The CHICAGO BANKER.
A Weekly Paper Devoted to the Banking and Financial Interests of the Middle West
10 CENTS A COPY
Entered as Second-Class Matter January 15, 1903, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879
AUGUST 1, 1908
Montana Bankers Meet at Billings
I deem it most fortunate and fitting that this booming, growing, courageous, confident, up to date young city should be our meeting place. It will be an inspiration to our transactions and deliberations and give us to take to our several homes a spirit of elation, hope and faith and energetic ambition to do and to be, that cannot but have a beneficent effect throughout our beloved commonwealth to which we after our convention has adjourned, shall severally disperse.
It would indeed be presumptuous of me to undertake to enlighten you as to the achievements, possibilities and prospects of this beautiful city while you are in the midst of the Billings boosters who will never permit you to depart without full information on the subject. They will tell you of fifty-three bushels of wheat to the acre, one hundred and seventy-six bushels of potatoes per acre, eighty bushels of oats and seven tons of alfalfa. They will tell you of sugar beets and factory, of dairy industry and orchard, and if you dare to doubt the accuracy of figure or fact, you will be quickly whisked in a White Steamer car to visible and material proof. You will by statistical authority be convinced that Billings is the greatest wool market in the world and that a Billings booster is the largest individual sheep owner in the world; that Billings is the greatest railroad center in the state, the metropolis of Eastern Montana and to be the metropolis and commercial and financial center of the state. And why not? They will extend a sweeping and comprehensive gesture to the four cardinal points of the compass and thus indicate their tributary country. Laurel and Big Timber to the W est, Forsyth and Miles City to the East, Lewistown to the Xorth and Red Lodge and Cody to the South, are a few of the suburbs of Billings. The Shoshone, Sun River and Lower Yellowstone government irrigation projects are all Billings tributaries, Seattle, Omaha, Minneapolis, Denver, Spokane, are competitive distributing centers though much outclassed in the race of commercial supremacy.
All this will be told you, guests and visiting members, by the omnipresent, indefatigable and indomitable Billings booster; and no more only because his innate modesty and diffidence forbids his mentioning the far greatest Billings asset. Knowing it so well as I do, I would certainly be recreant to the present occasion and do violence to my own feelings not to call attention to it.
I first saw Billings in July of 1882. Had 1 then written down my impressions of that !)lain of alkali with its row of tents and rough board shacks as I saw it in the dust and heat, I fear there would have been little of compliment recorded, but I soon found in those earlv settlers, the Camps, the Babcocks, the Row-leys, the Whitneys and the others, that same confidence, fortitude, hope and sure expecta tion, that dominates the Billings booster today. I have known the history of Billings intimately ever since then and never during all these twenty-six years has this sublime faith (Continued on page 11)
150 in clearing house certificates, and at this date all have been redeemed except $55 and the manager of the clearing house has the gold on hand to redeem these certificates and will be pleased to have them presented and close the account.
With these few remarks I now on behalf of the local banking fraternity bid you a cordial welcome to this land of alfalfa and sugar beets, the home of the sheep and cattle industry, the
E. A. NEWLON Missoula, Mont. Cashier First National
favored country of irrigation brought to its perfection, a valley of coal mines and oil fields ere long to claim the attention of the financial and investment world ; gentlemen, in this fair land of perpetual sunshine we greet you and extend a loyal, hearty and sincere welcome.
W. E. Meyer, of Red Lodge, responded. He said:	It is alike my duty and privilege, on be-
half of this association, to say a few words of appreciation to our brethren in Billings of their unbounded hospitality so lavishly and generously bestowed. Since the day Billings was selected as our this year’s meeting place, no one acquainted with the people of Billings entertained any doubts as to the warmth and abundance of the welcome we would meet. And as there are none so ill-informed that he knows not Billings and her people, the elegantly rounded periods of welcome on the part of Mayor Foster, and the genial greeting spoken so enthusiastically by friend Hays, were scarcely required to make our welcome sure. Billings’ hospitality is like everything else emanating from Billings, vigorous, lusty, hearty, perfect and complete. When Billings is done there is nothing left to do. For your warm grasp of the hand, your whole-souled words of cheer, your beaming smiles of pleasure. we sincerely thank you. friends of Billings.
Billings, Mont., July 29.—The state officers, the citizens, and the bankers of Montana have, since its organization in 1904 at Helena, taken a deep interest in the Montana Bankers Association. The association this year held its annual convention in this city, Monday and Tuesday. As usual the meeting was very successful; for practically the entire banking interests of the state, including national, state banks and trust companies, were represented. Prosperity exists throughout Montana. Farming. stock raising, mining, and manufacturing-have all yielded liberal profits, and in the prosperity and the profits the banks of the state have shared.
At the Livingston convention last year, the president, Mr. Bennett, warned the Montana bankers to be careful, that the situation was such as to call for conservative prudence, tie was one of the bankers who saw the cloud upon the horizon—the 1907 financial panic. The Montana Bankers Association can hold its own with any other state organization. Its legislative committee has had passed some excellent bills.
The program presented many attractive features and helped to draw a large attendance.
The convention was called to order on Monday morning at to o’clock, and Mayor Foster welcomed the delegates to the city. Geo. M. Hays welcomed the visitors on behalf of the banks. He said:
The local bankers have requested that I extend to you a welcome on their behalf. I am glad to perform such a duty and can truly say that the honor accorded our city by vour presence is appreciated.
The hospitality of the homes of Billings is extended to you and our people will be fully rewarded should your comfort be realized and the entertainment furnished you meet with your approval to such a degree that you will desire to come again, and I assure you the pleasure will be mutual.
Montana is justly proud of her banking and financial credit, bank failures have been few, the record from the early territorial days of forty-five years to the ])resent time will compare most favorably with other communities; with a scattered population of 350,000 people occupying nearly 100.000,000 acres of land, there are about 150 banks with deposits of approximately $60,000,000 which makes an average of $400,000 with each bank.
The public credit of this commonwealth has always been of the highest, in all our history not a single issue of school, municipal, county or state bonds has been repudiated, interest payments have been promptly met and the process of refunding the public indebtedness at lower rates of interest has been steadily progressing for a number of years.
It ma}- be of interest to you that I should say a word about our local banking conditions ; the clearings of the Billings Clearing House Association for the six (6) months ending June 30th last amounted to $4,128,887.22, the daily clearings at present averaging about $50,000: during the currency panic of last November the association issued the modest total of $29.-