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THE CHICAGO BANKER
November 6, !pop]
Located at MINNEAPOLIS, the portal to a rapidly developing empire, the
Northwestern National Bank,
in situation and strength, is the ideal reserve agent for banks and bankers beyond the Mississippi.
CAPITAL and SURPLUS	FIVE MILLIONS
TOTAL RESOURCES THIRTY ■SEVEN MILLIONS
Bank Law Attacked
Madison, Wis., November 2.—Deputy Attorney-General Russell Jackson at Stevens Point argued the case of the Bank of Weyauwega against Marcus C. Bergh, commissioner of banking.
The case involves the constitutionality of the Wisconsin banking law. It is brought by W. H. Weed, Mary E. Potter and Ella V. Kirkwood, co-partners, doing business under the name of Bank of Weyauwega, and attacks the constitutionality of chapter 285, laws of 1909, which restricts the business of banking in Wisconsin to corporations.
The Bank of Weyauwega is not incorporated. It has been established forty years and has deposits of $250,000. It is urged by the bank that its right to do business is a common law right. The state contends that the law is in pursuance of its police power.
Both North Dakota and South Dakota have had the same question, the supreme court of one state upholding the law and the other de-
People’s Bank and Trust Company
The People’s Bank & Trust Co., of Bell-buckle, Tenn., with paid-in capital of $30,000 has been organized. The following are incorporators:	Benjamin E. Ransom, Sr., William F.
McAdams, Omar Shoffner, Sewell Lynch, Benjamin Ransom, Jr. and J. T. Stephenson.
Announcement
We beg to inform you that Short, Stanton & Co., Investment Bankers have incorporated in the state of Ohio under the corporate name of The Short, Stanton, Worthington Co., with offices in the Fourth National Bank building, Cincinnati, Ohio.
nothing of the great inconvenience of having funds tied up indefinitely, I am sure the public will appreciate the promptness with which the business has been dispatched.”
George Woodruff
George Woodruff, the young president of the First at Joliet has returned greatly benefited by his trip around the world. Part of his time abroad was spent with a party of gentlemen interested in the railroads of China and they rode over every mile of road there. He liked it so well that he has about decided to go to Russia, Persia, et al., next year. Mr. Woodruff was an original Crampton man but did not suspect the sort of a time they had over the election at Decatur, until he got to his mail from candidates, only opened this week.
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New Bank for Bemidji
The Security State Bank is the title of a new enterprise at Bemidji, Minn., and will commence business about January 1st. E. J. Swedback, of Minneapolis; H. W. Haines, of Lenox, Iowa; A. E. Smith, W. B. Stewart and Chester Snow, of Bemidji, and others are promoters.
Convert into a National
The Hartwell (Ga.) Bank, the oldest bank of this city, which for the past ten years has been a State depository, has been converted into a national Bank with the name the First National of Hartwell. James W. Williams has been elected president to succeed E. B. Benson, resigned, who held the place from the organization of the bank twenty years ago, J. G. Craft has been retained as cashier of the National Bank. It is expected that the institution will begin operation January 1, 1910.
signed to the state banking board other securities appraised at $563,600, which, added to the assets of $1,199,600 reported in the examiners’ hands, gives a total of $1,763,200 available for the payment of all claims. How good the $957,-818 of bills receivable will develop is a matter on which the report does not touch.
Mr. Young says, however, that “it will be observed that a shrinkage of $637,799 in total as־ sets could occur before any final loss on any fund would occur. In addition to this the stockholders are liable for an amount equal to their stock. Mr. Menefee, state treasurer, had on deposit $189,000, secured by bonds and other collateral, which have been sold and the state treasurer paid in full. Inasmuch as the amount due the treasurer of the state banking board, which was $75,000, was secured by collateral and surety company bonds, and was promptly paid, I have not included this in my statement. In view of the fact that the amount due the state school land fund ($190,000) on September 28th, was secured by collateral and surety company bonds, I have not included the debt or the collateral in my statement.”
As an addition to the report Mr. Young says: “No state officer was in any way indebted to the Columbia Bank and Trust Company except James Menefee, who owed two notes of $10,000 each, neither of which was due. However, one of them has since been paid and the other secured by additional collateral. The small balances due were largely those which adjust themselves by balancing accounts, so that final liquidation is nearly accomplished of this large institution in the short space of one month.
“The total expense of handling this bank to date has not exceeded $2,500. When it is remembered that the expense of liquidating a national bank of this magnitude (deposits $3,900,-000) under similar circumstances would have amounted to not less than $50,000, to say