[Volume XXP*
THE CHICAGO BANKER
6
Pittsburgh has 31 National Banks, 25 State Banks and 38 Trust Companies, with total deposits of over §360,000,000. The oldest of all these
financial institutions, having been in continuous existence for 98 years, is
J. M. RUSSELL
1st Assistant Cashier
J. D. AYRES Assistant Cashier
TTte
Rank of Pittsburgh
-L/JNatiorLal JL Association w
WILSON A. SHAW President
JOSEPH R. PAULL Vice-President
W. F. BICKEL Cashier
Surplus $2,800,000
“THE BANK THAT HAS GROWN UP WITH PITTSBURGH”
Capital $2,400,000	established isio
.	.	President
. Vice-President .	.	. Cashier
Assistant Cashier Assistant Cashier Assistant Cashier Assistant Cashier Assistant Cashier
C. H. HUTTIG .
\V. B. WELLS
G.	W. GALBREATH J. R. COOKE
D’A. P. COOKE R. S. HAWES
H.	HAILL .
J. F. FARRELL .
rd NATIONAL
OF ST. LOUIS BANK
Deposits, $31,000,000
Surplus, $2,000,000
----- ACCOUNTS SOLICITED -
Capital, $2,000,000
are 30 banks to-day within the clearing house regulations. Eleven form the association, while the remaining 19 are cleared for by members. Ten are national banks, seven operate under state commercial charters, seven are savings banks, and five do trust company business. There is only one state bank in the clearing house There are now three small institutions without the pale of the association regulations. These are in detached communities, serving only a small circle of business men, and are a negligible quantity, as far as the banking safety of the city is concerned.
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Fresno Bank Closed
Fresno, Cal., October 5.—The Valley Savings Bank of Fresno, incorporated last January with an authorized capital of $200,000, has been closed by order of the State !Sank Commission. In the absence of J. B. Monnett, vice-president and manager of the bank, the affairs of the bank have been placed in the custody of an accountant representing the commission. It is stated that the suspension will be made permanent. The amount of resources and liabilities has not been made known, but it is known that all depositors will be
Chicago Building Operations
September building permits in Chicago numbered 950, with a value of $5,147,350, against 798 permits, with a value of $5,523,605, a year ago. The year to date shows a small gain in the number of permits, but a decline in the aggregate cost.
The cost of new buildings last month was the fourth largest of any September in Chicago’s history.

New Bank for Morgan Park
The auditor of public accounts at Springfield last week issued a permit to organize the Union Savings Bank at Morgan Park, Cook County, to John J. Poulton, Donald Grover and Francis J. Sullivan. The capital stock is $25,000.
V
The Peoples National of Kansas City
The application of G. C. Smith, E. J. Ware, A. S. Benton, H. B. Connell and Charles E. Sutton to organize the Peoples National of Kansas City, Kas., with $200,000 capital has been approved by the Comptroller of the Currency.
safety, safety, safety. I tell you, my banking friends, safety must henceforth be your watchword. Steering the great ship of finance into harbors of greater safety may demand from you the exercise of unselfish civic patriotism. It may mean greater efforts, lower interest rates, and smaller returns, but your reward will accrue in the cultivation and augmentation of that richest treasure, that priceless asset without which no banking institution can long endure—the confidence of the public.
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Los Angeles Banking Houses
Within the last six months the banking establishments in Los Angeles have been reduced from 47 to 33. This is directly due to the working of the Los Angeles Clearing׳ House rule requiring every bank in the city to have a capital of not less than $200,000 paid up. A number of small institutions doing a commercial business on capital of from $25,000 upwards, had to either cease or increase the capitalization, by consolidation or otherwise, or elect to do business outside the pale of the clearing house regulations. There
MAUSOLEUM
The above mausoleum is one of our simple, well constructed designs which can be erected at a comparatively low cost with six to eight crypts. How much less barbarous this method is than burying in the ground.
Write for free booklet on “Monuments” to
CHAS. G. BLAKE & CO.
The Old and Reliable Makers of Mausoleums and Monuments 782 Woman’s Temple Tel. 115 Main Chicago, 111.
the personal equation is highly important, and I am trying to improve the personnel of the examining staff. I shall summon to Washington all of the eastern examiners and have a plain talk with them about their work and their habits, and then I shall go to Chicago and ask the western examiners to meet me there. Every one knows what the defects of the present system are.”
Here again is occasion for reflection and we might as w'ell make up our minds that the day is not far distant when a bank examiner must carry some sort of a credential as to experience and qualifications and when the examination of a bank will carry with it the confirmation of the value and genuineness of the securities as well as verification of the liabilities of the bank as shown by its books.
My friends, your organization is composed of national, state and private bankers, co-operating for a higher standard in the banking business, and if I am to exhort you at all this evening it is to forsake the doctrine of paternalism and to hold fast to the policy of selfhelp: to expect less from the state and nation through legislation, and depend more upon your organized selves. If a cyclone cellar needs to be dug you fellows should at least be bossing the job. If improvements and changes are needed in the business they should come from within and not from without. If deposits are to be insured, not the state or federal government, but a strong organization of banks passing upon the desirability of each risk, should assume the guaranty. If more rigid examinations are needed why not confide and co-operate with your comptroller or your supervisor? Why not labor towards a uniform system of accounts and install in your institutions the best known safeguards? Be prepared as directors to certify to the value and genuineness of the bank’s securities, and if an incompetent man is sent to examine your bank make it your duty to file a vigorous protest. If laws are to be enacted or amended it is for you to take the public into your confidence, and by reason of your superior knowledge and experience in finance to assume the initative. Then, operating under a law and seeking its protection, it is for the banker to be ever mindful of the fact that such laws were made to be obeyed and not to be violated whenever it seems convenient or profitable.
Concluding our reflections upon these matters let us not lose sight of the fact that what you and I individually, and we collectively, are really striving and working for is to satisfy that growing and unanimous demand of the public for