Gesture in Cleveland

Did the banking holiday end U. S. bank closings? Does the U. S. Government stand ready for all practical purposes to guarantee the deposits of the banks whose reopening it licensed? More than one dubious citizen asked these questions. Last week the citizens of Cleveland asked them in peremptory fashion. One morning they began to withdraw their money from several branches of Cleveland Trust Co.-- Cleveland's largest bank,* with 54 offices scattered over Cleveland and neighboring counties, a bank that had reopened 100% immediately after the banking holiday ended. Suddenly about 1 p. m. withdrawers began to stream into the four-storied circular banking room of the bank's antique central office. They came & came until those who looked down from the balconies above saw only a tesselated pavement of male hats and female bonnets assembled before the paying windows. To the president of Cleveland Trust in his office on the top floor of the bank's adjoining annex now came the supreme question which every banker has rehearsed hypothetically: "What shall I do if a run starts on my bank?" Last June when that question came to Melvin Alvah Traylor of Chicago's First National, he went among the crowds of excited withdrawers, told them that the bank had been through the Chicago Fire, through the depressions of 1873, 1893, 1901, 1907, 1921 and it would weather this depression. They dispersed. Last week the head of Cleveland Trust got into his little old-fashioned elevator and let himself be trundled down to the ground floor. It was 2:35 p. m. and the silent, anxious crowd was thicker than ever. It paid little attention to the not particularly commanding figure of a man in a brown suit who made his way to a desk in the centre of the lobby. His be- havior appeared a little unseemly: he clambered up on the desk and clapped his hands at the crowd around. Then he spoke four simple declarative sentences. "I am Harris Creech, the president of the Cleveland Trust Co. There have been unfounded rumors circulated about the Cleveland Trust Co., causing many depositors to withdraw their money. To accommodate them to do so, this bank will remain open until 5 o'clock today instead of 3 o'clock, the regular closing hour. The bank will be open tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock." The silent crowd began to buzz with conversation. Banker Creech crossed the room, mounted a stairway and repeated his announcement. A number of people smiled, dropped out of line and left the building. Banker Creech retired. At 3:45 p. m. he reappeared and from the desk top he repeated his little speech "for the benefit of those who were not here be- fore." The crowd, considerably smaller than before although augmented by curious onlookers, applauded. Banker Creech paused to accept the congratulations of his officers and other bankers who had dropped in to wish him well, having known him for ten years as Cleveland Trust's president, before that for two decades as clerk, treasurer, vice president, president of Garfield Savings Bank (merged with Cleveland Trust in 1922).

At 4 p. m. newspapers appeared in the street bearing an announcement by Governor Elvadore R. Fancher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank: ''These [Cleveland] banks were licensed and re-opened for full operation after careful determination of their condition. They are sound, and they have and will continue to have the full support of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland." The streamers from the papers were hung all over the banking room when the bank closed at 5:08 p. m. Meantime in Washington Secretary Woodin and officials of the Federal Reserve and R. F. C. had been in earnest conference. They let it be known that the Government would back the reopened Cleveland banks "to the limit." This was no great news to most of Cleveland's businessmen. They had taken it for granted. The run had been staged chiefly by small depositors, among whom alleged malicious reports had been spread. Detectives scoured the city hoping to catch and pillory the gossipers.

* Larger in booming 1929 was the Union Trust of which Joseph Randolph Nutt, treasurer of the Republican National Committee, was president and chairman. Union Trust could not open after the banking holiday.

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