedily as the interests of the corporation require, and to distribute the proceeds among the creditors pro rata, according to their respective amounts; they shall make a pro rata dividend whenever they have funds enough to pay twenty per centum of the claims of depositors. Said commissioners, before they proceed to act, shall execute a joint bond to the United States, with good sureties, in the penal sum of one hundred thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful discharge of their duties as commissioners aforesaid, and shall take an oath to faithfully and honestly perform their duties as such, which bonds shall be executed in presence of the Secretary of the Treasury, be approved by him, and by him safely kept; and whenever said trustees shall file with the Secretary of the Treasury a certified copy of the order appointing said commissioners, and they shall have executed the bonds and taken the oath aforesaid, then said commissioners shall be invested with the legal t.i.tle to all of said property of said company, for the purposes of this act, and shall have full power and authority to sell the same, and make deeds of conveyance to any and all of the real estate sold by them to the purchasers. Said commissioners may employ such agents as are necessary to a.s.sist them in closing up said company, and pay them a reasonable compensation for their services out of the funds of said company; and the said commissioners shall retain out of said funds a reasonable compensation for their trouble, to be fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency, and not exceeding three thousand dollars each per annum. Said commissioners shall deposit all sums collected by them in the Treasury of the United States until they make a pro rata distribution of the same.”
There are several legal questions that history would like to ask. 1.
Did not the trustees of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company violate their charter in establis.h.i.+ng branch banks? 2. Were not the trustees personally liable for receiving deposits from persons who were neither ”heretofore held in slavery” nor the descendants of such persons? 3. Were not persons ”heretofore held in slavery” and ”their descendants” preferred creditors? 4. Had Congress the authority to go outside of the Federal bankruptcy laws and create such special machinery for the settlement of a collapsed bank? This matter may come before Congress in a new shape some time in the future.
The three commissioners, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, were charged with the settlement of the affairs of the bank. They were Jno. A. J.
Creswell, Robert Purvis, and R. H. T. Leipold. Mr. Creswell was retained by the United States before the Alabama Claims Commission at a salary of $10,000 per annum; while Mr. Leipold was a lawyer with considerable practice. But neither one of these gentlemen ever entered a court on behalf of the company. In a little more than five years they used up out of the a.s.sets of the company, $40,000 for their salaries; paid for salaries to agents, $64,000, and $31,000 for attorneys' fees, aggregating $135,000--nearly one half of the amount distributed among depositors for the same length of time.
The more the commissioners examined, the greater the liabilities of the company grew. On the 1st of October, 1875, a dividend of 20 per cent. was declared; on the 1st of February, 1878, a dividend of 10 per cent. was declared; on the 21st of August, 1880, they declared another dividend of 10 per cent.; and on the 14th of April, 1881, a circular was sent out as a crumb of comfort to the anxious, defrauded, and outraged depositors. It is not enough for history to p.r.o.nounce the failure of this bank an irreparable calamity to the Colored people of the South; it should be branded as a _crime_! There was no more necessity for the failure of this bank than for the failure of the United States Treasury. Its management was criminal; and Congress should yet seek out and punish the guilty; and the depositors should be indemnified out of the United States Treasury. Justice and equity demand it.
The failure of the Freedman's Bank worked great mischief among the Colored people in the South. But hardy, persistent, earnest, and hopeful, they turned again to the work of making and saving money.
They have been more prudent than their circ.u.mstances, in some instances, would seem to warrant. In Georgia the Colored people have made wonderful progress in business matters.
Amount of Money and Household No. of Solvent and Acres of Value of City or Town Debts of Kitchen Polls. Land. Land. Property. all Kinds. Furniture.
------- ------- ---------- ------------ ---------- ---------- 88,522 541,199 $1,348,758 $1,094,435 $73,253 $448,713
Value of all other Property Horses, Plantation not before Aggregate Total Amount Mules, Hogs, and Enumerated Value of of Tax a.s.sessed Sheep, Mechanical except Whole on Polls and Cattle. Tools. Annual Crops, Property. and Property.
Provisions, etc.
----------- ---------- ---------------- ---------- --------------- $1,704,230 $143,258 $369,751 $5,182,398 $106,660.39
Increase in number of acres since return of 1878 39,309 Increase in wealth since return of 1878 $57,523
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