The Bank Failure Vendetta
After his bank deposits evaporated, an enraged depositor stalked a banker to Tacoma, bringing a revolver and a sense of ruinous betrayal.
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.
H. O. Tobin arrived in Tacoma today in pursuit of Banker Edmiston, whom he attempted to kill recently after arriving here. Mr. Tobin, who was always a very healthy man, had a slight stroke of paralysis. He says he will return to Walla Walla and will not make any attempt to revenge himself upon Edmiston again. He does not consider his life worth much, and hopes and expects to leave for Tacoma tomorrow to see his son. When asked about the attempt on Edmiston, Mr. Tobin said, 'I understand he has left. He heard I was coming, and I think this time he is in Canada. I do not want to say that I am sorry. I will return and let him alone. He is just like one of these razor-back hogs—he isn't worth shooting.' Tobin explained how the bank failure at Walla Walla turned him against Edmiston: 'I just picked up a revolver I had left in my place, a saloon, and went for him. I have never used a revolver since I left the army, and it did not go off the first time. The bullet went through Edmiston's coat and away. The next time it went off again, and I had a good aim. I was fined $20.' Tobin claims Edmiston had promised him his money would be available just days before the bank collapsed, despite knowing it was already insolvent.
“He is just like one of these razor-back hogs—he isn't worth shooting.”
The collapse of the Puget Sound Loan and Trust Company in the 1890s echoes the modern precarity of banking and the personal toll of systemic financial failure. While the era's 'banker vendettas' were often settled with revolvers, the public fury over deposited savings lost to 'broken' banks mirrors the anxieties of contemporary housing and financial crises.
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