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Seattle Star
February 12, 1908

SMALL CHECK GIVES CLUE

A check for $2.50, which the bank would not pay for lack of funds, on February 4, disclosed the defalcation and led to the suicide of Max Siebert, the sign painter, who committed suicide yesterday in a tragic manner.

Action has been begun to collect the amount of the shortage from the bond company.

Siebert was held in high esteem by his associates in the Sons of Hermann, of which he was secretary, up to the time of the discovery of the shortage. He was regarded as an economical man, and members of the order are at a loss to know what he has done with the lodge funds he has spent.

It is not believed he purchased any property.

Charles H. Schwers, president of the Sons of Hermann, said last night that the note Siebert left for him was capable, under various constructions in translation from German to English, of a wrong meaning. "What Siebert did say to me," he declares, "was that a few of his friends had tried to help him, but most of them did the opposite; that they had told his troubles to everybody, and for that reason he could get no money. He referred to no one in particular."