After the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association in Washington last year, most of the delegates packed up for home feeling that they had been cheated out of a just revenge for two years of New Deal badgering. Itching to stick out their tongues at Franklin D. Roosevelt, they had been muzzled just at the moment when the President might have noticed them. Instead of offering defiance, the ABA officially proffered peace in a dramatic speech from Jackson Eli Reynolds of Manhattan's First National Bank (TIME, Nov. 5, 1934). As far as rank & file ABA members were concerned, the famed "truce with the White House" was rammed down their gullets.
Last week the nation's bankers met again, this time in New Orleans, home town of retiring ABA President Rudolf S. Hecht. The climate was milder, the bankers bolder, the New Dealers more conciliatory.
President Roosevelt dispatched greetings to the 3,500 ABA delegates through RFChairman Jesse Jones, writing: "I am gratified ... to know that all banks are now in a strong position, and I hope they will take full advantage of the new Banking Act. . . ."
The President's emissary gloomed paternally about railroads, took a few digs at their "banker management," then seconded his chief's plea for bigger & better lending. "Since real estate is the basis of all wealth and industry the most essential factor in employment," pleaded Mr. Jones, "these should have, to a reasonable and safe extent, favored treatment by banks in making loans." The bankers had heard that tune before from Jesse Jones, and when he finished his address, the RF Chairman grinned, drawling:
quot;You know what I think of you bankers? I think you're a swell lot of guys. Some of you are afraid of your own shadow and wouldn't lend $10 on a $20 bill, and I'm looking right at. . . ." Mr. Jones stopped but eyed a fellow citizen of his native Houston. The bankers roared. "You notice I didn't say $20 gold piece," the burly Texan added. "I don't know what is ahead either but I know what is behind us. I know there's plenty of meat in the smokehouse and flour in the barrel and, whatever it is, we'll lick it somehow."
Mr. Jones's hearty reassurances notwithstanding, the bankers were almost unanimously agreed that the chances of licking whatever was ahead would be considerably enhanced by a change in Administration. They were honestly worried about Federal deficits, Federal spending, the steady encroachment of Federal regulation and control. They were incensed about taxes (see col. 3). They wanted the Government to get out of business, particularly the money-lending business. They deplored the growing popularity of the spend-our-way-to-prosperity theory. They hoped that the new Federal Reserve Board when appointed would turn out to be a true banking "Supreme Court."