We are a practical people who are more given to consideration of improving our methods than to reflection upon our existing greatness or that of our predecessors. For that reason I have up to this time devoted your attention to progress in methods and means of credit research. I will now turn your attention to some practical features of the business we are doing based on bank credits. I have been much interested in determining the relative volume of bank loans on commercial paper to the various classes of borrowers. While this relation undoubtedly fluctuates widely it is my conclusion that the following statement reflects about the average condition:

This was ascertained from the distribution of 186 different loans, aggregating upward of thirteen million dollars. The average distribution of some sixty million dollars of loans placed through brokers in New York gave the following relative proportions:

The striking preponderance of loans from banks to manufacturers is evident from both of these statements. It becomes of interest to us, then, to study further these various classes of borrowers, and I have prepared from the statements of some one hundred concerns a set of typical balance sheets that will bring before us some credit features, which it will be of profit to us to study with care.