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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, »A. f 5 NORTH POBSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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Atlanta, Ga.
Our Corn Club Guests.
Homes hare been offered thus far for the enter
tainment of only about four hundred of the thousand
or more Georgia boys who will attend the State
Corn Show in Atlanta. There is no doubt that at
the telling moment the city’s inborn hospitality will
assert itself but it is important that this matter be
disposed of without delay. The show is soon to be
gin. Plans for welcoming the young visitors and
making their sojourn pleasant must be complete
before December. It is earnestly to be hoped, there
fore, that every Atlanta home which can receive one
or more of the boys as gue6ts will promptly notify
the Chamber of Commerce.
The Corn Show will mean a vast deal to the prog
ress and prosperity of all Georgia. Its purpose is to
portray and reward the achievements of scientific
agriculture and particularly to encourage the boy
farmers who are leading the way in this goodly cru
sade for a more fruitful and a richer State.
Atlanta is fortunate in being the seat of such an
exposition and the center of so constructive a move
ment. The boy visitors will be representative of the
finest spirit and the best traditions of the State.
They deserve and will undoubtedly receive a hearty
welcome, but preparations for their coming should be
completed betimes. Homes for a thousand guests
must be assured before the week. Let every Atlanta
family that can do so make a gracious response at
once.
President Finley.
The death of President W. W. Finley, of the
Southern Railway, is a source of poignant regret the
country over and particularly in the South, his- home
land, to whose enrichment and upbuilding his rare
talents were so generously devoted. Admired every
where for his administrative genius and his broad
sympathies, he was warmly and personally esteemed
in this section where the latest as well as the earliest
ideals of his useful life found expression.
It was in Southern enterprise that Mr. Finley
first showed that keen insight and grasp of affairs
which carried him step by step from one of the
humblest to one of the highest stations in American
railway activities. H^ was pre-eminently a railroad
man, trained in all the executive branches of that
important service, familiar with its practical needs,
responsive to the public’s interests and untainted
with the fever of adventurous finance which has too
often subordinated to speculative ends the welfare
of railroads themselves.
On being called to the presidency of the Southern
Railway some seven years ago, he brought to his
new duties a breadth and freshness of view that soon
began to tell wonderfully for the progress of that
system and for the development of the country it
traversed. He showed from the outset a wholesome
determination to make the Southern, first of all, an
institution of public service, to identify it with the
highest interests of its patrons and to earn
for it the respbct and confidence of the people.
His policies were those whien now are recognized
by all far-sighted business leaders as the wisest and
most fruitful a corporation can pursue, policies Which
take the community into account and measure up to
public service obligations.
President Finley was peculiarly interested in the
agricultural fortunes of the South. It was largely
at his instance that the railroad of which he was
the head entered upon its libera' plans for the en
couragement of truck farming, cattle raising, co
operative marketing and the development of South
ern lands through new settlers and new capital. He
saw the railroad’s splendid opportunities as an edu
cator. Agricultural colleges found him always re
sponsive to their efforts in the field of extension
work, always ready to aid in tasks of enlightenment
and inspiration. In this sphere alone, the value of
his service will make his name long honored.
President Finley’s attitude toward government,
both State and national, was characteristic of his
broad-mindedness. In a memorable address delivered
in New York some months ago he declared that a
railroad’s last thought should be of politics and its
first and ever-present thought of its duty to the
public; thus, he said, it would move prosperously
forward, sustained by its own worth and justified be
fore the people. It was this liberal and truly pa
triotic purpose that won for him and his adminis
tration the country’s cordial good will and that also
counted so highly for the growth of the great inter
ests under his direction.
In Atlanta, where he frequently visited, President
Finley had hundreds of friends not only among his
co-workers in the railroad world but also among cit
izens generally. For this community, he showed
keen regard; he had faith in its future, hearty ad
miration for its achievements and he did much for
the furtherance of its railroad interests. On the
personal side, President Finley was a man of singu
lar kindliness and quiet magnetism. There was dig
nity in* his simple manner and a certain high-bred
democracy in the inviting frankness with which he
dealt with all men. He thought and labored in the
spirit of this new age in which common interests
are supplanting selfish privilege; and among all the
industrial leaders of the time none was truer than
he to that goodly principle.
