23
THE CHICAGO BANKER
September 12, iço8]
a. m. Wednesday. The Wednesday morning session was called to order at 10:30 a. m. and the first address was delivered by L. E. Pierson, president of the Irving National Exchange Bank of New York and chairman of the executive council, A. B. A. A very instructive and important discussion followed Mr. Pierson’s address on “Federal Guaranty of Bank Deposits;” the affirmative being led by the Hon. John G. McHenry of Benton, and the negative being led by James I. Buchanan, of Pittsburgh, This was followed by an open dsicussion by the members of the association.
Among the sport-loving members of the Pennsylvania Bankers Association the big event of the convention was the base ball game, played between selected teams from the Eastern and Western parts of the state on Tuesday afternoon. H. S. Zimmerman was captain of the Western Pennsylvania bankers and Joseph Wayne, Jr., captain of the Eastern Pennsylvania bankers. The golf tournament was open to members and guests, and prizes were awarded for low and high blind bogie scores. There was also tennis for the ladies and gentlemen.
The annual banquet took place Tuesday evening and Col. J. L. Spangler was the toastmaster. The speakers were: Franklin S. Edmonds, Charles F. Moore and F. H. Green.
During the convention there was an exhibition of the money of the world by Prof. Far-ren Zerbee, of Columbus, O., president of the American Numismatic Association. There were on exhibit nearly six thousand specimens, illustrating thousands of years of the world’s currency.
V
Supreme Court Decision
Judge C. B. Elliott of the Minnesota supreme court has affirmed an order of the lower court in the following case of interest to bankers. It was that of Andrews & Gage against the Northwestern National. The opinion reads:
“The appellant forwarded to their agent a check to be used in paying their debt to a customer. The agent forged the name of the. payee and deposited the check in a bank to his own credit. Being short in his account with the principals, the agent then paid to them a sum of money which included the proceeds of the forged check.
“The bank on which the check was drawn paid it on the forged indorsement. In an action by the drawers of the check against the bank, held, that inasmuch as the proceeds of the check came back to the drawers, and the debt to the agent remained unpaid, they had suffered no damage by reason of the payment of the check and could not recover the amount thereof from the bank.”

Dallas Broker Drowns
Dallas, Texas, September 7.—Cyrus W. Simmons, a teller in the First State Bank of Dallas, and aged about 22 years, was this evening drowned at Lake Cliff, a local pleasure resort.
Young Simmons, with 10 or 12 other young men, was bathing at various points in the lake. Simmons announced his intention to swim across the lake, about 200 yards wide. When midway of the lake he seemed suddenly to lose his faculties and sank. Others of the bathers reached the spot in about three or four minutes’ time and dived in 30 feet of water in hopes of raising the body before life should be extinct. It was more than half an hour, however, before the body was recovered. The parents of the young man live at Wichita Falls, Texas, to which place the body is to be shipped.
V•
Plans have been made for the Homer (Neb.) State Bank for the erection of a new one-story building to cost about $5,000.
the foundation stone on which to erect that confidence and maintain that credit so essential for the prevention of panics.
To be more specific:	There should be no
discrimination by new laws among existing financial institutions, whether national banks, savings banks, trust companies, or other state institutions, and no system of coercion under the forms of such law to operate upon the voluntary conduct of either.
As the country moves on, gaining renewed industrial strength and activity, there will be less inclination to disturb existing laws, which have been found suited to normal conditions, and which have served so mightily for a nation’s upbuilding.
We may concede that the most of our laws affecting our finances were not the result of economic thought, and that they were passed under the necessities, the ignorance or the political cowardice of the hour, yet some of them have served their day and purpose well, and cling to us as a sweet memory, while others were mere experiments to be repealed when their fallacies were exposed, yet, but for the recent panic, no wide spread agitation for reform would be heard at this moment. Whatever defects the system may have, and which, for a more elastic currency, may be supplemented, yet I don’t believe that in the face of a rising prosperity now dawning upon us, the Congress in the near future will enter upon a radical reconstruction of our financial system, around which are now successfully operating our varied industries, and our thousands of banking institutions and trust concerns.
