Conventions

Last week, the U. S. convened.

Philadelphia played host to bankers.

From the speech-making at the convention of the American Institute of Banking, earnest assistant cashiers culled these thoughts:

Bad checks (forged, bogus, worthless, raised, altered) are on the increase, both as to number and amounts involved.

Collection of checks by airplane will save money. A bank receives a check for $5,000,000 on a town 150 miles away, collects by airplane and gains one day's interest (about $625 at 4^%).

Women in the financial world have a greater patience for detail than men, find feminine intuition useful.

Picklepackers, gathered at Chicago, gave way to general rejoicing. They hailed the creation of a new market, a substitute for the free lunch counters which vanished with prohibition. Thanks to the nation's womanhood, bent on reducing, the industry is convalescent.

Eyes glistened, mouths watered, as C. J. Sutphen, pickle premier, secretary of the national association, proclaimed: "Garnished with crisp celery and olives and covered with cracked ice, pickles have held the rank of first of the American hors d'oeuvres. The most jaded of appetites respond to the stimulus of the pickle." Comparing notes, jubilant picklepackers reported mounting sales, renewed popularity of pickles, plain and fancy, sweet and sour, dill, warted.

More determination than rejoicing marked the conferences of 100 macaroni and noodle manufacturers, also at Chicago. Olive-skinned, dark-eyed, they shouted Vivas when they heard Chief Noodle-maker Henry Mueller of New York announce that the average Italian eats four miles of macaroni a year. But they shook their heads dolefully at the pitiful 211 feet which is the per capita ration of the U. S.

Patriotically, they noted that in time of war the U. S. could squeeze its own dough, ooze it through its own long, skinny tubes, hang it up in its own drying-rooms, economically independent of macaroni-mad Italy.

"Stay East, young man," counselled potent Meatpacker F. Edson White, president of Armour and Co., principal speaker at the Omaha convention of the National Live Stock and Meat Board. Middle Western farmers, declared Meatpacker White, should discourage "back-to-the-farm" propaganda, should hope for fewer farmers, higher prices. Confounding calamity howlers, he compared yearly incomes of farmers in the Middle West with the national average. His comparison: Nebraska $4,010; South Dakota, $3,356; Iowa, $4,180; Kansas, $3,020; U. S. average, $2,350.

Louisville heard the roar of airplanes, the rumble of private railroad cars, and knew that Indiana's 89 realtors had arrived for the convention of the National Association of Real Estate Boards. Marion Stump, chosen to sing the praises of Indianapolis corner lots and bungalows, hoped to win the bitterly-fought "home town talk" contest. Hoosiers, among others, learned that the woman in the family buys the house, after considering these advantages: accessibility to golf courses, colored tile bathrooms, low window sills.

Three groups, including 10,000 railroaders, met at Atlantic City for a searching probe into revenues, costs, competition. They listened to contradictory advices. How should the railroads view the competition of motor trucks and busses? With Alarm, declared M. B. Lambert, transportation salesmanager for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., pointing to decreased equipment orders, decreased business for local, branch line, short-haul services. With Satisfaction, retorted Interstate Commerce Commissioner Frank McManamy, insisting that short-haul freight, short-distance passenger service, brings little or no profit to railroads. With Determination, compromised R. H. Ashton, president of the American Railway Association, adding motor competition to rate reductions, rising costs, on the list of urgent problems.

Attuned to the delicate harmonies of whispering poplars, 200 Eastern nurserymen watched with surprise the robust entertainment devised by hospitable Denver. Five cowboys, acquired at the stockyards, rode down Denver's Broadway, roping sedate nurserymen, shooting blank cartridges, intimidating nervous pedestrians. Delegates longed for their peaceful greenhouses. Denver, alarmed at what it had started, sent its entertainers to jail.

U. S. poultrymen failed to convene. If they had met, they would have discussed the statistics compiled by D. H. Otis, director of the agricultural commission of the American Bankers' Association: An increase in the average number of eggs laid by each chicken in one year from 56 to 135--a proven possibility--would nearly cut in half the 409,290,849 chickens now required in the U. S. It would result in a capital saving amounting to $538,255,386.

Conventions are expensive. Director R. E. Logsdon of the Memphis, Tenn., Convention and Tourists Bureau has estimated annual U. S. convention attendance at 5,000,000, annual costs at $1,250,000,000.