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CHAPTER I.

GENERAL TABLES.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL TABLES.

This chapter is devoted to the presentation and analysis of the general tables relating to building and loan associations. Chapter II presents, in tabular form, certain facts derived from the schedules used in this investigation but not included in the general tables. These general tables are sixteen in number and are designated as follows: I.-Name, locality, and description of associations.

II.-Number and kind of associations.

III.-Number of series.

IV.-Number of shares.

V.-Shares held outside of state.

VI.-Number and sex of shareholders.

VII.-Associations classified as to shareholders.

VIII.-Associations classified as to borrowers.

IX.-Shareholders and borrowers.

X.-Associations classified as to total real estate loans.

XI.-Homes and other buildings acquired by borrowers during the lives of the associations.

XII.—Mortgages foreclosed during the lives of the associations.

XIII.-Associations classified as to total stock loans.

XIV.-Associations classified as to dues and profits.

XV.-Assets and liabilities.

XVI.-Classified occupations of shareholders in certain representative associations. These tables will be taken up seriatim.

Table I.-Name, locality, and description of associations, pp. 32 to 279.In this table the associations are taken up separately and arranged alphabetically under the states, counties, and cities or towns in which located. Nearly always the exact legal and official names of associations are used, but occasionally, for the sake of brevity or for other reasons, slight changes are made. They are believed, however, to be sufficiently distinctive in every case. In the column showing the date of organization has been given, as nearly as possible, the date on which the associations began business. In a few instances where this date was not known the date of incorporation has been given in its stead. The next column shows the scope of the associations, describing them as local or national. The associations are further described as regards the three plans of issuing shares, the serial, the permanent or perpetual, and the terminating. These plans are described as follows in the

work, A Treatise on Cooperative Savings and Loan Associations, by Seymour Dexter:

In the primitive building associations of Philadelphia there was but a single series of stock issued; every person taking shares of stock, subsequent to the date of the first issue of shares, was obliged to pay back dues in order to be in the same position he would have been had he taken his stock at the date of the first issue, so that each shareholder paid the same amount per share into the association regardless of the time when he took his shares. The money was loaned only to shareholders. Inasmuch as only one series of stock was issued the lifetime of the association was limited to the time that it took for the shares to reach their matured value. This scheme necessarily involved the condition that every shareholder remaining in the association at the time the stock matured must be a borrower to the amount of the matured value of shares held by him. Let us make this clear. Suppose the charter of the association limited the number of shares it could issue to five hundred, and that during its lifetime it had issued that number. After the payment of its running expenses the funds received could be used for only two purposes, namely, the making of loans to its own members and paying shareholders who withdrew. Suppose that of the five hundred shares issued three hundred had been withdrawn, leaving two hundred outstanding when attaining their matured value. Assume the shares were $200 each at their matured value. Now, two hundred shares at $200 each is $40,000. Before the shares can be matured the association must have $40,000 of assets. The assets consist of the money due from the shareholders to the association upon loans. As no shareholder can borrow a larger sum than the matured value of the shares held by him, it follows that no shareholder can owe the association for borrowed money a larger sum than the association will owe him when his shares of stock have matured; therefore, each shareholder must owe the association a sum equal to that which the association will owe him upon his matured shares. only limitation or exception to this statement of the case will arise in reference to the dues paid at the last meeting. The amount of those dues will not have been borrowed and will be due to some shareholder or shareholders in excess of the amount owing by him or them to the association.

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But as the association progresses from year to year towards the maturity of its stock, it might not happen that there are shareholders who desired to borrow. What then? It would not do to have the dues paid in from month to month remain uninvested; no profits would accrue, and the result would be unsatisfactory. Under the scheme of a single series the association has the power to compel shareholders to borrow the funds. They are called forced loans; and their articles of association and bylaws determine who should become the borrower when there are no shareholders wishing to borrow.

This scheme is known as the terminating plan. It involves three serious defects which it was very desirable to obviate, namely, the dissolution of the association when the stock matured; the large amount of back dues which the new stockholder would have to pay who took stock after the association had been running for some time, and, lastly, the making of forced loans-that is, compelling the shareholder to become a borrower whether he wanted to do so or not.

To overcome these defects the serial scheme was developed. Under

fiscal year, or half-yearly. In some instances series have been issued quarterly, and even oftener.

This is known as the serial plan. This change in the scheme obviated two of the defects in the single series scheme. It permitted the association to become perpetual, and it furnished a new series of stock so often that one taking stock at any time in the current series did not have a large amount of back dues to pay to place him in the same situation that he would have been had he taken his shares at the first. As a matter of practical experience the serial plan also obviates, except in rare cases, the third defect. It permits of the accession of new stockholders, who become such for the express purpose of becoming borrowers. In the single series scheme, when an association had become two or more years old, the amount of back dues that they would have to pay on their stock in order to become shareholders, so that they might become borrowers, was a serious obstacle; while under the serial plan, the amount was not large at any time. In a well-managed association, having the confidence of the community, there is usually no difficulty in finding those who wish to borrow the funds. But the scheme provides a mode to obviate an accumulation of funds that can not be loaned by providing a mode for compelling withdrawals. In the serial scheme it is deemed advisable, when a series matures, to have but comparatively few outstanding free shares.

Hence, it is deemed a wise policy to encourage withdrawals in series approaching maturity. This is accomplished by increasing the percentage of profits which the withdrawing shareholder is allowed as the series approaches its maturity.

In addition to this policy many associations have provided that the withdrawal of stock may be compelled after a series has attained a certain number of years. In the case of a compulsory withdrawal the shareholder is allowed all the profits. The scheme of the Massachusetts cooperative banks has this provision, the number of years being placed at four or more. The scheme of the New York cooperative savings and loan associations has the same provision, and places the age of the series at four years or more.

While it is wise to thus provide a mode for compelling withdrawals, if necessity requires it, to prevent the accumulation of uninvested funds, there will seldom be occasion for an association to avail itself of the provision.

The single series, or terminating plan, has been almost wholly abandoned in localities where these associations have been in operation long. Most of those that remain in such localities were formed years ago, and have not had time to run their course to a natural dissolution by the maturing of their stock.

In some cases where an association is formed upon the serial plan, each series has been conducted separately, as though it was the only series of stock the association had outstanding, thereby making, in effect, as many terminating associations running under one management as there are series issued. This cumbersome mode of conducting the business has arisen from the fact that those who organized and conducted the association did not fully comprehend the proper mode of conducting the business in cases where all the series are run together, forming, in effect, a partnership.

There is still another scheme, which has assumed the name of the permanent plan. Under this scheme stock is issued at any time when there is a demand for it. The largest association in the state of New York, the Homestead Fund Association of Rochester, and the largest

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