JOHN W. BLEE - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 08/03/1897 - HFSID 67766
Price: $220.00
JOHN W. BLEE
Still dealing with the aftermath of the Panic of 1893, Blee, a Special
Examiner for the US Comptroller of the Currency, criticizes past investigators
for failing to exonerate a bank receiver.
Typed Letter signed: "John W. Blee" as Special Examiner, 2
pages. 8x10. Sandwich, Illinois, 1897 August 3. On letterhead of the
US Treasury Department Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to Mr.
Milton Doolittle, Receiver, North Platte National Bank, North Platte, Nebraska.
In full: "I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 27th
ult., setting out at length your personal feelings in regard to the reflections
cast upon you by those who have criticized your administration of the affairs of
the North Platte trust. I wish again to assure you, as I have already personally
done, that you need no vindication at the hands of any person in North Platte,
or elsewhere, as to your integrity, and honesty. But while this is true I also
appreciate that the wide publicity given to the fact that an investigation
was to be made at North Platte might be considered by strangers as a stigma upon
you. In view of this it seemed to me that the committee should have been fair
enough to have spoken the truth after their investigation and thus have
ended the matter. Had this been done, nothing further were necessary, but as the
matter stands I can see that your demand for something tangible in the way of
exoneration should have been forthcoming. In answer to your appeal I
therefore suggest that between the Comptroller and myself we will devise some
means to do that justice to you which the facts in the case warrant, and which
those who have a duty devolving upon them to do which they have failed to
perform. With personal assurances of highest esteem, I am yours very
truly". John W. Blee, a banker who would later become the founding
President of the Bank of Cherry, Illinois (1906-1929) was a Special
Examiner in the Office of the US Comptroller of the Currency. The
principal mission of the Comptroller's Office, defined by the National Currency
Act of 1863, was to charter, regulate and supervise all national banks and in so
doing to assure the soundness of the US banking system. The Special
Examiners carried out this supervision under the direction of the Comptroller.
The Panic of 1893, one of the worst economic slumps in US history, was
triggered by speculative railroad financing. It resulted in a run on the
banks, and the failure of many; a currency crisis, when the US exhausted
its gold reserves attempting to honor the pledge to redeem currency notes
for gold; and severe deflation accompanied by high unemployment and many
foreclosures, especially in rural America. The National Bank of North
Platte, Nebraska was one of the failed banks, and Milton Doolittle was appointed
receiver. Doolittle was soon involved in litigation over his sale of
mortgages held by the bank. Details of the resulting "investigation" cited
in Blee's letter are unavailable, but must have reflected the politics of the
time. The Panic of 1893 blighted Grover Cleveland's second term. The
Democratic Party repudiated Cleveland, a "Gold Democrat," and ran Nebraskan
William Jennings Bryan on a platform blaming banks and corporations for the
economic crisis. Republican William McKinley won the Presidency on a
promise of "sound money," including continued adherence to the gold
standard. John Blee was part of the new administration. His boss, the new
Comptroller of the Currency, was Charles Dawes, later winner of a Nobel Peace
Prize (1925) and Vice President in the Coolidge administration. Blee's
scathing criticism of past treatment of Doolittle may have been directed at the
outgoing Cleveland administration, or at Nebraskans now in thrall to the recent
Democratic standard bearer, Bryan. (Doolittle had been a Cleveland delegate
in the Nebraska delegation to the 1892 Democratic National Convention.)Three chips at left side of page one and right side of page two from filing.
Normal mailing folds. Lightly creased and soiled at top edge.
Toned.
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