The office in its organization has three or four departments. The Organization Department receives the applications for the creation of a national bank. The application must set forth the names of those who are seeking the charter, the amount of capital, the population of the city, etc. When the application is received, the Comptroller examines it to ascertain whether or not the persons applying should be granted a charter; and if, in his judgment, a charter should not be given, it is not granted. This is not the result of any statutory requirement, but a course which the office has assumed of itself without any question as to its right. The great powers of which the incumbent of the office is possessed are powers which he has assumed rather than received by legislative enactment, and their assumption and continued possession come largely from the fact that the banking institutions over which he presides realize the importance of the Comptroller's hands being upheld, if the banks are to be healthful and sound institutions.

The bank, having been granted a charter, is given a name, that which the incorporators select always being given, unless at that time or prior the name suggested has been used by another bank. The bank, having then deposited with the Treasurer of the United States the minimum amount of bonds, may now take out circulation. There have been a good many banks, especially in the larger cities requiring a minimum amount of $50,000 bonds, which have never taken out any circulation whatever. I think there are few banks that have the maximum amount of circulation which the law permits them. This is on the principle that there is not any profit in the circulation, and that it is better to leave the bonds without taking out the circulation, paying the tax, and going to the general trouble of having the circulation issued.