Out of the Wilderness
On the Currency Issue.
In opening the Senate debate on the banking and
currency bill Senator Owen emphasized the signifi
cant fact that the differences to be adjusted have
to do mainly with matters of detail, while the basic
principles of the pending measure are almost unani
mously approved. There is no vital point at which
Democrats or Republicans are irreconcilable. Both
parties are finally agreed upon the chief purposes
in view. In its general scope, the Administration’s
plan has been accepted by all interests.
This is an inestimable gain for the cause of cur
rency and banking reform, although the hill itself
will not be perfected and passed as soon as its
friends had hoped. Within the past six months
more has been accomplished toward the solution of
this great problem than during decades before. This
is the first time, indeed, that any definite and fruit
ful step has been taken to rehabilitate our outworn
banking and currency system and fit it to the coun
try’s present day public needs. Hitherto every sugges
tion of reform has aroused hopeless bickering or dis
trust. Not until now there has been a common
ground on which all the advocates of change could
meet and a common path they could all pursue. It
is a truly wonderful triumph for the Administra
tion that under its leadership this confusing wilder
ness has been left behind and the straight highroad
tq sure results has. been reached.
The Senate committee has submitted two reports,
one by the six Democrats and another by the five
Republicans and Senator Hitchcock. But neither
branch of the committee has proposed amendments
that are contrary to the broad principles of the
House bill or that should needlessly prolong the dis
cussion of the measure. Both Democrats and Re
publicans sanction the main purposes of the bill,
that is to say the provisions for elastic currency, for
regional banks, and for governmental supervision.
The central bank idea, which once threatened to
cause much discord and delay, has been abandoned
by even those Republicans who were its stanchest
spokesmen.
In these circumstances, it would seem that Sen
ator Owen is well advised in predicting that the Sen
ate will enact a satisfactory currency bill at an early
date, Certain it is, as the Senator declared, that
the settlement of this great question is of utmost
importance to the business of the country and places
upon Congress a peculiarly high responsibility for
prompt, patriotic action.
New Citizens and New Wealth.
“During the last twelve months one hundred
and forty thousand Americans settled in Canada.
The reason they did so was because they were not
informed as to the opportunities in North Car
olina. Canada has found out that the way to yet
settlers is to get them thinking about Canada as a
land of opportunity and great possibilities."
Thus the Wilmington (N. C.) Star sets forth the
need of organized effort in every Southern State to
hold its own population and to attract new settlors
and new capital. The upbuilding of a State, as the
upbuilding of a business, demands foresight and intel
ligent publicity. If North Carolina or Georgia or any
neighboring commonwealth had spent a tithe of Can
ada’^ energy and resourcefulness in advertising its
natural advantages, it would far have outstripped the
Dominion in the contest for homeseekers and in
vestors, because the natural advantages to be found
in this section are incomparably richer than those
across the nation’s northern border.
In discussing this subject the Manufacturers
Record pertinently asks; “How much is North Car
olina as a State doing to tell the world of its wealth
of resources, of its wide range of climate, from the
almost; semi-tropic to the cold of its high mountains,
of the almost infinite variety of its agricultural prod
ucts, of the limitless opportunities for manufactur
ing."
In Georgia, this question has not only been asked,
it is also being answered with practical enthusiasm
by the recently organized State Chamber of Commerce.
This admirable institution has set to raise fifty thou
sand dollars for making Georgia’s wondrous re
sources known throughout America. It has planned
a campaign as systematic as Canada’s to center the
nation’s thought upon Georgia’s great opportunities.
A worthier or more promising enterprise was never
undertaken. Its success means more wealth and more
prestige for all Georgia. It should have the hearty
support of every citizen who is alert to his own inter
ests and who loves his State.
The Wasps of War.
Secretary Daniels aptly calls flying machines “the
wasps of war” and predicts that they will play a
more and more telling part in naval affairs. Indeed,
the usefulness of the aeroplane as an auxiliary to
army and fleet has already been well demonstrated.
In their campaign against the Turks in Tripoli, the
Italians employed with fine effect this means of
scouting and reconnoissance. Aeroplanes hovered
securely above the encampments of the enemy and
obtained information as to the latter’s strength and
position that could not otherwise have been learned.
