TiTe CHICAGO BANKER
A Weekly Paper Devoted to the Banking and Financial Interests of the Middle West
10 CENTS A COPY
Entered as Second-Class Matter January 15, 1903, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879
OCTOBER 17, 1908
ILLINOIS
AUGUST BLUM
Then came the taffy pulling. President Blum handed it to President-elect McKinney in introducing him, and in return had to bow his acknowledgements under the burning eloquence of William George, who pinned upon his breast an ex-president’s badge. Next Mr. Durham let loose an avalanche of rhetoric upon the shoulders of the retiring secretary, Mr. Judson, and with it handed him a chest of solid silver. This beautiful (Continued on page 22)
E. E. Crabtree made his report as vice-president for Illinois of the Denver convention. It was one of the cleverest papers produced at the meeting and it was but a fitting reward for past services, when an hour later Mr. Crabtree was elected to the chairmanship of the executive council. The committee on nominations advanced Congressman James McKinney to the presidency of the association and Oscar G. Foreman went up a step in the official ladder to the vice-presidency.
Short, crisp and business like was the opening session of the Illinois Bankers Association in the dainty music hall of the Fine Arts building in this city on Tuesday morning. So crowded was the splendid entertainment program provided by the associated banks that many valuable reports were omitted in the reading to be published in the forthcoming proceedings book. This, coupled with the precision of the presiding officer reduced the convention to the volume of a polite and edifying entertainment. President Blum read a rarely valuable paper, showing philosophic insight into financial conditions with nothing heretical suggested in the remedial line. Mr. Cannon’s paper was a scholarly effort and so lucid was his argument that the buying of commercial paper quite easy.
The registration was up to many of the former A. B. A. conventions in point of number. The headquarters arrangements were never so complete. There was Mr. Schroeder with the automobile tickets; Mr. Perkins with the smoker and dinner tickets, and Mr. Thomas with the theater tickets. The group men had neat badges containing the group number and they almost were more popular than the neat pin provided by the association as its annual badge. Fully one thousand tickets were handed out by noon on Tuesday and it was found necessary to announce at the Music Hall meeting that Chicagoans would please stand back and give the visiting bankers a chance. This on the assumption that city bankers can ride in the parks, go to the theater or eat in a swell club any day in the year.
So expertly did Herr Blum handle the convention that it was over by 12 noon and the automobile ride of the day was moved forward from 2:30 to 1:30, barely giving the delegates an hour for luncheon. Eight hundred and sixty of them were then taken for a circuit of the parks lying along the lake, both north and south. Mr. Schroeder had planned it that the return would be after dark to give the visitors a vision of the downtown streets by arc light.
In the evening the visitors had a dinner at the Illinois Athletic Club, one thousand covers being served, it being necessary to use every available portion of the new club house. The dinner was followed by songs, recitals and vaudeville. In conclusion there was a short dance program.
The second day’s convention was a duplication of the first. Hall was filled in advance to hear Laughlin on his favorite theme this year—the guaranty of deposits. It is not printed in full in this issue, since practically it was the same as that delivered at the Nebraska convention and later circulated as a political document by the national republican committee. As delivered under the short-form policy of President Blum it was shorter and better than when given at length.
Col. F. E. Farnsworth followed in a pleasant extemporaneous talk upon the work of the American Bankers Association, in which he tossed several large sized floral emblems at the feet of the Illinois association, and at its present convention in particular. The applause he received certainly indicated the approval with which his year’s service, as A. B. A. secretary, has met in the West.