THE WORK OF COMMISSIONERS 109 
warrant in law for the establishment of the 
branch banks; that the inspection was of little 
or no value because there was no disposition on 
the part of the authorities to remedy the defects 
reported by the inspectors; that the passage of 
the Act of 1870 was secured by and for the in- 
terest of the “Washington cabal” and the down- 
fall of the bank was thereby hastened. After 
condemning in detail the doings of the District 
of Columbia interests the committee recom- 
mended that the work of the three commissioners 
be turned over to one man in order to reduce the 
expenses of administration.” The concluding 
section of the report, quite Democratic in tone, 
is as follows: 
The inspectors provided by the by-laws were of little 
or no value, either through the connivance and ignorance 
of the inspectors or the indifference of the trustees to their 
reports. . . . The committee of examination . . . were 
still more careless and inefficient, while the board of trus- 
tees, as a supervising and administrative body, intrusted 
with the fullest power of general control over the manage- 
ment, proved utterly faithless to the trust reposed in them. 
Everything was left to the actuary and finance committee. 
Such was the practical working of the machine, . . . The 
depositors were of small account compared with the per- 
sonal interest of the political jobbers, real estate pools, 
and fancy stock speculators, who were organizing a raid 
upon the freedmen’s money and resorted to an amendment 
a the charter to facilitate their operations. 
The District of Columbia government, too, came in to 
hasten and profit by the work of spoliation thus inaugu- 
15 The Douglas Report is House Report, No. 502, 44 Cong., 2 Sess. It 
contains thirteen pages of the committee report and 241 pages of testi- 
mony, documents, records of branch banks, tables of statistics and state- 
ments of the commissioners, Thirty officials and depositors testified 
before the committee.