South Carolina Building and Loan League Meeting.

BY E. O. BLACK, Secretary.

The thirteenth annual meeting of the South Carolina Building and Loan League was held at the Jefferson Hotel, Columbia, S. C., February 23, 1922. There were delegates from all parts of the state in attendance.

Many enthusiastic and instructive addresses were made and reports from the officers were unusually interesting. During the year, several cities of the state had put on Home Building Drives, in which the Chambers of Commerce had co-operated with splendid success. Evidence was submitted to show that the building and loan association is recognized in the state as the only agency that can secure funds sufficient to insure steady operation of the home building business on a legitimate and stable basis.

Among the speakers were: P. W. Spencer, president of the League; W. A. Coleman, John P. Thomas, Jr., John E. Black, L. A. Wittkowsky, B. M. Spratt, J. C. Coulter, W. J. Dunn, W. E. McNulty, Rudolph Anderson, J. Waties Thomas, J. S. Morse, J. E. Brockman, Claude Davis, E. O. Black, A. C. Flora, Hunter A. Gibbes, G. A. Smith.

Officers for the ensuing year were elected as follows: L. A. Wittkowsky, Camden, president; T. S. Perrin, Spartanburg, first vice-president; Robert Moorman, Columbia, second vice-president; E. O. Black, Columbia, secretary and treasurer.

It was the sense of the meeting that special efforts should be put forth by the League during the year to put plans in operation for organizing building and loan associations in communities where they are needed and stimulate as far as possible all associations in the state that are inactive.

The place for the next meeting is to be decided upon by the Executive Committee.

Notice of New York League Meeting, June 15-16.

The New York State League of Savings and Loan Associations will hold its thirty-fifth annual convention Thursday and Friday-June 15th-16th-at Saranac Lake.

For hotel accommodations, etc., delegates and their friends. are advised to communicate with Mr. Clinton J. Ayres, secretary of the Saranac Lake Savings and Loan Association.

The officers of the local association and the Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce have interested themselves in a pleasant reception of the delegates in that beautiful town in the Adirondacks, and the officers of the league have in preparation an interesting convention program.

These meetings are of very great importance to the success and welfare of our association, now, more than ever, so kindly arrange to be there and bring your friends.

ANN E. RAE, President.
JOHN H. WHITE, Treasurer.

ARCHIBALD W. MCEWAN, Secretary.

Slaving or Saving?

Are you making any headway?

Have you got your feet planted on solid ground?

Or are you working a treadmill, slipping back continually to your starting point, and sometimes a little more, so that it becomes a habit and you imagine you are chained to the old rut.

If so, you are about on a par with the slaves of old who were compelled to operate the treadmills by keeping constantly on the move in a walking motion, but never getting ahead. Back of them stood the master with his lash to urge them on in case they showed signs of lagging.

The difference between the two kinds of treadmill workers is that the slave of old was to be pitied while his modern counterpart is getting what is coming to him.

Each week the spendthrift puts his pay check into the hopper and gets nothing tangible in return. Back of him stands his creditors who are constantly threatening him with their lashesgarnishments, suits and attachments. The spendthrift dares not stop. In the course of time he finds upon his back a heavy load of debt that makes his daily work more tiresome and monotonous. But still he must keep moving.

On the other hand, the man who saves systematically is soon able to make a declaration of independence all his own for with money in the savings and loan association he is free from the lashes that annoy those who spend their all. There are thousands of men and women who have broken away from the drudgery of the treadmill of life and have become their own masters. They joined building associations and became home

owners.

Activities of Frank S. Chase, Building and Loan Expert.

At the recent convention of the Southwestern Lumbermen's Association, held at Kansas City, Mo., Secretary-Manager J. R. Moorehead, in his report, referred to the activities of the building and loan Manager Frank S. Chase, who has been promoting and organizing building and loan associations throughout the central west for the past year under the auspices of this association, saying in part:

"A few facts stand out boldly through the experience of this department. First, there are more people in every community who want and need homes and have no money and cannot get it than there are people who want and need homes who have or can get funds with which to build. In other words, more than half of your possible customers in your community, wherever you live, cannot own a home simply because they cannot secure the funds. We believe, therefore, that the members of this association are much more interested in a building loan than in building material, for without the building loan you have no opportunity in a majority of cases to furnish people building material from which your profit is made.

