Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-18
The HQSkin Letter
By
]. HASKN
THE BANKING PUBLICATIONS

ifornia is shown as an island and Alas
ka does not appear at all. At the
time of original publication, its pub
fishers described the map as new and
most accurate" The bulletin fire.
ouently publishes such curiosities of
special interest on the Pacific coast.
One of the liveliest and most read
able of the bank bulletins, from a hui
man interest point of view, is that
published monthly by the Northwestern
National bank of Minneapolis. 1t is
smaller in size than either of those
named above, but always brims over
with interest, not only to bankers and
business men, but to everyone who is
interested in the way human beings
live. While it contains serious dis
cussions of business and financial con-
ditions it does not exclude an occa-
sional story about bank ro6beries, nor
does it scorn anecdotes. Always these
are connected smoothly with the point
of the main discussion.
The Guaranty Survey is another
monthly published by the Guaranty
Trust of New York. Com
merce Monthly is quite a pretentious
publication issued by the National
Bank of Commerce in New York. Both
of these are invariably serious in tone
and prepared in a style unlikely to
captivate the casual reader.
The Girard Letter, published by the
Girard National Bank of Philadelphia
is a small pamphlet, but invariably at
tractive. 1t contains stories of bust
ness which vie in interest with the best
published in the commercial magazines.
Each of the federal reserve banks
nublishes a monthly bulletin, reporting
in careful detail the condition of bust
ness. industry, trade and finance in
its district. These are rather heavy
publications, that published by the fed
eral reserve bank of Cleveland proba-
bly being the only one which occasion
aliy prints matter of general interest.
Editors are Unknown
These bank publications are anonym-
ous. The articles are not signed and
usually no editors name is given. The
men who make them get no glory out of
their work excepting within their W
organizations, but the public gets the
benefit of their best efforts.
The list could be continued almost
interminably. There are hundreds OF
such publications, most of them month
lies. but a few semi-monthlies. Many
of them are merely small W or four
page mplI OF purely Iotdl hhIciiSt-
The purpose of the banks in spending
the large sums of money which these
issues cost is to keep their customers
and depositors accurately informed on
business conditions. A bank will be
prosperous if its customers are pros
porous. Bank officials realize the
value of education, especially current
education. which means reliable and
prompt information about occurrences
in the economic life of the country.
The business man who does not under
stand what relation the German repara-
tons or the Near Eastern situation
bears to his pocketbook can find out by
reading such publications as those men
toned above. He will know what eff
fects various kinds of legislation are
having on the country and what pro-
duction and prices are in a number of
fields. The banks consider that they
| spend their money wisely when they
educate the business people with whom
they deal and therefore they spare no
expense in issuing periodicals Of gen
uine merit.