The Freedmen's Savings Bank

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 175265076X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-129631

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fleming, Walter Lynwood http://d-nb.info/gnd/120660560X

Title:: The Freedmen's Savings Bank

Place of publication:: Chapel Hill

Publisher:: Univ. of North Carolina Press

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: x, 170 S.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. Mismanagement and other troubles

Collection:: Economics Books

MISMANAGEMENT AND OTHER TROUBLES 57 while the rest were of necessity neglected. The records in the Washington bank were not much better kept than elsewhere; there was in this city branch only one bookkeeper, who stated that he frequently had to work fourteen hours a day. Such heavy duty was too much for any man— certainly too much for a comparatively inex- perienced clerk. For several years there was a baffling discrep- ancy of more than $40,000 between the accounts of the branches and those of the principal office. Several times entirely new sets of books were opened in the hope of leaving the past behind and keeping straight for the future. An examina- tion of the books in later years showed that de- posits were sometimes entered as withdrawals and vice versa; a draft of $31.60 went down on the books as $3,160; $5,300 as $53.00, etc. Some- times it was impossible to tell from the records whether a certain transaction was a cash pay- ment, an extension of a loan, or a transfer of a loan.® One clerk testified that seldom could the books be balanced at night—the error would be from 5 cents to $5,000 one way or the other. When mistakes could not be found, he said, “We always waited for something to turn up”; when the cash balanced, all went out to celebrate the event. Practically all errors before 1871 were errors of ignorance; but after 1871 there was much designed “messing up.” The physical condition of the records was also bad. A committee of experts reported: “We found leaves cut from the original ledger, leaves *Report of accountants, Bruce Report, pp. 174, 282.

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