Telluride Promise

A little man in a small mining town did the right thing for people who trusted him with their money and went to jail for it. A banker, Charles C. Wain, "Buck," foresaw the depression. Six weeks before the crash, C.C. set in motion his plan to protect his depositors, by arranging for a "loan" from New York banks. Pursued by the ambitious and the rich and powerful, brought to trial on charges that were not actually for the crime he committed, he pled guilty partly to protect his family and friends from further harassment, mostly because it didn't seem right just to beat the system. "I took that money. That was the only way I could get it to pay out my depositors." Six years later, three months before FDR signed the National Banking Act, making his crime the law of the land, he was quietly released from prison. He tells his own story from the vantage point of his last days as an obscure Fuller Brush man of 83.