In the Balkan war likewise, airships proved dis
tinctly valuable. The Bulgars, w- are told, engaged
aviators and aeroplanes “to drop fire bombs of Pyroxy
lin into the Turkish forts and quarters of Adria-
nople.”
That the larger nations have abundant faith in
the aeroplane as an instrument of war is shown by
the great sums of money they are expending for
military and naval aviation. It is estimated that
for this purpose England has' spent in 1913 more
than a million and a half dollars, France some six
millions, Germany a million, four hundred and fifty-
five thousand and Russia nearly five millions. The
United States, however, has devoted only a hundred
and forty thousand dollars to this particular sphere
of its army and navy.
Our army has seventeen flying machines and the
navy has four hydroplanes and three “flying boats.”
Secretary Daniels urges the importance of increasing
our aerial force. The United States naturally spends
less than European countries for war preparation;
its remoteness and freedom from Old World entan
glements afford peculiar safety. It is important,
however, that we should avail ourselves of the defen
sive advantage which is offered by “the wasps of
war” and which all first rate Powers so keenly
realize.
THE CRY OF THE WEARY
BY DR. FRANK CRANE
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.)
I stood at one of the gates of the city where the
human stream pours out to take the suburban trains.
It was evening in the sky, it was evening in the faces
around me, it was evening in my heart. The grimness,
tenseness, mercilessness of the strife came home to me.
I waited in the railway station and saw tired, un-
shayen men sitting stolid or asleep from weariness;
and faded women, tired, tired, tired, with insistent
children tugging at their skirts, little full and strong
lives devouring the weak and failing, as wolves eat
their wounded.
I watched the army of workmen coming out of the
factory at the closing hour, carrying dinner pails,
walking with heavy, dragging feet, a few laughing as
if galvanized for a moment by a joke, but the most
of them looking ahead with set eyes.
I saw the mother of six when she had put the last
into bed, and had sat down and seemed to collapse, as
a pack-mule too heavily loaded; and she fell asleep,
too tired to undress.
I saw the vaudeville actor that 'had been setting a
thousand people into roars of laughter; he came from
the stage door and his features were drawn with weari
ness, and his mouth wore the twisted smile of the
heartbroken.
I saw the boy, alone in the city, come into his mean
hall bedroom, take off his shoes as a prisoner takes
off his chains, and sit with his face in his hands, too
tired to go to bed.
I saw the shopgirl, when she thought no one was
looking, sit down for a moment's rest, and her face
was gray with exhaustion; all night long she had
watched by a sickbed.
I saw a slouching man, his coat shiny, his trousers
frayed; he walked stealthily into the park late at night,
and sat down upon a bench; he spread a newspaper
over his knees and in a moment he was sleep.
I saw the morally tired: the boy, tired of the isola
tion of .decency, drift into the saloon and begin to
drink; the girl, tired of the struggle for virtue’s sake,
let go and whirl away itno the pool of lost souls.
And I saw strong men, betrayed and shamed, grow
suddenly tired and sick of life.
And I saw old men aftd women tired because hope
had left,* enthusiasms faded, disillusion come; and they
longed for the rest and peace of death.
And I saw the invalid, the broken and wounded,
tired, tired, tired.
And I saw all 4he failures, those who were not made
of stuff stern enough to win in the push and fight
fQr success; they stood pitiful, hopeless, pathetic.
The whole world seemed to be so tired, tired, tired.
. Were it not for its two friends mankind could not
endure.
Its two friends are sleep and death.
BUSINESS AND THE TARIFF
By Savoyard
Of all the states south of the Mason and Dixon line
West Virginia is the most northern in political senti
ment and industrial economy. During the big war her
population was more loyal than Indiana, or southern
Illinois, or New York City. Nay, to the square inch
^here was more copperheadism in Ohio than in West
Virginia. And after the war the West Virginian Dem
ocracy was bitten by the tarantula of protection. Hen
ry G. Davis, like his cousip Gorman, of Maryland, was
a protectionist; so was John Kenna. But William L.
Wilson, her greatest thinker, was a Democrat without
guile and above reproach.
Of all that section that was the “solid south”—that
is, slave territory in 1860—West Virginia is, and was,
the community that was supposed to be favored by a
protective tariff above > any sister southern state. She
had coal in every hill. Her forests groaned with mer
chantable timber. Her glass works turned out mil
lionaires by the score. She extracts pig iron from the
ore; At one time she was a crank about wool. And
those things made West Virginia a reliably Republican
state the epoch 1894-1908, both inclusive.
