216 Tweniy-Fdrst Biennial Ebpobt 



ing their surplus wealth, the bread hill of tomorrow, as 

 well as their wealth used eaoh day in the channels of 

 commerce, the fuel that keeps the commercial machine in 

 motion. By a process of commercial selection and com- 

 petition you have been selected as their trusted custodian 

 because they have confidence in your integrity, and your 

 willingness to serve them as the guardian of their 

 wealth. Responsibility always carries with it a high de- 

 gree of obligation, and you cannot evade the obligation 

 or the duty by a refusal to recognize it, nor by indiffer- 

 ently ignoring it. Responsibilities are like poor kin; 

 you can destroy the relationship by refusing to recog- 

 nize them, not by ignoring them — they are there just the 

 same, and if you try it your shabby conduct does not re- 

 move the sense of obligation from your conscience, nor 

 avoid your being lowered in the estimation of your neigh- 

 bors. I do not believe that there is a man before me, 

 nor a banker in western Kentucky who would not gladly 

 and cheerfully assume his part of the responsibility of 

 his position, and give his time, his thought and his money 

 to the meeting of this obligation and the performing 

 of this great social service — a service that has a two- 

 fold reward, first the consciousness of having frankly 

 met a responsibility that attaches to your position, and 

 having performed a service to your community, and sec- 

 ondly, the material reward that will come from making 

 your community a more prosperous one, and of elevating 

 your fellow-citizens economically and financially. 



Without pursuing generalities or abstractions any 

 further, I am going to tell you what an organization of 

 business men in Paducah, prominent among whom are 

 the bankers of Paducah, has done in meeting this re- 

 sponsibility in some measure of applying the solution 

 of the question. Paducah has had for many years an 

 open market maintained by the city for the purpose of 

 offering a means to the farmers and particularly to the 

 truck and provision growers of disposing of their wares 

 to the citizens of Paduoak Truck gardening around 

 Paducah had reach the point of an over-production for 

 the local market, with the accompanjdng lessening of 

 prices, and yet there was not a sufficient amount of the 

 various products faised nor a co-operative organization 



