Fourth

Always write your name exactly as you wrote it on the bank's signature card. "Mrs. William Smith" may be the same person as "Mary V. Smith," but the bank-account doesn't stand that way.

Adopt one signature and stick to it. Do not flourish nor make a fancy signature. Handwriting experts will tell you that a plain distinctive signature, with no furbelows, is the most difficult to forge.

The law of forgery is that the bank is bound to know your signature, and pays a forged instrument at its peril. The risk is all theirs, but that is not to say you should not help eliminate the chance of forgery by taking care that your checks are properly drawn. If you are grossly negligent, you might have to stand the loss yourself. Better be safe than sorry. There are numerous protecting devices on the market, some better than others, and these may be used as added safeguards; but there is no rule of law that compels you to do so. You are safe if you follow the above suggestions, but safer if you use a protecting device, for then you can not be charged with any negligence in making your checks forgery proof. Do not make it easy to work a fraud through your account. Do not give checks to strangers. Do not leave your check-book lying around. Do not leave a signed check where it may be filled in and used.

Having made a deposit, show that you have common sense by not at once checking most of the money out. If you intend to go into business for yourself later on, don't do anything that will injure your character standing in the community in the opinion of your banker. Don't be extravagant or dissipated. Your bank is sure to hear of it, sooner or later. Don't allow yourself to be posted at a club for nonpayment of dues. Pay ail bills promptly. These things seem trivial, but they weigh heavily with a bank officer. Above all, don't under any circumstances get the reputation of being inattentive to business. Regular habits and persistent industry will count in your favor when the time comes for a loan.

When you first open a bank-account, don't be foolish enough to ask for a loan immediately. Never change from bank to bank if you can help it. If you have creditors, they will hear of it and get suspicious; and of course the bankers will. If you should change your account, and if the new bank asks why you are making the change, don't say: "Oh, they did not treat me well over there."

This book is written primarily for the young man who is making his first plunge into business and a bank-account. When the time comes for him to borrow, he should lay all his cards on the table. If he conceals anything, even though it is a trivial matter, the evasion will injure his credit later. The bank wants to know the worst in the beginning. Nine times out of ten the basis for bank loans is the average deposit balance the borrower has been keeping for some length of time. If the young man has had, say five hundred dollars on deposit for a year or two, has a good reputation, and makes a clean statement of what he wants the money for, he can usually borrow about two thousand dollars.

Don't be timid about asking for a loan if you have lived up to these qualifications. Remember that if you lose the bank's money nothing worse than a foreclosure at the most can happen to you. But if the banker loses his depositor's money he may go to jail. He is right in being wary.

Especially where a fairly good-sized deposit is kept on hand, and by good-sized I do not mean many thousands, the bank usually feels under obligation to lend to a depositor on more advantageous terms than to others. It can do this because it is more or less acquainted with the depositor's affairs, and can accept personal credit, such as a note secured perhaps by nothing except a neighbor's endorsement, where other banks would require collateral security, such as bonds, mortgages and insurance policies. Naturally, in their dealings with regular depositors, the bank's officers become well acquainted with their character and their resources and are thus in a position to determine to how large a line of credit each one is entitled. But the chief advantages come in time of panic, when funds are needed most and when all banks refuse to lend to other than depositors.

In no business is character more necessary than in banking. This is because of the very nature of a bank - because of the fundamental theory upon which it rests. In any community a bank is the personification of confidence, or should be. To extend credit, to "trust" customers, this can be done safely only when there is character behind them.

But don't trust entirely to your character, your "proposition," or even to the fact that you have kept a pretty good-sized and regular balance. Be able to tell your banker, when you approach him for a loan, that you have some life-insurance or other property aside from that which he is immediately concerned in. It reassures him tremendously, even if it is only two or three sound one-hundred-dollar bonds, or a few shares of a standard railroad stock. A man who stands well with his bank has a capital that can not be taken away from him, no matter what else happens. But you will stand better with your bank if you have a little nest-egg somewhere else.