The Monmouth inquirer. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1865-1933, 1926-03-18
IN AMERICA
AN Open HIGHWAY
How Four Boys Of Humble Origin
Have Become Chiefs Of the
Greatest Financial 0rganiza-
ton in the World.

Broad highways of achievement are
wide open to all in America no mat
ter how humble their beginning, it is
brought out by writer in Forbes
Magazine. telling of the successive
elevation of poor boys to the chieftain-
ship of the most powerful association
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 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 a bank as clerk, rising step
by step until he became president.
Recognition of his abilities as
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 Illinsis, was elected
president of the association In 1923.
He gave up teaching and salary Of
$75 to enter banking at $40 month
in a small Missouri town. He subse
quently became president of a 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 SUI
preme head of banking in America
epitomizes the career of William E.
Knox. preside% Of one of the largest
savings banks OF saAe country ia New
York. His business career bssan as
an Office boy in a publishing hsuse,
and he later entered the baAA aN
clerk. Experience with humble PEG
pie in their problems of personal
finance and his incubation of economy
in all matters attracted countrywide
attention.
oscar Wells, who rises in 1925 as
successor of these men, was born in
an old weather-boarded 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 Of
a small country bank in Platte City,
a town of few hundred inhabitants,
growing up on a farm and receiving
his early education in 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-
lions 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.
HIICE CR0WTH IN