Depositors’ run on William Lorimer’s LaSalle Street Trust and Savings Bank, which collapsed in 1914 because of insider abuse and fraud. (Courtesy, Chicago History Museum)
U.S. Senator William Lorimer of Illinois, a Chicago political boss who engaged in an elaborate bank fraud conspiracy with Charles Dawes in 1912. (Courtesy, Library
Robert Todd Lincoln (right) at the dedication of his father’s memorial in 1922, along with Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft (left) and
U.S. Senator Lawrence Sherman of Illinois received a monthly retainer from Samuel Insull, who made the secret payments through Robert Todd Lincoln’s law firm. (Courtesy,
Charles Dawes (right), the U.S. Vice-President under Calvin Coolidge (left), abused his position as president of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and committed fraud to survive
Samuel Insull, the “emperor” of Chicago, controlled a utility empire with assets of $3 billion in depression-era dollars. (Courtesy, Loyola University Chicago Archives)
Asking the superintendent to act
(Tribune archive photo)
A crowd of children and the unemployed marched to the office of Chicago Public Schools Superintendent William Bogan demanding free food in March 1932. During the Great Depression, teachers worked at reduced wages or went without pay in part because people were unable to pay their taxes.
Panic in Paradise is a comprehensive study of bank failures during the Florida land boom of the mid-1920s, during the years preceding the stock market crash of 1929.
Panic in the Loop reveals widespread fraud and insider abuse by bankers – and the complicity of corrupt politicians – that caused the Chicago banking debacle of 1932.
Raymond Vickers
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