\ '^ 
 
:::> 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 witli funding from 
 
 CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/williamhenryreidOOreid 
 
William Henry Reid's 
 
 Recollections of a Busy Life 
 
 From 1855 to December 5, 1907 
 His Sixty-eighth Birthday 
 
CCORDING to the family 
 records I was born Decem- 
 ber 5, 1840, at Mount Pleas- 
 ant, Jefferson County, Ohio. 
 I have been told that my par- 
 ents received the news of the 
 election of William Henry 
 Harrison as President of the United States on 
 the same day, but I do not recollect whether 
 I heard of it then or not. Harrison was elected 
 in November, but there was no telegraph in 
 those days and the news did not reach Mount 
 Pleasant until my birthday. 
 
 I had two brothers. My older was born 
 February 22 — Washington's birthday — and 
 my younger on the Fourth of July. I have 
 always rather suspected that I was intended 
 as a Christmas present but I got there a little 
 ahead of time. 
 
 My father was a wheelwright, a wagon- 
 maker, and in my youthful days he utilized my 
 spare time as a helper about his shop. I 
 ground paint, did some painting and worked 
 at odd jobs of repairing, mostly on Saturdays 
 when there was no school. In vacation time I 
 was quite steadily employed in my father's 
 shop and elsewhere. I worked on the roads to 
 pay my father's road tax, hoed corn, worked 
 in the harvest fields and made myself gener- 
 ally useful about the home doing everything a 
 boy could do profitably and helpfully. I would 
 wash, scrub, hang out the clothes lines and the 
 clothes, churn, drive the cows to and from the 
 pasture morning and evening, sweep the side- 
 walk in front of the house before breakfast 
 
(we always breakfasted at 5 o'clock A. M., 
 dined at 11 o'clock A. M., had supper at 5 
 o'clock P. M. and went to bed with the chick- 
 ens at 7:30, although on occasions I was per- 
 mitted to sit up until 9 o'clock). These habits 
 of early rising and retiring have been contin- 
 uous with me during my entire lifetime. 
 
 I attended the common schools until 1855. 
 About the time that I was starting to school I 
 recall that there was a war, the Mexican war, 
 and I recollect that all the money we had in 
 those days was Mexican money. We did not 
 get much money and then only at harvest 
 times when the farmers went out with their 
 sickles to gather the crops. Everybody went 
 out in those days and helped their neighbors at 
 the harvest and during the threshing time. 
 People were very neighborly and helpfulness 
 was the rule in the community. Horse power 
 threshers had come into general use and went 
 from farm to farm during the season. The 
 coming of the threshers was quite an event in 
 those days and there was a social side to the 
 work which made it very pleasant. 
 
 In the winter of 1855 I went to work in a 
 country store at Franklin, Tappan Post Office, 
 Harrison County — an adjoining county — thir- 
 ty miles from my home. During my two 
 years' service there I became familiar with 
 trade and the almost lost art of barter. In the 
 Franklin store we exchanged merchandise for 
 produce, butter, eggs, chickens, feathers, soap, 
 honey, everything the farmers had to offer. 
 The knowledge gained in the business was 
 practical. I knew just how much calico and 
 trimmings were required for a dress — these 
 
were the days before the sewing machines — 
 and besides I became acquainted with the 
 farmers and their famiHes and knew intimate- 
 ly everybody worth knowing about the coun- 
 try. 
 
 We took our produce to Wheeling, Vir- 
 ginia, our nearest and most important market, 
 and when it was sold we bought dry goods and 
 groceries and brought them back to trade at 
 the store. I think that I received my best edu- 
 cation in that business and I look back upon it 
 with considerable pleasure. It served to ac- 
 quaint me with actual life at first hands, to 
 know human nature and study people at close 
 range. Very little money was used in the 
 conduct of the business and we understood the 
 meaning of real values. Such an understanding 
 would, it seems to me, be very desirable at this 
 time. It would certainly assist our young men 
 in arriving at a proper sense of proportion. 
 
 In August, 1858, I arrived in Alton, Madi- 
 son County, Illinois, where I found work as 
 cashier in a mill and distillery, and remained 
 there for more than a year, when I became 
 employed in a bank. My duties here -were 
 varied. I opened the doors in the morning, 
 built the fires, swept the office, kept the books 
 and assisted as paying and receiving teller. It 
 was here that I enjoyed the association with 
 the cashier, D. D. Ryrie. He was as fine a 
 man as I have ever known — just, generous, 
 kindly, conservative and reliable to a degree. 
 Free from prejudice, he held the friendship of 
 all the people of the community, although in 
 those days, just prior to the civil war, contro- 
 versy was most bitter and friends and families 
 became estranged. 
 
