584 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



the crowd, that the vice-president was also there. When he got to him 

 he said,. "Did you leave the bank, too?" and the vice-president said yes, 

 but that the cashier was there and that was enough to run the bank these 

 times. He walked on a little farther and ran into the cashier, and then 

 there was something doing, and they wanted to know why the dickens he 

 had come away and left that bank all alone, and the cashier replied, "Why, 

 I thought the vice-president was going to be there; I didn't have any idea 

 he would come too; I'm a delegate to this convention, but you men ought 

 to have stayed home." The president was kind of worried for a while, 

 but finally his face brightened up and he said, "Tom, there's nothing to 

 worry about; you locked the safe before you came, didn't you, and we are 

 all three here." (Laughter.) 



Now, gentlemen, it is well enough to smile a few times these days, be- 

 cause we have many things to bother us in a financial way, particularly, 

 which do not provoke smiles, but we do not get anywhere by being too 

 pessimistic. It is the man who tightens up his belt and goes after things 

 that gets things, not the man who sits around and says that things are 

 going to the dogs, and he is done for and everything else is done for, be- 

 cause it is going to take a lot of close figuring and hard work for Iowa to 

 pull out of the situation she is in. There are many things that are going 

 to combine to help us. There are many things that combined to put us 

 where we are. The bankers and the farmers of this state have a big job 

 ahead of them; they have got to work; they have got to help each other 

 more than they have ever done before, and one thing that they must have is 

 supplemental credit for both the farmers of this state and the bankers, and 

 that is the thing that I have come here to talk to you about this morning. 

 We are interested in this, and people all over the state of Iowa are inter- 

 ested in the matter of supplemental credit for the Iowa farmers and the 

 Iowa banks. 



Now, perhaps we had better discuss this subject by starting right in the 

 beginning of it. If you are interested in a thing, you would like to know 

 how things happened and what you expect to do, and I am now referring 

 directly to the Iowa Bankers' Association. As I finished my term as 

 president of the Iowa Bankers' Association we had just finished two years 

 of the greatest prosperity that Iowa had ever seen. We had just had 

 poured into Iowa two billion dollars for the two crops — a sum unprec- 

 edented in the state. We had gone through a period of prosperity which 

 some people thought would keep on forever; we were buying everything, 

 and if we didn't have the money we gave our note, and he got what he 

 wanted on his paper; but now it is pay time and we are cleaning it up. 

 The period of deflation was commencing last year. In May of 1920, or 

 June, we were trying to get cars for Iowa, and fifteen organizations had 

 joined together — we all joined together to try to get cars for this state 

 to help move the products from the farm and factory. It is hard for us to 

 realize that in a year and five months we have gone through this fearful 

 period of deflation. It soon became evident we were in for a serious time, 

 and, as far as the bankers were concerned, they found out they would have 

 to work in very close co-operation with the farmers of this state, and they 

 did so, and they were met more than half way. It went along in this 



