Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1891 — A COUNTRY BOY’S RIDE [ARTICLE]

A COUNTRY BOY’S RIDE

Few Novels Can Excel in interest the Life of Bank President Williams. Kansas CityTlrnes. “Forty years ago, one pleasant summer day, a good deacon front' Norwalk, Conn-, drove into the city of New York in an old-fashioned one-horse shay. He brought wit’i him his son, a mere boy of eighteen or nineteen, then fbr the first tin.; to experience* the vicissitudes of life in a large city. Would you like tc know what became of that boy?” in quired Mr. J. S. Gaffney, ofNen York, superintendent of agencies foi the United States Life Insurance Company, now registered at th» Coates House. “Well, I will tell you. To-day that youth is the president of the Chemical National Bank of New York» City, the most solid and substantial banking institution in the. country, His name is George Williams, and he has been connected with that bank in some capacity from the day hr first entered the doors With his father forty years ago until the pres ent. Such a record in America, where everything is shifting and changing, is worth more than .a passing mention. The Chemical National Bank is the bank in which the wealthy Neu Yorkers, the Astors, the Vander bilts, the Goulds and many other: who care more for security than in terest make their large deposits I myself have seen a check for $5. 000,000 in favor of Jay Gould on the Chemical National Bank. ThJ stock is limited to $300,000, but th<; property of the bank, independent o| the name, is worth $10,000,000. Is ii any- wonder that the shares, which started in at a par value of SIOO, ar<| now worth $5,000 at least, and it’i: almost impossible to get one of then at any figure? Other bahks comj and go, other banks rise and fall, but this bank seems to have caughl glimpses of immortality, if this phrase can be used in speaking of a brink. “The brains of this bank, the mar who has made it what it is to a large degree, i§ George Williams. His. record is one to be envied. He has made money himself, and he is rated a millionaire several times over in the commercial agencies. But he he can command tens of millions of dollars. He is regarded as one ol the best among living financiers. li you can get his endorsement to any project you can get any amount ol money that you need in New York. __ Go to your Kansas City bankers or any bank on either side of the water and whisper the magic name ot George Williams to them and it will cause the sesame to opentheir vaults and let out their millions. Too often the worth, the merit, the work of men like George Williams is forgotten in the West, especially where men are always in a hurry, but once in a while we remember these things.”