[Volume XXV
THE CHICAGO BANKER
24
Marshall & Ilsley Bank
Milwaukee, Wis.
ESTABLISHED 1847
Capital $500,000 Surplus $370,000
Oldest Bank in the Northwest Conservative Progressive
We take pleasure in placing our facilities at your disposal and should be pleased to have you write us if you are contemplating opening either an active or a reserve account in Milwaukee.
OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS
JAMES K. ILSLEY, President
JOHN CAMPBELL, Vice-President	HARRY J. PAINE, Asst. Cashier
JOHN H. PUELICHER, Cashier	G. A. REUSS, Mgr. South Side Branch
SAMUEL H. MARSHALL	J. H. TWEEDY, Jr.
ROBERT N. McMYNN	C. C. YAWKEY
GUSTAV REUSS
so easily does it perform its stupendous work, so necessary is it to the existence of trade, that we wonder how the world got on so many centuries without it. In commerce and banking the achievements of the nineteenth century marked a separation from the whole past of the world. New standards have been set up to which there is nothing comparable in human annals. The great forces of civilization—the printing press, steam and electricity—all the means of wide and rapid communication of thought, have placed in the hands of bankers new .powers, created for them new duties, and thrown upon them new responsibilities. To bankers of the twentieth century these responsibilities have descended by inheritance. It is their duty to meet and discharge them, but their useful employment requires more than ever absolute and unswerving fidelity; their improvement will continue to demand increased knowledge and experience.
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The Sutherland State Bank
The Sutherland (Nebraska) State Bank has increased its capital from five to ten thousand dollars, has $1,000 surplus, $70,000 deposits, $30,000 reserve, a modern pressed brick banking house, with latest equipments. This bank is enjoying a very satisfactory business, and is one of the banks controlled by J. W. Welpton, of Ogallala, Nebraska. Its officers are: J. W. Welpton, president; H. E. Worrell, cashier, and E. A. Crosby, Jr., assistant cashier.
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Bank Burglary Case
The Citizens’ State Bank of Chautauqua, Kan., which was insured against loss from burglary by the National Surety Company, was robbed on April 17th last. The National Surety immediately offered a reward of $250 for the arrest and conviction of the robbers. One of the men concerned in the crime was apprehended at Denver, Colo., and the other in the State of Washington. Both were brought back to Kansas through the efforts of the National Surety and have just received an in-determined sentence of ten to twenty-one years in the state reformatory. The National Surety last week sent its check for $250 reward to the parties instrumental in bringing about the arrest and conviction.
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The bank of Fruitvale, at Fruitvale, proposes to start a branch bank at Melrose, Cal.
thinking on economic and financial subjects for himself. Too long he has permitted his thinking to be done for him by politicians and legislators, few if any of whom ever mount the first rung of the ladder of statesmanship, and whose highest ambitions usually are to remain in office and whose views and votes upon questions of national policy more often are based upon personal or partisan expediency than upon knowledge of the subject or paramount desire for national welfare. We should not permit politics to enter into, and far less, to control the consideration of economic and financial questions. The business public may not deserve the blame for these conditions, but it unconsciously bears the burden which is thus entailed.
I have no wish to inject politics into these remarks, but as bearing upon what I have just said and because of its importance I cannot refrain from adding that we have before us today the spectacle of a professional politician, the candidate of a great political party for the presidency of the United States, claiming to be a leader and a champion of the people, going about the country preaching and proclaiming in the plausible manner that comes so naturally to him, a policy with respect to the banks and to the whole business of banking which is as false in principle and as great a heresy as its twin brother in financial fanaticism, free silver, which the same leader so ardently championed twelve years ago. I should like to know where we should have stood as a great world power to-day if the people had followed his financial leadership then. I hesitate to even contemplate where we shall stand in twelve years more if his present theories shall be put into practice.
In conclusion I may say concerning the development of the clearing system that it involves the use of credit in ways that would forever have remained impossible and which probably would never have been conceived had we not enjoyed modern means of communication and transportation. The great agencies which have brought the four quarters of the globe within speaking distance of each other have not only extended trade, but are the pillars upon which the whole structure of modern commerce rests. Apace with the extension of trade, scientific use of credit has evolved. The functions of banks as machines for settling the world’s exchanges have broadened until they have reached a high state of perfection in the universal employment of the clearing principle. So efficient is this machinery,
upon annually to settle in goods or in gold. When our exports are light these items have considerable influence on the movement of gold.
Perhaps it is not within our power to escape these heavy charges, in return for which our country derives little or no economic benefits; but there is an additional debit item of large proportions which we might and should prevent. I refer to the enormous freight bills we now pay to foreign countries, especially to Great Britain, for carrying the goods we sell them. Under a moderate system of ship subsidy which would provide the payment of American wages to American seamen in competition with foreigners, we might establish and maintain a merchant marine commensurate with our importance as a commercial nation, American goods should be carried abroad under the American flag, and in American ships. The cost of transportation which we now pay to foreigners would be thus taken off our annual debit, and the amount could be expended in building up and maintaining a new and important national industry, already too long delayed; and also in supplying employment at "the American wage scale to a large number of shipbuilders and other workmen, Whatever profit, if any, might be derived from carrying our own goods would add to our national wealth instead of increasing that of our competitors. It is difficult to understand the inconsistency of the American public on this question. Economically our policy in opposing ship subsidies is as indefensible as would be that of a city merchant who for each ten dollars’ worth of goods sold should pay to his customer a bonus of fifty cents to induce him to carry the goods home, when by an organized system the delivery of the goods could be made by the merchant himself at a cost of half the amount. This is exacth־׳ what we are doing in our foreign trade, and it explains why our flag is an infrequent visitor to many important ports of the world, save on our war vessels or pleasure crafts. If the theory of a protective tariff which enables our manufacturers to pay a high scale of wages and produce goods in competition with foreign countries under low wage scales is justified, then certainly a ship subsidy which would make it possible to carry our goods to foreign ports in our own vessels, is not only desirable but economically imperative if we hope to compete with other nations. It is time for the American business man to begin doing a little