228 HERBERT F. DE BOWER 



also, if, in lieu of this penalty, the man drawing out pays $1 or 

 $2 a share for the privilege. All these provisions are directed 

 at the careless or defaulting or failing type of man, and the sum 

 of all these exactions will redound to his final profits. 



Easier than a savings bank for the man who wants to 

 borrow money — safer and more profitable far to the man who 

 wishes to deposit money — ^no fear of embezzlements, panicky 

 runs, doped books, or wildcat speculations — all these possi- 

 bilities are shown to the man who in his own local neighbor- 

 hood or small city goes in with men whom he knows in a mu- 

 tual agreement for community welfare and individual profit; 

 and, above all, the fact that no one other than the secretary 

 receives a salary compensation, from president down. 



Frankford, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, originated the 

 scheme in the Oxford Provident Building and Loan association 

 away back in 1831. Between 1840 and 1850 the building and 

 loan association rose to the dignity of a permanent institution, 

 and ever since the state of Pennsylvania has held the palm for 

 numbers of associations and memberships. 



Ten years ago the scheme was in the height of its exploit- 

 ing, favorable and unfavorable. Some trickeries and crooked- 

 ness in certain ways and means, especially in the national 

 companies, made bad odor for the association scheme. But 

 the building and loan association, as a mutual organization 

 for building loans and safe investments, is by no means dead 

 or dying. Among these associations, local and national, 

 which existed in 1893 there was a membership of 1,745,725 

 in 6,000 associations; there were $450,000,000 in shares out- 

 standing; only 456,000 members of associations were borrow- 

 ers; and in the life of the institutions then in existence only 

 8,400 mortgages had been foreclosed, valued at $12,217,000, 

 and showing loans of only $450,000. 



Considering that 90 per cent of the membership in these 

 institutions were without banldng experience or investment 

 experience of any kind, could the showing be better? And 

 especially could it be better when in the mere plans for the 

 distribution of matured shares and earnings there were twenty 

 six methods in use and nearly 100 plans for the reducing of 

 dues and the adjustment of loan apportionments? 



