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Thus, with a glad hand, did Governor Young wave aside any little unpleasantness about speculation. The Wall Street bulls beamed with relief. The press was amazed. Said Writer B. C. Forbes, bluntly, in the New York (Hearst) American: "He said nothing. Either he was muzzled by the Washington powers that be, or more likely, he muzzled himself. A high-powered shell proved to be a dud. Politics, presidential elections, are responsible for more than making strange bed-fellows."
Gloom. James E. Baum, no glad-hand artist, told bankers that as deputy manager of the protective department, he must report a distressing fact. In the year ending Aug. 31, member banks of the A. B. A. suffered 177 daylight robberies and 28 night burglaries, an increase of 55% over the previous year.
Resolution. From the convention there emerged, at length, a resolution. It caused no alarm in Manhattan. It said:
"We respectfully suggest that bank depositors who have funds for investment cooperate with their bankers to the end that nothing unsound shall develop that might result in the disturbance of the healthy business on which we must all depend for our comfort and happiness."
*There were 60 branch banks in 1900; 166 in 1905; 329 in 1910; 565 in 1915; 1052 in 1920: 2233 in 1924; 2989 in 1928.
† There are 12 banks in the system. Most important, for psychological reasons, is the New York unit. But its governor, Benjamin Strong, was neither speaker nor delegate in Philadelphia. He lay seriously ill in a Manhattan hospital after an operation for an intestinal ulcer.