[Volume XXV
THE CHICAGO BANKER
18
tion that a solution of the problem began to appear.
The experiment was not at first entirely successful, but when the method of control of the quantity of coins was combined with the establishment of a gold exchange fund the problem was solved. The most successful and complete solution of the problem was that established by the American Government in the Philippines in 1903, which was followed in a large measure by Mexico in 1905.
In the meantime the Government of British India had established a similar fund to maintain the gold parity of its immense stock of $600,000,000 in silver. The new system has found critics in both Europe and France, who were not powerful enough to prevent the adoption of the exchange system in the Strait Settlements, but have been sufficiently powerful to prevent its adoption by France in Indo-China. The possibility of sustaining such a mass of silver as that in India at a fixed parity might well have been questioned perhaps before the system had been subjected to a further test. This test was afforded, however, during the panic of last Autumn and again during a period of serious crop failures during the past spring. The result was that it became necessary to sell drafts on the reserve fund in London to the amount of nearly $35,000,000, but as the fund amounted to about $100,000,000 the strain was easily borne. Even if the pressure had been greater it would only have been necessary to negotiate a short term loan in London to provide gold until the change in the balance of trade restored the equilibrium of the exchanges.
lecture was as absorbingly interesting as those that have preceded it.
W. W. McKay of the Commercial National rendered a charming piano solo, and was followed by a discourse on “Evolution in Banking,” by Ralph C. Wilson, an ex-president of the chapter. Mr. Wilson’s address will be found printed in this edition of the paper.
Non-members are cordially invited to attend chapter meetings as guests and obtain the details of the various plans of the chapter.
New York Chapter Meeting
The subject of exchange relations between the Orient and European and American banks was discussed by Charles A. Conant at the meeting of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Banking last Thursday night. Mr. Conant declared that the question of exchange between gold and silver countries was the most important problem left as a legacy of the silver discussion after the general adoption in the West of the gold standard.
The almost uninterrupted fall in the price of silver from 1866 to 1902 had caused difficulties in dealing with the silver countries of Asia, which had checked the investment of foreign capital in these countries and given a peculiar form to their banking methods. Ineffectual attempts had been made to establish the monetary system of the governing countries in Hong Kong and Indo-China. They proved abortive, because these countries clung to the use of silver coins. It was only when India in 1893 blazed out a new path in monetary science by attempting to give a fixed gold value to silver coins by control of the quantity in circula-
Savings Bank, followed Mr. Allen with a speech on “Current Topics,” and Congressman Denby told about some public men he has known in Washington. Richard Tanner Cudmore acted as toastmaster.
Indianapolis Chapter Meeting
At the regular meeting of the Indianapolis chapter of the American Institute of Banking, at the Commercial Club, James M. Ogden gave the first of a series of lectures on the general characteristics of bills, notes, and checks.
Augusta Chapter Lectures
Joseph P. Bartley, president of the Augusta Chapter, A. I. B., at Augusta, Ga., announces that he has arranged for a series of lectures to be delivered before the chapter at each weekly meeting for a month or so. The chapter was recently organized and it enrolled most of the young bank men of Augusta as members and has invited representatives from towns within a radius of fifty miles to become members. The officers are: J. P. Bartley, president; J. C. Pope, of Waynesboro, vice-president; F. H. Austin, secretary, and George Bates, treasurer.
Chicago Chapter Meeting
At the regular meeting of Chicago Chapter Tuesday evening J. Paul Goode delivered a stereopticon lecture on “The Social Significance of Wheat.”
Here is a tremendous question; the social significance of the country’s $500,000,000 asset, —wheat. No one except with the authoritative knowledge and sound economic theories of Professor Goode would presume to discuss it. This
Evolution in Banking and Bank Work
What has brought about this radical change?
It seems to me that there are several causes which, while not coincident, are almost equal factors.
The great increase in the use of the private bank check is I believe, of first importance. This increase is more noticeable in the United States than in any other banking country. The checks required handling, the handling required men, the constantly growing volume demanded better methods and quicker results.
The phenomenal growth of the reserve city banks, the machine and the institute, were all prominent factors in a tremendous activity along the line of new forms, new systems, and new positions. The shackles of brain-dulling hand drudgery were stricken from the wrists of bank men and a higher plane of endeavor was at once established.
Yesterday the clerk with an idea was viewed with the cold and fishy eye of the cashier as an enemy to the dignified business of banking. Today a big bank’s working room sounds like a machine shop.
The incorporated bank is another important feature for joank men. A clerk might serve a private bank forever—and then some, and never be anything but a clerk. In the majority of incorporated institutions, the officers from the cashier down are graduates from the force.
The banker is not a pioneer. He does not go into the primeval forest with a gun, an ax and a barrel of whiskey, to civilize the poor Indian.
Not he! He awaits in a safe place and allows others to do the rough work.
In this country the bank is very likely to be the
Instructive address delivered before Chicago Chapter by Ralph C. Wilson ::	::	::
ments. The transmitting letter, written in a like manner, with nearly as complete a detail, went to the receiving bank. Three ponderous volumes were the pride of each bookkeeper—journal, ledger and balance book. The clearing house sheets were a bewildering mess of unreadable figures, impossible to add correctly.
Twenty years ago this deadly grind of figures was the heritage of the bank clerk and his brain was gradually moulded into a human machine. Within a few years, the work, the opportunity, the character of the bank man, has experienced a great change for the better. No longer beaten to the earth by killing monotony, he has risen to a life of ambition, creation, and reward.
To-day the New York letter, sometimes fifty feet long, is run in duplicate by an adding machine, on a continuous sheet, and shows three parallel columns of figures, one for the clearing house number in New York, one for the amount, and one for the number given the depositors’ account by the sending bank—a perfect record, quick and accurate.
The Boston ledger embodies three books of record in one, and the clearing house department seems to be nothing but the click, click, of metal brains.
The bank clerk of a hundred )'ears ago is pictured as a thin, pale, gray, and silent individual, never under fifty, with head and legs both weak from lack of exercise. Seated on a high stool with a green shade over his watery eyes, he grips the rounds of his perch with bony legs, humps his back over a desk, and foots an endless column of figures. He made no mistakes—he was too infernally slow.
If a customer so far forgot himself as to rush into the gloomy, forbidding office and ask for his balance in a hurry, the solemn clerk promptly fell off his perch in a dead faint and remained unconscious for two hours, but constantly footing. He secured his respectable position by having proven a failure in life, losing everything but honor, and some of that. Will he be rewarded for his faithful services by some day being taken into the firm ? Guess again!
As long as his brain will foot, he will be paid salary enough to live in a respectable manner in the dark end of some respectable alley. His chances for promotion are represented by a large goose egg. The head clerk, now sixty-seven, will some day shrivel up and his place will be taken by the assistant with the privilege of getting down at ten instead of nine. O happy day!
As late as twenty years ago, no adding machine lightened the labor of the eater of figures. Ten years ago, no writing machine was adapted to bank work, hive years ago, no perfect combined adding and writing machine was on the market^ Twenty )'ears ago the New York letter was written by hand in a large bound volume, a complete description of each item included date, amount, number, payee, payer, and all endorse-