[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
30
THE CLASSIFIED SERVICE
ADVERTISEMENTS INSERTED UNDER THIS HEADING AT TWO CENTS PER WORD. REMITTANCE SHOULD ACCOMPANY COPY. REPLIES FORWARDED IF POSTAGE IS FURNISHED. USE PRIVATE ADDRESS WHERE CONVENIENT.
SAFES AND OFFICE FIXTURES
FOR SALE—Lot of high grade deposit boxes, good as new, two steel vaults, screw door and manganese safes, all good as new. We carry the largest stock of safes in the West. DONNELL SAFE COMPANY, 200-202 E. Washington St., Chicago, 111. Established 1886.
HELP WANTED
Good Bank Men Wanted — Applications by experienced men will be received by a prominent Chicago Bank for the following positions : First, General Man who can keep books, and relieve tellers; Second, Transit Department men who cgn run adding machines; Third, Bookkeepers; Fourth, a Head Messenger; Fifth, Messengers. Applications, with references, should be addressed to No. 2244, care of Chicago Banker.
FOR SALE
Solid mahogany fixtures, modern, in good condition, complete with cages.
First National Bank, Champaign, 111.
For Sale—Bank in the best agricultural section of Montana. New country with great future. Address “ M,” care of Union Bank CS, Trust Co., Helena, Montana.
40,000 Acres of Manitoba Land. $1,000 to the banker who will put us in touch with the man who will sell 5000 acres during the year 1909. Liberal commission paid to salesman. For particulars, address H. L. Emmert Land Agency, 191 Loipbard Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Credit Man and His Work. By E. St. Elmo Lewis. Postpaid, $2.00.
This book stands unrivaled in first position for its thoroughness and for the authoritative way in which the whole complex subject of credits is handled. It is for the practical man and will well equip him for any position which has to do with credit work in business, banking, or corporation management.
The National Bank Act, with Amendments. Annotated by J. M. Gould. Postpaid, $3.12.
No one can know too much about the BANK ACT, and all the disputed and much-discussed points are fully covered in this valuable work.
The Principles of Money and Banking. By Charles A. Conant. It is a new and complete exposition of its subject. Two Volumes. Postpaid, $4.25.
The Pitfalls of Speculation. By Thomas Gibson. Postpaid, $1.20.
A book dealing exclusively with marginal speculation, and analyzing in a clear and simple manner the causes of failure in speculation, with a suggestion as to the remedies.
The Use of Loan Credit in Modern Business. By Thorstein B. Veblen. Postpaid, 28c.
The above books are the best of their kind, and will be promptly forwarded upon receipt of price.
THE CHICAGO BANKER,
407 Monadnock Block, Chicago.
Investment Bonds. By F. Lownhaupt. Postpaid, $1 90.
Prospective investors who wish to make advantageous use of their money will do well to take notice of this volume. The author does not theorize, but tells only plain facts of the relation of the bond to its issuing Corporation, and of the general investment aspect of the Instrument.
Money and Credit. By Wilbur Aldrich. Postpaid, $1.37.
This volume contains much valuable information and much sound discussion on money and credit.
Principles and Practice of Finance. By Edw. Carroll. Postpaid, $1.85.
A Practical Guide for Bankers, Merchants, and Lawyers. Together with a Summary of the National and State Banking Laws, and the Legal Rates of Interest, Tables of Foreign Coins, and Glossary of Commercial and Financial Terms.
The Banking and Currency Problems in the United States. By Victor Morawetz. The author takes up the problem of the National Monetary Commission, appointed by Congress, and discusses the means of providing a permanent safeguard against money stringencies and panics. Postpaid, $1.10.
The Monetary and Banking Problem. By Logan G. McPherson. i2mo. Cloth, $1. Postage, 10c.
These articles have elicited the praise of both economists and bankers.
BOOKS ON BANKING, FINANCE AND ECONOMICS
Credit. By J. Lawrence Laughlin of the Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago. Postpaid, 53c.
The nature of credit and its effect on prices have long been a subject of disagreement among economists. Its basis is commonly assumed to be money or bank reserves.
Essentials of Business Law. By Francis M. Burdick, LL. D., Professor of Law in Columbia University. i2mo. Postpaid, $1.50.
This'book is not written for lawyers, nor for professional students of law, but it shows how the rules of law governing the commonest business transactions have been developed, and it tells what they are to-day Technical law terms have been discarded as far as possible, and when they are used they are so explained and illustrated as to be easily understood. The principles of law are not set forth in the form and style known to the leather-bound law book, but are simplified and expressed in clear, lucid, every-day speech
Foreign Exchange. Tables converting foreign money into United States Money, and United States money into foreign money at all commercial rates of exchange used in financial transactions between the United States and foreign countries. All abput foreign exchange, including various forms of foreign commercial paper and terms, abbreviations, etc. For banks, bankers, steamship agents, importers, exporters and manufacturers. Cloth, $5.00.
