St. Louis Wave

While Louisiana's Huey Pierce ("Kingfish") Long blustered and blathered on the floor of the U. S. Senate all last week in a filibuster against the Glass branch banking bill, designed to provide sound banking facilities for outlying districts, a wave of bank closings smashed over the outlying districts of St. Louis. With a clean record of no closings last year and only two since the Depression St. Louis was rudely introduced to sights long since familiar in many parts of the land: sullen lines of depositors doggedly crowding into a big building for their money, angry, shouting depositors milling impotently before bronze doors. . . .

On Jan. 4 the small Hodiamont Bank closed, touching off runs that spread to most of the small banks in & about St. Louis. Big banks in the downtown district, well fortified with cash, were not affected although they stayed open far into the night receiving deposits brought in from the suburbs, cheerfully paying out cash to all who asked. One by one the little banks went crashing to the wall. On Monday of this week eight failed to open for business, making the total 16. Deposits of $12,000,000 were tied up tight. In the last batch to go was the Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney Bank, affiliated with the famed department store. The outlying banks that still remained open clamped down withdrawal restrictions, invoked the notice rule on savings deposits.

The St. Louis wave brought the total of U. S. bank closings for the first 14 days of 1933 to 91. Last year 179 closed in the first fortnight.

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