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 VI. The administration of Frederick Douglass. The collapse of the bank

Collection:: Economics Books

86 THE FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS BANK 1874, and assumed office in April. He stated afterwards that he accepted the presidency, not because he had any experience in banking, but because he thought that his influence with his own race would strengthen the institution and enable it to weather the storm. Both Alvord, the outgoing president, and Stickney, the actuary, assured him, he said, that the bank was sound. Alvord knew no better, and probably Stickney hoped that it would pull through. Alvord then accepted the presidency of the ill-famed Seneca Sandstone Company, in order, he said, to recover the amount due the bank.’ Douglass, when he took charge, knew little of the previous mismanagement of the business, and some of the officials, especially Stickney, took care to keep him in ignorance of actual conditions. So he was without difficulty induced to issue circulars assuring the depositors that the bank was safe. But he was alarmed when he learned of the report of the national bank ex- aminer made in January, 1874,® but which he had not seen before he became president. Never- theless, he assured the public that the existing deficit could soon be made good. He further ex- plained that the troubles had been caused by the forced sale of the bank’s best securities during runs which had been brought about by news- paper criticisms.* But his suspicions were soon aroused by the evident efforts of the actuary and others to keep * Douglas Report, p. 31. 3 See pp. 84, 151. . 4 Letter, dated April 29, to New York Herald, in Bruce Report, Appendix, p. 44. See below, pp. 151-156.

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