Continental

One morning last week the Chicago Tribune headlined over a Washington dateline the news that Walter J. Cummings, head of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., was to be made chairman of Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. Since Chicago's biggest bank had not planned to choose Mr. Cummings, the inference was the Administration, contrary to repeated promises, intended to force officers of its own choosing upon banks in which RFC was a stockholder.

The astonished officers of Continental Illinois rushed excitedly into one another's offices, consulted by telephone with their directors. For two days every banker who had sold preferred stock to the RFC sat on the anxious bench. In Washington Mr. Cummings said he could not talk till he heard from Chicago. In Chicago ostensibly to attend a banquet, Jesse Jones professed to "know nothing about it." declared that his RFC would not interfere with banks whose present management was "satisfactory."

The Tribune's news bomb fizzled harmlessly when word leaked out that a committee of Continental Illinois directors had settled on a bank chairman of their own. He was George Alfred Ranney, long-time treasurer of International Harvester, since last May assistant to James Simpson in the job of cleaning up the Insull operating companies.

At the turn of the century the late Cyrus Hall McCormick was looking for a cashier for his reaper company. He sent an emissary to fetch George Ranney, 24, a teller in the Chicago branch of the Bank of Montreal. Said young Ranney: "If Mr. McCormick wants to see me. let him come over to the bank." So the great Cyrus, in his sideburns and full dignity, marched into the bank and took Teller Ranney away with him. In time Mr. Ranney became Harvester's financial expert, was given credit for Harvester's lucid financial statements, became (and still is) one of Harvester's most valued directors. He has been fittingly named co-executor of the will of his fast friend, the late Alexander Legge.

Today tall, iron-grey haired and handsome, George Ranney (along with many a socialite McCormick, Wendell. Morton. Palmer) has an apartment at No. 1260 Astor Street and plays middling and sometimes mildly profane golf with his friend Melvin Traylor of Chicago's First National, of which he is a director and member of the executive committee. But unlike many a Chicago tycoon who got drenched in the downpour of Depression odium, George Ranney has come through with his reputation unaspersed. Last week Mr. Ranney discreetly held his peace while Continental directors waited until the RFC's approval should make possible formal announcement of his selection. But LaSalle Street felt sure that shortly after New Year he would go into the chairman's spacious walnut-paneled office on Continental's second floor. Since last March when Chairman Stanley Field, indicted in connection with the Insull collapse, resigned, Continental's president, James Reader Leavell, has been doing the work of president, board chairman and finance committee chairman. He badly needed someone to help him steer Continental, whose liquidity has been much refreshed by $50,000,000 of RFC money (TIME, Oct. 23), back to prestige and dividends. What Continental is today it was made by the Brothers George and Arthur Reynolds who built it up (with 32 mergers) to be the biggest bank west of Manhattan --a title since taken over by Mr. Giannini's Bank of America of which Arthur Reynolds last February became vice chairman. To the Brothers Reynolds also went criticism for overexpanding loans, for sometimes employing good fellowship instead of good judgment in banking. On their heads also poured the wrath of Chicago's oldtime banking aristocrats. Today few Chicagoans care to discuss the Reynolds Brothers. The job of Continental s next chairman will be to put the bank which has successfully survived the Depression and the Insull collapse back across the economic divide.

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