As a boy I had some recollection of the 
 gold fever and I remember the movement to- 
 wards the Colorado country in the "Pike's 
 Peak or Bust" days. When I first came west 
 the Missouri river was a great thoroughfare — 
 there was but one line of railway west of the 
 Mississippi river — the Missouri Pacific. I re- 
 call the discussion of the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty and I remember all about the Fremont 
 campaign. I was ten years old when the Clay- 
 ton-Bulwer treaty was signed. 
 
 After a year in the employ of the bank at 
 Alton I was elected secretary and treasurer of 
 the Alton and St. Louis Packet Company, 
 whose principal business was the carrying of 
 passengers and freight for the Chicago and 
 Alton Railroad to and from St. Louis, the ter- 
 minal of the road at that time being at Alton. 
 I acted as freight clerk, purser and did such 
 other work as would tend to enhance my use- 
 fulness to my employers. 
 
 It was while I was employed on the steam- 
 boat that the Prince of Wales, now King Ed- 
 ward VII of England, visited the United 
 States. His tour was in charge of Lord 
 Lyons, then British minister to this country. 
 The Prince, Lord Lyons and their suites went 
 from Alton to St. Louis on our boat, the 
 steamer B. M. Runyan, and I remember that 
 it was a great show. The Prince was a young- 
 ster, a year younger than I, but he was the 
 sensation of the day. The river was filled with 
 boats and all of them were loaded to their 
 greatest capacity. St. Louis went fairly crazy 
 and when the steamer tied up at the wharf the 
 mayor, and it seemed to me, everybody, met 
 
him and gave him a grand reception. It was a 
 great sight. I do not remember that the Prince 
 said anything on the trip. He was merely 
 sight-seeing. Whatever talking was done was 
 done at the banquets given in his honor, and 
 I did not attend any of them. I do remember 
 that the Prince and his party came from 
 Dwight, Illinois, where he had been visiting 
 some friends of his, and that after hunting 
 prairie chickens for a few days he visited St. 
 Louis. 
 
 As I look back upon the time when I was 
 on the steamboat I realize more than I did 
 then that it was an epoch-making period. It 
 was the time of the Lincoln and Douglas de- 
 bates. I remember them all distinctly, but 
 what impressed me most at Alton was the 
 speaking of a man named Merrick, who came 
 from Chicago and followed them. He was 
 allied with Douglas, was a finished orator and 
 made the finest speeches I have ever listened 
 to in my entire experience. 
 
 The Democratic convention of 1860 is still 
 fresh in my memory as is that of the seceding 
 members who met at Baltimore. I was living 
 in St. Louis at the time and the people of that 
 day never really dreamed of war. It had not 
 entered the minds of the majority of them at 
 all. It was not until after the firing upon 
 Fort Sumter that the people began to get 
 serious. Then it struck everybody at once and 
 sent them into a frenzy. The frivolous ones 
 got into the penitentiary because of their loud 
 talking, and those who wanted to go to war 
 had a chance to go. 
 
 I have but little recollection of the Repub- 
 
lican national convention at Chicago, but I do 
 remember that the nomination of Lincoln 
 caused a sensation. I gave little attention to 
 politics. 
 
 At that time Lincoln was at a great dis- 
 advantage. He was not so very widely known, 
 and his appearance was ungainly. Douglas 
 was very generally known and was a great 
 man. He was a noted orator, had been in the 
 United States senate for some time, and had 
 held other offices. 
 
 With the election came intense excite- 
 ment all over the country. Being on the bor- 
 der, I was right in the heat of it all. It is 
 difficult at this day to realize the feeling to- 
 ward those people who opposed or criticised 
 the war. Our packet company carried the 
 arms and cartridges and all the military stores 
 from the arsenal below St. Louis for the State 
 of Illinois at the time Camp Jackson was 
 established. 
 
 In 1861 came the death of Douglas. It was 
 felt all over the country. At Alton, where I 
 was, there was a memorial service, as there 
 were similar services throughout the country. 
 All of the orators expressed themselves as be- 
 lieving the death of Douglas to be the greatest 
 calamity which could befall the country. It 
 struck me as hypocritical when I remembered 
 that but a short time before I had heard some 
 of these same men deriding him. 
 
