In some of the mills, the treasurer has the largest part in financial administration. In such cases he is frequently a younger man, a product of the newer South, who has pushed his way up in the enterprise to the position of real power, leaving the president, who is perhaps a man better equipped in community esteem than in specific training, as nominal head of the concern. This has happened at Gastonia, North Carolina, a particularly progressive spinning place. But in most of the companies, especially the smaller concerns, the president is in chief control of financial affairs. He often stamps his personality deeply on every department of the business of the mill and village and region even. A case in point is that of Mr. Charles Estes, when interviewed 98 years old, and for twenty years before his retirement in 1901, president of the John P. King Manufacturing Company, Augusta. With some show of pride, he related how during his active career the manager of the R. G. Dunn commercial agency in Augusta one day called him into the office and let him see the report of the King Mill. It read: "John P. King Mfg. Co. Capital Stock $1,000,000. 3 per cent. semi-annual dividends. President calls directors together once in six months and tells them what he has done." "And that was the way I ran the mill," he declared.[352] The Salisbury, N.C., Mill has a singular plan. Financial administration is concentrated in the hands of a finance committee composed of the president, treasurer and agent, or manager. The directors do about as the finance committee indicates; they hold a less important place because of the ill health of several of their number. Though nominally the whole finance committee passes on questions, the president does not attend regularly, and one of the directors not on the committee always agrees in the action of the smaller group.[353]