[Speech of Simeon Ford at the Annual dinner of the Manhattan Bankers of
the New York State Bankers' Association, February 7, 1900. The
President, Warner Van Norden, presided.]
GENTLEMEN:--As I sat here this evening, listening to the
strains of that fine old Bankers' anthem entitled "When you ain't got no
money, why you needn't come around," I was thinking what a grand idea it
was for you magnates to get together once a year to exchange ideas and
settle among yourselves what shall be done, and who shall be done, and
how you will do them. Personally, I'd prefer to exchange cheques rather
than ideas with many here present; not but what the ideas are all right,
but somehow, when money talks I am always a fascinated listener.
I did not come here voluntarily, but at the pressing invitation of some
of my most pressing creditors on your committee. They said Secretary
Gage would be here, and Mr. J. P. Morgan, and that without my presence
the affair would seem incomplete, but that if we three got together we
could settle various perplexing financial problems right on the spot.
The committee told me to choose my own subject and they would endorse
anything I would say--without recourse. They delicately intimated,
however, that any playful allusions to the City Bank better be left
unsaid; and so I can only remark:--
"And I would that my tongue could utter,
The thoughts that arise in me!"
and let it go at that.
I must say, however, that Secretary Gage made one serious mistake. If he
had consulted me (which he never did, although he had abundant
opportunity) I would have advised him to put his money in an institution
I know about where it would have received a rousing welcome and where I
could have taken a fall out of it myself. If the price of the
Custom-House had gotten into my hands, and I'd been given twenty-four
hours' start, I believe I could have given the secretary a run for his
money. But, instead, he placed it in a rich, smooth-running, well-oiled
institution where it was used in averting a panic and straightening out
financial tangles, and greasing the wheels of commerce, and similar
foolishness.
This is the first opportunity I have had of meeting you Bank Presidents
collectively, and when you are thawed out. I have met most of you,
individually, when you were frozen stiff. I never supposed you could
warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been
of the "How'd you like to be the iceman" order. Sometimes I have thought
I'd almost rather go without the money than get a congestive chill in a
Bank President's office, and have him gaze into my eyes, and read the
inmost secrets of my soul, and ask unfeeling questions, and pry rudely
into my past, and throw out wild suggestions about getting Mr. Astor to
endorse for me, and other similar atrocities. And even if I succeed in
deceiving him he leads me, crushed, humiliated and feeling like thirty
cents, to a fly cashier, who, taking advantage of my dazed condition,
includes in my three-months' note, not only Christmas and the Fourth of
July, but St. Patrick's Day, Ash Wednesday and sixteen Sundays, so that,
by the time he has deducted the interest, what's coming to me looks like
a Jaeger undershirt after its first interview with an African
_blanchisseuse_. That's the kind of thing the poet had in mind when he
wrote--"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."
I have observed that one's reception at a bank varies somewhat with the
condition of the money market. Go in when money is easy and the
President falls on your neck, calls you by your first name, and
cheerfully loans you large sums on your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke
Preferred," and you go on your way rejoicing. The next day, news having
arrived that a Gordon Highlander has strained a tendon in his leg while
sprinting away from a Dutchman near Ladysmith, or an Irish lady _chef_
has sent home two pounds sterling to her family, money goes up to one
hundred and eighty per cent. a minute, and you get a note requesting you
to remove your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke Preferred" and
substitute Government Bonds therefor. And still you wonder at crime.
But if you really want to know the meaning of the terms "Marble Heart"
and "Icy Eye" go into one of these refrigerating plants for a loan when
money is tight. It is prudent at such times to wear ear-muffs and red
mittens fastened together by tape so they can't be lost, for you will
need 'em.
As soon as you reach the outer air--which will be in about a second--run
home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster
on what remains of your self-esteem.
Bankers are too prone to judge a man by his appearance, so that the very
men who need the money most have the hardest work to get it. They are
apt, especially at the City Bank, to discriminate against the "feller"
who looks rocky, in favor of the Rockafeller. Clothes do not make the
man! If they did, Hetty Green wouldn't be where she is and Russell Sage
would be in the Old Ladies' Home. If Uncle Russell had to travel on his
shape, he never would see much of the world. Yet, beneath that ragged
coat there beats a heart which as a beater can't be beat--a heart as
true (so the Standard Gas people say)--as true as "steal."
But after all, Banks and Trust Companies do a lot of good in a quiet
way, especially to their directors--in a quiet way. See what a
convenience some of our Trust Companies have been to their directors of
late. It would sometimes be mortifying for these directors to have to
attempt to borrow money on certain securities, in institutions with
which they were not connected, because, instead of getting the money,
they might get six months.
I had intended to touch upon a few vital questions concerning finance
this evening, but the night is waning and I guess you've all been
"touched" sufficiently of late, so I will restrain myself, and give some
other orator a chance to get himself disliked.