{Volume XXV
THE CHICAGO BANKER
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bank that permits its reserve to fall below the required limit to make it good ; and if it fails for thirty days to do so he may, “with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Treasury,” institute the receivership.
This does not prevent banks from allowing reserves to fall below the limit at times and ought not to do so, nor should every lapse of the kind be made the occasion for a notice. Reserves should be elastic within reasonable limits, and it may be temporarily necessary to allow them to fall below the regular legal minimum, but habitual or persistent disregard of the requirement should not be tolerated. A system of fines would work wondrous improvement. Yes, and thirty days to make good a delinquency is too long. Much may happen in half the time.
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President Orders Trial
Washington, October 19.—At the request of N. W. Sayers. A. P. Moore and E. C. Norris of Waynesburg, Pa., President Roosevelt to-day made the first move toward lifting the lid from the Pennsylvania political banking scandal. He directed J. W. Dunkle, United States attorney, to proceed with the trial of J. B. Rinehart, cashier of the looted Farmers and Drovers’ National of Waynesburg, suggesting that a week’s time was enough to arrange for the trial. At the same time he sent a message to James S. Young, district judge at Pittsburgh, saying the government would consider it a favor if he would expedite the trial.
Eater in the day word was received from Pittsburgh that Judge Young had set the trial for January 4, 1909, and that Rinehart had given two bonds of $20,000 each for his appearance for trial on that date.
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Get Small Dividend
Chelsea, Mich., October 19.—Receiver W. W. Wedemeyer, of the Chelsea Savings Bank, announced that the bank to-day would pay a dividend to the depositors. Savings bank depositors will receive 20 per cent and commercial depositors 5 per cent. About $70,000, money collected on loans, will be distributed. The bank still has as assets the Glazier building in Ann Arbor and the Blodgett terrace in Detroit.
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Sherburne Falls Savings Bank
The Sherburne Falls (Mass.) Savings Bank has elected the following officers : G. \\ . Jenks, president; M. Z. Woodward, vice-president; \\ . S. Ball, treasurer; trustees, G. W. Jenks, C. W. Hawks, C. D. Spencer, M. Z. Woodward, Edwin Baker, Herbert Newell, F. J. Canedy, and F. R. Pratt.
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The Peoples Banking Company
The Peoples Banking Company of Piedmont, Mo., reports capital of $25,000 and deposits of $20,000. Charles Carter is president; William Carter, vice-president; E. C. Way-land, second vice-president; W. Z. Carter, cashier, and James F. O’Dell, assistant cashier.
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New Bank for Deshler
A new bank has been organized at Deshler. Neb., with F. W. Vieselmeyer as president.
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Chicago \Banker
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begun to improve the service, but is hampered by the lax and rather prohibitive legal provisions for the conduct of his important work. Comptroller Murray is to be commended for his activity in the effort to make the examination of national banks more efficient. His recent instructions to examiners were pointed and proper. His more recent division of the field into eleven districts is calculated to improve the work. Mr. Murray does not propose to examine all banks more than twice a vear—that would require a larger force of examiners—but banks that show any tendency to evade examinations or to violate the law are to be examined as often as may be deemed necessary. The comptroller does not proclaim the fact, but it may be assumed that some of the extra examinations will be conducted by special experts of the department.
The extra effort being put forth will help to get a better act than might otherwise be secured from congress and in the end will go a long way to ward off drastic and offensive legislation which has been threatened.
Representation in Bankers Conventions
Mr. Cannon in his address to the Illinois bankers indorsed what long has been a favorite theme with the Chicago bankers. He does not go quite far enough. The chairmen of the groups in all states but Illinois form the executive council of the state association. In Illinois thev merely join the ex-presidents. The presidents of the state bankers associations should form the executive council of the A. B. A. and the sections restricted to divisions of the main body. The active, voting participants in the national bodv should be duly elected delegates from the several states. The audience should be all who wish to come. All papers and resolutions should be submitted to the council for approval. Then Mr. Cannon and others would have no complaint of unwieldy size nor of political activity.
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Bank Act Penalties
If every time a bank, without reasonable conditions justifying it, allowed its reserve to fall below the requirements would be fined from $1,000 to $10,000 by the comptroller, infractions would be infrequent. The penalty now is the appointment of a receiver—or—nothing.
The comptroller may at an)״ time notify any
Editor
Express Companies’ Charges
Upon one thing bankers are agreed and that is in opposition to the unfair and probably illegal competition of the express companies. Attorney John S. Miller representing the American Bankers Association fairly stated the case before the Interstate Commerce Commission this week at the Washington hearing. Mr, Miller's argument in behalf of the bankers was to the effect that the express companies do practically a banking business through their system of transferring funds from place to place. Inasmuch as they are common carriers, it was argued the companies ought not to be suffered to favor themselves by transporting their currency at lower rates than they charge to the bankers who also have to ship money in competition with them in order to meet their drafts at distant points.
It was contended that such practices on the part of the express companies under the Interstate Commerce Law were in violation of the spirit of the commodities clause, which forbids carriers from engaging in business in competition with concerns which are shipping articles that are also produced by the carriers. While it was true that in the cases contemplated by the act, the evil results were reached through the actual production of commodities in competition with the carriers, it was claimed that evidently cases in which like results followed from the conduct of a business involving the production of services, as in this case the transportation of currency to meet domestic and foreign exchange claims, was similar in character and was equally foreign to the ideas of the clause in the law.
Mr. Miller, however, went further and contended that the commission had power to settle this matter without resorting to the principles involved in the commodities clause and to order the express companies to charge higher rates for the service they perform under their general authority. The express companies, he said, were carriers, and as such under obligations to give equality of rates to all customers including their own banking or exchange departments which should receive no better treatment than that accorded to others.
These claims are being contested at every step by the express companies but bankers everywhere feel confident that justice will prevail and that it will not be long after election until one persistent form of abuse will be stamped out for all time.
Bank Legislation in Congress
Of a certainty there will be a profusion of banking and currency bills offered in the coming congress. The absolute failure of the Aid* rich-Vreeland act will give an added stimulus. There should be no failure of bankers to urge congress to give additional powers to the comptroller of the currency. Already, he has