Rough on Raven

Quietly jubilating, British and Japanese businessmen in Shanghai spoke last week of "the most severe blow to American business prestige in China since the founding of the International Settlement in 1843." They were referring to the fact that in Shanghai's U. S. Court grave, tee- totaling, confidence-inspiring U. S. insurance, banking & real estate Tycoon Frank Jay Raven, founder of the famed "Raven Interests," which once boasted assets of $70,000,000 (TIME, June 17), had just been convicted of embezzlement on seven counts and sentenced to five years in prison at McNeil Island, Wash.

Recalling that Embezzler Raven's wife is a missionary's daughter and that he numbered among his depositors scores of missionaries and thousands of Christian Chinese, the New York Times' Shanghai correspondent wrote:

"This failure was by far the worst that American interests have suffered in Shanghai, and it was so extensive that it virtually pauperized many thousands of people in China and some in the United States. It marks the end of careless, unsupervised and unscrupulous American business methods in China. . . . For this failure created such financial havoc that the suspicion and distrust of American business that it engendered is great."

Apparently no Connecticut bank examiner ever went to Shanghai to inspect the books of the Raven Bank, which is incorporated in Connecticut, and thus Banker Raven conducted his business as he pleased, lived quietly in his $150,000 mansion, contributed to local churches, never drank, and invited confidence with the friendly slogan: Deposit Your Money in This Bank and Become A Partner. While her husband sat in a Shanghai jail, Mrs. Raven continued last week to reside in Germany at Heidelberg, where the Raven daughters are completing their higher education.

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