THE CHICAGO 'BAJVK.E'R
Founded in 1898
Volume xxv	CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 14, 1908	Number 20
Is the Banker Far Removed From the People?
tion; against the one serving a rural population, of which he is a part; against the one in the smaller community, supporting and fostering local trade and manufacturing; against the one in the large city, in touch with its business affairs of all kind, and against the banker in our chief financial centers. Let us at the outset concede that there are in New York perhaps half a dozen large international banking houses, not incorporated, nor typical of American banking, whose chief function it is to finance and assist large capitalistic enterprises. Whether or not they are in touch with the people, I shall offer no opinion. But cannot something justly be said in behalf of all other American bankers, who from one ocean to the other, in every city, town and village, are gaining a livelihood and earning honest reputations by seeking and knowing the people and in turn being sought and known by them ?
The two instances cited by Dr. Wilson to illustrate the great void alleged to exist between the banks and the people, are, first, that one of his friends rode through seven counties of one of the oldest states in the Union, before finding a place where he could change a twenty-dollar bill; and, second, that, personally, one summer Dr. Wilson, in a thriving agricultural district, was compelled to get change for bills of any considerable denomination sent by express from banks fifty miles distant.
These two most unusual instances are probably not intended as all the evidence in the case and do not appear very conclusive. They may be an argument that these two districts lack banking facilities. One might even reason that they prove that these communities are so sparsely populated that no bank can be supported by them. But surely they have no bearing on the status of the banker devoting himself to the community in which he resides, nor do they determine whether or not he is close to the people whom he serves. Is it not also likely that the friend who rode through seven counties, and Dr. Wilson in the agricultural district, to which he alludes, would both have looked in vain for higher educational institutions, for a stage correctly interpreting the classic drama, for a well equipped book store, for cement walks and other adjuncts of civilization? As Mr. Dooley has so sagely observed:	“The trouble about our farmers is
that they’re too far from our cities.
At a recent meeting of bankers representing the entire state of Illinois, held in the city of Chicago, three bankers were observed seated near each other. As their cases are perhaps typical, let me briefly allude to them. One of them is the only banker in a small rural community. His evolution from farmer to general merchant and from general merchant to banker has been gradual. During his period as general merchant his customers became more and more in the habit of leaving with him the checks and money which they had received in payment of their produce, taking credit from him, in exchange, on his books, against which they could make purchases of commodities as required. This led in time
An address before the Indiana Bankers Convention at Indianapolis,November 11,1908, by Henry S. Henschen, Cashier State Bank of Chicago ::	::
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Later referring to the duty which every public spirited man in a democracy owes to the commonwealth, Dr. Wilson closed his address with a warmhearted appeal, addressed especially to
HENRY S. HENSCHEN Chicago
bankers, to render to the nation the duty which they owe it, not'alone in the solution of financial problems, but to “open their thoughts to the country at large and serve the general intelligence as well as the general welfare,”
With that part of the distinguished educator's address, which calls upon the banker to render to his fellow men and to the nation his full quota of influence, service and intelligence, no banker. I believe, will find any cause for difference. But it may not be considered a discourtesy to a guest of the American Bankers Association, if the banker ventures to observe that he fails to recognize himself and his brethren when they are described as men, “who, to their great loss and detriment, do not know plain men, the people.” And lest the banker in public opinion be pilloried with our national scapegoat, the capitalist, may he not be permitted at least this modest voice in his defense?
Is the banker far removed from the people? The indictment lodged at Denver is apparently directed against every banker, without qualifica-
Among the notable addresses at the recent convention of the American Bankers Association in Denver, was one by the distinguished President of Princeton University, on the topic, “The Banker and the Nation.” Speaking from his experience of many years as a close student of the political history of the American people, Dr. Woodrow Wilson analyzed some of the phases of our national life to-day. “For the first time in the history of America,” said he, “there is a general feeling that issue is now joined, or about to be joined, between the power of accumulated capital and the privileges and opportunities of the masses of the people. The power of accumulated capital is now, as at all other times, and in all other circumstances, in the hands of a comparatively small number of persons, but there is a very widespread impression that those persons have been able in recent years, as never before, to control the national development in their own interest.” Proceeding, the speaker emphasized the fact that the different elements of society, which, in his view, are contending against each other, can have no independent existence, but must of necessity continue co-ordinated members of the body of society. “Men of our day,” he goes on to say, “in England and America, have almost forgotten what it is to fear the government, but have found out what it is to fear the power of capital, to watch it with jealousy and suspicion, and trace to it the source of every open or hidden wrong; and so we do not fear the government, and are not jealous of political power. We fear capital and are jealous of its domination.”
1 quote from a later part of his address:	“I
am sure that many bankers must have become acutely and sensitively aware of the fact that the most isolated and the most criticised interest of all is banking. The banks are, in the general view and estimation, the special and exclusive instrumentalities of capital used on a large scale. The banks are in fact and in spirit at the service of every man to the limit of his known trustworthiness and credit, and they know very well that there is profit in multiplying small accounts and small loans. But, on the other hand, they are in fact singularly׳• remote from the laborer and the body of the people. They are particularly remote from the farmer and the small trader of our extensive countrysides.”
To illustrate this last statement, the speaker cited two specific illustrations, to which I shall recur later. After calling attention to opportunities, of which bankers in the large centers are urged to avail themselves, of placing their resources at the disposal of the merchants and farmers in the rural districts, and after a brief allusion to the possible value to the entire country׳ of a system of branch banking, but disclaiming any argument for or against branch banks, the speaker continued: “It is the duty of the banker, as it is the duty of men of every other class, to see to it that there be in his calling no class spirit, no feeling of antagonism to the people, to plain men whom the bankers, to their great loss and detriment, do not know.”