Ogden Daily Standard | 1919-11-22 | Page 1 | State Bank is Closed

STATE Warrant Charging Embezzlement Em-bezzlement Issued For Cashier. TURNS OVER KEYS Former Pillar in Church Leaves for Parts J Unknown. CHICAGO. Nov 22. The Illinois State bank ol Crete, III., today failed 'to open. It was tmnounced a warrant charging embezzlement had been is j sued for tho missing cashier, Gust Kracke, in connection with thefts of more than H'0 ouu The brink was capitalized at $25, 000. "The vault door and the janitor' are left that's about all," said a state bank examiner Speculation in which he was said i to have lost more than $100,000 in a I year's trading w as blamed lor I.Kracke's alleged speculations. The bank examiners went to Crete to :aniine the Institution in response to an anoinmuus letter Kracke, ac cording to the examiners, received them and turned over his books, keys: anil unlocked the vault. "I'm ?olnc; j across the street a minute just make' yourselves at home," he told them An hour later the examiners found thes wore locked In tho building and that Kracke had driven away in his automobile. He has not been heard ! from since, so far as is known. Kracke was postmaster, police mag Istrate, notary public, lue and fire In surance agent and described as a "pillar "pil-lar of hi church in Crete." He is 37 ;ears old, married and has a seven-vear-old son. During the first Liberty t loan when quotas were assigned j George Woodruff, county chairman, wrote Kracke urpins stimulation of subscriptions. Kracke'S reply was' said to have been to the effect that! "his people didn't see anv sense to' all this war foolishness and did not jwant to buy bond " Later Kracke was I reprimanded for un-American conduct ! in his treatment of two soldiers arrested ar-rested at Crete.