* • •
A great man was elected president in 1912. He told
the people that this country had outgrpwn its baby
clothes, that it had arrived at man’s estate, that it is
healthy enough and lusty enough to enter upon the bat
tle of life with any and all other men the world ver,
and the country heakened unto him, believed him, ac
cepted him, and followed him.
The first thing President Wilson did was to set
about a reduction and a reform of the tariff. Or to
state it better he immediately and diligently and reso
lutely went to work to break the shackles that, for
half a century, had hindered the energies of American
labor and curtailed the profits of American capital.
It is true that protection made a multitude of pluto
crats, who reaped where labor had strewed and watered
and tilled. But there was' discontent in the land. Cap
ital and labor were at war in every manufacturing and
mining community. In Massachusetts the head of ttoe
wool trust gathered $20,000,000, his private fortune,
while employing at $8 a week laborers who were nec
essitated to shelter, feed and clothe families on that
miserable pittance. Secure in his monopoly, enjoying
free trade in labor, this man made his millions and
was enabled to declare enormous dividends for his
partners in monopoly. Occasionally, no doubt, he made
liberal contributions to funds devoted to buy elections
for the party of “Great Moral Ideas.”
* • *
Woodrow Wilson was elected to put a stop to that
sort of infamy. A tariff bill was introduced, and the
henchmen of monopoly, in both houses of congress,
swore by all the gods that took pride in Hector of
Troy, that it meant idle mills, closed shops, deserted
mines, slothful labor, bankrupt capital, charity soup
houses, universal ruin, and more than the misery of
leprosy in every household. But the bill passed and
Is a law.
If a protective tariff were not born of a lie and
had not fed on an apology—if it were not sin without
one redeeming trait—then the new tariff would have
struck all industries between wind and water and sent
them to Davy Jones’ locker. It would have withered
them. On the contrary, it stimulated them. Old en
terprises took on new life; new enterprises sprang into
existence and West Virginia was never so busy, never
so prosperous, as now, though this law that was to
beggar her has been in force since the first week in
October!
• • •
They said that the Democratic tariff would throw
Massachusetts on her beam’s end. Now there is this
to be said of that old commonwealth—Massachusetts
knows which side of her bread has the butter spread
on it. The other day Massachusetts sat in judgment
on the Wilson administration and approved it, for 75
per cent of the vote cost for Bird, the Progressive,
was a Wilson vote, had It been put up to them, yea or
nay.
Take the historic third Massachusetts congress dis
trict, a distinctively manufacturing community, where
capital has been coddled and pampered by “protec
tion” for half a century, where has prevailed that un
speakable lie, take care that the rich shall get richer
and they will take care of the poor—and what do we
find?
t • • •
That district only a while ago had a Republican
majority of 9,000. In 1912 it had a Republican plural
ity of 3,200. The other day when Woodrow Wilson
was on trial before that electorate, the Republican
plurality was a miserable and beggarly 156 votes.
I have repeatedly suggested that the free trade
speech of Daniel Webster, made in 1824 in the senate,
be made a Democratic campaign document. It is the
ablest argument in favor of free trade yet made in
America. He was defeated in his view; New England,
from a commercial, became a manufacturing communi
ty, arid Webster, the lawyer, not the statesman that
he was. turned with his client.
Had Webster been composed of the stern stuff that
made Calhoun, what a different history of the Ameri
can people might have been writ!
Washington,' November $4.
OUNTRY
a |jf* TlMECf
OME topics
Comoctep Effjros.viHJru.'TOrt
WHERE PARIS FASHIONS LEAD ITS.
Mr. Poultney Bigelow, son of Hon. John Bigelow,
who died in New York some years ago, full of honors
and universally respected, and whose son, Mr. Poultney
Bigelow, has held many positions in the diplomatic
corps of this country, has been interviewed on the
subject of Paris fashions for women. He has lived in
Paris for a considerable number of years and knows
what he is talking about.
