The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-31
OUR NATI0NAL BANKS IN WAR TIME,
 By SHELTON WILLIAMS
 Comptroller of the Currency
By JOHN SHELTON WILLIAMS Comptroller of the Currency
Majority of All Liberty Bonds soI,

Majority of All Liberty Bonds Sold
 Through National Banks.
 The office records show that of the $17 7,OOO, ,Oo0. 600 of Liberty bonds placed in the lS-months period iron. May l, I917. to November l, 1918, our national banks provided subscrip- tions for their clients and for them selves aggregating $9,6S7, ,9TS,O19. Tn. amount allotted to the banks f. their clients and for themselves on the subscriptions thus sent in was $S,603,711,205. or 5O.6 per cent, q clear majority of the entire amount sold by the Government.
 Besides aiding enormously in plac- ing each Liberty loan the national banks have also been steady sub scribers, as each offering was made to the Fovernment's short-terln cer- ti1Cates Of indebtedness. The amounts thus temporarily supplied to the Gov ernment by the banks for these cer- tificates reach into billions of dol lars.
 The total deposits of all the na- tona! banks on May 1. 1917, the last
  Liberty loan. amounted to S13,OT5.- 997.GO0. The apprehension which scme then felt that the financing Of the Liberty loans would deplete de posits and cause congestion and finan cial strinEency has been shown by the encouraging experience of the past IS months to have been unfounded.
 Coincidentally with the placing and absorption by the people of this country of nearly $17,O00, ,000, 900 of Liberty bonds of the first, second, third, and fourth issues, the deposits of our national banks actually have increased from S13.O75.597,00O on May l, 1917, to $16,051 ,47S.000 on November l, 1918. an increase of ap- proXimately to the highest figures ever attained, the national bank re- sources on November I being $19,- S21. .404, 900.
 In the past IS months our country has raised, through bond issues, an amount more than six times as great as was raised during the four years of the Civil War, largely at rates of interest not one-half as high as those paid during that period; and of this huge sum, subscriptions for more than 50 per cent of all the bonds marketed were placed through the instrumentality of the national banks.
 The volume of business transacted has been unprecedented; and yet, through this year If supreme trial, the banks of the entire country have flt hl1t national bank in nearly 5000 having failed in the current calendar year.
 The earnings of the national banks, as the figures presented in this report will show. have been greater than in any previous year.
 Throughout the year the money rates have been maintained in every section of the country on normal basis. Every legitimate industry has been able to obtain the funds needed for it's operation at favorable rates In the remote districts of the coun- try where excessive and usurious rates formerly prevailed, the exor- bitant charges have been steadily dis appearing, and complaints of usury are fewer than ever before.
 lAe European war began at the end of July, 1914. In the four and one-half years since then our banks have been subjected to dangers. bur dens, and trials which, in previous crises and under old conditions, would have spread dismay and which usually brought failure and ruin; but we have passed through this mighty crisis unscathed and with smaller losses from bank failures than we generally experience in normal years. The records show that in the 8 years immediately preceding July l, 1914, the percentage of losses to de- positors from failures of national banks throughout the country av- eraged twenty-eight one-thousands of 1 per cent. per annum Of total de- l pcsits.
 During the four and one-haif years since the outbreak of the war, while