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FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ATLANTA Office of the President To: Miss Mildred Adams Here is a copy of Mr. Bryan's remarks at the ceremonies held in the Board loom of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on December 11, 1953 honoring Mr. Frank H. Neely, Chairman* February 17, 1955 President Harris, Governor Mills, Members of the Boards, Ladies and Gentlemen; Mr, Chairmani lou will know that the assignment to apeak for the officers and directors today is an opportunity that, if it had not been volunteered, I would have sought eagerly« let the assignment is not one that can be easily discharged; for it is difficult to bespeak adequately our affection, our admiration, and our respect* The office of Chairing of the 'Board of a Federal Reserve Bank demands BYI unusual array of talents. There is, in its dual responsibility as Federal Reserve Agent, a vast financial responsibility exercised, to be sure, with assistance but with the responsibility on the Agent's shoulders. The office of Chairman cannot, under the law, be held by a banker, and yet the office requires for its best discharge the development of a considerable knowledge of banks and banking and financial processes• - 2 The office is beset by a masse of sometimes exasperating relationships. The Chairman* as a principal representative of the Board of Governors in the District, must accommodate himself to the Governors1 powers of supervision and examination and at once rwpmmnt his am Board and. the Reserve Bank to the Board of Governors, «nd» in turn, the Board of Governor© to the Baric and to the Board of Directors* To fulfill this obligation aonsatifnea requires a level of diplomacy and understanding of the highest ordsrf for the law is a good deal less than specific In 4Paivision of powers and responsibilities to many are«*ef and the difference between regional and national points of view oftentimes yields a difference of emphasis that must be aeeontmod&ted tiirough mutual tolerance and mutual education* As the principal public representative of the System in a rtgionf the Chairman mist be lisp©eeabl© in hie business affairs and in his character; ami he must be possessed of a certain spiritual toughnesa* for the very nature of the System9a duties and responsibilities ineans that it will seldom b@ universally meolaiiaedi and the Chairman cannot -expect a constant round of applause* The Chairman must have a relationship to other federal Reserve Bank'® through the Chairmenfs Conference* and through the fact that a policy of on® Bank will* almost Inevitably* impinge on otter lieserr® Banks* As the chief officer of his Board he has a fundamental responsibility .in representing his Board in obtaining the effective and efficient operation of the Reserve Baric* a responsibility that ha must discharge in the abaenee of direct and Individual administrative authority• At the sasna tins* he it hardly helped in the masurenent • 3 • of efficiency and effectiveness by balance sheet t M income accounts* which provide so eaoaellent a guide in private business} for the law nukes abundantly clear that tht Reserve Banks ®re organised for public purposes and havt responsibilities going far beyond th# appropriate gudditne® of their income and txpenst accounts* In short* the Federal Eeserre System* whieh has bean adapted to iimsrica1® aiaple geography and. regional diversityf and to the American genius for ehteks and balanets* is on® of the most ecfflpleic oi^aim of adninlatration mx& policy m®r put together •• and I think well put together •*• by the Aaarlcan people* It is designed to bring m®& isii^isf of the.nast diverse background of tjcperitneej authority and. location to bear on the aiost co^lex prc^l#mi# Thm Chairman of a I M e m l Reserve Bank Board is right in the middle of it all* and bmmt by responsibilities capable of testing any mn*a &mo%i®n$ patience* Intellect* and ujnderstandiiig* ftr* Chairnan* you have dealt with all these responsibilities in a way that should be forever memorable in the history of this Beserve Bank* Let me be m brinf m •possible* in order that I say not weary you with praises* but apeeifie in order that the record ®my stand form. First of all* receiving only aa honorarium* and with no opportunity of personml aiaDltu^nt or advantage* you might hair® taken your Chairmanship as mn idle honor* to b@ dtalt with only for»aUy f yotir duties adequately discharged by the great prestige of your nwm» stemd* you have shown a constant devotion* maintained