FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT The Financial Department is prepared to furnish information regarding standard investment securities, but cannot undertake to advise the purchase of any specific security. It will give to inquirers facts of record or information resulting from expert investigation, and a nominal charge of one dollar per inquiry will be made for this special service. All letters of inquiry should be addressed to THE OUTLOOK FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING TO THE AMERICAN BANKER "SELLING " A BY JOHN BALLARD N Arkansas member (Mr. McCain) has the floor and is telling the American Bankers Association the story of a one-bale cotton planter: I will tell you an instance .of what converted us in Arkansas to the cotton co-operative association. It won't take but a minute. They were trying to get up one. Some of us in Little Rock were very lukewarm. We had talked it over, and felt that we should remain neutral and wait for developments rather than give it our moral and financial support. One afternoon about 4:30 the cashier of our bank came to me and said: "We have a customer here who owes the bank fifty dollars, and he brought a bale of cotton into town this morning at eight o'clock. He has been here all day, and the best offer that he has been able to get on that bale of cotton is six cents a pound." Cotton at that time was not in particular demand-it was along in July-but cotton was selling at eight and nine cents a pound when you could find a buyer. I said to him, "What is the matter with the cotton?" He said: "I don't think there is anything the matter with it. He has gone out to see if he can't get hold of a man to Forty-one Tests for Safety SAFETY is the fundamental requirement in invest- S.W.STRAUS & CO. was founded more than four vestments. Years have come and gone, with wars, panics, and These years and the record each has brought forth indorse his note so he won't have to sell this bale." "I said, "Go up and get him." The fellow came down, and I said, "Have you tried to sell that cotton all over town?" He said, "I have been to every buyer on the street in Little Rock to-day with that bale." I said, "What is wrong with it?" He said, "There is not a thing wrong with it." "Won't you get me a sample?" I He went down and brought it, and, while I am not an expert in grading cotton, I could see that it was white cotton, it was ginned properly. said to our cashier, "Go over to one of our customers and see what he will give this man for his bale of cotton." He went over to see him. Our cashier said, "Mr. West, here is one of our customers who has a bale of cotton we want you to buy." The dealer took the sample, and said, "What do you want for it?" "Just an honest price that you can make some money out of." buyer said, "You will have to haul it to the compress, which is only nine or ten blocks down." He said, "I will haul it anywhere." That was the difference between that man getting thirty dollars for his bale of cotton and still owing twenty dollars on his note, and getting seventy dollars and being able to pay his note and have twenty dollars left. He got seventy dollars for the bale of cotton. I saw Mr. West the next day, and I said, "Mr. West, did you' do us any particular favor in buying that bale of cotton?" He said: "I will tell you. I hate to tell you this, but that is one of the best bales of cotton that I have bought this year. That was inch and an eighth strict middling white cotton. I have been trying to fill an order that I have had for some time for one hundred bales of that cotton. I completed it this morning, and I am shipping out that one hundred bales of cotton, of which this bale is one, through your bank this afternoon, at thirty-two cents a pound." I immediately called a meeting of the Clearing-House and I said: "Gentlemen, I am sold on the Co-operative Marketing Association. Whenever a farmer can walk into Little Rock and offer for sale to all the cotton firms in this town a bale of cotton and not know what he has, not know the grade and staple of his cotton, and be offered six cents for it and afterwards get fourteen, and the same day have that cotton shipped out of this town at thirty-two cents a pound, that is a question that every banker in Little. Rock and every banker in the State of Arkansas ought to be interested in, because we ought to have him getting all the money he can get from that bale of cotton." We told them then that we would THE EXECUTIVES of a manufacturing company were confronted with an important question concerning production. Should they hold back-or go ahead? "Wait!" said one. "I have been talking with our bank. They are sending us a survey of conditions which contains more facts than we have been able to gather, and a study of the bearing of these facts on the production schedule we have under consideration now." Decisions can be made accurately only when all the facts are known. The Equitable is in touch, day by day, with changing conditions in many localities and industries. Its officers are trained to interpret. the facts and apply them to specific business problems. Thus we frequently are able to help a commercial customer to eliminate guesswork in deciding some problem relating to production, selling, or organization. Officers of manufacturing and mercantile companies whose growing business requires a more comprehensive banking service are invited to consult us. 71 He Knew How to Get 7% With Safety "I continue to leave with your company my confidence, together with the investment and re-investment of a goodly number of thousands of my funds." From a letter from an old Miller investor. The man who wrote those words was one of our first customers. Years ago, when Florida had scarcely begun to develop, he saw that the State had a brilliant future and began buying first mortgage securities from us. Year after year he invested liberally and re-invested a substantial part of the interest he received-and when he died, the other day, he was a rich