The Port Angeles Banker Who Escaped to Chicago
Benjamin F. Schwartz, a disgraced Port Angeles banker, is caught and brought back to face justice, telling wild stories of persecution and air-ship escapes to his jailers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Sheriff S. G. Morse of Clallam County arrived in Seattle last evening with Benjamin F. Schwartz, the former Port Angeles banker who had escaped from jail while under an eighteen-month sentence for embezzling a $1,000 note. Schwartz, who maintains he is an 'injured innocent,' claims he never hid, but rather worked under his own name for a Chicago firm to support his wife and child. In a characteristic display of flair, Schwartz told reporters he traveled to Chicago in an airship made by friends, a tall tale that left his fellow jail inmates in awe. Sheriff Morse, however, remains unconvinced and indicates that the jail in Port Angeles will likely hold the self-described 'injured man' longer than he expects.
“The effrontery of the man in telling what everybody knows to be false is remarkable.”
Bank failures and the flight of executives are a recurring feature of Washington's boom-and-bust history. Schwartz's ability to spin elaborate narratives about his own victimhood while facing serious white-collar criminal charges echoes the classic tropes of high-profile financial scandals that still plague the region.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.