Government Regulation of Railway Rates. By Hugo R. Meyer. A Professor of Political Economy in the University of Chicago. Postpaid, $1.60 net.
have come only from those unable to get the cheques from their own banks. For that reason the direct returns in answers to our ads, although liberal, have been comparatively small.
“On the other hand, the magazine advertising has stinirilated a very large demand from people who have gone to their banks and bought the cheques. This consumer demand, of course, has been the means of leading hundreds of banks to issue the new paper. The aggregate sale of cheques so far has been extremely large-—far beyond what was looked for so soon after their introduction.’’
No newspaper or other general advertising has been taken up by the Bankers Trust in its exploitation of the travelers’ cheques. Valuable aid has been extended by the company’s newly organized advertising department, however, to individual banks everywhere in getting up special copy which has materially increased the sales of the cheques.
Unknown to the banks themselves in many cases, copies of local newspapers carrying their regular bank ads are secured in New York. Attractive ads, incorporating the salient facts about travelers’ cheques, are then prepared in the same style and forwarded to the banks merely as suggestions. This plan of getting additional publicity for the cheques has almost never failed to he successful, the individual banks invariably being grateful for the aid and gladly paying the cost of the advertising.
,V«
A Star Event
Another star event has been added to the entertainment program provided for the American Bankers Association at Chicago during the annual convention next month. The President of the United States will grace with his presence the grand ball to be given at the Auditorium Theatre on the evening of Thursday, September i6th. All members of the association with their ladies are invited to participate, and the affair is to be one of the most notable social events in the history of Chicago.
The First National of Chisholm, Minn., is erecting a building.
special representatives all through Switzerland. They called upon banks, large hotels, information bureaus, etc., 'and got their promises to cash the orders whenever presented. Similar methods of paving the way for the cheques were used all over Europe and the continent.
In this country and in Canada the campaign to secure the co-operation of banks, shops, and hotels in cashing the cheques has likewise been universally successful. Because of the great tide of travel flowing toward the Alaska-Yukon Exposition this summer, particular efforts have been made to make it easy for the visitor to Seattle to get his travelers’ cheques cashed there. As a result, there are hundreds of places in the exposition city where they are as readily accepted as United States notes.
Like arrangements are now being made in New York City for the convenience of the thousands of visitors expected to pour into the city during the coming Hudson-Fulton celebration.
After the vast amount of detail necessary to put the new system into running order had been successfully cared for, the first cheques were issued. The magazine advertising got under way about the same time, and has been running continuously since.
Full-page copy, showing facsimiles of the cheques and explaining their advantages, has been used in the Century magazine, Harpers’ magazine, McClure’s, Review of Reviews, World’s Work, the Outlook, American magazine, Pearson’s, Literary Digest, Independent, and the Travel Magazine. Scribner’s will be added to the list in September. These ads, of a most attractive character, were placed through the J. Walter Thompson Company.
“These magazines were used for advertising travelers’ cheques,” says Mr. Wilson, “because it was essential to reach a high class of readers and at the same time to use publications with wide circulations.
“On account of the general character of our advertisements, and particularly because of the advice given in them to intending travelers to buy the cheques from their own bankers, it was not expected many direct inquiries would be received by the Bankers Trust. Inquiries
banks whose aid and co-operation were desired.”
By sending out to the entire list of 23,000 banks many strong circulars and letters explaining fully the nature of the new form of currency and supplementing this by having experts visit hesitating banks and exert their persuasive powers, many institutions were led to order supplies of the cheques, and they were fully prepared when the public demand began to reach them later in response to the advertising.
So far 1,300 of the principal banks in all parts of the country have fallen into line and are supplying travelers’ cheques over their own names, while hundreds more sell them as correspondents of these banks of issue. At the rate of which others are making agreements for them it is expected that the list will include 5,000 financial institutions by the end of the year.
The magazine advertising campaign, which began in June and will continue probably an entire year at least, has been largely instrumental in bringing the “dealer” into the fold. In addition, the banker has been influenced through nearly a dozen well-known financial papers.
This list of financial mediums includes such papers as the American Banker, Financial Age, Financier, Commercial and Financial Chronicle, the United States Investor, Chicago Banker, Bankers’ magazine, Trust Companies magazine, Banking Law Journal, and the Bankers’ Home magazine.
Practically all of the work of carrying out the thorough advance plans of the movement was directed by Fred I. Kent, vice-president of the Bankers Trust, and chairman of the committee of the Bankers Association which devised the new international money order form.
As an evidence of the completeness with which the foreign field was covered, it is only necessary to call attention to the part the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, a leading financial institution of Zurich, Switzerland, was induced to play in laying the foundations for the new international currency.
This important banking house sent out its