The bills, of all others which seem to me to point in the right direction, and to invite the most serious consideration on the part of the Congress and the financial and industrial interests of the country, are:	The measure
introduced into the house at the instance of the American Bankers Association, and that by Mr. Fowler on May 9th last, H. R. No. 21764. These bills, being without any provision for the guarantee of deposits, or an extension to national banks of the powers exercised by trust concerns, would seem to be the limit, whichever may be approved in giving elasticity to our currency, and in the Fowler bill for recognizing, if that be deemed best, the authority of our banks to convert their bank book credits into bank note credits upon the demand of the depositors, and thereby create a credit currency. These views are subject to such additional light as the monetary commission, composed of eighteen of our public men from among the most learned in the Congress, may shed upon this absorbing subject, on the proper solution of which so much depends for our national honor, our national prosperity, and our national glory.
And in the cause of such an undertaking, I again welcome you here.
President Jackson, in his annual address, reviewed the financial conditions of Pennsylvania, the panic of 1907, and spoke on the guaranty of deposits. Secretary Kloss’ report and Treasurer Painter’s report showed the association to be gaining in membership and in excellent financial condition. The two interesting and instructive addresses delivered at the Tuesday’s sessions were “International Banking,” by S. D. Scudder, of New York Qtv and “Co-operation in Commercial Credits,” by William A. Law, of Philadelphia. Immediately after adjournment Tuesday morning there was a special meeting of the members of the American Bankers Association. Under the old law Pennsylvania had only one representative on the A. B. A. executive council, but under the change in the bylaws of the A. B. A this state is entitled to three more members, four altogether.
The Trust Company Section met at 9:30
Pennsylvania Bankers at Bedford Springs
(Continued from page 1) which extended to the western limits of the province.
The first court was opened here April, 1771, and sentences are of record in which the whipping post, the cutting off of the ears of the offender, and standing in the pillory, were employed as punishment for crimes.
In 1794 Washington reviewed his troops at this place in his march westward to quell the whiskey insurrection, and the house is now standing on the north side of East Pitt Street in which he had his headquarters, and in the rear of the same building General Arthur St. Clair officiated as our first prothonotary.
With the early history of this County have been associated the names of men whom the state and nation are proud to claim as their own. Among them I may mention the Honorable Thomas Smith, the Honorable Charles Houston, and the Honorable John Todd, all of whom adorned the Supreme Bench. In later years, the Honorable Jeremiah S. Black, though born in Somerset, presided in our courts. The Honorable William Wilkins, Judge, U. S. Senator, Minister to Russia, and Secretary of War, and Robert J. Walker, U. S. Senator from Mississippi and Secretary of the Treasury, in early life lived in this township.
I have dwelt thus long on this theme, supposing that coming here as many of you into this region for the first time, you might be curious to know something of our history, to learn what we have done for the advancement of civilization, what part our settlers have taken in the upbuilding of a republic, what names we have written on the country’s enduring roll of fame.
Since you last assembled in convention, great events have transpired in the industrial world. We have reached a period when the minds of thoughtful business men are engrossed with the study of our currency system in an effort to devise remedies to prevent a recurrence of the alarming conditions of last October. The importance then of this gathering cannot be overestimated. I doubt if those of you who had marked the trend of business events in the year preceding your last assembling were surprised when “clouds and thick darkness” veiled our industrial future.
As a representative of the people, I should fall short of my obligations on a public occasion like this, if I failed to bring some views to a scheme of construction for the betterment of our financial system. I have invented no remedy to add to the confusion.
I believe with a per capita circulation sufficient for the needs of the country’s business, under its natural and normal development, and under the usual conditions of trade, such as we now have, it being almost an accepted fact whether we favor it or not, that there is bound to be established a system of postal savings banks which shall collect the small earnings and hoardings of the people and retain among us large sums that are now sent to foreign countries, thus bringing into circulation a vast amount of idle and absent money, that we need only such legislation as will enable the currency to expand or contract in volume as the sound business needs of the country demand, and to meet, as far as possible, extraordinary emergencies as they arise. When this legislation is grounded on right principles, which shall recognize the obligation of the authority issuing the currency to redeem the same in gold, or its equivalent, and provide and enforce the system for so doing, we shall have aroused that faith in the integrity of our circulating medium, and made those reasonable provisions against the results of extraordinary conditions, as will constitute