On October 17th the Heinze failure occurred in New York. Five days later the embarrassment of the Knickerbocker Trust Company was announced. I glued my ears to the ground.
Nat. C. Goodwin & Company "shorted" the mining-stock market so far as its limited capital would permit. On the day Mr. Heinze went overboard the company was already short 2,000 shares of Goldfield Consolidated at around $6. On hearing that the Knickerbocker Trust Company was in trouble it promptly shorted 2,000 shares more at a lower figure.
On the afternoon when the news reached Reno of the Knickerbocker Trust Company's embarrassment I received a private telegram from Chicago stating that the paper of the State Bank & Trust Company of Goldfield, Tonopah and Carson City had gone to protest in San Francisco. This set my blood tingling. I knew that meant a general Nevada "bust."
Next morning Nat. C. Goodwin & Company shorted 2,000 shares more of Goldfield Consolidated at about $51/8. Later in the day the failure of the State Bank & Trust Company was announced. A run followed on the Nye & Ormsby County Bank and its branches in Reno, Carson City, Tonopah, Goldfield, and Manhattan, and in two hours that institution, too, closed its doors.
Goldfield Consolidated promptly broke to $4 a share. Around this point Nat. C. Goodwin & Company covered its short sales, at discretion.
All of the Nixon banks in Nevada experienced runs as a result of the failure of the two Nevada banking institutions. So did the other banks.
Governor Sparks was appealed to by Nevada bank officials between two suns to come to the rescue. Without hesitation he declared a series of legal holidays to enable the banks of the State which were still standing on their feet to catch their breath. These banks finally threw open their doors, but when they did, those of Reno met depositors' withdrawals with asset money instead of legal tender. The only bank in Reno which had refused to take advantage of the enforced legal holidays was the Scheeline Banking & Trust Company. And when asset money was finally resorted to as a makeshift, M. Scheeline, the president, was made custodian of the bonds which were put up by the associated Reno banks to secure payment. This restored confidence.
It was believed in Nevada at the time of the failure of the mining-camp banks, the State Bank & Trust Company and the Nye & Ormsby County, that the Nixon institution in Goldfield would have found it hard to weather the storm but for the fact that the Goldfield bank was believed to have upward of $2,000,000 of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company's money on deposit.
When the State Bank & Trust Company went to the wall Senator Nixon, in an interview published in his Reno newspaper, charged the failure of the State Bank & Trust Company to me. He alleged that the State Bank & Trust Company lost $375,000 by the failure of the Sullivan Trust Company ten months before, and that I had broken the bank. The liabilities of the bank were $3,000,000, and its Sullivan Trust Company loss was only "a drop in the bucket." The Senator didn't fool anybody, not even himself. His effort was an ill-concealed attempt to prepossess the public against me, and was received by Nevada people as such.
Senator Nixon indulged in some more "interview" with a view to stemming the tide of liquidation in Goldfield Consolidated. Notwithstanding the fact that the company had only recently resorted to the sale of treasury stock for money-raising purposes, he asserted that a quarterly dividend, payable January 25th, would probably be declared. Beyond a question this statement was made for market purposes at a time when the Senator was sweating money-blood.