23
THE CHICAGO BANKER
August 22, IÇ08]
years to come, yet this misfortune occurred during a period of sixty days, not likely to be fully recovered during the remainder of the present year.
Gentlemen, I invite your hearty co-operation and assistance in the effort to bring about some plan, not necessarily my own, but some remedy to prevent a repetition of our recent experience, for I sincerely believe this disturbance to business and consequent loss might all have been avoided, and all future panics can be entirely eliminated, simply by applying the remedy natural to other business risks—Insurance or Indemnity.
maintained, distrust is eliminated, and the usual circulation of credit currency continues, representing the total of ten to twelve billions heretofore mentioned.
This particular feature of mistrust was fully demonstrated to each of us by observation during the recent trouble, and connecting the theory with your daily transactions, you can readily see wherein insurance would have been available and valuable.
We all suffered from losses in deposits and profits, while the indirect losses to commercial interests were much more extensive, probably sufficient to provide deposit insurance for ten
tent of bank credits obtainable by the deposit, and provides the principal circulating medium for all large business transactions.
Whenever this credit currency or the foundation of it, deposits in banks, is distrusted the issue and circulation ceases and a crisis ensues.
This circulating medium or checks perform such extensive service, and in such unlimited amounts, that it is impossible to provide sufficient currency for the same service, and the only remedy is to provide insurance or indemnity on the basis of the system, deposits, and with their ultimate payment assured confidence is
Bankers Win Out on Bills of Lading
the numerous forms of bills which are now used, with conflicting provisions and conditions, such provisions and conditions will in the future, it is hoped and expected, be uniform for straight and for order shipments. The separate forms will enable the banker at a glance to know what to handle and what to let alone. The cause of frequent loss, due to the change
ble” from order bills and the printing of such words on straight bills.
4.	The amendment of the alteration clause so that a fraudulently altered bill shall be good for its original tenor and not destroyed completely.
5.	The addition, at the end of section 3 of the conditions (which provide that the carrier, liable for loss, shall have the benefit of any insurance) of the words “so far as this shall not avoid the policies or contracts of insurance.”
It is not necessary to give an extended account of the work of the committee on bills of lading of American Bankers Association with respect to a uniform bill of lading, which has resulted so successfully. When the committee was first appointed in October, 1903, the matter of a uniform bill of lading was then before the Interstate Commerce Commission and negotiations were pending between shippers and carriers in Eastern classification territory for agreement upon a uniform bill. Repeated efforts were made to have the joint committee of conference of these two interests embody the bankers’ suggestions, but except for a change of the alteration clause, the carriers were not ripe for further amendments to the bill, regarding the document as a matter primarily between the shippers and carriers in the negotiations for which the bankers were little short of intermeddlers. The bill tentatively agreed upon by the joint conference which was submitted to the commission on May 25, 1907, contained none of the amendments which the bankers desired, except the alteration clause. It was a single form of bill which provided that “if the word 'order’ is written in connection with the name of the party to whose order the property is consigned” surrender of the bill would be required, and “if the word ‘order’ does not so appear on the bill of lading it is ‘not negotiable’ ” etc. The commission, on receipt of this proposed form, invited other interests from those who were original parties to the hearing, to submit their views concerning its adoption, and set October 15, 1907, as the date for a final hearing upon the document. At that hearing objections -were made to certain of the conditions both by shippers and carriers who were not represented in the joint conference. These will not be detailed. The contentions of the bankers’ committee were submitted to the commission in printed form before the hearing, oral ar°-ument was made in their behalf at the hearing and an additional brief was submitted after the hearing in behalf of two distinctive forms. Since the date of the hearing the commission have been actively engaged in reconciling ooposing interests and the two standard forms of bills of lading now recommended are the result of their judicious and painstaking efforts.
The result, as already said, is gratifying in the extreme from the bankers’ standpoint. There is reasonable prospect as already said that these forms will be adopted as a standard by railroads all over the country. Instead of
The long fight has been won and Lewis Pierson is entitled to wear the clanking spurs upon his feet for he started it all with his agitation for standard, uniform bills of lading. Every contention by his committee has been granted and with further efficient work to secure the necessary legislation the shipping and banking interests will be on better, securer terms than ever before. The full text of the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, made on June 27th, recommends a standard uniform bill of lading in two forms, one for “straight” and one for “order” shipments, to which is appended complete copies of the recommended forms with explanatory notes of the commission concerning particulars which shall be inserted therein.
This outcome of the long protracted hearings and negotiations before the commission is highly satisfactory from the bankers’ standpoint, for the forms now recommended embody substantially every contention made by the committee on bills of lading of the American Bankers Association. In other words the committee has completely won its case before the commission, every single point that it has urged having been adopted; and not alone has the commission acceded to the bankers’ contentions but the carriers in the Eastern classification territory having assented to the recommended forms, have been brought over to the bankers’ point of view.
Of course, all that is now accomplished relates solely to the forms of the bill; there yet remains the all-important work of procuring legislation by Congress and by the respective states regulating matters, vital to security, not covered by the bill itself. Bankers, therefore, must not regard the movement which has been inaugurated under the auspices of their committee on bills of lading for a better bill and for better laws governing it, as ended by the recommendation of these forms, but in reality as only just begun. It is a movement in which all must continue to unite until the necessary ends, sought by legislation, are obtained.
It is further to be noted that the commission can only recommend and have no power to enforce the use of these bills by the carriers of the country; but the carriers represented in Eastern classification territory, having been parties to the proceeding and having, as already said, assented to these forms, will doubtless put them into use and it may reasonably be expected that such use, backed by the recommendation of the commission, will lead carriers all over the country to adopt them.
The points urged by the bankers’ committee and now adopted in the recommended forms are, in brief, these:
1.	Two separate forms of bills of lading, on different colored paper, one for straight and one for order shipments.
2.	The prominently printing of the words “order of” before the name of the consignee of order bills.
3.	The omission of the words “not negotia-