He does not hesitate to say that our clean-minded
American women would discard the prevailing styles
of skirts and decollete waists if they only knew where
these styles are originated and the class of women
who wear them. Everybody who has read of a certain
class of French women who frequent the horse races
and live with their beaux regardless of the marriage
tie, can understand the force of Mr. Bigelow’s criti
cism when he says these women will wear anything
that is loud and brassy, but the good women of the
city would never think of following the lead in dress
that these fast women originated' and use to attract at
tention in public places from fast men.
The various orthodox churches of this country are
publicly censuring the styles that prevail here in the
United States. They do not hesitate to pronounce them
indecent and suggestive of unclean thoughts in men.
Such arraignments should make our fashion leaders
sit up and take notice. Some of these skirts are less
than four feet entirely around the bottom, and the
length of stride cannot possibly give liberty to make
a normal step in walking.
The fashion plates' show a silt in the skirt to ease
the situation, which is agreeable to those who desire
to display a full length of ankle sometimes with jew
eled fastenings. Cloth is not so scarce that our women
should truss themselves about the lower limbs and
from what I am told the dressmakers charge as much
to make a narrow little dress as they wcfuld to allow
some fullness. Everybody is convinced that the style
is ungraceful, and why do our women adopt it? Did
you ever see a long train hitched on to one of these
narrow skirts? The two little forked ends that switch
about are positively ludicrous.
• • •
THE GIVING: OF PRESENTS.
. Already the newspapers $re telling the people to
hurry up to do their Christmas shopping, that the time
is short and the necessity for haste apparent, etc.
Perhaps I am a real old fogy, but I have a well-
grounded opinion that we are stressing this inter
change of Christmas gifts and wedding gifts a little
beyond the limit- If anybody sent you a cup anu
saucer last year or a handkerchief or a necktie or a
pair of slippers, you are going to strain a point and
either pay back in kind or “go one better.”
And when you receive a wedding invitation the
present must be purchased or you will stay at home,
send a regret or plead illness, or feel shabby. You
would like to see the young people in their wedding
finery and wish them well, etc., but you can only buy
a trifle because rient is due, taxes are high, and your
Vown tribe are clamoring for new things to wear, etc-
Now, what are you to do?
Those who expect to have weddings in their own
family and hope to get Presents in return, or those
who have been married and received bridal presents,
just must buy something to match and let the
tribe at home wait awhile or get credit extended. All
the time woridering if those that gave to you will not
turn up their noses at what you have given after
much mental worry and some self-sacrifice. The habii
has grown to immense national proportions. The sen
ate and house of representatives passed the hat around
and have bought bridal presents for President Wilson’s
daughter. If all the Wilson girls get married the hat
will go around twice more. Alice Roosevelt got a
room full of things, among them eight chests of solid
silver. The thought ot eight chests of silver forks and
spoons is really pitiful. It is giving gone' crazy. It
is all right and proper for kinfolks to give the young
married ones nice things, but the idea of bowing in
obeisance to rulers strikes me as something anomalous.
A halt will be called sometimes because the habit is
already topheavy.
• ♦ •
CKCRXjS, be carefue.
The two young women who signed contracts for
the vaudeville stage in a South American city and who
were going out there without a male escort, had an ex
perience they will nsver forget.
They signed up with a Portuguese play house con
tractor and his subsequent conduct gave them a fair
idea of what they had reason to expect.
But it so happened that these two young women
' were passengers on the- same boat that carried former
President Roosevelt and his wife to South America.
The girls were sprightly and handsome and full or
the spirit of adventure, but Mrs. Roosevelt had knowl
edge of what those girls were risking, and persuaded
them to change their minds and go back home. 'Ad-
other steam was about to start to New York when
the Roosevelt party entered the harbor. The Portu
guese play house man was on the watch out and when
those two girls went on board the outgoing steamer,
he had both arrested and carried before a magistrate
for alleged breach of contract. And it took all of the
influence of Mrs. Roosevelt, and the American consul
besides to rescue those two girls from their unfortu
nate dilemma. The Portuguese contractor raved like
a madman, arid was so ugly that he terrorized those
girls who were unacquainted with the language and
the laws and customs of that foreign country. If they
had not been protected by influential Americans there
is no telling what their experiences would have been.
Those girls placed themselves In a position where
they would have been at the mercy of the contractor
and doubtless would have been victimized and insulted
if not ruined.
