The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-07-10
George Nj. Reynolds Gives
Views to Minnesota Assn.
BOTH PRAISE and CENSURE
Sees Good Points and Bad in
Administration Plan.
But Is Certain That Intentions
of Trainers Right.

Duluth, July 10.-More than 500
bankers from all parts of Minnesota
and prominent men from outside. are
attending here today the twenty
fourth annual convention of the Min
nesota Bankers association. Addresses
on ftThe Banker and the Sovereign
Law of the Land" by Allen D. AL
bert of the Minneapolis Tribune, 1.-THE
Administration Currency Bill" George
M. Reynolds. president of the Con-
tinental and Commercial National
bank, Chicago, and THE Negotiable
instruments of Law" by Attorney
Charles r. Fowler, Minneapolis, were
featured today.
Mayor Prince delivered an address
of welcome to which J. S. Pomeroy,
vice president, responded. The after
noon program will bear largely on ag-
riculture.
nolds, president of the Continental and
Commercial National bank of Chicago,
spoke before the Minnesota Bankers
association here today on 1.-THE Ad-
ministration Currency BILL and had
both praise and cenSure for the meas
ure. Mr.. Reynolds said as a result of
personal interviews with President
Wilson and others at Washington,
charged with the responsibility of pre-
pairing a currency bill he had been i'm
cerned to devise the best plan which
it may be possible to enact into law.
Foremost among his criticisms, and
by way of suggestion for improvement,
Mr.. Reynolds pointed out that the sew
en- members of the proposed federal
reserve board would all be appointees
of the president, to the exclusion from
the deliberations of the board, of
bankers and business men generally,
and that this would be calculated ito
Xxrhn Sx-Sfnr Of hor 1lyiY Or
under the domination and control of
a purely political board"
Summarizing his recommendation
for congress ''as a means of bringing
the plan to more workable, as we'll
as more equitable, basis,'' Mr.. Rey-
noids said:
provide for representation of
banks on the federal reserve board or
for the organization of an advisory
board composed of one member Sc
lected by each federal reserve bank,
thus bringing into daily contact with
the members of the federal reserve
board men who would be familiar with
the banking business and agricultural
try, and thereby insuring a more in
telligent discharge of their duties so
far as their actions would affect bus
mess in the various sections.
Modify the section relating to re-
serves by providing that until the
of the reserves that banks in country
towns and reserve cities are required
to carry, may be carried with reserve
correspondents as now done in the ma
tional banking law, leaving the re-
Quirement that banks in central re-
serve cities must carry 20 per cent.
reserves, one-half of which must be
in their vaults and one-half to their
credit in federal reserve bank.
This would decentralize reserves in
the centers over one-ha1f and would
be much less liable to disturb general
business than the drastic and revolu-
shifting of reserves now pro-
vided for in the bill.
Later on, say five years after the
plan has been in operation, any fur
ther shifting of reserves of the banks
found to be necessary or desirable
could be effected without taking the
risk of disturbing business, if the plan
proposed is now enforced.
ct would also recommend a change
in the plan for issuing of notes. While
I think it is much preferable that the
federal reserve banks should issue the
notes, yet knowing as I do how de-
terrnined in their operation are many
who are powerful in the Dem ocratic
party that the government should is
sue the notes, 1 am willing, in view
of the fact that the notes are abund
antly secured to yield that point, but
even then the limit of the amount that
can be issued should be removed and
the tax, instead of being on the notes
when issued, should be levied only
when the federal reserve bank issuing
them should fail to maintain a proper
reserve of gold against it's liabilities"