Mr. Harriman Seeks Rest

An old feeble-looking man with close-cropped grey hair shuffled up to the proprietor of the Old Orchard Inn at Roslyn, L. I., one evening last week. "I want an inexpensive room." he said. "I can't afford to pay very much."

''I can let you have a nice front room for $2.50," the proprietor replied.

"All right," said the man. He picked up a pen and wrote laboriously: "A. T. Thomas, Louisville, Ky."

Outside the inn, the taxi which had brought the old man from nearby Locust Valley rattled away hesitatingly. The driver was wondering where he had seen his passenger before. Was it in Locust Valley? Was it in the newspapers? When he got home next morning he described the old man to his wife. She said she had seen him too the day before, and she knew who he was. She told a New York Herald Tribune reporter that it was Joseph W. Harriman, the defamed bankster whose escape the previous day from the Regent Nursing Home in Manhattan, where he was awaiting trial for falsification of bank accounts had electrified the Press. Few hours later the reporter called at the Inn, chatted with the proprietor, suggested to him that his feeble old guest was Harriman. To see for himself, the proprietor went upstairs, found "Mr. Thomas" in bed, and got nothing but denials from the old gentleman. While they were talking, a loud knock announced the arrival of Inspector King of the Nassau County police, summoned thither by the reporter. "Aren't you Mr. Harriman?" he demanded abruptly. "No, I am Mr. Thomas," was the reply. But lying on the window sill was a hat bearing the initials "J. W. H." on the sweatband. Noting this, the Inspector strode from the room, telephoned the Manhattan police.

Speeding to the inn came Boykin Cabell Wright, Bankster Harriman's son-in-law who asked to be left alone with the old man. Since Harriman was out on bail, the police had no jurisdiction over him. They withdrew. Then Harriman asked Wright to step out too while he dressed.

When all had gone, the old man went over to the washstand. In his hand flashed a cheap little butcher knife. The men outside the door heard him groan. Bursting in, they could see his face in the mirror, contorted with pain. He was still trying to push the knife through his ribs.

They disarmed him, rushed him to Nassau County Hospital where agents from the surety company who had put up his bail guarded his life, as it was evident from letters he had left that the old man's despondency was great. The letters contained references to his son Alan whose death in an automobile accident in 1928 was a source of constant sorrow to Mr. Harriman and to whose grave he went directly after escaping from the hospital.

In the letter to his daughter, he wrote: "I do not know how to turn. I have been thinking so much day and night--all these weeks, months and years, my head is in a whirl and I crave rest--just rest, and there is only one place where it is to be found. . . . But I want you to know, dear Teta, that regardless of any charges by bank officials, not one cent has ever been taken by me in any way. On the contrary, all I have saved, my life savings for mother and you, have gone into the bank. It has been my pride and 'monument' . . . and it has been swept away and is a miserable failure. Our boy--your brother--gone. My health gone. My entire fortune-- gone. My bank--my pride--gone. My friends--gone."

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