CONSOLIDATION OF NATIONAL BANKING ASSOCIATIONS 161 
tion. When I have finished, if I have made that clear, I have accom- 
plished the object of our coming here. 
On J anny 4, 1926, the Cleveland Clearing House Association 
passed the following resolution: 
Whereas Congress after a great many years of agitation on the part of various 
banking Siganlagfions recognized the necessity for modernizing the national bank- 
ing act, and the desirability of taking steps toward unifying—through the Federal 
reserve act—the banking system of the country, and 
Whereas there is now before the Committees on Banking and Currency in the 
Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States, S. 1782 and 
H. R. 2, being bills providing for the amendment of the act entitled “ An act to 
provide for the consolidation of national banking associations,” and 
Whereas the Cleveland Clearing House Association and other affiliated banks 
of Cleveland strongly believe that the legislation now before Congress is directed 
along the very best lines, with the one exception outlined in the resolution noted 
below, but believes, however, that Congress deserves the help and assistance of the 
entire banking community in its efforts to carry out the plans outlined above: 
Therefore be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the members of the Cleveland Clearing House 
Association and other banks affiliated with it, that Senate bill No. 1782 intro- 
duced by Senator Pepper in the Senate of the United States and H. R. bill No. 2, 
introduced by Mr. McFadden in the House of Representatives, meet with the 
full concurrence of the members of this association, with the exception of that 
clause of section 9, which forbids the establishment of branch banks beyond the 
corporate limits of the municipality in which the parent bank is located, and that 
this association respectfully Foquosts and urges the Committees on Banking and 
Currency of the Senate and House, respectively, so to amend such bills that it 
will be permissible to establish branches in contiguous territory as defined by the 
Federal Reserve Board in its resolution of November 7, 1923, to mean ‘‘ The terri- 
tory of a city or town whose corporate limits at some point coincide with the cor- 
Potsts limits of the city or town in which the parent bank is located.” And, it is 
rther 
Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be forwarded to Senator George Whar- 
ton Pepper and Congressman Louis T. McFadden, and to Senators Frank B. 
Willis and Simeon D. Fess, and to Congressmen Theodore E. Burton, Robert 
Crosser, and Charles A. Mooney. 
The Cleveland Clearing House Association desires to file the fol- 
lowing brief Seting forth to some extent its reasons for the adoption 
of the resolution above set forth: 
It clearly appears that the Cleveland Clearing House Association desires such 
an amendment as will grant to its members and to all State and national banks 
the right to establish branches in contiguous cities and villages, which privilege 
the banking laws of Ohio already provide. 
In 1917 the Federal Reserve Board, in seeking to bring about mobilization of 
all banking reserves as a war-time measure, was successful in getting Congress 
to amend the Federal reserve act so as to allow State banks and trust companies 
to enter under the condition that they be permitted to retain their full charter 
a statutory rights, and in its annual report of 1917 the Federal Reserve Board 
said: 
“The action of Congress in confirming what the board had attempted to 
accomplish by regulation has given State banking institutions firm assurance 
that they may continue to carry on their lawful banking business in substan- 
tially the same way as they have heretofore done without fear of future changes 
in methods prescribed.” 
Depending upon this assurance the Guardian Trust Co., the Citizens Savings 
& Trust Co., now the Union Trust Co., the Cleveland Trust Co. and other banks, 
members of the Cleveland Clearing House Association, entered the Federal 
reserve system and now feel that the rights which were guaranteed at that 
time should not be taken away from them. The laws of Ohio relating to State 
Danks and trust companies in so far as branch banking is concerned, provide as 
ollows: 
“Sec. 710-73. No branch bank shall be established until the consent and the 
approval of the superintendent of banks has been first obtained, and no bank