“Owing to the continued run for several days, we have decided it wise for our depositors and all concerned to suspend payment for the present.” As news of this sudden suspension traveled through the business community, fellow banking professionals tripped over each other to reassure the public against a general panic. John R. McCune of the Union National Bank stated unreservedly, “Pittsburgh banks were never sounder than they are today.” Alexander Bradley, too, of the Tradesman’s National, had complete confidence in the Penn, as “all the persons connected with it are very nice people.” John D. Scully, president of the First National, noted that eleven other local banks had lent funds to the Penn, so there was little cause for concern.[vi] Indeed, cash was being lent so generously that Penn Bank pay-tellers were obliged to “help out the receiving tellers with bags” that “kept coming in[,]” prompting James Herdman of Dollar Bank to say that he “wished someone would start a run on his bank[.]”[vii] Meanwhile, President Riddle was alone in his room at the Duquesne Club, where he resided full-time. [viii] When reporters began knocking on the Club’s door, he released the following statement: “I have nothing to say in any detail now but am here to face the music and do my duty. Owing to unfounded reports made current by disinterested and malicious persons, there has been a run on us for several days past, and our deposits have been decreased from $5,000,000 to $700,000 in five days. We, therefore, deemed it wise to take the action we have now taken.”[ix] Riddle then returned to his office, where books and accounts were reviewed. Many of the bank’s debts were extended to provide recovery time, and the supplementary cash more than covered the remaining amount. The Penn Bank, therefore, reopened at noon on the 23rd, “strong in the confidence of the people.”[x] On the 26th, however, Riddle was at his desk when he was seized with a sharp pain in his side. “[A] s he sat holding his hand on the part most affected, tears rolled thick and fast down his face. ‘I’m not crying,’” he assured his friend and fellow bank director Captain W.W. Fullwood, “it’s the pain that does that.”
When the spell passed, Riddle “walked alone to his room in the Duquesne Club House on Sixth avenue” for some rest.[xi] Unbeknownst to him, however, after his departure, the unsettled bank directors voted to shutter the bank a second time. The shades again were pulled, and another notice was posted: “Mr. Riddle, the President and chief executive officer of the bank, having become suddenly and seriously ill and unable to communicate with the Board of Directors, it is deemed proper to close the bank under existing circumstances till he sufficiently recovers to be present for adjustment of its affairs.”[xii]
However, no one who understood banking believed that operations could be suspended based solely on the director’s health and noted audibly at the corner of Wood and Liberty that there was “something rotten in Denmark.”[xiii] But what could it be? Meanwhile, before disappearing into his room at the Duquesne Club, Riddle spoke briefly with a young employee named Silas Reed. Handing Reed two thick ledger books, Riddle gave him five dollars[xiv] (about $150 today) to burn both books in the Club’s stove. Reed burned one but, finding that the second was too large to fit into the stove, he opened the cover to tear it apart. Noticing the words “Pennsylvania Bank” prominently worked into the front leaf, Reed ripped out the pages and tossed them into the flames.[xv] In his room, Riddle sought “his usual remedy, an anodyne mixture of hydrate of chloral and bromide of potassium.” Distracted by pain and worry, Riddle
26 | Avenue 6
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