[Volume XXV
THE CHICAGO BANKER
28
A. T. Bennett
Sioux City, (la.) financial institutions have a well established record for firmness, conservatism and trustworthiness, whether they be young or old. This fact is strongly exemplified in the comparatively brief history of the Bennett Loan and Trust Company and the Bennett Bank. While this institution may be termed the youngest of Sioux City’s financial organizations it has met with such rapid and healthful growth as to take a strong position in the front ranks within less than two years.
The Bennett Loan and Trust Company was organized January 2, 1907, with a paid up capital of $50,000, and the surplus and undivided profits now stand at over $16,000. About a year ago the Bennett Bank was founded to operate in connection with the trust company.
The men at the head of the company are well known and stand high in the business world. A. T. Bennett came from Manning, la., a number of years ago and assisted in the organization and management of the Peoples Savings Bank, which was succeeded by the City National of which he was president.
Soon after the big Sioux City fire, which destroyed the building in which the City National was located, the business of that bank was consolidated with the First National. Mr. Bennett was made secretary of the Farmers Loan and Trust Company and an officer in the First National, which positions he occupied nearly a year, then resigning to later organize the present institutions, of which he is president. J. A. Whitaker, vice-president, has resided in and near Sioux City for a number of years, and has had large experience, as well as success in business.
F. P. Berger, secretary, until recently president of the Creighton National of Creighton, Neb., is the latest addition to the official list; his ability as a banker and the high esteem in which he is held makes his connection with the company a very desirable one. And the city is glad to welcome him to its ranks.
would mean stricter supervision and uniform system of doing business and bring the trust companies to be recognized by the federal government and the public at large, to the fullest measure of importance in the financial world to which they are entitled.
I regard the trust company, in addition to its many measures of usefulness, the logical banker for the individual, and while the business of the trust company is growing daily as its facilities and usefulness are becoming understood, I can imagine nothing that would promote the progress, permanency, and endurance of them so much as to bring them under one system of national character, which would give them the stamp of government approval.
The limit of time prevents a lengthy discussion of this subject at this time, and the above ideas are offered for the purpose of having them considered and reflected upon at home in the hope, and with the view, of having them taken up and pushed forward in due course.
V
Standard Coin of China
Pekin, October 17.—An edict issued to-day establishes the Kuping tael as the standard coin of the empire. The tael and the half-tael will be 98 per cent fine, and the smaller coins 88. The Mexican dollar has been legalized pending the preparation of the Kuping coins.
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California Cities’ Bank Clearings
During the past week bank clearings in California cities were: San Francisco, $38,588,000; Los Angeles, $10,321, 000; Oakland, $1,835,000; Sacramento, $992,000; Fresno, $652,000; San Diego, $999,600.
For Stricter Bank[Examinations
Washington, Oct. 20.—Comptroller of the Currency Murray has decided to increase the number of national bank examinations in many cases from twice to three or four times a year. It is not his purpose, however, he says, to examine all national banks four or even three times a year, but the new rule will be made to apply to all national banks that have in the past shown a disposition to violate or evade any of the provisions of the national banking laws or the regulations prescribed by the Comptroller of the Currency.
Practically the only remedy in such cases is to declare the bank’s charter forfeited, but this action in nearly every case would be regarded as entirely too drastic considering the character of the offense. Nevertheless, Comptroller Murray says he is fully determined to put a stop to all such minor violations of the law, and as a preliminary step in that direction he will insist upon more frequent examinations than hitherto.
The main purpose is to keep in closer touch with those banks whose management is under more or less constant suspicion.
W. H. Holliday
W. H. Holliday, president of the Merchants’ National of Los Angeles, was a visitor at the Third National of St. Louis recently.
Harris Trust and Savings Bank
The Harris Trust and Savings Bank is bringing out in the Chicago market $400,000 of a new issue of $1,000,000 refunding and extension mortgage 4JJ per cent bonds of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. The new issue of bonds is for the purpose of refunding $1,000,000 first mortgage 5 per cent bonds of the Milwaukee City Railway Company, due December 1, 1908. The bank is offering the bonds at 95 and interest, at which they yield 4.88 per cent.
Joseph Medill Patterson
1 lie book recently published by the Reilly & Britton Co., Chicago, for Joseph Medill Patterson, the gifted son of the Tribune editor, continues to sell in a sensational way. It is very severe upon society, charging gross and almost universal immoralities upon the rich, but its lesson is firmly and surely pushed home.
He has portrayed mercilessly and attacked unsparingly the utterly useless and senseless lives led by the men and women of the so-called “smart set,” a set with less brains than money and less decency than either. One would like to think he has laid on his colors too thickly in painting these pictures of the mad pursuit of gold and its consequences; the outward and visible as well as the hidden lives of the idle rich; that the members of the “smart set” are not so black—or so scarlet— as he has painted them, but he probably knows whereof he speaks. The “little brother of the rich” is a young man from Indiana, who, while working his way through Yale (in the light of later revelations, he wonders that he had the manliness to do it!) wins the friendship of a young millionaire, through whose influence he manages to get a start as a stockbroker in New York. Young Potter—the young man from Indiana and the hero(?) of the story—is, from first to last, the most thorough cad we have ever encountered, and we are not surprised at anything he does. Of the other people in the book, the less said the better. The only one even remotely approaching respectability is Sylvia, who having been jilted by Potter because her father has lost his fortune, becomes a shopgirl, and in a surprisingly short time evolves into a theatrical star of the first magnitude. If society people are not chiefly bad they surely are misrepresented in the book entitled “A Little Brother of the Rich.”
Why Not Nationalize
Trust Companies?
have all the protection of the government thrown around it that is given to the national banking system. It should also be recognized as a government depositary, the same as the national bank. On account of its importance in the financial system it should be accorded the same consideration in time of panic and distress as is accorded to the national banks, and in order to obtain this it should be under a national system of control.
On account of the odium that has attached to the word “trust” in connection with combinations of a different character from that of the legitimate trust company, there is no doubt but that trust companies have suffered and will continue to suffer by reason of the misunderstanding on the part of a large part of the public connecting the trust companies with the idea of trust or combination which is held more or less in disrespect.
There is no doubt but what the word “national” attached to the name of a bank is an emblem of credit and one that commands general respect, and to attach the word “national” to the name of a legitimate banking trust company would not only neutralize the unfavorable idea the public holds on account of the word “trust” but it would give it the same credit mark which the national banks now en-joy.
I cannot imagine how any honest conscientious trust company official would oppose the nationalization of trust companies when it
C. F. Enright, vice-president of the Missouri Valley Trust Company of St. Joseph, Mo. said at Denver :
We have in this country four kinds of banking institutions, with the deposits divided
about as follows:
Savings banks .....................$3,700,000,000
Trust companies ................... 3,100,000,000
State and private banks............ 4,300,000,000
National banks .................... 5,000,000,000
This division of deposits indicates on its face the needs of the different kinds of banking institutions shown.
In the different states different laws govern the management of trust companies. Some states permit them to take savings deposits, others prohibit taking deposits at all. Some states permit doing a commercial business, while others confine them entirely to collateral business. By having a national charter, a national trust company would possess that uniformity of character that would confine it to a uniform business throughout the United States.
While the examination and supervision in some states is up to the standard of national examinations, national examinations ought to be better than the average examination by state departments.-
The trust company system is now as important a factor in the financial world as the national banking system. It almost equals the latter in resources and liabilities and should