Business: Bankster Jailed

After ten weeks of stormy trial, Chicago's John Bain, 64-year-old founder of a chain of twelve small banks that failed at one crack last year (TIME, June 22, 1931), was last week convicted of conspiracy to defraud depositors. Scottish immigrant, onetime plumber, Bankster Bain had prospered in real estate, then branched into banking. Before the Depression, his Midas reputation spread widely among the clerks and laborers of Chicago's Southside districts. Unsound real estate promotions, wholesale juggling of assets among his various banks, whisked over his house of cards. When the banks crashed with...

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