The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1926-05-13
SUCCESS IN AMERICA
AN OPEN HICHv'A
How Four Boys of Humble ORR
Have Become Chiefs of t.
Greatest Financial Organic
ton in the World.

Broad highways of achievement a.
wide open to all in America no ma
ter how humble their beginning, it j
brought out by writer in Forte
Magazine, telling of the successiv
elevation of poor boys to the chieftaii
ship of the most powerful associatio.
of financial power in the world.
Nowhere is opportunity so demo
cratic as in caste free America, no
where is recognition for faithful ser,
vice so little conditioned by inherited
position and wealth" the article says
"The bounty of America in bestowing
her rewards Of great success upon
those of modest origin is again not
ably manifest in the rise of Oscar
Wells to the presidency of the Ameri
can Bankers Association.
1.-THE son Of a tanner. John H.
Puelicher, was elected to this emil
nence in 1922. Circumstances ended
his public schooling in the seventh
year and he went to work in carpet
store in Milwaukee. At sixteen he
entered bank as clerk, rising step
by step until he became president.
Recognition of his abilities as q
banker and civic service through pub
lie education In sound economic I'M
derstanding brought him the highest
reward from his profession.
"A former country school teacher,
Walter w Head. born in farm ham
let in Western Illinois, was elected
president of the association in 1928.
He gave up teaching and salary of
SIS to enter banking at $40 month
in a small Missouri town. He subse.
quently became president Of bank
in Omaha, the largest in Nebraska
and dozen neighboring states. The
position he occupied in advancing
agricultural welfare during the period
of depression led to his being called
the Granger President of the Ameri-
can Bankers Association
From Irish immigrant lad to su,
preme head of banking in America
epitomizes the career of William E
Knox, president of one of the largest
savings ban.s of the country in New
FORK, His business career began as
an Office boy in a publishing house,
and he later entered the bank as a
clerk Experience with humble PEG.
Pile in their problems of personal
finance and his incubation of economy
in all matters attracted countrywide
attention.
oscar Wells, who rises in 1925 a.
successor of these men, was born in
an old weatherboarded log cabin
house in the Missouri River bottoms of
Platte County, Missouri. He became
an orphan when three years of age,
losing his parents in an epidemic that
ravaged the countryside. He passed
under the care of an uncle, head o.
a small country bank in Platte City,
a town of a few hundred inhabitants,
growing up on a farm and receiving
his early education in a rural school,
He later entered Bethany College,
West Virginia, but at the end of his
Junior year he had to quit college and
go to work in the bank"
His subsequent career was one of
steady progress, first to higher posi-.
tons among small country banks,
then to larger city banks in Texas,
where he rose to the top In 1914
he was chosen first governor of the
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and
served through the opening period of
the establishment of that institution
He resigned to become president of a
bank in Birmingham, Alabama, which
has grown under his administration
to be one of the largest and most sue
cessful institutions in the South.