The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-23

zation of the banking firm itself At it's head there is, as a rule, but one man in a position of undivided responsibility so far as the great commitments of the con- cern are affected He is not infrequentIy the actual owner of the business which in turn, he may have inherited from his father or his fathers father In other instances he Is one who has been admit ted as partner and by his dominant per- sonality and masterly skill has come to rule as though the business were always his.
 The family banking house is of another type, and finds it's precedent in many cen- turies of European banking. The head of the bank does not, of course, work alone. His partners are his cabinet: their inter- est in the business may be a matter of personal Investments but 1t Is more likely to have resulted from specific qualifca- tions which they have for the specialized work that is intrusted to them One part ner is not infrequently a lawyer of wide experience. one may have been rail- road man, another a man of general bank ing practices these all are selected. as rule, for personal considerations. In the firm they come into association in some instances with another class of part ners who have grown up in the house. It is said that there is one firm in Wall street which makes it rule that no one who has grown up in the business can ever become partner. Why this should be so has not been explained Certain 1t is that there are more houses in which part ners have been admitted who have ad- vanced through the successive stages from clerkships; who have become irn- bued with the traditions and standards of the firm. familiar with it's clientele, and in command through years of service of every detail of the business
 There appears to be a growing tendency to specialization among the partners of banking houses. Whether it will reach the stage to which it has been developed in some of the great banking establish ments of Europe remains yet to be seen. But the railroad specialist and the spe- cialist on industrials, the ''outside man." and the banking lawyer are as well known in their profession as are the eye and ear specialist, the specialist in ner- vous diseases, and the skilled surgeon in the practice of medicine
 In the Deutsche Bank of Berlin this division is carried so far as to have eight managing directors, each with his special line of activity. An absolute assignment of business is made among them, unless perhaps, one may be en- gagged to the limit of his time and en- ergy, and another be called to Tighten the burden.
 Next to the partners in a banking house come the holders of the power of attorney. They are generally the actual heads of departments, and pri- marily serve on a salary basis with au arrangement whereby they may share in the profits, without risk of loss.
 The cable business of great bank ing house, with It's connections in Lon- don, in Berlin in Paris, and in Am sterdam, or elsewhere on the conti- nent, is no trifing matter. The cables, of course, are of all sorts and descrip- tions. In dull times there may be hard ly half dozen of them a day, but when important negotiations are on d steady stream of code may be turned on to the wires from before the open- ing of business until late into the night. The recording of the cables in classified books according to subjects is a part of the work of the confidential clerk
 The volume of mail received and sent by great Wall street banking house may be judged from the fact that the largest ones file away from 50,O00 to 100000 letters and documents 0 year. exclusive of those received which are not deemed of sufficient importance for filing. The mail, upon it's receipt, is segregated as to private" partners" or general" The general mail is sent to the office manager, who distributes it with instructions, and he in return is responsible at the end of the day for the correctness of the subject mat ter contained in the replies, which are signed by one of the holders of the powers of attorney.
 The ssDriVatPb "DaFtners'p v mail is opened by the confidential clerk, stamped and turned over to those for whom it is intended along with what ever documents or explanatory data may be called for by it's subject mat ter. If, for instance, a letter began, Referring to your prospectus of the | goth ult., and the offer contained in the accompanying letter." it would be nec- essary to have copy of the pros- pectus, the accompanying letter, and whatever previous documents were con- cerned attached- to the reply when it went in to the private office. The ob- verse of the operation, of course, comes when the answered letter, with car bon copy of the reply, is filed away for reference at a still future date.
 To run the books of an international | banking house is no small undertaking. It is not sufficient that the man in charge of It Snould pc ldiilidi Wl.n putting up" syndicate accounts, Joint accounts, pool accounts, and trio, quar- to and quinto accounts. but he must be able to keep them, interest and all, in | a half dozen kinds of foreign currency. | and in such shape that a statement may 1 be taken off for any participator at any | moment.
 Then tn ere are the clearing house and | the wonderful stock exchanges these l will be described in later letters.