11
THE CHICAGO BANKER
July 4, 1908]
The Girard National Bank
Of Philadelphia
Capital,	$ 2,000,000.00
Surplus and Profits,	3,650,000.00
Deposits,		28,500,000.00
FRANCIS B. REEVES, RICHARD L. AUSTIN Vice-President THE0. E. WIEDERSHEIM Second Vice-President	President JOSEPH WAYNE, Jr. Cashier CHARLES M.ASHTON Asst. Cashier
Accounts of Merchants, Individuals, Banks, and Bankers Received on Favorable Terms
FOURTH STREET NATIONAL BANK
OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Capital $3,000,000.00 ־ ־ ־ Surplus and Profits 5,800,000.00 ־
UNEXCELLED COLLECTION FACILITIES CORRESPONDENCE INVITED
R. H. RUSHTON, President	E. F. SHANBACKER, 1st Vice-President
B. M. FAIRES, 2nd Vice-President
R. J. CLARK, Cashier	W. A. BULKLEY, Assistant Cashier
FRANK G. ROGERS, Manager Foreign Exchange Department
Grand Rapids banker delivers a telling address before the North Dakota
bankers at Bismarck Convention
and rigid in their requirements and have undertaken no greater responsibility with respect to goods shipped over their lines than was absolutely necessary. They have practically owned the towns, in that they could dictate what should come in and out of a town, where factories should be located on their lines, what towns should grow and what should lie idle. This has been a natural development but the growth of railroad systems am' the duplication of transportation facilities of towns and cities has largely changed this condition so that now shippers of merchandise can compel better service and a more accurate and safer handling of their wares.
The bill of lading or receipt for shipments given by the different companies has varied as much as night from day. Front a mere receipt, stating that John Jones shipped a box of cotton goods to New York on a certain day, to a complicated receipt with elaborate statement of what things the transportation company would not do—in varying forms which only an acute lawyer could understand, these receipts drifted along from bad to worse until the positive effort came front the side of the shipper to establish a uniform receipt which should be plain in its statement of fact and condition and which should get back to the real question involved, that of giving the shipper the transportation of an}־ kind of goods safely to its destination so that his market might be as wide as the nature of the goods permitted.
A difficulty in dealing with the question of bills of lading and their construcción and interpretation has been the fact that the different states had different laws bearing upon the subject and there have been widely divergent opinions rendered. The matter is of such vital importance to the nation as a whole that of late years, many of the states have appointed commissioners who should consider this and other interstate problems working toward a uniformity of law in all states. This body of commissioners have done admirable (Continued on page 19)
through some fault, negligence or carelessness of their own.
As transportation has largely been done in this country by the railroads and as these railroads have been pioneers in building up towns and in many cases, for years, single companies have been in control of the only connecting line between a town and its outside markets, so naturally the companies have been arbitrary
CLAV H. HOLLISTER Grand Rapids, Mich.
This general subject to the casual observer possesses little of interest, arouses no enthusiasm, and seems to be utterly dry and forlorn. As we look at it more intimately it livens up and seems real. The burden of the name does not overpower us. We can let our imagination run riot־ as we fancy all it.may cover.
A bill of lading is a document issued to a shipper of goods, merchandise or chattels, as a receipt for such shipments and as showing his ownership at their final destination, so that John Henry Jones of Texas may send to himself in New York City a carload of merchandise and by paying the cost of transportation, have that carload to sell in the New York market at his pleasure and for his profit. A very simple proposition on the face of it—just a receipt for goods— but involving a tremendous number of details which we can only partially enumerate. The shipment may be cotton or grain or lumber or agricultural implements in carload lots. It may be coal or iron ore or pig iron in train loads. It may be telegraph poles or toothpicks, elephants or canary birds, building stone or kerosene oil. This receipt issued by the transportation company must cover one of these things as well as another and must give the owner the benefit of a world-wide market for his goods instead of compelling him to sell his produce or merchandise in the limited neighborhood of where he lives. The old method of carrying goods through the country in a wagon has disappeared and now the great lines of railroad running to all parts of the civilized world have opened up the world markets to the sale of the world’s commodities.
The principle applying to the shipment is absolutely the same no matter whether the goods are moved one mile or ten thousand miles—the owmer of the goods must be still the owner and liable only for the cost of transportation. The companies undertaking the transportation of goods have found many difficulties attending such transportation, however, and the temptation has always been to protect themselves against loss even though such loss might have occurred