CONSOLIDATION OF NATIONAL BANKING ASSOCIATIONS 17
The bill as it is now before you has been twice considered by the
House Committee on Banking and Currency and has twice passed
the House in substantially the same form and substance, namely, on
January 14, 1925, without a record vote, and February 4, 1926, by
a vote of 293 to 90. I may say that the consideration of the bill
both in the House committee and upon the floor was entirely non-
partisan in character and that a majority of both major parties
voted for the bill. The House committee held public hearings during
the Sixty-eighth Congress, but considered further hearings unneces-
sary before reporting out the bill at the present Congress.
While the bill Xe Bis a number of important amendments to the
national banking laws, only the provisions relating to branch bank-
jag have aroused any considerable discussion.
he provisions of this bill have been before Congress and the
public oo the past two years, and have been discussed at length in
the financial publications by students of banking, by all of the organs
of public opinion concerned with banking affairs, and by the agencies
of the Federal Government responsible to Congress for the recom-
mendation of banking legislation. As a result of the consideration
which has thus been given the bill, the issues involved in the limited
controversy that has arisen are clearly and definitely defined.
With the main purposes of the bill, no responsible person has
raised any objection. It is universally recognized that the necessity
is urgent for the national banks to Sie the cumulative benefits
which this bill will give them. The national banks must be able to
render a modern banking service else they can not survive. The
responsibility is upon Congress to preserve this great Federal in-
strumentality upon which the Federal reserve system is founded.
The Federal Government can not afford to see the control over the
great instrumentalities of credit pass predominantly into the hands
of State institutions. It has been recognized for more than half a
century that the relationship of commercial credit to banking is
vested with a national interest. In it the public welfare is concerned.
Its supervision and control can not be left to the decentralized control
of 48 general State legislatures.
No one who has given the matter serious thought can fail to be
impressed with the fact that the national banks are now attempting
to compete with State banking institutions which have within recent
years gained from the State legislatures charter powers more readily
to meet the present day demands of commercial enterprise. This
situation phe the general purpose of this bill.
While the bill has been subjected to a very though study by
bankers, Government officials and legislatures and has been recom-
mended by the official of the Government upon whom Congress has
placed the responsibility for recommending banking legislation to
Congress, namely, the Comptroller of the Currency, 1t 1s an emer
gency measure intended for immediate enactment. It does not
embrace every phase of possible banking legislation: Questions of
governmental supervision of banking were purposely omitted from
the bill. Tt is primarily a bill dealing with charter powers,
The suggestion has been made that before. Congress should pass
this bill there should be an extensive scientific investigation by a body
of experts expressly set up by Congress for that purpose. I would
be inclined to favor such an investigation but not as a condition prece-