"This movement, which was an experiment last year, has become nation-wide. Your secretary and Mr. Chase are called upon to answer letters in reference to the organization of building and loan associations from one end of the country to the other, and as far away as Canada. What the country needs is at least forty or fifty men doing the same kind of work as is being done by Mr. Chase. He has brought this movement and its possibilities to the attention of the building and loan authorities of the entire country. We hope for country-wide, national progressiveness and activity, for we have already sold this movement to the building and loan authorities with which we have come in contact. Why cannot we sell it to all the lumbermen, manufacturers as well as retailers? In our judgment, if the manufacturers of lumber should put the same effort that they are now attempting to enlighten the public, behind a movement to secure the money through 'co-operative savings' to supply even a fair per cent of the demands for homes, the demand for lumber for home building would consume an amount equal to the capacity of the saw mills of the country."

Mr. Chase, in his report to the convention said, among other things:

"Experience has greatly extended the opportunities for real service presented to this department. While overlooking no favorable opportunity to supply the need for new associations, we have found increasing recognition of the fact that few building and loan associations are operating with maximum efficiency and none have been sufficiently sold to the public.

"Including about a dozen return engagements, we have worked in ninety-four cities, assisting a hundred associations, including the complete organization of sixteen and the promotion of twenty-two others, most of which will probably be chartered during 1922. Incidentally, we have assisted in the actual sales of several millions of dollars, par value, of building and loan shares.

"During the eleven months, we addressed one hundred and seventyone meetings, including sixteen league meetings and conferences with league officials, five universities and colleges, twenty-five high schools, twenty-one Chamber of Commerce and one hundred and four mass meetings, Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis clubs, women's clubs, labor unions, clearing house associations, churches and lodges, together with innumerable individual and group conferences. The attendance at these meetings may

be conservatively estimated as having exceeded forty thousand and probable exceeded fifty thousand. In no instance was a lack of interest manifested and in every case where such action would seem appropriate, endorsement of the movement was heartily given.

"The people generally are lacking in definite information regarding the benefits of building and loan. In too many cases those who would organize are not competent to do so without outside assistance, but the commission promoter is usually more a detriment than a help. Everywhere we go there is ample proof of the need of the kind of work that our Mr. Moorehead had in mind when he proposed the organization of this department; the people are more than grateful to our association for the service rendered, and to the local dealers a material change in attitude is usually shown."

Building Associations in Illinois.

It is refreshing to find a publication devoted to the interests of banks and bankers that has a wholehearted word to say in commendation of building and loan associations. The following extracts from an article by C. C. Burford, in The Chicago Banker, will therefore be read with interest:

Building and loan work in Danville has reached colossal totals. The story is an interesting one. Danville as a building and loan center in Illinois stands alone, with perhaps no other city even a close second. It is said that there are less than a dozen associations in the United States larger than the largest one in Danville. The Danville Building Association alone with assets of over five million dollars and with a monthly income in excess of $125,000, is one of the truly great business undertakings in the State of Illinois. But this is only one Danville association.

Danville has six associations. All of them are large, speaking comparatively, the smallest one having considerably over one million dollars in assets. The associations have been in successful business in Danville for an average of forty years. They are so strongly established that one cannot know Danville and its business without considering the Danville building and loan associations. Practically every man, woman and child, not only in Danville proper, but in the thickly settled industrial communities around that city, save money through them. Savings in building and loan investments are part and parcel of the thinking of thousands of Danville people. So many homes have been bought, built or repaired through these associations that practically the entire population of the Danville district has come into contact in some way with one or more of the associations.

