The 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
DECEMBER 12, 1908
NEW LA SALLE HOTEL, CHICAGO
At the present rate of gain upon the contract time, the new sky scraper, The New La Salle, will be furnished complete for occupancy by September 1, 1909. It has been proposed to secure this hotel for A. B. A. convention headquarters, when that great body of bankers will assemble in Chicago next year. The location is right in the banking and financial district, LaSalle and Madison, and if made to order it could not better be adapted to the occasion. The convention and the “opening” should be timed for the same week.
There will be 1,048 sleeping rooms in the building, with accommodations for about 1,400 guests. On the twentieth floor, extending upward through two stories, will be an immense banqueting room, 50 per cent larger than the banquet room in the Auditorium Annex. The main dining room, 60 by 80 feet, will be located on the ground floor. This vaulted room will extend through two stories, and will be entirely without columns. There will be no stores in the building. The structure will be used entirely by the hotel. George H. Gazley, formerly with the Waldorf-Astoria and the St. Regis, will be the manager. The La Salle Hotel, when completed, will represent an investment of approximately $3,000,000, exclusive of the ground. The ground is valued at $2,500,000.
National Produce Bank
The missionary work being done by Frank Collins, assistant to President Edwin L. Wagner, of the National Produce Bank, Chicago, right in its own neighborhood has been productive of results. This bank has picked up a million in deposits by making itself almost indispensable to the business men near Lake and Clark streets, embracing, of course, the thrifty commission firms of South Water. Mr. Collins, in opening a personal letter to a nearby firm says:	“I desire to extend you herewith
an invitation to transact your banking business with the National Produce Bank. You will note that this is the nearest national banking institution to your building, being about two blocks from your office.”
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The President and Postal Banks
A part of the president’s message to Congress dealt with postal banks for savings, which he has so “strenuously” favored during his entire term of office. He believes they will encourage thrift of the wage earner, and increase the available funds in the banks. He also favored the parcels post.
I. B. A. Offices
The new offices for the secretary of the Illinois Bankers Association will be on the tenth floor of the Rookery, the very center of the financial district of Chicago. This was determined by Messrs. Foreman, Crabtree & Rina-man acting for the association on Monday of
Fred I. Kent Goes to New York
Fred I. Kent, head of the foreign exchange department of the First National of this city, will go to New York January 1st to become one of the vice-presidents of the Bankers’ Trust Company. His successor in the First National has not been selected.
Mr. Kent has been active on the foreign exchange committee of the American Bankers Association and has done much of the work of that organization in seeking to stop the competition of the express companies in that field. Before his promotion to official position Mr. Kent was active in the American Institute of Banking and served one year as its president.
Chas. N. Fowler
Chairman Fowler of the currency banking committee of Congress has given out an address favoring credit currency, without reference to any particular bill bearing that provision. He advocates the unifying of American banking; the decentralization of bank credits, and the centralizing of gold reserves. Closing his paper he says: “Neither a government savings bank, nor a government guaranty of bank deposits, which are identical in fact and principle, should find any place on the statute books of our country, whose chief asset, greatest strength, and crowning glory is the individualism of our citizenship.”