a constant In~ . kexpenditure of time* energy* @nd ability that is tmiqiie in ay experience and narks the greatness of a nan who simply will not slack the job h® undertakes* We have all seen you attend to the Bank1® affairs* and march off to 8yst#» meetings* whan you w©ra hard-pressed in your aacqr duties* and when other tasks would surely have been more to your liking. Tliis lias b#en devotion over and bayonet any passible call of duty. Let me not# in tids connection a couple of items * One is that the federal Reserve System is not at all tongue-tied or backward in inundating a Reserve Bank Chairman with a constant snowfall of reading matter on System and related affairs. It has been a never-ending source of amssemsnt to me* Sir, to note the voltune of material you found tine to read in the nddst of a busy life* Indeed, Mr* Chairman, it is in tide connection that I*dah here to report what is my only personal critidam of you* I will be a long time recovering from the stacks of material and covering meinos in green ink sayingf nBryan, read this and tell me what is in it I11 My eoirplaint on this matter lies in the point that it took m a long tine to discover a certain ill-usagein those memoranda* namely* that you had already read the material and . kneir very wall what was in it and merely want eel to inprove w ®ind bymaking certain that IE had read it* thm. let mm eonent mt tha w^y you have handled your post as the appointee and representative of the Board of Governora* It ia too oft©n trae that a man takes his post as the rtpres#ntative of an appointing or electing authority as being discharged by acting w^rsly aa the servant of that authority* lou havef beneficially for the System* feltArepresentation went far bayond 00 narrow a inaater and servant • 5• relationship to one that never failed in fair representation but also demanded of the representative a candid expression of advice and experience for the benefit of -pH«r principal« The miribers of the Board of Directors, I know, will not wind ray saying that a major contribution you have nBda is in the functioning of that body. Ion showed* Mr* Chairman, from th© very first, a determination that the %&rd should be informed both on the operating problems and practices of the Baric and on policy matters, so that the Board could function effectively* This determination has evoked punctilious operating reports, in the firat place, comments on and evaluations of Bank and System policy, in the second place, and economic and financial reports in the third. plaee» lour insistence on these matters, in n^ observation, has often caused the officers to bestir themselves Mhmn a little lethargy would have been more comfortable* But your insistance on these and other matters, your organisation of the Board into various connittees, your enccraragement of questions, and your unfailing good hunor as a presiding officers all these thingsf taking effect now 30 many years ago that they are likely to be forgotten, have contributed vastly to the history of the -institution in permitting its Board., to perform us a responsible, effective* BU& united bocty of men* All this has .had a major effect in, keeping the officers attending to their knitting with a closeness of attention that would iiardiy have been possible unless the Board functioned harmmiausly* objectively* and with Information* Mr* Chairman, when you cane to the Bank only the Board of Governors and the Federal Keserve Bank of New fork had ever, in the • 6• whole history of the Federal iisaenfe J>ystei», had a Research Department of any standing or authority or effective staff relationship to the institutions they served* Hare in Atlanta the total Research Depart* raant consisted of one roan* giving part time to the work* and on® dejrte*8t@noprapher* Vhe sole work' of the Department consisted, as one man said, of putting a few bad statistics into worse pross# The Department iiad no relationship to the officers of the Bank or to the Bankfs Board, It maintained no financial or banking library for the me of the District and the member banks. Mr# Cjbairnanf almost single-handedly* you persuaded jour owa Boardj to use your own words, that knowledge is both power and confidence* persuaded the late Ronald Ransom* then Vic© Chai rmn of the Board of Governors* and Marriner Eecles* the then Chairman* and set out upon a program of iaiprovei&ent that was altog©tiM!r startling in the light of preceding history* With that persuasion behind you, you demanded and obtained a thoroughgoing organisational over«haul of the