The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1899-07-28


The great Bank of England was
founded in 1894 under the auspices of
William III, the Stakeholder Of Hol-
land, who took his ideas from the Bank
of Amsterdam and the Bank of Hol-
land, and the statutes of Queen Anne,
King George | / and King George III
show that the Bank of England has
paid for renewal Of its charters or
loaned to the Government without in
terest at different times to get renewals
of its charter an aggregate sum of
$40, $50 900. and it is also fact that
it loaned the King at one time its en-
tire original capital of / 200 900 pounds
and exacted interest at per cent.
The liability Of stockholder in.
bank is greater in our country than
the liability of stockholder in any
other corporation; on the one hand it
is for the protection, first, of the de-
positor, but it imposes on the bank
officer the greater moral responsibility
to protect not only the depositor, but
to see that the innocent stakeholder
be also protected in his liability.
|. therefore, hold that there are no
two walks in life and no two profes-
sions which require more good solid
judgment and more tried and sterling
honesty and firmncss than the pro.es-
sion of the banker and the lawyer, and
when man enters at early manhood
either of these professions, goes on
| through life with the deserved respect
and esteem of his clients, depositors
and employers: retires with his ledger
| balanced and his cash and investments
all right and passes on to an age when
| his physical strength is gone and then
goes to his grave, his hair white with
age and the spotless purity of integrity,
| upon his tombstone you can write with
distinctive and significant truth the
cpitaph, "An honest man, the noblcst
work of God
As lawyer, and as one connected
with a little bank, | speak of banks
of deposit and those that run them.
| believe our national banking sys-
ten, while it could be improved, as
| can all human laws. is the best we ever
had, and | believe no bank directors
carry out the principles of that act
when they attempt to play trust COM
panies or promoters, which, to my
mind, must be spectators. With no
prejudice against trust companies as
such, the ordinary trust is not founded
rs rule, | believe, upon the same
solid, safe principles. Banks go on for
years carefully, quietly, slowly and
discrectly by small savings and cconom-
ical management get a small surplus
which shows their stock to be worth
more than par; the trust company
branches out and in 4 twentieth part
of the time, by speculation, under
writing and subscribing for question
able bonds, entering into all sorts OF
commission business, etc, gets its
stock away up above the bank stock
one to my mind is at least near all
actual value, the other is at the best 4
mere supposable value. One is the
friend of the careful conservative man;
the other often either the tool or the
ruin of the speculator. The habit of
speculation grows on human nature
with such force that oft times corpora
tions and people, in the desire to hoard
up money, run up stock and show
large surpluses, never stop to think.
The lawyer who, as trustee or eXecu-
| tor, takes the trust fund, invests it in
speculation, makes big interest and
only accounts to his cestui que trust for
small interest, is not only liable legal
ly but can and should be disbarred-
the trust company that does it is NOR
ally Just rs bad, but Its officers imagine
sometimes it is perfectly legitimate.
Combinations, trusts and monopo-
lies seem to be the order of the day.
They were created originally for the be-
nefit of the people; many Of them seem
to be run as if the people were created
for them; it seems to me they do not
belong to the banks of deposit. The
one will last to all time and go to per-
fection, the other may last, but it will
on nlytourish SO long as there is more sup
ply than demand, and the day will come,
sooner or later, when everything which
smacks of combinations, trusts and mo-
nopolies will be distasteful to large
majority of the American people. |
feel to be honest | must say this, but
| refer only to the speculative trusts
and combinations formed for the pur-
pose of absorbing business and risking
other peoples money for their own
gain: not to those who Just as honest
ly as the bank invests its dcpositors
money in safe securities of any kind,
recognizing, as they should, that they
have much wider field than nation
al bank, and, therefore. less excuse for
the risky speculations.
Nor do | refer to well managed guar
antec or fidelity companies, which to
my mind have done probably more to
ensure honest performance of duties
by bank employees and other employ
ecs whom they guarantee than all the