 The civil war came and in the first battles 
 the Confederates were successful. My most 
 vivid impression of those days is that it forced 
 the people of the town of Alton to organize 
 a sort of protective agency, a sort of insurance 
 
company, to insure men against being drafted 
 into the army. To avoid the draft meant the 
 payment of fifty or one hundred dollars. Be- 
 sides this we all contributed to support the 
 families of those who went to war, as the gov- 
 ernment was slow in paying. The people of 
 Alton were intensely loyal to the Union as a 
 rule. 
 
 Many Confederate prisoners were brought 
 to Alton. Many of them had friends there, 
 and visiting friends in prison became quite an 
 important social function. As a rule, the Con- 
 federate officers were permitted to stroll the 
 streets on parole and they were treated very 
 well by the citizens. There was little or no 
 bitterness, and I have been greatly impressed 
 by the wonder of this thing called war — to 
 think that people will shoot at each other to 
 kill and then lay down their arms and come 
 together like brothers. But they did just this 
 thing in the sixties. 
 
 The assassination of Lincoln was the ter- 
 rible thing of the time, and then history trav- 
 eled fast until the impeachment of Andrew 
 Johnson, or, rather, the attempt to impeach 
 the president. I do not think that Johnson was 
 considered a strong man at that time; the gen- 
 eral impression was that he was weak and 
 hesitating. I saw him but once — at the time 
 he swung around the circle. With him was 
 General Grant and staff. They came to Alton 
 from Chicago and then to St. Louis on our 
 packet line. There was an immense party 
 of distinguished people on the trip, and one 
 of the boats was named after the president. 
 I recall that the steamer B. M. Runyan of our 
 
line and the Andrew Johnson of the St. Louis 
 & Keokuk Packet Company were lashed to- 
 gether and steamed down the river in com- 
 pany. The stream was filled with boats, and 
 everybody who could came out to get a sight 
 of the head of the nation. 
 
 I was with the packet company until we 
 sold out in 1865, the year that the railroad was 
 finished through to St. Louis. Those years 
 were valuable years to me, for the qualifica- 
 tions of a clerk in those days required that 
 he should know all about his business and be 
 able to answer questions intelligently and 
 patiently. Some times I think that the young 
 men of the present day are too highly spe- 
 cialized and know too little of the details of 
 their business. It might be better for both 
 employer and employe if fundamental knowl- 
 edge was more appreciated than it appears to 
 be at this time. 
 
 After the packet company was sold I was 
 superintendent of the Merchants & Peoples 
 line of steamers, running between St. Louis 
 and New Orleans, for a year. My uncles, John 
 J. and W. H. Mitchell, had taken the contract 
 from the United States government for all 
 river transportation of freight and soldiers 
 from St. Louis to New Orleans. They sublet 
 this to Edward Walsh and David White of 
 St. Louis, and my especial business was to 
 attend to the collection from the government 
 for all shipments, etc. 
 
 In the following year my uncle contracted 
 to deliver railroad iron from East St. Louis 
 to Omaha, Nebraska, by water for the Credit 
 Mobilier of America, which was then building 
 
the Union Pacific Railroad to Ogden. I at- 
 tended to the details of the shipments, paying 
 the freight from the iron mills in Pennsylvania 
 to East St. Louis, reshipping by water to 
 Omaha, and drawing on the Credit Mobilier 
 at its headquarters in New York. During that 
 entire period I paid freight, attaching bills to 
 draft on New York, requiring no statements, 
 and this despite the fact that the account 
 totaled several millions of dollars, a stupen- 
 dous amount of money in those days. 
 
 When the golden spike was driven at Og- 
 den in the presence of a great gathering of 
 notable people, Samuel Bowles, editor of the 
 Springfield, Ma^.sachusetts, Republican, was 
 present and afterward wrote a history of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad up to that time. When 
 it was published I read it, and I have been a 
 subscriber to and have read the Springfield 
 Republican ever since. I consider it the ablest 
 newspaper published, and my Sunday reading 
 of it is still my great pleasure. I should con- 
 sider myself sorrowfully unfortunate were I 
 to be deprived of it to-day. 
 
 Late in 1867, at Alton, I embarked in thef 
 wholesale grocery business, the firm name be- 
 ing R. Debow & Co. Mr. Debow, a porter, 
 and myself constituted the entire staff and our 
 rent was $600 a year. I did the traveling and 
 covered the. territory within a hundred miles. 
 Our expense account was less than $2,500 per 
 annum. Our annual sales were about $250,- 
 000. In 1869 I sold my interest in the firm, 
 and on the first day of January, 1870, I arrived 
 in Chicago. 
 
