Bedroom, Jail, Death

Not in 50 years at least has any bank belonging to the New York Clearing House failed to pay its depositors in full. Last week a conservator was placed in charge of a New York Clearing House bank and if he is not able to make good that bank's deposits out of assets (and possible subscriptions by stockholders), the aristocratic record of the Clearing House will be broken.

Other aristocratic records were ready to fall. One afternoon William Pinckley, stalwart (6 ft.-2 in.) deputy marshal, rode up Fifth Avenue in a taxi and descended before a supersmart apartment house at No. 2 East 70th St. He ascended to the seventh floor and announced he had a warrant to serve on Joseph Wright Harriman, Esq. Two starched trained nurses fell upon him. Five minutes later Mr. Pinckley was riding down Fifth Avenue to tell his superior that Mr. Harriman would die if arrested.

And well might it have seemed so, for the nephew of the late mighty Railroader Edward Henry Harriman was no tuppenny personage. At the age of 16, he began his career as a bank clerk. The star of the Harrimans being in the ascendant, at 35 he became a vice president of the Merchants National. Meanwhile his uncle had tussled with Hill and his Cousin Anne had married William K. Vanderbilt. Young Joe became a person of at least social consequence. He married Augusta Barney of Jersey City Heights and like his cousins William Averell and Edward Roland Harriman set out to carve himself a career.

In 1902 he entered the firm of Harriman & Co., founded by his brother and father, and he also became president of the Night & Day Bank (open ail night). E. H. Harriman was one of the directors and a large stockholder. After his death the $100,000,000 estate of the great Widow Harriman bought more of the bank's stock. In 1911 the Night & Day became the Harriman National with Joe Harriman still as president. No scandal adhered to Joe Harriman's banking career unless it was that in 1923 the Harriman National, to Wall Street's horror, lent $100,000 to the United Mine Workers. The American Federationist (labor paper) stated apropos Joe Harriman: ''There are constructive minds and honorable characters in all walks of life.''

Joe Harriman's walk in life was one of the best. He was a socialite and an equestrian, a conspicuous member of all the best clubs from the Union to Piping Rock. On a ridge at Brookville, surrounded by one of the few groves of real trees still alive on Long Island, he built himself a huge rambling house, with terraced gardens, a pool on each terrace, and drives flanked by Japanese maple, dogwood, evergreens. He wore a cropped mustache and bejewelled stickpin, was referred to as an "oldfashioned banker." one whose suggestions were "received with respect in Washington." (In 1918 he suggested filling the Central Park Reservoir with coal. "New York has its Croton; why not a coal reserve?")

And he rounded out his career. In 1924 he retired from Harriman & Co.; in 1927 he erected a new building for his bank on Fifth Avenue. The Harriman Estate retired from the bank and Joe became the Harriman of Harriman National. Last July, as fitted his age, he was elected chairman of the bank where he presided over such well-advertised directors as Julius Lichtenstein (Consolidated Cigar). Amos Sulka (shirts), Boykin Cabell Wright (Cotton Franklin, Wright & Gordon).

But for all Joe Harriman's honors, within an hour after Deputy Pinckley fled for fear of murdering him by the shock of arrest, a U. S. marshal took up his stand in the hall of the Harriman apartment and two doctors, one of them appointed by the U. S. Attorney, examined Mr. Harriman. "Coronary thrombosis," they said, "a very precarious condition." But the warrant was read to the patient, a U. S. Commissioner appeared, and Mr. Harriman, wearing a white hospital smock tied behind his neck, was arraigned in his bed. A nurse raised him up and, taking a fountain pen, he signed a $25,000 bail bond. "Is that all?" he demanded peremptorily. "Then good evening, gentlemen," and sank back weakly on his pillow.

No great pity had the public for this 66-year-old bankster. The warrant on which he was arrested accused him of misappropriating over $300,000 of his depositors' funds. The charges as developed by the U. S. Attorney outlined a far larger story: that following the stockmarket crash of 1929 Harriman had made an attempt to maintain the price of his bank's stock at about $1,350 a share (1929 earnings were $55 a share and later earnings declined). He actually succeeded in maintaining the price in that neighborhood until April 1932. At that time the Harriman National took over Liberty National Bank (founded in 1923 by William C. ["Bull"] Durant) paying one share of its own stock for 180 shares of the Liberty. About that time, too, the U. S. Attorney began investigation, fruit of which was the charge last week that Joe Harriman had used $1,661,170 of the $25,000,000 of deposits in the bank to maintain the price of the bank stock, debiting items of $100,000 and more against various large depositors, some of them his friends, without their alleged knowledge or consent. Among depositors called last week to testify before a grand jury were National Exhibition Co. (New York Giants baseball club), $108,500; Union Pacific Railroad, $68,500; Hearst's International Magazine Co., $462,080.

Honest Henry Elliott Cooper (who last July with the approval of the Clearing House was made president of the Harriman Bank) was appointed Federal Conservator.

The head office of Harriman National (at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 44th St.) looks across to the northeast corner at a large empty office which once housed the notorious Bank of United States.* Ill omen for Joe Harriman was the news last week that the conviction of Bernard K. Marcus, president, and Saul Singer, vice president, of the Bank of U. S. was affirmed by the New York Court of Appeals. Banksters Marcus & Singer were notified to get ready to serve their three-to-six-year terms in Sing Sing (the conviction of Herbert Singer, young son of Saul Singer, was reversed). The Bank of U. S. (with 59 branches and $160,000,000 of deposits) still remains far the biggest U. S. bank failure. Harriman National (with three branches and $25,000,000) is small fry by comparison. But Bank of U. S. was not a member of the New York Clearing House. Henceforth the Clearing House can say only that no honest Clearing House bank will fail to pay 100-c- upon the dollar. Robert S. Stunz, executive vice president of Park Savings Bank at Washington, D. C., told friends that there was less than a half million shortage in his bank's books, then put two bullets through his head. It was feared the shortage might be three times as great.

Despite the fact that suicide is a crime in Church & some States, another kind of banking morality was evident last week: Howell Getty, cashier of First National Bank of Wilmington, Pa., left a directors' meeting, drove two miles out on a country road and shot himself through the head. In the automobile, atop his hat and glasses, was found a note: "The $50,000 insurance policy which the bank holds on my life will pay the depreciation on the bond account and allow the bank to re-open."

*Just before the banking holiday the stockholders' protective committee of the Bank of U. S. asked shareholders to contribute $1.50 per stock unit and make checks payable to the Harriman National.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.