ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Study in Finance ----VI---Page 35

Had the company, instead of putting itself at the mercy of a

thirty-five-dollar-a-week clerk, placed double combinations on the loan

and deposit vaults, and employed two men, one to act as a check upon the
other, to handle its securities, or had it merely adopted the even
simpler expedient of requiring an officer of the company to be present
when any securities were to be removed from the vaults, John would
probably not now be in jail. It would seem that it would not be a
difficult or complicated matter to employ a doorkeeper, who did not have
access himself, to stand at the door of the vault and check off all
securities removed therefrom or returned thereto. An officer of the bank
should personally see that the loans earned up to the cage in the
morning were properly returned to the vaults at night and secured with a
time lock. Such a precaution would not cost the Stockholders a tenth of
one per cent. in dividends.

It is a trite saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of

cure. But this is as true, in the case of financial institutions at

least, from the point of view of the employe as of the company. It is an
ingenious expedient to insure one's self with a "fidelity corporation"
against the possible defalcations of one's servants, and doubtless
certain risks can only be covered in some such fashion. These methods
are eminently proper so far as they go, but they, unfortunately, do not
serve the public purpose of protecting the weak from undue and
unnecessary temptation. Banks and trust companies are prone to rely on
the fact that most peculations are easily detected and severely
punished, but the public interest demands that all business, State,
municipal and private, should be so conducted that dishonesty may not
only be punished, but prevented.

A builder who "took a chance" on the strength of a girder would have

small credit in his profession. A good bridge is one which will bear the

strain--not only of the pedestrian, but of the elephant. A deluge or an

earthquake may occur and the bridge may tumble, but next time it is

built stronger and better. Thus science progresses and the public

interest is subserved. A driver who overloads his beast is regarded as a

fool or a brute. Perhaps such names are too harsh for those who overload

the moral backbone of an inexperienced subordinate. Surely the fault is

not all on one side. While there are no formulas to calculate the

resiliency of human character, we may demand the same prudence on the

part of the officers of financial institutions as we do from nursemaids,

lumbermen and manufacturers of explosives. Though we may have confidence

in the rectitude of our fellows, we have no right to ignore the

limitations and weaknesses of mankind. It would not outrage the

principles of justice if one who placed needless and disproportionate

strain upon the morals of another were himself regarded as an accessory to the crime.