 After looking about for some months for 
 
an opportunity to get into active business 
 again, I formed a copartnership with Peter 
 Van Schaack and Robert Stevenson in the 
 wholesale drug business under the firm name 
 of Van Schaack, Stevenson & Reid. We 
 were successors to E. P. Dwyer & Co. When 
 we started the new firm Stevenson was one 
 of the partners of E. P. Dwyer & Co. and 
 Van Schaack was of the firm of Burnham & 
 Van Schaack. The house opened in June, 
 1870, at 92 and 94 Lake street, opposite the 
 old Tremont House, and we did a flourishing 
 business from the start. 
 
 The great fire of 1871 destroyed our store, 
 stock and all, but we were perhaps the most 
 fortunate of any Chicago merchants of the 
 time. I was a late comer, and when the firm 
 was organized and I applied for insurance I 
 found that I could not get it placed in the 
 Chicago agencies, as they were carrying all 
 they wished on that class of risks. As a result 
 I was obliged to place the insurance in outside 
 companies, and when the adjustment was had 
 we realized eighty-five per cent of our loss. 
 
 Within thirty days we had opened a store 
 at Wabash avenue and Eighteenth street in 
 an old frame church building and remained 
 there until our former Lake street store was 
 rebuilt. Owing to our good fortune in the 
 insurance matter we did a profitable business 
 that year, paying interest on our investment, 
 a remarkable showing. Our firm never had a 
 traveling agent, and for eight years, or dur- 
 ing our copartnership, we divided and paid 
 our profits in cash on the first day of April 
 of each year. We were successful because we 
 
adopted the method of keeping down large 
 stocks and were particularly careful in the 
 matter of extending credit. The business con- 
 tinued as Van Schaack, Stevenson & Reid 
 until 1879, when I sold my interest and re- 
 tired. 
 
 From 1879 until 1890 I was almost out of 
 business owing to the condition of my health, 
 and during that time I made three trips to 
 Europe. Then I entered the Illinois Trust 
 and Savings Bank as vice-president. This 
 was largely an experiment at the time. I had 
 been a director since 1882, but with returning 
 health I was anxious to busy myself again. 
 
 I built my present house, 2013 Prairie ave- 
 nue, in 1894, one year after the World's Fair, 
 but I have lived in the same place since April, 
 1871. The location, now considered very close 
 to the business center, was then a long way 
 out in the suburbs. It was mostly a sand 
 dune, and there was but one house north of 
 Twentieth street from mine. The building 
 has occurred since I first located. Pullman, 
 Field, Campbell, Kellogg— all of them came 
 after. 
 
 The street car service would be a joke 
 now. There were bob-tail cars in Indiana 
 avenue, one-horse cars, and no conductor; 
 each passenger dropped his nickel in the slot 
 at the driver's end. 
 
 This digression concerning horse cars re- 
 minds me of the first Pullman sleeper. I was 
 with the Alton & St. Louis Packet Company 
 when I first met George Pullman. He had 
 built a car at Bloomington and brought it 
 
down to Alton over the Chicago & Alton Rail- 
 road to exhibit. The sleeper was built out of 
 an old passenger car, and it was a great sensa- 
 tion. The berths were in tiers of three, and 
 it was a long climb to the top. The car went 
 into service between Chicago and Alton and 
 became popular. Marvin Hughitt was a train 
 dispatcher on the road in those days and was 
 in charge at Bloomington. During the war 
 he frequently came to Alton in charge of sol- 
 diers' trains. And this all reminds me of the 
 railroad facilities in the early days. When 
 I came west in 1858, we changed cars seven or 
 eight times between Ohio and Alton. I re- 
 member that we changed at Bellaire, Newark, 
 Columbus, Xenia, Dayton, Indianapolis, Terre 
 Haute and Alton Junction before we reached 
 Alton. The cars of that time were connected 
 by a link and there would be a foot or more 
 play betvs^een cars when the train started or 
 stopped, bumping all the time and keeping up 
 a continuous rattling. The rails were on 
 chairs, the chairs nailed to ties, and the going 
 was very rough. The brakes were operated 
 by hand, and the inconveniences were many, 
 but it was really good traveling in those days 
 if the traveler was interested in his fellows. 
 A traveler met everybody and everybody was 
 friendly and interested. Travel in those days 
 was educating and interesting despite the 
 trouble. 
 
