CONSOLIDATION OF NATIONAL BANKING ASSOCIATIONS 201 
STATEMENT OF EDWARD B. GREENE, VICE PRESIDENT 
CLEVELAND TRUST CO., CLEVELAND, OHIO 
Mr. Greene. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 
want to say a word on just that point of the advisability of emend- 
ing the proposed bill so 2s to make it possible for both National 
banks and State banks to establish branches not only within the 
city where the parent office is located, but in the communities of the 
State immediately contiguous. 
I think some of those who have opposed this change in the bill 
have said that they were perfectly willing and believed thet the 
banks whose branches were located within the community, were, in 
their opinion, the best thing for the country as a whole. The point 
I desire to make is that the word “community” and the word 
“city "—that is, technically, the municipal boundaries of the city— 
are not synonomous. I believe as far es contacts go that a community 
is not bounded by its boundaries #s established by its council, but 2s 
established by the contact that the people make socially, in finance 
and in business, end that a community is made up of a group of 
people living in close proximity, brought into contact with each other 
daily, with the seme aspirations and the same benefits and suffering 
from the same injuries. I think there are a good muny things thet 
point out that the real dividing line, or real description of a com- 
munity, should not be within the limited area bounded by the dis- 
trict which is controlled by the common council es distinguished 
from that governed by one of the other communities. 
The CHAIRMAN. You think we should confine ourselves to where 
the responsible officials of the city bank actually live and pass their 
home time, although not contiguous territory and not within the 
political division of the city. 
Mr. GREENE. I am sure of that. I feel that big city banks in many 
cities—and I think that would be true of places like Baltimore and 
Philadelphia and other places where they hive a similar situation— 
I feel that something like 50 to 90 per cent of the officers of the city 
banks do not live within the legal municipal confines. I know that 1s 
true in Cleveland. In the case of the institution with which I am 
connected, out of the first ten officers, eight of them live in the sub- 
urbs. It has been said that when the officers of a bank do not live 
within the city, it was foreign ownership, absentee control, etc. 
It is impossible for me to recognize that, as calling anybody who 
lives over the line of a municipality a foreigner or an absentee landlord. 
I believe too that the cities are in to become broken up into 
smaller municipal units rather than into bigger ones, where they have 
local administration and institutions such as schools, and those are 
joined together in a metropolitan district for the control of the other 
things: in other words, the cities themselves are recognizing this fact. 
The city of Cleveland contains three municipalities independent of it, 
yet Cleveland goes beyond them. In other words, this small district 
of 10 miles, say, by 6 or 7, contains three foram municipalities. 
Now it seems absurd that you could not establish a branch within 
that small district where you can go across the street and start there. 
It so happens that one of our ranches—and we have many of 
them, 47—is on the dindhg line, and if that branch were removed 
34 feet it would be within the city. As a matter of fact it isin the