CONCENTRATION OF BANKING INTERESTS 427 



tal, and enables them to tie up in their own enterprises banking 

 resources that should be available for the use of the community 

 at large. Especially undesirable is it to have life insurance 

 and trust companies drawn so largely into the domain of spec- 

 ulative finance. The general tendency of the times seems to 

 be to confuse the distinction between enterprises that are safe 

 and investments for funds in a fiduciary capacity and ven- 

 tures that should be undertaken only with capital that is 

 otherwise provided. Underwriting projects in which a profit 

 of two hundred per cent is considered none too large a compen- 

 sation for the risks assumed, do not furnish a good field for the 

 conservative employment of trust funds. It is in these direc- 

 tions rather than in the menace of a monopoly that the present 

 dangers of the concentration movement are to be found. 



The systemization and, within conservative limits, the uni- 

 fication of our banking system offer large opportunities for le- 

 gitimate enterprise, and contain the possibility of great advan- 

 tages for the entire country. The analogies furnished by ex- 

 perience of other nations suggest, at any rate, that such devel- 

 opments are likely to occur during the next decade. The joint 

 control of numerous banks will probably lead to what will 

 amount virtually to the growth of branch banking, which has 

 proved so successful wherever it has been tried. Monopoly 

 will not be the result of such a process, if the example of other 

 lands may serve as a guide for our conclusions ; rather will it in- 

 crease the effectiveness with which capital competes with capi- 

 tal in all parts of the United States. But the movement must 

 be guided with great circumspection if political antagonism of 

 the most violent character is not to be aroused ; and it must not 

 be directed with a view to the advantage of ulterior industrial 

 interests. At the center of any stable system there must 

 stand large banks of which the independence and the conserva- 

 tism must be as unquestioned as the power. Without these 

 qualities, mere bigness will be of no avail; and this is the fact 

 that must receive chief emphasis in the consideration of present 

 conditions and tendencies. 