man. Through all those years he had never failed to get interest and principal from us on the day it was due. Today, it no longer requires keen business judgment to see that Florida is a good place to invest at 72%. We have investors in every State who are getting that rate regularly on Miller First Mortgage Bonds. If you have money to invest, or will have it in the future, mail the coupon for handsome free booklet "Florida Today and Tomorrow." G. L. MILLER BOND & MORTGAGE CO. 611 Miller Building, Miami, Florida. Please send me the booklet "Florida Today and Tohave morrow." I some money for which I am seeking will have a good first mortgage bond investment paying 7%. Name.... Address... City and State FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT (Continued) furnish them whatever money they needed and would make only one requirement of them, and that was that they should have a good business administration, and on their first election of directors should submit to us the names, so that we could counsel with them. This is a narrative which points its own moral and tells quite as effectively as expert market surveys or massive statistics why the American Bankers Association has in 1923 placed its powerful organization squarely in line with the farmers who are working to establish the orderly marketing of agricultural products. The most significant aspect of the National meeting of bankers held in Atlantic City during the last week of September was the marked change of attitude in respect to the co-operative movement. The story of the Arkansas planter and his single bale of cotton, transcribed from the stenographic record of the session, was told to the State Bank Division of the Association by C. S. McCain, Vice-President of the Bankers' Trust Company of Little Rock. G. L. Miller BOND & MORTGAGE Company Florida's Oldest First Mortgage Bond House 611 Miller Building, Miami, Florida The Association as a whole, like Mr. McCain, is "sold on the Cooperative Marketing Association." Opinion on the subject has rapidly consolidated during the past year and found expression in the Atlantic City meeting. This does not mean that all bankers hail the plan with enthusiasm. Some, and they are in the main country bankers, still view it narrowly and remain as lukewarm as Mr. McCain and his associates were before they had a vivid object-lesson. Nevertheless there was manifest in the Atlantic City meeting an overwhelming sentiment in favor of helping properly organized co-operatives to achieve their aims. The bankers who remain skeptical should not too hastily be set down as wholly selfish obstructionists. The rural financier is a hard-boiled conservative, and, if an elderly man, has seen the rise and decline of so many projects heralded as sure cures for agriculture that he is waiting to be shown. The big fact is that orderly marketing is now to have its trial with the backing of the strongest financial body in America. Already the work of giving effect to banker participation in the movement is well under way, with the State Bank Division of the Association in charge. Direct dealings with the co-operatives are through the Agricultural Commission of the American Bankers Association, which has for its director Professor D. H. Otis, late Assistant Dean of the Wisconsin College of Agriculture. There is also an Advisory Council, composed of President William M. Jardine, of the Kansas State Agricultural College. Manhattan, Kansas; Dean Dodson, of the College of Agriculture, University of Louisiana, Baton Rouge; and Dean Harry L. Russell, of the Wisconsin It is with mixed feelings that some of the granger pioneers in co-operation regard the new turn of affairs which places the formidable machin ery of the American Bankers Associa tion at the service of a movement which not many years ago was led by men who were called radicals. There will be some to suspect that the lion is about to take the lamb into partnership on terms that will not change their respective characteristics. Nev ertheless the bankers have engaged in this enterprise with every mark of sincerity; besides which there is further and perhaps more convincing evidence of good faith in the existence of a strong and plainly defined business motive. The co-operative mar keting association has suddenly appeared on the banking horizon as a dependable and profitable customer. The War Finance Corporation, functioning under the Agricultural Credits Act of 1921, opened the eyes of bankers who had been reluctant to place faith in any method of financing the production and movement of crops except by means of loans to individual borrowers. That agency of the Government, revived as an emergency instrument, made in 1921 advances aggregating $175,000,000 to co-operative marketing associations and also made 750 loans, amounting in all to $72,000,000, to live-stock loan companies. The funds supplied by the War Finance Corporation to combinations of producers exceeded by nearly $70,000,000 the aggregate of loans obtained through the same channel by 4,400 banking institutions in the agricultural sections of the country. The larger loans were made to strong associations, like those of the cotton growers, and the success with which they were liquidated was but one of the impressive phases of this emergency financing. Pledging the cotton in lots of 100,000 to 300,000 bales, the associations were able quickly to relieve the distress of thousands of member planters. The entire South felt almost immediately the beneficial effects of these operations, and nowhere were the results more apparent than in the banks. Largely psychological at first -the first fruits of a rebound from pessimism-the initial dealings of the War Finance Corporation with the cotton co-operatives were soon fol lowed by improvement of a more substantial kind, as loans were liquidated. deposits began to mount, and a healthy circulation that still stirs the commer cial arteries of the South set in. If from a banking stand point the farmer in big business immediately