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The newspapers made much of the incident, and that day the directors of the Liberty Bank, happening to hold a meeting, decided they would like to employ him. So he became an assistant cashier. A year later, he was made cashier, three years later Vice President, and in another year more President—at age 32. The way he increased the bank's business was so marked that it soon had to move to larger quarters. Its lease had two years to run, and so Davison organized the Bankers' Trust Co. to fill the vacant quarters. Today it is the largest trust company in America.
Then George F. Baker got his eye on Davison and induced him to become, at 35, his right-hand man, Vice President of the First National Bank. Then came the panic of 1917. Davison was one of the bankers whom J. P. Morgan rushed around to in the dark days. Next year he was made adviser to the National Monetary Commission. Then one day in the fall of 1908, J. P. Morgan called him into his library and announced that he was to become a partner in J. P. Morgan & Co. During the War, President Wilson called upon him to become Chairman of the Red Cross War Council, where he displayed his financial abilities by raising more than $100,000,000 in one campaign. The world of finance generally agrees that at the time of his death in June, 1922, H. P. Davison was the ablest partner in the Morgan firm.
Of the son, John Farrar, his college classmate, editor of the Bookman, has written as follows:
"A member of the class of 1918 at Yale, to which college he came after being graduated from Groton, he devoted himself after the opening of the European War to the formation of the Yale Naval Aviation Unit, which performed heroic service later both in matters of organization and of actual combat, and of which Ralph D. Paine had just completed a history before his death. Into this he poured enthusiasm, time and money. He built it up to a point of great usefulness and efficiency. Then, when he was taking his own flying tests at Huntington, L. I., in 1917, his machine crashed and he was terribly injured. His recovery was uncertain and slow; but he rallied, and, with heroic persistence, went on with his advisory work and interest through the War. He was awarded the Navy Cross.
"After the War he took a Law Degree at Columbia and is now associated with White and Case [Manhattan lawyers] in the practice of his profession. His father's death found him in a position to devote his entire life to politics, and he has given earnest attention to the study of taxes and reforms. His career as an Assemblyman has been marked by faith and bravery, and his causes, not always won, have been fought regardless of public approval for what he believed to be the truth.