FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 143 



It has been my privilege to be with Mr. Matthews and 

 associate with him in this work only recently, because of my 

 connection on one of the committees of the Illinois Bankers'. 

 Association. Mr. Matthews asked me for assistance in this 

 work such as I could give and it has certainly been a privilege 

 to work with him. 



I thought that the work would be short and simple and?" 

 endeavored to go into it with enthusiasm, but we had not got' 

 started until we found one obstacle after another. In my own 

 home town the experience was very much the same as Mr. 

 Grissom's. Where we could go into a town and find people 

 who had the money to buy cows, it was an easy matter. How- 

 ever, we soon found that there were a great many bankers very 

 much interested in the proposition who were not in position to 

 furnish the money to the farmers to buy cows. We soon de- 

 cided there was not much doing until we could find a way and 

 be able to assure the banks that we had a place that they could 

 either borrow money or sell the notes that they took from the 

 farmers in payment for the cows they would buy. I am de- 

 lighted to say to you tonight that we have made arrangements 

 with the Woodruff Trust and Savings Bank of Joliet, through 

 Mr. George Woodruff, who is also a member of the Illinois 

 Bankers' Association, and at a meeting in Chicago I outlined 

 our plans, having talked to him before that time. We told 

 him that we thought we could use about $150,000.00 in the first 

 campaign in Southern Illinois, where we expected to start this 

 movement and we had word from him that he had decided to 

 agree to take over from the bankers who would furnish the 

 money to the farmers in their community notes to the- amount of 

 a quarter of a million dollars for this first campaign. (Ap- 

 plause. ) 



It appears to me that our condition is the same, only ex- 

 actly opposite of the fellow who bought a piece of land with a 

 little timber on it, it was probably 20 acres and only a small 

 tract of timber but he thought there was enough there tc pay 

 him to buy a saw mill, and so he wrote several manufacturerr, 

 whose names he had secured in some way or other, and told 