qualified as a borrower worth cultivating, the outcome was no less satisfactory the men on the farms. Carl Williams, of Oklahoma, President of the Ameri INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN JACKSONVILLE is in 10% of Florida's Population is in Jacksonville! This statement is significant to investors, as population invariably increases values. Jacksonville has steadily grown in size. In 1910 it had 57,000 inhabitants, in 1920, 91,000, now considerably over 100,000. At present rate of increase the city will house a population of 225,000 by 1928. For profitable investment, Jacksonville presents timely opportunities, in a favored section, where statistical experts predict, during the next decade, the greatest commercial and industrial growth will take place. Money is in good demand, at a high rate of interest, justified by the diversified needs of a progressive city, entering upon a new era of development, and by the agricultural and horticultural progress of the State of which Jacksonville is the financial center. Investors are invited to write for copy of booklet "Investment Opportunities in Jacksonville," which gives concise information about the city, and the numerous opportunities offered for the safe and profitable use of capital. City Advertising Room 10-Q, City Hall Jacksonville, Florida FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT (Continued) can Cotton Growers' Exchange, told the American Bankers Association that every member who marketed his crop in 1922 through a cotton association received at least $20 per bale more than the non-member was paid for cotton of the same grade and quality. This is one of the developments, not all of which have been confined to the South, by any means, which account for the fact that the co-operative movement is now being given such banking support as no one a few years ago would have ventured to predict. The note of caution is not wanting. In a resolution adopted by the State Bank Division at the Atlantic City meeting the bankers declare their "faith in the orderly marketing of crops and the efficacy of the co-operative marketing idea; provided, however, that organizations employing this idea are conducted on sound economic principles." The Public Service Committee of the bankers also thought it prudent to warn the farmers that "the greatest danger which co-operative associations have to avoid is the temptation to hold commodities for speculative purposes, and to attempt to unduly increase the price by artificially withholding the products from the market when actually needed, instead of disposing of them in an orderly way as the demand for them justifies." If bank advice is followed, the marketing associations will retain out of each year's operations a certain percentage of their receipts to be set aside as a surplus or reserve fund, a plan already followed in some cases. For example, the Staple Cotton Growers' Association of Mississippi has in each of three successive years set aside approximately $400,000, so that it now has what amounts to a capital of nearly $1,200,000. Obviously marketing associations able to create such reserves and to keep on adding to them would not merely establish a first-rate basis of bank credit, but would conceivably take on a character quite different from that of a simple selling organization without capital stock, and become powerful syndicates. At all events, if co-operative marketing fails to solve the American farmer's problem, it will not be for want of money. How the infant prodigy will perform when vitalized by such nourishment as the associated banks are able to impart remains to be seen. If the control of all staple commodities should swiftly pass into the hands of marketing associations, perhaps we shall see a sudden flaming up of interest in the consumer's co-operative, which, as one of the spokesmen for the farmers remarks, "is a cat of quite another color." How $10 a month becomes $22,000 In the Nation's Capital SMALL sums saved system atically run into big money when interest is compounded at 6%% or 7%. Between the vigorous age of 25 and the retirement age of 65, a man or woman can amass more than $22,000 simply by making a first payment of $10 and then putting aside $10 a month under our Investment Savings Plan. Of that $22,000 only $4,800 is principal paid by the investor. All the rest-$17,200-is compound interest. $20 a month will amount to over $44,000 in the same period. $30 a month to over $66,000. First Mortgage Investments -that pay from 62% to 7.13% with unquestioned safety, that are secured by improved, incomeproducing property in Washington, the Nation's Capital; that have back of them our record of no loss to any investor in 50 years these are the foundation of our Investment Savings Plan. Our free booklet, HOW TO BUILD AN INDEPENDENT INCOME, explains in simple, understandable language how anyone who can and will save $10, $20, $30 or more a month can follow our plan with safety, convenience and profit. The coupon below will bring you our booklet without any obligation whatsoever on your part. It is a book of facts that prove how casy it is to have an independent income. Send for it now. NO LOSS TO ANY INVESTOR IN 50 YEARS The F.H.SMITH CO. Founded 1873 First Mortgage Investments Smith Building, Washington, D. C. Please send me your Booklet E-6. Address TOUR Hotels and Resorts NEW YORK CITY Hotel Wentworth 59 West 46th Street Admirably located just off Fifth Avenue in the heart of the shopping and theater district. A quiet, high-class family hotel with comfortably furnished rooms, single or en suite, and the highest grade restaurant service at moderate prices. The management makes every effort to have guests regard this hotel as a real home while in New York. The hotel is convenient to subway, elevated, and surface lines going to all parts of the city as well as the Fifth Avenue bus line, running the whole length of the world's most famous thoroughfare. GEORGE A.LEONARD, Manager. 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