That highly aggressive Elizabeth City citizen, the Hon. E.F. Aydlett, has broken out with another row. Mr. Aydlett can’t keep out of a row very long. One row hardly blows over before he is in another. This time his quarrel is with C.H. Robinson, President of the First & Citizens National Bank, and his son, C.O. Robinson. Mr. Aydlett was recently dropped from the Board of Directors of the First & Citizens National. It made him hot; nothing gets his goat like being dropped from something. Once he gets in or on anything he clings to it like proverbial death to a dead Ethiopian. Mr. Aydlett didn’t think he would be dropped from the directorate of the First & Citizens National. They had been trying to get rid of him for three years because they believed that he was using his position as a director to line his own pockets, further his own personal schemes and to injure the bank. They had been trying for three year to let him off softly, but without success. Mr. Aydlett was defiant; he told them they would have to put him off.
At the annual meeting of the First & Citizens National stockholders recently Mr. Adylett’s challenge was accepted. It was not expected that he would take his dismissal without raising a rumpus. And he didn’t. One day las week Mr. Aydlett posted letters around time attempting to explain how he lost out at the First & Citizens National and accusing the Messrs. Robinson of vicious motives in the matter. Mr. C.H. Robinson and the First & Citizens National have tried to keep the mess out of the newspapers, but this newspaper would be recreant to its tasks as a chronicler of life as it is to omit the publication of Mr. Aydlett’s attack on the Robinsons and Mr. C.H. Robinson’s reply. Mr. Robinson has worsted Mr. Aydlett in the controversy, leaving the latter hardly a leg to stand on. For a cautious, conservative citizen of 73 years C.H. Robinson certainly delivers a powerful wallop when he is riled. Read:
Aydlett’s Opening Gun
Elizabeth City, N.C.
January 17th, 1922
Dear Sir:—
I write the stockholders of the First & Citizens National Bank to offer for sale my 12 shares of stock in the bank. My reason. I do not want to own stock in any bank which is controlled by one man and his family and family connections, who use the Bank to forward their own personal ends, and against those who won’t do his bidding.
Mr. C.H. Robinson and his son, Charlie, became offended with me because I, as a school trustee, would not favor purchasing the lot known as the “Ehringhaus lot,” which Charlie had offered the Graded School Trustees for the High School building. I did not, (1) the lot was not suitable for the $175,000 High School buidlng; (2) the price was $5,000 to $6,000 too much. He had paid too much for it when prices were high. I felt the taxpayers and the children had a right to demand a suitable lot at a reasonable price.
To show their resentment for not favoring their lot they secretly set about to defeat my election as a Director in the Bank. To accomplish this, they used as a reason that I was a Director and Vice President of the Savings Bank & Trust Company, and ought not to be on both Boards of Directors. This was not the true reason.
In 1903 I was elected a Director and Vice President of the Savings Bank & Trust Company, and have served as such ever since. In 1913, 10 years afterwards, Mr. C.H. Robinson, while I was Director and Vice President of the Savings Bank & Trust Company, came to my office and wanted me on his Board of Directors, and as the law required a Director in a National Bank should own 10 shares of stock to be eligible to serve on the Board, Mr. Robinson offered to sell me 10 shares of his stock. I did not care to serve as a Director, but at his request I purchased the 10 shares of stock and he had me elected on the Board, on which I have served continuously until this week, and would be there now if I had favored Charlie’s lot and had recommended paying the price which he asked for same.
So I have served on both boards since January, 1913, with no objection, and both Banks have made rapid progress.
It is perfectly clear that this was not Robinson’s reason.
I am informed the proxies were marked against me, under the direction of the Robinsons, after they had been received here, and no such authority was given them when the proxies were sent.
The Robinsons seem to think they are too strong and big financially to be opposed, and what they say must go, and are using the bank influence to further their ends.
Mr. Robinson and his son, Charlie, ought to have given the true reason, but were afraid to do so, for they knew the stockholders would not stand for that.
This is but a repetition of Mr. Robinson’s conduct with Dr. Oscar McMullan when Doctor was on the Board of Directors, and President of the Cotton Mill. The Doctor opposed some of Mr. Robinson’s wishes, and at next election of the board, Mr. Robinson had secured control of enough stock and defeated the Doctor’s election on the board and as President. The Doctor’s friends, at the next annual election, put him back on the board.