Girls should be careful in going to American cities
where the danger is great, though not so serious, per
haps, as in a foreign city. Mrs. Roosevelt did a gra
cious deed when she made personal appeals to the
American consulate in behalf of those imprudent young
women. They were simply walking like two little flies
into a cruel spider-web of danger.
v
Our Unknown Tongue
A book review makes note of the fact that there
are 450,000 terms in the latest edition of the Standard
dictionary, against 304,000 twenty ye^rs ago. The in
creases, it is stated, shows an advance in the science
of lexicography as-well as the growth of the English
vocabulary.
English in its present development is the most flex
ible of languages. Upon the lips of a man who has a
good working knowledge of the vocabulary it is an un
matched instrument for thought conveyance. Yet how
many of us know enough of it to make it so?
In an elbow acquaintanceship with an unabridged
dictionary lies a continuous and expanding opportunity
for education. Yet many persons, even afnong those
whose vocation is to deal in one day or another with
words, look irfijthe dictionary only to settle a bet or an
argument, and in their daily work follow the method
of the girl who didn’t know whether to spell it “para
dise” or “paradice,” so spelled it “heaven,” and saved
herself the trouble of inquiry.
Not only every library, but also every business of
fice, should have an unabridged dictionary at hand,
and a smaller one as well. The convenience of a smali
volume is not to be underestimated, and ordinarily the
abridged dictionary serves the purpose. When it does
not the more unwieldly, but more complete, volume
should be within easy reach. It is not necessary to
look in an unabridged dictionary to learn how to spell
words ordinarily used, but the habit of consulting the
highest authority results' In constantly increasing
knowledge of the misuse of many of them. As that
^knowledge increases—and it is never complete—the
vocabulary gains precision and its possessor becomes
a more skilled workman. Skilled labor is at once bet
tor paid and more agreeable to the laborer than mere
drudgery.—LouisvilleT Courier-Journal.
RURAL CREDITS
XI—THE BANKS OF ITALY.
BY FREDERIC J. HA SKIN.
Borrowing a page from the book of German finan
cial experience. Signor Leone Weliemborg began, in
1880, to preach the gospel of rural credits to the email
farmers of Italy. After three years of writing and
lecturing he finally succeeded in organizing a rural
bank at Loreggia, In the province of Padua, with thirty
members. The following year a bank was founded at
Castelfiorentino, and others came apace, with the re
sult that there are now some 1,000 such banka in Italy.
In 1892 the Catholic church, seeing the possibilities of
self-help among its rural members, took up the work
of directing the organization of such banks, with the
result that today two out of three rural banks ar« un
der church supervision.
History was but repeating itself in the organization
of the rural credit system in Italy. Tha first bank
was the answer of a practical philanthropist to the de
mands of the misery about him. There was a slow,
hard beginning; then a welcoming of the Idea with
wide acclaim; then success, and then division. In Ger
many Raiffeisen had had the same trouble a third of a
century before, and had lived through it all. But,
where Dr. Haas in Germany had found too much re
ligion in the Raiffeisen bank, here In Italy was the
priest Don Gerutti finding too little In the Weliemborg
banks, and it was this that led to the organization of
the first church bank in 1892.
• • •
Italy seems to be the only country where co-opera
tive banking has become a sort of church institution.
It is true that Raiffeisen always kept the moral idea
in co-operative banking at the forefront, and tried to
utilize his system in developing the higher traits of
citizenship, but there was no direfct connection between
the church and the banks. The idea of uniting the two
interests has been found to give the church a peculiar
hold upon the individuals who patronize the bank, and
the fact that the village priest enjoys the confidence
of everybody makes him a useful official in the bank.
Furthermore, as a man of education and training he
knows how to handle institutional funds. And still
further, he has about the best line that can be nad
upon the moral and financial status of every resident
of the community, as well as peculiar advantage in
knowing the needs of individuals and the uses to which
they are likely to put the funds they seek- That the
system of uniting the banks with the church in the
Italian provinces has worked well from tha banking
standpoint Is indicated by the statistics of these batiks;
that it has worked well from the standpoint of the
church is evidenced by the gradual extension of tne
number of hanks and the testimony of the church au
thorities; but that it would work well elsewhere has
not been demonstrated.
