The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-27
New York. Alarch as. bod.

| New York; March g, 1S04. One of the natural results of the growth of trust companies during the last few years has been their encroach-
 nent upon the business heretofore cpn- ducted by both the national and conn
 rnerctal banks. Tn doing this, it is true
 they have departed from their old lines
 but they are still within their legal
 rights. Competition with shese trust com- panias in this field of finance Is lmpossi-
 ble owing to the limitations of the na- tfonal banks charters, and thus they
 have been powerless to strike back.
 Every day business Of this kind is
 brought to the banks and they have been
 under the necessity of turning it over to
 their competitors. In. this way they | have unwillinely been forced to give aid,
 comfort, and profit to the various trust companies, with the unpleasant prospect
 of having to do this practically for all time or until some method of protection
 was thought of and put into practice. The result is that in thus getting be-
 yond their legitimate sphere the. trust companies have fallen victims to their own rapacity and have prompted meas ures which, in one very notable instance at least. have resulted in the national banks entering the trust company, field.
 In doing this. however, there has been
 no attempt to engraft upon existing na- tional banks new departments for doing trust company business; they have sim ply tried to meet competition in the regu- lar business way, organizing a rival con-. cern of their own, and the cooperation of the officers of many of the leading national banks of New York. Chicago, Pittsburg. Kansas City and Boston inl forming a trust company Is one of the notable financial events of the, past year. This latest idea in banking represents a community of interest among institutions which are in other lines in keen cosnpe- tition. New York banks are more or less united in several distinct groups. such ae what is known as the Morgan chain, the National City or Standard OH group, the Park Bank group. the Corn ExchanRe group and so on. Each of these is en. gagged In an active rivalry with the oth@ CTS, but some of them found union not only possible, but srs,cessfui, when it came to the formation of the Bankers Trust Company.
 The division of national banks into chains" or groups. marks a great change in methods since 70 banks them selves were named. For instance. the Leather Manufacturers' National Bank. as the name implies. ones sought the business of . single industry; so did the Butchers and Drovers. the Mechanics and others which might be mentioned But to-day every large banking institution makes strenuous efforts to attract busI- ness from all quarters, not only that its operations may be tne most extensive possible, but that 1t may have the sta bility and safety coming from combi- nation of many widely diversified inter- ests So the natonal banks that have formed the Bankers Trust Company have been able to turn over to 1t a large vol- ume of business drawn from. many wide | ly separated sources.
 The New York institutions represented I fin the directorate of this notable devei- I opment in banking are the Bank of the | Manhattan Company. the Seaboard Na- tional, Fourth National, First National, Mechanics National. Chase National, Hanover National, Leather Manufactur- CTS National, Chemical National. Liberty National, National Park Bank and Gal latin National The great hanncial inter | ests outside of New York associated in the trust company are the Commercial of Chicago, the First National of Pittsburs. the First National of Kan