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CURIOUS "RUN" ON A BANK William A. Shryer, in Leslie's. Supposing you were to be told that a certain bank in your town was besieged by a line of people over 200 feet long, and that they commenced to gather long before the doors were opened at 9 a. m.? Suppose you learned that, the minute the doors were opened, this crowd jammed into the lobby and, continuing to gather, refused to leave until each any every one had made his laborious way to the little cages that need no description? What would you think if you learned that it became necessary to call out the police department to handle such a crowd, which refused to relinquish their common object until six long hours past the time-honored hour every bank is supposed to close its doors? If your experience with banks and bankers is that of the average man, it would not be hard to guess that your answer to these questions would be: "A run on the bank, of course!" These things occurred in the city of Detroit on March 1 of this year, and the crowd of people that besieged this bank numbered over 6000. It is possible that a few who needed a little money managed to fight their way to the cages of the paying tellers and withdrew their usual daily needs. Five thousand eight hundred and sixty-one of them, however, came for an entirely different purpose. They came to deposit money in that bank and refused to leave until they had done so. In the light of preconceived notions about banks one would be entirely justified in branding this story as a figment of the imagination, and yet it is true. The bank was the Highland Park bank of Detroit, and what is more remarkable still, the bank had no hoary traditions of age to partially explain such a mark of confidence and trust. It was a new bank, the youngest in the city, and on this eventful day was celebrating its first anniversary. For the past 15 years a number of men, whose energy in the face of discouragement is amazing, have been trying to make the banks see that it pays to advertise. As a result, there are a number of banks which actually spend real money in advertising. Many, however, continue to look upon the double-column, five-inch display of the financial statement of the bank as advertising. Not so the Highland Park bank. Its officers and directors believe in putting the human touch into business and the above result was due to a regular human interest newspaper campaign.