Departreentf and demanded and obtained a level of performance that has never been perfectf but Imts represented a tremendous advance in the history of the Bm.nk and the System* Your representations on this natter in the Chairmen's Goi*» fereaoe* ami the example you set hmrm in Atlanta* had a Sy®t©»*widt influence attributable directly to you but often overlooked* I think trie record should be rcade* First in another Reserve Bank* where your then counterpart aa Chairman, saw eye»to«»eye with you f and then with approval mad encouragement from the Board of Governors* - 7you? point of Ti#w was followed and imitated with startling rapidity in all of the 'Federal Reserve Banks* Indeed* this matter developed so rapidly and so well that a former Chairman of the Board, of Governorn once said to me* partly in irritation but mostly in food hTptmor* nl went along -with Frank Heely on this business of • iiaprovlng the research departments* but it has gott#n out of hand, 1 neirer expaetsci them to get good enough to hme independent opinions•w Be that as it may* if the regional iiasenre Banks now go to System ^on£erenees with an array of factual and not marely intuitive judgments of economic* monetary* mil fiscal affairs, frank Meely is due a lot of the credit for the imagination that inspired and the energy that enforced the development* Prom the first clays of your Chaira&nshipj Slrj you made a major contribution in the whole field of personnel policy, both from the standpoint of adminiatratiTe and organisational practice* but also from the standpoint of personnel welfare. Ion understood from own business experience and your own long consulting work the iiapartance of personnel procedures that bad been heard of in the Bank, to be sur@f but placidly Ignored in the Bank and largelyignored in the System* I refer to such things as the delineation of duties and responsibilities$ job descriptions* job process de» scriptioiia for training purposes* the relationship of pay to responsibilities and performance* and so on« At /our Insistence wad admonition the personnel function which had* before your time* been scarcely more than the casual business of hiring people as they walked - 8 ±n$ was thoroughly reorganised, separated from unrelated functions* and given leadership and understanding. This was in the nick of time because* if it had not bean, done* the war coming on mnd finally breaking in full force, we would hardly h a w functioned at all. Let me note that iiere again you left a mark on tiie System* The Balderston Study of official compensation* and, indeed, the very creation of the Board of Governors1 Division of Personnel was largely resultant from the insistent representations that you made in the Chainaen's Conference and to jour friends at the Board of Governors* all of which9 *±r9 has had the curious anrt gratifying result that we now get from that tagdy under the mantle of new discovery^ suggestions• and. admonitions that JOTX were-yelling about some fifteen 0 * years ago* *&44JC Well* anyway* if the f©d#ral E#eerre Bank of Atlanta eeaeed to take pride that, its wages wer# the lowest in the Sjntmi and lower than other ba,nking institutions9 the major credit for a shift in, that attitude and habit of ntiiKi belongs to you* If we now do anything at all in personnel md officer training, and we-surely do less than if© should, nonetheless^ we play a better game largely because you insisted iiiat a better game was possible and that we were capable of pla^inc it» Mr # Chairman, you yimrm an engineerf and haye been ^nd are an administrator'of rare talent and accomplishaent, as your many deserved honors have attested* Xou Mire used this talent unstintingly in the oimrational and housekeeping functions of tha Heserre Bank# I cm found the Head Office griiqy and, more important# offensive to joiar organisational sense in a lack of orderly work flow and adequate and • 9 logical inteixosmmmlcuition of work and personnel between departments* 1 shall not soon forget* nor will many of ay colleagues* the &&ys in 1938 and 1939 when you vert prowling the institution from, cellar to garr#tt and asking all of the" pertinent questions that appealed to your orderly and experienced mind about the flow of work* the equipment* the layout of the siiop —• and* in passing* making ungracious but pertinent fun of broken-down adding maciiines* over~age typewriters, and bedraggled and inefficient equipment generally# It was sometimes hard to take* Mr* Chairman* and I would be deceiving yoti if I did not say, as 1 am sure is al$o true of r^y