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ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("F.D.R.") to Frederic A. Delano, Albany, 10 April 1931. 2 pages, 4to, gubernatorial stationery .
ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("F.D.R.") to Frederic A. Delano, Albany, 10 April 1931. 2 pages, 4to, gubernatorial stationery . FDR BLASTS THE "SELFISHNESS" AND "APATHY" OF BANKERS In the aftermath of the City Trust Company's collapse, FDR suggested banking refors, but the legislature took no action whatsoever. "In other words they approved the existing practice of allowing the banks to treat" individual savings accounts "just like commercial accounts and invest the proceeds in practically any type of security or mortgage." The "overwhelming majority" of the people who lost their savings were poor people, he points out. "Then came the Bank of the United States failure in which 450,000 individual depositors will probably lose 30 to 40 per cent, and most of these deposits were in thrift accounts...The trouble with the bankers is...they offer absolutely no other method of giving greater security to these thrift accounts. It is this apparent apathy on the part of the bankers to a real need which concerns me because it results invariably in stirring up a very deep feeling on the part of the average citizen against the small minority which controls finances." FDR also addresses his own presidential prospects. "The other morning when I read that Straus poll, of which I had no previous knowledge, I reiterated my November statement making it clear that I am doing nothing except the work of this office. So too, in the Tammany situation, I am making an honest effort to detach myself from the pulling and hauling of both sides in order to be as fair and just as possible in dealing both with real charges and with hysteria. I believe the thinking Tammany men themselves realize that they will have their day in court."