The Banker, the Preacher and the Indictments in the Pews
When a Tacoma grand jury indicted officers of the failed Merchants National Bank, the Rev. Alfred Martin used a Friday sermon to remind his congregation that ancient curses were mild compared with modern indictments.
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TACOMA, March 4.—[Special.]—The indictment of the officers of the suspended Merchants National Bank had been publicly denounced by a preacher, Rev. Alfred Martin, of the First Free Church. All of the men indicted save, perhaps, Vice President Henry Drum, have been pillars of Mr. Martin's church.
Walter J. Thompson, ex-president of the Merchants, has taken the lead in advanced Unitarianism, which resulted here about a year ago in the organization of the First Free Church, to which representatives of all creeds are welcomed, without any questions being asked. Any person who desires to attend the First Free Church is welcomed, and an effort is made to make him or her feel perfectly at home.
Mr. Martin is a graduate of Hartford College, and was one of his class to take the theological course. Of late he has been reviewing some of his college lectures for the benefit of his congregation. Friday evening he discussed Assyria, and referred to the tablets and indictments found in that ancient country. Some of the indictments cursed those against whom they were directed, besides imposing penalties. In turning over these old relics, Mr. Martin referred to the indictments brought in by the Federal grand jury. He said: 'But none of these indictments [Assyrian] were as cruel and as malicious as those [Federal grand jury indictments] that we have unfortunately heard about of late.'
“But none of these indictments were as cruel and as malicious as those that we have unfortunately heard about of late.”
A bank failure becomes a moral crisis when the people accused of fraud are also the people who filled the pews and paid for the church. Tacoma’s 1894 scandal shows how tightly finance, civic reputation and religious respectability were braided together—and how quickly a preacher could turn a sermon into a public indictment.
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