Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1915-05-05
BANK DEPOSITS EQUAL S200 FOR
 EVERYBODY HERE Pine Bluff Bank Deposits Aggregate 311a Million,
 and Growing. OLD HARD TIMES"
 GETS SEVERE JOLT Few Cities in Country Can Make Bet ter Showing Than Pine Bluff, and Business Conditions Are Im-
 proving Steadily.

The fellow who thinks Pine Bluff
 IS hard up' Or is Suffering from hard times" will doubtless get an
 awful "jolt" today, when he reads the statcments> of the condition of the local banks.
 He will be surprised to notice the great Increase in the deposits of the Pine Bluff banks.
 If he figures a little bit, he will find that the deposits in Pine Bluff banks aggregate something like $3,- 100000.
 And if he figures a little more, he will reach the conclusion that II these deposits were divided on the basis of the city's population, accord ing to the 1910 census, every man.
 woman and child in the city, white and black, would have something like s200 coming to him.
 Under ordinary business conditions anywhere, such showing is con- sidered excellent. Under conditions such as they exist generally in the United States, according to general report, such a showing may be cos, sidered bit above the ordinary. And under conditions Such have ex- isted in Pine Bluff the past winter, low price of cotton, railroad shops shut down and some of the big mills closed, putting many men Out of en- ployment, the showing may honestly be considered remarkable, even more so when it is remembered that this is the time when farmers are net prepared to put their product on the market, hence are hardly to be con sidered producers iE& this simm diate connection.
 There are not many cities the size of Pine Bluff in this or any other country, which can make a better showing. The bankers themselves, and everybody knows it was a panK-r who invented the word "conserva- tive," are .jubilant over the showing. The wholesale merchants the retail merchants, the jobbers, are literally "tickled to death."
 Bloom Optimistic.
 There is not more optimistic man in Pine Bluff that Secretary E. E. Bloom of the chamber of commerce. There is not man who is more in a position to feel the public or civic pulSC. 1uc1C IS AOl. luNA WuO hcCtpS in closer touch, or who knows local conditions better. Nor is there a man who is more keen to search out weaknesses or faults in apparent cir cumstances.
 Business is mighty good in Pine Bluff," said E. B. Bloom yesterday '"The people are in the stores, and they are buying. Country people are in town, when they can spare the time from their farm labors, and they also are buyinE Nobody knows bet ter than the merchants themselves, too, that a very large proportion, of the sales are being made for casn. + "It is not many years," continued MT. Bloom, reminiscently, 'that vir- tually all the business done in local stores was a credit business. It is not SO today, however. Even our sup plv houses show the change. Once we had eighteen or twenty big sup ply houses, furnishing farmers. To- day we have a much smaller number. The farmers do not need the supply houses so much as they did. City folks. also, have learned the advant- age of buying for cash. The open dCCOuuC ludu, CFSuD 10 PoJAh6 AANo l bills each week or each month. There | are mighty few .'open account men left. They are nearly all weekly ac- count or monthly account men now, according to how their salaries
 are paid. And they are prompt set tiers of their bills.
 watch the people making de- posits in their savings accounts. See the women putting in the half dollar, the dollar or even more, every week.
 They have the money to put by for the rainy day. They helped the
 banks reach these fine deposit totals. And lots of the women are saving that half dollar Or that dollar simp- ly because the are trading for cash.
 "I can not find any signs of hard times in Pine Bluff, and I have studied conditions closely" he con-