Newspaper Page Text
ONE MAN'S OPINIONS
BY-N. D. COCHRAN.
An Interesting Story. Sometimes
tliere is interesting news in an ad
vertisement, even if it doesn't take
much space.
To illustrate, I find an advertise
ment in one of the papers of the Illi
nois Trust & Savings Bank. The ad
was about five inches long and one
column wide. Here is what it said:
"The Illinois Trust & Savings
Bank, LaSalle and Jackson streets,
has paid over $34,000,000 interest to
its depositors since 1890, $13,000,000
in dividends. to its stockholders, $2,
750,000 in taxes to Cook county
Capital, 1890, $1,000,000; surplus,
1890, $736,000. Capital now, $5,000,
000. Surplus and undivided profits
(all earned), $10,500,000. One out of
every fourteen people in Chicago is a
depositor in this bank. This steady
and natural growth is without the
assistance of mergers or the absorp
tion of other banks. Organized 1873."
That is a splendid showing for a
bank. Now let's make a news story
out of the advertisement.
In 1873 some enterprising citizens
of Chicago with money organized a
bank with a capital stock of $1,000,
000. They couldn't do much with the
million, so they invited the people
generally to deposit their savings
and their daily balances with them.
The people had confidence in the men
who started the bank, and some of
them began depositing their money.
The bank grew, the managers
were honest, attended to their busi
ness, loaned the money on good se
curity at a higher rate of interest
than they paid depositors and made
money.
After paying their taxes, salaries
of officers and employes and other
necessary expenses, they divided up
the interest they got on loans be
tween the depositors who furnished
nearly all of the money and the
stockholders who furnished the capital,
The owners of the money got $34,
000,000 in interest, and .the stock
holders got $13,000,000 of dividends,
and have now on hand $10,500,000,
which they earned but haven't paid
out in dividends.
So the despositors got $34,000,000
and the stockholders $23,500,000,
which indicates that the bank was
managed safely for the depositors
and profitably for the stockholders.
To give you an idea of how much
money the stockholders furnish and
how much is turned in by the de
positors, I will give the figures from
the last report I have of this bank:
Capital stock paid in, $5,000,000;
surplus fund, $10,000,000; undivided
profits, $915,721.45; dividends un
paid, $200,034; reserved for taxes,
$135,000. That represents what be
longs to the stockholders.
Here's what belongs to depositors:
Demand deposits. $31,741,682.04;
time deposits, $61,641,359.51; total
deposits, $93,383,041.55.
That is, the stockholders furnish
about $16,000,000 and the deposiors
$93,000,000. Over $57,000,000 is
loaned on real estate and collateral,
$26,000,000 is in bonds and stocks
and 26,000,000 in cash and exchange.
Some of the largest stockholders
are the J. J. Mitchell family, the Mar
shall Field estate, the Levi Z. Leiter
estate, Jas. J. Hill of St Paul, Jas. A.
Patten, Jos. N. Field of Manchester,
England, the John Crerar Library
and J. Ogden Armour.
Don't YOU think they ought to feel
kindly toward their depositors.
A Story for Reformers. While it
doesn't apply in this case, the fool
reformers who want to separate the
sexes in swimming, in the parks and
every place but church, remind me of
the story of the New York alderman
who visited the World's Fair in Chi
cago years ago and then went back
to New York filled with high resolve.
The story went the rounds for some
time after the World's Fair.
This alderman had taken a gon
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