The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
First, the figures for New York were far from complete. It may be noted
that Dean Kinley, in his volume for 1909,[391] is very careful to
repudiate the assumption that the cities were complete more than the
country: "Moreover, it is a mere assumption that the non-reporting banks
are mainly the small banks in the country districts. _A great many city
banks also did not report._" (Italics mine.) That this is true for New
York is abundantly evident from figures there given for the private
banks and the trust companies, not to consider at all the State and
national banks. New York shows only $1,751 in checks deposited in the
"all other deposits" in private banks! This is a city which includes
among its private bankers J. P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn, Loeb and Co., J. &
W. Seligman & Co., and others! Figures from these banks appear nowhere
in Kinley's totals, since deposits made _by_ these banks in other banks
are also excluded from Kinley's figures.[392] Of course, exact figures
cannot be given to show how much New York would be increased had the
private banks made full reports. We have no reports of any kind from
these institutions. Every feature of their business is kept from the
lime light, as far as possible--a practice which is much to be
regretted, since it arouses hostility and suspicion, where a statement
of the facts in the case would frequently entirely dispel them. We have,
however, some information regarding the magnitude of their deposits,
meaning by deposits, not what Kinley means in this investigation,
namely, checks, etc., _deposited_ on a given day, but rather, deposits
in the balance sheet sense of demand obligations to depositors. In Nov.
1912, J. P. Morgan and Co. held deposits of $114,000,000, exclusive of
49 millions on deposit with their Philadelphia branch of Drexel & Co.
About half of these were deposits of interstate corporations. Kuhn-Loeb
held, on the average, for the six years preceding 1913 over 17 millions
of deposits of interstate corporations. What their aggregate deposits
were, we do not know. These figures are obtained from the report of the
Pujo Committee.[393] Morgan's deposits were equalled by only three banks
and two trust companies in New York (as of April 3, 1915), and
Kuhn-Loeb's deposits for interstate corporations alone exceeded the
total deposits of any one of the great majority of the New York Clearing
House banks and trust companies. Of course, large deposits in the
balance sheet sense need not mean large deposits made on a given day.
Private bankers' deposits may be inactive. But we know, first, that half
of these figures for Morgan, and the whole of the figures given for
Kuhn-Loeb, represent the deposits of active business corporations,
engaged in interstate business. They are not mere trust funds lying
idle, or awaiting investment in securities. What the rest are we can
only conjecture. That they are deposits of men and firms connected with
the Stock Exchange in some way is highly probable.
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