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Show Crissinger and State Banks Fall Out The long-standing feud between state and national banking institutions institu-tions over branch banks has just come to a head as a result of Comptroller of the Currency Crissinger's policy, in which national banks, to compete successfully suc-cessfully with state institutions, are allowed to maintain additional offices. The fact that there was such a policy came to light when the comptroller comp-troller sent a letter to Senator McCor-mick McCor-mick (111.) in answer to a protest from the Chicago and Cook County Bankers' Bank-ers' association admitting frankly that he had found a means of getting around the law against national bank branches, and that he had no hesitation hesita-tion in resorting to such an evasion , if evasion it be in order that national na-tional banks might survive the competition compe-tition of state institutions. In this communication Comptroller Crissinger agreed that the national banking act forbids national bank branches except in the case of state banks having branches at the time they may be nationalized. Twenty-two states, on the other hand, permit state institutions to have and to operate branches, and the result has been, as the comptroller points out, that state banks and trust companies with their branches scattered over a given community have reduced the national banks in some cities to a negligible neg-ligible number. |