The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-05-12
BANKERS BEGIN
ANNUAL SESSIONS
President T. 0. Smith Makes
Able Address
GIVEN HEARTY WELCOME
Many Features Have Been Planned
BY Local Men for Entertaining
Visitors-List of Those
Present.
GIVEN HEARTY WELCOME

Montgomery, May 11.-(Special.) 1.-THE
Alabama Bankers association was called
to order at 515 o clock by President Tom
o. Smith of the Birmingham Trust and
Savings company, with invocation by the
Rev. e. e. Cobbs, d. D., rector of st.
Johns Episcopal church. Montgomery.
He prayed that all men, bankers and
others, would appreciate the trust an all
wise God had placed in all men.
The freedom of the city was rendered
in well spoken words by Mayor Thomas
II. Carr, who welcomed the visitors to
historic Montgomery, where all good peo-
pie are made happy.
To respond to the kind words of the
city's executive, President Smith called
on j. II. Fits, president of the City Ma
tional of Tuscaloosa, who made ap-
plause- producing address, Incidentally he
urged those present to do what they can
to see that the state establish at Tusca-
loosa a school of mines, an0 at Auburn
a textile school. These are needed TO
educate the children of the country SO
they can become wealth producing.
For the local bankers. President Michael
Cody, Union Bank and Trust company,
spoke a welcome. He was very happy III
his sentiments.
President Smith called on w. w. Craw-
lord of the First National, birmingham,
to reply to Mr. Cody. He said the bankers
were here and happy, and did not propose
TO leave until they were put on the train.
The roll was then called, the list being
given below.
The address of President Tom o. Smith
was a comprehensive document. He COW
cred the field fully, and made a number OF
pertinent recommendations. He said:
President Smiths Address.
Gentlemen of the Alabama State Bank
ers Association:
~ congratulate you upon the prosper
ity and success which have waited on
your footsteps during the past year.
With one exception, no untoward event
has come to pass that might tend TO in
jure the standing of the banker in the
eyes of the public or weaken the conf
dence that lies at the root of all we have
grown or may hope to grow.
'It has been a season of steadily In
ereasing deposits and of a steady in
crease in the number of our banking in
stitutions national and state If | were
asked to point out the feature in the ex
pansion of the banking business in Ala
bama, which is most to be felicitated
and from which most is to be expected,
| should say 1t Is the multiplication of
the banks in our smaller towns. If any
impression has ever existed that the lar
ger city banks could view this general
blessing with the half closed eye of I'M
welcome, let me emphasize its error.
Banks do business with banks and
compete as class with every other me-
dium of exchange among the people,
from the government down to the ex-
press company. So keen has this compe-
fha ox11yr
about perfecting and inauguratng a sys-
tenn of money orders of their own, by
which they purpose not only to retain the
business of exchange but to regain much
that has already been lost to the post
and the express Offices To make
success, our money order must be OBJ
tainable anywhere and collectible every
where. and a bank in every town be-
comes the key of the situation.
The Country Bank.
But in another and more general way
the small country bank plays a supreme
part in the building up of the whole
business of banking. In the south es-
pecially many people with many dollars
have never ,patronized banks, and the old
stocking contingent is out of all pro-
portion. The planting of bank at their
doors brings out the horde, small in itself
but large in the aggregate and puts 1t
into general circulation.
The small merchant comes to deal di
rectly with the bank, and now business Is
brought into the banking channel. In
various ways what was fixed becomes
liquid and banks live on the fiuidity of
the assets of the people.
Enlightened self interest, apart from
those generous motives of desire to pro-
mote the welfare of the public In which
bankers are no whit behind their fellow
men, prompts us all to sustain and en-
courage the carrying of banks to the peo-
pie as opposed to waiting for the people
to come to the banks.
Unmixe1 Blessing.
"The general extension of banking ia
clities, both by the planting of banks
in the smaller towns and by their growing
strength in the cities has proved an UNI
mixed blessing to the farmers of the state.
1t has not been many years since
great wave of prejudice against banks
swept over the rural districts, and the
farmers saw in us enemy rather than
q friend Yet the sequel has proven that
through the very agency against which
they warred so strenuously has come the
long delayed era of cheaper money. On
their part the banks, so long distrustful
of the farmer as a borrower, are coming
to deal more and more directly with him.
Agriculture, after all, Is the most