17
BANKER
THE CHICAGO
October 2, !pop]
CIHIAPT1M 1IC01E)
(Department of Chicago Banker)
An Open Forum Dedicated to the American Institute of Banking in Which to Advance the Great Movement for Systematic Education and Universal Membership
said Mr. Waters yesterday. “Business colleges are all very well in their way, but their graduates, on entering a bank, have to begin at the bottom. The bank itself is therefore the only place where a man can acquire the training necessary to fit him for the calling of a banker. Far from regretting the fact that I spent many years in subordinate positions, I am very glad that I have heretofore had the opportunity to serve as messenger, clerk, bookkeeper, teller and cashier; in fact, in every capacity in the bank below that of vice-president, for as vice-president I feel more sure of myself by reason of all that training.”
The case of Mr. Waters serves to call attention to the many sons of Los Angeles who have elected to follow the business of their sires and the indications are that the names at present synonymous with leadership in the local banking world will be borne, to some extent, at least, by the bank presidents, bank vice-presidents, and cashiers of the future. These young fellows, despite the handicap of their kinship with the heads of the institutions where they are employed, settle down to the task of carving out careers for themselves with as much zeal as if they had to. Any possible charge of nepotism is promptly answered by the way these youths “make good.” Incompetency has no place in a big bank. The machinery of such an institution is too delicately adjusted to permit of the presence of lost motion or friction, and an employee must “make good,” regardless of whom he is related to.
In the First National J. M. Elliott, Jr., and Robert Elliott, sons of President Elliott, are employed. J. M. Jr., has already reached an important position in the clearing house. Paul Plammond, son of Cashier Hammond of the same bank, was at one time employed there, but is now a student at the University at Berkeley. It is thought likely that he will eventually return to the bank. George Gillelen is paying teller of the Broadway Bank and Trust Company, of which his father is president. J. W. Phelps, cashier of the American Savings Bank, is the son of T. W. Phelps, long connected with that institution. Jay Spence, cashier of the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company, is still another son who is proving himself worthy a distinguished name. His father, the late E. T. Spence, was at one time president of the First National, which owns the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company.
Two young bankers of Los Angeles, who bear one of the most noted names in financial circles of the Pacific Coast, are the Heilmans, Marco and Maurice S. The former, a son of the late H. W. Heilman, is vice-president of the Merchants National. Maurice S. Heilman, a cousin of Marco Heilman, has been vice-president of the Security Savings Bank for the last fourteen years.	«*•
The Chicago Chapter Meeting
James I. Ennis addressed the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Bankers on Tuesday evening in Northwestern University building on “Contracts” and emphasized the need of a knowledge of general legal principles by every banker.
The institute, whose membership is composed mainly of young bankers, is a branch of a national organization devoted to the education of its members along needed lines. Meetings are held semimonthly, with numerous extra meetings. Mr. Ennis is to deliver several addresses before the institute this season.
afternoon! The wonder is I did not go stark mad, for, coupled to the daily loss I was sustaining in making these deficits good was the consciousness that I was being hounded by some unearthly power which I could in no way frustrate.
Monday I was four dollars short.
I resolved that evening to send in my resignation at the weekly meeting of the directors, which occurred on Friday. I could endure this no longer. I could not sleep, and my hands trembled constantly.
Tuesday was an exceptionally quiet day. I had very little to do except brood over this strange fate which was pursuing me so relentlessly. That morning I realized for the first time that the amounts missing were always an even number of dollars. This fact, while strange, could throw no light upon the mysterious discrepancies.
A man came in with a check for ten dollars.
I gave him two fives, and instead of pushing the cash drawer entirely shut, as was my custom, I gave it a half-hearted shove, which only partially closed it, and sank upon a stool. I sat there and gazed desperately at the row of bills, each denomination stacked neatly in its separate compartment. From the position of the partly closed drawer I could see only a portion of each bill. Suddenly a shiver seized me, and I shook as with a violent chill.
The top bill on the stack of tens was moving!
