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June 10, 1955 Internal Memorandum Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Interview with Mr. H. C. Core. Vice President in charge of Personnel Mr. Core, a small and pleasant man with a Cfuick understanding and certain amiable wit, came in at the suggestion of Mr. Powell to talk about old days in the Federal Reserve Bank. He had been in service there since July 1916 when he came in to the Transit Department. After working his way through various sectors of bank work, he became Vice President of Personnel and occupied that position when retirement caught up with him in Movember 1954-* Mr. Gore said that when he first came to the bank mail delivery constituted a mere handful every coming, and business was veiy definitely on the slow side. I asked him about the par clearance experience, and he said that at one time the Minneapolis district had all its banks on the par list. This was at the urging of the Board in Washington. They had field men out in the district who presented checks for clearance at the teller1s window. They were generally accused of holding back checks and presenting so many at once that the bank had difficulty paying them. They were also accused of trying to put the bankstfiichobjected to par clearance out of business. Mr. Core said that %-rren was the officer in charge and that he was very careful not to antagonize the banks. After the Hugo case the insistence of Federal Reserve Banks on collecting at par ended. The Minneapolis attitude had been right along that this was the lew and they must enforce it, but this situation made for a very unhappy relationship with the member banks* Mr* Core became Assistant Cashier and Personnel Officer in 1936, but the personnel job was one which grew with the doing. He was the first personnel officer in Minneapolis and to a certain extent made his own work. At that time employees had no social security, no retirement systems, no testing programs nor any of the other tnings that keep personnel departments so busy these days. A nurse and one parttime typist made up the entire department. Mr. Core himself was entrusted with the job fif doing the hiring and firing. Fnen he first started the work without the title ~2~ in 1926, there were 323 employees in the bank. That number has now about doubled. In spite of the importance of the wor]£, it never was a full-time job until Mr. Peyton came to be president of the bank in 1936. Mr. Core was in charge of the fiscal agency work when the first examiner came from the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. To get ready for his examination the men worked Saturdays and Sundays* At the peak period during World War II the bank had 906 employees, and Helena had 100, but that has fallen off by now. In 193S the bank began employing girls to do clerk jobs which had previously been done by men. Their usual system is to build up their forces in the summertime when they get the best from the local high schools. They have treJLning-on-the-job programs. flew people are usually started in the check collection department or the page and oiessenger department. There is now a regular plan of sending younger officers to the Central State School of Business at Madison for training and older officers to Rutgers. Mr. Core is of the opinion (and I got this from other sources) that for the middlewest banker, the Madison courses were better than the Rutgers courses. The complaint is that Rutgers teaches the problems and ways of a big city and an industrial district, whereas the Madison School of business teaches the ways and the problems of smaller towns which deal with people coming in from various fanning regions and with agricultural problems in general. Asked about possible sources for a history of this region and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Mr. Core said that a Mr. Bailey did a history of the closed banks with someone. (This may be Mr. Powell's studies which were mentioned in another Minneapolis memorandum.) The 1954 report of tie Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis had a brief history of the bank. Mr. Core also irientioned the annual reports of the accounting department to the directors, the Montana reports (of the Banking Commissioner?), the Minnesota State Historical Association, the Minnesota Banking Association, something _3called "On Skyefs List" of vhieh I seem to he.ve no other record. Mr* Core said th&t Clarence Groth is now doing a history of the Montana banks for Rutgers* He also mentioned tae book called, "Development of Tro Banking Groups in the Central Northwest" hj Caarles Sterling Popple DCS published by the Harvard University Press in 1944 with an introduction by Gras. HA:IB
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