CANNERY ROW BANK HEIST SUSPECTS STILL AT LARGE

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VOL. XXI . . . No. 73
•
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA • MONDAY, MARCH 14, 1933
•
TWO CENTS
ROOSEVELT
SPEAKS TO
THE NATION
President reassures
citizens over the
airways, banks to
re-open soon.
CANNERY ROW BANK HEIST
SUSPECTS STILL AT LARGE
MONTEREY, Calif. – Sergeant Thomas Liddo, of the
Monterey Police Department,
announced that the last of the
lost policemen was finally located after going missing in
the early hours of March 9
while in pursuit of the fugitives involved in the robbery
of the Cannery Row Bank on
Irving Avenue. Local fisherman, Carl Metzger is credited
with the find and rescue of
Patrolman Harry O’Day after
four days missing in the maze
of cannery pylons and piers.
He and twelve other officers
and detectives were searching
for the two on-the-run bank
robbers still at large.
The bank heist occurred
at approximately 10:45 p.m.
on Wednesday, March 8. Only
two days prior, a transfer of
Federal Reserve cash and
gold had been completed at
the bank. The timing of the
transfer was in response to
President Roosevelt’s national
four day closing of all banks.
Area witnesses gave conflicting physical descriptions
of the robbery suspects but
all agreed they were well
equipped and agile as they
fled the scene.
Upon exiting through the
blasted-wide, gaping hole in
the vault’s exterior wall, the
unknown robbers ran down
Irving Avenue and right onto
Ocean View Boulevard. With
shouts of “robbery” from passersby echoing down alleyways, nearby police broke into
action and were immediately
hot on their trail. Within minutes of the robbery, fellow officers in the pursuit soon joined
them in the chase.
Due to the ongoing investigation, the details of exactly what happened next are
sketchy. But there is no question the thirteen heroic police
officers followed the two fugitives into cannery warehouses searching the labyrinth of
sorting tables, conveyor belts
and darkened storage areas,
only to loose them in the maze
of pylons and piers below.
What we do know from
those involved with the case
is the dozen or so officers
soon became disoriented in
their surroundings and separated from teammates as they
searched deeper into the cannery shadows.
By dawn, Detective Ralph
Edmonds, Detective Stephen
Rice and Officer O’Day were
missing, lost somewhere
within the depths of the waterfront fisheries. Edmonds
and Rice were located later
in the day but, Officer O’Day
was not rescued until yesterday, being found clinging to
an under pinning of a cannery pier.
As O’Day climbed, wet
and exhausted, into the fisherman’s small, flat-bottomed
light [boat] when rescued, he
was heard to say, “I thought
I’d never be found. It’s an impossible maze down there; a
real challenge even for us old
veterans of the force.”
By yesterday evening, detectives had given up their
round-the-clock vigil at the
canneries with not a sighting
of the fugitives nor a trace of
their bank “withdrawal” ever
found.
Police Chief John Arthur
assures the public the robbers
will be found and brought to
justice.
■
Canneries on Monterey’s
waterfront stand quiet after intensive searches.
Last Of The Patrol Officers Rescued
Safely After Four Days Missing In
The Maze Of Waterfront Piers.
Fisherman Carl Metzger,
seen standing in his flatbottom light, is credited
with the find and rescue
of Patrolman Harry O’Day
after four days missing in
the maze of cannery piers.
He and twelve other officers were searching for the
fugitive bank robbers.
WASHINGTON, DC –
The months surrounding the
October 1929 stock market
crash saw that market lose
$30 billion dollars in value.
By the time Franklin D.
Roosevelt was inaugurated
on March 4, 1933, the American banking system had
collapsed. The frantic public
was withdrawing its savings in record numbers and
the banks, already strapped
by the stock market crash,
were incapable of supplying
enough currency to meet the
public’s needs. On the day
after he was inaugurated,
President Roosevelt, invoking the 1917 Trading with
the Enemy Act, closed all
American banks for a “bank
holiday.”
Last night, President
Roosevelt spoke directly to
the citizens of the United
RUTH THREATENS
TO QUIT THE GAME
Will Retire Rather Than Take
$50,000 Contract. He Says
at St. Petersburg.
INSISTS HE IS WORTH MORE
But Predicts Talk With Ruppert
Will End Dispute – Will Join
Yankees Tomorrow.
By The Associated Press
ST.
PETERSBURG,
Florida – Babe Ruth,
New York Yankees slugger, will retire from baseball rather than accept
an offer of $50,000 for the
1933 season, he said in
an interview last night.
“Financial conditions
throughout the country
have not changed my
mind in any way regrading my 1933 contract,”
said Ruth. “I believe I am
worth more to the Yankees than $50,000, and I
will retire from baseball
before signing a contract
like that.”
(Continued on page 8, Col. 3)
States via radio broadcast
in the hopes of assuring the
public of a sound and stable
banking system. What follows is a verbatim transcript
of the President’s address:
My friends:
I want to talk for a few
minutes with the people
of the United States about
banking -- to talk with the
comparatively few who understand the mechanics of
banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use
banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of
checks.
I want to tell you what
has been done in the last few
days, and why it was done,
and what the next steps are
going to be. I recognize that
the many proclamations
from State capitols and
from Washington, the legislation, the Treasury regulations, and so forth, couched
for the most part in banking
and legal terms, ought to be
explained for the benefit of
the average citizen. I owe
this, in particular, because
of the fortitude and the good
temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships
of the banking holiday. And
I know that when you understand what we in Washington have been about, I
shall continue to have your
cooperation as fully as I
have had your sympathy
and your help during the
past week.
First of all, let me state
the simple fact that when
you deposit money in a bank,
the bank does not put the
money into a safe deposit
vault. It invests your money
in many different forms of
credit -- in bonds, in commercial paper, in mortgages
and in many other kinds of
loans. In other words, the
bank puts your money to
work to keep the wheels of
industry and of agriculture
turning around. A comparatively small part of the
(Continued on page 2, Col. 1)
Maze of pylons under cannery from where Patrolman
Harry O’Day was rescued yesterday.