Insull Echoes

It is more than a year since Samuel Insull fled U. S. justice for Athens. It is nearly two years since the topless towers of Insulldom toppled. But reverberations of the mightiest crash of the Depression still rumble ominously back & forth across the western world. Last week Insull echoes were again rolling heavily around Chicago:¶ To be on hand for the rebirth of the Insullated Chicago Civic Opera Company this week (see p. 18), Rosa Raisa and her husband, Giacomo Rimini, required cash advances for traveling expenses. Just before the opening Soprano Raisa told” the story of how she and her husband lost their entire fortune through Samuel In-sull’s investment advice. The utility tycoon had sent a representative in 1926 to urge her to invest in Insull stocks. “I felt very honored that Mr. Insull should send his confidential man to me,” she related. “Every one looked upon Mr. Insull as the god of American business.”

Few days later she went to Insull with a check for $100,000. Said he smiling in surprise: “Oh, you are a rich woman. I didn’t know that. You will be a very, very rich woman.” Each year thereafter she and her husband gave Insull at least $50,000 to invest for them. Each year he would tell them how much paper profit he had made them. One year he said their profit was $500,000 — 100% on their investment. Rosa Raisa wanted to cash in then & there but Insull would not hear of it. The stock was not delivered to them until after the crash and then with the stipulation that it must not be sold. After they refused to buy more Insull stock, she said last week, both she and her husband were banned from the opera company and “life was made a Hell for us.” And many another old Chicago star last week chimed a similar story. ¶ After an investigation of the receiver ship of Insull Utility Investments, Inc. (since lapsed into bankruptcy), Federal Judge Evan Alfred Evans of Chicago last week ruled that Calvin Fentress had been appointed receiver by collusion between Insull and his big bank creditors. He approved the conduct of Mr. Fentress and his attorneys but denied them further fees, blazing: “As it was conducted in 1929 the investment trust was nothing but a glorified gambling institution. . . .” ¶ Samuel Insull Jr. and six other past or present directors of Northern Indiana Public Service Co. were indicted in Crown Point, Ind. for embezzlement, larceny and conspiracy to commit a felony. The indictments were not divulged, but it was understood that Insull Jr. and his associates were charged with looting Northern Indiana’s treasury to shore up the crumbling walls of the Insull holding companies. This particular Insull echo resulted from the trial of Howard Duncan, onetime assistant treasurer, who was indicted for embezzlement of $1,500. On the witness stand last autumn he calmly admitted stealing not $1,500 but $132,000, most of which he had squandered on the horses. But, Embezzler Duncan testified, his superiors had embezzled much more, and he was ready to show how they did it.