Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1917-01-19

MI, r hiDA I . JAN \ AN ~.
are the qualifications OF men who
are expected to do successfully the
work of managing these land banks?
First, they must be good farm loan
men. Second. they must be such
loan men as will commend them
selves by their conservatism and
wisdom to the farmers themselves.
To appoint any other class would be
destructive of the system itself.
There is another class of men
whose ideas must be consulted.
These are the investors from whom
the farmers must borrow money
through the land banks. The banks
must do exactly the same amount of
business with investors as with
farmers. For every thousand dol
lars lent to farmers the banks must
sell farm loan bonds to the same
amount to investors. If the invest
ors look on the farm loan bonds as
perfectly sound. safe and prime Sc
curities, they will buy them and &C
cept a low rate of interest on them ;
and if they do this, the farmers will
get a low rate of interest on their
loans. Therefore, the management
of the federal land banks must COM
mend itself to investors as we'll as to
farmers.
when our bonds are offered on
the investment market, the persons
in charge of the banks will be very
carefully scrutinized by investors. If
investors should find in charge OF
the banks a lot of men appointed on
account of political pull or through
personal favoritism, they either will
not buy the bonds at all, or they
will equire high rate of interest
thus making the rate high to the
farmer.
Experts in Charge.
but they will not find any such
political or personal machines in the
management of the banks. They
will find the banks in the hands of
men as expert in the farm loan bust
ness as any loan companies now op-
Grating. They will find men in
charge whose characters will be an
assurance that when an appraiser
says a farm is good security for a
loan, it will be good security, worth
at least twice the money loaned on
1t; that the type Of farming pursued
by the owner Of the farm is a safe
type; that the title is good; that the
loan committee of the land bank ia
composed of as good men as the loan
committee of any bank in any town
or city; and that the business of the
bank is checked up at proper inter-
walls by a board Of directors who
know not only the loan business but
the lands on which loans are being
made.
''There il no member of this board
who has q personal candidate fol
any position to be given out. None
Of US has any personal or political
debts to pay. and II he had. there IL
not one Of us who would pay such
debts at the expense Of the federal
farm loan system. And it is . great
pleasure to US all to be able to state
that every senator and congressman
who has discussed the matter with
a member of the board, accepts this
policy as the only proper one. and
while the pressure on them for jobs
is tremendous, they heartily agree
with us that merit only must be the
test of fitness for appointment under
the federal farm loan act"
Policy Is Approved.
OF course, everybody in the coun-
try who is interested in the success
of this new undertaking will approve
the course of the board as laid down
in the foregoing authorized inter-
view.
Each of the banks is capitalized
at $4,000, the shares being IS
each. The books will close Febru-
airy 8, when the secretary of the
treasury will subscribe to all the re-
naming unsold stock for the fed
eral government.
OIL INSPECTION UPHELD.