First National Bank (Boston, MA)

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homestead in LaFourche parish and change the house into a memorial for the late chief justice. Perhaps, no son of Louisiana has brought more honor to the state than Edward Douglas White. His sterling honesty of purpose, his unquestioned scholarship, his clearness of vision and his powers to reason combined with physical strength to make him a leader in every field of endeavor in which he toiled. The supreme court needed a jurist read in the Napoleanic code and president Grover Cleveland found that jurist in senator White. The nation sought the man. In later years, president Taft had so broken with his party that two nominations he made to fill the place made vacant by the death of chief justice Fuller were not confirmed, and the president asked associate justice White to assume the responsibility. He was unanimously confirmed and wore the dig. nity with becoming grace. Through his long years of service he and the court clung to the forces of rectitude and maintained Constitutional law throughout the land. Thus it is well to remember our illustrious dead, in fitting memorial Art's silent warder's point the new generations the way to immortality. A clear connection, and Governor Wellborn, sitting in his office in Atlanta, was told by a federal reserve agent, sitting and standing and jumping, perhaps, in his office in Havana Cuba, that ugly rumors had been circulated in Havana about weaknesses, which actually did not exist in several banks on the island republic, and that thousands of people were withdrawing their deposits. A "run" was being made on several banks in Havana, and unless the runs were stopped or a large supply of money sent to Cuba to augment the banks' reserves, there would be serious difficulties. A run on the bank! How bankers fear the sound of those words! For no matter how strong a bank may be from the very nature of its business it cannot keep sufficient actual cash reserve in its vaults to pay off all deposits. Hence a run on a bank is very unfair, and hence, too, a run is probably the most frightening thing in a banker's life. But things were happening faster than this story is being related. Governor Wellborn was told that the banks of Havana could continue to pay out deposits until their closing hour that day at noon, but that if millions of dollars were not sent to strengthen the banks before the opening hour on the following Monday, dozens of banks on the island would not be able to meet all the demands for withdrawals of funds that would be forthcoming when the unfair rumors were spread. Governor Wellborn, who is as much man of action as any army general ever was, quickly got together fifty million dollars in paper money (American paper money is acceptable in Cuba), with about as much ease as an ordinary man would make up a bank deposit, and had it loaded on a special train, specially armored, bound for Key West, 853 miles away, where the money would be transferred to & boat which would take it to Havana. "Atlanta calling the Federal Reserve Agent." This time it was Governor Wellborn calling, a few minutes later. Jacksonville, in an effort to get a boat. The man on the other end of the line said he would get a boat and have it properly fitted with defense equipment and that it would meet the special train at Key West the following day. All Set and Ready to Go. Everything was fixed. The right sort of plans had been made and the right sort of people had their instructions and could be depended upon to do the right sort of thing. Governor Wellborn did not do then what almost any other big business man would have done. He did not lean back in his chair and mentally pat himself on the back and say, "A big job well done; now for a round of golf." Instead, he took up the work he had in hand before the call from Havana came, and worked just as he had on any ordinary Saturday "Jacksonville calling Governor Wellborn." This time the call was to say that the only available and suitable boat in Jacksonville was in dry dock and could not be secured. "Atlanta calling the Federal Reserve Agent at Havana." Governor Wellborn, who we said was a man of action, was calling his agent at Havana, and when he got him he instructed him to go immediately to see the Cuban Secretary of the Treasury, or the Cuban Secretary of the Navy, if Cuba had one, or President Machado, and secure a Cuban gunboat and have it meet, the following day at noon, at Key West, the special train that was carrying money to save Cuban banks. A call from Havana, it seemed within only a few minutes, stated that all arrangements had been made and that the armed cruiser "Cuba" was steaming up. Now comes the unbelievable part of the story. The special train traveled across Georgia and five hundred miles down the east coast of Florida, and with its fifty million dollars reached Key West five hours ahead of its schedule! The many people who have traveled in Florida during the past year will wonder how it feels to get anywhere in that state ahead of time. The fifty million was transferred to the Cuban cruiser at Key West, tinid more excitement than this little island city has experienced since the Spanish-American war. The boat and its valuable cargo steamed across the Gulf stream, that treacherous body of water, which often, like some people, refuses to be crossed, but which at times is as calm and peaceful as a lake. This time it was calm. A boat loaded with fifty million dollars crossing waters that a century ago were infested with pirates who were a menace to any cargo! The boat steamed into Havana harbor at 3 o'clock Monday morning, between Morro Castle light, which for two centuries has been the safeguard of Cuba's ocean commerce, and the little stone building on the other side of the harbor, which houses the terminus of the submarine cable from the United States, and which in 1926 had been the safeguard of Cuba's finance. News of the shipment of money had been spread all over the island of Cuba. Many thought it only a rumor, originated as propaganda, and were intending to withdraw their deposits Monday morning. But enough people believed the report to -constitute a mass of thousands of people lined up along the water front. When the boat docked, there was a company of Cuban soldiers to form a guard. And the fifty million dollars were unloaded in sight of thousands of people, not with cheers and excitement as one usually finds whenever Cubans form a crowd, but with awed silence. After the money was completely transferred and was speeding away in armored automobile trucks, the crowd gradually dispersed. But the news of the arrival of all this money spread like wildfire all over the island, by excited conversation, by telephone, by telegraph, and by telepathy, too, perhaps, and next morning it was known throughout the republic that the banks were safe; and not a single deposit was drawn out entirely. Not a single dollar of the fifty million was actually used to pay out deposits. The "run" had collapsed. Such is the effect of psychology on human actions. The banks that were affected by the false rumors were the First National Bank of Boston, the National City Bank of New York and the Royal Bank of Canada, three of the strongest banks in the world!Southern Telephone News.