associated officers, that I Imve gone home many a night wishing that the man would only be quiet and let in© rest* But it was all necessary, fir, md we have been the gainers from jour imagination, aocpiiri©nc@, and imsistenoe in all of insse fields. So if, today, ve have in mwm spots the housekeeping arrangemimt and equ±p$tfnt necessary* for an efficient and effective job, and if elsewhere we ar® at long last gaining those facilities, you deserve a major degree of the credit* There is an.0ti.1er matter in which your influence has been profound though intangible* I refer to the whole field of administrative practice and procedure* Xou have had*, apparently, a life-long interest in both the practical arts and sciences of an administration, in which your own career has been so distinguished, but alsof for som reason that 1 have ncvir quits understood, in the theory of the administrative pmom&B and the appropriate forms of administrative organic at ion. When you* Sir* want into bttsixt©@st there was foreclosed* which was a pity* • 10 a aarmr ae professor" of a<iminl&tr&tian and. organisation in some such plaen as M # I«T # At any rate* Mr« Chairman, 1 liave, with many of my other officers, been the beneficiary of your lectures9 so often, alasf privately delivered* Sometifiies a lecture in detail, sometime® a whole lecture in a couple of questions* "How have you got this tiling organised? Have you grouped related functions? Have you given this man the authority to do his job? Is the line of responsibility and authority clear and known? Have you got 'functions grouped at the same level of difficulty? What instructions have you given? Who cheeks up on that? fiadn1t you better go see?ft And so on* 1 have triedf Mr*, Chairman* to be a good student in all of these natters* I have violated your administrative prescriptions twice in wy carter.' once on a matter 1 have heretofore confessed ami once on a matter Uiat I think I managed to conceal* One had to do >iith the assignment of responsibility without authority and without the lines of responsibility and authority being known and understood. One had to do with the requirements of discipline in an organisation* It la needless to say that my improvements on your prescriptions did not work* The best I could say for iqyself is that 1 i*r&s young at the time Bnd that 1 learned* Sirf you will not mind ngr humor if 1 say that to s^ dying' clay I will not forget the lectures you have delivered* I suspect that when 1 am passing to my eternal reward and the family gathers around to hear ray last remarks they will find me sayings - 11 ."What's to be done? w How is it to be done? "When is it to be done? •Who is to do it? "Who is to check up and see that it ia don#?w knd then the family will go away saying, "Well* Mr. N#ely sure mad* an impression on Papa, didn't he?" That, however* vill not ertd the matter* For at that point 1 will aroue© myself from my slunifetr and as a parting shot repeat with you the maxim of one of your omi great teachers i lf It is batter to do inefficiently the things that must be done and need doing than to do efficiently tuose things that tad better not \m done at mill11 With that 1 will finally go to n$r repose* Sirf this ia the record, told all too briefly and t»iithout the words that I would like to muster* words that would sing and comrty to you* our appreciation for all the tilings you have done, h things from which the Bank and the South and the System have the gainers* But- I cannot recite a brirf record without adding that you have never been patty or self-sadcingf you have b@€n un~ failingly clear on the fact that the public interest is a publie trust* lou have bean patient and gracious in the face of frustration®f direct but gentle in admonition, generous in encouragement, unfailing in your £ood humor and courtesy* You hare turned in, Sirf not merely on the objective record, but in the epirit of the which also counts, a very great and memorable performance* • X2 Speaking for the officers, Sir* I know 1 speak with uniwrs&l approbation when 1 say that as .your formal service comae to an m%&$ we cio not say good~by but only au revoir* Xou have been at home at the Federal Reserve Dank of Atlanta*, fj&iyeyou have had so much of jour life and being* there you have |-lven of yourself witn such warmth and distinction to the modeling and forming of the institution* will alvaya be at homef mid affeetionat#l^ welcomed^ In tha*tr place, Me* shall continue to want your counsel and instruction*
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