 But it is not my intention in setting down 
 these lines to contribute more than a few side- 
 lights to the history of the times in which I 
 have lived. I have purposely skimmed over 
 events and have set down what I have in 
 
 / 
 
order to accentuate the fact of continuous 
 progress, the process rather than the results. 
 And as my energy has been largely given for 
 seventeen years to active work as a general 
 officer of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, 
 I think it proper to indicate a bit of its prog- 
 ress as is shown in the following statements 
 selected at random and illustrating its rather 
 remarkable growth from footings of $2,000,000 
 to more than $106,000,000. 
 
 Statement December 30, 1882 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 United States 4^ per 
 
 cent bonds $100,200 00 
 
 United States 4 per cent. 
 
 bonds, at par 400,350 00 
 
 Premiums on same 60,765 77 $561,315 77 
 
 Other Bonds 307,625 00 
 
 Premiums on same 26,668 00 334,293 00 
 
 Cash and Exchange 239,260 75 
 
 Real Estate 322 74 
 
 Loans on demand 1,149,334 15 
 
 Loans on time 287,069 63 
 
 Loans on real estate 254,564 14 1,690,967 92 
 
 $2,826,160 18 
 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Capital Stock $500,000 00 
 
 Surplus Fund 41,331 48 $541,331 48 
 
 Undivided Profits 29,387 60 
 
 Due Depositors 2,255,441 10 
 
 $2,826,160 18 
 
Statement March 20, 1895 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 Bonds and Stocks $3,472,821 49 
 
 Cash and Exchange 6,435,874 13 
 
 Demand Loans on Col- 
 laterals $8,255,578 31 
 
 Time Loans on Collat- 
 erals 4,583,023 35 
 
 Loans on Real Estate . . . 2,897,981 66 15,736,583 32 
 
 $25,645,278 94 
 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Capital Stock paid in . . . $2,000,000 00 
 
 Surplus Fund 1,000,000 00 
 
 Undivided Profits 943,982 69 
 
 Time Deposits $10,799,361 05 
 
 Demand Deposits 10,901,935 20 21,701,296 25 
 
 $25,645,278 94 
 
 Statement December 14, 1900 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 Stocks and Bonds $14,266,340 60 
 
 Cash and Exchange. . . . 21,365,058 34 
 
 Real Estate 240,123 94 
 
 Demand Loans on Col- 
 laterals $29,309,230 13 
 
 Time Loans on Collat- 
 erals 5,260,393 09 
 
 Loans on Real Estate. . 1,876,810 48 $36,446,433 70 
 
 $72,317,956 58 
 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Capital Stock paid in . . . $3,000,000 00 
 
 Surplus Fund 2,000,000 00 
 
 Undivided Profits 1,906,670 38 
 
 Demand Deposits $30,147,349 72 
 
 Time Deposits 35,263,936 48 65,411,286 20 
 
 $72,317,956 58 
 
Statement August 20, 1907 
 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 Demand Loans on Col- 
 lateral $27,086,923 21 
 
 Time Loans on Collat- 
 eral 45,112,645 90 
 
 Loans on Real Estate . . 948,739 36 $73,148,308 47 
 
 Real Estate 46,182 92 
 
 Bonds and Stocks 15,964,870 37 
 
 Cash and Exchange... 17,794,209 78 
 
 $106,953,571 54 
 LIABILITIES. 
 
 Capital Stock paid in.. $ 4,500,000 00 
 
 Surplus Fund 6,500,000 00 
 
 Undivided Profits 1,527,597 56 
 
 Demand Deposits $29,509,853 45 
 
 Time Deposits 64,916,120 53 94,425,973 98 
 
 $106,953,571 54 
 
 As I have had something to do with this 
 progress and have been practically a superin- 
 tendent of detail I feel that I have a right to 
 consider myself an ideal bank officer in that 
 line. And in the matter of detail I can best 
 illustrate my point by quoting from a letter 
 which I wrote to a New York banker in 1902 
 in answer to a letter from him requesting in- 
 formation as to how the Illinois Trust and 
 Savings Bank managed to round up its busi- 
 ness every day by 5 o'clock. Among other 
 things I wrote: 
 
 "The business of our bank is largely a city 
 business, while we have about 4,300 checking 
 accounts, receiving about 800 deposits and 
 paying out about 4,000 checks daily. The 
 work is systematized so that we are able to 
 lock the cash vault for one week each month 
 
from 3:45 to 4 p. m., the balance of the time 
 from 4 to 4:30 — rarely later. Bookkeepers 
 have about 350 accounts each and are gen- 
 erally able to leave the office at 4:30, and sel- 
 dom later than 5:30. 
 
