The four fraudulent bankers of Chicago were ordered to put up bonds totaling $30,000--$7,500 each--by the courts. The two who are still in Chicago, Geokaris and Stamatides, have employed fair means and foul to protect themselves. They have pulled so many strings that they boast of their invulnerability.

Naturally, the depositors, who were defrauded, are grieved to think that justice can be manipulated to serve the moneyed interest; especially, when it is their own money that is being used against them.....

On January 31, at ten o'clock in the morning, the thieves will be called to answer for their conduct. The depositors must be present to give their testimony with regard to the reputations and past performances of these crooks.

Certain facts about the lives of the bankers must be told, such as: The four men are known to be gamblers who play for high stakes. They sold shares and stocks of non-existent oil wells and mines. All their property has been 2transferred to other individuals, or to their wives. They are shareholders in the shipping company they represent, and are still retained as representatives, despite their fraudulent actions; they live very extravagantly in luxurious homes that are far beyond their means.....

The above accusations, that have, so far, been transmitted by word of mouth, we now publish so that the whole community can become familiar with the characters of our fine friends, the bankers.

Let it be known that they laugh when they are threatened with punishment; that they belittle the courts of justice, and are cocksure of going unpunished; that they attack the Saloniki because it exposed them, and fought them so savagely in the name of truth and justice.

This is not all that the depositors age going to prove about these frauds. They are going to exhibit the ledgers of the bank. It is known that thousands of dollars were deposited in the bank on the day before it failed, and the next day there was only ninety-six dollars in the vaults, which the bankers probably overlooked.

3

It is common knowledge that one of the depositors did get his money from the bank--not because of the kind-heartedness of any of the four bankers, but because he went to the home of one of the thieves and demanded his money. The cowardly banker could do nothing but give him his five hundred dollars.

The court must be told about the dead man found in the snow last winter. He died of exposure because he did not have fifteen cents to pay for a warm place in which to stay. But a bankbook from the Greek-American Bank was found in his pocket, crediting him with a large sum of money.

The court must be told of the number of people who have died of grief when they found that their life savings had been stolen from them. It must be told how a girl died of grief because her dowry was lost in the bank failure; how a sixty-five-year-old man lost the savings of eighteen years of sweat and privation, and is now penniless and homeless.

The bankruptcy of the Greek-American Bank is a social scandal, and an unpardonable crime of immense proportions, against society.

4

During the last eighteen months, the Saloniki had ample opportunity to find out all the lurid and pitiful details of the suffering caused directly by the bank failure. We are familiar with the eight hundred tales of woe, and have tried to arouse public opinion in behalf of these 800 victims.

At times our position was precarious because of our disclosures. Only the knowledge that the other Greek papers had kept silent for eighteen months, and at times had even defended the wealthy bankers, gave us courage to go on with the fight for the timid depositors.

This paper is afraid of no single individual and no group of individuals, no matter how much money or influence is involved. It will always be our policy to defend the weak and the ignorant against those who seek to prey upon them.

Let us present all the evidence we have and then see if the bankers' influence has more weight with the American courts of justice than the truth.