9
THE CHICAGO BANKER
September II, !pop]
All Forms of Surety and Casualty Insurance in One Company
ROBERT B. ARMSTRONG, President OFFICES: Entire 18th Floor, Majestic Bldg., Chicago, IL S. A.
Capital
$2,000,000
Surplus
$2,000,000
Deposits
$33,000,000
We solicit accounts ol banks and bankers and oiier them our complete facilities ior the handling of their out-of-town items
W. B. WELLS, Vice-Pres.
J. R. COOKE, Asst. Cash. R. S. HAWES, Asst. Cash. J. F. FARRELL, Asst. Cash.
C. H. HUTTIG, President
G.	W. GALBREATH, Cash. D’A. P. COOKE, Asst. Cash.
H.	HAILL, Asst. Cash.
Jlattonai lank of Commerce tn j&eto gorfe
is¡ prepared to transact all branches of bomcstic anb foreign banking. Accounts are soliciten from banks, bankers, firms, corporations anb ínbíbíbuals, tobo map relp upon courteous consiberation anb the berp best terms that are consistent toith goob business metbobs. CorreSponbence is inbiteb. Capital, Surplus anb ®Ittbibibrb profits ober
$40,000,000.00
he should be able to speak with the authority of the lawyer and the physician in their respective professions.
Dividing all knowledge into the usual nine classes, sociology is the class that embraces our calling. This again divides into nine subdivisions, of which political economy is one, which in turn is made up of nine different subjects, of which money, banking, and credit constitute one division only, leaving for the other eight such topics as land with its problems, capital and labor, finance in its broadest sense, production and distribution, etc. This will suggest at least two ideas—that our specialty covers a very small part of the whole domain of knowledge, nad that this limited department is our garden which it becomes our duty to cultivate.
The average banker of the past was quite content with a knowledge of the details of the office; more progressive men soon gave attention to correlated subjects; to the vast mechanism of exchange, to the underlying principles of finance, to credit with its kinds, personal, corporate, and national. I call attention to these facts to indicate the wide hiatus between the narrowest and the broadest training. Unlike the physician who buries his errors of judgment, and unlike the lawyer, who collects his fees whether he wins or loses his case, the banker’s mistake registers a swift retribution in cold, unsympathetic figures on the debtor side of profit account. In order that progress may not only be continued, but accelerated, and a future of highest efficiency assured,‘ ought not this association do more than it has done in the past to urge upon our young men, the clerks who are just beginning their careers, to take up the excellent course of the American Institute of Bank Clerks, covering in its curriculum of studies, practical banking, commercial law, and political economy? Might it not be well to go so far as to make promotion dependent on satisfactory progress in this course, and finally, on the completion of the prescribed studies ? Such a policy would have the dual advantage of encour-aging studious and ambitious men, and of eliminating that respectable number of young men (Continued on page 30)
ELI S. REINHOLD
President Pennsylvania Bankers Association
true banker should be a whole man. A bank is a poor hospital for shattered nerves, and altogether the wrong place for the dyspeptic hypochondriac. Intellectually, his training should be of the very best, for no calling demands clearer thought, wiser discrimination, and keener judgment—products only of the very best educational discipline. His endowments and culture must embrace the personal, social, and technical; in the last named, covering finance and economics,
CAPITAL & SURPLUS
$1,000,000
Paps a rate of interest consistent witf good banking
GUARDIAN
TRUST
COMPANY
OF
NEW YORK
those states at least one peril from the list that causes sleepless nights to the banker.
As to issues of private corporations, whose number is legion and whose sales-agents are the ablest, suavest, and most persistent interrupters of the banker’s busy hours, to whom even a third-degree book-agent holds no comparison—is it not time we had in Pennsylvania an efficient public corporation commission, under this or some other name, to look into the merits of securities issued by private corporations, prior to their flotation on the market? Many such issues are so diluted with “water” that they hardly carry the flavor of hard cash, and the wag’s suggestion, while not very reverent, had significance when he advised a friend who had been chosen a director in a large corporation, to learn to sing “Shall we gather at the river?”
Other perils beyond the control of the banker are already partially or wholly provided for by the various forms of burglary insurance surety bonds, etc. We may look for even a larger development of these features and thus possibly eliminate risks now regarded as unavoidable. 1 cannot pass this part of my subject without expressing the indebtedness of this association to our efficient' committee on legislation for watchfulness and tactful services.
I pass from the perils without the bank to the perils within. The Spanish war gave us the phrase “The man behind the gun.” The phrase in passing has left as a residue the large truth that men, men, are the ultimate force to be reckoned with in all departments of life; banking is an illustration and not an exception. The man, or men behind the desk—the cashier or president, or both—are a bank’s best protection or its ultimate ruin. We have probably looked too much to objective sources of safety and too little to ourselves for the best path in calm weather, and for shelter in the time of storm. We as bankers are the sources and the forces from which come stability and success. It goes without saying that men on whom so much depends should be built on the piano plan—grand, square, and upright.
No profession calls for larger men. Holy, etymologically is whole-lv—the whole man. The