The little town of Ellenville, N.Y. (pop. 5,000) gulped when Banker William Rose, a self-proclaimed Robin Hood, was charged with allowing overdrafts of $1,200,000 (TIME, Dec. 24), and his Home National Bank was closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Last week Ellenville gulped again as the FDIC sifted through the remains of Home National (capital: $807,000). To settle Rose's gift-loan of $958,000 to the nearby Anjopa Paper Co., the FDIC agreed on a $396,000 installment-plan repayment. FDIC had no other choice; Anjopa's total worth is only $302,000.
Out of pocket, the bank's stockholders angrily flared up as well at...