Second Time First

Almost two decades have passed since Wall Street was entertained by the neck & neck race between National City Bank's Charles Mitchell and Chase National Bank's Albert Wiggin for the title of the nation's biggest bank. Chase won out, via mergers with other banks, and held its lead till three months ago. Then a brash West Coast upstart, old A. P. Gian nini's Bank of America, pushed past it.

At the end of the third quarter Bancamerica had, with the aid of its 491 branches, outstripped Chase by piling up $4,750,000,000 in deposits, over $5,000,000,000 in resources.

Last week Winthrop W. Aldrich, Chase's chairman of the board, took pleasure in announcing that Chase had: 1) for the first time passed $6 billion in resources; 2) for the second time become the world's biggest bank. Chase deposits now total more than $5,740,000,000; its assets $6,092,600,648, up $932,597,000 in a year.

Old A.P.'s bank could not even hold on to second place. It was pushed down to third place by Manhattan's National City.

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