The six associations, with possibly one exception, have ground floor locations. When one enters these offices he is confronted with bank surroundings. Clerks are on duty in tellers' cages as in a bank. In Danville the associations are really as important as the banks. Some of them are almost independent of the banks, having such large incomes that they borrow but little, one or two of them not borrowing at all.

The Danville associations are largely known by the names of their secretaries. Few people speak of the Danville Building Association, but usually of the Philips and Espenschied Association, H. F. Espenschied being vice-president and S. F. Philips, secretary. The associations are as follows: Vermilion County Building Association, Harvey C. Adams, secretary; Danville Benefit and Building Association, M. J. Wolford, secretary; Danville Building Association, S. F. Philips, secretary; Fidelity Investment and Building Association, J. W. Webster, secretary; American Building Association, Louis Pratt, secretary; and the Equitable Building and Loan Association, E. R. Partlow, secretary.

Usually there is a tendency to criticize large building and loan associations, especially by those interested in smaller associations. There may be certain dangers in larger organizations which are not true in smaller ones.

This is probably true of many lines of business. No doubt, expenses can be lowered and certain dangers elminated in a small building and loan association. It is also said that such a large monthly income will create a desire to make larger and more unwieldy loans and to loan funds because they happen to be on hand or coming in as no interest should be lost. There may be some dangers embodied in these suggestions and Danville secretaries are conscious of them. but we believe they have eliminated these pitfalls and have their business upon a sound and secure basis. While we have commented at some length upon the Danville associations, we do not wish to minimize the work of many other worthy similar organizations throughout the state. There are many large building_and loan associations in Illinois, though it is true none approach the Danville associations, collectively, in the size and scope of their work.

Bloomington, one of the best cities of the state and one of the strongest financially, stands almost alone in her view of building and loan work. Bloomington was the home of the so-called "national" building and loan associations which flourished thirty years ago like the green bay tree and "blew up" and great was the fall thereof. Today in Bloomington, a prize city of Illinois, there are two small associations, both well organized and well managed and as sound as a new dollar, but not larger than are found in many ordinary villages. This is not their fault, but their misfortune to be located in unfriendly surroundings. The environment has been against them for years, one of these associations having been organized in 1881.

Building and loan workers in many parts of the state, meeting Bloomington people, are solemnly warned of the dangers they are confronting and that their associations may or possibly will "bust." This has been true especially in the last two decades, but is now happily passing away. The present generation knows only by hearsay of the crash of the old "national" associations, which loaned in all parts of the United States and accepted the sky as the limit for their loaning basis. The Bloomington crash, like all sad experiences in life, taught building and loan men that only local associations could be profitable and permanent. Their success has depended upon a certain amount of "grandmotherly" caution and care in their management.

Probably no other force stands more for the thrift idea, so sorely needed now, than do the local building and loan associations. They are truly American in their loyalty as the motto of the United States Building Association League is "The American Home, the Safeguard of American Liberties." Banks and associations work hand in hand in practically every community. Indeed, bank officers are usually officers and directors of associations. Frequently, there is an association allied with each bank, or each important bank. In cases almost without exception the banks and the associations work closely together, as the former wish the "building and loan" to relieve them of their real estate mortgage loans. For a bank, a local real estate mortgage with the interest and an optional amount of principal payable each six months or each year is hardly liquid. But with a building and loan association, with the interest and a part of principal compulsory each month, the loan is decidedly liquid. Few, if any, banks down-state have worked out the mortgage loan real estate bond as have Chicago banks, so that the building and loan associations selling their investment shares are in reality placing among the people real estate bonds, protected by first mortgage loans.

Thus, the banks can limit their credit largely to commercial and personal loans while the associations give their attention almost exclusively to real estate mortgages. True, some banks make real estate loans while some associations emphasize certain banking features, very properly and legally, too, by making personal loans with their own shares as security, while some associations hold government bonds, this being largely temporary, however, because of our recent war experiences. The loaning field for building and loan association, however, is limited by law to first mortgages on real estate, loans on their own shares as collateral and investment in government securities.