For a moment I thought my senses would leave me. But the blur before my eyes passed in time for me to see the bill disappear, silently, but completely. Not a sound accompanied its vanishing. I grew weak, and felt a cold sweat spring out over my body. Then, summoning my forces, I quietly opened the drawer to its full limit, and again sat down. For half an hour I remained motionless. Then a little gray mouse crept softly up to my stack of ones and twos, and began nibbling the topmost bill. I watched him scutter away with the flimsy bit of paper in his mouth, too overjoyed to move. Later, I made an investigation.
The bank building was old. The teller’s cage was against a wall, and from this wall the tiny visitant had come which had nearly placed me in an insane asylum. I had a portion of the wall removed, and came upon all my missing money, some of it almost shredded in the operation of converting it into a mouse’s nest, but sufficiently intact for the government to redeem it.
I took the precaution to line my cash-drawer with tin, and now I easily make my daily balance.
Bankers’ Sons Make Good
An interesting incident of the recent consolidation of the Citizens National and the American National banks of Los Angeles was the elevation of A. J. Waters to the office of vice-president. The promotion was interesting from the fact that Mr. Waters is the son of the president of the Citizens National, and that, despite the paternal influence that he might have invoked, he has worked up to the position of vice-president all the way from that of messenger. The most impressive feature of it all is that he did not gallop through the intermediate positions between messenger and vice-president, but toiled along for seventeen years before reaching his present office of distinction and responsibility.
“There is no school that turns out graduate bankers as medical, law and theological schools turn out physicians, lawyers and clergymen,”
The Bank Teller’s Own Story
I am teller of the First National Bank of Ran-ohee. I have held this position of trust for fifteen years, and my cash has always balanced at the close of the business day. On the sixteenth of last January I was five dollars short on my first count. Confident that I had skipped a bill,
I went over my stack of fives a second time. The result was the same. A third count could not change it, so I mentally concluded that I had been careless in paying money on some check, and made the deficit good, charging it to my account.
The following day I was ten dollars short. A feeling of dismay filled my breast as I hastily ran over the ten dollar bills a second time. My first count was correct. No one had access to this money except myself. I put it behind a time lock in a screw-door safe every evening, and I opened the safe every morning and brought the money to the teller’s cage with my own hands. The door to my cage was locked, and I did not leave it, nor allow any one to enter it, until I had balanced the cash in the afternoon, and put it away. I was solely responsible, for I was the only one in the bank who was near the money, or handled it. I made the second deficit good, resolving to be doubly careful the next day in receiving and disbursing funds. The next day was a very quiet one. The bank opened at nine in the forenoon, and closed at three in the afternoon. During this time I did not receive over a score of deposits, and cashed even a less number of checks. (Kanohee is a small place, and the offices of paying and receiving teller are combined.) I smiled confidently as I began to count the money. When I cast a balance I was twenty dollars short. I gasped, and let my hands drop on the desk by which I stood. This would quickly ruin me. I was positive I had made no mistake that day in handling the funds. _ How could this shortage happen? For a period of many years I had been making a daily balance, with an occasional difference of a few cents one way or the other. Then suddenly to have this daily shortage begin, which I could in no way explain, nor combat, totally unnerved me. I made the twenty dollars good, and went home, heavy-hearted.
On the eighteenth I was one dollar short; on the nineteenth, six; on the twentieth, twelve; on the twenty-first, fifty! My nerves were getting in a dreadful condition, and I felt utterly helpless in the grasp of this unknown something which was ruining me day by day. In my desperation a silly idea came to me, but in my condition I would accept any possible solution. I thought some one of the bank force might get to the money in some way during the night, although it was behind a time-lock. That afternoon I set the time lock so that it would run down Sunday. Monday morning I came to work early. I got the money before any of the other force had arrived. It balanced to a cent with my Saturday count! I was baffled, and desperate. I had taken the cashier into my confidence, and he was equally mystified. To add to the horror of the situation, I was now convinced that the money was taken while it was in my cage and under my very hand; in broad daylight, between nine in the morning and three in the