• • *
All the rural banks, both sectarian and non-secta
rian, insist upon honesty and good character as a con
dition of becoming a member, but some sectarian banks
call for certain religious observances as a condition
of membership.
• • •
The rural bank of Italy follows the German idea
in the requirement of unlimited liability of all Its
members for Its obligations, and holds also to the idea
of doing business only in the immediate community.
They seldom have any capital to begin with, and pay
from 3 to 4 per cent on depositis, using this money in
their business as far as it suffices to meet the lend
ing demands. The bank gradually creates a small
capital out of nominal charges for its services and
membership dues. Loans are usually of two kinus,
botl^ upon the security of bills; the short-term loan,
for a period of not more than two years; and the
long-term loan, for a period not to exceed ten years.
The short-term loans are renewed every three months,
while the long-term loans are paid by Installments.
• • •
There is a national federation of rural banks in 1
Italy, although they do not use it as a financial or
ganization; it bears about the same relation to the Ital
ian rural banks that the American Bankers’ associa
tion bears to the national banking system of the United
States. •
• • •
Italy also has a system of town banks modelled
after the ideas of the German town bank system. What
Schulze of Delitzsch was to Germany, Signor Luigi
Luzzatti has been to Italy, in the financing of the
small urban borrower. In 1865, with the munlcifent
capital of $140, Luzzatti started the Popular Bank of
Milan, with himself as Its biggest stockholder, to the
extent of $40.
• • •
His system differs from the German town bank sys
tem in a number of ways. In the first place, it Is
more democratic in Its plan of organization. It has
rather \ large board of directors whose powers are
supreme, controlling both the officers and the audit
ing committee. It has also two committees unknown
in the German system—the committee on discounts arid
the committee on risks. The latter committee keeps
constant watch over the finances of the borrowers, in
order that if there are the slightest signs of impend
ing insolvency, it may be reported to the bank in time
to permit It to realize on the security. It is said that
the reason the system of thus directing the affairs of
the Italian bank through the board of unpaid members
has worked out well In practice is due to the willing
ness of the Italians as a race to serve gratis In cor
porate institutions, even though such service may In
volve the most painstaking duties.
• • •
The Italian town bank omits the “unlimited liabili
ty” feature of the German bank. Lqzzattl had the
genius to see that this thing, suited to the German be
cause of a century of practicing the idea under gov
ernmental compulsion, was not suited to the Italian.
He knew that the Italian would never be willing to
bind his every dollar to make good the obligations of
his bank. The readiness with which the Friendly soci
eties recognized the new bank as a secure place for
the Investment of their funds largely took the place
of the "unlimited liability” feature of the German sys
tem, which Schulze thought was the only plan under
which the bank could hope to secure outside credit.
• • •
The Italian town banks use as the chief channel
of credit the bill of exchange, the advance bill and the
trade bill. It is easier to refuse a renewal of one of
these bills If the borrower Is making poor use of his
money, and easier to rediscount them, which appeals to
the bank. Where funds are limited, the preference al
ways Is given to the small borrower, and some of the
richer banks make small loans to peasants too poor
to be members.
• • •
Unlike the situation in Germany, there is co-opera
tion between the town and the country hanks, and the
town banks frequently furnish the country banks with
surplus funds, while some of them have gone so far as
to start branch banks in the country districts, some
times as mere auxiliaries but more frequently as self-
governing colonies on the way to ultimate independ
ence. Whether the friendly relations between the
town and country banks is the result of a more states
manlike policy between them than is pursued In Ger
many, or whether it is because neither has pre-empted
enough territory to be in the way of the other, the best
observers have not decided; but the fact remains that
where the country banks and the town banks of Ger
many have a mutual antipathy, those of Italy are on
friendly terms.
• * *
The town banks of Italy are popular places of de
posit with the wage earners of the Italian cities. Al
though the rank and file of them may be small, their
total deposits aggregate $140,000,005, which is in excess
of the loans they make by $50,000,000, showing that the
Italian banks have a higher percentage of non-borrow
ing members than those of Germany.
• • *
The town banks of Italy are composed of members
from every class of society. Forty-five out of every
hundred members are artisans, small shopkeepers and
small farmers. Clerks and professional members bring
this up to five-eighths of the total membership. In
some of the smaller banks a share of stock is but ffc
while in others it goes as high as $20.