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JOHN W. BLEE - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 08/03/1897 - HFSID 67766

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.

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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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