Speech

X-4257 ^LA^g^TCj7ASHINGT0H SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS, DSCS&EER 5, 1924, In a few spots recovery was retarded "by unfortunate conditions, snch as the drouths in New Mexico and on the Pacific Coast, and there nave "been some brakes on the wheels of progress that may "be mentioned. lnce the ^ginning of the present year almost 700 banks have failed, n nearly all small institutions serving agricultural communities in the These are an aftermath of agricultural depression, hut that ^oesn't in my opinion tell the whole story. They are due in large asure to a had hanking system - to a multiplication beyond all reason small, weak, often badly managed institutions. Bankers will tell you ^at^tf American banking system is the best in the world. If efficiency ... .. --in -i Safety and service to a11 classes of customers in small as well as "" ^ iarge communities at reasonable rates are requisites of a good banking not f °Ur Arnerican system instead of being the best in the world is ° r froin the worst. In no other great commercial nation is there so r t a contrast between rates for loans in the financial centrcs and ^a e f g i itural sections. Tie have 2 per cent money s or loans in the a r cu _ ,<a11 Street and 10 or 12 per cent money in the Bakotas. The little ^ountry bank - Senator Glass has called some of them toll gates - is vertheless regarded as a sacred American institution, little less iu-tGd ^^ the liUle red schoolhouse. It can fail in great numbers J st at the time when everything else is recovering yet no one thinks s o?UeStionins the institution itself or of suggesting that a better V ^y tern of serving small communities could be devised - that is no one a few economists and theorists who don't count. Bankers are all the *ncreaGin£ the number of banks unmindful of the repeated lessons of lar A eC°d syateu of banking for small communities should provide banks enou^Vienou^'!ri to afford good management, and serving a territory wide of b include a vapiety of crops and industries, so that the safety a ^ - bank would not bo put in jeopardy by depression in any one industry and y Q UGre local calamity. This means larger banks,and less banks to J70Uld ?robably make necessary the extension of banking facilities -- of the smaller communities by means of branches. Branch banking C o m yearS ?n<ief the condemnation of the American Bankers Association every in" ' it is the system of every other great commercial country, and in various efforts to suppress it has made considerable progress come tankinS systems of about a third of our states. The time will • I oelievo, when business men, farmers and manufacturers will be Com to"?v to give this mttcr some study instead of leaving it wholly tao banlcers. JUL 7 1SC4 1 CXOEPROY 1 I

Edmund Platt (1924, December 2). Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19241203_platt

@misc{wtfs_speech_19241203_platt,
  author = {Edmund Platt},
  title = {Speech},
  year = {1924},
  month = {Dec},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19241203_platt},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}