[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
10
The Wisconsin National Bank
OF MILWAUKEE
CAPITAL -	$2, OOO, 000
SURPLUS -	1,000.000
OFFICERS
L.J. PETIT, President	HERMAN F. WOLF, Cashier
FRED'K KASTEN, Vice-President	L. G. BOURNIQUE, Asst. Cashier
CHAS. E. ARNOLD, 2nd Vice-President	W. L. CHENEY, Asst. Cashier
WALTER KASTEN, Asst. Cashier
DIRECTORS
L.J. Petit	Frederick Kasten	R. W. Houghton	Oliver C. Fuller
Herman W. Falk	Geo. D. Van Dyke	Gustave Pabst	Charles Schriber
Isaac D. Adler	H. M. Thompson	Patrick Cudahy
OFFICERS
OLIVER C. FULLER, President	GARDNER P.STICKNEY, Vice-President
FRED. C. BEST, Secretary	R. L. SMITH, Assistant Secretary
CAPITAL	$500,000	־
SURPLUS 100,000 ־
DIRECTORS
Oliver C. Fuller Gardner P. Stickney
R. W. Houghton Custave Pabst Patrick Cudahy
Frederick Kasten Charles Schriber H. M. Thompson
L. J. Petit, Chairman Herman W. Falk Isaac D. Adler
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Wisconsin Trust Company
MILWAUKEE
MILWAUKEE	NEWS LETTER By Mortimer I. Stevens	WISCONSIN
		
financial methods of Germany than those of other countries as a possible help in this country. He explained that the two countries were nearer alike in industrial development and went at length into the banking system there with its central bank.
Panics, the senator said, fell heaviest on those who were not primarily responsible for them, which was unjust. He believed that they could be prevented and also believed that it was possible to have monetary institutions not controlled by politics.
Senator Aldrich Entertained
President Louis J. Petit, of the Wisconsin National Bank, entertained Senator Aldrich at luncheon Monday noon. The guests from outside the city included Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Charles D. Norton, assistant secretary of the treasury; George M. Reynolds, president of the Continental National Bank, Chicago, and member of the National Monetary Commission; Prof. A. P. Andrew, assistant to the monetary commission; Arthur B. Sheldon, secretary of the Monetary Commission; Thos. F. Dawson, representative of the Associated Press.
Milwaukeeans present were Oliver C. Fuller, president Wisconsin Trust Company; George C. Markham, president Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company ; Fred Vogel, Jr., president First National Bank; J. W. P. Lombard, president National Exchange Bank; Washington Becker, president Marine National Bank; James K. Ilsley, president Marshall & Ilsley
The first thing to be considered, continued the senator was the requirements of the American people, and second, the results desired. Always, he held, the people must come first. Honest criticism, he said, would be welcomed by the commission. The members were meeting the question in the open. No sane man, he said, would think of going back to a system like the central bank of Biddle. “We could not adopt it if we wanted to,” he said. “You would have to put yourselves back i,ooo years if you did, and you are not going to do it, and the commission will not ask you.
“We will not be deterred by political fakers calling our attention to the ghost of Andrew Johnson. He was a great man but he died many years ago.”
The senator seemed more impressed with the
Easily, all other things during the past week in banking circles, have given way to the visit to this city of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, November 15th, and the subsequent discussion of the points brought out in his talk concerning the work of the monetary commission, of which he is chairman.
Nearly 1,200 interested bankers and financial men listened to Senator Aldrich in Plankington Hall of the Milwaukee Auditorium. The speaker did not hesitate to pay his respects to demagogues and political fakers, but in the people as a whole, and their final judgment, he evidenced an abiding faith which could not be shaken. The address in this city was different from those delivered in other cities in that the public was admitted to a greater extent and showed that former methods were to a certain degree a mistake in making these addresses more or less of an exclusive nature.
The larger part of the senator’s address was in matter similar to what has been heard before from speakers discussing the question of a central bank and was not new to most of his hearers. He made it clear that he was opposed to any system of branch banks for the reason that it would wipe out the local country banks and the people would not stand for them even if they could be had. The existing system, Senator Aldrich said, must be maintained in some shape.
“The different organization must be the servant and not the master of the existing organization,” said he.