To the Select and Common Councils of the city of Reading:
Your committee on finance, in presenting an ordinance entitled "An ordinance to re-imburse Jno. E. Arthur for moneys deposited in the city treasury, to cover the loss of the city of Reading, by the failure of the banking house of Bushong & Bro., deem it proper to report that the said ordinance originated in the committee, and was framed and reported in response to a public sentiment, expressed with extraordinary unanimity, that the repayment of the money deposited in the city treasury by Col. Arthur, with interest, is a moral obligation which the city is bound in honor to discharge.
The committee gave the whole subject very careful consideration, in view of the fact that it is a debt which the city could not be required by any legal proceedings to pay, and that the amount of money contemplated in the appropriation, could be retained in the city treasury and applied to other purposes; but the conclusion was irresistible that the only course to be followed was that indicated by a higher sense of public honor and duty than that found in the mere technical requirements of the law, and that the only acceptable response to the public sentiment upon this subject, was the doing of complete fairness and justice to a faithful public officer, whose present misfortune is only attributable to the fact that he stood in the breach when the peril came, and was less prompt than his contemporaries to ask relief at the hands of the public, from what was justly and generally considered a public calamity.
The power of councils to make the appropriation is unquestioned, as it may either be treated as a loan to the city, or as money which came into the treasury by mistake or accident, and which therefore ought not to be retained. It is certain that this sum of money was not derived by the city from any of its sources of revenue, and that the city did not know it had been put into the treasury and it cannot therefore be morally treated as belonging to the city; but without regard to any of these considerations, the councils have full power to make the appropriation.
Some time before the loss was sustained, councils by resolutions directed the treasurer to deposit the moneys of the city coming into his hands, in the Farmers' National bank, the Union National bank and the Reading Savings bank, which directions he observed as to all future deposits and at once began to withdraw the large deposit then existing at the banking house of Bushong & Bro., and at the time of the failure had reduced the same to $7800, while the deposit at the Farmers' bank was upwards of $48,000 and at the Union bank upwards of $40,000, showing a compliance with the directions of councils, in making the designated banks the depositories of the city funds from and after the passage of said resolution, and the exercise of a prudent judgment in withdrawing the funds from a bank not designated, although enjoying the fullest public confidence.
Under similar circumstances (not one of them having the force of a legal claim), the county treasurer, the school treasurer, the then city solicitor and the treasurers of all private corporations of the city were exonerated, thus recording the public sentiment that it was esteemed a public calamity and not a proper occasion for a resort to individual responsibilities, and your committee is of the opinion that the case of Col. Arthur, by reason of his conduct in making up the loss at the expense of all his private means, and of making no demand upon the city, (for he is not now demanding it) is more meritorious than that of any of the other cases. We strongly recommend the passage of the ordinance, thereby placing Col. Arthur, after the lapse of six years, on equal terms with all the other exonerated officers.
Respectfully submitted,
J.G. Leinbach,
Ferd. Winter,
Thos. J. Dotts,
Committee.
Reading, Pa., Jan. 14, 1884
Source: Appendix to the Journals of the Select and Common Councils, pp. CVIII-CX.
Submitted by: Nancy.
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