The Elkins Inter Mountain

GEORGIA REALTOR COMMITS SUICIDE

Act Came As Result of Bankruptcy Proceedings Against Trust Co., of Which He Was Director.

Atlanta, Ga., July 16. (AP) J. R. Smith, president of the Atlanta Real Estate Board and a director of the Bankers Trust Company, for which a receivership was designated in Federal court yesterday, shot himself at his home in Morningside, a suburb, early today. Smith was dead when found. The body was found by a servant, attracted by a shot. The door of Smith's room was locked and the servant broke it down with an axe. The entire load of a shot gun entered his abdomen. Belief was expressed he fired the shot with toe. Several letters found beside the body were turned over to the coroner, who announced an inquest probably would be held later in the day. Smith also was a director of the Farmers and Traders Bank, Atlanta, which was closed this week. The suicide came as a climax to the bankruptcy proceedings against the Bankers Trust Company and the closing of seventy state banks, many of which were members of a chain of 120 in Georgia and Florida, for which the Bankers Trust Company served as financing agent. Today the Georgia State Banking Department announced thirteen additional banks have closed their doors in Georgia and one in Florida since yesterday. The closing brought the total number that have suspended operations this week to 83 in the two states. The State Banking Department attributed their closing also to the Bankruptcy proceedings of the Bankers Trust company.