The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-11-07
THORNE EXPLAINS
PRESIDENT OF TRUST COMPANY OF.
 AMERICA TALKS.
He Says the Time Has Come to Take Deposifors, Stockholders aad
 Public Into Hank's hr
 Confidence.

New York. Nov. s.--oakleigh Thorne.
 President of the Trust Company of
 Americas made the following statement
 today:
 T think the time has now come to
 take the depositors. the stockholders
 and the public into our confidence l
 have left all along that was trus-
 tee. primarily for the depositors and
 next for the stockholders, and all of
 my actions havs been guided by a de-
 sire to fairly and honestly meet the
 duties of this trusteeship. Months ago
 was warned. as indeed we all were.
 that u there was . danger of a period ,.od oa
 set about putting our house in order.
 We completely reduced our loans
 and increased our cash means to a point
 largely in excess of the legal require rment when the crisis came; indeed, we
 had so much money on hand that wise
 and conssrvative bankers advised me to put sofne of our money and demand
 loans into time loans. W
 ..when the storm broke. to my utter
 astonishment, its chief force was di-
 rected against the Trust Company of
 America It is idle now to discuss the
 reason why. The fact remains that
 public attention was<rivetted upon this
 institution by newspaper publications
 and the run developed into a persist. ent and steadfast demand,
 A.aThis run is unprecedented in the his.
 tory of banking. In few days our re- ceipts were in excess of our payments, but altogether we have paid out since lit began, ovef s34,000, 900. Throughout the whole period of stress, have court ed the closest examination into our af- fairs and the last Saturday night at
 my instance, the banking interests who
 had been so Helpful in the emergeAcy, appointed cbmmittee of experts to go through our assets. These experts had no interest in the matter whatever.
 They found, after working all night Saturday and half the day on Sunday. that we had enough, even at the pres- ent low money market prices, to pay our capital intact and substantial
 surplus.
 tI think in the end 1t will be profit 1 able to the Trust Company of Amer. 1 ica that this fierce light should have beat upon 1t and should have disclosed the character of it's securities. There have been all sorts of wild rumors afioat, but it is not definitely known
 that no officers or director of the bank
 has been improperly using the funds | for his own purposes, no officer or die rectpy has had a loan here in excess of legal limits, and the president of the l Institution has no loans whatever.
 neither has any compa BH with which the l president was associated had any loans Tt has been suggested that during some days, we were unnecessarily slow l in the payment of depositors. In am I swer, 1t should be stated that we have | found each day, upon examination of i the checks presented, that 25 or 30 per. cent of them were not good. People | have drawn a number of cheeks | against their balances, and put them 1 in the hands of the men in line. Many l of these men had each a large number of checks in his possession. 1t was | obviously necessary to examine each 1 check as presented, to determine l whether the balance had already been l drawn out and this naturally greatly | delayed our work. There has not been 1 a day on which we have paid less than I 800 or 400 checks.
 sI should be untrue to myself, if ! | did not make acknowledgement of the I splendid help we received at the nanos ! of our fellow bankers in New York. 1 There has been a great deal of unnec- | essary misapprehension on the part l of the public concerning this matter ! No officer or director has been asked l 60 resign and there has been no ab- sorption of this company by any other l company. A number of gentlemen 9f very high character and guaranteed responsibility, have entered into an l agreement by which a majority of our stock is to be deposited with them as voting trustees, and they are to act as advisory committees in cooperation with our Board of Directors"