I have no wishes to be placed back on the board. On the other hand I want to sell my stock.
I might speak of other things about the Robinson’s management of the Bank which the stockholders ought to know, but I do not care to go into them at least for the present.
I will be glad to hear from anyone who would like to buy my stock.
Yours truly,
E.F. AYDLETT
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Mr. C.H. Robinson’s Reply
TO THE STOCKHOLDERS OF THE FIRST & CITIZENS NATIONAL BANK:--
Mr. E.F. Aydlett has taken the unusual course of airing his grievances for being dropped from the Board of Directors of The First & Citizens National Bank, at its recent stockholders’ meeting, by addressing a letter to the stockholders, a copy of which you have no doubt received, and by posting copies on street corners, making a direct attack on me and my son, C.O. Robinson, and charging us with being responsible for his being dropped as a Director because of his action in the choice of a site for a school building. He very well knows that the choice of a site for a school building had nothing to do with his being so dropped, and that he is trying to cover, with his trumped-up charge, the real reason for being dropped.
My first impulse was to ignore this vicious attack, but further consideration persuaded me that the stockholders of a public service corporation are entitle to the facts in the case. Further than this I am not, nor shall I be interested.
Mr Aydlett was one of the original subscribers to stock when the Bank was organized in 1891, but at the first meeting of stockholders he was defeated by E.F. Lamb as a Director, and at once disposed of his stock in the Bank.
During the years up to 1913 he had frequently intimated to me his desire to be on the Board, and I admit that through my influence he was elected a Director that year. I now frankly admit that in this I made a mistake, as it very soon developed that his being a director was to further his own personal interests, and not that of the Bank. He frequently urged the making of loans to his clients that were of long standing, and for that reason undesirable. The National Bank Law prohibits a Director form receiving any renumeration for procuring a loan. Those who have had dealings with Mr. Aydlett doubtless know that he does not usually do anything without being paid. This has continued up to very recently, and the Bank now has some of those loans which are undesirable, though they will eventually be paid.
At the time the consolidation of the First National Bank and the Citizens Bank was first discussed by the officers of the First National Bank, a meeting of the Directors was held, Mr. Aydlett being present, and apparently favored the move. The Directors were requested not to make public the matter under consideration, but it developed that the very next morning an officer of the Savings Bank & Trust Company went to the Citizens Bank with a proposition to consolidate.
QUESTION: How did the Savings Bank people get their information that a movement was on foot to consolidate the First National Bank with the Citizens Bank?
After committees from the two Banks had agreed on the terms of consolidation, a meeting of stockholders of the First National Bank was called for the purpose of ratifying the consolidation and to increase the capital stock to be exchanged for the Citizens Bank stock. Mr. Aydlett objected strenuously to the agreement entered into, claiming that the ten shares of stock owned by him would be depreciated in value if the capital stock was increased and exchange for stock of the Citizens (at least one line obscured) the stockholders meeting held on March 26th, 1918, to openly oppose the matters under consideration, Mr. P.H. Williams, President of the Savings Bank & Trust Company; J.H. Aydlett, brother of E.F. Aydlett, with proxies from their wives, and other persons, including one of the directors of the Savings Bank & Trust Company, did appear at the meeting and demurred, both to the consolidation and to the increase of the capital stock, threatening legal procedure to stop the consolidation.
Mr. Ehringhaus, on behalf of the First National Bank, and Mrs. Thompson, on behalf of the Citizens Bank, had been employed to handle the legal details of the consolidation. Mr. E.F. Aydlett had not been employed by reason of his being Vice President of the Savings Bank & Trust company, which had used every effort to secure a consolidation with the Citizens Bank.
A Director of this Bank, who knows Mr. Aydlett and his methods better than I did at that time, suggested to me that if Mr. Aydlett got a fee, proceedings on the part of his dissenting stockholders of the First National Bank would be dropped. This I at first thought quite impossible, but upon the urgent request of some of the other parties interested who thought delay might be detrimental and possible legal proceedings expensive, I had a conference with Mr. Aydlett and soon found him very ready to deal, and a price of $275 was finally agreed upon, if legal proceedings on the part of the dissenting stockholders were squashed. This may be interesting news to the owners of the 67 shares of stock.
