Bankers Speechless

All banquets have a speakers' table, and no exception was the banquet given last week at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria by the trust division of the American Bankers Association. But from the speakers' table came no speeches. Trust-division President Merrel P. Callaway announced that the evening's entertainment would be "something more acceptable." At 10:12 p.m., expectant bankers & guests saw the gold plush curtains of the ballroom stage draw slowly apart, reveal a piano against which leaned Miss Helen Jepson. A pretty, blonde soprano who reached radio fame with Rudy Vallee and Paul Whiteman, Miss Jepson is beginning her second year with the Metropolitan Opera Company (TIME, Nov. 25). She sang Ah, forse e lui from La Traviata, an English folk song, a Viennese waltz song. Bankers whistled, shouted, cheered, stamped. "It was a departure," explained Mr. Callaway later, "but without a speaker of commanding personality with a burning issue . . . speeches are an intrusion."

Trust departments of U. S. banks suffer from low current interest rates, find it difficult to make trust funds of $20,000 or less selfsupporting. New York banks try to keep their minimum trust funds closer to $50,000. But they cannot get too haughty about taking little accounts because their advertisements solicit a general trust business. Trustee fees vary according to the State, the Courts, the local customs. In New York, banks get from 1 1/2% to 3% of both principal and income, the percentage depending on the size of each./- Sometimes big estates pay less than standard rates, but this practice is frowned upon. The late Elbert Gary (U. S. Steel Corp.) willed the trusteeship of his estate to N. Y. Trust Co., but only if a cut rate was granted.

/-Five percent on first $2,000; 2 1/2 on next $20,000; 1 1/2% on next $28,000; 2% on all over $30,000.

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