 "In our savings department last month we 
 opened 2,733 new accounts, received 23,258 
 deposits and paid out 29,201 debits. Book- 
 keeping in this department is easier, although 
 we have over 108,000 accounts. Trial balance 
 is taken off in two sessions of six hours each, 
 after hours, twice a year, with the aid of add- 
 ing machines. Accounts in this department 
 are also kept in sections. Our methods have 
 grown upon us, but consist in commencing 
 promptly — a general officer at 8 a. m. and all 
 employes at work at 8 :30. Everything cleared 
 ready before opening at 10 o'clock, after which 
 nothing must be deferred until closing that 
 can possibly be attended to. We keep plenty 
 of help to supply vacations and ordinary ill- 
 ness of employes, all of which is conducive 
 of desire to excel and facilitate business; but 
 first of all it is the officer who must set the 
 pace and have the enthusiasm, after which the 
 problem is easy. My observation is that de- 
 lays are generally because of officers delaying 
 business until after hours, so that work is 
 delayed in consequence." 
 
 There is another thing which appeals to 
 me strongly. While, of course, concentration 
 of effort and purpose brings results, success 
 comes only to those in whom it is inborn. I 
 have always believed that no man could con- 
 trol that, no matter how he planned. Of 
 course, everyone must needs shape his means 
 
to an ultimate end, but the success that places 
 a man above his fellows, the striking success 
 in the eyes of the world — that must be inborn. 
 
 IN MY EXPERIENCE AS A BANK 
 OFFICER I HAVE ALWAYS OPPOSED 
 THE BONDING OF EMPLOYES. I be- 
 lieve that it makes for criminal suggestion. 
 Bonds cannot assist character building and all 
 the penalties in the world will not assist 
 young men to honesty. Bankers, of all others, 
 should recognize manhood and by their own 
 acts should inculcate in their employes a sense 
 of obligation — that is the saving thing. More 
 young men are led astray by the example of 
 their so-called superiors than by any other one 
 thing, and the dummy bank director is a men- 
 ace not only to his bank, but to the character 
 of the employes. Bank officers should be men 
 of education, free from greed, not intent upon 
 the amassing of wealth and of the sort whose 
 influence, conscious or unconscious, makes for 
 betterment. I may perhaps illustrate more 
 clearly by quoting an editorial from the 
 Springfield Republican. 
 
 "Of protective measures against dishon- 
 esty in moneyed institutions there should, of 
 course, be no lack within the reasonable 
 bounds of human ingenuity and effort, but 
 after all has been done there must be large 
 reliance upon simple individual honesty. All 
 the bolts and bars and detective devices pos- 
 sible of application cannot prevent heavy de- 
 pendence upon the normal human conscience 
 which commands that 'thou shalt not steal.' 
 
 "Preferable probably to obtrusive detective 
 devices in the protection of a bank, which 
 
seem to place everybody within it under con- 
 stant suspicion and accusation, would be a 
 policy of cultivating in the force a sense of 
 each one's responsibility and the trustfulness 
 in which he is held. Conscience is still a 
 necessary and paramount fact in our business 
 life, and but for it we should go to pieces in 
 short order." 
 
 I have written all this because now that I 
 am leaving business on account of my health 
 I feel that it is due to myself and to the friends 
 to whom I wish to communicate to relate my 
 personal experiences and the trend of my life. 
 There was no limit to what a boy had to do 
 in the days of my youth. The atmosphere 
 in which we were brought up was such that it 
 compelled the doing of things. There was 
 virtue in the birch rod and the shorter cate- 
 chism, and all through life there was empha- 
 sized the value of the old-fashioned virtues — 
 patience, prudence, perseverence, persistence 
 and plodding. These virtues ought to be 
 spelled with a capital P. They are too little 
 realized and appreciated, especially by the 
 youngsters. 
 
 This plain tale is just to encourage some 
 one, perhaps, to believe that there is some- 
 thing in the practical side of life and that it 
 is within the reach of anybody who will pay 
 the price — patient and strict attention to busi- 
 ness and association with superior people, 
 mentally and morally superior people. 
 

 to! 
 
 Rfrffi 
 
■>K,