[Volume XXV
T HE CHICAGO BANK E R
16
A Policy of Life
Insurance written on the Savings Bank plan becomes a means of saving money rather than an expense. That accounts for its popularity. Because it is based on a plan with which even the humblest man is familiar. It is easy to explain and quick to sell.
Profit for You
Active bank cashiers and clerks find selling our policies a very profitable “ side issue,” which requires no time from other duties. Free sample policy, plan, rates and full particulars sent upon request. Address the President.
The Pioneer Life Insurance Co.
GEORGE L. COLBURN, President
Pekin, Illinois
YOUR ACCOUNT
will be handled in the most careful and intelligent manner. Collection facilities excellent.
THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF CHICAGO
OFFICERS
DAVID R. FORGAN, President	L. H. GRIMME, Asst. Cashier
ALFRED L. BAKER, Vice-Pres. F. A. CRANDALL, Asst. Cashier H. E. OTTE, Cashier	W. D. DICKEY, Asst. Cashier
R. U. LANSING, Manager Bond Department
TOTAL RESOURCES OVER $10,000,000.00
Gems from August Blum’s Michigan Address
efficient and affords strong safeguards against all sorts of wide-open banking.
It must be admitted that the bankers’ plan would not bring about the elasticity of the entire body of our currency. That will be, for some time to come, an impossibility. But the plan would give us such a marginal elasticity as would greatly improve present conditions and may, in course of time, pave the way for a more thoroughgoing reform. As an object lesson alone, the working of the plan would be invaluable.
This, gentlemen, is the plea I enter to-day. 1 believe I have sufficiently shown that a cur-lency system along the lines we have been considering deserves the active support of all enlightened bankers and of all men who believe, as I do, that only upon sound economic conditions can a nation build up its prosperity and secure for itself and its descendants the priceless treasures of civilization.
V»
The Nassau Trust of Brooklyn
Stockholders of the Nassau Trust Company of Brooklyn have ratified the increase of capital from $500,000 to $600,000. This is m compliance with the new state law requiring additional $100,000 capital for each branch opened by a trust company. The brancn of the Nassau Trust Company is situated at Fulton Street and Red Hook Lane, Brooklyn.
It was authorized to issue the new stock at 15a This allows for $50,000 to be added to surplus, making that item now $420,000. The resolution providing for the increased capital leaves the subscription to the new stock subject to the call of the executive committee, and it is stated that this will not be required until-next October.
James E. Adamson was recently elected president, and August P. Birck, cashier of the Farmers Bank of Hartman, Colo.
governments and gradually extend their workings to broader strata of the population.
In the Lnited States the small self-contained banks grow up from the broad masses of the people. In the settlement of every new community, in every town founded by the advancing pioneer, there arises, simultaneously with the church and the school, the small country bank.
Hence, while in Europe the number of banks is quite limited, we have in this country over 6,000 national banks alone, besides the large number of state and private institutions. State and federal laws and the natural forces of prudence and enlightened self-interest have resulted, on the whole, in a wise and conservative management of these institutions• The banking system thus created meets the ever-increasing requirements of our growing country, as far as their deposit and discount function is concerned, in a satisfactory manner.
As to the issue of bank notes, I venture to advance the theory that under certain limitations our national banks can be made to exercise essentially the same functions that are now the province of the large European banks.
I hold that an amount of such notes authorized in proportion to the capital of each bank, protected by a guaranty fund and by a system of quick redemption would afford absolute safety.
The national banks of the United States are trusted with deposits, say from three to fifteen times the amount of their capital and often with a much larger proportion.
Fhey are as a rule, quite as honestly managed as first-class banks in other countries and not less conservatively.
The percentage of failures and of losses therefrom is very small.
The supervision of government, in spite of occasional and unavoidable shortcomings, is
A crisis like the one of 1907 is due to various causes, such as:
Overtrading, that is, excessive commitments of merchants and manufacturers;
Excessive expansion of credit;
Overbond speculation;
Inflation of prices;
Extravagance in the mode of living;
Reckless promotion of new enterprises;
Credulity of the public with regard to seductive schemes of get-rich-quick investments, and so forth.
Such crises come periodically and bring a more or less forcible adjustment, but a crisis need not be attended by a panic, much less a currency panic.
Other countries have their industrial crises as well as we, but they do not suffer from such convulsions as we passed through last fall. Vv hy ? Simply because their system of bank credit currency prevents a panic of that kind.
Gentlemen, the history of banking is the history of bank credit notes. Every civilized country has bank credit notes, except the most progressive country in the world.
Now, what can we learn from the history of mankind to apply to our own needs?
The establishment of a central bank, advocated by some bankers and by the report of the New York Chamber of Commerce committee, is with us, for reasons which I will not dwell upon, a political impossibility. Apart ■rom political reasons, historical, and general conditions are also inimical to it.
The central bank of European countries is, to a large extent, a creation of government paternalism. It is, if I may say so, aristocratic in its elements.
The banking system of the United States, like all other features of our national life, is permeated with the spirit of democracy.
The central banks of European countries are created by and at the seat of the respective