[Volume XXV
THE CHICAGO BANKER
38
*The American National Bank	
	of San Francisco
Capital	- s 1,000,000
Surplus	and Undivided Profits $ 455,000
Deposits	- $6,419,000
	OFFICERS
P. E. BOWLES. President JOHN W. WILSON. Vice-Pres.	FRANCIS CUTTING. Vice-Pres. E. W. WILSON, Vice-Pres. GEO. N. O'BRIEN, Cashier E. J. BROBERG. Asst. Cashier
A mj)1e Resources	Courteous Treatment Superior Service
financial problem is the establishment of a “Central Bank” of large capital and surplus, so controlled and regulated as to protect the government’s best interests, and so organized that it may become the guiding and controlling factor among the banks of the country, with which it must of necessity be in perfect harmony and accord, if it is to be most useful and efficient. This central bank would be the depositary of the government funds, as well as the reserves of banks, and the medium through which national financial deals would be consummated, it would regulate the rate of exchange and control the export and import of gold, and should exert a salutary and much needed influence upon the banking interests of the country.
Currency Issues
It would issue currency to the banks on coin or bullion or its equivalent, taking what the banks have to give, namely, their current assets, and not what they neither have nor can get when most needed, namely, government bonds. This currency would be issued by the “Central Bank” as it was needed and in the discretion of its management, in normal times, at crop moving times, and in times of panic, the form of the issue being the same at all times, the amount alone varying with the necessities of the case, and the amount of good assets that the bank could command and limited to a fixed aggregate amount. Doubtless these assets would have to be passed upon by a board of bank officials, similar to the officers of the “National Currency Associations” provided for in the Aldrich-Vreeland bill, who would also supervise the bank examination of the members of the association, so that they and the management of the central bank could be intelligently advised as to the condition of all the associated banks and their assets, at any and all times.
State Institutions can Co-operate
The state banks and trust companies could
of our national financial system are under the circumstances unduly exaggerated. Bank failures are being paraded and literature advocating a government guaranty is being diligently circulated in every section, where banks have failed, or confidence has been at all shaken.
It does not follow however that we need give way to these apprehensions nor fail to put forth our best efforts to meet existing conditions. Encouraging Signs
!here has not been a time since the days of specie payments or perhaps since the time of President Andrew Jackson, when as many thoughtful and able men were studying the financial problems of our country as to-day. The newspapers, are presenting these subjects with more or less ability and public speakers are discussing them upon the hustings, banking associations everywhere are making them the subject of their deliberations, while the financial journals, and their name is legion, more in number than ever before in the world’s history, are full of articles setting forth plans designed to solve every difficulty, and that too from every standpoint and every side of each question. In addition to these a “National Monetary Commission” of nine senators and nine representatives has been appointed by Congress, to consider and recommend needed changes in our monetary system, and laws relating to banking and currency. Let us hope that the labors of all these statesmen will result in a thorough understanding of the question and an early presentation to Congress by the commission of a wise, comprehensive, and just bill, that will meet all serious defects, and that it will be passed without undue delay.
The real defects are not as numerous as they are glaring and the remedies may be much simpler than would at first appear.
It should Do the Business of the United States
Government
The best scheme so far proposed to solve the
Trust Company Radicalism vs. Conservatism
(Continued from page 13) and complete that has yet been presented to Congress, and Mr. Fowler’s position and influence is such as to give it great weight.
National banks have their peculiar business, and trust companies theirs, there should be no conflict between them, and the contemplation of this proposed measure fills us with apprehension and alarm, especially when it is supported in this way. To give to national banks trust company privileges can mean but one thing, if it is to be taken seriously, and that is to strike a fatal blow at state institutions, and compel them to become national institutions, and thus force them under federal control.
Trust companies chartered by the states might hold their own for a season, but how long could they do so if national banks should seek to do trust company business, with their deposits guaranteed by the national government, and they themselves perhaps fed by hundreds of postoffices without other cost to them than the payment of 2J-2 per cent interest on deposits, which other institutions and they, themselves, might in some sections, be willing to work to secure at 3 per cent or even 4 per cent? If these conditions should prevail, there would soon be no place for other financial institutions than national banks, and no occasion for any sections in the American Bankers Association.
Discouraging Features
These dark clouds upon the horizon are driven before a wind of popular prejudice, aroused against corporations and financial institutions, that is embodied in the often repeated and generic terms “trusts” and “Wall Street,” and to them is traced nearly all the ills that the body politic is heir to. The panic just passed gives prominence to this question and the imperfections