But that ended their case, and on July 12th, 1918, the firm of Aydlett, Simpson & Sawyer received a check for $275, which was endorsed in Mr. Aydlett’s hand writing and collected.
QUESTION: Did Mr. Aydlett share this $275, billed as services, (better have been called black mail) with his law partners, or with the owners of the 67 shares of stock opposing the consolidation, headed by Mr. P.H. Williams, President of the Savings Bank & Trust Company?
Since that time Mr. Aydlett has not been employed by the Bank as attorney.
During the fall of 1920, everyone will recall the hard times existing and that the Banks all over the country were obliged to greatly restrict their loans. Interest rates in the northern cities soared, and this Bank was obliged to borrow very heavily from the Federal Reserve Bank and from its northern correspondents in order to relend to its customers. On December 2nd, 1920, Mrs. Aydlett applied for a loan of $12,500, saying that he had urgent need for it. I stated the situation to him, telling him that several of our Directors had helped to relieve the situation by paying their loans, some of them by selling their Liberty Bonds at a sacrifice; that the stock companies in which I was interested had paid off all their obligations, and that it was his duty as a Director to help; still he persisted that he must have the loan and it was made. Shortly after that an officer of the Savings Bank & Trust Company told an officer of the First & Citizens National Bank that Mr. Aydlett had forced a loan on his Bank to buy Liberty Bonds with at about the same time.
A few days later Mr. Aydlett applied to me for another loan of $3,000, at which time I told him what information had come to us with reference to the former loan. He at first denied that it was so, but later admitted that the $12,500 borrowed from us was to pay in part a loan made at the Savings Bank & Trust Company to buy Liberty Bonds, and upon this admission I dared to refuse the loan of $3,000 to him.
This aroused his ire. Since then he has, as the saying goes, “had it in for me.” I have dared to turn down a loan to Mr. Aydlett,--that is my crime in his eyes,--not the flimsy excuse he makes for being dropped from the Board of Directors, and which he has mailed to the stockholders of this Bank, as well as posted on street corners.
|The advisability of dropping him from the Board has been discussed for the last three years by a number of Directors on account of his selfish conduct and on account of the fact that his active interest appeared to be with another institution. In sympathy with this feeling of fairness to both institutions, one of our valued Directors has surrendered his directorship on the Board of the other bank in which he was interested. Mr. Aydlett howls at the actin of this Bank with respect to himself and pretends that the purpose of his letter is to sell his stock holdings in The First & Citizens National Bank, when he well knows that this stock is in great demand and can be sold at any time for more than its book value.
He concludes by saying he “might speak of other things that the stockholders and depositors ought to know about the Robinsons’ management of the Bank.” Let him speak. In the 30 years and more of my connection with the Bank I defy him, or any one else, to show wherein I have ever sacrificed the interests of the Bank for my personal interest.
For the sake of harmony I refused, for several years, to act as the spokesman of the Directors in asking him to withdraw his name for re-election, but this year I made the request and he refused to withdraw. There was nothing left but to vote him out, which was done, he receiving 94 votes out of a total of 1,568.
My son, C.O. Robinson, alluded to as “Charlie,” a Director of the Bank, has been north this entire week and knows nothing of Mr. Aydlett’s attack. On is return he may feel obliged to speak for himself.
As evidence that the element of personal feeling did not influence my attitude, or the attitude of the Bank, towards Mr. Aydlett, I might mention that on January 17th, the date his abusive letter was addressed to the stockholders, he procured at this Bank a loan of $10,000, and it is reported from the Savings Bank & Trust Company, of which he is Vice President and a Director, that the loan was disapproved there.
In his letter, Mr. Aydlett states that he has served the bank. This is his record:
Since he was elected a Director in 1913, 134 meetings have been held, of which he attended only 56, usually coming in late and frequently excusing himself before the meeting was over.
This letter is addressed to the stockholders of the Banks as it is for them to judge between Mr. Aydlett and myself, not the public,and will not be posted on street corners or given out by me for publication.
I would appreciate an expression from you whether or not you think Mr. Aydlett is a proper person to serve on your Board of Directors.
Respectfully,
CHAS. H. ROBINSON
January 20th, 1922
From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Jan. 27, 1922. These letters are, of course, of interest to relatives of the aydlett and Robinson families, but it is also interesting to compare the responsibilites of those in positions of power in a bank during hard times.
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