Show A BANK THE LIFE ABOUT IT loans and investments on which condition of cf a bank depends determined by the kind of business surrounding it Phen POLITICAL and popular tensions hen toward banking are sue due to little else than failure allure to realize that it Is what hat the people themselves do that the condition of 0 banking reflects acts and that banking cannot ot of itself reflect events and conditions other than those that actually originate from surrounding circumstances instances francis H sisson president of 0 the american bankers association an article in forum magazine the character ot of an institutions notes and investments indicates whether it Is in the farm arm regions a manufacturing center a mercantile neighborhood or a great financial district 1 he says and furthermore urther more besides identifying the tha institution as to its locality a study of 0 its notes will equally clearly indicate the economic conditions surrounding it if a farm district banks note history shows thai its ILs loans rise and tall with the normal cycle of 0 production and marketing of the products of the region it may be taken as an index of economic good health for the locality he says but it if over a period the loan volume chois a dwindling trend it may mean a region that Is losing ground becoming exhausted or being robbed of business by another community or it a large proportion of the loans are not paid at maturity but are chronically renewed or it if stocks or bonds or real estate have to be taken as additional security these too have economic ances reflecting perhaps crop failures overproduction over production or inefficient high cost farming arming methods in a highly competitive national or world market such as wheat inevitably all these facts acts are reflected in the condition of 0 the local banks city banks too if the loans of 0 a bank in a manufacturing or merchandising field show a smoothly boothly ly running coordination with ith production and distribution they too mirror a healthy economic situation or there may be here also signs that reflect growing unfavorable conditions such as excessive loan renewals and therefore over sion of credit extended to makers or dealers in particular products and similar circumstances similar conditions apply to banks engaged in financing the activities of 0 the securities markets the foregoing Is merely suggestive ot of the infinite aspects ot of the life outwardly surrounding the banks which form and control their internal condl lions although these facts seem obvious enough the discussions and criticisms that have raged about the banks often appear to set them apart as somehow separate from the lives ot of our people casting forth a malignant influence upon agriculture industry and trade from forces generated wholly within themselves the truth of the matter Is that the rate fate of the banks Is inseparably interwoven with the fate of the rest of the people and of the nation whit happened to the country happened to the banks and what happened to the banks is in no way different or detached from what happened to the people th they ey are all part of the same pattern of the same continuous stream of events no one element in that stream can be called the cause of business depression it if the banks caused trouble to some ot of our people it was because they were irresistibly forced to pass on troubles that came to them from other people these troubles impaired the values ot of their securities and customers notes and rendered some unable in turn to pay back to other customers their deposits that had been properly used to create these loans and investments unless these truths are kept continually in fit mind there Is no suh suh thing as approaching an understanding of the banking problem or ot of properly safe guarding the very heavy stake ot of the public in that problem |